A Better View

On any given warm-ish day, I am likely to imagine myself at the beach at least once. Like today. Although it is cloudy and windy, my thermometer reads 75 degrees. So of course, I'm taking a visual vacation. Can you see it?? No? Let me help you.

This is my actual view for today, the February 28 skyline from my backyard:

It has it's own sense of bleak beauty I suppose, but this is what I'd rather see:

Mmmmm... St. Croix. Gorgeous, yes? I'd love to be standing right there again. Sun warming my skin, breeze lifting my hair, the soft sound of the water kissing the shore, the vibrant colors of tropical foliage...

Or here, EI, NC (one of my favorite places):

Much more realistic for the present- again with the ocean breeze, the roar and shush of the waves, the water skimming over my feet, and the feel of soft sand beneath them...

These images have planted a serene smile on my face. Makes you want to just take a deep breath and go "aaaahhh." doesn't it?

Where do you go on your "mental vacations"?

Belated...

Whoops! Well, I missed my post yesterday to say Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband, but I told him in person, so it's ok. 8^) We had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden, which was very good, but would have been better if Daniel were completely well. He still has some residual ickyness from the flu. Then we headed over to Best Buy to see about getting his present- a new laptop- but they were out of both of the kinds we were looking at, so we'll be returning later to look again.

In other news, I had an interview yesterday for another PRN position at a local hospital, so pray that I'll get it, Lord willing. More gainful employment is always a plus; playing housewife, artist, blogger, and reader is fun, but it doesn't exactly net me any cash.

Also, pray for my cousin who is having surgery today.

Have a happy Friday everyone!

Just doodling...

Last Thursday I mentioned that I wanted to do a Zentangle. I've been working on it here and there for the past few days, and today, I put the finishing touches on it. I went to scan it, and found out that the image is actually too big for the scanner. BOO! I got the majority of it, but some of the edges were clipped, so I took a photo of the whole thing to include as well. I really enjoyed doing this piece! I can't decide which "tangle" is my favorite... i think perhaps the flowery one in the upper right corner (which I think would have looked better sans the outline... oh well, too late for that) or the scroll-y looking one that occupies 3 spaces. Which section draws your eye most?

Click to enlarge

Loss, life, fear, and comfort.

Yesterday was a study in contrasts.

Sadness: I woke to a text from my mom informing me that she was going to have to put down her dog Lacey. Anyone who knows Momma will know that this was a very painful and heartbreaking for her to do. That little dog loved her, was her constant shadow from the time we got her (before I started high school), and was anxious when Mom wasn't around; she was Momma's baby. So, I went and held my Momma and we cried together while my step-dad buried her four-legged child. We get so attached to our pets, especially ones who live indoors with you, so that it feels like losing a family member when they die. To follow this up, a "deep theological question" was innocently posed in Sunday School this morning: Will there be dogs in Heaven? Irony. The jury's still out on that one.

Happiness: Then last night, I went and celebrated the 92nd birthday of Daniel's grandma. We ate chicken stew and laughed together about things past and present. I can't imagine what it must be like to have lived 92 years. The multitude of experiences, gains, losses, times of joy and hurt are heartening to contemplate. It evokes ruminations of what path my life will take, what trials, triumphs, and failures will come my way, and how those things will shape me. Who will I be when I am old, given that I actually live to become old? The myriad possibilities exite me, dissipating my earlier melancholy.

Fear: We got news that my 18 month old nephew had fallen and was at the hospital with a fractured skull. Pray.

Relief: Good news that he was up playing around and there was no bleeding on his brain. Thank God for his protection. Pray for healing.

By the time I crawled into bed, the emotional rollercoaster I had ridden all day had left me fatigued and scattered. I needed to be held. Daniel was already asleep, still recovering from the flu, so I opened my Bible to Psalm 139 and let God hold me close. This is probably my favorite chapter in the whole Bible. It never fails to comfort me, reassure me, and make me feel close to God. Peace closed over me, I turned out the light, and slept dreamlessly.

ahhh.

