One More For The Year

I'm sitting here next to my hubby as we wait for this year of 2012 to close out. It's been a pretty hard year. I remember last New Year's Eve. I cried at the stroke of midnight. 2011 had been a hard year. Both years have been years of hoping and praying for change. No change.

I saw these verses over on Joyce's blog today and it gave me hope. (Thanks for the reminder, Joyce!)

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” 

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; 

it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Lamentations 3:21-26 

 

A couple of weeks ago I was working on some Christmas gifts in my sewing room and ended up watching the movie Fireproof. (It's a really good movie about marriage. Really good.) The song While I'm Waiting played.  The tears came. 

 

Here's a video of the song and the words.

 

 

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I'm waiting
I will serve You
While I'm waiting
I will worship
While I'm waiting
I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting

 This just seems like a good thing to pray about for the New Year.

 

I know this isn't an upbeat what-a-great-year-I-can't-wait-for-next-year post, but I'm just keeping it real, people. Keeping it real.

 

Wishing all my readers a genuinely Happy New Year! 

Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without

I decided this morning that I am going to use up the things I have in my house. I was inspired also by a conversation with my daughter and after reading this blog-post from our sweet friends in China.

We've only been in this house for 1 1/2 years and we purged quite a bit as we unpacked boxes, but somewhere more stuff crept in.  I've been thinking about this for a while, but after cleaning out my train-case this morning, I decided to make it a goal. Anyone know what a train-case is? My hubby gave this one to me on our wedding day. It matched the luggage that I had at the time. 27 years later I still use this when we travel.

As I cleaned it out today after 6 weekends in a row of being out of town, I found all these things in there I got from all sorts of different hotels we have stayed in.

and then I found this in an overflowing drawer in the bathroom.

All these things are the small sizes you get in a hotel. That's a lot of shampoo, conditioner, lotions and soap! I am on a quest to use them all up. I'll sure be clean and smell good!


Last month I re-organized the freezer and found a bunch of food items that need to get used. There were several meat patties I had bought sometime last summer for on the grill. I really don't have any idea if they were pork or chicken or turkey. One night I broke them up and browned them, added BBQ sauce and put it over some baked potatoes with some grated cheese. Hubby asked what we were having for supper and I answered, "I have no idea. I'll call it.... BBQ Mystery Meat." Despite the mystery, it was quite yummy.

My quest to purge also took me to the medicine cabinet and, sure enough, there were some expired cold medicine and things we never use that ended up in the trash. 


This morning I looked through the pantry and tossed some items that had expiration dates from the year 2009. I don't think I can consume something knowing it's that old. Yuck. I'm going to try to figure out how I can use the things that are in there and then only replace them when I am planning on using them in a recipe

Boy, I guess I am on a roll, huh?

Next stop all the condiments in the refrigerator. Where do they all come from?

I'm also going to try to extend this using it up thing to my sewing room and see if I can make at least one quilt from just the fabrics I have. Believe me, that shouldn't be too hard at all!

Even though I don't set New Year's Resolutions, I think this quest could qualify, don't you?

Some Good Reads

I have really enjoyed getting into the blog-world. I have made a new friend (and met In Real Life), made other bloggy friends and been able to keep up with far-away friends. There are some pretty funny blogs out there and there are some people that have a gift for writing quite thought provoking posts. I wanted to share a few with you that have touched my heart recently.

Shaun Groves writes about the last two commands from God in Malachi. Awesome-Send-Me-To-My-Knees stuff.

Then there is a blog called Stuff Christians like. And this post. Read It.

Beth Moore and her daughters keep up a blog that is connected with Beth's ministry. This post is full of wisdom and perspective that I think so many of us (including me) miss when we are smacked in the face with really hard stuff like Beth and her family has been recently. Beth had surgery and you just have to read through the post to find out the names of a couple of nurses she had.

I just wanted to share some of my reading with my three or four readers. :)

Mind if I Ramble?

I've been thinking that it's time for a "what I have been up to" post. So I stopped to think about what-I-have-been-up-to............

....ummm..... not a whole lot this week. Mostly I've been sick.

