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For as long as I can remember, I’ve always believed that we may not be able to choose our circumstances, but we can always choose our response to those circumstances. I’ve preached this through my books and speaking — and tried to live this out in my life. Because the truth is: if we focus on our blessings instead of our problems, we’re guaranteed to feel more encouraged.
Last year, something very unexpected happened to me, and I was presented with an opportunity to put my beliefs and thoughts into action. A routine doctor’s visit turned my life upside down for a moment in time and as I came face-to-face with the possibility of cancer, I realized how much easier these kinds of things are said than done. I was really scared, nervous, and apprehensive about the future during that time, but I am really thankful for the experience. It gave me a newfound appreciation and empathy for those of you who are enduring major life struggles each and every day. 
I know that what I went through pales in comparison to some of the situations you find yourselves in, but in those moments I felt emotions I had never felt before. It also taught me the importance of choosing joy even when life feels heavy and overwhelming — especially since we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, or if something could happen next week that will change the course of our lives. While we don’t know what will happen tomorrow or next week, we can choose today to embrace life and live as vibrantly and fully as we possibly can. Today is all we are guaranteed. I want to choose joy in my circumstances, dwell in the present, live fully even in the middle of difficult circumstances and discouraging situations, and embrace the beauty surrounding me. I think when we look around, there is always, always something to be grateful for. Sometimes we have to really look for it, but when we do, we'll find it — and probably a lot more than just one thing! Truly, you can't always change your circumstance, but you can always choose your attitude. 
And that’s why I created this Choose Joy Canvas as a reminder to choose joy on a daily basis, despite our external circumstances. We need reminders to choose a good attitude — even when life is hard or we feel weary and exhausted. My hope is that this canvas will encourage you today in whatever you are facing to choose joy. To choose to smile. To choose gratitude. It might not change or fix a difficult situation, but I promise that it will make it more bearable. No matter how hard life is right now, remember that no one can take away your ability to choose your attitude in the middle of your difficult circumstances. Choose joy. 
Get Your "Choose Joy" Canvas For Just $13.50! I have some really exciting news! Through April 11, you can get the Choose Joy Canvas for just $13.50! No coupon code is required. Just add it to your cart at the sale price. You can order as many as you'd like at this price — maybe consider getting a few as gifts for friends who need the reminder, too? This canvas measures 8″x 8″ and looks great sitting on a bookshelf or hanging on the wall. As always, shipping is free with any order over $50 from our store. 
Psst! Did you see all of the other fun products included in our brand-new line of inspirational products with Glory Haus that recently launched!? The line is called "Intentional Life by Crystal Paine" and is available in a number of boutique stores nationwide, as well as online. I'm SO excited! I had so much fun working on these products — and each was designed specifically as a reminder of powerful, life-impacting truths that have helped to shape and transform my life. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for sales we'll be running on each of the new products!  
Guest post Rachael of Mumbling Mommy Our living room couch is sprinkled with Popsicle drips and old spit-up stains. It's so lumpy that when I lean back, the cushions push back like they have minds of their own. The seams are strained and the color is slightly faded. I've never been fond of our couch, but it was purchased 16 years ago during my husband's bachelor days — long before I met him. After we married, I convinced my husband the couch needed to go at some point. We keep a list of things we were saving up for on our fridge and this list included a new couch! But we'll celebrate our tenth anniversary this summer, and we continue to live with the old couch. It's not that we can't afford a new couch. If the legs fell off our couch today, we could buy a new one and our family wouldn't have to survive on Ramen Noodles. Our attitude at this point is something like, "We've survived this long with the old couch. Why change now? " While most people might feel the pressure to keep up with the legendary Joneses, the bar among our close friends and neighbors in this category is not very high. Most of our friends with kids – people who are in the same life stage as us – have old couches, too. Some of theirs look worse than ours! Our couch isn't the only old thing we choose to live with to save money. My husband drives a Toyota that is the same age