About Barbara Harper

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A short one (for me, anyway)

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Well, I survived the root canal. 😀 It’s not too bad once they actually get started. While the drilling is going on I keep my eyes closed (because once a piece of something that was being drilled got between my eyelid and eyeball — very painful! And I don’t really want to see the instruments) and think through hymns. It’s the anticipation all morning that gets to me most. No matter how much I remind myself that the Lord has everything under control and everything will be ok, my body still reacts nervously. But look what the Lord gave me in Daily Light this morning:

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3.

I had forgotten this was a 2-part procedure, though. I have to go back next week for the permanent filling. But I think that should be easy.

The left side of my face is still numb — great fun when drinking something! I think I’ll go rustle up some soup for lunch.

I wanted to share this cute video of clay stop motion chess that I saw over at The Common Room. This was especially fun for us because Jesse is currently working on this music in his piano practice. Stay with it — it gets more and more interesting as it goes along.

(If you have trouble seeing the video, you can find it here.)

Odds and ends

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I mentioned in my Fall Into Reading Challenge post that I had been wanting to reread Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. What I failed to mention is that I have been wanting to read an unabridged version. I’ve read two different abridged versions, and I wanted to read the whole thing. I ordered it from Amazon.com and got it a few days ago. It is a thick book!

1,463 pages! So this will keep me busy for a long while.

If you prefer listening to books rather than reading them, Focus on the Family Radio Theater has an excellent version here. It has been a long time since I heard it, but as I recall it was very moving. There is a brief sound clip there.

There has been some really good reading around the blogosphere lately:

Chats With an “Old Lady” writes about the stalker in her house — and ours.
Dana at Are We There Yet? tells how she stopped yelling at her kids — good advice for overcoming any bad habit — or habitual sin.
Jill Stanek asserts that Obama Lied in the third presidential debate about his stance on infants who survive abortion.
Michelle at As4Me had a good series about banned books and censorship. A couple of posts in that series are More on Good Censorship and When Christian Children Should Read the Bad Books.
Lizzie at A Dusty Frame had 55 Ways To Use Leftovers.
I don’t remember where I saw this link, but if you, like me, have trouble decorating cakes, you might want to try these tips for stenciling them and some of these free patterns for cake and cupcake stencils.

Finally, Carolyn at Talk to Grams passed on to me this sweet award, which of which the originator says:

Many of you have touched my heart and life in ways that have changed me eternally! I thank you for being a faithful servant and being obedient to the upward calling every time you share a piece of His heart living out in you! I pray that you will share this award with others who have touched your heart by sowing seeds of love into your life! They will know we are His by how we love one another! Let us sow seeds of love throughout the blogging world and touch the hearts of those who come to read what we all share! To HIM be all the glory forever and ever! AMEN!

And Alice gave me the I Love Your Blog Award (a while back — forgive me for taking so long to acknowledge it!)

And also just today this Butterfly award:

Thank you so much, Alice and Carolyn!

Now here is my dilemma. Many people to whom I would love to pass these on just don’t “do” awards on their blogs. And so it ends up that I seem to pass awards on to the same people all the time, though that’s ok. And I am always afraid of leaving someone out or hurting feelings. So let’s just say if you read and comment here, please take the Faithful Servant award, because you are a blessing to me in that way. And I try to comment regularly, or at least occasionally, on the blogs I read, so if you have seen my comments on your blog, feel free to take the other two as well. I enjoy it or else I wouldn’t keep reading and commenting. 🙂

And the final finally: the dreaded root canal is tomorrow. I feel much better than I did a week ago — praise the Lord for antibiotics!! I am looking forward to getting it over with.

Have a good day!!

Blue Monday

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue.

I thought I’d show a few more things in my kitchen, this time relating to bears. I used to collect a lot of bear-related things, but nowadays I have narrowed it down to Boyd’s Bear figurines. But these are a few non-Boyd’s bears that I love.

I found this cute little bench as is at a thrift store for $3.

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Barbara Harper

From the hymn, “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness“:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

The holy, meek, unspotted Lamb,
Who from the Father’s bosom came,
Who died for me, e’en me to atone,
Now for my Lord and God I own.

Lord, I believe Thy precious blood,
Which, at the mercy seat of God,
Forever doth for sinners plead,
For me, e’en for my soul, was shed.

Lord, I believe were sinners more
Than sands upon the ocean shore,
Thou hast for all a ransom paid,
For all a full atonement made.

When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev’n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

– Nikolaus L. von Zinzendorf, 1739

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Family

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Theme: Family| Become a Photo Hunter

I’ve missed the last several Photo Hunts — I was too busy some weekends, on others I just drew a complete blank with the given topic.

This is one of my favorite plaques:

It says:

Families are like quilts–
Lives pieced
and stitched together,
Colored by happiness and tears,
Bound by memories
and love,
Cherished throughout
the years.

We got it years ago In Chattanooga while there on a trip given to my husband as a reward for something he had done in the company. I love both what it says and the style.

Visit TN Chick for more photo hunters.

“With one look at self…”

Posted on October 17, 2008 by Barbara Harper

In the e-mail devotional of Elisabeth Elliot‘s writing that I received this morning, there was an excerpt from her book, Keep a Quiet Heart, which told of a letter her father received from an old missionary friend, E.L. Langston, concerning some troubles that Elisabeth’s father was facing. After discussing the probability of spiritual opposition, Mr. Langston went on to discuss the discouragement that can “come from the flesh and self-introspection.” He went on to say,

“It is good for us to look at self and know how loathsome it is, but with one look at self we must take ten looks at Christ….”

How true that is. We are called to examine ourselves and take what we find there to the cross, but too much morbid introspection can be discouraging. We need to “turn our eyes upon Jesus.”

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. II Corinthians 3:18.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…Hebrews 12:2a.

