Monday, March 31, 2014

Home Sweet Home Quiet Times and a Sweet Valentines or Anytime Craft Gift


Teach me, Father, to value each day, to live, to love, to laugh, to play.
~Kathi Mills

God is not in the vastness of greatness.  He is hid in the vastness of smallness.  He is not in the general.  He is in the particular.
~Pearl S. Buck


Two of our daughters...the kitchen...the afternoon light...

A few weeks or so ago I looked up one afternoon and noticed a most beautiful glow in our kitchen...The day's activities are evidenced clearly.  Joycie is here doing some stretches after a run on our property. 





Here comes Janie to give some good cheer as things wind down before supper preparation begins.

Some of you may wonder; where are all four of Jem and Amelia's daughters?  What are they doing these days?  Well, let me tell you...Trying to capture them all in one photo at one time is now like herding cats! *big smile* Joycie is taking classes at the community college in court reporting, not a legal assistant but to become a court reporter. This is the person that types on a special machine with special code at the front of the courtroom as the trial goes on and testimony is given.  Much, much tedious memorization and skill goes into it. The account of what is being heard in testimony must be near perfection as you can well imagine.  The drop out rate is high.  Joycie is on a mission, she is doing well and on the dean's list and has some most wonderful teachers.  God is good.  Very Good. 

Thank God all of our daughters are serving God and involved in His work, whether it is in the art of photography, counseling women in a prolife clinic, delegates in our party to further fight for our unborn, defenseless animals and our liberties...or at their present occupations when not at home.  Life goes on. : )  We certainly can't complain! 




Here are some shots from Valentines I would like to share with you:



I made four of these little rings for our four girls from buttons! 





My gift bags for the girls I used what I already had and I think they turned out cute!  Brown lunch sacks and paper doilies are the cat's meow. ; )  I love this ballet-pink tissue from Dollar General.

Originality is not doing something no one else has ever done, but doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.  ~Marie Chapian


 

 



A most precious morning sight, quiet time:



God looks at the world through the eyes of love.  If we, therefore, as human beings made in the image of God also want to see reality rationally, that is, as it truly is, then we , too, must learn to look at what we see with love.   Roberta Bondi



Two of our sweet daughters with our precious, precious buddy at the nursing home.

Well friends, I'll close now... Today I'm making Italian stuffed bell peppers with lentil and brown rice stuffing topped with a nice veggie-cheese. 

I'm working in segments on a Collette beginners blouse pattern.

Decluttering: Joycie and I brought a big bag of clothing to the Christian center last Friday in smalltown.  So fun!

I am at present and have been listening to: 






 
This music is the background music soundtrack to my life lately, seriously. 
It is! : )   It is sooo beautiful.  The 40s movie is grand.  Modern music?  A lot of it is okay...but the sweet and calm spirit of this is soooo much better, just sooooo much better.



Have a sweet day everyone, signing off from The Forest Cathedral....    ~Amelia

Thursday, March 27, 2014

They Call Them Radicals


There are those who have contrasted the halfhearted and apathetic by becoming radicals. We call them radicals, at least. These are, simply put, those who have conceded to the fact that they're remade, reborn, and reformed in His image. These radicals are those who, when they walk into a room (or a church), every head turns. The mutterings of various conversations become hushed tones. They bear an image unlike anything commonplace, they exude something like conviction but also like love. And everyone notices how drastic the difference in these people is. Before a word is spoken by them, people say in their hearts, "I want to know what that peace and grace is like."

 An excerpt from Josh Isaacs from his blog: I Am A Seeker

And now for a topping...I ran across this on youtube...Please take the time to watch and listen, your time won't be wasted....




"'Be ye holy as I am Holy..'  Those are God's Words not mine...."

"If your going to get serious about God, they will sneer at you...All the dwarves will say... So you are trying to be holier then the rest of us eh???" ~Leonard Ravenhill

"I don't care if you like me, but I'm a surgeon and I'm going to get the sickness out"   ~David Wilkerson


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Photo by Robert Stock

Monday, March 24, 2014

MUST SEE: 'KANSAS' ROCK LEGEND PENS PRO-LIFE ANTHEM



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This Time: 'Kansas' Rock Legend Pens Pro-Life Anthem


After dozens of albums, recording artist John Elefante's latest work is intensely personal. That's because it's about how his adopted daughter narrowly missed a date with death before she was ever born. 


