Just Playing Around

Well, I'm still playing with pictures. This is a picture of my oldest granddaughter, Jamie, and her fiance, Ofir. They've been an "item" for about 4+ years. I had my grandson's pic on this page too but it disappeared. Not sure where it went. I could have tried to put Mike on again but I decided to let it go for tonight.

Today I baked cookies for the baking contest at the fair next week. I baked a batch yesterday too but they were baked too long and turned into real crispy jawbreakers. These I made today are chewy the way they should be. The downer is that as I stooped and reached into the refrigerator to fetch a cube of real butter, I twisted when I shouldn't have and set my back off again. I just got over a session with my back. I hope this doesn't become a habit. I think, if I can get out of bed in the morning and walk and move carefully for the next couple of days I'll be okay. Pray for me, please. I don't want anything to interfere with my plans for next week. Kathleen and I and a couple other women are going to go to the fair next week on the 14th to see if our knitting pieces won any ribbons. And you know of course that we'll have to eat some junk food while we're there. And I can't go to the fair and not buy cotton candy!! Then I will go back that evening for the Miss Calaveras County pageant. My youngest granddaughter, Kayla, (I sent a pic of her dancing a day or two ago) is running for Miss Calaveras again so of course gramma has to cheer her on. She should have won last year I think but she placed second runner-up after winning the talent portion of the contest. I really want her to win this year.

I did my study in Proverbs today and it was selected verses on discipline. Something really came to my mind as I studied and I meant to remember it so I could share it with you but it seems to have slipped my mind. But we all know about discipline, don't we? It's something that we shun like the plague. But discipline is good and good for us if given in the correct way and that would be with lots of love and absolutely no anger. We need to "train up" our children and not "spare the rod" but we need to understand that this type of correction isn't in anger or in any way intended to harm anyone. I think it's like a grapevine. I was raised on a farm in Caruthers which is about 20 miles south of Fresno (California) and we had vineyards. Every year the vines had to be pruned and tied to the wire. At first it was done with difficulty. The vine never wanted to be changed (disciplined) and so we had to use gentle pressure to wrap it around the wire and then we used twist ties to hold them in place. The purpose was not to hurt the vine. We were "training" the vine to grow down the wires for support for when the new growth appeared and the heavy fruit began to pull down on the vine. This was discipline for the vine. Done for all the right reasons that would make the vine the best vine it could be. Well our children are like that vine and sometimes we need to use discipline with them to train them up to be what is best for them. But it's never done in anger. Only love.

My son is grown now with grown children of his own so how do these verses apply to me? They apply to me in that I am a child of God. And as my good Father, He disciplines me. He wraps me around the wire, so to speak, and ties me up there with the very Word of God because He loves me. For no other reason. He just loves me. And He knows what's right and He always DOES what's right. So whenever I go through a season of trouble ~ discipline ~ I must recognize the fact that God is disciplining me out of love and never anger. He is doing what is necessary to "train me up" into the person He knows I can be. He is the Vinedresser. He knows what's best for each and every vine. What is right for me may not be right for you. But our heavenly Father loves us with a perfect love and He will do all that is necessary to conform us into the image of His Son. Jesus is the perfect Son and in that sense the Father even disciplined Him, not in the sense that Jesus did anything wrong. But only in the sense that His Father knew what was best for His Son. Scripture tells us that Jesus learned obedience from the things He suffered (Heb 5:8). It's the same with us. Discipline is training. And we learn obedience from the things we suffer and endure here in this life. Jesus never sinned. His obedience was solely that of training. You and I, though, are sinners and sometimes the discipline we receive is well earned from our behavior or attitude. We deserve the discipline. But even so, it is never done with anger. Our discipline is always to make us into the image of Christ. To refine us and remove impurities from us so that we might serve our Creator and worship Him alone. When we are disciplined we are loved. That is why we are supposed to be joyful in trials. Because we are being trained into being all we were meant to be. And we can rejoice in these trials because all discipline comes with deep, perfect love. It is important for us to fully understand that God is not being mean. He desires the very best for us and because He loves us perfectly He disciplines us for our own good and for His glory and honor. He disciplines us because He loves us with perfect love. How could a righteous and just God do otherwise?

More Pictures

This is a picture of my son and his wife and my youngest granddaughter. Isn't she a beauty? She's the one that taught me how to put pics in my blog. This was at a Valentine's Day Dinner and Dance at my church. Ken and Tamara went for the party and Kayla went as, well she was a lot of things. She took "studio" pics of the different couples that went. She sang and DJ'd the dance. This is a great pic of my son and granddaughter but I know Tam's going to hate me for sending this one of her. She's a very pretty woman. This pic just does not do her justice. Tam, if you see this blog, I apologize for using it.

