Shilah Writes

More than is needed... You think?  So, just for fun and just because my brain is funny that way... Redundancy is like a photographer taking a picture of someone taking a picture.  Or a writer writing about writing.  Or, as I heard on the radio this morning, a study taken of a study about whether those in the political field talk about religion too much.  Who comes up with this stuff?  Redundancy could also be talking about redundancy.... Just wanted to confuse you for the day... Have a good one...

               First day of school... about a month ago already... Where does the time go?           On top the mountain...            Looking down on that beautiful tree.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?  I don't expect you to get my thrill over a silly tree.               My bohemian chicks...   As for the solid ground,  It was a thought that came  to me while listening to the message yesterday at church.  We had a guest speaker whom spoke on technology and the like; how we should deal with it and how much time we should be taking using it. A good message.   This is not an overview on the message.  More, its about me trying to apply it to myself.  A good portion of the sermon was about our use of smart phones and fb .  I wanted to feel cocky about the fact that I have ne...

     Sunday morning and wife watches husband sitting in church with arms folded.  He looks exhausted, yet he is here.  He worked through Saturday night. 1 a.m.- 8 a.m.  Wife fed him hot breakfast after which he showered and went straight to bed.  She watched him sleeping soundly as she dressed for church. It fills her with an emotion hard to put into words.  This is the one who left her side all night to be there for an older, lonely woman in the back of an ambulance and then after returning to town hours later, turning around and taking a mom with a very sick two year old to another town, [a very tired mom who was wanting a few precious hours of sleep as much as the baby would allow the EMT to care for her/him.]      Sometimes words of affirmation aren't enough to express the sentiments the wife feels for her husband.  She wants to say a lot, to say every emotion that fills her heart through the hours of the cold, l...

I show you this to show you the next picture.  Our couches of synthetic leather are going to pieces after five short years of loving life... And so I made these ex-large pillow slip clovers to hide the seats that are doing the same falling apart thing.  I left the one un-tucked so you can see what it looks like in real life.  Couch covers only truly look good when no one sits on them.  The fabric was one gynormous drape I found at the thrift store.  I like imperfect things you can live with peaceably. Last week we were blessed with the making of 150 quarts of applesauce.  I set up a folding table in the center of the kitchen and liked it so much that as soon as the mess was cleaned up, I did a little shuffling of furniture and found a small filing cabinet for Bruce's office corner so he could sacrifice a desk. I also found this smallish, wooly looking rug at the thrift store and made my own kitchen island.  It's my cutting, chopping, ...

     This week I was reminded that there are so many things happening behind the scenes that we cannot know, because we are not given all the information surrounding our circumstances.  We live busy, fast lives and get upset when things don't go our way or we have one of those crazy days where NOTHING is predictable or plannable.  We spend the whole day putting out little fires and finally crash into bed at night still not knowing what THAT was all about.      Friday was one of those days.  The details are a little foggy now but it involved the mail truck not getting into town with the mail till ten in the morning so the people that sort the mail weren't able to start their job till then.  This makes people in the community wonder where there mail is and possibly even grouchier at their mailman.  The mail truck was delayed by a bad accident on the Long Bridge, in Sandpoint.        I was havi...

   Seen on a church billboard while driving home:  "Nobody needs a vacation more than the one that just had one."  I know its not a new quote, but it made me laugh when I saw it while driving through Montana someplace. Vacation is a wonderful thing.  You leave finally after months of planning and arranging things so you can be gone for two weeks.  And still you have to have faith, trust, and hope that the people back home can do your job and that you've paid your bills and that there will be enough money left when you get back to pay the bills.  Sounds like a great tone in which to start things. No?  But, because it was vacation, we did leave it all behind and felt at least a small portion of carefree and irresponsible. We drove hard and long the first afternoon, all night, and most of the next day and then stopped in Iowa for an early long night. Wonderful, wonderful rest after going hard.  The next d...

    Life has its moments of despair and confusion.  Some plans might not work out as you had wished.  Some days you have to practise giving thanks to remember that God has the best path through the maze.     And then, there are glimpses of the eternal when you notice a miracle take place in front of your eyes; glimpses of God at work that nobody else would view as a miracle but that's what it means to you.      You might be given a small plot of land that is full of rocks and boulders and broken down fences but if you get out of bed at six and go out to the gardens that are there among the rocks, boulders, and broken down fences, with a cup of blessed coffee in hand you might see that there will always be flowers somewhere in the midst of the broken down rock walls.  You might have to look for them but they can be found.  There may not be an abundance of choices to pick from but a few clippings of the...