I cannot believe I deleted my last entry by mistake and I had 3 comments on it.  Can I retrieve.  Well, we leave Thursday for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. I am not dancing in the streets yet.  I have no idea what kind of town it is.  We are set up with a realtor to start looking this weekend.   We sure don't want to be doing that!!!  I am excited and scared.  Going into the unknown is never east but believing and trusting in God is.  I know He will be walking right beside us.  I am thrilled with technology.  I may have found a little league for Matthew already by use of the internet.  What a resource.  I got my amtrack tickets today.  That will be fun for us.  It is just the 3 of us no Mike.  This will be the longest (2 wks) to be away from him.  I am coming back for the movers and to finish Faith and Matthew's piano.  They have a recital on Mother's Day May 14th.  I am so proud of them.  They are such a joy to have in my life every day.  I love teaching them.  We had a great day today.  I am making a portfolio of what they have done for the year.  This will help me to stay organized.  I am still working out 5-6 days a week but stopped getting on the scale for now.  I am happy with where I am now.  I will look forward to settling down in a home/and my first basement.  I looked at the weather.  In Tallahassee we are hitting high 80's (F and M have been using the pool).  Chambersburg-it will be 56 for the high on Saturday and 60's the other days-BIG Change!!!!  I am sure I can adapt.  I love my husband.  I love my children and we are going to be just fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Until next time. 

and so I haven't written on here in a little while...last week I survived a grueling 3 day garage sale at a sweet friends' house...they are my 2nd family and I love them deeply, their friendship means so much to me.  They are a constant presence in a shifting life, an earthly picture of God's neverchanging presence in my life.

     I have been overawed lately at God's great faithfulness in my life....from His saving me to His shaping of me over the last 15 years.  And the impact, both good and bad according to how I have reacted to His touch in my life over that time. 

And mostly I am awed over the fact that even when my reaction has been bad, He has remained faithful to me throughout...gently leading me to repentance time and again....what sweetness, what love, what enduring grace...

and I am thankful.

Sunday early evening we went to some friends house who live in the country...we shared a sweet dinner and fellowship....and we got to learn how to milk a cow!

She is a pretty jersey...

well, imagine a pretty dark brown-faced jersey in this spot, hah,hah!

please pray, Hannah's b'ball team is spending the night, I think a water balloon fight is on the horizon......

today became bread experimenting day...Hannah and Haley ground some wheat for flour and then  made 1/2 batch of a recipe that makes 6 loaves...from this they made a calzone with spaghetti sauce and feta crumbles, yum, turned out really good.  Then they made a batch of monkey bread...double yum.  Also some small wrapped smokies...triple yum.  Needless to say we are full of dough!

I think I need a nap after all of that!

Etta and Lydia are over as well, and everyone is now watching a movie and winding down from finishing school and playing outside.

The weather looks like rain, but I haven't found a sprinkle yet!

We took Lizzie, our fawn pug,  in to Dr. Denham, our vet, to get x-rayed and discovered she is only about 40 days along....so he said to bring her in again in 10 days and he would do it again for gratis if she hasn't had the pups...she just looked really big.  When she stops fitting through the doggie door we know she is getting really close and we aren't there yet. 

Here is a picture of two of her last litter of pups:

has a beautiful illustration of our Heavenly Father's love for us in her book The Shaping of a Christian Family:  How My Parents Nurtured My Faith. 

      She writes, "One day when our baby Valerie was a few weeks old, Jim sat down in a reclining chair and laid her on his chest, murmuring into her little ear and patting her.  After a while, thinking her asleep, he fell silent and dropped his arms to his sides, reveling in the slight weight of the tiny child on his body.  She lay quiet for a moment or two, then let out a sudden lusty wail.  Laughing, Jim clasped her immediately in his arms again and assured her of his presence.  Not feeling his hands upon her, she had, we supposed, lost the sense of "belongingness" and thought herself forsaken, when in fact she was lying as secure as ever on her father's bosom."

     Since I was not raised in a Christian home, there are simple ways that I am gleaning that could easily be incorporated into our lives...from bible reading with dad every evening to Saturday night prayer with him alone.  Her parents and grandparents examples of sold-outedness (for want of a better word) are evident by their actions....do my actions exhibit this same professed "devotion" to my Lord and what He wants?

     By God's grace, I pray so.

well, time-consuming anyway.....the weather was just right yesterday to start pulling out some fencing.  Now, I just need to find the time to take the load to the dump. Yee-hah.

We had our monthly homeschool meeting yesterday and decided on the date for our annual end of year graduation dinner.

I will have two that get to have "extra-fun" that evening.  Rinnah will be graduating from kindergarten and Hannah is graduating 8th grade.

Where does the time go, I think I saw it whisk around the corner, slide down the slide and dart past the shadow of the big tree in front, but I never can catch it!

Anyway, it will be a fun evening with lovely friends.

Smiling little elf,

flittering in joy of You,

Like a butterfly

We sure could use some more...today is overcast, so I am hopeful that we will get some showers if not thunderstorms.

I was reading through The Voice of the Martyrs magazine for April of this year and Tom White the director of the organization had a concise picture of what I believe.

He and his cousin, Tom Lowe, were discussing theology...and his cousin said, "I didn't know any theology when I was saved.  I didn't even know what the word 'saved' mean.  But I knew I was lost."

They started comparing nail guns, his cousin is a contractor, who builds churches and fire stations, to Christian work.  " All nail guns must have oil.  All of them must be kept clean on the inside, or they won't produce nails.  They must also have a source of power.  There are several brands....a powered-up coil nailer can really shoot those things out.

We laughed at the ridiculous prospect of a group of roofers or carpenters stopping work to argue about their favorite brand of nail gun and nobody pulling their trigger to nail anything down.  I guess nothing would ever get built.  It is so easy to forget we are called to His kingdom as workers when we are side-tracked with our 'brand'  differences."

He then goes on to talk about Richard Wurmbrand, who was persecuted for his faith in Russia and then founded VOM.  Mr. Wurmbrand said, "Give us the tools, and we will pay the price."  Are we so soft and cushy here in the U.S. that our complacency keeps us from hearing God's voice and following Him wholehearedly....Tom White goes on to ask, "What is easier to find:  a motor, a boat, boxes of gospels or a Christian who is willing to leave their family to walk into the valley of the shadow of death?"

I am afraid that in America, the answer is all to easy to guess.....may God have mercy on our complacency and wake us up!  Some time the rug needs a good shaking to be cleaned and to remember, it is a rug.

St. Augustine writes,

      "But when I love You, what do I love?  It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odour of flowers and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God.

     Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part.

    That is what I love when I love my God."

sigh....double sigh, better......amen and amen.

Lovely, honest soul

Constantly leans upon You

With her steadfast faith.