My Birthday Rose

 This rose so sweet and so fair,

Recently graced our home.
It's beauty .. this time of year... so rare;

..that.. and its fragrance ~ God's design.

From The Past

This was taken several years ago before we moved to Vermont. It was maybe 16 years ago.

There sure were a lot of smiles.

Happy times!

Time To Do This Life Well

The girls together on Alyssa's birthday, 2011.

“I don’t really want more time;

I just want enough time.

Time to breathe deep & time to see real & time to laugh long, time to give You glory & rest deep & sing joy…

I just want time to do my one life well.

Life at its fullest is this sensitive, detonating sphere —

and it can be carried only in the hands of the unhurried and reverential—

a bubble held in awe.”

~ One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

CHRISTmas 2011

This is a Christmas tree decoration that I found in a second-hand store or a garage sale a year or two ago. 

 Someone made it and enjoyed it for a time and now we are

glad to have it among our ornaments.

The creativeness of mankind - God's creation - makes

me step back and marvel. 

 I love works of art such as this!

I love the idea of re-using Christmas cards

that are going to be discarded!

Thanksgiving All Year Long

“Christian thanksgiving is the life of Christ in the heart —  transforming the disposition and the whole character.

Thanksgiving must be wrought into the life as a habit—before it can become a fixed and permanent quality.

An occasional burst of praise, in the midst of years of complaining, is not what is required. Songs on rare, sunshiny days; and no songs when skies are cloudy—will not make a life of gratitude. The heart must learn to sing always.

This lesson is learned only when it becomes a habit which nothing can weaken. We must persist in being thankful.

When we can see no reason for praise—we must believe in the divine love and goodness, and sing in the darkness.

Thanksgiving has attained its rightful place in us, only when it is part of all our days and dominates all our experiences.”

J. R. Miller, 1912

Growing or declining??

Alyssa reading in our front yard.

Every individual is growing, changing, developing,
or declining—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually,
physically, and psychologically.

A family is a grouping of individuals who are affecting
each other intellectually, emotionally, spiritually,
physically, psychologically.

~ Edith Schaeffer, What Is a Family?

Fragile Humility

"Humility is timid. Write about it, talk about it, and it flees."  
                                                                        -Ann Voskamp