I didn’t end up sewing yesterday, but I did get misc little puttering, putting away clutter, cleaning done. Then I got to have my niece all.to.my.self! For an hour and a half. Vince went to the high school youth group retreat (gone Fri afternoon – Sun afternoon) and Christine went to a friend’s house for a few hours. it was weird. really weird. Both of my parents were gone too – it really was just totally me, by myself here at the house.

Throughout the process of the day I realized how difficult of a time I had with not really getting anything specific done. But I couldn’t really muster up the energy to care. I didn’t even realize how badly I needed the mental break from all I’ve been trying to figure out. I pretty much mentally shut down. Spent time in tears. Plus, I’ve been reading Grace for the Good Girl….ugh! she so totally describes me and I’m so guilty of thinking my doing things right is somehow better or more righteous. {sigh} I know I say it often, but it’s so true – I’m so indescribably thankful for a Heavenly Father who freely forgives and extends grace over. and over. and over again.

To prove it, my bro & sis-in-law asked if I was available to watch Ali for them to go out on a date – I jumped on the chance to have Ali all to me. I wasn’t sure how she would take it – she normally/totally interacts with Vince; and if he’s not here, it’s all Christine. I don’t usually get more than a hug when she comes & leaves. But.it.was.wonderful! She sat in my lap & we did a sticker book (Fancy Nancy, of course) for an hour!!! My love tank went from parched to feeling full. {So.so.so. Love having littles around. So, totally, and completely just what I needed.} Christine came home while Ali & I were eating dinner, she played with Christine a bit, got jammies on; then she sat in my lap for another hour while we watched (she watched, I dozed on/off) Peter Rabbit. Again, blissful for this auntie. Who was so aching for some little arms/body in my lap.

So, we’ve been going through the book of Jude at church. It has been really good – of course. Today was Jude 17-23. Here are just a few of the many notes I jotted down.

I want to remember to choose to live by this knowledge.

This morning totally went with the needed reset on my thinking – I can’t do enough to make anything with ‘my’ life in the Lord better.  He already did it all. On the cross. My God, my Heavenly Father, gave His Son, Jesus, to die (in my place, for my sins) on the cross, then raised Him up so I could have eternal salvation. I need to quit stressing about everything and enjoy the life He has given. This is what I heard for me this morning, I hope and pray it can help someone else as well.

God’s love is all the good His heart desires for me. Specific to me. It may not look the same for me as for another. We can walk away, but it’s best if we don’t. Stay where He wants us, in the safe harbor of His love. Our experiences will be different, but He’s provided the safety for us to use.

Then, a little later, as our Pastor was describing praying, he said it was a lot like riding a bike. No matter how much reading you do, you have to feel the balance to keep the bike up and going. No one can do it for you. It is a different experience for each.

Then, a little later yet – how best to keep up communication with our Heavenly Father:

1. Scripture – Spend time in the Scriptures, reading them consistently. daily.
2. Speak – preferably out loud while praying. This keeps us on task, reminds us we are praying. Otherwise our praying tends to become more wishful thinking or worrying. Neither of those are praying, communing with our Heavenly Father in Jesus’ name.
3. Time – slow down, allow the necessary time to pray. Again, pray slower. saying the words out loud.  or in a whisper. or just moving your lips. but NOT just thinking our prayers.

So, ya…pretty much hit with the 2×4 to slow down. Rest in His love for me. His provision. His protection. His plan. His will. Enjoy life. Quit worrying about getting it all right the first time. How about you? Do you struggle with the un-ending to-do list getting the better of you or your attitude? What do you find is the best way to make yourself slow down, but not lose momentum? 

Eye candy: This from June 2011, and this beautiful tree is in Steamboat, Colorado.  This is from the amazing trip we had last summer, we were at my cousin’s magazine photo shoot! AWESOME!!!  It was such an amazing day – warm. went to a Botanical Garden. kids got to be in an outdoor swimming pool [for hours] while my uncle supervised. then mom & I got to go see the ending of a for-real-life-magazine-photo-shoot in an over-the-top-amazing house. The photo was taken with my point-and-shoot Sony that is w.o.r.n out… so glad I didn’t have my ‘new’ camera (which I can soon change out!)…. 

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But I wanted to write. So I did anyway.

