Another Busy Day

I thought Monday was busy -- nothing compared to Tuesday!
Got the Communicator done & to the post office before 3, but not without annoying little set-backs. Only one paper jam during the printing process, Yea!! Sometimes that is a real issue with the copier/printer & using the tabloid-sized paper. And I had to replace the toner during the process, no problems there; last month I had to have someone come & replace the toner for me, I couldn't get the cartridge out of the machine. I wasn't being forceful enough, but I sure didn't want to break anything. Since I had new labels (a different brand) I decided to run the first page just to make sure all was lining up right. No problems there; but when I went to do the rest of the pages, it printed the first one over & then skipped 29 people. Randomly! On days when I am just doing my printing I will just take up my laptop & run on battery-power. Since it took longer than I expected, my battery ran down to the point of turning off my computer. Time for lunch, so I took it all home, plugged in the laptop to charge it back up & Dave (thank you!) helped me get them folded & labeled plus helped me figure out who didn't have a label. Since there were so many I decided to go back up & print them off instead of hand writing them. Oh one other little annoyance -- when I put my glasses on to come home for lunch I got my nose-piece stuck up my nose. Like I said, they were annoying little set-backs. LOL!
The day progressed & I got everything done for church. Still had to take Mom's laundry down to her. Planning on doing that right after I finished supper.
Another monkey-wrench in the works: the monitor on the desktop went out. Dave had been without a computer for two days now. I think he was having withdrawal! So an adjustment was made. I took the clothes down before supper & then we went monitor shopping after supper which meant I needed to get it hooked up before I went to bed. And I so wanted to go to the Sketch Chat. Adorable idea from Cheri at Scrap Girls; just let me scrap for a while. Well, I got everything hooked up before the chat was over, so I went into the chat room & no one was there. :( Sigh!)
Then "Oh, happy day!" I checked & I was there early, the chat didn't start until 9 instead of 8. So I decided I'd get started on a layout. It went so quickly and easily that I had it finished before the chat even started. Here it is --

The day ended up being an enjoyable one; and just looking at these photos of Matt made me smile.

Busy - Busy - Busy!!!

I'm not doing so well here, it's been entirely too busy. Newsletter week & I need to go up & print it off right now, but will post to say "It's a beautiful day!" Dave's even talking about putting the battery in the lawn tractor so he can start working outside.
Praying for Pastor Jean today as she does a funeral for an old friend and she has another one tomorrow. Also praying for Norm, he's in the hospital.
And praying for Betsy as she continues her cancer treatments in Texas.
Our cancer prayer list just keeps growing & growing.
Nothing more profound to say right now. Maybe if I can get the newsletter to the post office early today I'll find time to come back with something else on here; lots of good things going through my head. Thanks HS, I know they come from you!

Patience

Just a quick one before I call it a night.
I'm thinking patience is the word for this week. It seems like everywhere I turn I'm seeing some reference to patience. And the one thing that I must remember is that procrastination is not the same thing as patience. I even did a layout page about patience today, Here it is:

