Inside Out - Lisa Rugglesa thousand times I’ve failed, still your mercy remains

As long as we have been married, Brad and I have been involved in ministry. That being said, our Sundays were always extremely busy. This has been the first time in our marriage that we just attend Sunday morning service without being involved in leadership. It’s crazy! You have the whole day after church.

I can’t wait until we are up and running with our church but I’m enjoying our Sundays in the meantime.

So, this past Sunday morning, my dearest husband decided we were going to the early service. 9:00AM! We could have chosen the 10:30 service but no, we were going to the 9 o’clock service.

He started waking me up at 7:00 AM and tried to convince me to get out of bed. I wanted to be really cranky, but how could I when he was standing there with a cup of steaming coffee and gently rubbing my head and speaking nicely to me!

He had his work cut out for him. There wasn’t a girl in the house that wanted to move. We also have our teenage niece Lindsay visiting. Let’s just say teenagers love to sleep in and don’t like to be disturbed.

Brad managed to get us all out of bed and to church in time for service. We were out of church by 10:15 and wondered what we would do now. The girls voted to go back to bed for a little bit. We were all tired out. We had been out late the night before. That’s when the car started heading to downtown Indy. By the time we arrived everyone was wide awake and ready to go!

We visited the Indy War Memorial that has 330 steps to the top of it. We were feeling ambitious and decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator for $1. About half way up, dripping sweat, thighs burning, wearing heels, I wished we would have taken the elevator. Did I mention that it was really, really hot!

When we finally reached the top, it was so so hot we were up there for about 30 seconds. Brad and I were sweaty and exhausted but of course the teenager still looks great!

My feet hurt!

Afterwards we ran over to a chocolate store. We bought water to guzzle down and sat to catch our breath.

The girls at the bottom…

We had a blast! It was a great Sunday! When we were done we spent the rest of the day in the pool!

Honey, thank you for such an awesome day. We all had a great time, even if you did have to persuade us!

Chloe, really wanted to start a blog. We are holding her off on anything that the public can read for now. But Daddy set her up with a private journal. Here is one of her entries. I’m so proud of her!

10 resons i love my dad

1. he is cool
2. he is fun
3. he wrestles with us
4. he works hard for us
5. he plays with us
6. he feeds us
7. he chases us
8. he tells us stories
9. he love me
10. he is special

So, the other day we were hanging at the pool and I brought sidewalk chalk out for the kids to play with. Before long, my man sits down and starts drawing with the kids.

Here is his sidewalk chalk pic!

Seriously, could we have just drawn a couple stick figures or a cute little flower. Nope! He draws a mountain with waterfalls! With very few color choices! I

If I had felt like it, I’m sure I could have done much better. Just joking, the only thing I can draw is a cute little fuzzy guy that I have been drawing since 2nd grade. For some reason my artistic skills seem to have stayed on a 2nd grade level. Oh well!

I sure hope our girls get his artistic abilities!

1. They need their sleep!
   They turn into little monsters if they don’t get enough!
2. EVERY girl (big and small) has a deep need to feel beautiful.
   This so intrigues me, at a very early age both my girls started “primping.” More on this later…..
3. You can’t parent each child the same.
   Their personalities are SO unique, that it takes very different techniques to get to each of their hearts. One of my children, keep me in constant communication with God. I won’t say which one but if you’re new to my blog here are some examples.
4. Little ones are directly affected by your attitude.
   If you’re having a “difficult day” aka: being cranky. Your children are much more moody! Then it’s hard to talk to them about making good choices, when obviously Mommy needs to! I noticed this even when my girls were really young.
5. They reproduce what they see and hear in us.
   They are little sponges! I know we hear this all the time, but sometimes we forget. It amazes me, what my girls pick up and learn from us. Both good and bad! There are times that it is inconvenient because it makes me modify my behavior. Definitely a good thing! For the most part, I love that my kids are learning from me!

What have you learned from the kids in your life?

