Everyday Mommy is hosting the First Annual Hidden Treasure Blog Awards. She writes:

The idea is simple; to recognize blog authors of excellence, with deserving posts which may go unnoticed.

All of us have our favorite blogs, the ones we read faithfully. They are dear friends, like a comfortable pair of shoes, perfectly broken in. But, we can also find ourselves in a rut, reading the same blogs week after week, and overlooking those hidden gems which may require a little more digging. But, as my mom taught me, anything worth having is worth working for.

The categories in which we can nominate posts are: Children & Family, Faith, Marriage, Motherhood, Homemaking, Humor, Current Events and Life.

More details about this are here. Nominations continue through Feb. 7; voting begins Feb. 8. Information about how to nominate is here.

I hope you will help bring some of your favorite, off-the-beaten path bloggers’ posts to light. I haven’t quite decided on my nominations yet — I know at least one of them but I am still pondering the rest.

…though it’s not snow, exactly. More like falling slush balls, my husband said when he went out to get the paper. There is supposed to be some combination of snow/rain/freezing rain/sleet throughout the day (what’s the difference between sleet and freezing rain, I wonder? I suppose I could go look it up.) When I turned on the news to see if our school was closed for the day the weatherman meteorologist said a “winter storm warning” was in effect until 6 am tomorrow.

Somehow I totally missed the forecast until later yesterday afternoon when my kids came home excited about the possibility of school being closed. I was at the store for a few things and wondered why the parking lot was so uncharacteristically full for that time of day — one of the regular news stories every year when we have a snow or ice forecast is how everyone buys out all of the milk and bread the day before.

I’m glad we have a snug, warm home. One problem, though, with this weather, especially with any iciness, is power outages, usually from tree limbs breaking off and falling onto power lines. The power lines in our neighborhood are below ground, but evidently somewhere between here and the power plant they are above ground, because it is not unusual to have some loss of power during a winter storm. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen (for the whole area, not just for me). We’re ok if it does. We have a fireplace downstairs and a stack of fire wood from last year that never got used. One room that was added onto the house by the previous owners has a gas heater. We have candles and flashlights and some D batteries (I should have gotten more of those). We have a little camp stove that we could probably use in front of a window or door (for the necessary ventilation) for however long we would need to heat something up. We have sandwich stuff. We wouldn’t have hot water for showers, but we could make do. I know people did for years without electricity. But there is something about being without electricity that just makes me cringe. I don’t like the darkness. Once when we lived in GA and our area got hit by hurricane Opal, we were without power for 3 or 4 days, and it just felt so stifling to not have full light. After the third day we went out to eat at a place nearby that did have power just to get out of the dark house. But — that’s a minor thing compared to what a lot of people have to face, so I an trying to keep it in perspective and remembering the Scriptural principle about not fretting about what the future might bring.

I am pretty much housebound in weather like this since the transverse myelitis. Both my balance and footing are faulty — my lower legs are not totally numb, but the sensation isn’t all quite there — and that combination makes slippery places a hazard for me. But I am fine with being inside since we’re well-stocked with groceries and I won’t need to go anywhere until tomorrow.

What’s going to make the day a challenge is that the monthly newsletter/booklet I write for our church ladies’ group is due out the first Sunday of the month — which is this Sunday — which I usually have ready to take to the church office to copy and staple on Friday — and for which the Thursday before is a day of heavy writing and finishing up — which will be interesting this particular Thursday with everyone home. We’ll see how it goes!

(Photo Hunt post is a couple of posts below this.)

If you have some time to kill and just want to be entertained, try this Virtual Bubble Wrap. Or you could go to Flickr.com and peruse the Stick Figures in Peril. My son showed me this a while back. We’ve all seen warning signs on everything under the sun with those little hapless stick figures in various dangerous situations, showing us what not to do. They are not meant to be funny, of course — but some of them are. And the comments on some of the pictures are even more hilarious (caution: the language isn’t always the best, but most of what I have seen is ok). Someone made a group for them on Flickr. Some of my favorites are here, here, here, and here.

