I heard a hushed voice

...... "that God was waiting in the depths of my being to speak to me if I would only be still enough to hear His voice."  - Streams in the Desert, pg. 255, A.B. Simpson

Do you hear Him?

Close your eyes and try to concentrate.

Drown out the sounds of dogs barking and machines whizzing.

Do you hear Him?

Tell yourself to shush. Don't worry about the bill needing to be paid, the laundry crumpled in the corner.

Spill your heart out to Him if it helps to calm you. Then be still. Know God. He is there and wants to whisper sweet words of life to you. 

Let Him overwhelm you. Let Him share His heart with you. Let Him reveal the answer to your problem or encourage your heart to just wait a wee bit longer, the answer will be coming shortly. 

Open up the dialogue with God and He will keep the conversation going quite wonderfully.  

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It was a hectic night of a cranky baby. An early morning of challenging myself with a new photography shoot. A nice visit with a couple of my girl friends. Coming home to extra kids and making lunch. All blessed things, just busy. Late this afternoon I was washing fruit and staring at my wilting roses and decided to take a few pictures. Then I laid down, rested and talked to God. The down time wasn't long but I found myself thinking over what God and I had talked about the rest of the evening. I was comforted and sent out again to finish the day. 

And so the story continues........ what will He say next? How will I respond? It's a conversation that will never end and never be boring or irrelevant. It's a conversation I long for more and more. 

So bloggy

Micheal read my blog for the first time the other day. I know that may seem very bizarre, but he isn't much into computers. Plus I actually was nervous about showing it to him because he would tell me what he thought about it! But you wanna know what he said? 

"It's good Babe. I think when people read it they will appreciate their own normal day to day life."

Whew! 

Then it got me thinking......

I too hope that that is what people come away from with this little blog o' mine. 

I know when I read blogs, I encounter all sorts of emotions. Intrigue, optimism, pessimism, jealousy, non-interest, enjoyment. The list really could go on and on. It is so interesting the world we live in right now. At any given moment we could look at someone's life anywhere in the world. We can peek into what others are doing and follow along if we want or click off the page and never look back. 

It's bizarre really to be able to peer into the many lives of people all over the world. And wonderful too! 

I tend to leave this blog wide open, meaning I can post whatever I feel like. It can be annoying because you never really know what you will get. I personally only read a few blogs consistently and they tend to stay on one or two subjects, which is probably why I keep coming back; I know what I am going to get. But I can't seem to commit to write a blog like that! Maybe you call that a lifestyle blog? I'm into lifestyle photography so that makes sense. Not too posed. Not smiling perfectly at the camera. Just a bunch of wonderful, sporadic moments that makes up one's life. Or a family of lives in this case. 

I hope you enjoy what you read here. I hope you are inspired to live your own life full of joy and contentment. And I hope you know that I try to be as real as I know how to be. I tend to keep to the optimistic and encouraging side of things. There's enough trouble in the world. I want this to be a happy place. Not trying to portray my life as perfect in any way, just trying to be thankful for what I have been given. 

And then there's this:

"...we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfill their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that.I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder."
                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                    - G.K. Chesterton


I dare you to make mountains out of molehills! It's the bloggy thing to do! 

Summer is:

Fidgety reading,

a spoonful of honey, 

building a fort and spending the afternoon in it with your brother,

eating blueberries and tickling toes, 

eating salmon for dinner one night and frozen pizza the next, 

watching a movie and deciding you must be a flying dragon or at least try to be one, 

realizing your Dad wants to fly just as bad as you, 

and potting beautiful plants in orange pottery. 

That's what the first weekend of Summer looked like for us. 

What are you up to? 

Share the washi tape

My older sister seems to know everything. I don't know how she does it. Maybe it's a first born thing. Maybe after you are born, God pulls you aside for just a sec and says, "Now, looky here. You are the first born of this little family and soon enough you will have sisters and brothers and they will all look up to you so you're going to need a little extra something. A bit of knowledge to pass on. So here you go," at which He supernaturally, because we are talking about God, puts some great stuff there into that firstborn's mind. 

You see, awhile ago, my sister was on the phone with a friend and her friend is telling her all about this awesome stuff called washi tape. "You can use it for just about anything", she says. And at that, my sister says, who don't forget is the first born, "Oh yeah. I've been using it for years! It's great!" Her friend at hearing this, is a little disappointed. She says, "Why didn't you ever tell me about it?" Hmmm. You see, my sister, Michelle is her name, never thought to tell others because she thought others knew about it already. I find myself in conversation sometimes, feeling a bit shy when I talk of something because I think surely they have heard this all before. But that is just not the case all the time. 

So I am here to share something new (to me) in hopes that if you have never heard of, in this case an author (did I lose ya?), then you can join the party!! 

Does the name G.K Chesterton ring a bell? 

If you are like me, you may have heard the name or seen a quote at some point and that is about as far as it went. Can I encourage you to grab one of his books? I have only read this one and it's free! This guy is a great story teller! I bet you can't read it without smiling. I hope you do read it and smile. 

