Author Archives: Barbara Harper

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About Barbara Harper

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Be Still My Soul

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“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

~ Katharina A. von Schlegel, 1855

Stray Thoughts

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An accumulation of various stray thoughts over the last several days…

  • I’ve often wished I could take photos during the drive to TN, but it’s pretty fast-moving traffic on winding roads for most of it. There is a shoulder, but I wouldn’t stop there unless it was an emergency. Once when it had been raining off and on, there were little wisps of clouds right at eye level.
  • Every time we’ve gone to the hotel in TN, I have planned to take a photo of the carpet in the hallway, but I keep forgetting. The design in it looks like fish bones. I wonder if the designer had fish before coming up with that design.
  • This last Thursday morning at the hotel, Jim went on to work and I stayed at the room a little longer, planning to leave at my leisure. He had told the front desk I would probably check out at 9 or 10, and I put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign so they wouldn’t come in to change towels til after I left. I was at the desk using the computer when two ladies from housekeeping barged in at 9:07. They apologized all over themselves — they had thought I was gone already. I was glad I wasn’t dressing or using the restroom — I don’t always close the restroom door all the way when I am in there by myself, but I did for the rest of the time I was there!
  • The hardest thing about looking at houses is that no one house has every feature we like. There was one gorgeous house, but it was squished up against the houses behind it — very little yard space, and very little distance between the kitchen table and one neighbor’s house. It would be disturbing to have neighbors right outside your window while you’re eating (at least for me). We loved the living area in one, the kitchen in another, the screened in porch, back yard, and bedrooms of another. We even gave a fleeting thought to building, but there’s not time at this stage, and I’ve heard that can be a major headache. We did find one that is nice, has the space we want, and is arranged well, with some extra features we like. The bedrooms are smaller than some we had seen, but I think they’re ok: the bathrooms aren’t as up-to-date as other houses, but they have the basic requirements. We’ll see what happens!
  • One house we looked at had a pink toilet! Really! I thought it was cute. Jesse said he would never use it. Jim said he probably would if he needed to badly enough, but Jesse maintained he wouldn’t. I told him a pink toilet was better than a yellow one. We saw one of those in another house.
  • A lot of houses up there have gas log fireplaces — just flip a switch, and voila! I’m assuming there is probably a little more snow up there than here, so that will be nice. We have a fireplace now, but it is wood-burning and we pretty much only use it when the power is out in winter. It’s smelly, requires tending, and you have to deal with cleaning out the ashes. So I am all for just flipping a switch.
  • We’ve known about the possibility of moving for almost a year, though we only decided to for sure a few months ago. We’ve needed to keep it quiet for various reasons, but we let Jesse tell his classmates so he could tell them good-bye, and word started to filter from there. Then we made it public a couple of weeks ago. So I understand that what we’ve had time to get adjusted to is new for many people we know. But some people have said things like, “I’m mad at you!” or “Why do you want to go off and leave us?” I know they’re teasing and basically mean, “We’re sorry to see you go,” but it comes across a little negative that way. With some people we’ve almost had to defend why we’re leaving. Only a very few people have said anything positive. One lady today told me she was going to miss us, but she was excited for what the Lord was doing for our family. That was such a balm.
  • Our church is going through a time of change: we’ve been without a youth pastor for a year, our business manager is retiring, our custodian is moving away, and our family is moving. I don’t mean to elevate myself to any level of importance, but the ladies’ ministry, especially, will undergo the most change by my leaving. And change can be disconcerting. I have one last ladies’ booklet to do, and one thing that has come to mind to share there is the last line of a stanza of a verse in “Be Still My Soul” — “In every change, He faithful will remain.” “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). God is with us throughout each change in life. He promises to work everything together for good. I’m sure He will raise up someone to take the ladies’ group to the next level, to take it places that I could not.
  • I’m sure I will need to remind myself of that many times as well. We’re excited about many of the changes coming up for our family, but actually facing getting to know new places and people, and especially the change of our family being scattered will be hard. I’m thankful we can count on God’s grace in every circumstance.

Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are some of my favorites from this week:

1. Another safe solo road trip to meet Jim in TN for another house-hunting expedition. We’ve made an offer on one — we’ll see how it goes!

2. A good realtor there who seems to really know her stuff.

3. Finding a good Christian radio station there. We have two good ones here, and when we moved away from this area before to GA, I really missed them. They both play online these days, though, so I listened to them a bit in the hotel, but flipping through stations in the car on the way back I found an affiliate of one of them there.

