On our way

We are on our way to a fabulous garden! I'm so excited, we got the garden tilled up and planted last weekend. It is over at our in-laws house due to a lack of space at our own. This is no small garden either. My goal is that we have plenty to last us this summer and then hopefully some to freeze for the winter time.
We planted broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, lettuce, cabbage, corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumber and zucchini. After the broccoli and cauliflower come up we might plans some more beans, I heard you can do that.


YUM>

Are you Looking?

In my quest to get our youth to renew their minds and to follow a life that is pleasing to God I've been challenging them to find good music to listen too. I don't think they always have to listen to worship music, but I do think it's important that they are listening to bands that are Christian, and bands that don't glamorize a lifestyle opposite of what a Christian should be doing. This is a difficult task, and it's even taken me some time to see the importance of changing what I listen to.
There are so many challenges that a Christian faces today, and being a teenager only adds to that by about 1000 x's. All of the popular music today glorifies getting drunk, rebelling, sex outside of marriage, hooking up, chaotic relationships and the list goes on and on. Most teens, and people in general argue that they listen to music for the beat. They don't really care or even pay attention to the words. However, if you listen to a song even once how often does the chorus get stuck in your head? Or the next time you hear that song you can sing along to at least part of it? Even if you aren't "listening to the words" you are still hearing them.
I don't think that music is evil or that it necessarily causes people to do things (even though there are studies out there that say teens who are over exposed to sex in the media are more likely to become pregnant or get someone pregnant) but listening to that stuff desensitizes us to it, it starts to seem acceptable, normal and fun. This is no lie-sin is fun, and when we are listening to how fun it is, with no consequences we start to think we can do it too.
If we are one of the lucky few who do not feel we are influenced in that way it's still important to consider the music we listen to. Why? Because it makes our walk with God that much easier. I feel so much closer to God when I am reading my bible, praying and listening to Christian music.
I meant for this to be a much shorter post than what it's turning into. My goal is to leave you with some bands that you may fall in love with. Stop assuming all Christian music is like what you hear on Sunday mornings, if you like a certain genre search for the Christian version...I promise it's not all cheese :)
I have an eclectic taste in music but here is my very very short list, with some new people I've discovered: Paige Armstrong, Carlos Whittaker, Vicky Beeching, Anberlin, Family Force Five, Further Seems Forever, Underoath, Addison Road,Emery... There are way to many to list.

A Garden

I can't wait to start planting a garden! It's been way too wet to get started, but I'm totally looking forward to seeing some of this:

I have helped with a few gardens before, but this will be my first time actually planting my own. I'm anxious to see how it's going to turn out, and I fully expect a couple mistakes to happen the first time around :)