Today was communion Sunday and everything went just fine. I was late getting home by time I had everything cleaned up and put away.

I have plans tomorrow to go with Kathleen to the county fairgrounds to drop off all our knitting entries to be judged and then exhibited during Frog Jump (the county fair). Mark Twain wrote The Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County in regards to this event. That's not the exact title of the story he wrote but it's close. I just can't come up with it right now. I think it's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. There is a lot of history here in our county. Bret Harte and Mark Twain both traveled these roads during the gold rush era as well as several other well-knowns. I'm going to see if I can send another pic onto this post so bear with me as I investigate. Hopefully, I'll be right back with another pic.

Well that didn't work out the way it was supposed to. The photos were supposed to be stacked not side-by-side. That is a pic of Kayla performing her dance routine last year. Okay now I'm going to publish these and see what it looks like. It may be a real mess, I don't know.

Okay, they did come out stacked but the new one gets inserted from the top so what I wrote about the valentine's dance and what I wrote for Kayla's pic are near the wrong photos. Hopefully you'll be able to figure this all out when you see it. I'm sorry but I'm just learning and doing things using the trial and error method. Probably what I'll do is save all the pics first and then go back on edit and do my writing. Blogger is not helping me any. But I'm getting there.

I discovered a really, really good verse today. This is from the Good News Bible. Joel 2:13:
"Come back to the Lord your God. He is kind and full of mercy; he is patient and keeps his promise; he is always ready to forgive and not punish." Isn't that beautiful? He is always ready to forgive and not punish. That's the kind of God we have. Amazing isn't He? He'd much rather forgive than punish. When we partook of communion this morning we were reminded that we have been saved and there is nothing we can do to change that fact. I know that's hard for some people to understand but it's because they can't see that our salvation is based on what Christ has done, not on anything we do. Christ's sacrifice was everything we needed and what we needed (His forgiveness) He freely gives. What a awesome God!

Still Another Picture

This is a pic of the Cacti I have by my front door. In the post telling all about where I live (a few posts back) I said this was just to the right of my door but that wasn't right. This is just to the left of my door. The deck goes to the right. I need to repot the cacti in the middle as it's gotten "leggy" and I think it has also outgrown it's pot. There's also some ivy to the right and if you look carefully at the cacti on the left you'll see E.T. looking back at you. Do you see him?

We got up at 7:00 this morning and was across the river and in Jackson by 8:30 to do our shopping. I made all the lights on the way. It's next to impossible to make all the lights. You usually get at least one red light. We got our shopping done and were back home by 10:30 so we made good time. We'll need to go back again before the month is out to purchase the things we need that WalMart was out of though. I'd like to be able to just one month get everything on our list in one trip instead of two. I did manage to pick up some more yarn to finish my oldest granddaughter's summer scarf that I have almost complete. And I bought several balls of cotton yarn to knit a shopping bag, actually I think I have enough to make two shopping bags. And I picked up some other cotton yarn so I can knit some pot holders.

Came home tired from shopping. So was hubby but neither of us took a nap. I sat and knitted on my maroon shawl that I've been working on hot and heavy the past week. I'd rather enter this on in the fair exhibits but I won't have it finished in time so I'm going to stick with the green shawl I knit several months ago. I've progressed in my talent (knitting) and the one I'm working on now is better than the green one but hopefully it will be good enough. I'm also entering one of my baby afghans. The last one I finished. It just might win a ribbon. Oh I hope it does. I'm only submitted it because my friend Kathleen insisted I put it in for exhibit and here I am hoping it wins a ribbon. But it is a very nicely done afghan even if I say so myself. Kathleen and I will take our projects to the fair office Monday for judging. I'll let you know after the fair whether or not I get a ribbon. The fair isn't until the third weekend in May so it's a ways off.

Tomorrow morning is Communion Sunday which means that I'll have to get up early again. So far this week I've been up by 7:00 for five of the six days. I think I like it that way. I get so much more done in the course of a day when I don't sleep half of it away. Funny how that works, huh? Anyway, tomorrow will be a long morning for me by the time I set up everything for communion. I will plan on taking a nap tomorrow after I get home from church. I'll spend the afternoon knitting and playing on the computer with my granddaughter, hopefully.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Kathleen's house doing knitting things. She showed me how to do a felt ball and then I held the shank of yarn for her while she balled the yarn she bought to make something for her mom. It was beautiful yarn but is it ever skinny!!! Then we tackled this white baby blanket I have going by ripping out the rows I hadn't knitted right and worked on figuring out the pattern once again. I got the pattern from a book in the library and the pattern is written really, really difficult to understand. I'm about to toss that pattern in the trash if this doesn't work right this time. It's just that the pattern isn't clear. Kathleen has knitted enough in her lifetime to figure out the pattern when it's unclear. I haven't. But hopefully we've got it figured out by now. This is the third time we've had to figure out what they mean in their pattern.

