Fall is in the air....isn't this beautiful?  The most wonderful thing is that in the next few weeks I know a place that will look almost identical to this where I can walk and think and pray and be!

I guess you've figured out my good intentions don't always follow through, ha!  I had hoped to post before now but, well, by the end of my days I'm beat and don't feel like sitting upright that long!

But let's see, where were we?

CHRYSALIS

Ahhh, Chrysalis!  Oh my, how the Holy Spirit moved that weekend!  I had 22, yes 22 young women as "caterpillars~now butterflies" that's Chrysalis speak for campers.  We normally struggle to have 14!  Watching these girls that were scared silly that first half of the day because they were thrown in with absolutely no one they knew start to unwind, ease up, accept and embrace one another, the talks, the amazing teams we had working, I was just thrilled!  I refuse to take credit for this, this was all God.  HE was the one who chose the team, I was just the mouthpiece.  The ones that were meant to say yes to work, were there.  The girls that were meant to attend, were there.  The guys didn't have as many, they had 8 campers but from what my dear friend who was the lay director for the boys told me, the Holy Spirits was all over the camp, not just in the girls' section!  The weekend had 3 young ladies give their lives to God, 5 that I know of rededicate their lives and the other young ladies told me that it made their walk stronger.  I've had a lot of the girls friend me on Facebook, we chat, I check on them.  One girl, on the weekend, came to me and said "Has anyone ever told you that you look like the girl on Pretty in Pink?"  I said, "Molly Ringwald?"  and she said YES!  I told her yep, I get that all the time, Molly or Bette Midler.  I'll take it, I think they are both beautiful!  But the talks were even better on the weekend than they had been during the team meetings, and I didn't have one issue to deal with that was negative, praising God!  I had team members tell me that was one of the most fun and most moving flights in awhile.  When they went to thank me I said I'd love to accept the thanks but that goes to God. I truly stayed obedient to His guidance!

The day after I got home from that weekend, had handed my Lay Director book over to my very dear friend that it's her turn in January, I got sick.  Strep that turned into that awful upper respiratory mess that was going around.  I was exhausted after the weekend, prayer can sometimes take it out of you, lol.  That and if the enemy sees something good happening, well, he'll try to knock me down.  I missed 2 days of work but thankfully my boss let me use vacation time to cover those days.  That meant tho that I had to forego seeing Joyce Meyer this weekend.  I'm bummed about that but to me that just meant that it wasn't the time for me to go...yet.  I will go, I know I will.  Praying for next year!

DANCE!

My dance girls are really coming along!  We had our secondary tryout and gained 4 new members, the end of the first practice with all the girls, new and old, after I'd had a talk with 2 young ladies about stepping it up, one girl text me that she just really didn't have the passion for dance that she knew she needed.  I am proud of her in that she was mature enough to realize that.  The new girls are starting to catch on faster, and it's so much fun seeing them "get it!"   The girls learned a new dance, a pom dance.  After working their butts off for 2 hours on learning the dance, without poms to learn it,  right before we ended for the night I hopped up on some steps and asked, so, anyone want to play with some poms?  All 10 girls RAN at me, I started tossing poms out.  These teen girls turned into giggling young girls but danced their hearts out with the poms in their hands!  I asked when they were done, so you like the poms huh?  They all laughed and agreed!  We had the Athletic Director who is over me stop by and watch practice this past Thursday and I had them dancing with the poms toward the end.  He pulled me aside and said, you know, I can barely tell who the new girls are!  He said if he didn't know any better they all had been dancing about the same amount of time.  He congratulated me and I told him thank you but if they didn't have the talent, they would never have picked it up.  When they were done I told the girls, Hey, Mr. H says you all stink!  They threw their poms at him but they knew I was joking.  First performance is next Sat., Oct. 4th at the home football game, they are excited!  Now I just have to get uniform tops!

Dance has pretty much taken over even more of my time than Chrysalis did.  We practice 3x a week, over 2 hours a night.  I've got a fundraiser going on now.  A friend of mine is a graphic artist, she designed our new logo so we're putting it on t-shirts and then going on the back will be 2014/15 Dance Team, under that different levels, Gold, Silver, Bronze.  I've sent the girls out with flyers and order forms, $100 + is Gold, $50 to $99 is Silver, $25 to $49 is Bronze, all names will be put on the backs of the t-shirts.  I walked the town square yesterday dropping off the information, next Tues I'll retrace my steps and see if they are ready.  We have a whopping $26 in our school account.  The girls need dance shoes (they are paying for them on their own) but as far as uniforms and costumes I'm praying our fundraiser, well this t-shirt one, will help cover most of that.  We have a booth at our Fall Festival next weekend, and are selling glow in the dark tattoos, both the square ones as well as the ones that would go around a young person's arm or ankle, we're also doing nail painting, designs on fingernails.  I'm organizing who is bringing what, I've received the Tattoos from Oriental Trading, now I have someone bringing tables, someone else bringing chairs, I am bringing my crockpot to put the water in to keep it warm in case it's cold at night, we need to string up lights, I have Spooky Halloween Ribbon to decorate around the table, just the list is ongoing of what is needed.  All money is to be put in our account at the school to purchase what is needed.  Praising God we have just enough poms for the girls so I don't have to buy more!

