Penguins

Sometimes I forget how blessed I am. I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and wants only the best for me. I have a wonderful husband who is faithful and has always worked so hard for our family. I have five wonderful children here on earth and one waiting in heaven for me. I have a wonderful mother and an awesome brother who takes care of her since my daddy died. I have a wonderful church family and a terrific pastor. My kids are blessed with wonderful friends. We have a wonderful home and enough cars to look like we are running a used car lot when everyone is home. And there's usually some of their friends here so that makes for more cars. We have very tolerant neighbors, also. :)

We have food to eat and clothes to wear. Our kids are all responsible young adults who work hard and are loyal to each other. We have four wonderful cats and a brilliant dog. Now Ben will argue about my cat, Yoda, being wonderful, but that's beside the point. That's his viewpoint and not mine at all. I love how each of our children have their own personalities and so do each of our pets. And I am grateful how Donald tolerates all our pets even though he's not a pet lover like some of us.

I love how God is faithful to work in our children's lives. I love how he has blessed them in spite of very imperfect parents who have made tons of mistakes. I am grateful for his mercy and grace. I love how I can trust Him when I am concerned and I love how He always comes through. Not necessarily in my time frame and definitely not how I think or desire, but it's always perfect in the end. He does have our best interests at heart.

There are things I desire for our children that I don't see happening in the physical. But I know that God is their All in All and I can trust Him with their lives.

I love how this is my blog and I can ramble on and on and not have to make sense or worry about anyone disagreeing with me. It is, after all, my opinions and viewpoints and you may or may not agree with them. But that's okay. I'll still be your friend if you want to be my friend.

I am grateful for the many friends in my life. I am grateful for old friends who have chosen to no longer be a part of my life. They helped shape who I am today. I am grateful for the ones who have remained my friends through the years, and love me and accept me for who I am, even when I'm stinky with a rotten attitude. And I am grateful for the ones I am just beginning to get to know and love.

And I think it's totally great that I can title this entry "Penguins" and put a picture of them up when this has absolutely nothing at all to do with even one penguin~!

keyhole

I've been gone from the blogging scene for quite a while now. Facebook has taken up the majority of my computer time and I absolutely love it. The rest of the time I've been pulling up vinyl flooring, ripping up carpet, staining floors, painting, working in the yard, and have I mentioned facebook??? Rebekah didn't know what she'd created when she set me up a facebook account. She loves to tell this story about my first facebook experience. I was searching for former classmates and found one. Without thinking I said aloud, "Oh, he looks so old." Then after imaging what he would say if he saw my picture, I wondered about myself aloud. Then I said, "Nooooo." Rebekah got a good laugh and I suddenly felt much older than I did 60 seconds earlier.

I don't usually accept a friend request unless I know the person. However after commenting on a mutual friend's comment for months and laughing at all her comments I broke my rule and clicked on "accept request" or whatever it is you click on to be friends with someone. She always makes me laugh and I love her comments....kinda a "kindred spirit" type of facebook thing I guess. I met her in person today and after sharing a few laughs and hugs I am certain I made the right decision. She is as wonderful in person as she is on facebook~!

I just got back from going with Bethany to have her car inspected. We had a long discussion about attitudes and such. It seems it's harder to forgive when someone hurts someone you love than when they hurt you. Sometimes we want to "waller" in our unforgiveness for a while. Sometimes we make the right decision and do what we know we should do. Sometimes it takes a while to work through all our feelings. In the end, I have a feeling that God gets us where He wants us, even though we may dig in our heels and resist the journey. That's the neat thing about God; He's faithful even when we aren't.

We all fail; we all mess up; we all need a Saviour. God knows this. He provided our need before we knew we had one.

the look of love

When Rebekah was young we took her to Six Flags and had her caricature done by an artist there. This is what he drew. Notice Donald in the lower left hand corner. I guess the artist could tell that he was smitten with his young daughter!

the Colour of His Love

Does God's love have colour? Oh, yes, most definitely! Here are some examples from one life, my own.

The colour of His love is watching my daughter weep for her friend in ICU. It's brothers and sisters being friends and taking care of each other. Picture a husband cleaning the dirty bathroom for his wife while she sleeps in bed during the afternoon because she's sick. His back is hurting and he has no business bending over that tub, but he does it anyway.

The colour of His love is a daughter calling her mom at work and saying, "Don't worry about dinner. We're getting chicken." She also paid for it for the whole family. It's another daughter taking her mom out to lunch and not letting her share the bill.

