Just Writing To Say Hello!!!

Hello Everyone!

I'm hailing to you from somewhere in the lower 48 but for security reasons I can't tell you where! ;)
Specifically we are at my parents where my husband is at this very moment enjoying Monday Night Football in 52" HDTV.

Yeah...he's a happy man.

I can't quite get my thoughts together enough to really write something pithy right now, but maybe that will happen later on this week...maybe...

Right now my parents under stairway closet is calling my name, because somewhere in there are numerous vintage sewing patterns and crochet magazines. I hate to think of them as "vintage" because that would make me somewhat "vintage" as I remember when they were all new. Of course I was only a kid when they were new...still....

Anyway, as you can tell, I can't quite finish a thought and I think I better go answer the siren's call. Hope you are all having a great week!

P.S. I'll try to post some pictures of what I find this week...if not this week then next week when I get home to my own computer!

It's Not A Lot, But It's My Life

There are so many inspirational blogs out there. Just look at my blog-list and you will see some of the blogs that inspire me. They are blogs about home keeping, child-rearing and walking with the Lord. I love them all. They all are encouraging to me. Sometimes they are sad, sometimes funny and sometimes just, you know, everyday. I love that too. Because sometimes there is really nothing all that exciting to share about life.

You get up, get dressed, take care of what ever your day holds, and go to bed. That may be an over simplification, but you know what I mean.

And I love reading about it. Because there is joy to be found in the everyday things of life. Because that is mostly what life is made of. The everyday.

I mean, let's face it. Cleaning out a chicken coop isn't exactly earth shattering. Stinky maybe, but not earth shattering. Yet that was a part of my otherwise completely ordinary day yesterday. And I loved it.

In it's own way it was fun. Not the kind of fun I imagined when I was sixteen and seventeen years old, but fun in finding out our chickens were stealth. Fun in figuring out how to thwart their egg-hiding efforts. Fun watching them get excited about the new layer of straw we put down in their coop.

Taking joy in the everyday things of life can be hard sometimes, especially if you find yourself yearning for something more seemingly vibrant and exciting. But I have found that when I stopped looking over the fence at my neighbors lawn, or life, or whatever, I am much more content with my own life. Comparing my life to someone elses gets me no-where but depressed.

Jesus had an answer for this sort of thing. This comparing we do. In John 21:21 Peter asks Jesus about the future of John's (the disciple whom Jesus loved) life. Jesus says to Peter in verse 22, "...what is that to you? You follow Me." I just need to do what God has put before me. I don't need to be worrying about or comparing myself to anyone else.

And therein lies the secret to contentment and, dare I say, happiness.

So to quote a famous ant, "It's our lot in life...it's not a lot, but it's our life!"

A Poultry Tale

It has been awhile since I've given you any news about "The Girls". And yes they are all girls...in fact Josephina, who I was worried might be a Joseph, has turned out to be one of our most prolific layers. I do believe she was one of the first to start laying and she has carried right on with nary a stop since she began.

Nelly too, once the most henpecked of the bunch, and still the bottom of the chicken totem pole, has turned into a prolific layer. We can usually count on these two to give us an egg a day.

But things have been getting cooler here with temperatures dipping down into the low 30's at night. So when we started seeing fewer eggs, even though we were disappointed, we weren't all that surprised. One day we didn't get any. The next day we got three. We just figured that that's how it goes with laying in the colder months.

Oh contrare mes amis.

On Sunday, our dear sweet thief puppy greeted Husband with an egg in her mouth. How...did she get an egg!?!?!? we wanted to know. Husband made a beeline for the chicken coop and found everything secure except for an outside corner of the coop where our little thief puppy had been digging. This seemed to be the only logical place she could have gotten it from, although we were somewhat mystified as to how an egg got on the ground when there are four perfectly good nesting boxes in the coop.

Then this morning my dear little daughter, who loves the chickens more than any of the rest of us, went down to check for eggs and came back with a very dirty one in her hand telling me she had gotten from the ground outside the coop on the same corner that Puppy had been digging. AND one of the chickens was down inside of that corner of the coop under our makeshift floor. The floor is just two pallets stacked on top of one another with a piece of plywood on top.

Well, I decided, I've got to get to the bottom of this. So I pulled out the plywood. There in the corner was Josephina happily sitting on six eggs. We shoo-ed her away and I pulled out the pallets. As I was pulling out the pallets I ran over a seventh egg. Now with those seven, plus the egg puppy found and the egg Daughter found there were nine eggs. They had all been layed by either Josephina or Nelly.

Our two best layers have gone broody on us.

I'm not sure yet what we will do about this. I feel kind of bad for them...wanting chicks and all. For now the flooring is out of the coop, but we will have to put something back in by the end of the day. I'm thinking that we ought to skip the pallets and maybe just lay a few bricks down and put the plywood on top of that. We'll see what husband says when he gets home.

So there you have it...just another pawltry...I mean poultry episode in "As The Chicken Turns".

Keep the Main Thing

Missy over at It's Almost Naptime had a link to this post Was Jesus A Democrat or a Republican? written by Carol of Sheep To The Right and posted at Internet Cafe Devotions.

(Is that enough links for ya: ;D )

I love how it really gets to the main thing...Jesus.

A Living and Breathing Word

I read, or at least try to read, daily from The One Year Bible. This year I am reading it in the New Living Translation. Personally I have no particular translation loyalties. I do think that certain versions are probably a little more accurate than others....but that is not what this post is about.

