Just thinking....

Trying to decide whether to begin blogging again or just do Facebook or do both or even quit Facebook and just blog. Decisions, decisions...

I like Facebook because I can keep up with friends and family but sometimes it's quite time consuming.  That's where the word "balance" comes in...if I can do that word! I know I've wasted valuable time but the real waster is the time I've put into Hallmark Christmas movies this year...like I'm in a funk...spaced out...staring at that big black TV. Saps creativity and energy!

Blogging lets me put my thoughts down on "paper" so to speak or at least in type. Journaling does that too. I do believe I've come to a crossroads, a serious one, and need to make some important decisions concerning time and how I use it.

I seem to have "misplaced" the reason that I exist, the reason I am here. It isn't for myself but I've certainly been acting that way. I need to remember that I was bought with a price...a huge price...and I am not my own. If I truly live this way, things would be a bit different. Am I ready to get back on the right path? I need to just jump in there and do it! Time is short; probably a lot shorter than we can even imagine.  And I so want to hear my Father say, "well done, Debbie, well done!"

Indian Summer 2012

Some pictures of our Indian Summer celebration of family! Pictures by Elliott, our 10 yr. old Grand.

A bit of Fall in and around our Home

Beach musings...

Working on "Beach Diaries" to share on my blog. Put pen to paper several days with thoughts and feelings whirling around in my head. Hope to work on it this week. It was a week of special blessings and making priceless memories.

Whew!

So ready for the weekend! Busy couple of weeks under my belt and ready for a slower one coming up! House pretty much cleaned and got the backyard cut. Boy was the grass ever so thick!
Ran out of steam so Mike gets the front and side yard tomorrow.
Oh and we're all decorated for FALL! Loving it! Pics later!

Wonderful music...ahhhh

Wednesday Anna and the kids and I went on an adventure! We loaded up in my van and Anna pulled out a cd to put in...Ella Fitzgerald's Swingin Christmas! Wow! Airconditioner blowing in our faces, we drove all over with that beautiful, smooth, velvety voice of hers. I tried to "take" the cd, after all it WAS in my cd player...possession .9 of the law or something like that. Well that didn't work so I just had to order one for us. Usually pick up a new Christmas cd or several for the season, this season just happened to come a bit early! Hooray for Amazon Prime...no shipping and it came early this morning! Got ready for the day with her and then that put me in the mood for Nat King Cole's Christmas. Ahhh...lovely, lovely day and never too early for Christmas music whenever you're in the mood!

Sitting on the porch, loving on my Father God, listening to the downpour of rain bouncing off the roof and running through the gutters, surrounded by an amber  glow of lamplight. The trees are swaying and the rumblings of thunder add to the ambience. How incredibly cozy I feel with Bible and journal at hand and coffee in my favorite "robin's egg blue" Alice Jules mug.
The fragrance of fresh rain and the aroma of my house blend- such a treat to my nose! All are really such simple things yet they bring me such pleasure!
Am I for real, you may ask. I assure you I am! I think it has something to do with my childlike faith...

Has been a while...

Just discovered the neatest blog, Little Birdie Blessings and it made me miss blogging!

Oh, how to balance Twitter, Facebook and Blogspot! Help! Maybe I need to rethink all this stuff! :)

Facebook

Facebook has taken up my blog time! Even though I am not on there too much, I don't seem to write on my blog anymore. Hmmmmm....
Maybe I can find a happy medium...one day soon!

Happy 7th Birthday Kylie!

You may be a bit taller now but you still look like a fairy princess!
We love you, Papa and Granggie!

Spring, Spring, Spring

Am loving this gorgeous weather! Charlotte and I spent a lot of time outside yesterday, sitting in the swing, in the backyard chairs and just walking around. It was such a lovely day-everything so fresh and green! Almost Heaven!

Us and Our "Grands"!

Happy Birthday Mother!

Today my Mother is 82 years young! She's quite a character! Her favorite words are "go" and "bridge"!
She has more energy than the energizer bunny and never meets a stranger!
She's a treasure!
We love you Mother! Happy Birthday!

Geeked!

I have "discovered" a new author! Diane Moody
April had seen the book, Tea with Emma on the Amazon kindle books and I thought it looked good so I got it. I couldn't put it down! Loved it! Went on to read the 2nd novella in the Tea Cup series, Strike the Match and then read The Runaway Pastor's Wife.
I so enjoyed these books and just had to let the author know. Found her e-mail and wrote her and she wrote me back!
It was the best e-mail ever and she was so personable.  Feel like I've made a new friend!