4. A beautiful drive. Road trips aren’t my favorite thing, even if I am not the one driving. But on many road trips on the highway, all you see is guard rails and trees. The drive between here and eastern TN is gorgeous through hills and mountains.

5. Finding my old Bible. When I drove up to TN a couple of weeks ago, somehow I grabbed my old Bible instead of my new one. After we attended church on a Wed. night that trip, I couldn’t find it, so I thought perhaps I had left it at the church. When we checked back this trip, they looked in their lost and found, but it wasn’t there. I was dismayed, because, though I have other Bibles, this was an old friend, one my husband gave me shortly after we married and which had accumulated a lot of notes over the years (I shared some flyleaf favorites from it a couple of years ago.) But when I was packing up to leave the hotel, I opened the zippered outer pocket on the suitcase to put something there — and there it was! I don’t remember putting it there. My husband says he may have. Somehow I didn’t think to check there after the last trip because I didn’t think I used that pocket. But I was just glad to see it again!

Hope you have a great Friday!

Flashback Friday: Home Sweet Home

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is about the home we grew up in:

Where did you live when you were growing up? In a house or an apartment? A mobile home or a duplex? Did your parents rent or own? Was it big or small? In a city, small town, or rural area? In the USA or another country? Did you have your own room or share with siblings? Did you have a say in how your room was painted/decorated? Did your folks update/redecorate periodically or was your house “stuck” in a certain decade? Did you have a yard? A swingset or other play areas? What was your neighborhood like? Were there lots of kids to play with? Did your family stay in one place or did you move? If so, how many times did you move by the time you graduated from high school? Did you like moving or long to stay in one place? Are your parents still in the home you grew up in (or at least the one you lived in when you graduated from high school) or did they move and you haven’t lived with them in their latest house? Does it feel like home? What were your favorite and least favorite things about your physical home? How similar or different is it to where you live now?

I’ve always loved the idea of the old family homestead, large enough for the whole brood, passed down through the generations, the house everyone comes home to.

We didn’t have that, however. We moved around quite a lot — every two years for a while. The only house I have any memory from my early childhood is my grandfather’s house. We lived with him for a while, then it seems we lived there by ourselves for a time, but I can’t remember the order of it all. I don’t remember how long we lived there. I don’t know if it was the house he shared with my grandmother or if he moved there after she passed away. I don’t really remember anything distinctive about the house itself except that it seems like it was a peachy color, and the bathroom connected my parent’s bedroom and my room. I do remember the address: if I am ever back in Corpus Christi, TX, I may drive by and see if it is still there.

But I do have some distinct memories from that house. Here are a few:

  • My brother was born there. My mom had visited the doctor that day and had been told she was not ready to deliver yet. She didn’t have contractions in front, but had horrible back pain. I was four, and I remember being in my bedroom while she was in the bathroom when she shrieked for my father to come. He came and picked her up and carried her into their room — and they wouldn’t let me in! (Probably a good thing!) I remember lying on my bed wondering what was going on when my grandfather came in to check on me. Everything happened too fast for them to get to a hospital, but they did go after everything settled down. I did get to go in and see my mom and new little brother before they left.
  • A couple of years later, my brother and I shared a bedroom with bunk beds. I had the top bunk, and the bottom of my bed wasn’t covered over, so my brother’s view from the lower bunk was of all the coils from the box springs of my bed (It’s amazing he didn’t get a finger stuck in there or something.) He often had very vivid dreams involving wild animals, so one night when he went to tell my parents that there was a snake in the box springs, they thought he was just dreaming. But he insisted, and they came to check — and there was a snake, by that time on my mattress near my head!!! Somehow they got our neighbor, Mrs. Beeson, over there to kill it: I remember her chopping its head off with an axe (after they somehow got it off the bed) and watching its mouth opening and closing and its body still slithering while disconnected from each other. Creepy! She said it was an egg snake (?) after eggs in the nest in my window (which I hadn’t noticed before) and it wouldn’t have hurt me. But it was still creepy.
  • I don’t remember Mrs. Beeson’s face at all. She looked like she could have come from the Little House on the Prairie TV show set: she always wore a long skirt, blouse, and bonnet when she worked outside, which was a lot. I stayed with her for a few days while my mom was in the hospital after my brother’s birth. I don’t think she had a family of her own (at least not that lived with or near her), but there always seemed to be children at her house. She had a woody area behind her house where there was an old cabinet with various utensils and pans and pans, etc., and we all played back there making mud pies and such.
  • I must have had an active imagination of my own, because I remember one night on my top bunk waking up and seeing a rounded shape right in front of me. Somehow I was convinced it was a headhunter, and if I just kept my eyes closed and pretended I was asleep, he wouldn’t bother me. So I tried, peeking every now and then to see if it was still there. I finally fell back asleep, and when I woke up, I saw that that rounded shape was the head of my teddy bear. 😳