I didn’t worry about following grammar rules or doing things right. I just wrote. This challenge came at a good time for me too, helped me stay focused. I know this, but always forget — I do not like October. October is a particularly hard month for me, it is an icky month. It’s not fall. It’s not winter. Everything is dead. There is no color. It is too dark. And as I mentioned in other posts, October carries some life turning point baggage. I like to remember October when I spent the years of 7-14 living in northern Wisconsin. Then October was good. I feel so excited that tomorrow is November 1st. {Confession: I started listening to Christmas music this last weekend just to get through and finish up the month.}

I will definitely be more consistent with blogging {at least for a while}. After all – I did not finish all the house projects I wanted completed. They are close, but not 100%. I have been collecting pictures though. Some of the projects started four years ago!!!!  Really, that is pretty ridiculous – but a lot has happened. Anyway, I will get those up for you to see. Eventually.

Mt. McKinley in the dead of winter. So pretty!

I still have a hard time believing I did it! 31 Days of blogging. in a row! While I won’t keep it up forever, I am feeling the need to continue just a bit more. I’ve decided I want to focus on Thankfulness as we enter the Thanksgiving season. {I LOVE this time of year – from here on out. I can’t believe we are here again already! A year ago our family was coming in one week. This year will be MUCH quieter.}

 This is not a new idea, but I’m going to post something I am thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.

Anyone want to join me?

I don’t know how to do linky’s. If there is an interest and a reason to figure out the linky process – I will. At the very least, if you are going to post regularly on what you are thankful for – will you please leave me a comment so I can visit and share in your thankfulness and blessings with you?

**okay – the wind is howling…. I’m going to quit editing, I’ve already lost power once & had to re-calibrate the modem. It took me 45 min to get modem back on & into WordPress again. So I want to get this posted before my power flickers again. Please excuse stupid sentences or obvious what? mistakes.**

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Guess what! The real new member of the family I wanted to talk about has arrived!  I’m an auntie again!!!!  

New life is precious. Always. ~~~ New life is beautiful. Always.

New life is amazing. Always. ~~~ New life is awe’ing, mind blowing. Always.

Only by the grace of an amazing Creator God do we get to experience new life, are we allowed to value and appreciate new life.

Baby is a girl. A sweet, beautiful, amazingly cute newborn baby girl.

I now have 4 nieces (2 sharing a birthday) & 1 nephew. I am blessed.

For being a week overdue, it was a FAST process. Less than an hour from knowing something might be happening to baby being born. After we all saw baby & mom and knew all was well, we just kind of sat there stunned, comparing notes. Checking texts and phone call logs to even try to piece it all together.

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Yes. Today is dumb, it is a documentation of what happens when you ask your 15 year old {boy} to refill the bathroom soap and he’s quite possibly done too much math. Yes, he thought he was hilarious! 😀 Today’s 31 Days: Boys … need I say more? 

Notice on the far left: the container to be refilled.

On the right: the refill bottle with the small container’s pump

What a goof!  That was the kind of kid help I got today. All day.

Makes for a tired mom….

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• Canon & Nikon are nearly equal. It basically comes down to personal opinion/experience with the brand. I’m not coming from this perspective. I’ve had positive experience with several brands.

My first memories of a camera are my dad having a Nikon, and him selling it to pay for life. Shortly after (or part of the exchange) he gave me a Brownie, with black & white film. I had other 110 & 35mm’s with color film throughout high school.

I had an Olympus 21 years ago. I loved it.  I wore it out.

I had a Canon 12 years ago. I loved it.  I wore it out.

I had a Sony 7 years ago. I loved it. I wore it out.

The Olympus was my high school graduation gift from my parents. It was a 35mm film camera. I loved everything about that camera, it was never very far from me, but it developed a leak in a seal allowing light it. At that point digital had come on the scene (or at least at a price for more public to own them) & it would have cost more to fix than to buy a new camera. The Canon was my first digital point-and-shoot, again from my parents – but for Christmas. It was a great camera. I used it up too. The Sony was the first camera I bought for myself. I knew I wanted to learn more about photography. I didn’t learn anything – but I had an awesome camera! :-D. I absolutely LOVED the 18x zoom and the macro I could set on a piece of material and it would focus & take an amazing picture. I love the pictures from that camera, any pictures I’m posting from last year are most likely from the Sony.

Now, I’ve determined I want to learn photography to take “real photos”, with a “real” camera. I’ve been so disappointed with the Nikon, but everything I read I have to believe I got the fluke bad camera and all will be good next time. For sure, I will be trying it out hard & testing to make sure I like it. If I don’t, then it’ll go back. It won’t sit in the box for over 30 days before I try it….

