A Good Day

Today, we started our 2010 women's meetings (at Harvest). Women Equipped to Love and Lead - W.E.L.L.

Oh, for wellness...I long for women to live in wholeness and wellness, body, soul, and spirit.

We had to cancel our meeting in January because of snow, and who knows how the spring will go, since our little church will be taking care of two weddings, followed immediately by some high school and college graduations. In a church our size, when one gets pregnant, we "all get pregnant". When one gets sick, we "all get sick"...so to speak. In other words, we sometimes have to alter church activities to accomodate baby showers or a big bout with the flu. Simply stated, everyone matters. What happens to any one member affects all of us. There is no such thing as anyone not being noticed or missed.


But we did get our first session in, of our Beth Moore "Esther" study today...so much fun. I love those women so much.

Came home to flowers from my Tim - red roses. Beautiful.


I sit in my living room, but it does not look like my living room right now. There are blankets on the furniture - to accomodate little Amber, who is far, far from being housebroken. There are wedding invitations everywhere, in various states of completion...some addressed and stamped, some envelopes not stuffed yet, a few invitations not put together yet. (The invitation is a lovely, simple card stock with brown ribbon and a vintage looking paper die-cut monogram...hand made.)

I was wanting the RSVP envelopes to have some sort of special detail, and I was inspired by the use of the vintage stamp on these hand made business cards here.

I bought this very stamp,and we are using it to stamp our address on the smaller RSVP envelopes. It looks super-cute, very vintage-classy. Wish I could snap you a picture real quick, but time is getting away from me, and I am beyond sleepy at the moment...



After the wedding, I am going to re-word the stamp (I can make it say anything I want, up to 5 lines!) and will make my own calling cards using those very tags you see in the picture-link. I'll make them with my name, email address, and blog web-address on them.



Speaking of pictures, I'm still learning my new camera (see last post!):

one of the arrangements for the wedding...this will go in the church foyer.

Bocelli, the canary ~

Grant, the pocket parrot ~

Me, the silly girl trying to peer through her reading glasses at the symbols on her camera screen, and attempting to understand shutter speed and aperture. Deep. Unsmiling. Concentration.

I best sign off, and go put together the traditional little gifts I always give my kids (grown or not!) for Valentine's Day. Am I the only one who gets totally addicted to those little candy hearts with the messages?

Early Valentine's

(drumroll...)

The pictures you see on this blog, from henceforth, shall be of a much better quality. Thanks to my man. My early Valentine's Day present is an SLR camera...

whoot!



Let the learning curve begin...

wedding decorating experiments...can't get the aperture right in this one.

Hmmmm...what setting to use to take this picture?

Love this shot!

Sarah's "baby"...that is me holding her in my robe. ::happy sigh::


I'm so grateful to my thoughtful and generous husband. Last year, a canary. I immediately fell in love with him (the canary. I was already in love with the husband). This year, a new camera. Same effect - I'm smitten with this sweet little gadget.

Our New Grandpuppy!

Sarah and Jonathan drove all the way to a Crossville breeder to get their first puppy last night...her name is Amber. She'll live here until Sarah is married in March.

We are all absolutely smitten. Well...everyone but Rambo. He thinks she's "just okay, that's all."

Less than two pounds of eight-week-old adorableness!

Justin and Hannah rushed over to "see this thing which God hath wrought". The entire family sighed and coo'ed over her, then we all (yes, all) took her back out to the front porch, so that Rambo could be properly introduced.

Tim brought Rambo from the back bedroom, where he had been tucked away since before Amber got home, and brought him out onto the front porch, where he properly greeted the baby. No growling, no snarling.

Success!

Then, the entire family went back into the warm house.I swear, when there is an actual baby born into this family, none of us will be fit for normal living. Stop the world, let the Atchleys/Howes/McConnells off. You should have seen us last night, all fighting over who would hold the puppy next.

Pitiful. And completely wonderful.

Super Bowl

...and so my team lost, and life goes on. I think.


Newly-weds, and Nearly-weds...already "into it", early in the game...

Our youngest son, aka "the traitor", wearing a Saint's jersey...his shamed father to his right.

::burp::

Moments of dismay...

Redeeming moment...

::not that this is earthshaking, but the newly weds and nearly weds wanted me to tell you that they were drinking root beer. That's what those bottles you see were. Good ol' IBC Root Beer. These young couples work with teens and middle schoolers every week in our church - and Justin is a future high school math teacher - so they felt it very important to publish the disclaimer!

Imagination is Intelligence Having Fun...

Slices of life around the cottage...

The teacup poodle, "Rambo".

the soon-to-be-weds...

Pocket Parrot! Isn't she adorable?

Last Friday's snow...

The firepit - decorated with a garden planter, and visited by a bird...

The butterfly garden in snow...

Go Colts!

Warning: random post

We're forecasted to get 2 inches of rain in the next day or so, here in east Tennessee.

::she sighs, melodramatically::

So I decided to treat it just as I did the snow of last week - I went to the grocery store and the craft store and stocked up on Happy Things.

Today, I got milk and baking ingredients and yummy breakfast stuff and pasta and candles and all-natural grapefruit scented cleaner and a yellow primrose in a pot and reading material and soup. Tim is sick with a tenacious head cold , and my throat is suddenly sore, so soup is definitely in order.

All at once, I'm feeling just fine about the skies pouring rain for the whole entire day. I am onto something here! Whenever possible, prepare for a long, rainy day just like you would prepare to be snowed in.

I also visited our local discount store and found some (normally very expensive, special department store brand) bath milk from Scotland. It comes in a glass milk bottle, looks so elegant, and smells just perfect.

I planned well, and took my pocket parrot to get his wings clipped today, so I'll be able to get him out of his cage and cuddle him tomorrow. Without all that annoying flying he's gotten so good at doing lately. He has already figured out that he doesn't have much of a choice anymore, other than nestling on my shoulder, or perching in my hand. He took off two or three times earlier this evening, expecting to be able to soar all the way across the room like he usually does....and only made it about 12 inches. It didn't take him long to figure out that he is content to snuggle.

So I say to the impending gray, wet day, "Bring It." I am armed and ready. Once I get our hours of home schooling out of the way, I will have my choice between reading, writing, blogging, snuggling my puppy, snuggling my bird, snuggling my husband, taking a bath, baking cookies or banana bread or a fancy bundt cake, and choosing which recipes I'll cook up for the Super Bowl. (GO COLTS!)

All this, while candles burn cheerfully all through the house, and hot cider simmers on the stove.

And I won't have to leave this house for a thing...

An Apostolic Call...

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.

As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.

—Thomas Merton, in a letter dated February 21, 1966

And I bow my head in recognition - deep, instinctive and personal - of the truth of it. I am glad for results, we have seen profound results, results that have tended to endure. But enfolded in the apostolic calling is a fatherhood principle that focuses on the value of the process, and the integrity of the work for the sake of the work. Loving people because God loves them, not because they meet our hopes or expectations.

Results often take a lifetime to see.