Yes, I am still here

Just wanted to say that I am still here, just busy and recouperating(sp?). Last week I slipped and tore the ligaments of my left ankle. The first two days I took it easy putting my foot up to bring down the swelling. Now I am just playing catch up on all my household chores. I have mountains upon mountains of clothes I need to iron. I didn't get to them since the doctor wanted me to be off my feet as much as possible. She said it could be six weeks until my foot heals. Yikes! Does she not know that I am a busy woman. I don't think my ankle knew :P

On a side note I just finished reading Mother. I will have to post a short review. I will just say it was such a great book, it will go on my favorite book list.

What is their defense? A Child's Life?!

As I was driving home yesterday I surfed the stations of the radio (rarely do I do this) and I came upon a talk show. They were discussing a pill that was shown to reduce the chances of breast cancer, endometriosis (sp?), and so many other womanly problems. It sounded great but this pill was an abortion pill developed in France. Many Pro Life proponents of the country got them to pull it out of the public. Pro choice people were upset (radio station personalities). Everything they were saying did not make sense but what really got me and made me turn off the radio was the following. I can't quote them but this is close. 'this pill saves the lives of many women who otherwise would die trying to get an illegal abortion and what do the pro life proponents have as a defense? An unborn child's life?! This is a child at 1o weeks, most abortions occurs at about 10-12wks.

Yes, they said that and he chuckled. He then went on to say that many of us promote adoption instead of abortion but that most children stay in orphanages and foster homes.

I know that putting up children up for adoption is not the answer. The answer lays in educating parents on how to go about sex education at home. None of the artificial contraceptives are 100% effective. The only thing that effective is abstinence. We need to teach our children to love life as a gift from God.

Maxwell Conference Weekend

Like in my Purpose entry I had mentioned that I want to grow in spririt and as a wife and mother. So this weekend I was fortuante enough to attend a conference featuring the Maxwell family of Kansas. I was so blessed and encouraged beyond words by their testimonies and seminars. The seminars were divided by men, ladies, young men and young ladies. I of course attended the ladies' seminar given by Teri Maxwell. If you are not familiar with the Maxwell's I would encourage you to visit their web site at Titus2 .
On Friday night the whole family (minus married son Nathan) delighted us with music and personal testimonies. Then mom and dad spoke of the great blessing homeschooling is.

On Saturday the conference began with a "Managers of their Homes" seminar for moms. Which was great since I struggle with order in my home. The next seminar was given by both Teri and Steve, and to be honest was my favorite. The title, "Keeping our Children's Hearts". I believe that as Christians this is what we struggle with the most. It is not just about raising good kids, but about keeping their hearts turned toward us until marriage. (Malachi 4:6)

I would recommend any one who has a chance to attend this wonderful conference. I purchased many of their books (some as Christmas gifts with money hubby gave me and others at the conference). I will later post a review on the book "Keeping our Children's Hearts: Our Vital Priority", which promises to be a good one.

Purpose

As I was reading other people's blogs I noticed that they all pretty much had a theme. Crystal also recommends that you keep to a theme, so I began thinking about it. I listed some of the things that I am interested in to help me narrow my blog to a theme (or themes).

This is my short list :)

Learning to share the hope that is within me (defending the faith)

My children

Cooking (baking especially)

Living a healthy lifestyle

Learning to be a good steward of the gifts the Lord has given me

Reading & Learning

After much thought and prayer I have decided that everything is kind of related into two categories Faith and Family. So that will be my focus. At this point all of my reading is geared towards how to be a better wife and mother. I want to expand that into books on Faith (since I have departed from it since I was a teen and I want to regain all the time lost). I will soon begin writing book and movie reviews pertaining to my growth as a Catholic wife and mother.

I hope you will join me on my journey.

Financial Shape in 2008

Crystal at Money saving Mom, has been encouraging all of us ladies to get our financial house in order. I have decided to join her since we are trying to get out of debt and believe this program will greatly benefit our mission. Blogging about our goals and progress will keep me accountable (yes I need a lot of motivation and accountability :))Our first mission was to set a budget we could live with. Today we need to think of our short and long term goals.

So here are our short term goals.

Pay off our debt by summer
Have an emergency fund (at least 3 months worth of expenses, if not 6) by the end of summer.
Save for a down payment on a house. (we're hoping to buy a home by the end of the year)

Long term goals
Pay off the house in 15 years (sooner if possible)
Build my husband's business
Live off of my husband's salary, so that I can stay home (we're hoping to do this in 3yrs)

I would welcome any prayer so that we can meet our goals.

The Perez Family

Super Saturday Savings

Well this week I did not do much shopping. We went to Costco 2 wks. ago and so we are pretty much stocked. Also, there hasn't been too many great sales around here. We did however go to Old Navy and took advantage of the sales. We got the boys 7 tops each, my hubby got 4 shirts, only 2 were on sale, and we got our new niece a cute little outfit. Why is it that there is always cute little things for girls and we have to be on the look out for cute boy clothes? Hopefully the Lord will bless us with a little girl soon :) For all that we spent about $78. Which was excellent since we had $100 in our clothing budget.

Frugal Friday

I am joining Crystal at Biblical Womanhood for Frugal Friday. I am new to all this frugality, but since I really want to buy a home I need to start and like they say 'every little penny helps'. One thing we began doing at home was unplugging any appliance we would not be using. For example we unplugged the microwave and toaster oven, since we don't use them that often. We also stopped using a night light for the boys and just pulled the curtains back a bit so light from outside could come in. We did this the last three months and the savings were between $5-$10 a months, over a year it could easily be $60-$120. Not much but it is a start.