Sunday 28 December 2014

Blog post ideas!

As you've noticed, I have not been very active in posting. Like, ever. But, I'm working on changing that this coming year! Now, I can't promise to start posting regularly right away as I have a crazy workload right now, but I will be trying to post more actively in the next month or two. In order to do that though, I need some topic ideas! I have some ideas, but am always open to more! That said, if there are any topics you want me to write about, leave a comment and I'll give it a try! Also, hopefully coming in 2015, are some other types of posts including tutorials of all kinds and guest posts. If you have a tutorial you'd like me to try, then comment it below as well as any other ideas for my blog. 

I hope you have been enjoying this holiday season!

Happy New Year!!

An Exciting New Year

Well everyone, we have made it through another year! I hope it was a good one for all of you. We are here at the beginning of another year. Our attitude as we approach this new year will make a major difference in what we will accomplish this year. There are two different ways we can look at this year.

With Indifference
We can approach this year with an attitude of indifference. We can think that it's just another year full of work, another year with the same old things happening, that this year is nothing special. If we are looking at this next year in this way, it will be just another year of work. Another year that we don't accomplish anything really great. Just another boring year in our lives. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can choose to look at this next year another way.

With excitement
We can approach this year with excitement. We can look forward to a year full of adventures, excitement, and new things. New things can be scary, but they can also be exciting. We can look forward to having another year to accomplish things we've dreamed of doing. We can cross more things off our bucket lists, visit new places, meet new people, and continue to learn and explore new things.

Sometimes we look at our futures and are scared at what they may bring. But in those moments we can remember that God has our futures in His hands. Here are a couple of verses that I think are great reminders as we begin a new year.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God knows our future. He has plans for our lives. Even though we may not know what those plans are, we are assured that God knows them. And He will reveal His plans for us in His timing, when we are ready for them.

Deuteronomy 31:8 “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
God will never leave us alone. He will always be right there carrying us through whatever hard time has come our way. He will also be there in the good times, just walking next to us rejoicing in the good times.

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” God has also promised to give us strength. We can do anything and everything God wants us to do, because He gives us strength. We can't do everything on our own; but we can do it with God's help. God won't tell us to do something that we can't do. Even when we think it's too difficult, if He has called us to do it, He will give us the strength and ability to do it.



As this new year begins, I want to encourage you to get excited about it. I know that we aren't always excited for another year. But this year can be different. We can look forward to this new year, because we have hope knowing that God has new and exciting things in store for us. We can look forward to the future with hope and joy, without fear because we have a personal relationship with the God of the universe, who controls everything. We can be excited and thankful for this new year, because God has another year full of new adventures for us. 

Friday 7 November 2014

Busy days with kids!

Good morning everyone!

Today I'm sitting here at my dining room table, breakfast and tea in front of me, blogging at 8:50!! That is a first!!! There is reason for this though... My mom is working with a friend today, so I'm babysitting today. I have a crazy day today! Babysitting, gym day, going to the mall with friends, then babysitting other kids! It's a lot to wrap my mind around. But I'm feeling less stressed about it all than I was yesterday. Today I'm going to share some thoughts and tips about feeling less stressed on busy days; especially days being in charge of little kids!

When you wake up, pray! Pray for the day, for patience, (kids are really frustrating!) pray for peace when things go wrong in the day. I know that's one thing I struggle with. When one kid stops listening, it throws everything off! I tend to get really stressed out, then over react. And that's not ok!

Figure out exactly what is happening or needs to be done. Write out a list of the most important things, and there times if applicable. For example, I wrote a list and had all the start times of everything I'm doing today.

If you aren't motivated to get up in the morning, think of something you enjoy doing to do first thing when you get up. For me today, it was blogging while eating breakfast. I decided that I would get up, get dressed, and make breakfast, then I could sit down with my laptop and blog for awhile. Right now my siblings are watching kids shows on TV, so I am free to just blog and enjoy myself.

Coming to mind as I tell my little brother to sit down on the couch, if you tell a child to do something, make sure they do it. I told my brother to sit down and stop touching the TV, and I waited until he did. If kids think they can get away with anything, they will. Be firm, but gentle.

Try and get the most important tasks done first! Today, I have decided I'm not going to expect to get any schoolwork done, because it's just not going to happen. Instead, I will make sure I spend quality time with my siblings, and get any housework done that needs to be done immediately.

