Teacher Gifts

Inspired by an idea from my friend Deanna's Blog (not for the first time!), I went and bought some of this: And made these for gifts for two of my kids' teachers:

I loved the idea for giving school supplies because there was no state funding for such things this year and they are continually needing them. The pencil holders were made from washing out large tin cans and gluing on scrapbooking paper with Mod Podge. The bottles are hand sanitizer. (If you want to make some yourself... you might have better luck following Deanna's instructions!)

Thanks to Tim for the picture... my camera is not working at all now. (Hint, hint, Santa).

The Light of the World

"I am the light of the world Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" John 8:12

There are over 31,000 verses in the bible. (I know because I googled, "How many verses are in the bible?". And btw, it didn't escape my notice that like 15 years ago BG (Before Google), if I wanted to know how many verses were in the bible, I would have had to count them. That would have taken a little longer... ;-))

Back to my point.... Can it be a "coincidence" when I just looked up John 8:12 yesterday afternoon for my Luminary post... and then a couple hours later, went to bed, picked up my "Sunset with God" devotional and found that same verse quoted in last night's thoughts?

Well, it could be... but it's not. It was just God's "hug goodnight", as I turned off my light to sleep, remembering that He is "light and in him is no darkness at all". (That one is from 1 John).

Just wanted to share.

Luminaries

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" John 8:12




On an evening near Christmas every year, we line the streets in our neighborhood with LUMINARIES. It's sort-of fun to be out with our neighbors working on this project and helping each other by offering matches and suggestions.


This year, to bring The Light of the World into something that begs to include Him, I offered a silent prayer for someone (or a whole family) as I lit each candle.

I tried not to appear irritated when my neighbor from next door finished her luminaries and then offered to help me light mine. I wanted to say, "Um....no, thank you. I'll light them myself. Please go away. I'm busy praying.".... but instead I said, "Thank you, that would be nice!" I still offered a prayer for the four she lit.

The last prayer I said was to thank God for his gift of Jesus!

A New Favorite

My interest has been kindled in a new candle brand! WoodWick. They can be purchased at Hallmark (and probably elsewhere). I experienced my first one at my friend Sonja's house. The scent she had was Rum Raisin and you needn't worry about finding that fragrance at any Hallmark store in this area, as I have bought them all! :-) The scent is subtle, pleasing and fills the whole house. My favorite, favorite thing, though, is that because of the wood wick, they crackle as they burn! So cozy!! The next one I would like to try is called "Redwood".

soul coughing

I had a strange awareness this morning in church of COUGHING and other such noises that our bodies make. Most of the time when we are in a group of people, we block out the background noise. Today, I became aware of it... not sure why or how... and I spent some time focusing on it. I guess if we have to cough, we have to cough and there's not much we can do about it. But... it really happens alot more than I realized.


To research this phenomenon, this morning I counted 41 coughs and/or throat clearings during the time it took the communion juice to be passed around. This doesn't count sneezes, sniffles, pews creaking, things being dropped and children screaming. Normally that is a "quiet" time in the assembly when I reflect on what Christ's blood means to me... but today I couldn't concentrate for hearing all the commotion.

Let's say it took approximately 5 minutes to pass the communion trays, and there were about 900 people in attendance. That's 5 percent of the congregation coughing in a 5 minute period. Now, I can't verify how many of those were repeat-coughers, but that's alot of coughing. That's about 8 per minute or one every 7 seconds... not really enough time to complete a thought before being interrupted again.



The question arose in my mind... why is it so hard to find QUIET? It's like our bodies themselves just can't be quiet.


So far, though, I didn't have any point with wanting to share this and was going to tell you not to bother to look for one.


What's interesting and where I started to see a "point" developing is that in looking for an appropriate image to share, I discovered an alternative-rock band from the 90s called .... Soul Coughing.


So was I hearding a bunch of soul coughing in church today?! Now, I don't recommend this band- I read some of their lyrics and listened to them on Youtube and they're just weird. But I like their name and it made me think about what a real "soul cough" would be.


