Plop!

Posted on March 29, 2009 by Barbara Harper

That’s the sound of me hitting my chair after a very busy weekend. I don’t know that I have ever gone 48 hours without posting since I started this blog.

About a week ago we were asked if we would host a fellowship for the teen guys Sunday night if their sponsors provided the food for it. It happened to be right in between other tasks and seemed like a good time, so we agreed. I had been wanting to host one of the teen fellowships (sometimes they are all together, sometimes it’s just guys or girls or just jr. or sr. high), but kept thinking I wanted to get the curtains done for the family room plus this, that, and the other. But there will always be house projects lined up. And guys probably won’t notice those things.

But having people over — even teen guys — led to a day of cleaning yesterday. We “divided and conquered.” I always feel a little guilty when Jim helps to clean because he leaves for work early and gets home late and just about doesn’t have time for anything else during the week. I hate for him to spend his weekends cleaning. But he saw my master list of things I wanted to get accomplished this weekend and just pitched in. He even told the boys to take on one more “job” than what I has assigned to them. One thing on my list was to take the little grate at the bottom of the refrigerator off and clean it and then to clean the top of the refrigerator. Jim got started on that, and in the “one thing led to another” department, went above and beyond and ended up taking everything out of all the shelves and racks and cleaning out the whole thing. I have to say it did make me smile today to open the refrigerator and see everything gleaming.

It’s especially nice to have everything all caught up in the cleaning department because the next few weeks are going to be really busy: ladies newsletter/booklet this week, then gearing up for the ladies’ luncheon at the end of April. Our school is hosting a yard sale this weekend that I hope to get some things sorted out for: it’s a good place to sell outgrown school uniforms, if nothing else. Then Jason is in a special program at his school in April, plus Easter is coming up, plus a bridal shower next week.

One funny thing in the midst of all the cleaning yesterday: Jason had vacuumed the living room floors, and just a short time later there were several dark specks on it that looked like someone’s sock fuzz. He said something like, “It is so aggravating to see stuff on the floor when I just vacuumed it.” I thought, “Welcome to my world, dear.” 🙂

Then, I had been wanting to use some Christmas money from my step-father and my husband’s mother to get an end table for the living room, and just got to that yesterday. I had seen one in a store months ago and went back to look at it. I wanted it in white, and they only had one. The drawer seemed to have a little warped place in it and what looked like a crack, but it seemed stable — we likely won’t be putting anything heavy in there. Now, if my husband had been with me, he would have asked right off the bat if they’d take some off the price for the defect. It used to embarrass me to death when he did, but quite often he would get things marked down. I’m the type of person who gets embarrassed just trying to make a return to a store to to tell a waiter my food isn’t right. But this time I just plunged in and asked if they’d take anything off the price. Well, they said, it’s already a good price, and, the good thing was if you closed the drawer you wouldn’t be able to see it…and I just kept standing there. And finally they gave me $20 off. I thought, “Jim would be so proud of me!”

Back to the fellowship (yes, I’m rambling…) it was very nice. The guys played the Wii and ate meatball subs and cupcakes. When they sang and then were asked to share a verse or a testimony, I was very pleased that there were no awkward silences or staring at the floor — they seemed to jump right in. And it was neat to see Jesse in that setting. Of course, he’s had friends over many times, one or two at a time, but I wondered how he did in the group as a whole, and he seemed to do ok.

One other exciting thing this weekend — I think I’ve found my “mother of the groom dress.”

motg-dress

What do you think? It’s funny how it’s almost exactly like what I had pictured in my mind. It’s more than I would normally spend…but how often does a son get married? To find something I like, in my size…I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and order it in the morning. I tend to overthink catalog purchases until the item is no longer available — probably a good thing, most of the time, but I’d hate for that to happen with this.

So…those are my “stray thoughts” from this weekend. I think I am going to go wind down with a book.

Friday’s Fave Fives

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Barbara Harper

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

So here are some of my favorite things from the past week.

1. These cute Easter sticky notes from my “secret sister” from our ladies’ group at church:

2. There is a new thrift store between our house and my mother-in-law’s place that I’ve been wanting to visit, and I finally got to yesterday. Found some neat stuff!

This accent table:

I’m thinking about painting it white.

