Don't Give Up On Me!

Hi everyone! I haven't left the country . . . . yet. I have been running around like a . . . . chicken with her head cut off. (Have you every seen a chicken do that? Me neither.)

Anyway, I have been busy doing this:

PACKING, AND PACKING AND ELIMINATING ITEMS AND ADDING ITEMS. Shopping, shopping. Working, and working and getting everything done ahead. Whew I need a vacation for sure. That's right, we are getting ready to leave for a long awaited vacation.
(Am I the only one whose husband DOESN'T pack his stuff? Wouldn't it be nice to have a wife to do things for you?)

May house gets messy while I pack. Can't you tell!

PACKING
WEIGHING THE SUITCASES
BAGGING THE LIQUIDS

PLANNING THE WARDROBE


CAN'T FORGET THESE


I just love this evening bag. It has a beaded handle, too.

This is the one I use the most. It pretty much goes with everything!

I will try to leave a day-by-day itinerary before I leave and then you will know where I'm going;)

Love,

I've been tagged....

I have been tagged from my real life blogging friend, Valerie. I am to tell how I met and fell in love with my husband.

Well . . . . one Sunday morning when I was about 6 years old, I was sitting on the front pew at church with my little girl friends. It was the time between Sunday School and morning worship, the service had not yet started.

Being a bunch of wiggly little girls, we were twisting and turning around looking at all the people. As I remember it, the church was full. I noticed this little boy sitting next to his mother and I realized that I did not know them.

As it turned out, his father was the guest speaker for the day and was being considered to fill the vacant pastoral position. When we turned around and looked at them, his mother saw us and leaned down and said, "Those girls are looking at you." He just buried his head in her side and grinned.

His father became our pastor for a little over 4 years. During this time my husband's sister was married. It was the first wedding I had ever attended. On the trip home from the wedding, I asked my mother,

"Can I have a wedding like that?"

Mom said "If you grow up and marry and good Christian young man, yes, you can have a pretty wedding like that."

I responded with, "Who, someone like Charles?"

Well . . . just call me a baby prophet because 11 years later I married him! :)

He was my first date and my last. (There were others in between ;)

During the last dating period, he lived near Dallas and I in Oklahoma. We dated for two years and were formally engaged for 1 year.

Yes, 38 years ago I had that beautiful wedding and I did marry a good Christian young man. He has been my pastor for 36 years. He's a very good speaker ( Oh, . . . . thank God!)

August 7, 1970

Love,

Black Buggy Day

BLACK BUGGY DAY
in
North Eastern Oklahoma

I can hardly believe that it has been a week since I posted last but my schedule is so stretched thin right now. I had promised to take pictures at the Amish festival this past weekend so here they are.

There was a quite a few people there when we arrived.

There were many booths: Food, crafts, flowers, knives and more.

The children had so much fun racing their stick horses.

The women's event was skillet throwing.

There was different horse events for the men and one or two women.

I thought this was a neat picture.
She was eating chicken and noodles.

This little darling caught my eye every time she passed by me.
She is about 4 years old.

These little guys were so cute!
They were watching the cattle corralling.

On the right, she is cooking homemade noodles!

Below are some Amish cooks in the restaurant tent. They are preparing all kinds of yummy foods.

Oh . . . and the baked goods!
Yum!

A clown making balloon creations for the children.

Fun for the kids!

The children's "train".
This little thing putt --putted around all day long.

There were carriage rides in this beautiful white carriage.

And of course, the line to the ladies "room".

It was such a beautiful day. The festival we went to the weekend before was rainy due to Ike being on our heels!

The area this festival was in has many Amish families who open their homes and restaurants. You must have a minimum of 10 in order to make reservations. They serve the meal family style and it is so delicious. Our church has gone as a group many, many times! It's best to not eat and save you appetite for their wonderful meal. If you ever get to go to something like this, don't miss it. Experience it at least one time.!

Love,

Happy Birthday dear MIL

Sunday was my MIL's birthday. She was 86 years young. We had a birthday dinner for her complete with a cake and ice cream. I fixed her favorite: roast beef, creamed potatoes, gravy, veggies, salad, sour dough bread and dessert.

She was my pastor's wife when I was 6 years. We go w-a-a-a-ay back.

Here's the birthday cake (spice - it's almost autumn),
cream cheese frosting w/toasted pecans.
Check out the candle -- it's a crayon candle.
Can you tell that small children dominate the domain at our house?

(Oops! That's a dead gave-away that this celebration was not planned
well in advance or there would have been an adult candle stickn' out of that cake :)

I'm really not cheap. I didn't have enough candles so I just used one.
Let's face it . . . 86 candles = house fire!

I must admit, it was pretty good!

Here she is with some of her grandchildren - my kids!.
Little Bryce is Great Grandchild #20!

May she have more happy and healthy years ahead.