So, even though I don’t remember the house itself, I have fond memories of our time there.

When I was in 9th or 10th grade, we lived in a small town with less than 200 people. There was no high school — we were bussed to the next town 10 miles away. I think there was one traffic light. Our house was “the house on the second hill.” The thing I loved about that house was that you could open windows on opposite sides of the house and get a lovely breeze through there.

When my mother left my father and we moved to Houston, we lived in a trailer for a few years. Then my mom and step-father had a house built in a new sub-division where they moved when I was in college and lived there ever since. My mom passed away almost five years ago, but my step-father still lives there. It is paid for now, and he wants to stay there until he passes on. Since I only lived there during breaks from college, I don’t have the feelings associated with the family home except that it was my mom’s house for so many years. I have fond memories from visits back there as well. What’s funny is that my three youngest sisters were very little when we moved there, so for them that is the old family homestead. Funny the different perspectives from the different age groups!

Booking Through Thursday: Reviewed

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btt button The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Do you read book reviews? Do you let them change your mind about reading/not reading a particular book?

I read some book reviews. If an author I like and have read before has a new book coming out, I am not likely to read a review of it until after I read it to see if others thought and felt the same way I did or not. But many bloggers I read post book reviews, and the great majority of them are positive and have added greatly to my “To Be Read” list. I will occasionally check the reviews at Amazon.com or Christianbook.com as well. There may have been a few times a review inclined me away from a book, but if the book was something I had a strong desire to read, I wouldn’t let that deter me. We do have to account for different tastes and personalities and the fact that not even the closest friends will like all the same things. But if there is a book I have some doubt about, there are people whose judgment I trust whose opinion I would seek before investing my time and money in a book.

“Where Bloggers Create” Party

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I posted way back on April 29 that I learned via Quill Cottage about a Where Bloggers Create party to be given June 19 at My Desert Cottage in which bloggers could show their creative space, whether a room or a corner or a table. Some great prizes from Jo Packham of the Where Women Create magazines and books are being given as well.

And then I forgot about it!

And then we found out we were moving, so I pretty much stopped working on it both because it was all going to be moved anyway plus now I have other packing and sorting to do.

But then the creative space of the first party participant I looked at was not at all “picture perfect,” so I thought I might join in after all.

It is functional enough to use — I’ve made a few things in here — but I still don’t have all my “stuff” in here yet and don’t have it all organized and have very little on the walls.

But here is what I have so far.

This is the view from the door. I probably would not have chosen dark blue walls if I were starting from scratch — I probably would have painted them creamy white like Anita‘s. But we had just redone this room for Jason a few years ago, and the paint was in fine shape, so we left it. As it turns out,  I really love the way the pink and white look against the blue. I don’t know if I’ll paint the craft room in the new house this color — we’ll have to see. At least I am pretty sure I will have a craft room — we might have to combine it with an office. We’re still house-hunting (I’d appreciate your prayer for that! We want to get in and settled before Jesse’s school starts.)

Anyway, back to the room. One thing I neglected to take a photo of were the studio lights Jason asked for when we redecorated his room, but they were very helpful in aiming the lights at the different work areas.

This is where I do my paper crafting or anything that needs table space:

As you can tell, I don’t have my little shelves filled up and organized yet. Some day… But I like having most everything within reach. My Cricut and Cuttlebug cartridges are in the pink file boxes below the table, and the floral file box…

…contains my scrapbooking and craft papers:

This little drawer set sits just to my left..

…and holds various tools and supplies, like my decorative scissors..

…punches…

…ribbons and trims…

I will probably separate those into different color families at some point, but for now I love to just rummage through them all.