Today I spent a delightful afternoon in my lounge chair on our patio, reading a book. The weather was a perfect 75 degrees, with a slight breeze. Bliss. These spring-like days really spoil me... I can't wait till they're here to stay!

Role change!

Is there anything quite as pitiful as a sick man? Helpless, subdued, and despondent. Poor guy. He really does feel awful though. Daniel has come down with the flu and has taken my place as house invalid. It seems like everybody's getting it. He's done a great job coddling me these past few weeks, now it's his turn for some pampering. Don't worry Mrs. Betty, I'm taking good care of him! I've even got a roast & veggies in the crock pot for supper (yay me!). Please pray he gets better soon, and that I don't get it!

From doing the Creative Tuesdays, I have discovered a new kind of art to try. Actually, it's really just a lot of doodling, but the end product looks so cool!! It's called a zen-doodle or Zentangle. I tried one the other night, and it turned out pretty good, but I want to get better at doing some of the "tangles" before I post a sample. It's supposed to be really relaxing- you put on some calming music, then just doodle, paying attention to one section at a time, and see what materializes. Sounds fun right?? I don't have any of the special markers for it, but I think I can manage.

Also, today I downloaded the free Kindle reader to my mac! Free books- what's not to love? Woot!

Creative Tuesday: Luck/y

I went back and forth quite a bit on how I wanted to present the idea of "luck/lucky", and without drawing a shamrock. The result is this little cartoon starring "Lucky Duck" and Hop-along Hare; in which the new owner of Hop-along's rabbit foot is feeling very lucky, while Hop-along is feeling rather down on his luck, being minus a foot. Hope I haven't offended any ASPCA people out there. I'm feeling very empathetic toward Hop-along, having been called that name several times over the past few weeks as a result of my own left-foot injury. I'm excited to see what everyone else came up with on Mr. Toast's blog!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!! At first, I thought I was going to be alone all day, since Daniel is working and Mondays are typically when he goes to the church to work on the radio broadcast and go on visitation. However, the thought struck me at about 10:30 this morning that we could still have lunch together. So, he got his lunch hour switched around and we were able to have a lovely lunch date!When I met him he informed me that he had changed his plans to go to the church after work and would instead be coming home to spend time with me. (Awww!) He gave me my valentine gift the other week: he got me a really pretty silver cuff bracelet, which I love. How did you and your sweetheart celebrate your couple-ness?

Today will complete our love verse countdown! I hope y'all enjoyed reading the love passages as much as I did. It has been said that "love is blind..."; that when you deeply love someone, you don't notice all their imperfections. This statement is often followed by "... but marriage is a real eye-opener!". True, living with a person does shed light on those quirks, flaws, and annoying habits which were previously concealed. Therefore, it becomes all the more important to strengthen the love and friendship you have with your other half. Love leads to forgiveness (sooner) in those times when someone of lesser importance would have suffered your wrath. So here it is:

And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

I hope everyone is feeling the love today! Hugs to you all!