I didn’t have Jane Eyre on my winter reading list at first, though it is another classic I always wanted to read “some day.” But after seeing the first half of the new PBS production of it which was on last Sun. night, I put it on my list and started it yesterday! I saw an earlier production of it with Ciaran Hinds as Mr. Rochester, but there are some differences between this production and that one. I don’t know which one is supposed to be closer to the book. I must have seen an even earlier production of it at some point, because I’ve been basically familiar with the storyline.

Mrs. B. at Cherish the Home wrote a wonderful post a few days ago about what SAHW (stay at home wives) can do while waiting on the Lord for children. Another post of hers on humility provoked thought by reminding us that God doesn’t tell us to wait on Him to humble us but tells us to “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” (I Peter 5:6). Of course, we can only do so with the Lord’s help. But clearly there is activity rather than passivity here, and I tend to just pray and ask God to make me humble when He tells me here to take action.

There is a beautiful poem called “To a Homemaker” here at Stephanie’s Musings of a Mountain Mama.

There is a good interview with Jamie Langston Turner, author of Winter Birds and five other novels, here.

On the topic of writing, Elisabeth Elliot wrote a piece on what I would call “Writing by Faith” but which she titled “The Trail to Shandia” here. (The title will make sense when you read it. 🙂 ) I thought the last paragraphs were interesting in light of the struggle several bloggers have written about (and I struggle with myself), the desire for approval. Of course we have to do what we do, even blogging, as unto the Lord whether we get any feedback or not. But these words comforted me that that desire is a ver human one and not always wrong:

“Do I need approval?” Answer: yes. Does anybody not need approval? Is there anybody who is content to live his life without so much as a nod from anybody else? Wouldn’t he be, of all men, the most devilishly self-centered? Wouldn’t his supreme solitude be the most hellish? It’s human to want to know that you please somebody.

Sometimes readers of things that I write tell me long afterward that they have thought of writing me a letter, or have written one and discarded it, thinking, “She doesn’t need my approval.” Well, they’re mistaken–for wouldn’t it be a lovely thing to know that a footprint you have left on the trail has, just by being there, heartened somebody else?

A while back my “Thursday Thirteen” dealt with some of the “whys” of life. There was one I had been thinking of but forgot to include: why do people in the next car or the next house like to treat everyone within earshot to their choice of music? Especially when it is loud banging music? It’s quite gracious of them to want to share their cultural experience with us, but, really, I’d prefer to just sit in my quiet, peaceful, tranquil car or home….if I only could.

You may have seen this button around the blogosphere the last few days. BooMama has been sponsoring a contribution drive for Kelli, a mom needing a kidney transplant. As I understand it contributions can still be made (almost $9,000 raised so far!!), but please also pray — there are many details and considerations along the way before this becomes a reality.

Also pray for Ashley and Emma Grace, two little girls with extremely serious helath needs.

One thing. I read one of the neatest posts yesterday at 2nd cup of coffee based on the phrase “one thing” in the Bible. It was not only inspiring but simplifies any resolutions we need to make.

200 calories. My oldest son sent me this interesting link titled “What Does 200 Calories Look Like?” (Shouldn’t that be “do” rather than “does,” though? In my brain fog [see below] it doesn’t look quite right.) Anyway, it has pictures of the 200-calorie equivalent of various foods. In what should be a no-brainer, you can get a lot more celery and broccoli for 200 calories than you can peanut butter and Hershey’s kisses (if only those didn’t taste so good…) Though we know that on one level, it is an eye-opener to see it. I only wish the site had used something other than grams for its measurements, like cups or tablespoons.

Blogging helper. Shannon @ Rocks In My Dryer and Chilihead @ Don’t Try This At Home have launched a new site to help beginning bloggers called Blogging Basics 101. I think it is a great idea. Probably most of us wish something like this had been around when we started.