Just had to share this! If you have a Kindle, get her books! The Tea Cup series will come out in paperback in about a year and I will definitely have to have that!

An absolute first!

Saturday began as any Saturday morning usually begins for us...breakfast at the Grill! This particular Saturday some of our friends from Joy Christian Fellowship came. Alison came with some of the kids and her husband was coming with the others and they were meeting Alison's parents. Alison came over to talk with us a bit and received a phone call from her husband who was at another restaurant in Indian Trail. Crossed Wires! We all got a good laugh out of that!

We came home , took care of Charlotte and then headed out for Chinese to celebrate Emma's birthday.
We arrived first, had them move tables to accomodate the 8 of us and Mike and I got our drinks. My phone rang and it was Anna. She asked where we were and I told her we were at the restaurant and had everything ready. Silence and then "oh, no...we're at Kami"...in Wesley Chapel and we were at Taipei South on Johnston Road! [Kami is three minutes from our house and T.S is almost 30] You say Chinese to Mike and I and we automatically think Taipei South-our absolute favorite and I happen to know that Anna and Dan love it too but Emma likes Kami...why...because they have red walls!

Needless to say I was embarrassed and we felt awful but the people at Taipei South were so gracious.
They wouldn't even let us pay for our drinks! They even said to tell Emma "Happy Birthday".
Back on the road again! I then called Dan's cell to say we were on our way but didn't have my glasses on. I ended up calling our friend Don! Yikes! Another embarrassment! I tried awfully hard in a matter of seconds to act like I meant to call him but just couldn't think that fast! Had to confess the whole story!

Well...we did make it to Kami and the food was very good! Went to TCBY for frozen yogurt and then home for an hour before we hit the road once more, this time to the hospital to see Mike's mother.

A lesson I learned...when speaking of eating Chinese...specify the name of the restaurant unless you happen to know the other party likes red walls! (And it's their birthday! :)

Happy Birthday Emma!!!!!

Our Emma is 8 today!
We love you, sweet girl!
Papa and Granggie

Will wonders never cease?

Mike is now on Facebook! This is his profile picture. Can you tell that he's a John Wayne fan?
Actually we all are and our kids were raised on John Wayne!
Anyway Mike decided to "go" Facebook to stay in touch with his family...mostly his cousins that he never sees and since they were friends with our daughters, he wanted to be able to keep up with them.
As for me "going" Facebook...well...probably not...the "jury's" still out on that one! :)

Quiet Splendor

The sun rising, breaking through bits of early morning fog greeted me this morning as I had my coffee on the porch. As I looked out across our patches of woods, new growth...brilliant green everywhere, popping out...dogwood blossoms unfolding, red buds...quiet splendor indeed but isn't it funny how in all their quiet new growth, they seem to be shouting..."wake up"..."come to life"..."emerge from the old and be made new, afresh"! Isn't that what we want? Each day is a new day with a fresh clean palette of brilliant colors just waiting for us. What life-picture will we paint? It's really up to us.
As the old crusader in the Indiana Jones' Raiders of the Lost Ark said..."choose wisely".

Porch Time!

More Maylena

"Movin" on up!

You know how you say, "Oh I'll never do that or get one of those", well I did. When the Nooks and Kindles came out, that's what I said. I had no desire for one. An electronic reader...pfft...not me.
I like the feel of a book in my hand, the paper scent, etc. Well I still do but now I have a Kindle Fire and I love it! Mike gave it to me as an early birthday present because it was on sale. I've downloaded lots of free books, games ; even read two books over the weekend on this fascinating little electronic device!

Now if I ever figure out what all I can do on it and my smart phone which is, at the moment, a bit smarter than me, I'll really be moving on up!
Hey it must run in the family...my almost 82 year old mother is now on Facebook!

Smitten!

Isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen? This is Maylena, our 9th beautiful "Grand"!
I kept her yesterday afternoon and she was a jewel! She tries to talk and she smiles and coos.
She loves being out on the porch! (A girl after my own heart...ahhh...)
We rocked and talked and rocked and she slept in my arms a bit. It was a wonderful afternoon!
When Brittany got back, she sat and visited and Maylena fell asleep in my arms. The joys of being a "Granggie"!
It was a lovely "Maylena afternoon" indeed!

Planting

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap,

        but by the seeds that you plant."

             Robert Louis Stevenson



*the picture is a picture of a picture in my Country Living magazine. I loved it!
But it is much better in the magazine! :) Loved the saying too!

