Westwoods

This year, I'd like to give you a tour of our annual school sale.  It is so much work, but fun too.  Most years I forget that.  Last year, things of life were happening at such a fast rate, I never thought of enjoying it.  It has made me realize how fun preparing has been this year.  I am amazed how everyone pitching in has made every year a success.  It is a huge blessing that each year, people come from all over, for our school sale and that it pays for a major part of our school expenses.  We do not take it for granted.  And it happens the week before Thanksgiving, making us even more thankful. I always feel like I don't add very much, but Kristy pointed out to me, that if everyone brings a little, in a school of forty families, it adds up to quite a lot. One library bag w/felt flowers... One word wood signs...owl hot pads... crocheted hair clips... Christmas stockings...                   ...

Balance: defined as an instrument of weighing things to finding the balance of your checkbook.  That was the first and last definition.  The ones in-be-tween are what I'm looking at...   Def #6-  steadiness of character.   Def #7-make up for the effect or influence of, to counteract... Most interesting.  I've been thinking about balance and how easily it is to slide into one ditch or another.  I think about it a lot, trying to eat a gluten free diet.  I've eaten so many words about that whole thing.  I took an allergy test a year and a half ago.  It claimed I have high allergies in all things wheat.  I paid a lot of money to find this out.  I very grudgingly started this path because I was tired of feeling achy and sore in all of my body.  I hate it.  I still make fun of it.  It has also helped so much, that now when I get sore, I wonder what I ate.  But it still seems like a bunch hype to me...

At what age, should girls know without being told, that after a meal the dishes have to be done?  Why am I still telling them?  We have lived without a dishwasher since moving into this old house, going on a year.  It's easier to just do them by myself.  I get so weary of giving direction.  When do they figure it out? Change of subject... Why do I think that all my time should be consumed with doing something worthy?  Why am I guilty taking a day off to read a book?  Why do I get on edge with uneasiness if I don't fill my moments with "the list" of things to do; Like, cleaning behind my fridge and stove, or inside the stove for that matter? Why must I be so motivated at all times?  Why has the art of rest escaped me?  I sit down to read or write and think of little sisters or friends that are in the baby\toddler stage and feel guilt.  I remember.  So to feel better for them, I make my list of things that need done and work at jo...

~ Sometimes, we look so hard for a better tomorrow; that we miss the beautiful in today... Today was Veterans Day.  My husband didn't have the mail route as a result.  I was all set for a day at home. Together. To work on projects here around the house.  That lasted about two glorious hours.  Then, he decided to go down to the ambulance barn and be of some use to that organization.   I had a choice.  Be happy for him on his day off.  He had plans to buy quality meat for the grill that he knew a buddy of his would enjoy grilling. He was excited about it.  It would've been easy to throw a baby fit, I have been known to do those kinds of things in the past; but I also had a bunch of school sale project that needed work and I've found things go better for us, if I hold my "needs" with a loose hand.  Something that I keep bumping into with life...  If everything happened according to my plan, say, everything went perfect with no problem...

As a young child, the subject of eschatology would bring fear to my heart with a grip as strong as anything I had ever felt.  What was worse, was the fact that I already, was strongly decided what I believed about the end of the world.  I was horrified, when an older cousin, after being newly married, came to our house one day for lunch, and made a joke about her new husband and her own differing opinion. She was saying, if he wanted to ride a white horse into heaven she wanted to be with him. Or something like that.  I was smitten with horror at her falling away from "truth" and the fact that she was OK with it.   Don't judge me.  I was little and trying to figure these things out. So, guess what I did?  I married someone who has differing opinions than myself how everything transpires at the end of time.  I was fearful still about not being agreed, but had peace with the fact that most people really don't agree on this subject completely, and the t...

I've been trying to wrap my mind around the fact of God's love.  We sing a song that says in my own words; God sent his own Son from heaven.  Not just heaven; a splendorous heaven.  A place nobody would ever want to leave.  And while doing this, God's son, Jesus, knew his own destiny.  He knew he would be rejected, hated, spat on, nailed to a cross; all these things, yet he still came anyway.   From very little, I've been told He did this for me.  If I was the only one in the world, he still would have done this for me. My brain cannot on it's own, understand how Jesus dying all those years ago, knew about me.  How, He not only forgave the present sins of the world, but the future ones as well. And personally forgave me my own? Unbelievable in my own strength..  Faith is the bridge it takes to fathom this.  Faith to believe what I cannot see.  An added bonus is the peace and strength that comes with faith.  It builds one laye...

It is particularly upsetting to me to be plagued with the feelings of insecurities I should be long over.  It has been said that you shouldn't worry about what people think of you, because they probably aren't.  Is that supposed to make a person feel better? I am learning a few important lessons on how to deal with insecurities in married life.  Things that I am sure many women learned much earlier than I did.  I am naturally overly sensitive to what other people think about us.  Added into the equation, is the fact that my husband is my opposite in this regard.  For the first fifteen years of our married life I wasted too much time in trying to fix, mend, and patch what I believed would help people think we really were good people. I think I was trying to help have my husband "praised in the gates".  Oh foolish heart of mine. Here's the simple basic things you already know.  Most of you do anyways.  You just don't have the guts to tell u...