We had a nice, soaking rain yesterday evening and then most of the night. Almost an inch. And we didn't have rain today until just as we were leaving the city to come home. I think it's supposed to rain more tonight. I like the rain, I always have. So far today we've just had off and on showers. Hopefully it won't be raining in the morning for church but I do think they said we'd have this weather pattern for a few days.

I didn't get my study in Proverbs done yesterday or today. I had compressed the study from a weekly study to a daily one so I'm still way ahead of things as far as that goes. I think I'm about half way in the study. Maybe I'll get back to it tomorrow. It's been a very valuable study for me. I answered a challenge last summer and read a chapter of Proverbs a day for a month (31 chaps) but didn't really get anything out of it. But I'm finding that there is a wealth of counsel there for daily living. First off it puts us in the fear of the Lord. Meaning that we are in awe of Him and are seeking His way to live our lives. I will try to find some gem to share with you from my study when I have a little more time. Right now I need to get some dinner before I faint. I'm really hungry which is explained by the fact that I've only had a couple slices of jicama all day long. So anyway, I'm going to close this post, satisfied because I could actually send a pic along with my blog. There will be more to come. I promise. Michael tried to send me another pic but it wouldn't come through to my computer for some reason. But hopefully I'll be able to send pics all the time now. As soon as Kayla shows me how to send more than just one pic at a time, I'll send several and may even toss one in of myself although I'll probably wait until the swelling in my throat has gone down. I don't know what's up with that. The left side of my throat is very sore to the touch but the right side is swollen like a tennis ball. Go figure that one out.

I hope you are having a great weekend and you'll have a wonderful week ahead. I really will get my act together on my blog. I'm just so thrilled that I can do pics now!!! Yea! Thank you, Lord. Stay in the shadow of our Creator and seek His will and stay in the Word. I firmly believe that we must be in the Word every day; every single day. Find the time. Even if it's only 5 mins, find the time to read something in the Scriptures. And pray. Pray without ceasing as Paul said. We have a great and merciful heavenly Father. Let's do all we can to adore and worship Him.

Okay this is another view taken from our deck. That is Hogback Mountain in the distance which sometimes gets a dusting of snow. This looks like a Fall picture but it was actually just taken a few days ago. It was late afternoon sun coming through the new spring leaves that makes it look like it was shot in the Fall of the year. You can see more of the vacant lot in the foreground in this pic.

Now I'm going to try importing another pic in addition to this pic in the same post. I'm really just flying by the seat of my pants here learning these ins and outs of doing this. I need to see for sure that this writes below the pic and it does. Now I'm going to try to do another image. Hang on.

Well that didn't work. I'll try it again. Somehow this isn't working. But I think I have figured out how to send at least one photo. My granddaughter is at rehearsals for the Miss Calaveras pageant but hopefully I will be able to get her to come over tomorrow afternoon and she can show me more. I'm happy with just being able to sent one pic!

I'll try doing another post.

Another Picture

This is a picture taken from my deck with a zoom lens by my hubby, Michael P. Harvey 2009. (He insists that I give him photo credits). It is at the intersection on the other side of our vacant lot (you can see the grass of the vacant lot in the nearest foreground. That's a beautiful old barn that neither of us happened to notice until very, very recently. I don't know what that says about our powers of observation since we've lived here for over 5 years!

I can't believe I'm actually putting a photo in my blog!!! I have wanted to be able to do that ever since I started blogging a year and a half ago and finally found the one person who could help me and she did it in about 30 seconds!! I don't have the capacity in my computer to do pictures on my own. I have to have my hubby send it to me in an email and then I import it into my blog. I'm having a little trouble doing that though. I had given up and then somehow I got it to work. I have more pics to send so I'm going to be doing a few trial and errors runs through with my blog using photos so please be sure to go back far enough to get to see all the pictures. I think this is so really great!!! My daughter-in-law tried to show me how to do it about a year ago but her way was really complicated and I didn't write anything down. Then when I asked her the other day she said she had forgotten how to do it on my computer (for which I'm grateful because her way of doing it was really difficult) and suggested I talk to my youngest granddaughter. She came by today and I thought to ask her and Presto!!! I'm set. That is if I can remember how I got this far. She wrote everything down for me but blogger kept telling me I couldn't do something at one point. But then I chanced upon the solution and here it is. A blog with a picture!!!

Anyway I'm going to be playing around with this and figuring out how it works. I want to try to do more than one pic on a blog and checking to see that I can write between them, etc. etc. But please go back and see all the pictures.