Love,

It's raining, it's pouring . . . .

Saturday, hubs and I got up fairly early and headed out the door to Tupelo, OK to the Annual Amish Auction.

The Amish in this area raise money for their school by having an auction and selling their awesome food, furniture, buggies, animals and much more. There are other vendors there as well.

We anticipated a nice day in spite of the forecast for possible rain. Just as we got to the home stretch toward the auction, it started raining.

A little later the traffic began to slow down and eventually came to a complete stop. As we came closer to our turn, we saw the reason. A traffic jam . . . . on a DIRT road!

Here's a shot of the traffic behind us! I have never seen so much traffic on a DIRT road.

Finally we got through the gate and found a parking place. My camera could not capture the the sea of cars!










There were several large tents with vendor's booths. There was so much to choose from: Home Decor, Autumn, Christmas, Halloween items, jewelry, purses, candles, hair accessories, western theme items, country items, food of all kinds and even hermit crabs.









Yes, the Amish were very visible. These ladies were checking out the hermit crabs. The children were adorable in their Amish attire.

I wanted to take more pics but my hands were full with a camera and a very wet umbrella. Can your spell D-r-o-w-n-e- d R-a-t?

Hubs decided that he didn't want to follow me around shopping so he decided to head out to the auctions. Yes, there was more than one (how I wish I would have know that at the beginning). We did the stupid thing and did not set a time and place to meet. Mistake #1!

Mistake #2: I had forgotten to charge my cell phone :)

After doing some shopping, I decided to go to the auction tent to look for hubs. I searched in different places for about an hour. I asked myself, "where would a phlegmatic hang out in this weather?" I guess I don't know where a phlegmatic would have been because he wasn't in any of the places I looked so I decided to check the car.

Not there, either.

I got in the car and began reading a book while waiting to see if he would show.

No sight of him!

Back to the auction tent. Still couldn't find him. It finally stopped raining so I started searching in areas that I hadn't even seen while tromping around in the rain.

Guess what I discovered?

There were a least 4 auction tents.! NO WONDER I couldn't find him. I looked for the buggies thinking surely he would be there.

Nope!

As I started up the hill, I heard my name paged. Then I looked up and saw him with a BIG smile on his face. We started laughing and shared our adventure of looking for each other. -- in the rain! He had started looking for me about the time I went to the car!!! I guess my secret ambition of becoming a PI just went down the ditch with all the rain. ;)

We ate a yummy lunch of Amish chicken and noodles before heading home. On the trip back, it began raining again! We were in for even more rain as hurricane Ike whirled passed our area.

This Saturday we will be going to another one near Tulsa. There will be buggy races at this one and hopefully NO RAIN!

Love

Learn it with laughter...

We really ARE wired differently. This is Mark Gungor of "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage". I have the entire seminar on DVD and it is so good and enlightening.

Enjoy.



Love,

Tagged!

I've been tagged by Bethany over at Singing Over Me. She's a new bloggy friend :) So I am to share 6 most unspectacular things about myself and then tag other people. (Actually, she tagged me several days ago and I'm just now getting to this.)

Here goes.....

The Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. List 6 unspectacular quirks about yourself.
4. Tag 6 bloggers by linking to them on your post, then commenting on their blog to let them
know "their it".

6 Unspectacular Thing About Me

1. If something is not centered or angled just right (such as furniture, pictures, etc) it drives me nuts until it's adjusted. I guess I have a phobia! :o

2. I the love lemon flavored anything.

3. I love to read, especially self help books and Bible studies.

4. I would do just about anything for my kids and grand kids :)

5. I don't really like to write, yet . . . . I have this blog and just love being a part of this wonderful world of sisters in Christ!

6. Scrapbooking is a hobby I would like to have more space and time for.

Now, don't you feel much better that you know all this stuff about me? :)

I am supposed to tag six people. Well, Annie, Bethany , Beth, Mindy, Allison & Valerie, consider yourself tagged.

Love,

Following thingy

When I signed in to my blog a couple days ago I notice I had "1 follower".

Wow!

Woo Whoo!

Thank you sweet Rachel!

The reason for my surprise: I didn't even have a button in my sidebar for it because I didn't really believe this blog was all that followable.

Anyway, just so you know, I now have one of the "Follow this blog" thingys, too. I would love to see your sweet face over there.

Love,

Living on Leftovers

Even after my husband and I were married a few years, he was still reluctant to tell me that he absolutely hated leftovers. I, on the other hand, loved them because it kept me from cooking everyday. Finally, he told me that he didn't like Used Food!

I thought the term "used food" was quite unique and I got the message but . . . . he still got leftovers every once in a while. :) Now, (I guess out of desperation), he seems to really like them.

