Waiting for Spring

It's a good day for staying in the house close to a roaring fire, a bowl of popcorn on the lap and a blanket around the shoulders.

Drinking Up the Moonshine

I slept much too late this morning on account of all the moonshine last night. It was 2:30 am when I woke up. My brain must have thought it was morning since the moon was shining so brightly through the window. No leaves on the trees outside to block the light, no clouds in the sky to cover it, and no curtains on the windows to hide its presence in the sky. As I lay there awake, I started thinking about how we, as Christians, are to be like the moon. The moon has no light of its own, but reflects the sun. So are we, as follwers of Christ, to reflect His love and light to those around us. As long as there is nothing blocking the light of the sun, the moon shines bright and gives light in the darkness, but when something is in the way, the night becomes very dark and scary. Without the love of God this world is dark and scary, but we can bring hope and comfort by letting the love of God flow through our lives to those around us. In order for that to happen, I have to let the Lord remove those things from my life that block his light from shining, things like selfishness, pride and any other thing that doesn't please God. Lord, may I be willing to have you remove from my life anything that would keep your light and love from shining through me.

Funny Old Photographs

Funny what one may find when looking through an old box of family photos. Sometimes we recognize the people and sometimes only the image is left, the names and faces long forgotten. According to my dad, this is an old photo of "Uncle Herb and Uncle Charlie Rice". They were two of my Great-Grandma Shafer's brothers who lived down near Angelica, New York back in the early 1900's. The picture makes me wonder who these guys really were and what they were like, definitely not fancy, high class individuals, probably farmers up in the hills like other family members. As much as it may be fun to have an important ancestor in my family line, I smile most at these old pictures and wish I could travel back in time and see where and how they lived.

Is It Thursday Yet?

Winter has returned. Ben is qute eager to get out there with his snow tube and hit the slopes before the snow melts again. He is worried with good reason as it hasn't stuck around for more than a couple of days at a time this year. Unfortunately for him, his mother isn't in a hurry to take him sledding. Not only are there other things to accomplish, but it is cold out there. I really am pretty much wimp when it comes to winter activities. For the past two or three years I have tried hard to have a better attitude about it. We went ice skating at the ice arena (they just don't seem to have free outdoor rinks anymore), sledding a bunch of times, and we even played out in our own backyard! I took pictures, beautiful ones, but today I just want to stay in. The snow is pretty out there but I'm not sure it's quite deep enough for a good day of sledding. Maybe one day soon it will be. Then I will have to muster up the gumption to hit the slopes with Ben. (That man with the snowplow sure is eager for snow! He keeps plowing our driveway every time an inch of snow falls.)

Extreme Makeover (Jesus Style!)

I never thought I needed an extreme makeover until I thought about it in the sense of Jesus changing me from the inside out. There are those days when I feel pretty good about myself, and then there are those days when I feel ever so human; moody, unsettled, cranky. I need a makeover whether I want to admit it or not. This past Saturday I went to a Ladies' Day Out and our theme was, "Extreme Makeover". If I use the Bible as a mirror into my soul, I can see it is pretty dirty and in need of a good scrubbing. I don't want a makeover to cover up the blemishes. That will never solve anything. What I need is drastic surgery of the heart and soul, and lots and lots of the water of His Word to wash away all the impurities I have picked up on my way through this life. If my heart is anything like my closet, which I am trying to clean today, it is going to take a lot of time and effort to get it back to where it needs to be. And then I'll have to be careful not to let all that stuff pile up in there again; disappointment, anger, laziness, indifference... You know what I mean. Well, I guess my lunch break is over. I have to get back to the closet :)

Another Amazing Day!

Another Amazing Day!

The sun is shining today, a great day to take a walk, I think. This morning I went to the drug store for some supplies to de-skunk my dog, hydogen peroxide, baking soda, and rubber gloves. She really needed to be cleaned up after her encounter with a skunk last night. She was pretty smelly so needless to say, she spent the night outside and was a little bit cold this morning. She doesn't have a whole lot of hair to keep her warm. While the boys were stacking firewood, Hannah and I gave Jasmine a bath in the tub. It wasn't too bad actually, I'm sure she toned down a bit through the night, and now she is sleeping contentedly in front of the woodstove. I hope she learned her lesson. (Now she is having a dream and wimpering in her sleep. She's probably having a nightmare about skunks!)

Anyway, I am thinking that maybe this will be a good day to pull out my clay and either do some sculpting or throw something on the wheel. I haven't spent any time working with my clay lately but now that we have our kiln working, I really should get something done. Besides, once I get going, I really love it.

February

Today is February 1st. I'm not sure what happened to January, I know it was supposed to have been here but I must have missed it as I hardly noticed it being around. Isn't January that month of cold, blowing snow when, like it or not, we must bundle up in layers of heavy clothing just to do something as simple as check the mailbox? Isn't it that month when we send our boys off to the neighbor's houses to find driveway shoveling jobs, when we decide not to venture out on the roads because we aren't even sure where the road is? No, I think January skipped us this year because all I remember this past month is mostly gray skies and rainy weather, a little more like April. I'm still not sure whether to be greatful for such a mild winter, if you can call it that, or to think that maybe January is still lurking around the corner, ready to pounce on us round about say... May.