I'm finally feeling good. I'm about 98% over my flu. My house and yard are far from recovering, though. I sure let things slide when I was sick. Whatever you do, don't pop into my house for a visit in the near future!!

I am trying to not do everything all at once because I don't want to wear myself down to make sure I don't get sick again. I need to make sure I mix sit-down jobs in with the others. As a matter of fact, I am working on this in bits and pieces this morning because it is a sit-down job. So, if you look and I am gone.... I'll be back!

The wind here is absolutely whipping! It started last evening with a soft breeze. It then got really hard. The worst part was it would stop every now and then throughout the night and start back up with a huge BANG! I've never known it to do that before. It usually just blows steadily for a few days.

A few times it sounded like it was lifting our roof. I kept hearing crashing and banging all night. Our neighbor has been collecting junk and it is piled up in her back yard. I could hear stuff banging around over there. Unfortunately, her junk is right outside our bedroom window.

Needless to say, I am tired. I don't think I slept longer than an hour at a time last night. Is it nap time yet?

Do you have a daily devotional book? I've found that some of them are very good and most of them have enough good stuff in them that it is worth doing.

A daily devotional has 365 individual devotionals divided up by day of the month. They generally start out with a scripture and then have comments on the scripture. One of my prayer partners and I have been doing devotionals for a few years and now we are able to trade books so we don't have to buy any more for a few more years.

I begin my morning time with the Lord doing the devotional. It gets me thinking about spiritual things. Then I begin to pray or I open my Bible and begin to read.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I had to learn a lot of things on my own because other people wouldn't share with me. For many years I didn't know there was even such a thing as a Christian book store with Christian books and things in it. Had I known there were daily devotional books I would have begun doing them a long time earlier than I did. That's why.

I finally got all my Christmas decorations boxed up today. I've had to get caught up on more important things and decorations were not near the top of the list. Now I have to clean clean CLEAN my house. I've been giving my vacuum cleaner a workout. I hadn't vacuumed since before I got sick.

As I am sitting here I feel like all my energy is draining out of my feet onto the floor. I wore myself out. I think today is an excellent day for a nap. Funny, I mentioned taking a nap in last week's message. Maybe Monday is nap day. As a matter of fact, I am going to go rest now. I want to give you my best and right now my best seems to have oozed onto the floor.

I have been thinking about things I'd like to do and have come up with a plan. One day a week I will go visit and help my mom. One day a week I will catch up on my correspondence and will visit with my friends.

One day a week I will work on making birthday and Christmas presents and catch up on my mending and ironing. One day a week I will work on the Clarion Call. One day a week I will work on catching up on my photo albums, scrapbooks, filing, and organizing.

One day a week I will spend in my prayer closet. Two days a week I will do laundry, shopping, cleaning, and other household chores. One day a week I will work outside in the garden and on other outside things.

Let's see, have I left anything out? I think I will throw in one day a week just to be able to do whatever else needs to be done, including relaxing.

Wait, I think I will have to double each of those days because I forgot to add in the time I spend cooking, taking care of my animals and plants, and taking care of other things on a daily basis.

There, that should get me organized and enable me to do all the things I need to and want to do.

Hmmmm.... Something tells me I have neglected to take something into consideration....

My house looks decent for the first time since before Christmas. I've whittled away at the piles of mail and put-away's. I've dusted and vacuumed. I pruned my roses and all the plants in the front yard. Oh, I've been a busy girl.

The next thing on my agenda is taking care of mountains of paperwork. I have to prepare our tax stuff, file last years stuff, and more. Plus, I have a long list of things I want to do here at the Clarion Call. I still have backed up email that needs to be read and some sent out on the mailing list.

I put my husband in charge of my health next Christmas. I told him to make sure I don't get sick. You should have seen the look he gave me. Sometimes I get the feeling he thinks I am crazy. LOL

There are so many times that I wished I could have many days in a row where I didn't have to do anything else but read my Bible, pray, and commune with God. I am so far from where He would have me be.... at least that is how I feel. I want to know so much more about Him and about spiritual things. I feel like I am trapped in my body and that it keeps me from being fully used by Him.

The things that I do each day feel like they are drawing me away from Him. Yet, I know that they are things that He wants me to do because they are things that affect my family.

I have to keep reminding myself that He has placed me right where I am... in this house, with this family, with these friends, etc. He laid the idea in my heart to create the Clarion Call. H