Friday’s Fave 5

Posted on October 17, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Susanne at Living to Tell the Story has begun a “Friday Fave Five” in which we share out five favorite things from the past week. Click on the button to read more of the details.

1. Ibuprofen. It has been my friend this week. Bless the inventor of it!

2. Finding out that my tooth/gum/jaw ordeal wasn’t any of the bigger things I thought it might be but was just an abscess (relatively) easily fixable with antibiotics and a root canal (and ibuprofen!) Though I am not looking forward to the root canal, I am thinking of it as a means of relief. And though anything dental is not usually on my list of favorite things, I am glad we live in an age and a country where dental problems are easily diagnosed and relatively easily handled. I’ve known missionaries in third world countries who go somewhere to learn how to pull teeth while they are home on furlough because there are no dentists in their area, and they want to be able to do at least that much for villagers with tooth pain. Can you imagine?

3. A comment my husband made. I had put up a few fall decorations while he was out of town, and a day or two after he came back, he commented that he enjoyed them and it was fun to be surprised from room to room seeing what was new. As I am the only female in the house, I had thought no one else really noticed or cared much about decorations, so that was nice to hear.

4. A conversation with my mother-in-law. I’ve mentioned before she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s but does have some confusion and memory problems and enough awareness to know that she does. Once this week, after asking me about something we’ve talked about several times, she said, “I think I’ve had this conversation before…” Then yesterday she mentioned that, though she loves to read, she can’t remember what she read even the day before. I said, “Well, that means it’s always something new.” She laughed and said, “That’s the way to look at it!” I think I actually got that thought from Melli, so thanks, Mel!

5. Word games online. I love word games but my family doesn’t often play, so I was glad to discover Word Twist and Scrabble on Facebook. I think I bug my friends there a little too much with them. 🙂 But it is nice to have that outlet.

Paper Crafting Thursday

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home has begun hosting a Paper Crafting Thursday. I’ve enjoyed Kelli’s card tutorials for some time and look forward to seeing what everyone does. And I was excited to learn that I won last week’s paper crafting giveaway!

Mine are still pretty amateurish compared to others, but I love the creativity!

These are from last year as well — I hope to make some new ones this week.

The verse was cut from a sheet of verses I printed out on the computer, and the heart was made with a paper punch.

The brown hearts remind me of chocolate candy. 🙂

This verse was also printed out. I used paper punches on the corners and the hearts. I think the hearts would have stood out more if I had backed them with a contrasting or solid paper. All of the papers for this one as well as the following two bookmarks and some of the pink and brown ones came from a booklets of coordinating papers which included the strip at the left and the picture at the bottom of the last bookmark.

More paper punches used here. I really love the one that rounds off corners.

Here is a little plaque I made:

Besides Kelli’s card tutorials, I’ve also bookmarked other card-making blogs for inspiration. I thought I’d share some with you all as well. Some of these post about other things besides cards as well, but they post cards regularly:

De Stampin’ Corner

Fresh & Fun

Wild Rose Stamper

Card Positioning Systems

Sentiments By Denise

And, as I mentioned last time, I created a Flickr Group called Creative Cards. If you upload pictures to Flickr, I’d love to have you add your cards to that group!

Booking Through Thursday: What’s Sitting on Your Shelf?

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Barbara Harper

The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

Okay–here was an interesting article by Christopher Schoppa in the Washington Post.

Avid readers know all too well how easy it is to acquire books — it’s the letting go that’s the difficult part. … During the past 20 years, in which books have played a significant role in both my personal and professional lives, I’ve certainly had my fair share of them (and some might say several others’ shares) in my library. Many were read and saved for posterity, others eventually, but still reluctantly, sent back out into the world.

But there is also a category of titles that I’ve clung to for years, as they survived numerous purges, frequent library donations and countless changes of residence. I’ve yet to read them, but am absolutely certain I will. And should. When, I’m not sure, as I’m constantly distracted by the recent, just published and soon to be published works.

So, the question is his: “What tomes are waiting patiently on your shelves?“

I have Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and a book of Washington Irving’s short stories as well as a biography of Scottish poet Robert Burns that I have not read yet but have had for years. I got them all as good deals, the book on Burns an older used one, the others new. I really would like to get to the Burns’ biography but just don’t usually think of it when I am trolling for reading material. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to Homer’s books. Maybe I’ll skim through them a bit.

I also have a few books that are compilations of family stories that I had thought I would read out loud to the kids, but after we stopped home schooling, we just didn’t read out loud all together any more. I regret that. I have thought about passing them on, but can’t quite let them go yet. Maybe I will some day read them to grandchildren.

I also have several Christian non-fiction books by authors whose other works I have read and enjoyed — Spurgeon and C. S. Lewis, for example — but I just haven’t gotten around to these. Maybe some day…

So many books, so little time!!

The verdict is in…

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Is anyone getting sick of hearing about my silly tooth/jaw pain? I’m sorry. I know there are people who have much greater trials.

But it hurts.

I saw the dentist today, who took an x-ray and said I have an infection at the root of a tooth that has a crown on it (how it got there, I don’t know). So I was given a prescription for antibiotics and pain meds and scheduled for a root canal next week.

(Gulp!)

I should be able to use the same crown afterward. And though I dread the procedure, I am looking forward to never having this tooth cause me pain again.

The dentist thinks the pain and discomfort from over the weekend may have been this infection brewing. I hope that’s all it was. I guess if that pain is still there after all of this, we’ll explore other possibilities.

Meanwhile I am anxiously awaiting getting the pain med prescription filled to see if it works better than ibuprofen. Hopefully it won’t have any side effects or make me loopy.

Meanwhile I need to go rustle up dinner for the troops. Tooth pain is good for diets — I really don’t feel like eating!!