Reflections on a Sunday

Today, we had a great lesson on prayer in Bible study and a great message on communion in service. While we were talking about the challenges to our prayer life, someone mentioned that Satan does not like us to pray and build a relationship with God and that when we our prayer life is good, we often face trials that Satan throws our way to get our focus in the wrong place. As I sat in the worship center thinking about preparing my heart for communion, I thought about how I always seem to struggle the hardest with sin in the week approaching a service when we will take the Lord's Supper. This week, I have struggled with anger and a gossipy attitude and as I sat down looking at the table of elements, I dispared over my rotten attitude this week. And I recognize that Satan knows that we are going to approach God like this and he doesn't like the communion that we have with Him through this act of remembrance, so he works hard at tempting me and throwing me off in the week ahead. But what an awesome testimony of how important this act is and how scared it makes Satan to see us communion with our Lord.

I absolutely love the focus that Pastor Bob puts on this ordinance. It's never just a ritual that gets thrown in at the end of  a service. I love that he takes a whole service to emphasize what it is we are doing and how we need to prepare our hearts to receive it correctly.

And I thank God that he loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us while we yet sinners. Even while I was sinning this week, He still wanted to commune with me. It was with a very humble and repentant heart that I came to the table this morning. And I hope that I will learn to stand strong, put on the Armor of God and not let Satan's fiery darts get through to me, whether in the week before communion or any time. I want to stand strong and grow closer to my God who loves us so much and wants to get to know us and gave us these ways to draw closer to him.

Review: Dandelions On The Wind by Mona Hodgson

From the Publisher's Site:

 Tattered relationships and broken hearts, like a quilt, can be pieced together by God’s love.
                                                                                    
When Maren Jensen took a job on Elsa Brantenberg’s St. Charles, Missouri farm, she never expected to call the place her home. As she grows to love Mrs. Brantenberg and her granddaughter, Gabi, Maren is transformed from a lonely mail-order bride-without-a-groom to a beloved member of the Brantenberg household.

But when Gabi’s father, Rutherford “Wooly” Wainwright, returns to the farm unexpectedly, everything changes for Maren. Despite the failing eyesight that caused her suitor to reject her, she can see that Wooly desperately needs to reconnect with the family he abandoned when his grief sent him running toward the army—and into the Civil War. She also senses there could be something more between the widower and herself, if either can move beyond their past hurts. 

Comforted and counseled by the wisdom of the women in her beloved quilting circle, Maren begins to discover the cost such decisions demand of her heart. Are her choices in obedience to God, or is she running from His plan? Is it too late for love to be stitched into the fabric of her life?

At first glance, Dandelions On the Wind seemed to have a lot of things going for it. I love historical novels and I enjoy quilting books. Both of which this book is promoted to be. I grabbed at the chance to review this book for the publisher, Multnomah Waterbrook, because it is set in my home town of St. Charles, MO. I thought it would be fun to read a historical fiction set in a town I know and love.

Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed with the book. The writing never really grabbed hold of my interest and I pretty much had to make myself finish the book. I was a third of the way through the story before anything was mentioned that would distinguish the city from any other farm town. In the author's notes, she mentions that this town is rich with history but she missed the potential to really teach her readers anything about that history. She tosses in a few names like Lindenwood Female College, Mary Sibley and the Old Capital Building, but she doesn't dig any deeper. This was my Alma mater, so I was excited to see that she chose to include it, but then she didn't do anything with it. I love the setting to become like another character in the book, where the reader almost feels like they know it personally. But I didn't get that here.

Then again the actual characters in the book weren't fleshed out very well either. The quilting circle is mentioned several times, but we never "attend" a meeting and hear anything about the quilting that they are doing.

The story had lots of potential. The people in this book are dealing with the difficulties brought with war, death, disease and distance. They must learn about forgiveness and trust in order to heal from the wounds of the path. There are several scripture verses, old sayings and wise thoughts brought in to guide the characters. We meet several characters that have so much tell. I would like to see this book expanded to tell more. More history, more about the eye disease that is taking Maren's sight and more about these people, including the elusive quilting circle. I liked what little I got to know about the characters, but I would have liked to get to know them even better. I see that there are more books to this little novella series, so maybe I just need to read more to get the rest of the information, but I would have liked to have the first book include enough to make me just have to pick up the next book!

About the author:
Over the last twenty-five years, Mona Hodgson’s publishing credits have grown to include nearly thirty children's books, contributions to more than ten books for adults, and four historical novels, including her debut, Two Brides Too Many in The Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek Series. Mona is a popular speaker for women's groups, schools, and educators’ and writers’ conferences. She lives in Arizona with her husband and has two daughters and several grandchildren.