Next on the list, will be Orthodoxy and then The Complete Father Brown Series. 

Chesterton has a bunch of books and rightly so. He is an interesting cat. 

And that my friends is all I wanted to share with you today. 

Share your knowledge! The world needs to know about washi tape and Chesterton. 

What have you recently found out about that you want to share? 

Weekend ponderings

It was an interesting 30 minutes. First I listened to this show, then I read chapter 9 from Blue Like Jazz, titled, " Change. New starts at Ancient Faith". 

I have never listened to Tom Woods' show before but sometimes, well often times on the internet, you come across something and it leads to something else and pretty soon you can't recall how you ended up where you did. But there I was and so I listened. 

"Politics is downstream from culture.......  if you want to change public policy, you have to change culture..." - Steve Deace

Made me think, "What am I doing to affect American culture?" 

So then I opened the book and read the aforementioned chapter and it's basically about a guy who started leading a college Bible study, said all the right things, did all the right things, but lost his first love, who then needed to take a break and seek the Lord again. 

Go! Do! 

Rest! Be still! 

Two very different commands and ideas. 

I sat there in my bed thinking through the last few minutes and how it all applied to me. 

I prayed and this is what God told me: 


"Choose righteousness. 
You know that River Run for Orphans race coming up? Run.  
You know those four children in the next room? Raise them up in the Lord. 
You know that husband of yours who works his hiney off to support his family? Encourage him. 

Choose to be apart of the many good things that are happening all around that will change our culture, that will build up people and gently encourage them to walk with Me."

If we serve out of the overflow of love coming down from God we will continue on and this culture will be affected. The key is to not lose our first love. The key is to be all about Jesus. Not politics. Not food. Not jobs and how to school our children. When we lean fully on Christ and seek Him, all those other things will fall into place. 

Happy Saturday to you all! May you be thinking big thoughts and doing small things to help bring about a beautiful culture that glorifies God. 

Being frugal: a post for my Mom

My Mom is the most frugal gal I know. She sticks to thrift stores and garage sales and rarely buys anything that is not on sale. While in my first 29 years I hadn't been so good with our money, these past couple years she must finally be rubbing off on me.  

For our garden,  we wanted affordable and tasty mixed with a pleasing aesthetic. Bluejeans and Pearls style, you know? 

I think we are there. 

We bought our heirloom seeds from Baker Creek , a few bags of soil and a roll of twine. That's it! Luckily we had the rest. 

Our lilac in the front yard needed a bit of trimming, so we -and when I say we I mean Micheal- whacked off a few branches and used them to support our 'maters. Have you seen how expensive tomato cages are? No thank you! 

Our boards for the raised beds were saved from when we ripped out our back deck last summer. 

Our potatoes were going bad so instead of tossing them, we stuck them in the ground. They weren't in the original plan for our garden. 

Bring on the frugal and beautiful!

Mom, I hope you are proud! 

 

24/52

A week of warm and then cold.

 A week of new and old.

A week of activity and rest.

A week of staying close to our nest.

One year

As I look back over the last year, I smile. It has been a good one. We bought our home last June! 

 After renting for three years, we were ready for our own place again. We had one day to look at houses and God directed us to this little cutie. It doesn't have the most personality (pretty plain jane), and it's small to boot, but we call her home and we sure love her and try our best to take care of her. In return she keeps us safe and warm. I think it's a good relationship. 

Moving is always a fiasco right? Micheal had just started a new job and things were hectic. We threw all our belongings into the garage, put the mattresses in the living room and slept together that first night. The new house noises kept me awake most of the night, but it didn't matter because I was overflowing with joy to have our own home again! OUR OWN HOME! 

Although it took just a few days to get things moved here or there, I feel like with a home you are always settling in, making it more and more what you need or want it to be and reflecting who you are as a family. 

We have moved the kids' room around more than a few times and I have lost count on the living room rearrangements! Have I mentioned I love change? 

 There have been two walls painted and pictures hung. There have been three grapes, one raspberry, two blackberry plants, a trumpet vine and our first ever garden, including broccoli, cabbage, sweet peppers, potatoes and tomatoes! There is a new patio out back and the tree we transplanted in the front didn't make it. You can't win 'em all! 

Liam learned to crawl and walk in our living room. The oldest ones have built forts, read books, ran through the house screaming like wild Indians, and we have baked and cooked the most delicious and the most simple of foods. We have fought and made up, laughed, cried, danced, played, and prayed under this roof. We have had dinners with family and friends and celebrated birthday parties. 

It has been a fabulous first year here. We have hearts full of gratitude for all that we have, all that we don't deserve. 

And on we go each day; 

                                   living, 
                                 loving, 
                                        learning. 

Cheers to new homes and old homes and loving the home you are in! 

P.S. Taking photos of a home is hard. I realize that although my walls are calming, they are NOT photogenic! I have so much respect for home interior photographers!