What's Left

 While taking my walk yesterday to photograph the fall foliage, I noticed passing the side of my house that there were still a few hydrangea blooms unaffected by the frost. I snipped them and brought them inside this afternoon.

I pulled up my moss roses last week on a warmer day seeing that pretty cold days were on tap this week. It is nice to have these last blooms from my yard to enjoy in my home.

Grace Village announced that Christmas cards had been donated for the residents to use. Today I browsed through those set out on a table in the lobby. I have discontinued sending batches of cards, but I have a handful of people to whom I like to send greetings.

Since I have so few cards needed, it was nice to have these free ones to use. Jehovah Jireh. God provides.

Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was full of fun activities and pretty things. Friday morning it was pleasant enough to drive to the you-pick place to get some blueberries. My husband and one of our neighbors came along; my husband always picks faster than me so I am glad for his willingness. 

When we had our carpets cleaned a few weeks ago we ate a few meals at our dining table crammed into the sunroom to let the carpet dry. It was so pleasant. We use the sunroom so little that the idea occurred to me that putting a small patio table in there might increase our time spent there. I prayed that we would find a table on sale or one at a consignment shop. Friday afternoon I visited a new consignment shop. Yes, there sat a glass-topped patio table for $20.  

                                          

Sunday morning we breakfasted at our new table with the patio door opened listening to the birds. 

Saturday morning we picked up my sister-in-law and headed for St. Joseph, MI. She had told us about an art fair there. The booths were situated on a tree-shaded bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. It did warm up some later in the day, but there was a nice breeze. The art fair had a great variety of artisans and wares. I love pottery. I bought a bowl with ridged swirls worked into the clay.

It only takes about 2 hours from our house to St. Joseph. We will have to return another time to spend time on Silver Beach and explore the downtown a bit more. There are also quite a few wineries in that region. 

We got home in plenty of time to attend the evening MasterWorks Festival concert. This was the wrap-up weekend. I was so impressed with guest violinist Rachel Barton Pine. It is only today while searching the internet that I realize the reason for her limping gait. She has a prosthetic leg after a terrible calamity. Her newest CD is a group of lullabies inspired by her daughter Sylvia. During an encore Rachel told us about her 1742 violin which in the 19th century was played by Brahms as he helped an acquaintance select a violin. She then played the Brahms Lullaby. 

My beggar’s bowl overflowed this weekend.

Singing Heart

Today my heart is singing. The sticky oppressive heat promises to go away for several days once some storms have passed through. The rose bush which has promised new blooms finally has produced; I have 3 roses in the bud vase. The Rose of Sharon bush which also holds promise finally has some slight streaks of color in its buds. Two pine trees were planted today behind my condo to replace the ones that died last fall. I found a lovely serving bowl at the consignment shop for $3. 

My husband wanted to eat lunch at the Grace Village dining room today. While eating, a man and wife joined us. It appeared that she had rolled him in his wheelchair from the rehab section. As we chatted, we learned that she will be moving into the vacant condo down the block from us August 1st, her husband joining her when able.

 Then, I finally sat down and read the blogs I follow and learned that I was 1 of the 5 winners of Leslie Leyland Fields' blog give-aways. She is sending some homemade jam and what I most want, her book Surviving the Island of Grace.

 The package never arrived. I had been told it could take a month as it would go on a small boat from the island where she lives in Alaska to a post office and then to the mainland. But after 3 months I figured it would not show up. It did not.

It is a sad commentary on the poverty of my soul that it so easily soars when the beggar’s bowl is full of lovely things. My heart is full of gratitude to God; but when circumstances and things are hard, the gratitude is not so easily given. 

I just finished The Hawk and the Dove (a Christian fiction trilogy) by Penelope Wilcock that so poignantly describes the soul’s struggle with reconciling loss and suffering with God’s goodness and love. It is a story of a 14th century monastery and how the individuals of the community must come to grips with these lessons in their relationships with one another and with God. A good reminder that whatever fills the bowl of life, God does love us.