• Supposedly Nikon’s glass is a touch better, but it isn’t by much.
• Canon & Nikon alternate one best feature for another. It really comes to how it feels in your hand – which is going to be different for each person. For me personally, the Canon makes my thumb/wrist hurt to hold it & try to push the button – I went and tried again today. It’s a pretty much obvious – I can’t expect to take lots of pictures if it hurts to take one. That hand cramp is why I bought the Nikon over the Canon last year. 
• So… do any of you have any suggestions or recommendations on whether to get another D3100 or move up to a D5100? I have felt a D7000 in my hands, but from what I read there isn’t much different between the D5000 & D7100 — except the feel in my hand. Is it worth the couple extra hundred? Ugh – decisions!

[Source]

So – what does that have to do with my lateness on posting today? I spent the time I planned to write listening to my daughter spill her heart’s burdens. Being 12 is so hard. I thought it was over 20 years ago; I can’t imagine now, in today’s society. I remember the insecurity, the struggle to figure who is really your friend. I am so hoping and praying she has a better understanding of this than I did. It’s taken me until the last few years to learn how to stand up for myself and I still don’t do it well. I figured you wouldn’t mind. You would forgive me :-).

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1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Won’t you please give me your best five minutes on:

Today’s 5MinFriday word:

LOOK…

GO

Look – what do you see? Do you see the whole picture in front of you?

When you take a walk, do you see just the path and trees or houses along the side? OR do you see all the plants and leaves? I tend to see flowers, berries, the small things – but I’ll miss the new house being built.

Often we tell someone “I’ll look at it” – does this mean you’ll just look at it? OR do you stop read it, absorb it, think about what it means?

I find the more busy I am, the more rushed I feel, the more I get behind AND the more I look but don’t see.

I want to see. See what God has provided. What He has created.

I want to see my children. Their hearts. Them – each day. I want them to know I see them, not just look at (or past) them.

I am choosing to slow down, so I can LOOK and see that the Lord is good. It’s all there, I just have to look. Lately, I have been very guilty of looking, but not seeing. Kind of like hearing, but not listening. Just going through the motions, but not being present.

STOP

Story of the picture: This would be an example of my looking on a hike…. This purple flower is no taller than my pinkie finger is long, which is not even 2″; it was on a mountainside with a magnificent view! The bulk of my pictures from that hike? The tundra, flowers in the tundra, berries in the tundra, and the dew drops… A mountain taller than the bump you see in the picture below :-D.

Linking up with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. Come join us in writing for 5 Minutes.

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Here are some random notes of the last 24 hours:

• I got to hold my new baby niece! I love, Love, LOVE holding babies. I got to hold her for a couple hours last night. She was 4 days old, just like her older sister was the first time I held her.
• I ended up canceling a mom & kid get together for this afternoon/evening and even though it was a hard decision to make, I have been thankful for the time to just be. I really needed it. I have been able to almost wrap up a ton of projects. Projects I thought would be finished up a month or more ago. Soon I will have pictures of finished project areas of my house. My goal for before the month is over – to have everything clean. and put away. at the same time!
• I love my flowers. I bought these a week ago for myself. 12 years of being a single mom. Yes, I buy myself flowers. I love brown roses, I can’t seem to look for them when they are in stock so when I saw these brown carnation type daisy/mum [obviously, I don’t know what they are] AND brown’ish and white baby’s breath I had to. I’ve never seen either before and the multi-colored baby’s breath totally stopped me. These are over a week old & still look great!
• It has come to my attention there is something messed up here on the blog. It has to do with comments. I’m sorry if you are getting weird spammy, comment emails from “me”. I don’t know what is up and it’s been pretty overwhelming trying to figure it out. I also just realized there were a ton of comments labeled as spam in the last two days, only 2 of them were legitimate. All but one of the spam are coming from different facebook profiles. Some  comments are written in gobbledygook (haha! did you know that would show up in spell check to correct how you spell it?!), some are actually written as if they are responses to a post – but they have nothing to do with what I wrote. Does anyone know what I should do?

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Here are my flowers – together. As a beautiful bouquet :-D. Aren’t they pretty?

I don’t hold firmly to not working on the Sabbath, in the sense you might initially think. I do, however, make sure Sunday is set aside for a day of rest. In this crazy, busy, social anytime of day or night culture, this is hard.

I’m not legalistic about this, but I do try really hard to keep Sunday as a day to do only what I really want. If I don’t feel like checking email, or working on the computer, or doing laundry. Then I don’t. But there are times that doing something plain, simple, and normal – like doing laundry – is relaxing to me, then I’ll do it on Sunday. Sometimes I get to Saturday morning and absolutely check-out. then my day of rest becomes Saturday. Sometimes I need two days – one to start relaxing and one to feel relaxed – when that happens, I’ve gone too long without taking a break. I’m at that point.

