iTithe

I am proud to announce....iTithe. Over the past several months, Alex has been working with developers somewhere in TX to create an iPhone app.

iTithe is an app designed to help Christians keep track of their tithes and charitable giving. It is especially designed to be a tool to help those of us who may not have regular incomes (ie., don't have a paycheck every 2 weeks). If that's you, you know that it can be difficult to remember whether you tithed on a particular job or contract. This was Alex's inspiration - as a photographer he has irregular income and also receives payment on each contract in stages - a deposit, and then usually 1, sometimes 2, additional payments - and then maybe some extra income if a couple wants upgrades to albums or wall art prints or something.

So in iTithe, you can enter an income amount and source and then keep track of when you tithe on it to your home church. You can also, separately, keep track of charitable gifts.

If you have an iPhone we would love for you to download it, the app is just $1.99, and then review it!! You can also check out the iTithe website.

What is a tithe? I'm sure some people are asking themselves that. Well, in the Bible, God commands Christians to tithe. A tithe is a tenth of what you earn. A tithe should be given to a believers church, as opposed to charitable gifts which are given above a tithe and may go to any organization you may want to support. The principle is simple - God is the creator of all things, I believe that all I have is a gift or a blessing from God - so what I have is really His. As such, I want to give back to him the portion he requests - gladly - in thankfulness for what he has so generously provided to me.

If you want to see more - check out the 'Tithing principles' section of the iTithe website.

whew...

Seriously, no one told me that NOT working would be so exhausting. Trust me, it's still WAY better than doing all this stuff AND working which is why I was about to have a breakdown 2 months ago- so I'm not really complaining.

Generally, I go to the child care center 2-3 days per week w/ Alex. I'm very happy because since I've been there we've implemented some positive new practices:

• Our Health Department approved (90% of our kids qualify for free b-fast, lunch and snacks) has been improved - now almost all fruit we serve is fresh- except peaches, which would be too hard to get in ripe and store, etc. The kids get fresh fruit at least once per day and now they eat fresh stuff like: bananas, pears, apples, cantaloupe, watermelon and prunes. So far, they seem to be loving it. These were changes we could make w/out having to get our menu reapproved; it was simply swapping canned to fresh. The next step down the road is to look at the actual cooked meal components. Other food changes include switching ice cream 1x per 2 weeks for yogurt and graham crackers; and swapping crackers w/ American cheese to crackers and cheddar - b/c I don't believe that American is an actual 'cheese'.
• The oldest kids - the pre-k kids (4-5 yrs), now enjoy 'family-style' meals. Rather than sitting at tables waiting for someone to serve them their food - which can take up to 12 minutes for the last kids to be served, now each meal component is in a bowl on the table and the teachers help them serve the appropriate measurement of each component. This has significant decreased meal 'down-time'.
• A friend of mine from my previous life, is the dental director at the Health Department, they have a mobile dental unit. They will be coming one day per week for a month to do exams, fluoride and dental education to the kids.

I think that Alex and I may be crazy. Evidence: are kids will be 18 months apart; we just decided to totally renovate our master bathroom and relocate our teensy closet into a new space (formerly a section of our garage). This should take us into early July- THEN we can move Caleb into a new 'big boy' room - currently our guest bedroom, where Alex and I will be living for the next month or so. Caleb's current room will remain a nursery for the new baby - we will just girly it up a little. By the time Caleb's new room and the baby's room are completed - I should be about ready to give birth.

Also - we have a name for the girl - Grace. How appropriate.