 

 

 

 

A Ledger of Love

Have you ever pondered why Eve and Adam disobeyed God? They were not satisfied with what God had provided for them. They were ungrateful, wanting more. Human kind follows in the steps of the First Parents exhibiting the sin of ingratitude. How well do we give thanks always for all things to God as instructed in Ephesians 5:20?

Ann Voskamp’s friend challenged her to make a list of 1,000 things for which she was thankful; thus, the title of her book 1000 Gifts.
It is pretty easy to see the big picture items like family, health, housing, food, perhaps an extraordinary answer to prayer, but what about small things? To capture 1000 gifts from God in writing or photos, requires being aware and focused on the moments of our days. Why should we even bother to enumerate and give thanks to God for a beautiful sunset, a kind word from a friend, a close parking spot when our energy is flagging?

Because the practice of giving thanks is the way we realize the presence of God in all of the moments of life. It builds and undergirds our relationship with God. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant plants the seeds for what Ann calls hard thanksgiving, the times of loss, pain, suffering that we all experience in our fallen world. With day after day bathed in thanks, we touch the pulse of God’s love for us and we build a relationship of trust that gets us through the hard times and creates a willingness to say “Thy will be done” to the Heavenly Father. We can give thanks in everything because there is a good God working all things unto the purposes of His plan.

Will you start a ledger of God’s love for you? Take paper and pen or camera and record His gifts throughout your day. Ann has many suggestions on her Joy Dare calendar on her blog. Here are some samples: 1 gift that made you laugh; 1 gift that made you pray; 1 gift that made you quiet. Something above you, something below you, something beside you.

God is evident all around us.

Psalm 136:3-7
v.3 Give thanks to the Lord of Lords; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.4 Give thanks to Him who alone does great wonders; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.5 Give thanks to Him who made the heavens with skill; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.6 Give thanks to Him who spread out the earth above the waters; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.7 Give thanks to Him who made the great lights; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Go out and embrace the beauty and goodness of God through the act of thanksgiving.

More Good Things

Today the pavers came to my condo neighborhood. This project was delayed for awhile, but today they started and finished it. It looks great. It is 92 degrees this afternoon so that was wise to start at 7:30 this morning. I can’t imagine working with hot asphalt on a hot day. So grateful for air conditioning.
This afternoon I walked over to the retirement community library. On the way I stopped at the Give and Take Table to donate an item. There were some books to be taken, and one of them 90 Minutes in Heaven I picked up for the library. Turns out we do not own it. But the real find was the plastic page sleeves. We were out of these in the library and I had been making do with some old wrap-around ones from home that meant punching holes and trimming the edge of the fiction list sheets some. More than enough now. A need abundantly supplied.
Wednesday I drove to Fort Wayne. The main item I was looking for was a pair of black sandals to replace my 6-year-old ones which are starting to wear out. I had looked at 4 stores in Warsaw and saw nothing that I found attractive or comfortable. Roberts Shoe Store on State St. in Fort Wayne was advertising a sale of sandals, now 60% off. I thought they would only have a limited selection, but they had plenty. I found 3 potential buys; finally decided on a pair by Trotters. I have never owned any by this company, but they are so comfortable. I probably will save them for next summer and get the final wear out of the old pair; nice to be prepared though.

Tomorrow the public library has a book sale. We will see what God has for the retirement library there. And for me, too. <smile> I still have 5 books to read from the North Webster Friends of the Library sale though. I was busy typing up the program yearbook for the Winona Literary Club. Part of that is finding a quote appropriate for each speaker’s topic. If you have never tried Quote Garden, it is a good place to begin searching.

Captivated by Leaves

When I started collecting pictures a few years ago to ascertain my design preferences, I discovered that I liked botanical motifs. Since moving to my condo and doing some decorating, I have gravitated to a leaf motif. The primary leaf addition has been the area rug.

