Yes Indeed

This makes me happy every time I hear it. The world could use a few more Ray LaMontagnes.

The Good List 8-18-10

10. FOOTBALL SEASON!!! Yay!

9. Ramona and Beezus. Yeah, I know it won't win any awards or anything like that, but it was very sweet and uncomplicated. And I want to adopt the little girl who played Ramona.

8. The way so many old buildings have the year they were constructed literally built into the structure--and I don't mean a plaque on the wall. Not sure why I think that's so cool, but I do.

7. People with integrity.

6. Shooting stars. Anyone catch the Perseids Meteor Shower last weekend? Pretty cool. I love that kind of stuff.

5. Ann Hicks' "breakfast garden." A little taste of paradise.

4. Play dates at KimDale Farms. Pool, zip line, swings, snacks, and friends. What more could a person possibly need? ;-)

3. Vicki Courtney and the way she has poured her entire life into ministering to teen/tween girls and their parents. Awesome.

2. Macy and Grace's creativity. Their imaginations never cease to amaze me.

1. Our visit with Ed and Amelia Nizynski last weekend. Love those special people!

Shelburne Museum

Our friends Ed and Amelia Nizynski came to visit this weekend, and after a fabulous breakfast at Miss Ann's Trillium Hill B&B on Saturday morning (in what I like to call her "paradise garden"), we ventured up to the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont (just south of Burlington.) I dare say this is the most fantastic and interesting "museum" I have ever seen. It consists of 39 different buildings/exhibits which span over 300 years of architecture. They include houses, barns, a jail, a schoolhouse, a general store, a traincar, the Ticonderoga steamboat, stagecoaches and several other attractions. Each of these were transported to Shelburne from surrounding areas by the museum's founder, Electra Havemeyer, so that she could preserve them as monuments and testimonies to life in Vermont. The buildings themselves were fascinating enough to hold my attention, but in addition to the buildings, there are all sorts of collections and exhibits including dolls and dollhouses, quilts, photography, hand-woven tapestries, retired carousel animals, etc., etc., etc. I love this place! Check it out here. And if you like it, come visit, and I promise we'll take you there. :-D

The Good List 8-11-10

10. Homemade hashbrowns. YUM!

9. Playing online games with friends and family on the other side of the country. Words with Friends and Canasta are my current favorites.

8. Looking at my packed calendar but NOT cringing at any of it like I used to. ;-)

7. Comfortably wearing a sweater in August. I promise I'm not trying to rub it in; it's just entirely too awesome not to include on the list. I don't want to appear ungrateful. :-D

6. The huge patches of gorgeously healthy black-eyed susans I seem to see at every turn up here. They make me happy.

5. The faint smell of cigar smoke wafting past the kithen window while I'm washing dishes ('cause that means Jared is relaxing at home.)

4. When Phineas says, "Hey--where's Perry?" Makes me giggle every time.

3. Baptism services--particularly when we get to watch a father baptize his daughter. Awesome.

2. The first day of each year that feels like fall. There's something mysterious and exciting about it that I can't quite describe.

1. Celebrating 1 year of ministry with my favorite church in the whole wide world.

Apparently, It's All About the BOW!

Jared took Macy with him to work today. Tuesdays are usually "out of the office" days, so he figured today would be a little less boring than having her sit in his office and watch him study and answer phone calls all day. ;-)

That leaves Gracie to run errands with me. Not exactly glamorous or thrilling, but we can usually make our own fun along the way, so we are actually pretty excited about it. She informed me a little while ago that she wanted to get ready "by herself" this morning. I returned to find her dressed in her "Sunday best," which led to the following conversation:

Me: "WOW! You look gorgeous! Is it ok if I'm not so fancy?"

Grace: "Yep. I don't mind."

Me: "Why are you so dressed up? Did you know we're just going to Subway and the grocery store?"

Grace: "Yep. But see Mommy? Look!" (holding up one of the bows she got in the mail from JoJo yesterday) "This is what matches my favorite bow the best."