as our couch. Again, there is no peer pressure to buy something new and shiny because our next-door neighbor in our middle-class neighborhood drives a Toyota that's about 20 years old. I appreciate the fact that most of my friends, family, and neighbors are not concerned about having the newest, nicest stuff. We do our best to take care of what we own, making sure everything is clean and repaired, but we shop thrift stores and garage sales together. We let each other know about upcoming kids' consignment sales or the new Goodwill outlet store. Our modest-sized homes are filled with secondhand furniture, and our kitchens are stocked with groceries purchased with coupons or at Aldi. It helps that we, like most of our friends, live in solidly middle class neighborhoods, where the expectations are not so lofty. One of my good, thrifty friends lives in a modest home that borders the wealthy part of town where the pressure to keep up appearances is real. When she runs into locals she knows at Aldi, some people make excuses for buying groceries at a discount store. "Oh, you shop here, too?" they say with raised eyebrows, then add in a hushed voice, "I can't resist the prices." It's considered more socially acceptable to run into people up the road at Aldi's upscale cousin, Trader Joe's. We've learned that our friends can easily make or break our efforts to live frugally. My friends and I make no excuses for our shopping habits, or our old couches, cars, and gently used clothes. Life without the pressure to have new stuff leaves us with money for savings and emergency expenses, and for family camping trips or tickets to reasonably priced live theatre productions, which my kids and I love. Those experiences are things my children will remember more than a new couch. So when I visit a friend's home and she apologizes for her saggy couch that sports a few juice stains, I am eager to reassure her. "Oh, you are in good company. Your couch looks like ours," I say, "And that's completely all right!" Rachael is the managing editor for Mumbling Mommy, a blog featuring true stories from the front lines of parenting. She lives with her family in the St. Louis area and enjoys gardening, camping, reading Charlotte Bronte novels, and helping to edit her husband's science fiction books.
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Woo Hoo! If you missed it last time, this popular deal is back! Amazon just dropped the price on the Dear Mr. Knightley eBook down to $1.99! This was one of my top 10 reads from 2015! Ever read a book that you just don't want to end and when you finish it, you want to meet the characters in real-life? That was this book for me. It's also a beautiful story of healing and redemption, and of how to love and reach out to hurting people. Thanks, Snail Pace Transformations!  
Crazy 8 is running a buy one, get one for $0.08 sale right now. This sale includes polos, tees, and shorts. That means you’ll pay just $5.48 each for tees, $7.48 each for polos, and as low as $8.48 each for shorts! Valid for a limited time only.  
Aldi Organic Kale – $3.49 2 bunches Bananas (4.79lbs @ $0.44/lb) – $2.11 Radishes – $0.99 Cilantro – $0.79 2 16-oz cartons Egg Whites – $3.98 1 20-oz pkg Zucchini – $1.49 1 3-lb bag Oranges – $2.36 2 16-oz pkgs Baby Carrots- $1.38 1 64-oz carton Orange Juice – $1.69 Mini Sweet Peppers – $1.99 Strawberries – $1.49 8-oz Heavy Whipping Cream – $1.69 1 64-oz carton Almond Milk – $2.29 1 gallon Milk – $2.49 Total: $28.53 
Harris Teeter 10 bags Shredded Cheese – $13.16 2 16-oz bags Mahatma Rice – $2.00, used 2 $0.50/1 Mahatma or Watermaid Rice, exp. 4/30/16 (RP 01/31/16) (doubled) – FREE after coupons 2 64-oz cartons Apple Juice – $1.94 2 4-lb bag Sugar – $1.94 10 Yoplait Yogurts – $3.70, used 2 $0.50/5 printable (doubled) – $1.70/10 after coupons 2 dozen Eggs – $1.94 1 Zantac Cool Mint – $7.99, used $4.00/1 printable, plus $4.00/1 evic – FREE after coupons Total: $21.24 Grocery Total for the Week: $49.77 Weekly Menu Plan Breakfasts Oatmeal x 2 Cereal x 2 Hardboiled Eggs, Toast x 3 (we still have lots of eggs leftover from great sale prices the last few weeks) Lunches Grilled Cheese Sandwiches on Homemade Bread, Oranges, Carrots x 2 Baked Potatoes with Cottage Cheese, Kale Salad x 2 Leftovers x 3 Dinners Soft Shell Tacos (ground venison with taco seasonings, refried beans, shredded cheese, lettuce, salsa, olives, homemade tortillas), Strawberries Venison Roast in the Crockpot, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Carrots, Butterhorns Chicken on the Grill, Fresh Veggie Tray, Baked Apples Meat Potato Quiche, Easy Whole Wheat Muffins, Steamed Broccoli Homemade Pepperoni Pizza, Tossed Salad Dad’s Night to Cook (I’ll be away at a Ladies Retreat) Leftovers Snacks Popcorn, Apples with Almond Butter, Banana Cake (a recipe from the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook), S’mores Bars, Yogurt  
Earn 5 free Pampers Rewards points when you enter code TWBA187432FGE16 in your account before April 10, 2016. You can redeem your Pampers points for free products and more. Sign up here for Pampers Gifts to Grow and get 100 free points. Thanks, Freebie Shark!  