When my husband requested that we add something to the sheers on the sidelight windows so someone standing at the front door could not peer in, I wasn’t thinking “leaves”. I had seen some velcro strips at Walmart that had adhesive. I could attach that to the window frame above the sheers and sew the accompanying non-adhesive strip to some fabric. That would mean no holes in the frame and honor the retirement village’s request not to make holes in any woodwork. (As it turned out, the frame is not wood but metal thus we ended up using magnetic rods for the sheers, but we didn’t know that at the time I made the overhanging curtain. It looked like painted wood.) Since I don’t have a sewing machine, I decided cutting a table runner in half and ironing a hem  on the cut edge using stitch witchery tape, then hand sewing the velcro to the hem would work.
I found no runners in the stores that appealed to me. Headed to ebay and saw several possibilities. The one that grabbed my attention was based on the Pfaltzgraf Yorktowne pattern. I had seen the dishes in the past and liked them. I bought two small fruit bowls in this pattern in an antique mall in Richmond, Indiana the previous year even though I had no other pieces. This pattern is similar to leaves, don’t you think? And it had my favorite color combination of blue and white.

                        I recently added a pitcher with this pattern to display in my kitchen, too. Purchased that at Alley Cats Antiques in Leesburg. 

From an earlier post, you know about my lamp with metal leaves and its newly-covered lampshade with leafy fabric.

 I have been captivated by leaves. Even the copper teapot I bought this spring at a garage sale fits in.

And several years ago God saw how much I liked the Lenox Poppies on Blue pattern and made it affordable to me in a special way. The china was out of my budget range and I had looked at it longingly for years as I passed the store displays, but the company came out with a barnyard accessories line that used this pattern. Not only that, it went on sale plus I could use the department store’s additional 20 per cent off coupon. While some might think it silly not to buy what I loved when I first saw it, I had determined in my heart not to get caught up in material consumption that might lead to debt accrual. The Lenox brand of china is definitely not in my financial budget. Has God given you the desire of your heart even in superficial objects by providing it in an affordable way?

A Choice Morsel

When I walked down the block to the garage sale, I had a specific book in mind. The items being sold belonged to the man who married me almost 35 years ago. He and his wife had died within a month of each other and now some friends were holding this sale to help the surviving children who lived in other states empty out their parents’ residence.
Last September once we were settled in our new home, my husband and I made this same walk to visit with this couple we had not seen in 24 years. We took an album of candid photos taken at our wedding reception where she is reaching to take a nut from his plate while he obliviously is looking elsewhere. The topic of conversation turned to books (naturally). He mentioned that he had recently read a book which had made a deep impression on him, more than any other book in recent years. That book was The 3 Princes by Tom Julien, a retired missionary from France. I had hoped that book would be at the sale, but though there were lots of her books, his books had already been removed.
A little disappointed, I went home to change my clothes for a special lunch in honor of volunteers at my retirement community. As I was dressing, the phone rang. One of the maintenance/administrative staffmen wanted to donate a book to the library. Yes, it was the 3 Princes. The desired item dropped into my “bowl” by a loving God.

Inundated

Our retirement community library received over 100 large-print books from a lady who now has to use recorded books for her “reading” pleasure and can no longer peruse her books. Since the residents have been asking for more large-print books, God abundantly supplied. They anxiously hovered over the book truck of new acquisitions eager to read these gifts.

However, there was a problem. The existing large-print collection consisted of 3 shelves at the end of the regular-print books. There wasn’t room for even 6 more books, let alone 120. To make room, we had to aggressively weed the regular books, then shift over 2,000 volumes to free up an entire bookcase section. After labeling the new books, the Excel list of fiction (the only record of the inventory) needed to be edited, deleting the entries for the discarded books and typing in entries for the additions. Finally, after 2 very busy weeks, the treasured trove is being happily used.

I finished the whole project Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon we received 54 Christian paperbacks from the estate of a condo resident who died in February. I am taking the rest of this week off, but it looks like this blog will be neglected some more in the coming weeks. But at least the books will be read; the blog remains unread. I am too timid to let anybody know it even exists.