Click HERE to read Chapter One. 

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Clouds by Robin Jones Gunn

Well, it is no secret that I love Robin Jones Gunn books! So, when the opportunity to review Clouds came up, I could not resist. This is part of the Glenbrooke series, which I have read before, but it has been re-released with a new look. It is book 5 of the series, but as with all of Robin's books, it can stand alone quite well. For those familiar with her books, you may remember the main character, Shelly, from a previous Glenbrooke book about Alissa, who reappears with her own story after debuting in the Christy Miller series. That's one thing I love about Robin's books. Even though you can jump in to any of her books in any part of a series and not be totally lost, there is also always a familiar face if you are a long time reader.

In Clouds, we watch Shelly struggle with disappointment when life and relationships seem to be leaving her behind. Things are not going quite the way she planned them and she is feeling lonely and displaced. As she tries to find a new path and examine what she wants to do now, things start falling into place in surprising ways, but with some twists and turns along the way. What I enjoyed most about this book is that it doesn't just focus on a romance between a man and a woman, but it talks about the most important romance of all. Our relationship with the Greatest Lover of all, our Lord Jesus Christ. And that, often, we must get that relationship right, before true love can happen here on earth.

Another thing that is fun about this book, as with many of Robin's books, is that we get to travel vicariously through it. I also love her poetic way of writing. So many lovely descriptions that draw wonderful pictures with words.

If you are new to Robin Jones Gunn's books or are an old friend of her lovely books, I think you will enjoy jumping into this book.

For more information about this book, please visit the publisher's site HERE

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ROBIN JONES GUNN is the best-selling and award-winning author of more than seventy books, with over 4 million copies of her titles sold worldwide. Best known among them are the Christy Miller, Sierra Jensen, and Christy and Todd: College Years teen series. A Christy Award winner and a two-time finalist for excellence in fiction, Robin has also been a Gold Medallion finalist. She and her husband have a grown son and daughter and live in Hawaii.

 I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Unstoppable by Nick Vujicic

I became aware of Nick Vujicic through reading about Bethany Hamilton and when this book came up for review, I decided that it would be a good one to read. This book is inspirational book about following God, putting your faith in action and reaching out to others, even in the face of what might seem impossible challenges.

The very fact that this book is written by a successful, world traveling evangelist who was born with no arms and legs is inspirational enough to convince us that our challenges aren't bigger than God's power and his plans for our life. He also packs the book full of inspirational stories from others he has met on his path through life. Those who have influenced him and those who have been touched by him. Though usually, the inspiring seems to go both ways.

There are many reminders that our attitudes and our trust in God and his power are often bigger hurdles than the disabilities, diseases or relationships that we have that seem to be standing between us and a better life.

A couple of passages that stood out me are below:

One thing I would caution you about is that when you face an overwhelming medical problem, you may find yourself totally caught up in dealing with it, so being hill and getting healthy are all you think about. Professional counselors say it is important to accept and mange your illness, but is equally important to remember that you are still you. Don't abandon the things you love to do or the people you love to be with because you want to focus exclusively on restoring your health. The health challenge has happened to you, but don't let it take over your life or damage your sense of yourself and the value you bring into the world. You are more than this challenge.

I liked that one because, as a person facing a significant health challenge, I know that it is easy for that to become a huge focus in your life and to define you. I have enjoyed life so much more now that the diseases is just part of who I am and it is not the major focus of my life. It is always there, but it is not who I am. But, it can take awhile to get to that place and attitude.

Jessica believes that God used the illness of her body to strengthen her soul. She feels that being so sick forced her to focus on what beign a Christian and giving her life to God really meant. Through her terrible pain and the loss of the life she'd known, Jessica found a path to wisdom and understanding  beyond anything she'd ever experienced before. "God wanted me to realize that life was not given to me just for my own satisfaction," she said. "In fact, that is not the purpose at all. He wanted me to realize that life as given to me so that I could bring Him glorly and be an encouragement for others. He wants the best for me, but He realizes the meaning of that more than I do.

Jessica found that meaning through surrender. "The way I view it, to surrender means giving to the Lord the things that you hold most dear. It means not holding on tightly to your idea of what will bring you happiness but trusting that He knows even better than you the desires of your heart - and that He will give you a fulfilled life even if it is not in the way that you envisioned," she said.