A Sunday Afternoon

It was a Sunday afternoon that took me back to my childhood, growing up on Woodruff Place in Charlotte, in the city.
Then our Sundays were spent in Wesley Heights Methodist Church and then found us most Sundays having lunch with grandparents and sometimes our cousins. I am one of the most fortunate of all because I grew up with both sets of grandparents across the street. I saw my grandparents almost every day and I thought it to be such a treat! Those Sunday afternoons were spent enjoying delicious food, (except when my Nannan had rabbit stew. That particular lunch found me thinking "how could anyone eat Thumper?" and I have no recollection of what I ate-potatoes probably) and having wonderful conversations. Things were slower and quieter. We talked more and visited. Not much TV and definitely not electronic games and such. We took walks, rode bikes, played games and enjoyed the love!

Today after church Mike and I came home to sweet, furry Charlotte and leftovers. As we finished our lunch, April called and said they were picking up food and the kids wanted to come and eat at our house, was that okay? Of course! We were going to visit Mike's mom in the hospital later on but we had time for them. So here they come and we sat and talked, laughed and played around with the kids,
wrote notes with words spelled of felt sticky letters. Mike and Lee got into a deep doctrinal conversation and the rest of us remained quite light-hearted! Christian and Camden wanted to go to the hospital with us; Makenna made Grandmama a card and Elliott took care of Charlotte.

Anna called and they were coming by and had we not needed to go to the hospital we would have loved for all of them to join us. That would have been the "icing on the cake"! Maylena and her parents would have been the "candles" had they been able to join us!

So we ventured into Charlotte's uptown area and missed Anna's crew but I'm sure Charlotte enjoyed their visit. While riding in the back seat with Camden, listening to his quirky conversations laced with his special sense of humor, I was transported back in time, 50 years and more.
That was the way to spend a Sunday afternoon...and I could say, yes! this is the way to spend a lovely Sunday afternoon. The only way it could have been better would have been to have all our kids around us, enjoying each of their unique personalities and Mike's mom at home, not needing to be in the hospital!

Oh and it was an afternoon of firsts.....our almost 13 year old grandson is now taller than me and I had my first Monster drink...a Monster Zero! (only for him!) The things we do for our grands!

You know, it just doesn't get much better than an afternoon like this!
I am so "stinkin" blessed!

Awakening!

Isn't it exciting to watch new life unfold right before your eyes! I am so enjoying watching the "rebirth" of Spring.  The birds, insects, tree frogs, etc. seem to be tuning up to welcome her arrival.
Every tiny bud carries the promise of new life...a miracle within itself. Wow! New life!

Yesterday I kept Maylena for a few hours and studied each of her tiny features as I rocked her in my arms. Each tiny fingernail, each delicate eyelash...this remarkable combination of our daughter-in-law and our son... I was in awe; quietly savoring each moment of this precious new life. Did I become weepy...a bit! There's something about holding "miracles" in your hands, watching them with your eyes. Love, thanksgiving, happiness, joy...sheer delight overflows from a heart of gratitude.

What an amazing, wonderful Father God we serve! How amazing that we are the recipients of his generous blessings!

March

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."
~Charles Dickens

March 3rd is....

Anna's birthday! That's today!
Posted the blog a little after midnight and the time on the crazy blogspot is wrong!
So much for my brilliant plan to post early, early in the AM!

Happy Birthday Anna!

Happy 28th! We love you!
Mama and Daddy

Tottering on the brink...

Standing at a crossroads, about to enter into yet another season...of a new year...of life's journey... has set my mind a whirling, has caused me to examine myself more closely and that's where I am...tottering on the brink... of a new decade. It has conjured up such emotions- highs, lows, excitement, self-centeredness," the good, the bad, the ugly", etc. Can I be more? Can I do more? I'm preparing myself...
preparing myself to move forward, to live life to the fullest and embrace the changes and make the most of them, knowing that He is holding my hand and gently leading me. There may be times that we're running full speed ahead or trudging, plodding on...but He will never let go.
With Him comes "confident expectation" to know that life with Him only gets better and better!
Am I dreading this new "adventure"...no way!  Bring it on! Here's to life! Here's to gracefully aging!
(I prefer to use the phrase that He renews my youth like the eagles! This is what I'm declaring!)

Happy Birthday Margaret!

Mike's mom is a Leap Year baby and today is her REAL birthday!

Birthday festivities!

The birthday party was great and went off without a hitch! So good to be with Mike's sisters and their families and seeing so many relatives that we hadn't seen in years!
Matter of fact we were enjoying talking with each other so much that I forgot to take pictures......
here is the ONLY one I took and it was at the end when we were beginning to clean up.
I didn't get Mike's parents, the cake or all the people!
Hoping Cheryl has some pictures to share!