This bookcase holds all my craft books as well as some decorative things that will go other places in the room some day. When I get those decorative things off the shelves, they will then probably hold more supplies.

I should have straightened that photo!

To the right there you see some things that will some day go on the walls.

This is the sewing area:

I really need to change that Holly Hobby red sewing machine cover! I’ve used this old desk for sewing for years, and it works fine except when excess fabric wants to slide off the left side of the table, so that’s why I put my pink file cabinet with craft and sewing booklets and clippings there — it provides a little extra surface area.

This shelf above the sewing area has a few decorative sewing-related items:

Continuing to move around the room, this wall is…the unfinished area. 🙂

The plan was to put a futon there, both so overnight guests would have a place to sleep and I might have a comfortable place to sit and do hand sewing or look through one of the books, or for my husband or kids to have a place to sit if they came up while I was working on something. We haven’t gotten one yet, and I need for that very old computer of Jason’s to be carted off somewhere.

Finally, this is the partially organized closet:

Some of those boxes contain gift bags, photos, mementos, stamps, etc.

This is one little project sitting out that has been awaiting a frame for a long time. It’s a good reminder!

This sign is still on the door.

My middle son, Jason put it there back when he started packing up some of his things from his room shortly before he got married. It didn’t really hit until I saw all those boxes that he was actually leaving, though I’d known it for months, and I got a little teary. My husband said, “Think sewing room!” and Jason put the sign up as an encouragement that I’d get to use the room for fun stuff after he was gone. 🙂

So there you have it, such as it is! You can find many more finished creative spaces at the party post at My Desert Cottage here. I’m looking forward to being inspired and getting some neat ideas.

In addition to the prizes offered at My Desert Cottage, Hydrangea Home is offering a prize of a $50 certificate from her store for party-goers:

The Week In Words

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Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are some interesting quotes I saw this week:

From various friends’ Facebook status updates:

“Where the heart is willing, it will find a thousand ways. Where it is unwilling, it will find a thousand excuses.”~ Arlen Price

“The benefit of memorizing Scripture is so you can be thinking God’s thoughts; trading your thoughts for His; meditating on what’s important to God instead of what’s important to yourself.” ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Seen at Brenda‘s:

Right is right even if no one’s doing it.
Wrong is wrong even if everyone’s doing it.

Seen at Dawn‘s:

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin.

I’ve marked a number of quotes in Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. The parts emphasized in each one are my emphasis, the parts that particularly jumped out at me.:

Christianity is corporate. There are no lone rangers in the body. We need each other. And we need to encourage each other. Maybe you are full of courage today. If so, then offer some of yours to someone else. Don’t operate in the body looking only to get your needs met. Look for needs that you can uniquely meet, and in the process you’ll find your needs uniquely met. (p. 117).

[In regard to those who say they can’t forgive themselves…] If God says we are forgiven, who are we to keep punishing ourselves? If we refuse to forgive ourselves, it is as if we are saying that we are greater than God, that our judgment is higher than His. (p. 105).

When God forgives, it doesn’t mean He looks at our sin and says, “It doesn’t matter. It is no big deal.” When He said He would forgive our wickedness, He knew what it would cost. He knew that the price for sin would be paid through the death of a perfect sacrifice — His own Son. (p. 97).

While Hebrew 4:1 has an invitation, it also has a warning. “Since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it”….In the New Living translation this verse reads, “We ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it.” Here we learn that there is something worth being afraid of — terrified of — in this life: unbelief, not trusting God. It is a scary thing to hear and know the promises of God and to choose not to trust them — to decide we don’t really need them or want them, to walk away from them rather than enter into them. (p. 46).

Forgive me for including quite so many: I know that the more there is, the longer the post, the more people’s eyes glaze over and they tend to skim rather than read carefully. I know quotes make more impact when there are just a few succinct ones. Yet…I didn’t feel I could leave any of these out.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post with Mr. Linky below, and don’t forget to leave a comment telling me what you think about these quotes. 🙂 And whether you have any you’d like to share, if you like reading you might find some interesting quotes at the other participants: I hope you’ll visit them as well.