This is a good reminder. I think so often, we are miserable because we are holding so tightly to our idea or the world's idea of what will make us happy or what we need instead of trusting God and seeing life through His eyes. We need to surrender and obey and trust that He loves us and wants more for us than we can even imagine. 

 If you are looking for an inspiring and yet challenging book to help you with your perspective on life or to encourage you in your ministry you might want to check this book out.

NICK VUJICIC is a motivational speaker and the director of the nonprofit organization, Life Without Limbs. Nick has become a great inspiration to people around the world, regularly speaking to large crowds about overcoming obstacles and achieving dreams. A longtime resident of Australia, he now lives in southern California with his wife, Kanae. Visit his website at www.LifeWithoutLimbs.org.


Follow Nick on Facebook 
For more information on this book, click HERE
Read the first chapter HERE.




I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

2013 Books read

These days, I am not reading as fast as I used to. Usually tired by the time I get some free time. So, instead of a seasonal list (which basically started with the reading challenges, that I don't do anymore), I will do a yearly list.
Unstoppable by Nick Vujicic
Clouds by Robin Jones Gunn
Switched At Birth by Kathryn Kennish (ABC)
Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic
Praying For Your Future Husband by Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer
The Tutor's Daughter by Julie Klassen
The Maid at Fairbourne Hall by Julie Klassen
The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
Christy by Catherine Marshall
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Victim of Grace by Robin Jones Gunn
The Chance by Karen Kingsbury
Guitar Notes by Mary Amato
Naked Mole-Rat Letters by Mary Amato
Books counting for Read A Thon (June 1-Sept 1)
Dandelions On the Wind by Mona Hodgson
The Journeys of  Post Modern Missionary by Richard Lewis
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini
Raising a Modern-Day Joseph by Larry Fowler
A Noble Groom by Jody Hedlund
Blade Silver by Melody Carlson

Fall Reading 2012

Ack! I have gotten behind in recording my books read. I will attempt to catch up now! Of course, I have also been really behind in actually reading! Mostly re-reading Christy books as I work on discussion questions for our teen group.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult
Finding Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Giving Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
Come To the Table by Neta Jackson

Operation Shine His Light 2012

We decided to try something new this year for project Operation Shine His Light. We added games. I have been thinking about it for a few years, but didn't know how it would go over. People are used to just going to a house, getting their candy and being on their way. I didn't know if they would appreciate the delay of playing games. As it is, we slow them down with our variety of things they get to choose. But, we decided to go with the game idea this year.

It started with just one. One year we gave away rubber ducks and we had some left over. So our first game that we decided to do was the duck pond. Then Alex and I found the Angry Bird toss game at Walgreens and thought it would be fun. So we had two games.

The duck pond became a dry duck pond when I realized that the ducks don't float right side up! That and I decided it was not a good idea to have those poor kids trying to pick up ducks out of water on a cold Halloween night with costumes on!

Part of the reason we decided to do games was that I had bought a couple of the surprise boxes from CBD to stock our book give away and they sent things like DVDs and  toys with the books. I needed a way to give those away. Those extra items went into our duck prize boxes, along with some party favor prizes and candy that I picked up to supply the other number boxes. 

The Angry Bird game was challenging and I way over estimated how much candy we would give out with it!  We had picked up a bunch of Wendy's Frosty Trick or Treat coupons and everyone who played got a coupon and a piece of candy, regardless of whether they got a bird in a hole. If they did succeed in getting a bird in, they got to choose more candy.

Here is Alex, in her Joseph Bell costume (from her part as the chief engineer in the Titanic Musical),  with our games. Alex ran the Angry Birds game, Jessica came out of her shell very well and ran the duck game. I was very proud of her! Jacob directed traffic!

After the kid played games, they came up to the porch to choose a tract and a Little Debbie treat and a book. 

We searched all over town to find some non spooky Halloween lights to put around the yard. My goal was to keep the kids off the yard and away from the fire pit and to help direct them through the maze of games, etc. We finally found some cute candy corn and pumpkin lights that we attached to some scarecrows and some fall decor stakes. That worked very well and  fit very well into our Shine His Light theme. We also had some bright lights set up on top of our van to help light up the game area. We wanted to be bright and welcoming, not spooky and foreboding.

The below picture shows the yard lights. This is after we took the lights off the top of the van, so it's pretty dark. With the powerful lights, our driveway was very lit up. Wish I had thought to take a picture of that.

 It was fun and I think everyone enjoyed it. No one complained about being held at one house too long. We got lots of positive and amazed comments. Of course, most of the neighbors right around us did not have their lights on at all, so in a way, we kind of made up that. I am considering adding more games next year, though we do have the complication that it is an Awana night and two of my trusty helpers will not be home.