This cute spring decoration:

And this heart-shaped box:

3. Getting the caterer and menu set for our upcoming ladies’ luncheon. The menu is probably the hardest part, trying to decide between all the great-sounding choices. But that’s one more big thing to check off the list for this event.

4. Wed. night at church, a lady was asking me about Jason’s plans. She thought he was getting married in May after graduation, and she was wondering how his job search was going. I told her their wedding date was in August so that he could work and save up some money over the summer, and we discussed some of the options he was exploring for after graduation. She responded something to the effect that knowing that his wedding was later in the summer would change the way she prayed for him. It was such a blessing to know not only that someone was praying, but praying specifically and intelligently for him.

Then a little later on a similar thing happened: I stopped to ask a question of the lady who has being doing the “leg work” for the program part of the ladies’ luncheon (and boy, has that been a blessing! I’ve never had anyone to do that before. I should give her her own listing here!!) She asked me about the decorations and favors: I told her I had some ideas “incubating” and hoped to have them set in the next few days. She mentioned that she had been praying for me about that, and I thought, “Wow!” That just blessed me to no end. General “How’s it going?” questions are great, general prayer is great, but when someone unexpectedly is praying specifically for you and your family — well, it was just a major blessing! And a rebuke, for too often I fail in that area.

5. Wednesday’s night’s message by a guest speaker was another blessing — one of those sermons that just stays with you for days, and your mind turns it over and over and continues to learn from it. The speaker was a missionary and the brother of one of our ladies. Some years back he and his family were ministering in Siberia when they suddenly found they had to leave. I don’t remember now the details, but I think it had to do with their visas being due to expire, and their renewal was refused. So he had friends, family, and supporting pastors calling and asking what he was going to do now, and all he could say was, “I don’t know.” He brought out what God taught him at that time, that the destination isn’t so much the goal as the direction. He pointed out that Paul tried to go to Asia to preach the gospel, but the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him; Abraham was called to leave his relatives and home and head out, but he didn’t know ultimately where he was going, and several others in Scripture who were faithfully doing what God called them to and heading in the direction He sent them without knowing, at least at the time, where they were headed or why they seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern for a while. We’ve been in that situation so many times, both in little things and in major questions of jobs and locations. The Bible says much about our “walk” as Christians, and a walk is made up of individual steps. We may not know where we will ultimately end up (at least on this globe: as Christians we know the final destination), but we just need to faithfully follow the steps just ahead and trust Him for the rest.

Of course, he said it a lot better. 🙂

Well, as I was jotting down things I could include as favorites for this week, I had a couple more. One was fresh strawberries being in season (I used to say one of the first signs of spring was strawberry shortcake. I still haven’t made that yet, but we have enjoyed a couple of rounds of fresh strawberries with breakfast). And the other had to do with my annual doctor’s visit — IT’S not one of my favorites, but the fact that it’s over for another year is!

You can visit Susanne‘s for more favorites from the week, or to add your own!

Booking Through Thursday: Best Bad Book?

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Barbara Harper

The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

Suggested by Janet:

The opposite of last week’s question: “What’s the best ‘worst’ book you’ve ever read — the one you like despite some negative reviews or features?”

I’ve been pondering this question for the last hour or so while going about my morning routine. I can’t think of anything recent, though there might be something not coming to mind. I don’t really choose books based on what the general public or professional reviews say, but I do like to read reviews and recommendations of people I know to some degree.

In that vein, I’ve been surprised to see through various book challenges and memes that a lot of people don’t like Dickens. I love Dickens. His were some of the first classics I read as an adult. I recently saw David Copperfield describes as somewhat vapidly standing still while all the action happened around him. I was shocked. To me David Copperfield is all about character development. Here is a child starting out with several strikes against him — his father dies before he is born, his mother marries the cold, hard, authoritarian Mr. Murdstone who eventually sends David away, he faces cruelty at boarding school and a brief stint in factory work, his mother dies — he could have turned into a criminal, a “victim,” or a hard and bitter man, yet he becomes a man of character and decency. In fact, he is one of the few normal people in the book amidst the almost caricatural Micawber, Uriah Heep, and Aunt Betsey Trotwood.