You know me, I love to write my personal day-to-day goings ons' and convictions but my husband and I just watched this, catching it on a Christian program... 

My husband, also a rock and roller at one time immediately stopped and listened when he heard who this man was.  John Elefante from the group, Kansas. 

This is so beautiful although intense... I was a prolife counselor at one time and my oldest daughter is now a prolife counselor where she speaks Life to women and the sweet name of Christ Jesus.

Yes, in this day and age when some preachers brag that they don't preach against anything...This video and John Elefante's testimony is a pure breath of fresh spiritual air.

Breath in, breath out....to others...Hopefully we are taking in good spiritual air from God.  Clean air...

...it's Jesus.  Be separate.   Let's be Jesus with skin on to others...  

 amelia

(top photo by Robert Stock)

Monday, March 17, 2014

True Clutter Confessions and Show n Tell; A Great Pair of Practical Shoes, Saving Money

loading ... Photo, Robert Stock
 
Just wanted to share a laughable true-confession from the merciful creative-messy...Me, on clutter and it's ill effects.   Remember the post I did last month on me missing out on the beautiful handsewn bag my daughter made me because of dreadful clutter?

Well, after writing about it and posting about it.  I strolled through that same closet that very afternoon, thus closet has an in and an out door.  Well, thus closet also had a "harmless" little basket of clothes in the walkway.  Missie here was dancing through like an elephant in a snowdrift holding a hanger and shirt to put away when boom-a-bang-a over-correct around the basket and tripping over my shoe-rack...as I fell I'm heading towards the end of the open door.  Wow.  Thank God I did not hit the edge of the door on my poor noggin!  Now I see how these household accidents happen I hear of with people falling and hurting themselves so badly.  And for me?  It was because of that villain...clutter.

Lesson learned:  Clutter not only blinds us from what we truly love but it hurts people!!!!

I wish I could say this is the first time I've ever taken a fall of this nature and cause of human, but I remember when Lea and Marianna were little, I, falling backwards into a filled clothing basket in my room like I Love Lucy.  I sat there and laughed and laughed....That time there was no hurt just me in a basket behind first!

One tool that has helped me declutter is an emotional evaluation bag, or in the case of clothing, a "Do I really, really need this or love this?" bag.  

This is GREAT for the stuff I'm not sure about...I mark the bag with marker with the date and give it a year.  Sometimes I actually do need a skirt or something out of the bag, other times I *think* I need a blouse or something of the sort and realize, the color really does not do a thing for me... It either gets dyed or given.  Another trick I have that works on clothes I don't want to bag, perhaps a camisole in a drawer...I put a garage sale sticker (the bright circles) on it with the date.  If a year goes by, and it's not used, it really needs to go to bless someone else.

Show 'N Tell Time!
loading ...  Photo, Robert Stock

I know you are going to think I'm daffy now!  (That girl is decluttering and now she's buyin' shoes?!) Ha!  Don't you remember the excitement of getting new shoes?   I do!  I'm an only child but my mom and dad were very good about not spoiling.  They really were.  So when we went to the store to get new shoes that was a great day!  I remember being shocked visiting some city-cousins when I saw the mounds and mounds of shoes those girls had in their closet!

And yes, I have decluttered some shoes and actually I have fit even my tennis shoes on my shoe rack now!  The only things that aren't on my rack are my two pair of boots (pretty much) ; ) .

Anyhoo.

The name of this game is practicality and multipurpose right?

I just wanted to share these shoes from Payless.   I have had them since last summer and they are wonderful.  Totally wonderful.  This beige color goes with just about anything and they don't need breaking in.  To me?  Life is too short to have to break in shoes.

