ever had a day like this?

Got this in an email a while back..... it made me smile. Hope it makes you smile, too! :-)
Thanks for visiting...have a wonderful day!

"antique" napkins

For years, after a birthday party, a graduation party, holidays, etc., I would store the leftover paper napkins and plates in a couple of drawers and in a cabinet. A few month ago, I decided to gather all of them up, put them in a large plastic container with a lid and put it on the shelf in a spare room closet. My reasoning was that if they were all together and in one place, I would be more inclined to check what I had before buying more.

I worked 4 very long days last week and the family started coming in Thursday night. I was mostly concerned about feeding everyone (and having fun!), so decorating the table for our Easter dinner Sat night got lost somewhere between cooking and hiding eggs!! :-) About an hour before we planned to eat, I decided I would look and see if, at the very least, I had some colorful napkins to use. As I looked through my stash, I found these:



Our daughter's birthday is in late March, so, many times in 24 years, her birthday has been very close to Easter. When she was 2 years old, I made a bunny cake for her birthday and, believe it or not, these are the napkins we used for her party!! Yep, 22 year old napkins! I showed them around and told the story before folding them and placing them at each seat. There were just enough! I grabbed the grandboy's basket overflowing with eggs and placed it in the center of the table. How's that for a tablescape? ha!ha! Nothing fancy, but I'll have to say, the "antique" napkins did make it sweet!

our Easter celebration

It was a sweet Easter weekend!
The flowers were blooming!

The grandboy found a basket full of eggs at the Easter egg hunt at church on Saturday!
(Our granddaughters spent the weekend with their other grandparents...we missed them!)

He had fun playing on the playground!

He shot........

And he scored!!!

He had great fun with his uncle!

Our son from Tenn was here to go to church.....

...with the Hubby and me!

We had a wonderful time of worship. The music was beautiful and the pastor's message was powerful and moving.

The weather was glorious, our family talked and laughed and ate and played together, and we celebrated the resurrection with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Who could ask for more?
I hope your Easter was blessed, too!

the scarlet worm

Our pastor took a break from 1 John Sunday to share Psalm 22 with us. The first thing I learned was that Psalms 22,23,and 24 are a trilogy.....foretelling the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.I remembered that 22 was about the crucifixion, but I wasn't aware that it was part of a trilogy.

We all know that our God is intentional. So, this next little nugget really excited me because it is another example of that. When you learn something like this, it's like finding a treasure.... a little secret that God hid but wanted you to find. Anyway, here it is. Psalm 22:6 says..."But I am a worm and not a man, scored by mankind and despised by the people." The Greek word for worm is tolath....it is also the word for scarlet. In ancient times, the scarlet worm was boiled with fabric to dye it scarlet. In nature, when the scarlet worm is ready to give birth, she implants herself in a tree ....so deeply that she can not be removed nor can she remove herself. After she has her babies, she dies and her young feed on her body. As they consume her, they are stained by her scarlet color. She stains her own. After her body is gone, the tree has a scarlet stain as well.

The blood of Jesus stained a tree and it stains us......His own...."unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sin with His own blood." Rev.1:5

Thank you Jesus, for being "obedient even unto the cross" so that we might be saved and know and love you in this life and for eternity!

to read or not to read

Well, I finished "The Body Broken". When I got to Chapter 5, I realized that Mr. Benson is more liberal than I or I am more conservative than he....however you want to say it. After reading a couple of paragraphs, I paused ..."Do I continue or put it away?" As I pondered the question, it occurred to me.....that is the whole point of the book.....focusing on the things that bind us rather than the things that divide us. And it gave me an opportunity to think about what I believe and why I believe it. Having your beliefs challenged occasionally is a good thing. So, I decided not to, as they say, "throw the baby out with the bath water" and kept reading. He continued to have some meaningful and truthful things to say and to share testimonies of other Christians demonstrating love towards him.......in spite of their differences.