Realize that with kids, not everything is going to get done, and that is fine! Sure, it's not ok to just sit around being lazy, but understand that if you're a student, it's impossible to get all your work plus babysitting plus whatever else done.

And last but not least, just have fun! These crazy days of babysitting siblings will pass by quickly. Soon it will be you with your own kids. Just relax and enjoy these times, and don't worry if not everything goes according to plan. Take things as they come, and just go with the flow! (Even if that flow is the flow to losing your mind even faster.)










Saturday 1 November 2014

An awesome weekend!

Hey

I have had an awesome weekend!! There's nothing like a Friday night party with friends, followed by a sleepover :D My friends are the best! We played games, we laughed, we ate, (I got something in my throat and coughed for two minutes) we went outside in the wetness, ate candy, watched a movie, and danced around to Toby Mac and other artists!! In other words, it was an awesome party! (anyone who thinks home schoolers don't party, think again. We party hard, but in a good way!) After the party, I slept over at my friend's house. (same friend who hosted the party.) After we got everything cleaned up, we had tea with her mom, and had some great conversation. Then went “to bed” and talked for 2 more hours... Finally we went to sleep around 1:30. Needless to say, we were quite tired today!!
Later after I was back home, my mom, little sister, and I went shopping. Thrift stores are normally great, but didn't have so much success with what I needed today. Party because I wasn't in the mood to sort through racks and racks of clothes that weren't organized well at all. I did buy three scarves though, so that was nice!! (Seriously, don't pay 20 bucks for a scarf! Get one at the thrift stores for less than 5!)

Tonight, I started writing my NaNoWriMo novel! For those of you who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it was founded by someone on the cliffs of insanity. Oh wait, no it wasn't. But the person who found it might have suffered from insanity! (By the way, auto correct thinks I mean noncriminal. I assure you, us writers aren't criminals, no matter what may appear in our search histories!) NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. So basically, participants write as much as they can of a novel, without editing. The goal is to encourage people to just write, without critiquing too much. It's just to have fun, and get a story out of you! For people who want their writing published, it's an opportunity to work really hard to get the first draft out. I'm doing the young writers part of the program, with a word count goal of 20,000. That is just a brief summary of NaNo. It's really a lot crazier than that! I might write another post going into it more.

Anyways, that is what has been happening in my life this weekend!! Tomorrow will be lots more writing, and... studying for science and Bible tests on Monday... whoopdeedoo... I hope you are all having a great weekend!!



Saturday 18 October 2014

Our relationship with God

Hey everyone!! 

Today we had some exciting visitors! A girl that used to live with us when she was in college, came back with her family for a visit!! I may talk more about that in another post, but Anna brought a bunch of her family with her and we had a great visit. 


They are a wonderful Christian family. And it shows! They prayed for us multiple times. And their prayers weren't just "thank you God for this family and bless them." You could see they meant what they were saying as they prayed for our family and each of our futures. Later when they were getting ready to leave, Anna told me she was going to get her father to pray for me. So she led me over to the vehicle he was already in, and asked her father to pray for me. And he did. I've never really had someone pray for me, or 'pray over me'. He prayed for my future, that I would find the right husband, that I would follow my dreams, and that I would stay close to God. That last bit got me. How well am I doing at staying close to God? Well, I have to honestly say I'm failing. Some days, I will pray and read my Bible, and I will learn some things about Him. Other days, more often than not, I will just forget about praying, forget about my Bible, and go on with my day. And when Anna's father prayed that I would stay close to God, it hit me again. If I am straying from God now when I'm a teen and still at home, how will I do when I'm off on my own? It's time I do something, and something more than just go look at some blog posts about growing closer to God. It's time for me to actually do something. How about you? Are you struggling with your relationship with God? Then, maybe it's time for you to do something about it too. We can work through this together. Having a close relationship with God takes work. You can't just snap your fingers and expect to have a perfect relationship with God. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. But, digging into your Bible, and praying, and taking time to just be with God, will help you grow closer to God. So what are we waiting for? A written letter from God? Well, open your Bible. That written letter has been on your shelf waiting for you to read it. 