Tuesday I took my vehicle to get the oil changed and tires rotated. Since I take it into The Big City, I like to add some shopping to the trip. I've been looking for a new purse and decided to try TJMaxx. I was excited when I saw how many there were to choose from. But nope. Didn't find one I liked. My daughter says I'm too picky. I probably am. I bought a big slouchy hobo-y one from Target a few months ago and really tried to like it, really I did, but I think the whole slouchy part was what I didn't like. Everything would just end up in a jumble and I couldn't even find my car keys, which believe me, shouldn't be hard at all since I have them on lots of key rings. I like the idea of a big purse, but maybe one that didn't leave everything in a blob. I don't like the idea of paying $150 for a purse!

I know you are all just totally riveted with my life so far.

So....while I was in said Big City, I started feeling ill. I wanted to teleport myself the hour and a half back home. But I made the drive okay and didn't even get lost. (Well, there was that one wrong turn, but I always knew where I was.) Finally, finally, finally after being home for several hours, I took my temp and that totally explained why had the shivers and felt achy.

So mostly this week I have felt really tired with alternating moments of freezing with sweating. Until Thursday night when The Cough set in. Ugh. I am supposed to sing on the worship team tomorrow, but I don't think it's going to happen. My father-in-law called this morning and thought I was his son. Nice.

Despite the yuckiness, I drug myself out of the house last night to go to the musical at the high school. This year they did The Wizard of Oz. As always, the kids did a good job. It is weird to not have my own kids on stage or in the pit as they were for seven years. I think the girl that played the Wicked Witch of the West stole the show. She was really good and had the witch voice and cackle down-pat.

All that theater-going wore me out.

So...
(awkward transition)...

My mom is still in the hospital. She had a heart attack three weeks ago. Two weeks ago she had triple by-pass surgery. A few days after that she had an allergic reaction to the heparin (blood thinner) and that set her back some. Then a couple of days ago her heart was in atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm), they got her up to walk and that made the heart go back into normal rhythm, but when she got back into bed, the heart-rate dropped and stopped. The nurses had to do CPR and put her on a ventilator. She went back to ICU for a couple of days. They drained 2 1/2 liters of fluid from her chest cavity. Whew! (*EDITED TO ADD::: I talked to my dad tonight and Mom is still in ICU. They have a chest tube in and have drained another couple of liters of fluid from her chest cavity!) She's really been through it. We have been to see her several times. We haven't been able to this week since I have been sick. The last thing she or my dad needs is to get a respiratory illness.

I continue to pray for relief and peace for both my mom and my dad.

(Another awkward pause as I switch subjects...)

Right now my wonderful hubby is off to the grocery store for me. He just dashed back into the house to get the grocery list. A necessary item. I am wanting to do some cooking and put several things in the freezer for a rainy day. But wait. I live in Minnesota. And tomorrow is November 1st. Make that for a snowy day!

Tonight we will go to a Chinese restaurant for supper as is our October 31st tradition. We did not celebrate that holiday when the kids were little and wanted to get out of the house when people would be ringing our doorbell, so we would go out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant since the Chinese don't celebrate that holiday. Only back in the day we lived where there was a very nice Chinese restaurant. Now we live where we have your basic buffet. But at least we have a Chinese option and don't have to settle for the local diner or a tacky Mexican substitute, if you know what I mean. Last year when the kids were in the same town at the same college, they went out for Chinese together. It about made me cry.

Okay now. Pretty sure you are all bored to tears with this non-cohesive rambling.

What I've Been Up To

Listening to... our new, quieter refrigerator! And as a bonus... it keeps the food cold!

Thankful for... my husband who always loves me. Even though he knows all the icky stuff way deep inside me, he loves me. I am one lucky girl.

Enjoying... my shorter hair. And the cool fall weather.

In the kitchen... tomatoes waiting to be made into soup, I received a new recipe from a friend I think I will try tonight. I should make some fresh bread too.

Sewing... a quilted cover for my sewing machine. I'm using scraps from a wall-hanging quilt I made from Mary Engelbreit fabrics. The fabric makes me happy.

Reading... "The Piano Shop on The Left Bank." Kind of interesting, kind of not.