What this post is about is that I am so in awe of how the Word of God, from Old Testament through the New Testament is just about God reaching out to us poor sinners. In reading an Old Testament passage juxtapositioned with a New Testament passage everyday it just becomes so clear.

My readings today came from Joshua 3:1 thru 4:24, Luke14:7-35, Psalm 80:1-19 and Proverbs 12:27-28 (yes, for those of you out there who follow along diligently according to the date, I don't...I'm in April...but that's another post).

The Joshua passage is about the people of Israel passing through the Jordan into the Promised Land, the Luke passage is Jesus talking about our priorities and where they ought to lie, the Psalm is a plea for God to show mercy on a sinful nation and Proverb is a comparison between the godly and the lazy. Here are a few verses I highlighted.

Then Joshua told the people, "Purify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do great wonders among you."J.3:5

Today you will know that the living God is among you. J.3:10

...the Lord of all the earth. J.3:13

He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the LORD's hand is powerful, and so you might fear the LORD your God forever. J.4:24

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. L.14:11

But don't begin until you count the cost. L.14:28

Salt is good for seasoning But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand! L.14:34

Turn us again to yourself, O God of Heaven's Armies. Make Your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. Ps.80:7

Come back, we beg you, O God of Heaven's Armies. Look down from heaven and see our plight. Ps.80:14

The way of the godly leads to life; that path does not lead to death. Pr.12:28

I have only done this sort of thing, where I take the verses that popped out at me and wrote them down together, one other time. I was amazed then and I am amazed now at how God can speak to me in this way....I know I probably shouldn't be, but I am.

God's Word is living and breathing and it is consistent. For those who claim there are contradictions...well I beg to differ. Yes, there are things that are hard to understand. But if I served a God who I could completely understand then he would be no god worth serving. My mind is finite, His is infinite. His ways are not my ways.

What an awesome God I serve.

A Pizza Never Lies

What Your Pizza Reveals

People may tell you that you have a small appetite... but you aren't under eating. You just aren't a pig. You aren't particularly picky about pizza. It's so good... how could you be? You fit in best in the Western part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are dependable, loyal, and conservative with your choices. You are definitely unique and artistically inclined. You should consider traveling to Prague. The stereotype that best fits you is guy or girl next door. Hey, there's nothing wrong with being average.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

I Wasn't Kidding!

She looks innocent enough doesn't she? A sweet faced lab with a penchant for cat food and chicken feed, tomatoes and pears. I wasn't joking when I told you she emptied the contents of her stomach on my carpet last night. She really did. And it was all chicken feed that she had snuck into the chicken yard and eaten right out the chicken's feeder while we were at Son's pizza party for his soccer team. When we arrived home from the party and went to lock up the chickens it was already dark (we still haven't gotten used to the time change yet). We hadn't locked up the chickens before we left and I was a little alarmed when we approached their pen and the gate was ajar. I stopped Daughter from going in and went in ahead of her, worried I might find a dead chicken. Thankfully all five biddies were safely snuggled up on their perch in the hen house. Apparently, they themselves are not what my dear sweet puppy were after....no....just their feed.

The problem is, she is one of these dogs with a sensitive stomach. We found this out last Christmas after an episode of throwing up and diarrhea. She's only aloud 3 cups of her own lamb and rice food a day. Apparently she doesn't feel that that's enough.

Little thief.

Anyway, my carpet is mostly recovered. I need to go over the spots one more time and I think that will do it. We are now carefully locking the chicken gate with an extra carabeaner so hopefully there will be no more episodes like last night.

The weather here has done a rather abrupt change...my kids seem surprised by it, but after living where we do for 17 years now I've learned to expect the unexpected. Last week we had a few afternoons in the upper 70's and lower 80's. Today....it is snowing!

Daughter, who earlier was complaining because it was cloudy and gloomy, is now thrilled with the weather and doesn't want the snow to stop. And I must admit that it's a wonder how the same grey skies that gave us rain early this morning suddenly didn't seem so gloomy when the rain turned to snow.

There is a certain odd beauty in snow on a still somewhat leafy tree. And it has made things in the house seem a lot more cozy.

...and in other news...

It's 11:50pm where I live.

Obama has been elected President of the United States.

I just finished spot cleaning my carpet because my dog ralphed chicken feed on it.

I'm not feeling so well myself.

But I will respect my leaders even if I don't agree with them on most everything.

Who Ya Gonna Serve?

Well, here it is voting day. Did you wonder, in the midst of primaries, debates and conventions, if we would ever get here? I certainly did.





Yet here we are, Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. Today the voters of the United States will choose a new President. Polls say it will likely not be who I prefer. But I'm going to vote anyway. Why? Because crazy things can happen on election day.

This picture is kind of small, but it is of Harry Truman holding up a newspaper announcing Dewey winning the election when in fact Truman had. AND can you say, "hanging chad"?

So I go out today to cast my ballot.

Even if the candidate of my choosing is not elected I still owe him respect as the leader of our country. And ultimately it is not him I serve. I serve the Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth who sent His only Son to be the Savior of all mankind. And He is sovereign and in control. Whoever is elected has been allowed to be elected by God. "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves." -Romans 13:1-2

That is a hard thing to do. Especially when there are preciouse lives at stake. But this country is unique in that we can change things by voting. Before I vote, I pray, because I want to do the Lord's will, because that is who I serve. Who do you serve?

By the by, I hope this plays alright for you. I had some trouble with it but I think it was because our server was running slow. In a past life I was (and still am to an extent) a Bob Dylan fan. I hope he maintains his relationship with Jesus Christ, but even if he doesn't he wrote a great song here.

Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve....But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. ~Joshua 24:15