Wednesday 8 October 2014

New Ideas

Hey there

So, I've been thinking about this blog for the last couple of nights. I really want to start spending more time writing posts and stuff. So, I came up with a list of ideas of post ideas. Some of these could be weekly or monthly things, and some just once or occasionally. Therefore, without further ado, here they are! Now, I'm not saying for sure these things are happening, but they are some ideas.

Devotions (likely once a week or once a month, a little devotion written)
Fashion (tips, tricks, diy projects, etc.) 
DIYs  
Cooking/recipes
Weekly journal/recap
Book reviews
Movie/TV show reviews
Special series (modesty, dating, etc.)
Inspiring quotes (a quote then practical application or thoughts about it)
Organization
School
Family
Friends

Here are some ideas. What do you think about them? What ones do you like? What ones not so much? I want to hear what you think! After all, what's the point of writing posts if no one is going to read them? So leave me some comments!! ALSO would you like to get involved and write a blog post for me to post here?! If you would, then leave a comment and I will get in touch with you! I know that some of you have blogs of your own, and I would love to share the word about them as well! So send me a link, and we will see what we can do. Maybe I could even start doing blog reviews! Comment your thoughts, I would love to hear them! (well, read them!) I can't wait to get some feed back on some of these ideas! I'm really excited to see where this blog is going to go in the future :D

Have a great day!

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Some afternoon thoughts (Motivation con't)

Well, I have to say today was a much better day; at least so far. Had to get up "early", but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I realized again that once you get moving, mornings aren't too terrible. It did feel good to be up, dressed, and out the door by 9:30. Most mornings I'm still laying in bed half asleep at that time. This afternoon I've managed to get just about everything done on my to-do list. And the rest I will get to after a bit of a break. Today has been much better, and I've been less stressed since I'm not half asleep groaning about how much work I have to do. Attitude definitely effects how well you can work!! Also, not stressing too much helps. I'm trying to stop worrying so much about how much work I have to do, and just focus on one thing at a time. So instead of looking at my work list of 15 items, I just look "Math section 3.5" alright, go get that done. Come back and see "Science test 2" (ok so that one was not so nice to see), and I went and studied briefly, then did the test. Now I'm onto the homework part, and am feeling pretty happy about what I've gotten done. I'm also trying to start doing some lessons and work in the evenings. I get a 'second wind' about 8:00 P.M., and that lasts for awhile (last night till after 11, hence the late night blog post). So I might as well get something beneficial done instead of just staring at my Facebook or Pinterest! (Not that those are bad things, but it's not good to spend hours on them! *Rebecca listen to your own advice*) So, a couple nights ago I did a Bible lesson around 9:00. It was great having one less lesson to do the next day! I also try to do some math then as well. Last night I did a bit while watching TV. (Commercials are really boring, so that's a good time to get some work done! And it was a show about genius's so I thought it was fitting to do some math...) So if I can be getting Bible and math done in the evenings, that's an hour of work I don't have to do the next day. Really nice!! So, those are some tips for you. We all have a lot going on in our lives. Most of us are still students. Meaning schoolwork, chores, social events, family time, babysitting, maybe another job, it all takes time! Balancing your time can be difficult, but you can do it. Also remember that a schedule is really helpful, but you have to be willing to stick with it, and do what you need to. Scheduling time for that research project isn't going to help if you refuse to get it done. *listen to your own advice Rebecca* And trust me, it's easier to just get the work done, than to let it slide to the back burner. (advice from the girl who hasn't finished last years school yet)

So, this has been a session of afternoon thoughts from Rebecca. (I think this is probably healthier than late night thoughts from Rebecca...) Anyway, go get back to work. I know you have something you could be doing! (not that reading my blog isn't important ;) but you know what I mean) Enjoy the rest of your day!! :D

Monday 6 October 2014

Some late night thoughts (motivation)