Love, Dara

Sacrifice

And he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Genesis 2:22

What are you willing to sacrifice for God? Does He really take first place? How great is your faith? I'd like to say I have faith like Abraham. He left his home, everything he knew simply because God told him to. God promised he'd be the father of many nations, but he had to wait years for that promise to be fulfilled. Then when he finally has the son he's waited so long for, that God promised him, God tells him to offer Isaac for a burnt offering to Him, and Abraham would have actually done it had God not stopped him. I'm not at all sure I could do something like that, but God commands us to love Him above all else. When you think of it this way, saying "Yes, I love God" takes on new meaning. It's being willing to go anywhere, do anything for Him, trusting that He will always do what's best for you.

~~~

Today was lovely. Daniel and I just went out and goofed off for a while. We did a little window shopping, some actual shopping, and got ice cream at Coldstone! MMMM. We walked around until I ran out of juice, then had Chic-fil-a. It was great! I wish we could have more such days of just being together.

Today's verse:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. ~Galatians 5:22-23

Love is the first of the fruits of the spirit; the evidences of Christ in your heart.

What a Friend we have in Jesus

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ~John 15:13

Today I get to go have lunch with some of my friends, both of whom I haven't gotten to spend time with in quite a while. One lives in Alabama and has come up for the weekend. The other, although she lives in the same town that I do, has a crazy busy schedule- in addition to her full time job, she is a volunteer firefighter and is looking into doing broadcast journalism as well, yet still finds time for church and family. So, I'm feeling very excited about seeing them. They are part of the group of girls who I was best friends with in high school. I still love them dearly, but as our lives have taken us down different paths, we have grown up, apart, and are not as close now as we were then. Like I said, I love them; but would I die for them? Maybe, but I'm not sure. Jesus loved me enough to die for me. He is the greatest friend a person can have.

All for One, One for all

Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ~Matthew 22:37

Devote all that you are to Him.

This week, I finished reading Alexander Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". I loved following Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan on their many adventures. It was easy to read and packed with danger, duels, secret missions, love, court intrigue and much sarcastic humor. It's one of those books I would truly label as "timeless". I grew up watching it in movie form, courtesy of Disney (still one of my favorite movies). Although the story-lines between book and movie aren't parallel and the bad guys are much more diabolical in the movie, I enjoyed both immensely.

Hooray for pics!

Today, I've got some lovely pictures for your viewing pleasure. Yippee! Sorry for the delay on these- I've been too lazy to do anything with them till now.
On display, we've got:

My last moments in 2010...

Yay!

Couples...

Me & Daniel! He just loved his hat...

Kelli & Brian

Kerri & Micki : the newlyweds, obviously.

And the beautiful single chicas!

Destiny & Robyn

My 1st broken bone: splinted. I really hated that thing. : ( Booo!

Daniel and I @ Amy & Andrew's wedding (that's the groom behind us.)

And finally, Beauty and the Beast!! I loved the set- so pretty! I was too busy watching to take pictures during. If you'd like to see some pics of scenes, you can check them out here. I think this might have been my favorite Christmas present this year.

Mommy & I

Woot!

Olivia, Abbie, & I

Intermission- pretty set! (wish it wasn't blurry)

Enchanted rose :-)

Good memories all. Well, except for the foot. Not so good, and not yet just a memory.

God's Word on love for today:

And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us,

and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice

to God for a sweet-smelling savour.

Ephesians 5:2

To love as Christ loves, we must present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him. Living for Him is the least we can do after all He's done for us.

Free to me.

Psalm 40:11

Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.

I'm so glad that we serve a merciful, loving, and just God who forgives and protects us; whose love is freely given.

Since my temp job at the bookstore ended this past Thursday, I'm back to hanging around the house for the time being. I'm going to give my foot this week to heal some more, then hopefully they'll let me come work a little bit at the orthopedic office where I interviewed the day before I broke my foot. For that job I'm going to have to be on my feet almost the whole time, and I discovered yesterday at church that I'm not quite ready for that. The trek from the lower parking lot to my Sunday School class about wore me out! The Superbowl party went well last night- Daniel was thrilled that the Packers won. He even busted out his Green Bay tie for church last night and work today!

I'm really enjoying looking up all these verses on love. They're everywhere, since it's kind of a central theme in the Bible. I was flipping through and saw this one, already underlined, and fell in love with it again.

1 John 4:10

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

It doesn't matter how many times I hear the word propitiation and it's definition, I can't seem to get it to stick in my brain. So, I had to look it up again: maybe it'll stick this time.

*Propitiation: to appease/ satisfy God; to "quench His righteous anger"*