Bleah. Somehow we all got through the Christmas season without getting sick, except for my husband. He had a horrible cold and still has a pretty bad cough. Tuesday I started having a sore throat and runny nose, progressed to coughing and feeling this morning like my cheeks are about to fall off. I hope it doesn’t spread to the rest of the family just as everyone is getting back to school and work. I’d rather have this, though, than the stomach thing some others have been going through. A lot of people around here have had it as have a number of bloggers’ families. In fact, as I have read about it, I’ve wanted to keep my distance from the screen and disinfect the keyboard lest germs sneak though. 🙂

I have mentioned before that I receive a daily e-mail devotional from Back to the Bible based on the writings of Elisabeth Elliot. The one this morning was taken from the book All That Was Ever Ours, which is one of just a few of her books I have never read. I think it must be out of print: I don’t usually see it in listings of her books. Since I have been receiving these for some time now, I’ve been through them all and have started seeing entries that I remember reading before, but which I still enjoy. This one caught my eye the first time because of the following passage about writing (the question, “What could I possibly say that hasn’t been said before?” is one I had asked myself many times, and this answer wonderfully blessed me) but also this time because of the comments on solitude and stillness in light of the recent Carnival of Beauty post on “The Beauty of Solitude.”

The first several paragraphs of this entry detail a boat trip to see whales in the ocean, then she writes:

Not long after we had made this trip I received another of those letters from an aspiring writer. A young woman wrote, “I often yearn to be a writer but after reading books like yours, I feel that all the important things have already been said!”

They have indeed been said, and long before I said them. If a thing is true it is not new, but the truth needs to be said again and again, freshly for each generation. I have often been introduced to some seventeenth-or eighteenth-century writer by a nineteenth-century writer. If I quote what I learn from the ancients, a twentieth-century reader is sometimes helped when he would not by himself have found Crashaw’s poem or St. Francis’ prayer or St. Paul’s Love chapter.

What of the twenty-first century? Which of the young people I know are now laying the groundwork for being the writers or artists or, as I like to think of any who show truth in any form, the prophets for my grandchildren’s grandchildren?

I wrote to the young woman:

Don’t give up that yearning. During these busy years while you take care of small children and give yourself to being a godly wife and mother, lay the firm footing on which good writing must be built. Read great books if you have time to read anything at all. Get rid of the junk that comes in the mail, eschew all magazines and newspapers if your reading time is limited, and by “hearing” the really great authors, learn the sound and cadence of good English.

There are two other things required of “prophets.” Observation (“What do you see?” Ezekiel and John were asked) and silence. (“The word of the Lord came to me.”) Obviously we (I, at least, and most others, I suppose) are not anything like the biblical prophets. Ours is a different assignment. But we are charged with the responsibility of telling the truth, and I don’t see how this can possibly be done without opening our eyes to see and our ears to hear. There must, there simply must, be time and space allowed for silence and for solitude if what we see and hear is to be “processed.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of Wind, Sand, and Stars, said in a conversation with Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “The great of the earth are those who leave silence and solitude around themselves, their work and their life, and let it ripen of its own accord.”

If any of the crowd we saw fishing from a breakwater as our boat entered Gloucester harbor again are among the “great of the earth,” it will be against terrible odds. They, like the lady on board, were also listening to a shrieking radio.

ln the cry of gulls, in the blow of a whale, in the very stillness of an early morning, it seems to me, we are more likely to hear the Lord’s quiet word.

Speak, Lord, in the stillness,
While I wait on Thee.
Hushed my heart to listen
In expectancy.

Copyright© 1988, by Elisabeth Elliot
all rights reserved.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily throw out all magazines and newspapers — there are forms of writing there, good and bad, and I’d definitely stick with the good and profitable. And there has been some discussion here and there in blogville about whether blogging is truly “writing.” I think it is. Writing at its base is a form of communication, and we all hope we are doing that or we wouldn’t be taking the time to write anything. So I hope these thoughts encourage you as they did me.