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FOR TODAY...

Outside my window... soft looking November sky

I am thinking... how grateful I am that my father had a wonderful turnout of friends for his 90th birthday celebration.

I am thankful for... a hubby who took care of me during a two week respiratory virus -- He did his own work and some of mine, too, as I could not do much at all.

I went... to take my dad to the dermatologist today. My poor dad has been battling the effect of sun damage on his skin for forty years now. If you are fair-skinned, wear your sunscreen! Even if you aren't, wear your sunscreen!!

I am reading... My Bucket of Sand by Sheila Jones

I am hoping... to catch up on some cleaning after being sick; am grateful did get bottom of pantry swept out and neatened, as well as a load of clothing

On my mind... What I read the other day in Romans about the downward spiral of sin and pain that begins with not honoring God as God or expressing gratitude; thinking what a great month this is to enjoy the upward cycle of praising and thanking God -- good time to develop deeper habits of praise and thanksgiving.

One of my favorite things...curling up in a warm bed on a misty night and reading a book. Even better if my cat is nearby. Way even better if my dearest hubby is also nearby.

Happiness is yellow daisy mums in a blue bowl in my blue kitchen. I'd take a photo, but my dearest has the camera with him at work.

Roses and daisies vie for being my favorite flowers, though I must admit that I have seldom met any flower that I didn't like. Most of the year, roses are my all-time favorite. But, in late summer through the fall, daisies jump right on up there. I also love tulips, magnolia blossoms, azalea blossoms, crepe myrtle blossoms, gladiolas, geraniums, begonias, periwinkles.....

What's your favorite flower?

Enjoy!'
Elizabeth

Strange happening at Wal-Mart...

I bought a pretty journal at Wal-Mart and brought it home. In its pages, I discovered a rusty looking straight-edged blade, a blade such as might fit in some type of cutting tool. I suppose it was left in the pages by accident. But, I've never encountered anything quite like that before. This is not a complaint about Wal-Mart. I'm just pondering what this is and why it's in the pages of the journal. Luckily, I did not cut my fingers on it.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth

My Quote of the Day: We don't stop dancing because we get old; we get old because we stop dancing...Author Unknown

Until this was pointed out to me in a class, I did not realize that many of my favorite Bible verses actually form a theme. They relate to the idea that, in Christ, we don't merely get by, but we overflow or abound with the treasures God pours into our hearts.

Here are some examples:

Colossians 2:6-7 -- Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.

Romans 15:13 -- May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I Thessalonians 3:2 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

II Corinthians 8:1-And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability.

II Corinthians 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Isn't it a lovely promise that we can overflow and abound in our walk with Christ? It's challenging, too, though, for I don't always see myself as overflowing with love, joy, hope, and the comfort of Christ. When something overflows, you can't miss it. An overflowing cup, an overflowing pipe, or an overflowing river command our attention. In the same way, we are drawn to an overflowing spring leading to a pretty creek or the cascading overflow of a tiered fountain. So, I ask myself: would my family, my friends, or strangers I should chance to meet notice an overflow of these qualities of the Spirit in me? Do I truly allow myself to be filled to overflowing by the Lord? Or, do I choke the stream with other things flowing out of my heart, such as complaining or frustration or anxiety? Am I satisfied to level out spiritually where I am, or do I seek to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord so that I can overflow or abound more and more with the fruits of the Spirit living within me?

Since November is coming up, it's a good time to pray about and focus on overflowing with gratitude.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth

Arranging furniture...

Are you someone who re-arranges your furniture a lot? Or, do you leave your furniture as it is for a long time? Most home keepers fall into one of these two camps.

I tend to move smaller things around, but leave furniture as it is. One reason is that I get used to things being a certain way and overlook possibilities for improvement. I also have some rooms that have limited possibilities for re-arranging furniture due to the placement of doors and other items.

I appreciate friends who have a good eye for how things in a room can be arranged for new effect. Some people I know are wonderfully talented in this area. Some can see a wonderful re-design using the things they already have right away. Others keep moving things until they come upon an arrangement of furniture and other items that is most pleasing.

Of course, the keeper at home can always consult a professional re-design expert. Since that can be a budget-breaker, it's worth the practice it takes to learn this skill for yourself. By trial and error, studying beautiful rooms, and even asking for the help of a friend, you can learn how to use your furnishings for best effect. Even if this is not your natural talent -- as it is not mine -- you can do a lot to develop your own eye.

Some items to keep in mind when re-arranging furniture are

1) What is the focal point of my room? How does everything else in my room relate to this focal point, just as everything in a painting relates to a focal point? Have I inadvertently created competing focal points in a room? Is this jarring to the eye? (Note: One common problem with creating a focal point is when you have a fireplace and a TV or entertainment center in the same room. Some homes are designed so that the TV is directly above the fireplace, which makes it easy to use that wall as the focal point. In other cases, you may have to tweak things a bit so that the fireplace and TV don't compete with each other.)
2) What built-in architectural details do I need to accommodate?
3) What are the natural traffic patterns in the room? Where do people enter and leave the room? Do people have a clear path to pass in and out of the room and can they easily walk to seating? Can they access shelves, desks, etc.? Do you wish to encourage the traffic flow in a certain direction.
4) Where will you place lamps?
5) What feels comfortable to you and your family? Often, what looks nice in a decorating magazine or what seems like a great idea in your mind's eye might not really be comfortable in a real room. Don't be afraid to arrange things once again until you find an arrangement that is most comfortable.
6) Is there a piece of furniture or a rug or an accesory that you are using in one room that might actually be put to better use in another room?
7) Do you have too much furniture in a room? Too little?