I’ve also been surprised to discover that a lot of Christian women don’t like Janette Oke, and the term “prairie romances,” which I think must be aimed at her work since her first series (Love Comes Softly) and many of her other books took place on the prairie, used derogatorily. (I don’t know why we can say a certain genre just doesn’t appeal to us without having to be negative about it). Though I had read Not My Will by Francena Arnold and a couple of Eugenia Price books beforehand, my love of Christian fiction began with Mrs. Oke. Her books weren’t just simple stories to me, or even “romances” — there were illustrations of spiritual truth fleshed out in both the crises and the everyday lives of her characters. To me that’s what the best of Christian fiction does.

Some time I’d love to revisit both Dickens and some of Janette Oke’s earlier works to see if they still speak to me as they did years ago. I think they would: I think that’s what defines a classic.

If you like, you can visit the Booking Through Thursday site to see what others thought about this question.

(Updated to add: since I mentioned Janette Oke, I thought some might be interested in reading about author Kim Vogel Sawyer meeting Janette at the Christian Book Expo here.)

ABC Photo Challenge: S and T

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s Wednesday, time again for Melli’s ABC photo challenge. We’re supposed to look for letters in common everyday things or in nature without actually manipulating anything to make the letter and without photographing the letter itself in a word or sign. We’re doing two letters a week, and this week it is S and T.

I found many more S’s than I thought I would. This first one is on a bench outside our church doors:

This is scroll work on a picture frame:

This is on my bread box:

Looking at it now, it actually does have more swirls than a regular S, doesn’t it? But my main impression was an S.

There are three in sight here on my baker’s rack, one in the brass-ish color and two in white on their sides on top:

I debated about whether to use this one, because the S is backwards. I thought about flipping it, but it would be obvious because the sign would then be backwards. But I thought doing the mulch this way was unusual.

Then I didn’t find as many T’s as I thought I would. The first one is at the end of the brick edging next to the driveway.

Would you call the pillar with the decorative work a T shape?

That was a cross stitch piece one of my sisters did for me.

There is a T in the back of the rocking chair:

This is a little plaque in my hallway:

You can visit Melli’s to see a list of links to the other participants. It’s been fun each week to see what everyone comes up with!

An update from yesterday’s post: everyone is much better. Jesse is a lot perkier, though his appetite isn’t back 100 % and he had a headache when he went to bed. But overall both “patients” are much improved.

Happy Wednesday!

From the infirmary….

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Barbara Harper

When I bought my cookware, there was a large pan called a Dutch oven in the set. It’s probably the least used of my pots and pans. Occasionally I’ll prepare corn on the cob in it, or a big pot of soup.

Sometimes, however, it is used in a manner for which it was not originally intended. Once when we were waxing alliterative, we came up with these appellations:

Barf Bucket

Vomit Vessel

Upchuck Urn

Retch Receptacle

Hurl Holder

Puke Pot.

Forgive me — I have all boys. They’ve rubbed off on me.

When they were sick when they were little and couldn’t always make it to the bathroom in time, we kept the pan by their beds “just in case.” I don’t know about the older boys, but Jesse, at least, still likes the security of having the pan nearby. He used it once today — the other times he made it to the bathroom.

The poor guy has had a sore throat for several days, which progressed to some coughing, which today led to nausea.

Since it seemed like an abundance of mucus was the main culprit, I gave him some Dayquil this afternoon, which actually seemed to help. He hasn’t been able to eat much but was finally able to keep some chicken and rice down for dinner. He’s still feeling really crampy, though. I’m hoping he is able to get some sleep and feel better by morning — and I’m hoping all the rest of us don’t get whatever it is.

Then Jim went to the dentist to see about a filling that seemed to have come out. I thought they were just going to look at it, see what needed to be done, and then reschedule him, but I didn’t know he had told them he wanted to go ahead and get it taken care of today. And then I thought they’d just replace the filling, but they did a root canal. So he wasn’t feeling too wonderful when the numbness wore off.

So this has been not the best start to a week — here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day!

The thief on the cross

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Between now and Easter, my pastor is preaching on the seven saying of Christ on the cross. Today he discussed His conversation with the thief on one side of Him:

Luke 23:39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

I had heard it pointed out, many times, that the thief’s conversion is an illustration of the fact that it is repentance and faith alone that saves us, not baptism or anything else the church asks us to do or we think we have to do. We do those things out of obedience, or to show forth what has gone on in our hearts after believing, but they are not a part of the salvation experience in themselves.