Procrastination

Oops, I missed a day -- procrastinated it away when it came to this blog. I thought about it several times, but never when I was near my computer. I guess I was a little rebellious yesterday, I went to my Friday Night Speed Scrap at Gotta Pixel (part of my regular routine now for about a year) and I haven't even started a layout for it. This is a slow speed scrap :) and not due until 5 this afternoon. Maybe I can still work it in. And maybe I can do two posts here today -- a morning and an evening one.
My word for yesterday seemed to be patience. It popped up everywhere I looked, or at least it seemed that way. Now this is somewhat of a puzzlement to me as I've always been told that I was a very patient person. I saw it in make-over 2012, in my faithbooking FB and even in my devotions which made me look back at one of my old devotional magazines which focused the whole month on patience. That is another weird story too. It was the devotional from August and about halfway through the month I couldn't find it. I felt so lost for the rest of the month. Then a week ago I was down to the last roll of toilet paper in my bathroom ( buy had a 24-roll package of them) and when I pulled the plastic bag it was in, there was my August devotional. It had slid down under the package. So anyway I started reading it again. Amazingly, I remembered some of the things in there. So I'm taking a new look at patience. No words of wisdom right now, maybe this evening when I post again I'll get it out and share some of the thoughts that stuck out to me.
Fritz, Diane and I met down at Mom's house today with Pat. He measured for replacing the carpet in the kitchen, bathrooms and the computer room. Getting the house ready for the market. We met earlier in the week with Irene from the real estate agency we'll be using. Fritz is hoping we can get $120,000 out of it. I'd be happy if we can get $100,000. A few years ago we could have probably gotten $150,000, but the market is down so much now that I'm not sure we will do well at all. We just want to sell it and be done. But there is much to do to finish up before someone could even think of moving in. Lots to clean out and go through. Makes my head spin just to think of it.
Hmmmm.....maybe patience is a good word for me; Dave is on me for not getting around and going down to see Mom instead of doing this. Goodness, if I interrupted him and was on him as much as he is on me he'd be so upset!
More tonight.

Busy Thursday

What a strange and busy day it has been. We woke up to fog and the possibility of slick roads; to school delays that turned into longer delays and closing for some of the area schools; this in turn lead to having our grandson with us all day.

We needed to pick up a prescription, so a trip to Sturgis was on the agenda. The fog lifted in late morning, so we headed north and picked up the prescriptions, stopped at WalMart for a couple of items and then took Matt to Wendy's for lunch. After that we went grocery shopping.

In the afternoon I worked on the bulletins for Sunday; have the one done for Howe and the one for Pretty Prairie almost done. The afternoon also brought a bunch of questions and contacts with people I haven't talked to in a very long time. First Victoria wanted to know about getting her foot in the door with freelancing her graphic design work. That lead to contacting Ella since I couldn't remember the name of the FaceBook group from Fort Wayne that I used to belong to and one that she had invited me to join. Got that and had a nice chat with Victoria online. I think it gave her some good ideas.

This was kind of sad because Victoria was one of Andy's friends. She was here briefly a couple of years before he died -- they took a canoe trip on the river and ended up at our house. Not one of Andy's fond memories I'm sure, they tipped the canoe over and he lost his glasses in the process.

A while later I got a call from Cori about the InDesign program at work wondering if I had ever run into the problem she was having. I hadn't, but since Victoria recently graduated from design school I went back online and chatted with her some more. We never did figure out an answer for Cori, but gave her some leads that might help. I think she's going to end up disabling and removing the program on her computer tomorrow then reinstalling it to see if that will fix the problem. Really made me glad I'm retired and not having to deal with all that mess any more!

Focused some more on the baptism of Christ and what He did for us while He was with us on earth. I'm still in awe of what a glorious thing He did for us -- for me! I need to start reading my Lenten study book this evening.

Ash Wednesday

Today I began to prepare myself for Easter. Getting ready for the Ash Wednesday service this evening was just a start. Pastor Jean was back from vacation and we got the bulletins ready for tonight. Then this afternoon Dave and I took a drive to Shipshewana to pick up four more copies of the book for the Lenten study that starts next Wednesday -- Adam Hamilton's "Why? Making Sense of God's Will." Now to find the time to get started reading it. Finally ending the day with church; very nice service and I was so proud of Dave. He was so worried about helping Pastor Jean, but he got along just fine.

A friend of Andy's put this on Face Book, it really made me think and focus on what wonderful things God has given me. I'm just an ordinary, sinful person; but in God's glory and through His grace and mercy I am forgiven; through His sacrifice I can truly say that He will accept me warts and all into heaven for all of eternity.

God Vine

24 Things to Always Remember
Here are 24 things to always remember...and one thing to never forget.

... Your presence is a present to the world.
You're unique and one of a kind.
Your life can be what you want it to be.
Take the days just one at a time.

