Abide:

To accept or act in accordance with, to bear patiently, to endure without yielding, to wait for, to accept without objection, to remain stable or fixed and my personal favorite to continue in place-sojourn.

I honestly think I am the worst abider I know. I have an incredibly hard time doing all of the above, so is it any wonder that I get burned from rash decisions? I speak when I should listen, I run when I should sit, I plan and control everything within my reach without noticing nothing is working.

Anyone else pick up the phone and call a friend when you really should just keep quiet?

Have you said yes when you really should have said, I’ll need to pray about that first?

I desperately want off this crazy cycle!

Lord I want to abide in you. I want to accept that if I follow hard after you, you alone will be the answer to everything I need or want. Only by your grace can I wait for and accept without objection.

In John chapter 15 the word abide is used 9 times. Three times a word or phrase is used in scripture and your antenna perks up, but 9 times and I am wondering why is this so important. To begin the chapter Jesus is talking about how He is the vine and that there are branches that can or cannot bear fruit. The branches that do bear fruit are pruned and the others are chopped off.

How does a branch bear fruit? By abiding in the vine (“abide in me, and I in you” vs.4), and what about this fruit that we cannot bear without abiding? According to Galatians 5:22, “the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.” By this definition I cannot bear any of these without first abiding in Christ who is the vine, and abiding looks very different then what I’ve been doing lately. Here is what I can do.

• To accept or act in accordance with: I am blessed to be a wife and mom and I am enough in my loving them well.
• To bear patiently: I have dreams that do not include homeschooling all day long, but those will have to wait for now.
• To endure without yielding: The mundane of housework can drive a person nuts but by the grace of God I will not trade it.
• To wait for: My name to be called
• To accept without objection: This amazing life we’ve made. The great and the not so great.
• To remain stable: I will fix my eyes on the only one who can keep me stable, Jesus.
• To continue in place-sojourn: I don’t need anything more or less then what Jesus has given me today.

What an amazing life this is I get to live! In Jesus name, Amen.

Our family recently visited the Happiest Place on Earth, aka Disneyland, and I figured out a few things that I wanted to pass on to you. These tips may not be unique to fellow Disney fans, but it may help you, the newbie who wants to look like you know what your doing.

Disneyland ticket prices.

I really can’t help you here but agree with you that they are high, so you either have to save your pennies or be incredibly blessed by someone with season passes (as we have been). I honestly don’t think we would go to Disney if we weren’t spoiled in this area. Thank you Nana!!!

Food in Disneyland

It is not a surprise to learn that Disney over inflates everything they sell to eat. A single slice of pepperoni pizza is $8.00 or you can buy the pie for $40.00. With prizes like that who can afford to feed a family of 4 lunch every day for at least 3 days? Not only would you be broke, you’d be hungry because one slice of pizza never satisfied anyone. So what do you do?

As of today, May 15th 2018, Disneyland allows outside food, which means you can bring lunch and snacks into the park. Our lunch is usually a meat and cheese sandwich, apple slices, nuts, and hardboiled eggs. Truth be told, it’s not fancy, and doesn’t come with a commemorative cup, but we save a lot of money here and I have control of what my family eats.

Around every corner in Disneyland there is something to tempt your tastebuds. Churros, doll whip, soft serve, pretzels the size of my head, popcorn with butter, cookies, candy, donuts, and so much more why waste money on deep fried lunch when you could save it for a treat later.

I guess I should mention where our lunches come from because we don’t live in LA so we do stay near Disneyland in our Timeshare. Yes we are happy owners of a Worldmark Timeshare by Wyndam, and Anaheim is one of the many places we get to stay. Our Timeshare comes with a full size kitchen so I always pack our food in coolers for the 9 hour trip down. Now I know many of you don’t have a timeshare (but you might wish you did) nor does your hotel room have a full size kitchen, however most rooms can have a mini fridge which maybe just enough room for lunch items. I have also stayed in a hotel without a fridge but it did have an ice dispenser that I used to refill my cooler each day. Bottom line is that you use what you have and get creative if saving money is your goal.

Dinner is our meal that we budget for and because we have been down to Disneyland often enough we know what restaurants are worth going back to.

Souvenirs

After every ride ends they cleverly exit you right through a gift shop enticing you to buy everything. It is simply unavoidable so I devised a plan for my kids that is simply genius. Our family rule is that we will buy souvenirs on the last day so until then we use our camera to take pictures of everything the kids believe they “must” have, so by the end of our trip I now have a catalog of all these things that they can now decide which one they can’t live without.

Last Words

You could spend all day searching for clever ways to save money at Disneyland so if you are reading this post I thank you. I don’t claim to know it “all” but what I’ve shared has been tested over the years to make our trips more magical and less painful on our budget.

Do you have a tip that we could glean from for our next trip down?

I like many of you have had a direct sales consultant ask me if I would like to do a home party? My quick response is; “NO! My house is a mess, I don’t even have a big enough house, and who would I invite, and if you only knew how bad I am at parties you might never ask me again!”

We’ve all said it or at least thought it. Well there is a new game in town and I’m going to give you my experience with a Facebook Party (that I ran) for Thrity-One.

I became a Consultant with Thrity-One back in January and by May without sales the time was coming to make a choice, I had to do this thing or be labeled as a “kit-napper.” So like any respectable person I needed to host a party. But I have a small house, the kids are under my feet, I don’t know who to invite, and if you only knew how bad my parties where you wouldn’t ask, except this time it was me saying it to me. Not very convenient. I had heard about Facebook parties and I had turn down a few in my naivete so I needed to learn how to orchestrate a good one.

Which leads me to why are Facebook parties awesome!

1. No one comes over to your house, so who cares what it looks like!
2. You have no outside friends they are all on Facebook anyway.
3. You don’t have to pick a convenient night for everyone, just you.
4. Your Consultant, which is myself in this story, creates an event in Facebook.
5. The Hostess, which is again myself, invites a hand selection of friends (no more then 50) who she thinks would enjoy Thrity-One.
6. Then I, the Hostess, sits back and lets the Consultant, myself, run the show. The hostesses job is to interact and have fun but with the posts shes putting on it’s really hard not to want to answer.
7. The “party” night comes and the Consultant takes no more then 30 minutes to deliver an epic end to our week together and shopping commences for two days after.
8. Then you personally thank your guests and your Consultant messages you with what you’ve earned and you do your happy dance!

Seriously People!!! This is amazing!

Now I get it, you want to hold the bag, rub the bag, and pretend to take it home but can I ask you a question or three?

• Have you ever bought something online that you wanted but never touched?
• Have you ordered from Etsy because you trust that person’s shop?
• Are you big on reviews and will only buy something if the review is good?

Yes I’ve bought many things off of Amazon or some other big store because I wanted it, and maybe it was referred to me by someone I trust.

I have not personally bought from Etsy because I have not needed anything, but I’m getting to know some of the planner sticker makers, and if I need some stickers I know where to go.

I love reviews and Thrity-One has impeccable reviews.

If you love a product, and want them at a discount or for free then this party platform is your ticket. No longer do you have to worry about your house, the kids, or the perfect time. Let the Consultant, me preferably, give your guests a fun experience. You will not regret it!

The how is to say yes next time, and get something for yourself.