Striving for... a merry heart, a gentle tone.

In the yard/garden... Impatiens that have been beautiful, but will probably succomb to a freeze in the not too distant future. Purple mums that are about done too. Another season ending, another season beginning.

Praying for... a job for my newly married son and a few others I know are either in need of a job or just a different job.

In the CD player today... Charlie Hall's Falling Into Daybreak. Love Come For Me, Center, Marvelous Light, Your Glory Endures Forever, Micah 6:8... basically love the CD.

Watching... the leaves turning colors. Looking forward to seeing them in Wisconsin.

Just Finished Reading... the book of Job. Man. I wish I understood the reason for about 35 of those chapters.

Studying... Matthew in our Small Group. I'm looking forward to some great discussions ahead.

Over-indulging on... homemade salsa! Soooo yummy. And yes, there are chips eaten along with the salsa.

Trying out... a discipleship/mentor relationship with a young mom. Really new territory for me!

Gearing up for... winter in the Great White North again.

Looking forward to... a 10 day vacation with my wonderful husband! We haven't done something with just the two of us for this long in 18 years!

How about you??

More Trivia About Me Than You Probably Ever Really Wanted To Know

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7am (!) I had a really good reason to get up that early.

2. How do you like your steak? Medium Rare

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Post Grad. It was pretty funny. I saw it in the afternoon and had the theater all to myself! How cool is that?

4. What is your favorite TV show? Most anything on HGTV. I really like a show called "Colour Confidential".

5. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? With my husband and not too far away from my kids.

6. What did you have for breakfast? A homemade smoothie.

7. What’s your favorite cuisine? Seafood or Really Good Chinese. And by Really Good Chinese I mean not very Americanized Chinese.

8. What foods do you dislike? Mushy vegetables, liver... not a very long list... I'm not too picky, I guess.

9. Where is your favorite place to eat? HuaZho's or Jumbo's. Unfortunately they are both in Singapore. In the USA? Ummm... I like On The Border and McAlister's Deli and Five Guys.

10. What is your favorite salad dressing? Blue Cheese, hands down. I made some homemade Blue Cheese dressing not too long ago with Maytag Blue Cheese. Oh man. I was in heaven.

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Toyota Highlander.

12. What are your favorite clothes? Denim capris (which could be a problem when the cold weather sets in soon). Other than that I would love to hand out in my jammies all day. Too bad I can't wear then to the grocery store.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? New Zealand. And even better, my kids. :)

14. Is the cup half empty or half full? Usually half empty, but I really would rather it be half full. Trying to figure out how to work on that.

15. Where would you want to retire? Next to my husband and wherever my grandchildren live.

16. What is your favorite time of the day? When my wonderful husband comes home from work.

17. Where were you born? A little town in Iowa.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Baseball. Or Basketball. But I'm not really a very big sports fan.

19. Are you a bird watcher? Sometimes I watch the birdfeeder outside our bedroom window. Mostly I don't have the patience.

20. Are you a morning person or a night person? Absolutely a night person. My brain seriously doesn't function well until after 10am no matter what time I wake up.

21. What did you want to be where you were little? I don't remember ever dreaming about a career. I always wanted to be a wife and a mommy and I got to be one!

22. What’s your best childhood memory? Staying at my grandparents' in Boone in the summer-time. I would get to watch "The Floppy Show" while I ate lunch. My grandma let me put sugar on my tomato slices. Grandpa bought me candy and slipped me money (a quarter or a dollar) and always said, "Don't tell your grandma." We would watch the Iowa State Fair daily updates on TV at night. I remember going downtown Boone with my grandparents on Thursday nights (the stores were open late) and watching the people go by.

23. Do you always wear your seat belt? Yes, yes, yes!

24. Do you have any pet peeves? Neighborhood dogs that bark and bark and bark and bark and the owners are oblivious.

25. Favorite type of pizza? Canadian Bacon and Mushroom.

26. Favorite flower? Yellow Roses. I carried them in our wedding.

27. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate with chocolate with Hot Fudge.