Megan is back home now, but I'm disappointed, she's not looking for a job.  I think she's in a state of depression, all she does is sleep when she's not at school.  If you can join me in prayer for God to heal her?  I know that her older sister's actions of kicking her out of the apartment have left a mark, that and the break up of her first real boyfriend.  She wants so much to be an adult, but inside she's still a little girl and has her heart broken in a few different ways.

FRUGALITY

I've done some coupon cutting and matching them up to deals. The week after Chrysalis, when I finally felt like going anywhere after work, the girls and I ran into "town"....anywhere from where I live to a big town to buy from CVS or Walmart or Aldi is 20 minutes...we stopped in to CVS to catch some deals.  I've not been getting the CVS sales in the paper lately (I get the paper from work, free coupons for me!) so I went online and saw that quite a few things were on sale.  I had 47% savings!  Total amount saved was $8.94 and I paid out of pocket cash with tax $10.94 for Herbal Essence Shampoo & Conditioner, Puffs Kleenex (I badly needed those), Dawn dish soap w/ Olay, and Tide Simply Clean, the new Tide in the yellow bottle.  The only ting that didn't have a coupon was the Puffs.  The girls used to just groan when I pulled out a wad of coupons, now I give them each a handful and tell them, go on the hunt.  They are really getting good at it, I am happy!  

Alyssa wants to go to our former town we lived in and go to their homecoming football game with her friend, her best friend.  I figure I'll drop her off, then I'll head into the big town and look around Goodwill for anything we may truly need, not just want, as well as maybe a hoodie for myself, I love them in the Fall/Winter.  I'll look at the movies as well, we've seen all of ours over and over and Goodwill is selling VHS tapes 4 for $1, DVD's are $4.  Not bad at all!  I'll pick Alyssa up when she's done, we'll do a quick Aldi run and then back home where I'll finish up laundry, vacuum, and probably pull out my flowers that are finally dying.  I need to re-plant my Hostas, they have had too much sun.  Praying I can save them.  If not I'm sure I can get more next Spring from my neighbor, we all know how quickly Hostas grow!

I have been lazy of late, and a lot of it is because I've been tired, we've picked up things off the $1 menu at McD's.  It's awful for us, I know this, but at the end of the day I've been wiped out.  Mostly because that sickness really, really kicked my butt, but a lot of it is I'm running until 8 pm 3 nights a week, then one night we run into town to grocery shop, get whatever we need from Walmart, and it's getting dark so doggone early!  I'm truly solar powered I believe, as soon as it gets dark I'm ready to snuggle in with a book and chill.  

I've been re-reading my Complete Tightwad Gazette I bought years and years and years ago.  I usually get thru the 1st 2 sections but the last 2 get skimmed over.  This time I'm working through the book backwards.  I read Edition 4 last night, am reading Edition 3 today, and then it'll be 2, then 1.  It's good to refresh my mind, and I'm also trying to instill some of that into my dance girls as well, what we can do spending as little money as possible.  We're going through the cheerleading uniforms Monday evening to find 10 matching tops and hopefully skirts for my girls to use for performing at games.  Costumes are to be strictly for competition.  Re-use, recycle.  The cheer coach is thrilled!  She told me the other night, she loves that we have no animosity, I guess that has been an issue in the past.  Not with the last coach, she is a precious young woman, but coaches before her.  

My goals this week are:

1.  Cooking from home, using the crockpot

2.  Making a big batch of waffles, letting them cool well and then freezing them 2 per ziploc baggie (generic of course)

3.  Setting up and working the Fall Festival for as little outlay as possible, getting donations of things to use from the girls' families, using what I have like the spooky ribbon, ghost twinkle lights, etc.

4.  Getting all bills paid, on time so no late fees.

5.  Putting minimum $20 back toward starting my "late" Christmas fund.  Better late than never!

Now that I've talked your ears off, or made your eyes cross, I'll close.  Who knows, I may surprise you and post earlier than a month, you never know!  Sitting myself down to write is 3/4 of the battle.  Once I get started I can't shut up!

I pray blessings over all who read this.

Lisa