The other day, I was trying to think of an easy side for dinner. Something that didn’t take much time but was delicious. I remembered my mom’s yummy cucumber salad. Here is a recipe that won’t take you longer then 5 min. to throw together!

Unless you chop like molasses.

Cucumber Salad

2 Cucumbers

Large handful of cherry tomatoes

1/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar (you can also use Apple Cider vinegar)

1 Tablespoon honey

Salt and Pepper to taste

Put your vinegar in a bowl, add the honey, stir it up. Add sliced cucumbers and tomatoes to the vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. I like to let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours, it lets the flavors mingle.

You can change this recipe so much. If you don’t have cherry tomatoes, just cut up whatever type you have. If you like it less tangy just add a little more honey.

Here’s another variation: Sometimes after it has set in the fridge for a couple hours I will drain the salad, and then add approx. 1 Tablespoon of Sour Cream. This is also delicious!

ENJOY!

Brad and I both really enjoy sitting down and watching TV. Because of that, we have had to learn to be intentional about the amount of time spent if front of the tv. At different times we have taken 30 day fasts from movies and tv. In the beginning it is difficult, but it doesn’t take long to adjust. This has been a great way for us refocus our lives.

At the beginning of the Fall Season we pick 3-4 shows a week that we will watch and that is it. That way we don’t let whole evenings slip by unintentionally watching tv. Most of the time we watch them online.

Lost is always on the list. I tried to throw it off last year, but Brad won! I’m mad at J.J. Abrams. That’s a whole other post.

During our time in the hotel, Brad was working alot, there wasn’t much to do, I felt alone and to be honest I spent a lot of time watching tv in the evenings. If you aren’t familiar with our back story you can read it here.

Since moving into our house 2 weeks ago, we haven’t had a TV. It was broken during our move. I have to say I really haven’t missed it. We have watched a couple movies on the computer and it has worked great.

Hmmm…. maybe we don’t even need a new tv. I wonder if I can talk my hubby into that…..

How many hours a week do you watch tv?

Today is my baby’s birthday. Happy Birthday Emily!!! I will have pics and more on her special day later.

We are down to one car right now. Our lease was up the end of May, and with all our traveling we didn’t need to own two. I’m just getting ready to start the search for a new vehicle.

Today I came across this video. Take the time to watch it. It is very interesting

FREE CARS!!!

What are your thoughts on the video?
I will be posting more on this next week.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Last year Brad’s brother Jason married his wonderful wife April. They had chopsticks for everyone to use at the reception. Here is a video Jason made to give the guests instruction on using chopsticks.

Enjoy!

It seems that there are some blogging rules that I was not aware of. My dear husband informed me that I’m not being a good blogger.

You see, we have moved, and then we left town for 5 days, most of which I did not have any access to the computer or Internet.

So…. therefore my dear friends, you have not seen any new blog posts. I promise, that I will be on track tomorrow!

Are there any more rules that I should know about?

Last Friday, all of our belonging were delivered to our new place. Saturday morning when I got up I looked around at this:

and felt a little overwhelmed, happy that we were in our new home, but a little sad that we didn’t have any friends around. By noon we had two calls from friends. One of our students, Erika, and a couple that worked with us in the youth ministry, BJ and Cherith. They wanted to know if it would be okay to stop in and help us out. Hmmmm……. let me think about that! Well, I guess, if you twist my arm!

BJ helping put together an entertainment center in the office….

Cherith helping get the kitchen unpacked….

Erika helped in the kitchen but was also kind enough to take the girls to the pool……

By dinner time, we had the kitchen settled and Brad made us all a spaghetti dinner……

Cheers to our new home and enjoying it with our friends!!!!

A perfect day!

Over the last three months not having friends around has been one of the most difficult things for me. I’m looking forward to getting settled, making new friends and being able to hang with old friends.

How often do you hang out with your friends?

P.S Cherith just started her own blog this week.