28. Have you done anything spontaneous lately? Since I have been trying to think of something for the last 20 minutes, I'm thinking I haven't done anything very spontaneous in recent memory. Hmmm... I'll have to make a plan to fix that. ;)

29. Do you like your job? Yes! I have gone from a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) to a SAHWAHM (stay-at-home-wife-and-home-manager)

30. Do you like broccoli? Yummy!

Randomness

Just some random things rattling around in my head:

• I don't like those dreams where I am trying to find something or someplace and I keep looking and looking and never quite get there. I woke up quite worn out this morning.
• The dogs on either side of us are wearing on me. (5 total) They like to bark too much and spend too much time alone.
• I don't like dirty windows, but I don't like washing them very much. My grandma would be ashamed. She tried to teach me how to wash windows and was quite particular about them.
• I am praising God the Protector that my son didn't get hurt in a car accident this morning. But not so sure the car will make it through.
  
• Family relationships are tough sometimes.
• I just discovered this morning that there is a whole season of "Gilmore Girls" I haven't seen! I am so psyched!
• Head massages during the shampoo at the salon are the best!
• What is the point of making a pair of tweezers that cannot even grasp a piece of hair? Just saying...

Okay I better stop now. There really is a non-ending supply of random thoughts in my head. I wouldn't want frighten my readers too much. :)

Monday, Monday

Today, this first day of the month of June, the day of my father's birth, I learned a couple of lessons involving water.

I decided today was a good day to experiment with the table decorations for the rehearsal dinner for Caleb and Amanda. I found some awesome glass bowls from IKEA (Oh, that shopping trip will have to be another post...) to fill with water and float some daisy blossoms and slices of lemons and limes. (This was Megan's idea.) I experimented with thicker slices and thinner slices. I like the thicker ones, especially if there are seeds to remove. I plopped the lemon slices in the bowl and followed that with the lime slices. To my surprise The lime slices sunk to the bottom of the bowl! Odd. But Megan and I decided that look was okay too. A couple of hours later I looked at my master pieces and the lime slices were suspended kind of halfway up in the water. Kinda cool!

Oh I should go find my camera and post the pictures I took...

My other all important lesson, well not really a lesson as much as not thinking something through on my part until it was too late:

As I backed the SUV out of the garage to buy the lemons, lime and daisies I needed for my experiment, I thought I should start the sprinkler system. So I hopped out, left the car in the driveway, and went in the garage to get it going. Well, as I was walking back to the car, I realized I wasn't going to quite make it in the car before the sprinkler heads popped up. Just as I turned my back to get in I got hit in the back with the sprinkler! I laughed and laughed at myself and wondered what I looked like when I got out to run my errands.

Just another crazy Monday here in Minnesota!

And Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Things

Some things that make me happy:

1.Grilling. The snow is FINALLY gone and the deck is clear to get to the grill. Tonight I grilled salmon, broccoli and mushrooms. Yum!

2. Grocery shopping today. Not something that usually makes me really happy but today was great. There were a bunch of 1st or 2nd graders there on a field trip. They had split up into about three different groups and were all over the store. You could hear their little voices every where. I watched a group file by in a very orderly fashion and every one of them had hairnets on. It was so cute and I believe I did most of my shopping with a grin on my face.

3. Warm temperatures. I had on short sleeves and wore flip-flops today. :)

4. This video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Please click on it and watch the whole thing. You won't be sorry. It is amazing!

5. My iPod. It's pink. :) It makes going for a walk so much more enjoyable. I hope the neighbors don't think I'm too crazy for walking with my arms up praisin'! :) It also was kind of nice to not have anyone in the house when I got back so I could finish singing and dancing. ;)

I especially enjoyed these two songs tonight:

Shackles -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRayKxgePQI
In the Sanctuary -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioejM0W5I44

But I must say I like Travis Cottrell's version better, but you get the gist.

Shall I Ramble?

I thought maybe I should actually write something rather than just posting videos. :)

I've been out of my routine for a while. That's why I have resorted to posting videos.

