Catching Up

Back in January I poured over and over seed catalogs.  I had my pen and highlighter always at the ready.  By the time I was done I was going to owe the seed company a mint.  So I began to cut back and cross off until I got a list that was a bit more manageable!

 

 

 

Last month my order came! I love the packaging form Territorial Seed Company!  This is my first year using them and I was seriously giddy when I saw all the bright colors!

 

 

I’ve got some of my seeds started, now the snow just needs to melt and the temperatures need to rise.  I’m hoping I didn’t start too soon!  Normally, I start my seed mid-March and that seems to work well, but the weather has been pretty quirky here this year.   I love seeing all the green poking up through the soil and Little Miss had so much fun checking each morning to see what would come up next!

 

 

THIS…. Cracks. Me. UP!  I have no idea who took this picture, but it certainly captured real life after a long day of homeschooling.  Look at the assortment gathered on my countertops! 

 

 

I had to take a photo of this, for memories sake.  It touches my heart that she still likes to play with her babies.  Often she brings one up to the bar in the kitchen and she will place an order for lunch for herself and her baby!  After many weeks, I now have my script memorized.  “Hello, how are you?  May I take your order?”  She will ask me what is on the menu and I will give her the options for the day.  Then she orders….  most often it is fruit plate! 

 

 

I’m “kind of” teaching her piano.  She goes in spurts, but on this day she wanted to give a recital of sorts!  She got all dressed up and played her piece for me.

 

 

We have been having huge flocks of wild turkeys in our yard, as close as a foot from our house.  They are desperate after the long hard winter we have had.  We have not seen the ground since the last part of December and the animals are eating everything in sight.  I have (had) a beautiful pine tree in my front yard that the deer stripped of it’s needles about 6 feet up.  It was our hens favorite hiding place and it saved their little tushies from a hawk last year.  They were a bit confused when they finally came out of the coop.  They stood under the tree and you could almost see their little minds swirling as they tried to figure out where their hiding place had disappeared to.

 

 

We are super blessed that one of my biology students is an AMAZING artist.  She gives my younger two lessons every Tuesday after we finish up biology.  My kids love her and she is super with them. 

 

 

School anyone?  This cat learns through osmosis.  I’m positive of it!  By the time my children are done with school he should be a genius!

 

 

The rest are just for fun!  A wonderful family gave me a 35mm lens for my birthday!   I couldn’t believe it, it totally shocked me!  So for the past two weeks I have been playing around with the lens and loving it!  Here is a little sample of what it can do.

 

 

 

As I scroll back through this post, I am overwhelmed by how blessed I am.  Thank you, Lord, You are an AMAZING, Loving, Gift-giving God!

A Thriving Life

Little Miss took this picture for me, to document a new beginning for her blankey.  The crocheted edging on her blanket which I made when I was pregnant for her was unraveling, falling to pieces and literally disintegrating from all the loving it has received.  It was beyond repair and so the other day I talked her into letting me snip it off.  As I sat there taking off the edging my heart was a bit sad.  It was hard taking off all that sweet crochet from almost 8 years ago.  I wanted to keep it and yet I knew it was time to remove it.

As I cut each connection of yarn to blanket, it made me think about how often in my own life I have wanted to hang on to the things that were tattered and no good.  I did not want to get rid of them because I knew them.  I was used to them.  They were part of me and defined me.  I was comfortable with them.  With them I had control (or so I thought).  And the thought of letting them go actually saddened and frightened me.

But, with them I lived a half life.  A doubled over, weighed down, survival mode life.  It wasn't a powerful, joyful God filled New Life.

"But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!"  Romans 8:9-10 (Message)

As I sat almost every night for three weeks putting on the new bright pink yarn on Little Miss' lovey, God brought to my mind how when I agreed to finally lay down my burdens, sins, lies, and wrong thinking that He never meant for me to carry, He brought Newness into my life.

No longer was I in survival mode, but instead God brought me to a thriving life!

He brought me into a life of expectation in Him.  A life of New Growth, a flourishing, abounding in God-adventures life! It has been amazing!  No longer am I weighed down by things that I was never meant to carry. No longer am I grave tending, but instead I live each day looking forward to what the Lord has for me.

Each day is full of the power of the resurrection of Christ!  Just like my daughter's blanket edging; I am NEW! 

"This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"  2 Corinthians 5:17

I’m Rounding Up My Winter Photos….

March is here and so I know spring is coming!  My seed order arrived the other day.  Oh! What fun to spread out all of the colorful packets and continue to draw out my garden plans for the year!  Today I spent some time going through my January and February photos.  All of them are from February, except the bottom one which I took in January, right before it started snowing.  Now we can’t even see the weeds from last summer/fall, they are buried under 2-3 feet of snow!  We have gotten some crazy amount of 70+ inches worth of snow this winter.  We got 4 more yesterday.  Thankfully I love the snow and it does not bother me one bit to have more.   I know spring will arrive eventually and so I’m not worried one little bit! In fact I’m getting ready to start my tomato and green peppers.  I’m breaking on the seed starting soil, containers, and seeds!  I’m super excited to get them going and watch the miracle of new growth!

 

What I Want….

"You, Lord, are my lamp; the LORD turns my darkness into light.  With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.  As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD's word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.  For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?  Is is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights.  He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.  You make your saving help my shield; your help has made me great.  You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way." 2 Samuel 22:29-37