First, what is a physical cough? I googled it and this was the first thing I got.... "Coughing is a reflex action...the resulting blast of air comes out at high speed, scrubbing and clearing the airway of dust, dirt or excessive secretions......The cough reflex is a vital part of the body's defence mechanisms. Normally, the lungs and the lower respiratory passages are sterile. If dust or dirt get into the lungs, they could become a breeding ground for bacteria and cause pneumonia or infection in the breathing tubes...

...Coughing usually means there is something in the respiratory passages that should not be there."


And I thought my wandering mind wasn't focusing on the blood of Christ during communion!.... what an awesome way to think about Christ's blood... it's like a Soul Cough... a way of cleansing out the things that shouldn't be there, the dust, dirt and excessive secretions.... leaving us healthy and preventing our hearts from becoming breeding grounds for the infection of sin.

:-)

Chinese Turkey and Lots of Hockey Weekend

Thanksgiving: my favorite holiday of the year.

Thanksgiving in Alabama without my extended family, particularly if they are all together in Michigan without me: depressing.

But not so much this year, as I spontaneously decided to ward off my usual holiday blues and invite a couple of Chinese families from Tim's department to our house for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner! One family asked if they could bring a turkey, as they already had it, but had never actually cooked one before. I'm particular about my Thanksgiving grub, so I was nervous. Guess what? Chinese people can cook turkey... I think they were surprised, too! :-) Libby and I did most of the rest of the cooking.

Kids' table (minus Jacob who is entertaining the guests in the corner of the room):

Libby was an amazing helper to me, cooking and cleaning! She even found a use for my Pumpkin Moon container.... plasticware dispenser! (Yes, I used plastic rather than wash dishes and I would do it again).

Early the day after Thanksgiving, we were off to Atlanta for Jacob's All-Stars hockey tournament. Five exciting, nail-biting games later, his team surprised and delighted us by becoming the CHAMPIONS of his age division!

Happy Car Riders:


Fun times at the hotel pool:


The family eating Chinese food (a theme?) at Discover Mills (mall). Jacob (intentionally) looking like a demon child from a horror movie!
Tim and Jacob in the Lego store:

Sarah and Jacob napping at the hotel after having to be at the rink at 5:50 a.m. Saturday:
Sarah was exhausted from plenty of waiting around:


Jacob was exhausted from plenty of this (he's number 46):

But it was all worth it to get this: (his face is directly to the right of the trophy)
Taking his turn holding the trophy:

Now it's back to reality.... laundry... grocery shopping... work and school tomorrow.....

Hey

Busy, busy, busy. I feel like lately I am running from one thing to the next, with little time for resting. And, I'm all about resting.... so this isn't how I like to live my life! :-) Right now my parents are in town and I am LOVING that! :-) But it's their fault I'm not blogging like I normally do.

Here are some updates from the past couple weeks:

Halloween:

Libby and her friend Alice were Mustard and Ketchup- so cute! Alice's mom bought the socks- I thought they were adorable!

Sarah was a "nerd"- and I never saw her completely dressed because she went with a friend, but these are the glasses she wore. (No offense to anyone who actually wears glasses like this....)

Jacob was the Incredible Hulk and I didn't get any pictures of him. You can probably imagine what he looked like. :-)

Soccer season is over... Sarah's team went to the regional tournaments and came in third. She was a star! Jacob's team didn't make it past the local tournament.... so I don't show favorites, he was a star, too, but he was like a white dwarf star or something... the kind that is small and not very bright. Ha ha. Just kidding. He says his soccer days are over and he just wants to focus on hockey. I concur.

Hockey is in full swing- Jacob is on a regular team, as well as a select team. The select team plays in like three tournaments, the first of which is over Thanksgiving break. That ought to be fun! He really loves hockey.

Libby is doing great in yearbook club and with piano lessons. She also seems to have inherited her mother's passion for pulling pranks. One night when her friend Sophie spent the night, they "forked" our neighbors' yard. I laughed at how they decided to line up the forks. I have so much to teach her!

One night I saw this beautiful sunset and stopped and took a picture!

I have more to blog about, but I'll save those things for future posts!