I actually have been here for a bit. Unfortunately there are many side effects of too much stress for me. One of them is, I am learning, the whole gluten issue is very related to stress. I have wondered if this was true for the last three weeks, this weekend it has been confirmed. When I am stressed, tired, not had enough rest, and just done. I can’t handle gluten, as in I can’t even touch it! Three weeks ago, I opened a package of cookies and moved them from their container to a plate. Over the next couple hours I remember thinking I didn’t feel great, but thought it was because it was a Friday night and I’d been at the church with lots middle schoolers. [total reason for a headache, don’t you think] Anyway, the next morning my face was puffy and my eyelids were swollen; over the last three weeks I’ve had lingering headaches, that icky all-consuming tired feeling, my elbows ache, my hands, hips, and ankles hurt; I’m crabby; my words don’t come out of my mouth correctly; and my stomach is just icky. Vince asked me repeatedly the first 3 or 4 days if I’d eaten gluten. I was sure I hadn’t but didn’t understand what my problem was, he was sure I had. I had a doctor appt and asked – she said she didn’t want to believe it was true, but she has noticed if she’s run down that gluten in the air/touching hands briefly tends to be a weak spot. I still didn’t want to believe it. Well, today is the end of the three weeks. There are symptoms & body signals I have learned that happen at 3 weeks after I get gluten. I believe it now. UGh! How dumb!!

The up side to this. I do not have a choice, I have to figure out a way to reduce stress. I don’t want to live this sensitive to gluten. It’s in too many places. I’m actually pretty excited about this. I always feel guilty for wanting to slow down; but there is a “valid” reason now. :-D.

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The thing I have found: when trying to clean up one mess, I make another. usually the cleaning up, organizing, re-evaluating mess is worse than when I started.

Have you ever noticed that? Have you noticed when there is something ugly inside needing to come out, it gets worse before it gets better. Ugh!  So glad God is in charge of the purifying process. I’d chicken out of the final firing, I’m sure of it.

So, here are my house messes I’m working on getting in order. Right now I can’t find the kitchen pictures. I will, but for now you get the living room, bedroom, old “office”, and new shelves. This office mess is the accumulation of an insane campaign summer, recoup time, then tearing it apart as we started school. My goal was to get our living room, 2 desk areas, and an office into our 1 living room. {Besides just the “a place for everything & everything in it’s place” idea.}

Please don’t judge me [seriously]. Yes, it is bad. Which is why it was so overwhelming to tear into. I knew it would get worse [way worse] before it would be better, and it would take hours. days. weeks. before it ‘felt’ right or comfortable. We are so tightly shoe-horn packed in I always have to measure first, but sometimes it’s just too tight to be feasible.

My desk/office {3’x4′ corner of my living room} at the end of the campaign….

The ‘new’ living room {14’x14′} with 2 desk areas and office space…. not done, but getting closer…. {example of measuring but too tight of space. See my desk chair on the far right? Yes, it fit. Yes, I could sit at the desk. Buuut, I couldn’t stand in front of the chair to reach and turn on the light (I’m 5’1″)….but to move the desk the 2″ further from the wall, I had to move the couch 2″ to the left. To move the couch, the rug had to slide over 2″. To slide the rug, the trunk had to be off it, there isn’t enough space over between the bookshelf, blue chair and end of couch for the trunk…. When the living room floor is only 5′ wide – can you imagine how much stuff had to move to be able to move the trunk? That is why it takes so long to get all the pieces of our home puzzle in the right place, facing the right direction, in a way all 3 of us like.}

What the living room re-do did to our bedroom {13’x14′}….See off to the left in the above picture? Ya, that would be a beautiful roll top desk under those stacked books….after a month the books never looked any different, so I realized it was going to have to go. It just couldn’t hold or organize enough in my space to make it work, no matter how much I love it….. {perspective: door on my left, closet behind me, daughter’s bed to my right, sewing to my right front of picture, my bed straight ahead behind pile/under stacks of books.} In case you are wondering – yes, apparently, I have a book addiction. so does my son. so does my daughter….. hmmm.

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 Trust in the Lord [Lean NOT on my understanding] Acknowledge Him

Be not wise in my eyes [fear the Lord] RUN from evil

There are some very hard situations I know of right now, but I know, that I know, that I know: He will provide. He has it all under control. All is for His glory. I just need to do my part: PRAY. Not try to figure it out on my own. Listen for Him to speak. Turn to Him! Run from evil!

This is life at it’s very best here on earth. We were made to commune with Him.

I thought The Message said it pretty well too …..

This is day 23 of 31 Days. My ongoing topic is 31 Days of Life. Today is about trusting. Trusting a living, loving, Heavenly Father.

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