We gave away 65 books, and around 67 Little Debbie treats so I would say that we had just under 70 kids visit. I didn't count the tracts. Some kids chose not to take one, some chose more than one and I allowed them to do so. We had a big selection of choices as I usually buy new ones each year, and I put out the ones from past years (Jacob pointed out that the LOTR tracks were very old. Oh well! They were popular! I also had a few that our church provided this year. They were encouraging members to hand out tracks with treats this year and it fit right in with our tradition. :-)

August decorations

Porch decked out for sunny August.


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Good Fs

Well, as I have thought about it, in all fairness to Fs, there have been a lot of fun Fs this summer too.

Agape Fest
FUEL mission tour
Lantern Festival
Forever Friends party

Christy party

One of the fun things we worked on this summer was our Christy Miller Birthday Party. We cooked up the idea for this party back in the spring and have been excitedly planning it since then. Alex has been sharing her love for Robin Jones Gunn books and our collection of books has cycled their way through many hand this spring/summer. We gathered a group of these forever friend loving girls together to celebrate the fictional character's birthday party last Friday.

One of the things we did was invite the girls to dress up as a favorite character. Alex really likes the style of the character Sierra and has been adding Sierra like pieces to her wardrobe as she can. One of Sierra's signature pieces of clothing is a tie skirt. We have been collecting ties from various places and with the help of my sewing mom, we finally put her tie skirt together.

We had the girls pose in front of a beach scene with a surf board we borrowed from my brother in law.





We found a Canary Island t-shirt at Old Navy and decided Jessica could dress up as Tikki, a character from one of Robin's later books that goes to the Canary Islands.


More pictures from the party are at our party blog, linked HERE. The girls had a lot of fun playing the game we created and winning all the Forever Friends related prizes. We are hoping to start a Peculiar Treasures club that will meet monthly to discuss the books and related topics and to play our game.

Cheese-ology

My dad is a member of the American Chemical Society, which grants us access to some pretty cool free science webinars. We have been watching many of them this year as a supplement to our science curriculum. Several of the webinars have been on food science, and those tend to be favorites. These webinars have been hosted by the owner of Cheese-ology, a local gourmet mac and cheese restaurant. He is a chemist who uses his science knowledge to make some pretty good mac and cheese! I had heard of this place before as they serve gluten free mac and cheese! and they were mentioned on our local celiac email list. But, hearing him talk about the restaurant before our webinars had all our mouths watering to try his place out. We finally ventured down to the Loop to give it a try. The place is small and the prices are more than you would expect for a serving of mac and cheese, but the flavors were very good. I think everyone was satisfied with what they chose. Not a place we will eat at a lot, but it is another nice option of a place Jessica can eat at when we are down in the city.

He had a Periodic Table of Cheeses on the wall. I took a picture, but it didn't come out very well. So I found one on the web.

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Lantern Festival

My niece, who is adopted from China, has a birthday in July. This year she decided that she wanted to celebrate her birthday by going to the Lantern Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Her celebration fell on a scorcher of a day with 106+ temps (we weren't able to find any city in the world that was hotter!) but it was worth the heat to see this. Fortunately, a storm front blew through and that did cool things down. And it was not bad enough to hurt us or the lanterns!

The festival was very neat. We saw a very talented sand artist and the amazing Chinese acrobats as well as all the beautiful lanterns. There was also a cactus and succulents display at the garden while we were there. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

The cousins

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Catch up and the Summer of the Plagues of Fs

Well, it seems I have fallen down on the blogging job again. It's been a crazy busy summer and I have just forgotten to blog! I can't believe it will be August tomorrow! I am working on getting things ready for school to start in September. Still haven't even done all the record keeping for last year, but I guess I better at least get lessons plans done for school to start and then I can finish up record keeping.

I am still not sure how this school year is going to look. For a long time, all of the kids have pretty much done all subjects together. This year, with Jessica at tech school, that won't happen. Alex and Jacob both picked up some extra subjects at the fair this year and I am trying to decided how to work them into the schedule as well. I signed the them up for Spanish at a nearby Recycle store that also offers homeschool enrichment classes. It will be an immersion class with cultural activities like cooking, crafts, etc. They will take Spanish at home with LifePacs so the class will just be enrichment. Alex is signed up to take an acting class with the director of the play she is in this summer. We are hoping that that class is not cancelled due to too few students.

