Wild Weather

A couple of weeks ago my son texted me to let me know that the power was out where he is stationed, at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, and there was a tornado warning in effect. Continued texting assured me of his well-being. I checked later that evening online and saw that the area had indeed been hit by several tornadoes, and there were already photos and video footage available of the damaged areas. This morning I was tagged in a Facebook post written by a friend in Georgia, informing me that a mutual friend in Alabama had a near brush with a tornado in her neighborhood, but was okay.

Confessions of a Non-Confrontational Calvinist

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In the movie Toy Story, there is a character with whom I particularly relate. Rex, the big green dinosaur, towers above the rest of the toys and has a mouthful of teeth and a fearsome roar, but it quickly becomes clear that Rex is a coward. In a scene that returns to my mind on a regular basis, Rex shakes his tiny little fists and declares, "I don't like confrontation!"


 
Yea, that's me.

We’re Not From Around Here

Many Moons ago, waaay back when Jim and I had one child and were expecting our second, we made the decision to leave the Army life behind. We had met while both of us were serving in the Army, married while on Leave, and spent our first three years as husband and wife living in Germany, where Jim was stationed. (I left the Army in order to get married.) One reason for our decision was that we wanted to have a family, but we did not want to have to uproot ourselves every few years in order to move around wherever the Army sent us. We wanted to be settled as part of a community.


 
God has a sense of humor.

Tuesday Ten

I'm taking a moment out of my week to list ten things for which I am thankful.



1. Coffee, ready and waiting for me when I stumble downstairs in the morning. Jim, being a night owl, works late into the night on his class work, and before he comes to bed in the middle of the night he sets the coffee maker so that I don't have to fumble with it when I get up.

P2R, Week 1

The first week of memorizing the book of Philippians is now behind us and I think we had a strong beginning. Looking through the little Memory Moleskine it appears that we started off easy with the memory work. Further in, the weeks involve a lot more memorization than this. We each spent time individually working on our verses during the week, but once a day we gathered to read them over together. A couple of evenings, Isaac was the one to remind us to get our books and read together.

Raining Cats and Dogs

Yesterday Kate came home for the afternoon and, due to a project on which she was working, did not leave until about midnight. It had rained all day yesterday, with the rain becoming heavy at times. Right when she left was one of those times. Jim helped her carry a last armload of stuff out to the van and then ran back indoors. In his rush, the front door did not close securely.

Partnering to Remember

A few years ago I found the blog of a Christian pastor, Timmy Brister, who had the idea of reading through the Puritans, one a month, for a year.  The discipline of embarking on such a quest "with" someone else, following his posts through the year and reading the comments of others on his blog, was an adventure.  While I didn't make it through all of the books, it was a blessing to have read those which I did.

New Title

I began this blog years ago almost by accident.  I had friends who went to Kazakhstan to adopt a boy, and they started a blog to keep everyone apprised of their progress.  One day I just HAD to comment on one of their posts, and stumbled into creating my own blog by mistake.  I was sitting at a public computer in the clubhouse of the apartment complex where we were temporarily living as we waited to move into our new home in our own adventure.

Under Construction

If you've visited this site lately you may have noticed that it has been changing in appearance. Blogger, having recently been acquired by Google, has given me many, many options for customizing my blog. As anybody who knows me will attest, I love arranging and re-arranging rooms until I like the results. Spring cleaning is upon us at home, and the furniture is being shifted around in order to customize our home. I'll move a few things, look at the result, sit in the room for a while, leave it and return later; all to gauge how comfortable I feel with it. One thing that has been a steady constant for me is that I don't want my home to feel as if I've just walked into a furniture store, with everything matching and new. That just wouldn't reflect my personality.

Thursday Thirteen

Many moons ago I was in the habit of posting a weekly note on Facebook titled, "The Tuesday Ten". Spurred on by a friend, Kilby, I would take a moment out of each Tuesday to focus on gratitude. Alas, like most good habits, this fell to the wayside. I would see occasional thankful notes written by friends, but my own notes on thankfulness merely added to my growing pile of good intentions, and we know where that ends up. I now have a new friend who weekly posts a "Thankful Thursday" on her blog. Like a good poke in the ribs, this has inspired me to pick up right where I am and express my own gratitude.