From reading his book, I believe I can say this about the author: he loves God, desires to know Him intimately, is committed to live in a Christ-like manner, and loves his fellow believers in the Body of Christ. He ended the book with the following:

"We must seek out the things that we have in common and at the same time learn to honor the things that make us different. We must learn to take the things that we hold dear....our sense of community, our love for the scriptures, our hunger for prayer, our capacity for worship...and work to make them wide enough and deep enough to include others rather than keep them at a distance.We must be willing to cultivate humility along with certainty and to seek patience along with piety. We must learn to seek the face of Christ in those who are different as readily as we do in the faces of those who are like us. We must learn to love one another."

I can certainly agree with that!

"...I urge you to live a life that is worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Eph. 4:1-3

Go Braves!

We bought tickets back in March for an Atlanta Braves game this past Saturday afternoon.....we were going with a group from church. Thanks to pain medication, we were still able to go even with Hubby's injured thumb. :-)
Our pastor and his wife sat behind us on the bus, so we enjoyed getting to know them better.
It was a perfect day for baseball.....sun was shining, blue sky, temperature around 70. We didn't have the best seats but someone was kind enough to organize it all and take care of all the details, so I am very grateful. All we had to do was pay our money and show up........and we had a good time.

We had lots of opportunities to stand, yell, and do the chop....four home runs and some great defensive plays.

The ever present Chick-Fil-A cow making his statement.
He was right over our heads.

The scoreboard.....without the score!
Final was 4-2 Braves over the Mets!

Brian McCann, the Braves catcher has a burger place with his name on it. Two teenagers next to us went there and brought theirs back to their seats. My goodness......they sure smelled good!

It was a fun time.....and it was great to have someone else drive us home!

Goooo Braves!!!

from the dock to the "doc"

The Hubby and a friend went fishing on Friday. It was a windy day....not ideal for being in a small boat on a lake. About mid afternoon, they decided to stop battling the wind and head home. He was on the dock while they were getting the boat out of the water and onto the trailer. Somehow, his right thumb got between the boat and the dock....jerking his nail out and almost completely severing the end of his thumb. I met him at the emergency room and they sewed it back together. I took pictures, mainly because I knew our children would be interested, but he made sure I wasn't planning to post them here. :-) It did look bad.....real bad!
Our daughter, the medical assistant, has been his wound care provider......






With pain meds and tender loving care, he is doing fine. So grateful that he had someone with him to take care of things and that he has his own personal "nurse"!

blue

I have been blue this week. When things aren't right between me and those close to me, it feels like there is a cloud, not just over me, but over everything. That's how it's been.
In Matthew, Jesus says that if I have an offense between me and someone else, it is my responsibility to initiate reconciliation. I try to be quick to do that when I am the offender, but when I am the injured one......hmmm, not so much. I tend to wait for them to apologize or to do whatever needs to be done to restore fellowship. It isn't a good thing to do. I end up spending days.....unhappy days under my rain cloud.
I know God has given me all I need to give grace and forgiveness as easily as I receive it....and the strength to put it into practice. And you know what they say about practice........"we learn from it"!

last update on baby girl

I wanted to let all of you know that my step-sister told me yesterday that the baby girl is back to her normal, active, rambunctious self ! She sends her sincere thanks to all of you who prayed. I am very grateful, too. I believe God has used this situation to draw their family closer to Him. Your prayers have been an important part of His plan. :-)

"the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man (or woman) avails much." James 5:16

a new read

I started this book a few days ago. Sara mentioned it on her blog earlier this year. I made note of it because the sub-title appealed to me..."answering the call to love one another."
It is not a theological or how-to book, but, rather a testimony of his experiences in learning how to love his brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.....all of them! Many times, the things that divide us are really not that important. And often, we spend more time majoring on our slight differences than on the many things that unite us....especially our belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. If we are open, we can learn from each other and, perhaps, develop a deeper and more intimate understanding of our God.

A dear friend of his,W.G., is a Methodist pastor. The first day they met,
W.G. said this to him:
"Everything in your life, every book, every sermon, every telephone call,
every doubt, every prayer.....everything that has ever happened to you.....has conspired to bring you to this place among these very people to hear
what God has to say to you today."

Benson's response...."Of all the conspiracy theories that I have ever heard,
this is the only one I believe in."

I've only read two chapters.....I look forward to the rest! :-)

those blooming azaleas!

When I left for Tenn last Wed, a few of our azaleas were blooming. When I returned on Sun, they were all showing their colors.