But I tended to leave the thief’s story at that. He repented, he believed, he gives me hope for some of my family who have not yet believed, he went to be with Christ in Paradise after he died. Wonderful! On to the next verse…

But my pastor pointed out this morning what happened just after the thief believed. Verses 44-45 say, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” How frightening that must have been for everyone, to have sudden darkness for three hours, and then to have the veil of the temple suddenly torn — access to what was once only the domain of priests. That’s a wonderful truth now (“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1-2). But at the moment probably no one realized what it meant, and it was just one of the many strange things happening that day.

Then Mark 15:34 records, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

What must the thief have thought or felt? Confusion, fear. “This isn’t how I thought things were going to happen.” Yet none of that nullified the promise Christ made to him.

What food for thought is there. No matter what happens, no matter that I don’t understand what’s happening, God’s promise is always sure.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Hmm…I was trying to come up with a more interesting title than just…”Interesting links.” But I’m not sure that’s “it” either.

At any rate, here are some interesting (looks like I need to get out my thesaurus) things I’ve found this week.

Quilly’s Barefoot Weather made me smile.

Crystal’s A life poured out for others convicted me.

I don’t remember how I found this, but Encouraging Caregivers is a blog that seeks to do just as its title says by one who is a caregiver in her home. Though my mother-in-law doesn’t live in our home, we’re actively involved in her life and care, and I’ve found much here to be helpful. A couple of the many good posts there: Things you can do to encourage yourself and Life with Mom.

Brenda’s Blog from Paraguay has some great, great advice for short-term mission teams. I was thankful that the mission trips my sons have been on were led by people who had been on the mission field, and this echoed much of what they were told. You might pray for Brenda — she’s just found out she has breast cancer and will have to come home to the US for treatment.

I’m not familiar with the blog All you have to give, but from a link somewhere (I forgot to note where) I found this great post on fasting.

I LOVE Anita’s creative space.

Just for fun, I did go head and look up “interesting” at Thesaurus.com: “appealing, entertaining. Synonyms: absorbing, affecting, alluring, amusing, arresting, attractive, beautiful, captivating, charismatic, compelling, curious, delightful, elegant, enchanting, engaging, engrossing, enthralling, entrancing, exceptional, exotic, fascinating, fine, gracious, gripping, impressive, intriguing, inviting, lovely, magnetic, pleasing, pleasurable, prepossessing, provocative, readable, refreshing, riveting, stimulating, stirring, striking, suspicious, thought-provoking, unusual, winning.” I think many of those adjectives apply to many of these links. 🙂 Not “suspicious,” though. And I need to look up what “prepossessing” means (the dictionary can keep me occupied for hours…)

Hope you have a great Saturday. I need to do laundry (again), make a smallish trip to the store, restock the missions closet at church for visiting missionaries tomorrow, and attend a baby shower. And then maybe jump into any of the 101 other things that need to be done around here. Or maybe not. 🙂

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Barbara Harper

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

So here are some of my favorite things from the past week.

1. Chick-Fil-A biscuits. (I always seem to include food as one of my five, don’t I?) I had to get Jesse to school an hour earlier than usual, and had a little bit left on a Chick-Fil-A gift card my step-father had sent as part of his Christmas present, so I stopped for one after dropping Jesse off. That biscuit really hit the spot this morning!

2. Fine Arts Festival. Our state organization of Christian schools is sponsoring a fine arts festival this week that students in all its member schools can participate in. The host school is a couple of hours away, so I hadn’t planned to go to watch Jesse’s choir sing its two songs, but last Friday our school had everyone who was performing for the festival do so for a school assembly, so I got to see all the performances then. Everyone did a good job, but the standout performance for me was a duo acting piece by a couple of our seniors. I hope they all do great today! (Incidentally, this was why I had to get Jesse to school early — he had to be there at 6:45 a.m. and won’t get back til this evening. It’s going to be a loooong day for all of them.)