Anyway, what have we done this summer since I last blogged? Well, we have dealt with the plagues of Fs. Starting with the small fire that I blogged about last time. We did get the stove hood replaced and we have the painter scheduled to come out in a couple of weeks. The kitchen looks better without the burnt hood and the smoke smell is dissipated. But, it will be nice to have my cheery yellow paint on. The paint color has been a point of contention. I like color on my walls. I mean I grew up in a house with bright yellows, oranges, reds, purples, etc on the walls (NOT all in the same room!), what can you expect? John likes neutral walls. Except for the kids rooms, he has only allowed me to pick very light, light colors, so light they still look white unless you look really closely. I decided this time, we were getting COLOR! A color that people can actually see. It came down to green or yellow. The men picked green. The girls and I picked yellow. I do plan to paint my pantry room sage green soon and my living room is supposed to be green. (Everyone thinks it is blue. THAT is how light my walls are, no one can tell!) So, I decided on cheery yellow. John is not sure, but we'll see. Everyone says it will help with the light bill. :-)

The next F we dealt with was fleas. Jimmy was covered in them. We have never had this issue before but apparently this is a bad year for fleas and other parasites because of the mild winter. We took him to the vet for his check up and a grooming and while he was there, we tackled the house. They told us to make sure to get up under the furniture because fleas like dark, hard to get to places. GREAT. Both of Jimmy's beds are next to big, huge wardrobes that sit up off the ground. Easy for fleas to get under, but not for humans. Lovely. We moved what furniture we could, including our bed which sits on an old waterbed pedestal, but had a space where he would crawl under whenever there was storms, fireworks or earthquakes. When we put the bed back together, we blocked that path. I feel sorry for Jimmy in his fear, and I will miss my natural storm,/earth quack detector, but fleas under my bed are not welcome. I do have to say that he forced me to tackle some well over due and much needed cleaning jobs, but it wore me out! I am also happy to say that we seem to have nipped the flea thing in the bud. We never saw any fleas anywhere but on the dog, so the eggs seem to have been taken care of. whew!

Next F - faucets. We have had horrible water pressure. It's been bad for awhile and we just put up with it, not knowing what to do and hoping it wasn't some huge plumbing undertaking. But when it got to the point where if you flushed the toilet, there was no water in the sink to wash your hands, something HAD to be done! We called the city and they said the pressure coming into the house was fine. So, John went out and bought a pressure gauge and hooked it up inside. Pressure was fine until you turned anything on and then it tanked out. So, he went and bought a new pressure regulator and he and Jacob installed it. It is amazing to have water pressure again! We are still getting use to water gushing out of the faucets and having to adjust since we are used to turning it on and getting nothing!

Next F (and hopefully the last one!) - Fuel line. Something is wrong with the fuel tank on John's car. When we go to put gas in the car, the nozzle shuts off like the tank is full. The tank is NOT full, it is empty! If we baby the gas in (it sounds like we are obsessively trying to top off the tank!), we can get a couple of gallons in. Which is usually all the patience we have. We buy enough to get across town, but not enough to really go anywhere. Which is not fun since the van has no air conditioning and over heats. So we are effectively stuck in town, not wanting to take either car for long distances. We plan to take John's car in this week to get looked at. But the laymens opinion I have gotten on it so far does not sound pretty. And thanks to all the lovely Fs which I guess can include myeloFibrosis, our Finances are pretty shot.

So, lets hope we don't face Firing/layoff. John decided not to take the early retirement plan. As we said before, either option was a gamble. But, voluntarily giving up the job was a gamble John decided he wasn't ready for. The benefits deal turned out not to be as good a deal as it sounded like in the beginning and we just can not afford to be with out good insurance with so many chronic diseases. He is looking for other jobs as the future of this job is still shaky. There is still a chance of lay off, but as long as they keep John's department, his job should be safe. He is a valuable asset there and no one wants to lose his years of experience and expertise. But, eventually, the job will just dry up. They all know that. There's just not a lot of need for force management for phone operators anymore.

Oh, I remembered another F. Fever. After the Festival (which was a fun F!), Alex got a fever of 103. The nurse practitioner said that the heat could have attributed to it, but basically, she had another ear infection. Fortunately, this one cleared up pretty quickly after starting the antibiotics. Though the trips to the doctor were not a lot of fun as they were starting a new computer record keeping process and for whatever reason that equaled HOURS in the doctors office just for a couple of minutes with the doctor to get ears checked. I sure hope they get that straightened out as it is miserable sitting in doctors offices for that long with a sick kid!