If you consider these things, you'll likely come up with an arrangement that suits your family's needs and is also pleasing to the eye.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth

se are some interesting words from A. W. Tozer:

"We who live in this nervous age would be wise to meditate on our lives and our days long and often before the face of God and on the edge of eternity. For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, as as responsible moral beings, we must deal with both.
"'He hath set eternity in their heart,' said the Preacher, and I think he here sets forth both the glory and misery of men. To be made for eternity and forced to dwell in time is for mankind a tragedy of huge porportion. All within us cries for life and permanence, and everything around us reminds us of mortality and change. Yet that God has made us of the stuff of eternity is both a glory yet to be realized and a prophecy yet to be fulfilled. ...The marks of the divine image hae been so obsured by sin taht they are not easty to idneity, but is it not reasonable to believe that one mark may be man's inssatiable craving for immorality?
"'Thou wilt not leave us in the dust. Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die and Thou has made him; Thou are just.'
"So reasons Tennyson, and the depest instincts of the normal human heart agree with him. The ancient image of God whispers within every man of oeverlasting hope; somewhere he will continue to exist. Still he cannot rejoice; for the light that lighteth every man that cmeith into the world troubles his conscience, frightening him with proofs of guiltand evidences of coming death. So is he ground between the upper millstone of hope and the nether stone of fear.
"Just here, the sweet relvancy of the Chrsitan message appears. 'Jesus Christ...hath ablished death, and hath brought light and immortality to light through the gospel.' So wrote the greatest Christian of them all just efore he went out to meet his executioner. God's eternity and man's mortality join to persuade su that faith in Jesus Christ is not optional. For every man it must be Christ or eternal tragedy. Out of eternity our Lord came into time to rescue (Us) whose moral folly has made us not only fools of the passing world but slaves of sin and death as well."

I paused when I read those words. Haven't we all felt that yearning for immortality, yet, at the same time, a knowledge of our mortality? I think that double-sided view comes keenest in those bittersweet moments when we celebrate the joy and pain of a passage in life. We rejoice, for example, that a beloved child has happily married, but, at the same time, we miss the days when that child was a toddler in our arms. We celeberate a wonderful wedding anniversary and rejoice over the happy and full years we've shared together. At the same time, if we are of a certain age, we may wonder if we have more years behind us than before us.

I've also been feeling this glimpse of mortality and immortality in returning to dance exercise after being away from specifically dance exercise for a long time. I've had the joy of doing some of the steps I learned in my youth, as well as an increase in strength and sense of well being. But, at the same time, I know the pang of realizing that no matter how hard I practice or how much better I become from this point, I will not wake up tomorrow and be the lithe young person that I once was. Nor, will I have the malleable, strong, ready-for-training body that I once had. For me, ballet and dance can only be a plesant form of exercise and not a serious pursuit. I will have to stick to what the middle- to senior-aged body can achieve. There have been some rare individuals who have achieved wonderful things in dance at advanced ages. However, even they cannot achieve what they could in their younger years. So, while I don't know exactly where my age-related limitations are, I do know that they are there.

The glory is, though, that, as it says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day."

So, our bones may ache more than they used to, and we may never be invited to dance with the Bolshoi or to participate in the Olympics. Our face may have new wrinkles, and our hair may be less luxurious than in our youth. It may take us a moment longer to remember something than it used to. While we do the best we can to maintain health and beauty, the truth is that our outer glory is fading. It does not matter, for inwardly, we are being conformed to the image of Christ, being made more fit every day for our true home. That is a glorious blessing, a blessing which time and mortality can not take away from us.

Intimations of our mortality may cause a momentary sigh, but they actually bless us, for they remind us to look toward the horizon -- toward the eternal life we will have with the Lord. At the same time, if we are true disciples of Jesus, we have the comfor of knowing that we have the seed of eternal life already within our hearts. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." John 5:24

What have we here on Earth that will also exist in eternity? Our relationship with the Lord, of course. Also, the people we have influenced to know God. These are treasures that do not fade away.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth

The wanderer comes home...

After spending several days and nights indoors, our cat became a little stir-crazy. She also reverted to cat schedule, and wondered why we were not eager to play at 4:30 AM. So, when she asked to go out on Sunday afternoon, I obliged and opened the door for her. I did not expect that she would stay gone until later this afternoon, when she finally answered my call for her. I was just a short time away from putting up "Lost Cat" signs.