An Experiment

This is an experiment to see if I can write on the same page as the oak picture. I am learning to shift pictures from my email to my blog. I need to take this down to the bottom of the page and see what happens so bear with me for a minute. Looks like I'm able to do it but it's going to change the format of my page. Okay I'm going to save this and publish it as a post. (ignore the pig) The oak picture was taken by my hubby. Michael P. Harvey 2009.

A Little Food for Thought

Our nation needs our prayers. As we become aware of unhealthy trends and decisions, we need to start with a personal heart cleansing and confession of any known sin. We need to confess and repent (1Jn 1:9) then cry out to our heavenly Father for the return of a vibrant, God-fearing culture to live in.

We often reach our lowest points because we stop trusting in the Lord, At such times, it's easy to give in to the temptation of taking matters into our own hands. When we do, it's easy to wind up in a mess. But if we look to the Lord again, we will see the way out of our pit and back into His loving will.

If we surrender to God in moments of despair, He will provide us with what we need, just as He did for David, Abraham, Joseph and so many other. He wants to strengthen His children so we can bear up under the weight of tough circumstances. So yield to Hm ~ at some point, we'll probably look back and mark the day as the beginning of new growth in our faith.

The Christian life is not about feeling good and deriving the greatest personal benefit from out connection to God. Rather, the Lord builds an intimate relationship with each of us. In that way, He can reveal more about Himself ~ truth by truth ~ as we believers need that knowledge. What a privilege!!!

Human strength is insufficient to rid ourselves of sin. The truth is that we are all in need of a Savior. Jesus Christ humbled Himself to die in our place, which was not a show of weakness. On the contrary, He made the most powerful sacrifice He could ~ and He did it for you and me (Jn 15:13).

What are we I doing with the amazing message of God's love? The commission to "go and make disciples" is meant to be an integral part of every believer's life. We need to share with others the truths about God as He reveals it to us. We all need to share about Jesus and what He has done for the human race and this very earth (remember the earth itself is groaning too!) while at home, at work, at school, among friends, or while pursuing hobbies. In other words, we are to celebrate the message of Easter every day of our lives. With anyone available.

Think about both your public life and your private life. Are both glorifying to the Lord? Allow God's light to penetrate any "darkness" in your thoughts, words, or deeds. Then others may be drawn to the Father by what they see in you (Mt 15:16).

Consider your blessings. How do you utilize all that the heavenly Father has bestowed upon you ~ namely, time, abilities, and finances? Each one of us must choose how we are going to live. It is our responsibility to be faithful servants of the living God, doing whatever He calls us to do.

My Bible study in Proverbs has shown me that it's impossible to extract the gems of knowledge out of the book without pencil and paper. Make columns with headings like: "How to Fear the Lord" and "Foolish Living (ungodly);" "The Righteous" and the "Foolish;" and "Wise" and "Foolish" or headings like these and just jot down what the Bible says about these subjects as you read through the different chapters. You will be blessed if you do this as you read the Proverbs. Remember chaps 1-9 are introductory passages so you may need to wait until you get to chap 9 before you're able to make these notations. It is a wealth of information missed if you don't take the time to do this. Proverbs is all about living righteously. Wisely. In the fear of the Lord.

Another thing my study has shown me is that I am a sluggard. That's right. As painful as it is to admit, I must confess that I am a sluggard. Now comes the hard part. Now I must make changes and adjustments. I need to be up doing things rather than sitting on my duff collecting dust. But the purpose of studying the Bible is to bring us into proper alignment with who God wants us to be and how He wants us to live our lives. The purpose is to show us how to live justly before our gracious Creator. It's absolutely amazing to me that He would take the time to give us direction and to leave us an "instruction manual" for doing just that. What an awesome God we have.

Rain is due in tomorrow night and I need to squeeze out of today the time needed to rake the back yard. Hubby weed-whacked it yesterday. Now it's my turn. But I will do it after I come home from quilting which will be about 2:00 or 3:00. It shouldn't take much more than a half an hour to do that. Hopefully. We are supposed to have a wet weekend so it looks like I won't have to wash my car on Saturday. That is always such a chore. A well-worth-my-time chore but a chore nonetheless.

I dug out a prayer shawl that I had half done and then put aside because I couldn't figure out how to do it. I thought I had messed it up and would need help getting it all sorted out. But I ended up with nothing to work on yesterday and remembered that shawl. So I decided to drag it out and see if I could figure out how to solve my problem. And low and behold, there was no problem. (Sometimes when I get tired this will happen.) So anyway I have something to work on while I wait to take my baby afghan over to Kathleen's tomorrow so she can figure out why the pattern isn't working for me. I do a repeat of 8 rows over and over again and for some reason it just will not work out to start another set of 8!! Frustrating to say the least.

Okay, I need to get dressed and go for my haircut and then to church for the quilting.