Great verse, huh!

Knocking Heads

First off, I've got to tell you.... Beauty and the Beast was AMAZING!!! I absolutely loved it!! Great performance! I love theater! There's just something about seeing a live play. Wow.

Secondly... it's Superbowl Sunday! Daniel and I will be hosting the teens in our home tonight after church. We're going to have a house-full. Our menu consists of those wonderfully tasty and fattening party foods that everybody loves: rotel cheese dip & chips, meatballs, ham & cheese delights, wings, brownies, cookies, etc. Mmmm...

Our verse for today is Proverbs 17:17
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

What does this mean? Well, I know that I fought with my brother a lot growing up. Have you ever noticed that we are closest to are the people we butt heads with the most? Family is stuck with you no matter what, and we tend to take them for granted, treating them somewhat less than kind. However, if you want to keep your friends, you have to work at it. Show some extra lovin' to your family today!

It shows!

Lots to do today! Daniel and I have to get our house prepared to host some of the teens at our church for a Superbowl party, so this means cleaning and cooking for both of us. In addition to this, I have special plans for the evening. My mom got me and my step-sisters tickets to see the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast for Christmas! Girls night! We're going out for a nice meal in Greensboro, then it's on to the coliseum! I'm so excited!! I'll post some pics of it sometime this week.

My love verses for today are found in John 13:34-35:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

One of the main identifiers of a Christian is their love for other people. Good relationships with fellow believers, and burdens for lost souls. People should be able to feel God's love radiating through us. Smile. Care. Don't hold grudges. Have compassion. Love.

Faithfulness

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

~1 John 2:15

Read that one more time, and really think about what it's saying. Were this Daniel's blog, it's likely he would break down this passage and preach a small sermon right here. I'm simply going to say: don't spend your whole life pursuing things that don't really matter. Pray and read to discover what action God wants you to take for Him, then follow His lead and do it. God is jealous: we are His bride; he wants and deserves all of our love. He doesn't want to share with "the world". He wants His bride to be faithful to him. Failures though we are, He will always take us back. We know from yesterday's verse that God will never divorce us. Jesus is faithful to me.

I can't figure out how to upload an mp3 to the blog, so I'm giving you a link for Jesus Is Faithful sung by Anna, a sweet lady at our church who is my dear friend and mentor.

Amazing Love

I am filled with wonder every time I read the verses I've chosen for today.

Romans 8:38-39

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We talk about what Jesus' sacrifice means to us all the time; but have you ever considered exactly what it meant to God? We now have direct access to the Father; we are not separated. If you're covered by the blood of Jesus, you have God's love for all eternity. Nothing I do can stop Him from loving me. Wow. Amazing love. God's love.

Love puts up with a lot.

I needed this passage today. I know many of you have heard these verses read at weddings, and naturally so... they go right along with those "for better or worse" vows. Take a look, and remember, "charity" in these verses means "love".

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ~1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Here's what it says to me:

*Suffer long- if you love someone, there's a lot you'll have to tolerate that you may not like, but be kind about it.

*Envy not- don't be resentful of your mate.

*Vaunt not- talk about something besides yourself.

*Not puffed up- nobody likes someone who's arrogant and conceited.

*Unseemly- don't embarrass me in public! Use some discretion!

*Not easily provoked- don't pick a fight over trivial things!

*Think no evil- look for the good things, and don't assume the worst! Trust is vital to a relationship!

*Rejoice not in iniquity- it shouldn't make you happy when your spouse messes up.

*Rejoice in truth- celebrate success!

*Bear it- when those "worse" times come.

*Believe it- don't ever doubt your love... doubt leads to disunion.

*Hope- share your dreams & goals; pray together.

*Endure- stick it out, no matter what!

Easy preachin', hard livin'!

Creative Tuesday: Valentines

It's February, and I'm starting something new! I'm going to join in with "Creative Tuesdays" on a blog I follow. I found this blog when it received a blog-of-note a month or two ago. You just post your personal artwork, and link to his page to share. This Creative Tuesday's theme was Valentines. I actually did two... and couldn't decide which I liked best, so I'm putting them both up! *Note: I am by no means a professional artist, or even a good one. I'm just doing it because it's fun.

"Daisy Love Me?"

"Through It All, Together"

http://goodteatoo.blogspot.com/

Another thing I'm going to do is countdown to Valentines Day by sharing a verse or passage of scripture on love each day. So, you'll be hearing from me a lot for the next couple of weeks!

Today's verse is very famous: the greatest display of love that exists.

For God so loVed

the world thAt

he gave his onLy

begottEn

soN

thaT whosoever

believeth In

him should Not

pErish

but have everlaSting life.

~John 3:16

In other news: my foot appointment went fine this morning! Looks like everything is staying in place and healing as it should. I go back in another 3 weeks, but until then, I get to continue wearing my lovely boot.