If You Only Knew

Wow! I was recently given this book to review! What a great read. Best of all it took this busy momma just three days. I love a great story and Jamie Ivey succeeded with this. A bonus = a great spiritual message as well!

Go to church every Sunday. Check. Sign True Love Waits Pledge. Check. Put on outward appearance of being a good God girl. Check. Jamie Ivey did all those things. And then some.

In this beautifully written account of a “good girl” growing up in the church and never feeling truly loved Jamie shares her story. All of her story.

This is a great book that may be one of the first times a “good girl” from the church tells all. You will be challenged by Jamie’s account of how others accepted her, the pastor’s wife, and loved her despite her sin. This book challenges each one in the church to reflect in how they react when others share as well as whether or not they share with others. It’s a lesson in acceptance and vulnerability. Everything Jesus modeled.

Jamie closes her book with a challenge to all women not to be perfect (don’t try it ~ as Jamie shares, Jesus already did the perfect thing). It’s a great lesson in being real with others and to others. I’m hoping my teenage daughter will read this as a great lesson of how the church sometimes fails and sometimes does things well.

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

School Days ~ Organizing Who Has What When!

Mom, what's my special today?

Hmmmm, let me think. Um...I have no clue.

Yes, we've all been there! No clue if it's an art day, music day, physical education day (GASP! We need to find those sneakers!) or library day (Where is your library book? I thought I told you to put it there!).

A few years ago I decided I needed to solve that problem! I found a weekly calendar on Amazon similar to the link I provided. This calendar was magnetic so I could put it right on the frig!

Since our school uses cycle days I needed to come up with a plan for the crazy schedule. If you are unfamiliar with cycle days they are to prevent students from always missing a Monday. Or a Friday, or the like!

There are six days in the cycle  Day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six.  Let's say you have art on day one.  The next day you will have something different and will not have art again until day one.  If there is a snow day or day off school, the pattern just continues. If Friday is day 3 then Monday will be day 4. If you miss school because of snow on Monday, then Tuesday is day 4.

Follow me?

Well, keeping track of those schedules got confusing. So I got the calendar and then WROTE everything on it.

Well, that didn't last long!

I finally WISED up and made labels at the beginning of the year with the cycle days and what each child had on that day. In our house, I loosely color code. So you can see from these labels (which the printer ink was dying the day I printed them) they are colored coded for two different children.   I just slap a label on each day and it's done. I've gotten to the point now where a child does it. If we have a snow day, just slap a label over top!

I also realized that it was best in SEPTEMBER to make all the labels for the year. Then it is ONCE and DONE!

As you can see it's also fun to put special things on the calendar. But this calendar primarily serves to keep track of who has what special when!!!