Her absence was a little concerning considering that it rained off and on for four days in a row. Not only that, but she does have a nemesis in the neighborhood -- a huge black cat who spends most of the time outdoors and wants to consider our yard part of its territory.

She came home looking sound and healthy. We're guessing that she found some friendly souls who sheltered her inside their home until this sunny afternoon. She has been known to wheedle neighbors into feeding her. If dogs have owners and cats have staff, as the saying goes, she seems to think that most people are hers to claim.

At one time, she and the dog next door were on friendly terms. One evening, our neighbor heard her dog barking up the stairwell, something that he never does. She went up the stairs to see what might have provoked his barking. In the darkness, something furry brushed against her. It was our cat, who had somehow gotten inside their house and had made herself at home.

Now, she's sleeping and eating and relaxing in the house where she belongs. We are glad she's back.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth

Words do matter...

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. William Shakespeare

Jesus said, "Out of the heart, the mouth speaks." Luke 6 He also said that we would have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word we have spoken. Matthew 12:36
Ouch!!

I find that whenever I'm under stress, that is the time that I am most likely to make a careless comment. And, just as Jesus said, the things I say without thinking reveal my heart to myself and to others. My words signal whether I have stayed close to God or if I have spoken in my own flesh. They also signal what I've been thinking about or meditating about. They show where I am being conformed to Christ and where I need to repent and be more Christ-like.

Right now, our nation seems to be in a time of stress. It seems that the country is polarized about what direction our government should take. My purpose in this article is not to comment about the political situation. It's to point out that with emotions running high on both sides, we -- as a nation -- could stand to mind our thoughts and watch our words.

As someone who studied journalism in college, I'm not excited about the state of the media right now. Fewer people are turning to written media, and more are getting their news from TV, talk radio, and the Internet. So many of these sources have become so openly biased one way or the other. While we expect editorials and talk shows to be opinion based, we expect hard news stories to be factual, well-researched, and presenting all points of view. Unfortunately, good news writing has given way to outright preaching of either a "left-leaning" message or a "centrist-to-right leaning" message.

It's great to stay informed about the events that are taking place right now. But, I'm finding that it's getting harder and harder to find the facts among the opinions. I'm also finding that I can watch only a small amount of TV news without it affecting my own thoughts and my own words for the worse.

Bloggers have a great opportunity to bring calmness into this national debate. We can choose to write about things that are true, as well as things that build up rather than tear down. Yet, I have read many blogs and many comments on blogs that are vitriolic. Many in the blogosphere use mean, condescending, and foul language. Perhaps, we all forget at times that there is a real person with real feelings behind every blog and behind every comment, and we take liberties when we shouldn't. It's just as wrong to be cruel on the Internet as it is to be mean to someone in person.

That's one reason why I enjoy reading the blogs that you, my lovely readers, write. Most of us in this corner of the blogosphere chat about things such as home, family, thrift, and other useful, practical things. I can count on your blogs to be uplifting and encouraging. I liken reading your blogs to walking through a beautiful garden in the middle of a crowded, dirty, sooty city. Your blogs are spots of peace, beauty, and practicality in the midst of the busy information highway.

Our country has been through times of tumult before, and I'm sure we'll pass through this one soon. In the meantime, we can do much to uphold high standards of speech and writing.

Here are a few ideas:

1) Be careful about picking up "facts' or "news" on the Internet and repeating it without doing some research of your own. Internet stories spread rapidly. Many are written by PR specialists (I know, because that's my field) or by people who want to promote a business, a philosophy, or a political point of view. Many are quickly written and few are checked by editors. Many are not intended to be factual, but are openly based in someone's opinion. That's not to say that we can't glean and share valuable information from the net. It is to say, however, that we need to use caution when repeating something, just as we would exercise the same restraint about news we heard from our neighbor over the back fence.
2) Run the things you listen to, say, read, and write through the filter of Phil. 4:4-8. Is this true? Is it noble? Is it lovely? Is it of good report?
3) If you read an article which has received a number of heated comments, you might want to leave a polite, well-thought out comment of your own. It's possible that your sweet influence will permeate a web site and encourage others to be thoughtful about their words. On the other hand, realize when it would be counter=productive to enter into a discussion.
4) Choose your news sources wisely. Be aware if that source has a particular bias and take that into account when analyzing the news you receive from that source.
5) Take note of when you, yourself, are tired, hungry, stressed, upset by something you heard or read, bothered by something said to you in person, or otherwise are feeling out of sorts. Times like these are when you most need to give extra prayer and thought to the things you say in person and the things you write on your blog.
6) Love your enemies! Do good to those who mistreat you! The news media and fellow bloggesr are not your enemies. However, if you keep firmly in mind the principle of doing good to others, even when you disagree violently with them, you can respond to people and situations with love, gentleness, and respect.
7) Know what you believe and why you believe it. This, too, will help you speak respectfully and thoughtfully to those who may have a different point of view than you do. Focus on discussing the issue, rather than attacking individuals.

Most of all, keep your words sweet...
You never know which ones you'll have to eat!

Enjoy!
Elizabeth