Night Life

We have had quite a few visitors to our front porch at night recently. We may have had them before, but we have been coming home later the past week with Bible Club. Anyway, here are some pictures of our "night life."

A big visitor!

This guy is a Polyphemus Moth. He is quite large, and took me quite by surprise when he flew up last night.

These guys are frequent visitors:

I think they like the cuisine! :)

Hmmm.... must be camera shy. I know some people like that!
They've had enough photography for one night!

Sweet Sixteen!!!

Happy Birthday, Angie!!!

I can't believe you are sixteen already! I hope you have a wonderful day today! (and party on Friday night!)

Love ya, Sis!!


Here are pictures from last night:

Angie's Sixteenth Birthday

Return from Treasure Island!!!!

Wow! It has been a while since my last post. But I have a good reason! I was in charge of our church's Summer Bible Club. God really helped us with this! The theme was Treasure Island. We talked about God's Treasure... people, the Bible, and His Treasured Son, Jesus. I told the stories about Jesus feeding the five (or ten) thousand, Jesus walking on water, and the crucifixion and resurrection. I got the ideas and the songs from Concordia's VBS last year. Here is the summary of the gems we talked about each day, Mom was in charge of this and the memory verse and the other story. Thanks to everyone for pitching in and helping! (I used the same theme from camp in June.)

The really awesome part is the kids! We haven't had a Sunday School ministry, so everything is just beginning. To make a long story short, God sent us the right group... (although a few more girls would be nice!) and we had a great time. We had regular club meetings Tuesday through Friday, Saturday was the picnic, and Sunday night was our program. The picture above is the rewards we gave out to the top point earners. Everyone that came was able to get a beach ball. :)

One mom told us after the program that her eight year old son was sad because it is over. "But this is my church." he said. Of course we told her that it isn't over, we will be having Bible Club every Sunday night. Oh, and his family is planning on coming to church! "The little child shall lead them!"

So God did help and bless, but I am worn out! I got some rest yesterday, and it's back to work today!

Here are a few more pictures... I will be putting more in this album when I get them from Angie. I didn't always take my camera. These are mostly just the pictures from Saturday.

Summer Bible Club

ReReading

"If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads but what he rereads." Francois Mauriac

I know I am not the only one who rereads books. What is it about a particular book that brings us back to it time and again? For me it is the comfort of familiar characters, the beautiful use of language, or the needful insights in an area of my life. And there is something so comforting about the familiar. Once you have read a book, you know the ending and thus alleviate the stress of "what happens next?" I think that it is in the rereading that I really come to value a book, I can take time to focus on the characterization and the ingenuity of the author. Or I can just enjoy visiting, once again with the characters.
Does this mean that all my rereads are deep and soul searching? Well, no. But it is a source of comfort, especially in long sleepless nights or times of intense stress. Then I seek the comfort of those books in which nothing too critical happens, and people just enjoy everyday living.

Some of my rereads:
The Anne series by L. M. Montgomery
Bookends by Liz Curtis Higgs
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Seasons of the Heart series by Janette Oke
Created to be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl
and of course the Bible

What are some of your rereads?

Making History

Today was a first for this year! "First for what?" you ask? It is the first day this summer in East Texas that temperatures have reached 100 degrees! Yes, it was rather warm today! A real Texas summer day! :) The first of more to come, I'm sure... :) But it does feel a little more normal, somehow!

I got my first real rose on my rose bush! The three blooms that were on it when I planted it got eaten and I thought that it wasn't going to make it. But the one little stalk that remains has bloomed at last! :) It really doesn't take much to make me happy! :)

I also made and decorated a cake today. Tomorrow is our Pastor and his wife's anniversary. The cake is chocolate with strawberry preserve filling... Yum!! I also dipped strawberries and made chocolate hearts, letters and curlicues. Does it look good enough to eat?? :)


Here is the cake recipe... It is very easy, one of the first things I ever baked, and it turns out wonderfully moist. A very hard recipe to mess up, it can be done, although I'm not sure how! :) It also doubles quite well, though it takes a lot longer to bake.

Stir Cake or Wacky Cake:

(to be finished when I have more energy and time!!) :)

New Tool!

It's the Embellish-knit from Bond America.

It really speeds up knitting an I-cord - a process that takes me forever doing it by hand! (Like ten minutes vs. an hour! though I've never timed myself.) I have been experimenting with different yarns. It doesn't take all types, only very small yarn, which is a drawback. But I haven't had many difficulties with the machine when I use the right yarn. Overall, it will come in very handy, I'll just have to adapt my projects and find matching small yarn! :) So it's off to Hobby Lobby again today, I think! :)

Saturday Project

The finished product:I've had this mirror for a while - someone gave it to us. I'm not a big fan of gold like this... but a little paint and sandpaper did the trick!

Before I started: ...the swag is just plopped up there.
The frame is very dark and heavy looking, but I like the scrolling design.
(Click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

In the middle of the process:
I decided to paint first and sand later, the spray pant I used was incredibly fast drying so rubbing off the fresh paint didn't work very well. I liked the sanding because I felt I had more control over the final product versus smearing fresh paint.

I used a fine grade of sand paper to rough up the corners and scrolling. I didn't put a sealant on it. The effect is a distressed look anyway and I also didn't buy any! :)

I like the finished product much better than what it was before (obviously, or I wouldn't be posting, right?) :) The mirror now hangs in our guest bedroom. I want to eventually paint this room, probably a pale green. The quilt on the bed I bought last week or so. The pictures reflected in the mirror are my Grandpa (dad's dad) and his brother, Henry(left) taken in the late thirties/early forties.
I love having my own house to decorate! ... Now if I can only get the family room to look like what I have envisioned!! :)