Count your blessings, not your troubles.
You'll make it through whatever comes along.
Within you are so many answers.
Understand, have courage, be strong.

Don't put limits on yourself.
So many dreams are waiting to be realized.
Decisions are too important to leave to chance.
Reach for your peak, your goal, and your prize.

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying.
The longer one carries a problem, the heavier it gets.
Don't take things too seriously.
Live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.

Remember that a little love goes a long way.
Remember that a lot . . . goes forever.
Remember that friendship is a wise investment.
Life's treasures are people . . . together.

Realize that it's never too late.
Do ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
Have health and hope and happiness.
Take the time to wish upon a star.

And don't ever forget . . .
For even a day . . .
How very special you are.

Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras -- I'm in a rambling mode so watch out!
Mardi Gras is not something I have ever celebrated personally, but it's fun to think about all the festivities that are planned. Yet in some ways I wonder; is it too indulgent? Shouldn't we try more to be Christ-like all the time and not have to think about giving something up just because it's Lent? I guess maybe if I look at it as fasting during Lent, then I am denying myself something that I enjoy to remind myself what Christ gave up for me -- His very life! Then again, perhaps giving up His life here on earth wasn't the real sacrifice was it? How much more of a sacrifice was it for Him to give up His place in heaven to come to earth? To have to go through the birth as an infant; to live the lowly life that He endured; to be mocked and hung on the cross; that was all a sacrifice. Sure the death was one of pain & sorrow, but to me the real sacrifice of Christ's life was His giving up heaven for those 33 years He walked among us.

My prayer list keeps growing and growing. Remembering Norm and his continuing battle with cancer; also Steve and Jo's friend; there's Roger who is just now coming out of his catherization procedure; and Betsy who is battling cancer with her aggressive treatments far from home; Belle's FIL who is nearing his last days; Conda's daughter who is taking an exam that could have a huge impact on her future.

It also seems kind of strange not to be counting the birds in our backyard since the GBBC is complete. It was amazing to see the number of birds that were counted in North America since last Friday -- over 10 million & how many participants there were -- over 75,000.

I missed oned fantastic photo-op yesterday. A huge Cooper's Hawk sat posing on our birdfeeder and my camera was between us. It's by my side now, I'll be more careful not to leave it too far away from now on! But I did get a few really awesome shots, at least for me they were awesome. And to see the bluebirds checking out the new bluebird houses that we put up last week was a big thrill.
Here's a couple of the best ones:

Getting Ready for Lent

As the Lenten season approaches I have been thinking about how people give things up for Lent. While this is by no means a bad thing, I'm going to take a different road -- perhaps the "Road Less Traveled" and try to do some new things this year.

My first "new" thing will be a Wednesday Lenten study. Our new pastor is offering this as an afternoon or an evening study during the Lenten season. Since this is the night several of us usually get together for Bible study, we will take a break from that (we just finished up a study on Romans, so the other member and; I are looking for a new study topic.)It will be good to be a participant instead of the leader for a while. I do enjoy leading our little group though.

The other thing I am going to try to do is use this blog for daily journaling. I've tried before and; never get very far with it. This time I will try harder! Several ladies in our church have been using Face Book for an inspiration to make improvements in their life. I have joined them and it has worked!

I've also joined another Face Book group on Faithbooking -- scrapbooking my faith. I've worked on this for several years, but never been too involved in Faithfully Yours (that's the webiste associated with the Face Book group.) My main reason for not being too involved was the fact that they seemed to be more into paper scrapping or hybrid scrapping. I'm just not that interested in doing that -- give me digital and I'm all set! Now they are expanding to include more digital, so count me in please. :)

Since tomorrow is Fat Tuesday followed by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent I thought I'd get a head start. Hoping to journal and to include my faithbooking layouts here.