Megan flew home a couple of weekends ago. It was wonderful to have her here. I just love having her around. We had been praying for her to find some work for the summer. So she pursued that while she was home. She managed to land two part-time jobs. One is in a pharmacy. We are thrilled about that because it will help her to get into the pharmacy school. Praise God for blessing her with that. Her other job is at the coffee shop she worked at during high school.

Now for a job for Caleb....

Since the kids didn't come here for spring break (they went to a conference in Colorado Springs), Pete decided we needed to declare a spring break. (Isn't he sweet?) So Pete took the week off and our break was last week A week ago yesterday we took Megan back to the airport and made our way to a Chris Tomlin concert. That was a lot of awesome music! But, can I say? It's a LOT easier to listen to music and praise our Jesus sitting down. We stood most of the 1 1/2 hour - 2 hour concert. I'm just saying.

Sunday and Monday night we stayed with some friends in the Cities. Monday and Tuesday were at a church conference. But, can I say again? I love Wi-Fi. Very much. Not much I love more than finding somewhere that has it and sitting there looking over thing on the Internet and catching up on email. I was able to do that a few times while Pete was busy conferencing.

The next few days were at home working on removing wallpaper and painting. Well, it was my wonderful husband who did all that work. I was busy with another project. (more on that later...) I'll post pictures of the new paint job when everything is put back together. It does look good!

Speaking of pictures... I have so many on my camera that I need to get on my computer so I can put some on here.

Friday Pete and I went to a lunch/theater. The play was called "Alone Together". It was about empty nesters, or so they thought. The kids kept coming back. It was pretty good and Pete thought we probably liked it because of our stage in life right now.

After lunch we both had terrible headaches and didn't feel up to the shopping we had talked about. We found one of those great places with the Wi-Fi and vegged. I think the bagels helped the headaches. :)

We ended the evening with Pete's brother and his family. It was a nice visit and the cake my sister-in-law served was yummy!

Saturday afternoon I worked on cleaning the floors that were a mess because of the painting. (I'm sure you really wanted to know that...)

We met some friends for pizza Saturday night. It was a great evening of yummy pizza and wonderful fellowship. I've been kind of bummed since then as I really realized that they won't be coming back here for worship. They are concentrating on planting a church where they live and are attending a church nearer to make some local connections. Totally what they need to do, but I will miss them on Sunday mornings.

Sunday morning we woke up to about 3 inches of snow! So not right on April 5th! Yesterday was the first Sunday for our new pastor. He came from Florida. I was amused with his comment about the snow. He said that he thought a lot of us looked out our windows that morning and thought of the verse: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. I laughed as I whispered to Pete, "I think most of us Minnesotans looked out our windows this morning and said, "Enough already!"

So here we are at another week. I should probably get moving on the laundry and go run some errands.

Happenings

• My friend, Jen, and I hosted a baby shower Sunday afternoon. I failed to take any pictures. Silly me. We were expecting 6 or 7. Hoping for 10. And 19 (!) showed up! We were so excited. I was happy it all turned out okay. Can't wait to meet the sweet little boy when he is born.
  
• I cleaned out a cabinet I have in my sewing room. It's the place I stash things when I don't know what else to do with them. It was a mess. I reorganized and threw a bunch of stuff away. I have a pile of things to use to redecorate the landing on the stairway. (We stripped the wallpaper and repainted a wall in the stairway.) I also have a pile of things to burn. We have friends (Jen & her hubby) who have bonfires during the summer and we have this weird thing about burning things like old household decorations. It makes for a fun evening!
• I learned last week that it's a good idea to actually put coffee in the coffee maker otherwise just filtered hot water comes out. :) Fortunately I caught this before too long into the cycle and before the company came over.
• I'm getting ready to start a new quilt. My goal is for this to not take me a year to make. Hopefully a month.
• We saw "New In Town" last Friday night. It was supposed to be set in New Ulm, MN. Yes, there really is a town with that name. It's about 45 miles south of here. And no, the movie wasn't filmed there. Most of the movie was unrealistic, but it was funny. If you see and and you don't live in Minnesota, just remember the unrealistic part...
• Speaking of Minnesota... I decided I was a bit nuts last week when it was 35-37 and I was out running errands just wearing a sweatshirt. No coat. It felt great!