Me: "Indeed it does. We should take a picture for JoJo."

Grace: "Yeah! Make sure you get a really good one of the bow, Mom!"

And there you have it. Off to the grocery store in my jeans, hoodie and flip flops with my lovely little Gracie in tow.

The Good List 8-4-10

10. The smell of homemade bread baking. (I'm especially fond of rosemary bread scent. ;-)

9. Christmas Tree Shops. Super inexpensive. Lots of variety. My kinda place.

8. Quiet. It's very underrated.

7. The $1 bins at Michael's where you can stock up on note cards and journals without wrecking your budget.

6. Spotting constellations in the dark, starry skies of rural living.

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Yes, I know I'm 13 years late to the party, but I had good reasons for putting it off. Now I'm excited to get to read them all back to back without waiting months between releases. :-D Bonus!

4. Serving up homemade lasagna, salad, and rosemary bread with balsamic dipping oil to a table full of some of my favorite people.

3. Not caring what day of the week it is because there are no more "typical Mondays" in my life. Awesome.

2. Listening to Macy and Grace play "Ratatouille" in the kitchen. Pretty funny stuff.

1. Being married to a man who still loves to surprise me. (Last weekend was SO much fun and well worth the wait.)

The Gift of the Present Moment

"The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God's care as that a hundred years away." --George MacDonald

This truth is one that I have struggled with throughout my entire life. I am a planner by nature. I don't *think* I'm a control freak, but maybe someone else should chime in and correct me if I'm wrong. ;-) What I mean by that is that I don't mind not always BEING the planner--I just think SOMEONE should be planning most things. Things like--- If we are driving somewhere, we should have directions beforehand, right? If we want to eat throughout this week, we need a menu and a grocery list first, yes? If we want to eat after we retire, we should budget accordingly now. If we're moving 6 states away, we HAVE to sell our house first. There's just no other way to do it. You know--the basics. And if someone (with skin on) wants to take the reins on these things, I'm happy to sit back and relax. But not until I know everything is under control.

I'm guessing most people would agree with me that there's nothing necessarily wrong with making plans and taking responsibility for our lives and our futures. To a degree. Unfortunately, though, (and much to my disappointment) I realized about 18 months ago that I had fallen into a pattern of trusting human beings with my life and my future a lot more than I trusted God. I drew more security at times from a piece of paper drawn up by a flawed, untrustworthy human than I did from the promises of Holy, God-breathed Scripture. So stupid, yet so easy to do. And I justified it a million different ways.

"Oh, I trust God, but I still think He wants me to be responsible."

"Oh, I know God doesn't NEED my help, but he gave me a mind for a reason, right?"

"It's ok to make plans as long as my plans don't go against scripture."

The list could go on and on. And sure! None of those things are untrue or glaringly wrong at first glance. In fact, I would argue that it IS incredibly important to be responsible with our resources, etc. The problem (at least for me) lied in valuing my plans MORE than I valued God's plans. As long as His plans seemed to follow mine pretty closely, I was happy to "trust Him." But when He started doing things that didn't make sense to me, my initial response was anything but selfless abandon to His mysterious ways. Thank GOD for honoring the faithful prayers of my amazing husband and many of my friends and family at a time when I was so very tempted to run like Jonah in the opposite direction of where I was being sent.

I'm certain I'll continue to struggle with this lesson for the rest of my life. The idea of creating "security" for myself and my family here on earth tempts and teases me every day, even though I know that self-created security is really nothing more than a myth. What is beautifully real, however, is the freedom I have experienced through sweet abandon (especially when it made no sense at all to me). When I get out of my own way and rest in that freedom, it transforms this stubborn soul in remarkable ways that only God could have accomplished. I'm so glad He disciplines and redirects us so gently sometimes.

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things." --Matthew 6:34 (Oh, how I long to obey that verse every single day of my life. . . . .)