So, I just realized how long it had been since my last post... I knew it had been awhile, but 3 months?! Wow... Ok, so it's obvious I am not motivated to keep this up. I really not motivated to do anything right now. I want to say it's a stage in life, but it's not. It's a habit I have developed. "I won't bother doing this today, I can do it tomorrow. I'll do this test later this week. I'll write this paragraph next week." It's all been said to myself. And let me tell you, it's a battle to do anything some days. Everyone has bad days, it becomes a problem when those "bad days" are everyday. Those lazy "I don't feel like doing anything today" kind of days. Sometimes the days of not feeling like doing anything are everyday. Every. Single. Day. And it's a battle to get anything done! But I have to. I'm in grade 10. No longer a carefree child. It matters that I finish these school courses! It matters that I get good grades! It matters that I don't just give up. No matter how much I just want to toss the textbooks and give up, I can't do that. For many reasons. My education is important. As I'm writing this, I'm trying to convince myself of that. Today was another PJ pants and t-shirt, not feeling like doing much kind of days. I got lots done, but not everything done. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I have to get up early, which might not be a bad thing to force myself to be up, dressed, and out the door before 9:30. But I will have to work hard to get everything done! I'm going to Cubbies with my little brother in the morning. I can take school with me, but I will have to force myself to do it, instead of just watch the kids do their thing. In the afternoon I will have to get as much done as possible. It will be hard, but I can do it. I can do it. Say that to yourself if you are struggling with procrastination, demotivation (my dictionary says that isn't a word, but whatever), or just being lazy. I know I struggle with this. But I can conquer this bad habit with God's help! It's ok to have bad days!! Let me tell you a secret, well the world thinks it should be a secret, everyone has bad days! Everyone!! Yes, even Miss Perfect popular girl or Super Mom! But you can't let bad days rule you! Don't let everyday be a lazy sweat pants and hoodie kind of day! Get some work done! Maybe sit down with your planner and see what needs to be done for today. Then get it done! As soon as you can! You'll feel way better sitting down at the end of the day, finished everything that needed to be done. Then you can relax without the stress of unfinished work! And if you don't manage to get through everything on your to-do list, then relax and don't stress over it. Keep working at it. Maybe it needs to be saved for the next day. But when that next day comes, get it done!! Don't leave something important on the back burner. Trust me on that one. I have stories...I'm speaking to myself more than anyone else! Remember everyone has their struggles. Everyone has a different situation. Some people are lazy. Some people overwork. Some people try so hard to get everything done that they burn out. Try to balance your life. Maybe there are some things that really don't need to be on your plate. Get rid of them! If they are causing too much stress, then maybe it's time to let them go. You know your life. And God knows your life! Pray, pray, pray. Pray that you can balance your life. Pray that you can do what you need to. Ask God to help you, and He will.



So, anyway, this has been Late Nights Thoughts with Rebecca! (should this become a thing? not sure what my energy levels will think though...) It feels good to have that off my chest!

I have learned it's difficult to type in the dark with only the screen for light. Definitely improves typing skills!! Forgive me for any spelling and grammar errors. It's late.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Random Post

I'm laying on the floor in my rec room using the lap top right now. Just finished up some math and am now just relaxing before going to clean my room... Anyway, how's it going for everyone? I know I haven't posted in ages..... Me and consistent blogging don't exactly go together I guess... But whatever! Hopefully over the summer I will find some time and actually be active in blogging. Soon (hopefully!) I want to post some DIY's, devotionals, and some other stuff. I have been finding all kinds of fun stuff on Pinterest, and when I eventually try them out, I will hopefully put together some tutorials of my own to share with you all!

On Saturday I was at Canada's Wonderland for Wonder Jam!! ( Wonderland is an amusement park in Toronto ON, and Wonder Jam is a Christian music festival once or twice a year held there!) IT WAS AWESOME!!! Jamie Grace, TFK, Lecrae, and Toby Mac all performing live! Can you get better than that?! Oh, and throw in the youth group, rides, and all day event, and food, and its PERFECT!!!! Aside from having to get up super early and being up till 1:30 A.M. afterward... Needless to say, I'm still recovering from that. Going to the chiropractor later today so that should fix my stiff neck and back... For some reason my body doesn't like jerking around on rides, or jumping up and down raising my arms for like 3 hours during concerts! Strange right? Anyway, that's pretty much what's happening in my life right now... Along with finishing school... Oh! My Aunt is here from Kenya for a few weeks!! She is staying with us right now, and will go back to London (ON) to stay with my grandparents (Her parents) on Thursday. So she gets to be here for my birthday! (Tomorrow BTW! 15 years old! AHH!!)

Well, I`m going to go try cleaning up my pig sty, er I mean bedroom. Talk to you all soon!

 Rebecca