These are Dexflex Comfort brand and are on sale right now for $19.99.   I recently bought the black pair as well; I am a black-tights kind of gal for cool church mornings and such.  They run pretty true to size, I go with the larger of my inbetween-sizes because of the closed toe.
Women's Claire Scrunch Flat 



Ways I Have Saved Money This Week

loading ... Photo, Robert Stock

Well, while I was on a site I saw a neat handbag.  My cute marketbag had broken and my attempted repair was a fail.  I saw the cutest black and white big bag.  My little girl inside of me soooo wanted that bag and I wanted it now.  I gave it 15 minutes, and saw there were some things that didn't fit with my personality on that bag, gold chains..not for me.  God's voice..Go look in your closet Missie...  Yep, I had a very nice sage green bag that will be fine for months to come.  I saved almost $30!

I saw a $20. sewing book I really wanted bad. Right-now, right-now... It contained neat patterns in it... God says: ...Look at the library Missie.  It took ten minutes or so but guess what?  The library has it,  I held it and now I can hold the book in my hands to see if it's what I want before purchasing.

New fabrics are an enjoyment to me, I was trying to figure out how to wrack up $35. of new fabric to get free shipping. I know... dummy, dummy, dummy right?   Jem suggested I look through my stash, Don't you already have fabric? he asks...and ya know he was exactly right.  My retro pattern only requires a yard of material. How hard is that?  


I'll close now with a good word from Tozer and a beautiful retro painting that says way more than words:

.
Christ our Pilot


We have to be still to hear His Still Small Voice, more simplicity more time to reflect and listen.
Have a sweet eve,   Amelia

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

RuN For YOur LiFE!



I've been pondering a lot lately, I do that don't ya know.  So much to life.  So much to Eternity...God put this short video on my heart from my late blog, it's still alive just asleep but not asleep...It's so NOT asleep.  I've tried to condense to one blog now days that's all...

Here is the page I retrieved it from, you may enjoy some of those blog entries as well.  http://visionforagodlyhome.blogspot.com/2012/03/run-for-your-life.html

I think about my precious step-dad Al lately, especially when I see anything from New York like the Time Square Church video..I miss Al, he was from New York.  He took such good care of my mom...life changed drastically the day he suddenly passed away from a heart attack.  That night as I hung the phone up with my poor mom, she was sent home from the city hospital in a taxi with Al's clothes on her arm. (I was the one to bring his suit and tie to the funeral home, not a pretty memory.)

That night after receiving the horrible phone call I ran out to the front yard, it was dark, the children were asleep. I ran out to the front yard in a long, baggy yellow Garfield tshirt nightgown. I looked up at the sky, the stars, and I cried out to God in a silent scream...I cried out to Al in a silent wheezing cry.  I knew he was on his way up there to God...but it didn't make life easy for me after that.  My little girls, Lea and Marianna, my little baby, Michelle lost their best friend.  I could write uncanny things I've seen of Al but I'll save it for another time for the mostpart.  I will mention I saw his face when I was delivering my youngest, Rebecca.  The chief midwive at the birth center tell me I scared them to death, I had turned grey...

There are so many things to blog about, there are money saving tips, there are fashion tips for simple elegance and sewing...there are natural medicine tips I could share. But all in all, I'm a child of God in this nutso world.

We visit churches and I sit there.  Yeah...Call me a whiner, a complainer...Call me a griper.  I don't apologize for speaking truth here.  No fake-jake here.

Enough now.

loading ... ~photo by Robert Stock

I just felt led to post this in this world of non convicting sermons, canned emails etc.

I. Just. Felt.  I had better post this, things are rough out there and if ya don't think so maybe you better come out and take a look?  Ya know?

loading ... ~Photo by Robert Stock

We are doing fine.  Many times when I share my wee prophet's heart people think I must be going through something, that something is wrong here.  No, not at all...I just see things very clearly and care enough to warn.  You may ask Jem and our daughters, those daughters who probably still miss their pa-pa Al.  Our Rebecca who tried to come way to early if the midwives didn't save her, if God didn't save her.  I've told her many times... Rebecca.  God has His hand. on. you.

Life has changed immensely since '91.  Al always said we had that pioneering spirit, whether it be homeschooling or moving to the country... Al, you would love it here.  Our artists hearts could sit at the table and we could drink coffee together...we could laugh and smile quietly, boisterously...

I do hope the short video was a good challenge in a good healthy way.

A smile and heart of love, blessing and prayers coming your way,   ~amelia