Twelve

YIKES! Twelve people in one family is a lot of people! Yes, I do have twelve people that are in my family now. Before today there were only eleven and now there are twelve. You see, I have four biological sisters, two foster siblings(a brother and a sister), one adopted sister (all of them would be adopted if it were possible) , one brother in law, two parents, and now a newborn baby girl who we will hopefully adopt as well. So that is the newest thing in my life. It is exciting and a little bit frightening at the same time, newborns and toddlars make for a busy life. I am excited to see how much more God will work in my family. He has done so much to shape and mold my family into something more than anyone could have ever imagined. Well, I just felt the need to share that bit of information with my blog viewers, which there arent very many. goodnight, or whatever the time, I hope it is grand.

Shopping?

Oh my! I have not written since October and it is December. That is ridiculous !
So I embarked on a trip to Albertsville, Minnisota along with a bunch of my Aunties and female cousins. It was a shopping trip and our goal...well the point of the trip was to find as many deals as possible and also to spend time with eachother. So I went and thought it would be a grand old time to hang out with my reletives..and it was..I quiete enjoyed the company that I was in. Now the thing that troubled me when I got there was that I was in basically the temples of materialism. You see, Albersville is an outlet mall town and we went during thanksgiving weekend..so it was incredibly busy. This last year escpecially, I have been feeling really convicted about the issue of matirialism and the over-consumption that North America partakes in. So I felt a little disgusted actually at the fact that their were long line-ups into a "Choach" store at twelve o'clock at night. (Coach is a major brandname store with purses and shoes and stuff that is incredibly expensive...even in the thousands of dollars). So yah...the whole scene just urked me a bit. It also urked me that I was in that and I was shopping. In the end I did end up buying stuff and spending lots of money but I wasn't being ridiculous about it...most of the stuff I bought I needed and a lot of it was Christmas presents. Dont get me wrong...I dont think it is wrong to buy things. God has blessed me with wealth and has placed me in this culture not another for a reason... I have the capability of being well fed, healthy and clothed and educated. I think it is wrong to over consume. I think that God wants us to live simply and care for the poor and be consientious about the poor. Now on the other hand God chooses to make some people very rich. It is entirely possible that there are very God loving millionaires out there. So it is a very complex issue and I am personally haveing trouble explaining how I feel and where I stand on it. Any thoughts?
*sorry about the poor grammer and spelling**