Head on over to Smart Apps for Kids for a list of iTunes apps available to download for free today! They have a nice selection of apps to choose from today, including two Bible apps, Minecraft and Fisher-Price apps, 20 different educational apps, Cut The Rope, and many more! Valid today only, April 8, 2016.  
This is the weekly list of Free Homeschool Curriculum and Resources compiled by Jamerrill from FreeHomeschoolDeals.com. If you aren't a homeschooler, but you're a parent, teacher, babysitter, or nanny, you'll probably find at least a few useful freebies in this list. You may also want to go through the Educational Deals and Freebies from earlier this week for more. Talk about variety! You will find plenty to choose from this week. There are so many themes and freebies that fit many ages and levels of learning. We found printables and freebies for preschool through middle school. After that, you can choose a theme from fun spring learning to science and multiplication and more! Reading and Spelling Learn to read with these Free Word Flipper Printables or these FREE Literacy Printables. Memorizing sight words is a huge help for reading. Grab this FREE 3rd Grade Sight Word Pack. Bible Printables It’s so important for kids to have an understanding of their Creator, God. In this FREE Wonderfully Made Printables Pack you will have the opportunity to teach your child all about God’s plan in creating them. Be sure to grab the FREE Wonderfully Made Lapbook that is a match. Art, Music, Project and Activity Packs 
Learn to draw for free with this FREE Kids Drawing Book. Study all the great artists with these FREE Great Artists Unit Studies. Use this FREE Lemonade Stand Printables Pack to help your child become and entrepreneur. Get active with the great activities on this Free April Activity Calendar. These FREE Springtime Memory Match Printables are a fun way to learn about spring and have a fun game. Here are 20 FREE Spring Art Projects for Kids and Seed Science FREE Printables and Science Projects. Earth Day Celebrate Earth Day with a FREE Earth Q-Tip Painting Printable, a FREE Earth Day Printables Pack and these cute FREE Earth Day Coloring Pages for Girls Printables. Preschool 
Preschoolers will love these fun FREE SPRING PRINTABLES PACK FOR PRESCHOOL or these FREE PRESCHOOL POND PRINTABLES. Both are exclusive to Free Homeschool Deals! Fire! Have fun learning with this FREE Firefighter Preschool Pack. Here are some great printables to help with letter learning: These FREE Ten Apples up on Top Math Printables are a fun way to incorporate the book of the same name into number learning. Learn about opposites with a FREE Little Book of Opposites Printable. Then begin with Humpty Dumpty in this FREE Humpty Dumpty Booklet. Themed Packs Spring is here!! Here are some fun spring themed resources for children of all ages and levels! Grab this FREE RAINY DAY NUMBERS AND COUNTING PACK and have fun on those “April showers” days. Here are FREE 3 Part Vegetable Cards. Try this FREE Bug Printables Pack. Learn the states and capitals with this FREE States and Capitals Printables Pack. Calendars, Planning and Helps 
Use this FREE Academic Calendar for 2017-2018, or this FREE 2016-17 School Calendar to keep your school year organized. Math Here are FREE Simple Multiplication Wheel Math Worksheets. These FREE April Math Problem of the Day Printables are a great way to keep math fresh in your child’s mind. Learn about money with this FREE Parts of a Dollar Flip Book. Click here thousands of homeschool freebies! *Don't forget! If you are looking for additional free homeschool resources please check the huge growing list of free homeschool curriculum and resources on MoneySavingMom.com! Jamerrill is the mother of a large and growing family. You can find her daily helping families afford the homeschool life on FreeHomeschoolDeals.com. Additionally she hopes to inspire homeschool moms from the blessed trenches of real life on The Encouraging Homeschool Mom.  | | |
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