We don't have the biggest bushes.....

...or a huge abundance of blossoms.

But we enjoy the ones we have......

And are grateful for the arrival of spring they have announced!

If spring hasn't arrived where you live, I hope it has in your heart!

"...to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."
Eph. 4:23-24

have you ever played chutes and ladders?

Do you enjoy playing it? I don't! I never have liked it and that opinion was confirmed this week while playing it with the little girls. You are already at the mercy of the spinner as to how many steps you take and, then, after working your way up the board....you land on a chute and end up back at the bottom. Whoever thought that was a fun idea? My observation is that it promotes frustration and a sense of futility. It isn't so much about the winning as it is about not being knocked down. I saw the look on their faces when they had to start over......over and over again. So, how has this aggravating game stayed around so long? I think the answer is hope. Every time we get the board out, we hope maybe this time........ I'll make it to the top without sliding down a chute.
Sounds a lot like life, don't you think? We are living our life, everything's going smoothly and then......POW! we get hit with a problem, a disappointment, a hurt. We feel ourselves losing our footing, losing our balance .....sliding down that chute.....until we hit bottom. We worked hard to get where we were.....financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc....and now we have to start all over again. How do we do it? Hope. We turn to our Heavenly Father, the God of all hope, and He restores and strengthens us. He "renews a right spirit within us"! He gives us "everything we need for life and godliness." And He uses those trips down the "chutes" to teach us patience and perseverance and to remind us of our total dependence on Him.
So, I guess the lesson is....if we accept the ride up on the ladder (the blessings), we have to accept the ride down on the chute (the trials). It's all a part of the game...and a part of life!

the most precious blueberry

In case you missed the previous announcement, we found out a few weeks ago that our daughter and her hubby are expecting their first baby in October. She signed up at a website that helps you keep track of the baby's growth and development. Every week, she gets an email telling her how big the baby is and comparing it to something that helps you picture the size. At week seven he/she was the size of a blueberry! So, that has become our nickname for the little one. Our family has always loved blueberries, so it seems very appropriate! Here is Blueberry's first photograph!

When I really contemplate life....the miracle and gift from God it is.....the amazing and complex plan He had for procreation..... His greatness that sustains life.....that every breath is a gift ordained by Him....I can hardly contain my wonder and awe! All I can say is," Thank you, Father!" ....... over and over and over again!

the rest of the story!

Whew! It it has been four full days! Never had the opportunity to post again
'cause we were BUSY!! Here is the documentation...:-)
The only thing I have been able to think of to be a help to our son, the single dad, on a consistent basis when we live 4 hours away is to cook meat to put in his freezer. I put it in quart zip lock bags and label them. So, during the week when he is trying to prepare dinner after he gets home at 6 pm, the meat part of his meal is already done.
He is pretty organized...makes menus, makes a grocery list from his menus,
and post his menus in the fridge, so he knows at a glance what the plan is and knows what to take out of the freezer for dinner that night.
Anyway, I said all that to say I did some of that this week. When I was cutting
up the chicken for ranch chicken, this little girl left her computer game,
came into the kitchen and said,
"What are you doing Gran? I can help?"
I wasn't about to pass up that opportunity! So, I put cracker crumbs
in a zip lock bag, dipped the chicken and dropped three pieces at a time
into the bag, closed it, handed it to her and said,
"Here you go...shake!"

She did a great job and endured 'til the end.... and we made a lot!
It took longer (all you moms know that!), but it was a much more fun!

After dinner and baths, we painted princess sun catchers. They are both very meticulous!

Here are the finished products. Saturday, we hung five of them on the french doors in their dining room (where lots of sunshine comes in)...they were pretty. The sixth one is going to school on Monday as a gift for the teacher!


Saturday found us at Wendy's for lunch. So glad they offer chocolate milk as an alternative for soda these days.


Getting every drop of juice from the cup of mandarin oranges!

Next stop.....the nail salon. We girls need a little pampering every now and then! :-)

Patiently waiting her turn!

Making sure she likes the color she picked out!

Oh my goodness, my nails are pretty!!

We had a great time, but they were very happy to see their daddy!

Latest update on baby: She started walking again today...that is BIG! God is good!