I am taking my Young Adult Sunday School class through a month-long study on the life of Solomon (I Kings 1 - 11). As I was reading and preparing for the life application that will come at the end of our video, one thing about Solomon's life began to stand out to me: Solomon mostly lived on spiritual leftovers.

Yes, he was God's choice as King to follow David. He asked for wisdom to know how to lead the nation of Israel and that pleased God. He built the temple for God's presence to permanently dwell among them and God was pleased. He used this wisdom to advance the kingdom. He made some good political moves for trade and peace -- good in man's eyes. Some of his political decisions led to the desecration of the nation of Israel. One of several things he did was to take pagan wives in order to have peace and good relations with other nations. Bad spiritual move. (He had 700 wives and 300 concubines.)

God told Solomon that in order for the nation of Israel to be blessed, Solomon must follow God's decrees as his father David had done. God warned Solomon over and over and over of what would happen if he failed to follow these instructions. As Solomon aged, he became more lax in obedience to God's decrees for Israel. God was not pleased.

Here's where the spiritual leftovers come in. As I was reading, I noticed that many, many times God kept Solomon from punishment because of God's love for David! Solomon was living off of his fathers blessings! After Solomon's death, his children suffered because of his disobedience. The nation of Israel revolted and divided and eventually was taken into captivity because their king failed to follow God's instructions.

Leftover blessings. Here's the problem. Solomon was not receiving blessings from his own obedience. He was living off of the overflow of the abundance of blessings from David's love, obedience and dedication to God. Just like leftover food, once it's gone, there's nothing else to eat unless we get in the kitchen and cook up another meal.

Blessings from God. I can't feast on the blessings that my parents gave me as a spiritual inheritance forever. I must receive for myself by walking in obedience on a daily basis. My children and grandchildren will inherit from us, but they, too, will have to "cook up some blessings" for themselves.

Like David , we must pass the example of rightousness to those who follow us. "Lord, give me a heart like your beloved servant David."

Love,

Time passes swiftly!

Well . . . . here it is Thursday and I haven't posted since Saturday! If I have been out of town that would be a good excuse, but I can't use that one since it would not be the truth :)

All of your gals who may be looking forward to the freedom of the empty nest -- think again. It seems that life in general will fill it back up with something. It may not be your kids, but believe me your days will be full.

I have talked with several retired people in our community and they all seem to say the same thing, "Now that I'm retired, I don't know how I ever worked a 40 hour-a-week job!"

Lord, help me! When that day comes for me, I think I may just reconsider.

My life is full . . . full of wonderful people such as my family, friends and church family. I am so blessed! At times the grace, mercy and blessings of God are overwhelming!

There are many Americans today whose lives were full and happy seven years ago. Then suddenly, a mammoth tragedy forever changed their lives and the world as they knew it when the twin towers in NYC were attacked by terrorist.

They will never forget the pristine morning that quickly clouded into heartbreak. Nor will I forget as I watched my television screen that morning in total disbelief. I just could not wrap my mind around what I was seeing. Suddenly, we Americans who had felt so safe on our home soil no long had that same sense of security.

Seven years have passed and we realize its true: our lives have been changed forever. The deep scars on the hearts of American citizens and land are healing. Those who lost loved ones in the attack are continuing to make their way, some better than others.

I did not personally know anyone who lost their life in the attack that day -- how thankful I am for that. I pray for those who have been left to carry on without the ones they loved so dearly. For some of them, these past seven years have not gone by quickly. For people like me, who ask the question, "Where has the time gone?" need to stop and count our blessings -- especially today.

Through the pandemonium of that day seven years ago, there was one thing that was driven deeper into my spirit: we cannot put our full trust in a person, in a country, in government, in a leader or in things. Full trust is to be placed in God alone. Our safety and security are in His loving hands. He is my security. He is my strength. He is my shield and fortress. He is my strong tower. In Him do I trust!

Love,

The Little Ones

I just love children. They are precious, trusting, wide-eye innocent (most of the time), funny, and just adorable. Every Wednesday night I can be found teaching the Toddler/Preschool class at church. I tell them Bible stories -- shock, shock ;) and introduce them the the alphabet, phonics, colors and shapes, etc. They come each week with great anticipation about what we will be doing in class and.... what they will eat. (They love snack time.)

This past week I brought my camera ( Yes! I remembered.) and I got some cute pics of the kids. Some of my munchkins were absent, but here's the one who were there:

They had just finished gluing the letters and the objects that begin with that letter.
They were so proud of their work!
(Ages 2, 3 & 4)

I connected my camera to the television so they could see the pictures.
Then while they could still see themselves, I took their picture again.
They are little clowns!

More clowning around!

Laughter and snacks!

Taking care of children is a ministry, even if it's changing a poopy pull-up (had one of those on this night). They respond to love, like to learn and have fun. Jesus said whatever we do unto the least of these, we do it unto Him. Well then, He had himself some fun Wednesday night! :)

Love,