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Well, it's the 365th day of the year.  We have exactly one day left in 2012, and i'm feeling pretty good.  We're doing that weird thing at work, where you work Monday, are off Tuesday (because it's the New Year's Day), and go back on Wednesday.  It always breaks up the work week weird. Nevertheless, on this, the last free day of the year, we've managed to recover our home from the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday tornado that ran through here, and when i look around, i think it's just almost clean enough that i would invite my parents over.  I need to do some dusting.  The window sills are kind of gross.  After that, they can come over. My parents are in Michigan, and my window sills are in Texas, so i have some time. All three of our family Christmas gatherings were very nice.  Extra nice.  I'm really thankful for all of my families, and i'm happy to have them in my life.  We didn't get to see my northern family for Christmas this ...

Something beautiful that God made, that i took a picture of today. With all this talk of stirring up my gifts and whatnot, i can hear the unspoken comments in my head, wondering why i haven't included any specific, daily, weekly, monthly Bible-reading or prayer goals.  Well, for one, it kind of goes without saying.  For two, i have road blocks. I started my most recent read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year program, in about May 2009, give or take a year and some months.  So i guess i should call it the read-through-the-Bible-eventually plan.  I've read through the Bible several times in the course of my days, but this time, i wanted to specifically, not just read, but soak and understand. Well, when i seek to soak and understand, sometimes i run into parts of the Bible that are sort of more difficult to soak up, per se.  I most recently got stuck in Jeremiah.  Jeremiah has its moments, it has some really inspirational isolated scriptures, but other part...

It's almost the new year. And i'm getting a little more permanently excited about my new year stirring challenge. Lemme splain the stirring. When one (perhaps someone like myself) gets too caught up in surviving the day to day survival of the American rat race, one might begin to forget some or all of the wonderful interests and enjoyments that help to make life worth working for.  And when we begin to turn into working robots, and our focus (foci) gets set on the wrong things, we are less valuable to ourselves, to our family, to our friends, and to God. This is the place where i began to find myself.  And besides all those things, this place quickly, for me, turns to a medium level of depression, which i am not fond of. One of my goals for the new year is to take a picture of something beautiful that is created by God, each week.  In my youth (did i really say that?) i was always a sucker for the beauty of God's creation, writing poems, inventing possibly life ...

This is a picture of me and my Sunday School class, circa 1981.  Over on the side, way to the left edge of the picture, is the central focus of my post.  Miss Alice. For some reason, this week, my kindergarten teacher (and Sunday School teacher), Miss Alice, has been on my mind.  On the way to work, one morning i found myself in tears, thinking about what it must be like to have watched so many tiny little people, who didn't know a "b" from a "z" when she met them, grow up into adults (who can read), and have children of their own, and become so many different ... well, grown-ups.  There were so many kids who weren't her own, but in whom she invested so much of her time and energy, and i have no doubt, prayers. Miss Alice was not only my teacher. She was also a member of my church, and her husband, my dad's friend.  So, over the years, we've not entirely lost touch.  Recently, Miss Alice, to my delight, became my Facebook friend, and started, a...

As you can see, the format of this blog is undergoing some changes. These aren't exactly the changes i had in mind. And i didn't back up my old format. So....oops. I'm working on it. Will write something more interesting later. Thank you for your patience.

You've seen that guy on the insurance commercials, right?  Mayhem? Well, now i'm going to try to remember the rest of the story i started to tell about our adventure into Black Friday.   I believe it was 12:40 a.m. when i left off. Sometime between 12:40 and actually heading home, it became important to get something called an hdmi cable.  This is the cable that makes a high definition t.v. actually show a picture that is high definition, as compared to those other regular pictures we used to get on those box shaped t.v.s that we never knew had anything wrong with them. But i digress. Must have hdmi cable.  Cable not in box. Since the lines were so long at Best Buy, we made our way to the not quite as horribly busy anymore Wal-mart, where hubby went in to purchase the sought-after cable, and where i used the ladies room as quickly as i could before hurrying back to the vehicle to guard the ever so valuable items that were in plain sight in our little ...

I have always....o.k. not always.  I now, and for the past several years, and probably from here on out to eternity, have rebelled against New Year's Resolutions.  Not just New Year's resolutions, but other resolutions that are made in a hyped up, mostly-because-everyone-else-is-doing-it-and-it-seems-good manner.  The reason i rebel against this, is because of the innumerable times i have made a commitment to something in the wonder of a moment of epiphany or what-have-you, and have lived to fail completely.  The commitments i have kept have been the ones i made with great deliberation, firm deep commitment, tears, purpose, and planning. With that said, i have observed myself and decided i would like to make some changes. I remember how i used to feel, before we moved to the country and got all independent and un-citified.  I remember feeling like i had been sucked into a world in which nothing existed or happened in my life except eating, sleeping, going to...

I think it was this past weekend.  My husband went to check on the orange on the orange tree, and it fell off the twig and into his hand.  So he brought it inside. I think we were a little afraid to eat it, not knowing how good its quality might be, still reveling in the joy of having harvested an actual piece of fruit, and not wanting to ruin it. And i, being a girl and all, wanted us to try the orange together, and sometimes finding the perfect moment in which two people really want to have a special orange tasting moment is difficult. This evening, feeling the relief that comes with Friday evening, we were at ease, and i drew up my courage and peeled the orange. We each prepared ourselves and took the first bite together, just like i imagined, and you know what? Our orange is good!  It's sweet and juicy and not at all tart, and i want some more!  But mostly i'm just so proud of our little tree!  It did such a good job!   Isn't it...

Look!  I made booties! I have made booties before, but it has been a while, and there is a special and new sense of happiness and satisfaction when you take string and turn it into something with form and cuteness.  I have to give all credit to my mom and her parents and their parents for passing down a very satisfying and enjoyable skill. Thanks, Mom! My silil, or sister-in-law-in-law, that is to say my husband's brother's wife's brother's wife, is having a baby.  I found this out when she started posting baby items on her Pinterest.  One of those items was these baby shoes, found on the Crochet Dreamz blog, the pattern designed by, well, whoever it is that writes that blog.  I can't find her name. If you like to crochet things, and you might be invited to a baby shower in the future, i recommend her site.  It has lots of super cute patterns, and she sells the patterns by PDF, for $5.00 or so.  I might have purchased the PDF for these slippe...