More colours of His love are my son building a bridge for my backyard project and tearing down a brick wall because his mom wants the brick. Another son loads and unloads bags and bags of free rock and soil and compost that his mother isn't even sure what to do with. The colour of His love showed her exactly where to use them months later and it's perfectly perfect~!

Yet other colours are a dear friend taking time from her busy day to come check on me because she loves me, my little black kitty that simply adores me and will come to me when I call his name, and the gentle rain that washes everything clean.

The colour of His love is abundant in this note that my wonderful husband wrote seven years ago and I will keep it forever. Read slowly and picture His colours for yourself.....

Someone who paints red birds on white backgrounds,

Someone who has my numbers on their jersey,

Someone who draws me flowers on napkins,

Someone who collects pennies and likes cats,

Someone who knows me too well not to speak up,

Someone who doesn't know any better than to love me!!!

Sound like anyone you know,

Sounds like my family

good times and poison ivy

We have had such an awesome Labor Day weekend. Donald's twin brother and his daughter came in Friday afternoon. Their other brother lives here so we were able to get together with Doug and his wife. Their two sisters were in for a couple of hours also. We laughed and ate, and ate and laughed...well you pretty much get the picture. It's always so much fun to listen to Donald, Ronald, and Douglas. Each of them have their own version of how the story took place!

I only have one younger brother and when I first met Donald I was pretty much flabbergasted with all the noise and laughter and kidding and commotion. It didn't take long to get used to it though and now I love to sit around listening to their stories. It doesn't matter that they've been told and listened to numerous times. They are still just as funny as the first time I heard them. We also had a VHS of clips of movies when the kids were growing up. It's fun to listen to the commentaries on those also.

The boys went camping and the girls went to Frisco shopping and we went out to eat twice on Saturday. I cooked brisket, baked beans, buffet potatoes, and fried okra for dinner Friday night. We had coconut pie and Chocolate Delight and Lauren brought cookies, a pie, and pastries from Central Market. They were delicious along with the guacamole that she makes. It is the BEST guacamole I have ever had! I was sad to see them drive away and wish they could come more often.

Today Donald is taking me to Sherman to eat at Jalapeno Tree. I want to run by Lowe's (of course) and more than likely Sam's Club.

I got into poison ivy while cleaning the wisteria off our fence in the back yard. Of course I was wearing shorts and flip flops so it's all over my arms and legs and feet and I am going CRAZY itching and trying not to scratch. Some of the places are better and others are still breaking out and oozing and it's so gross!!!! Really gross! Of course I don't suffer in silence so my family has heard how miserable I am many times the past week. I think because I continued working in the yard all day afterward and not bathing until after 8:00 p.m. it made it much worse than it might have been. Lesson learned...the hard way!

a picture says a thousand words

Baby Zachary at Heather's shower

Yoda in the dryer, before he became an outdoor cat

Look hard and you can see one of my hummingbirds!

I have a watermelon growing on the vine. It is mixed in with my flowers getting larger!

Cantaloupe growing also...finally.

I'm working on another area in the back yard. I found this discounted at Hobby Lobby!

My okra is way taller than I am. Now I know that's not saying much, but it's taller than the boys also!

Pretty canna from the plants Shiela gave me last year.

For some reason Bright got in the bathtub when it thundered. Do you think he's trying to tell us something?

tooooo, toooo, toooo, looking out my front door

our Daniel

The summer is flying by. Daniel graduated on June 30th. It is official; I now only have two more years of homeschooling to go. I can honestly say I won't miss it. It has been and is wonderful and I am blessed to be able to homeschool our children. I wouldn't trade the last 24 years for anything anyone could offer me.

It's just that I have new interests now and I don't seem to have enough time to indulge in them. I am still working in our yard and the change is amazing. I absolutely love what God has provided and enabled us to do with what He's given and provided. My patio isn't finished, but I've decided I'm waiting for cooler weather. I've been harvesting vegetables from my first ever vegetable plot and it is so satisfying to eat what I've planted or set out (my tomatoes and peppers). Donald doesn't even like tomatoes, yet he's eating mine!! Of course there is no comparison between a store bought and home-grown tomato. The kids have enjoyed the okra and squash and I am loving the cucumbers. I've learned a lot with my small raised bed garden this year. Even Donald is talking about expanding our endeavor next year.

I am working part time and though it's not a lot of hours it has changed my little world drastically. I am thankful that God provided this job ahead of when I thought I would search for a part time job. I'd rather it come to me than look for it!

I love my God, my family, and my life. I'm so blessed!!