Everyone Needs Somebody to Love

Just poppin' in to share with you the beautiful oriole couple we had visiting a couple of weeks ago. Along with them came our bearded hen with her babies...yes, a bearded hen with babies. I was so happy for her, as she had always come to feed all by herself, unlike the other turkeys. So, for all of you who didn't know it already, for every Jack, there is a Jill. Much like nature, some of us are always trying to look our best to impress someone. Well, guess what? There is no one to impress, really. Just be your beautiful self, and the right one will come along! Just ask my bearded hen...and her beautiful babies! :)

Lost my Bet

I know it's summer and most people are busy, hopefully being outside rather than sitting at your computer reading blogs. However, a lot of time and thought goes into my blogs, and lately more people are reading my dog's blog rather than mine! If that's not yet another "Charlie Brown" moment for me, I don't know what is. Anyway, I'm taking a break and devoting more time to Angel's blog for the readers who enjoy my dog's life more than mine! :) I guess sometimes I enjoy her life more than mine too! I'll be back at some point, maybe after the busyness of summer passes. Gotta run now, have to pay my dog the twenty bucks she bet me that her blog would be more interesting than mine!

Rejoicing in the Desert

Life is full of peaks (good times) and valleys (not so good times). Sometimes you're in the wetlands (nothing's wilting), sometimes you're in the desert (dried, cracked, and lonely). Sometimes we look around and we are blinded by the sun (seeing our blessings). Other times, we complain about the clouds (low times). We think we have a friend, only to find we have a friend for "fair weather", but not while we're in the desert. I was watching the news the other day and coverage on the drought in the midwest came on. The bleak picture for the farmers there was a dried up crop and fields that look like desert land, not rich farmland. It's great that some (more well off) farmers can go out and purchase an irrigation system, but those who are depending on those crops for their livelihood can only pray for that kind of hope. I've always thought the world was unfair, and it is. It's not meant to be fair. It's life. That's why we can't depend on the world. We can't depend on the weather. We can't depend on people (at least most of them, in my opinion). Stay with me, I do have a point coming soon. I was awake at 4:30am this morning with those familiar racing negative thoughts of mine. I began to pray and speak God's promises to me over them. While lately I have "felt" defeated, I have "felt" rejected, I have "felt" let down, I have "felt" discouraged and disappointed and all of those "dis" thoughts that go along with it, the Truth says I am not. I am not any of the things that I may negatively think I am, and I am tired of the enemy working so hard to take me down. I thought about those pictures on TV of the struggling farmer's field, and I remembered the Israelites wandering in the desert for not one summer, but for 40 years! I paused for a minute, and something profound came to my mind. A statement that truthfully, I'm not clever enough to have thought it up myself. I've never heard it before, and it was this: "What you see as the desert, God sees as His workshop." That was it. No other details. In that simple statement, I realized that even as I walk the desert, I'm not walking it alone. God may be letting me wander a bit, only to teach me something. He doesn't allow trials without a way out, and my desert has a way out. That statement coming to me was what I call a break in the clouds. I was letting my defeat drive me emotionally, spiritually, physically. I was convincing myself of all kinds of counterproductive things. Have my circumstances changed? No. But my attitude is changing, thanks to God and His wisdom. You are never alone. Whether you're wilting, feeling like you don't have a friend, you gained all your weight back, you lost your church, maybe losing something else. Whatever it is, God will stand in for all of the things you "lose", and He will make them better. His time, His way, His desert, His child. You.

My Favorite Faces

Just a few of my favorite faces...my hubby, our girls, and our fluffy Angel.

Vacation Week

Well, it's over...the week of Steve's vacation flew by! On Monday, I started the day with a migraine. Doesn't that figure? Just goes along with my summer so far. Anyway, the plan was to go up to the family cottage and mow the lawn for my parents so they could get up there. Well, because of my dumb headache, I ended up staying home while Steve and the girls mowed the lawn. Natalie actually mowed most of the lawn, and seemed to enjoy it, as Steve told me she sang at the top of her lungs the whole time! (there are few neighbors and it's way back off the road...only the toads care)I was feeling better by Tuesday, thankfully. We were at a loss as to how to celebrate the 4th, being it's on my least favorite day of the week, Wednesday. The heat basically kept us from doing all the things we had hoped to do while he was home. Sigh. The girls were feeling cheated out of a fun 4th and I was feeling guilty about it. We have been going up to the lake with family for as long as I can remember and because of my dad's health and other stuff, no one has been going up there the last couple of years. The girls absolutely love the cottage, but Steve couldn't get the water working up there on Monday, so we knew we couldn't spend the night up there. We decided instead to take a day trip up to the local parade and then picnic at the cottage. We took Angel with us, as she loves to ride in the car. It was a nice hot day for a parade, but we found a nice shady patch to sit in and enjoyed at least a little bit of our tradition. The lake was beautiful, but the lack of attention to the place was glaring. I felt discouraged, but decided we need to do a lake clean up day when it's cool. We're gonna need help...a bunch of trees dumped limbs all over the yard and the weeds have taken over the beach. Even the firepit needs to be dug back out. It seems like a mountain right now. We decided to find some local fireworks that night and it was okay, just not as fun as usual. On Thursday I had planned on going to some garage sales with my mom and sister, but oddly enough, they didn't show up to pick me up. So, I headed out on my own and then went with Steve and the girls later. We didn't find much at all, I guess due to the heat and some power outages in the area. We spent a lot of time in the pool over the course of the week, which was glorious, to say the least. On Friday, I mustered up some courage and went out to see my pastor and his wife, who were asked to resign from their church in June. I have felt very bad about it, and knew it was going to be hard to see them. The visit was nice, and we were able to unload some bigger items from them so they wouldn't have to move them or give nice things away. Now on my front porch is a beautiful handmade bench, made by my pastor's dad, which will always remind me of them. We also have some exercise equipment....that will always remind me how much I don't like working out! The girls are excited about it though, so it all worked out. We are now in search of a non-denominational church, which will begin sometime later. We're taking a little hiatus right now. Life has certainly thrown us a lot of changes this year. Some good, some not so good. But like always, we're just gonna roll with it and see what happens. Well, maybe a bumpy roll anyway. So that was our vacation week. I know I made it sound kind of uneventful. It really was a nice week with Steve home. We had a lot of fun in the pool and on our many roadtrips this week, one to Vicksburg and one to Sparta for open houses. It's always nice to have all of us together, even if we're doing nothing! Hope you had a nice 4th week too.

Vacation Man

It could be awhile before I post again, because hubby has taken the week off! I am always excited to have him home. Work has been so stressful, and we've just had a lot of extra stressors lately. We are so ready to just focus on relaxing and having fun with our little family. We have a few small things planned, but mostly we're hoping to get some pool time in and do a few things around here. I love my husband even more when he's on vacation. He gets so crazy and fun just because he's so happy to be home relaxing with us. While in the pool tonight, he let out a big "WHOOO HOOOO!" which I'm sure carried into the next county. Of course, we were imagining what people would say when they heard it. Steve had the best line of all..."now that's a squatch right dar". Referring of course to a recent weak moment of watching "Finding Bigfoot". Now I'm waiting for his next move...maybe a jump off the roof wearing his "Vacation Man" cape?? This is gonna be a fun week! And I can't wait!