Spring Reading Thing Wrap-Up

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Today is the first day of summer, though it has been feeling like summer for a while now. But one thing the first day of summer marks is the end of the Spring Reading Thing sponsored by Katrina at Callapidder Days. 🙂

The books I completed this spring are:

Non-Fiction:

Beyond Prison Walls by Marian Bomm, about her interment in a Japanese prison camp in WWII.
Detour, sequel to Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish by Grace H. Kaiser about an accident that left her disabled, reviewed here.
Hope and Help For Your Nerves by Dr. Claire Weekes, reviewed here.
.Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter compiled by Nancy Guthrie from excerpts from the writings and sermons of godly Christians through the ages, reviewed here.
My Heart Restored, a devotional by June Kimmel.
Port of Two Brothers by Paul Schlener about two missionary brothers and their work along the Amazon River, reviewed here.

Christian Fiction:

The Hidden Flame by Janette Oke and Davis Bunn is the second in the Acts of Faith, reviewed here.
Take Three, the third in the Above the Line series by Karen Kingsbury about Christian filmmakers, their families, and the problems they run into.
The Telling, the last  in the Seasons of Grace series by Beverly Lewis about an Amish wife and mother who suddenly and inexplicably leaves her family, reviewed here.
This Fine Life by Eva Marie Everson, reviewed here.
A Touch of Grace by Lauraine Snelling, the third in her Daughters of Blessing series about a Norwegian farming family in North Dakota in the 1900s, reviewed here.
Traveler’s Rest by Sue Carter Stout, reviewed here.
Where My Heart Belongs by Tracie Peterson about a prodigal daughter coming home, reviewed here.

Classics or Other Fiction:

Carry On, Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse, reviewed here.

Katrina asks:

Did you finish reading all the books on your spring reading list? If not, why not?

The two books on my list that I didn’t finish are Emma by Jane Austen and Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. I’m reading them both now. I just got to reading other books and forgot Emma was one on my list to complete before the challenge was over. I probably should have planned on just one Bible study book for the season.

Did you stick to your original goals or did you change your list as you went along?

I added a few to my original goals: Hope and Help For Your Nerves, This Fine Life, and Traveler’s Rest.

What was your favorite book that you read this spring? Least favorite? Why?

The favorite Christian Fiction was This Fine Life. I just loved the story-telling and the love story that took place after marriage. Favorite Non -fiction: Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross and Hoping for Something Better. They are both very meaty and very well-written. Traveler’s Rest was my least favorite because I felt it needed some editorial help.

Did you learn something new because of Spring Reading Thing 2010 — something about reading, or yourself, or a topic you read about?

I learned something from each book, but the one about help for nerves was particularly helpful. Sometimes just a seemingly minor change in thinking can make a great difference.

What was your favorite thing about the challenge?

Being more purposeful than random in my reading choices and adding to my TBR list by visiting some of the other participants.

Only a Dad

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Only a Dad

By Edgar Albert Guest

Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.

Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

So here are five favorite things from this last week:

1. House-hunting online. I mentioned earlier this week that we are moving to TN. Most realtors have their listings online these days, and though it is not enough information to make a decision without going to actually look at houses, it’s enough to weed some out. Though at first the list of possibilities from the realtor looks a little tedious to sort through, it has actually been a lot of fun. Helpful hint to anyone selling a house: take LOTS of pictures, and of all the rooms. It’s frustrating when there are only 6 pictures, all of them outside.

2. Finishing two books this week, reviewed here and here.They were both good and neither very long, but somehow it seemed to take a long time to actually complete them, so it is nice to be done with them.

3. Magazines. I have a weakness for magazines, particularly decorating or “homey” magazines, to the point where I’ve actually had to discipline myself not to pick any more up. I enjoyed sorting through some Martha Stewart Living, Family Fun, and Taste of Home magazines as well as some decorating and “do it yourself” project magazines before passing them on to others. I love the good tips and projects in them, and even just the creativity they inspire.

4. Having a voice in issues and politics. I was reminded of this when my husband wrote a letter to the editor this week about an issue in our town. We have the privilege in this country of letting our voice and opinions be heard by our representatives and the press, and we probably don’t use it enough. There are still countries in the world where people are punished for expressing a different opinion than the approved one.

5. Safety on the roads. I was just reading a tragic story of a friend of a friend who was killed when she stopped her car on the shoulder of a road to get out and latch the back hatch, where some things had fallen out, when she got hit by a car and died instantly, with her two daughters seeing the whole thing. Life is just so fragile — just a vapor, Scripture says, or like flowers or grass that only last a short while. My husband travels so much, and I’ve had more travel with the family and alone in preparing for this move, I am so grateful for the safety we’ve had.