3. Chair pads. I had been looking for some non-slip chair pads for our hard wooden kitchen chairs for a long time. We had used the ones that tie on, but eventually the ties always pulled loose from the pad. Last year I finally found some that went with my kitchen decor at Kohl’s, but they only had three. I figured I’d mix and match with solid colored ones, but didn’t find any in the right colors. Then, after months of not having them, Kohl’s unexpectedly had more of the same style and color. So now all my kitchen chairs have pads that match and go well with my kitchen and don’t slide around when you’re trying to sit down. A little thing, in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me happy. 🙂

4. My new theme. I had been trying to change my blog over to this current theme for a while, but whenever I tried, it threw my sidebar into a mess. It acted as though possibly one of the graphics had been coded to be positioned to the left, and it was pulling everything else off kilter, but I went through and looked at each of them individually, and they were fine. I tried a few different things and nothing worked. I don’t know a whole lot about html code, but it occurred to me to try putting <li></li> between each graphic, creating a line of space between them — and voila! That worked. I was so pleased to have figured it out myself without asking my son for help, which I was just on the verge of doing (there is hope for me after all!) It’s not a big dramatic change of themes, but this seems cleaner, the font is bigger, and I like the way links are done here better — the old one had a dashed line under links in a post, which I didn’t like. Plus! I didn’t realize this theme had this til I switched over, but I had been wanting the feature where, if you’re on a particular post, a line at the top will tell you what the previous post and next post are. So I was really pleased to find that.

Sorry to be so wordy on that one!

5. The Spring Reading Thing that Katrina hosts each year. I love reading and love seeing what others have on their lists, and I like seeing their impressions about what they read at the end.

Bonus 6: The first day of spring!

Ultimate Blog Party 2009

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes For Mom are hosting their annual Ultimate Blog Party, a chance “meet and greet” other bloggers and to introduce your blog. It runs from March 20-27 and includes the opportunity to win a plethora of prizes. It’s a way to make new friends and let others know what your blog is about. It’s not restricted to mom-bloggers or even bloggers: anyone can join in. More details are here, and the links to other party posts are here.

Please make yourself at home, and help yourself to a Congo bar.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Barbara. I usually comment as Barbara H. just to distinguish myself from other Barbaras out there. I became a Christian in my teens. I am a 51 year old mother of three, married 29 years to my wonderful husband, Jim. Our 30th wedding anniversary is this December. My boys are 24, 21, and 15. None have left the nest yet, but my oldest is working on being able to support himself after being “downsized” at his job, and my middle son graduates from college in May and will be getting married in August. I am treasuring these last few months with everyone home but also excited about the future.

I’ve been blessed to be a stay-at-home mom ever since my first pregnancy. Besides keeping the home fires burning, I’m active in the ladies’ ministry at our church and in ministering to my mother-in-law at a nearby assisted living facility. I love to read and have just gotten back into cross stitch the last year or so (though I need a lot of magnification to do it now!) I’ve been blogging for almost three years. Though my blog is a conglomeration of my “stray thoughts,” both serious and silly, one of my main desires is to encourage women in the ministries God has given them, first at home and them outward to others, and to encourage us to keep in God’s Word. You’ll see those topics reflected in my favorite posts listed in the sidebar: I invite you to peruse those as you have time.

At the moment I can’t get into the 5 Minutes for Mom site because of all the heavy traffic for the Blog Party, but as soon as it settles down, you’ll be able to find the links to the details from the front page of their site. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you again!

In order to be eligible for the aforementioned prizes, we’re required to put links to the top three prize providers we’re interested in and numbers from the prize list for all the rest. The prizes I am interested in are:

#19: A $50 Target gift card provided by Shoot-Me-Now.
#21: A $50 gift card to Target from Agoosa.
#22: A $50 Target gift card provided by Beginner Baby Blog.

And if my top three picks are already chosen, I’d love any of the following (in order of preference):
68, 26, 91, 109, 113, 118, 123, USC 15, USC 47, USC56, 86, 114, 121.

Booking Through Thursday: Worst Best Book You’ve Ever Read

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Barbara Harper

The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

Suggested by Janet:

How about, “What’s the worst ‘best’ book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?”

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas was a big disappointment to me. I don’t know how much of the disappointment was due to the ending being totally unlike any of the film versions I’ve seen. It was totally depressing. I wasn’t crazy about The Three Musketeers by the same author, either, and I usually like swashbuckling “defender of the good and right” stories. I did enjoy Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, though.

I was also surprised not to really like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen as much as I thought I would, though the DVD of the latter is one of my all time favorite films. I did really enjoy Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park. I’d seen film versions of most of them before reading the books, so I don’t think that was a major cause of not liking the first two.

I would be willing to give all of these books another read, though, some day — maybe there was just something else going on at the time of my first reading that influenced my impressions.