A Mom's Heart: July 2011

Thursday, July 28, 2011

21 years of memories!

On the 14th, Kurt and I celebrated 21 years together!

Do you know how many memories a couple can squeeze into twenty-one years? It truly boggles my mind to think of it. Like any other married couple, we have been through...

emotional highs and lows;

hard work and hardly working;

times of seemingly endless tears and times of laughing until our stomachs hurt;

healthy eating and living on junk food like kids left alone;

hospital trips and vacations on the beach;

birthing children and mourning babies that were gone before we even had a chance to hold them;

watching our friends get married and watching them go separate ways;

parenting children and building houses;

enjoying handfuls of dogs, cats, and guinea pigs, and starting businesses;

moving to new homes and visiting the same old places we like to go;

interrupted sleep and singing together around the piano;

going for walks and nice long "discussions";

easy afternoons of lunch and a matinee, and stress-filled evenings working on our budget;

and the memories go on and on...

Here's to the next twenty-one years!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

My apologies

When I last opened my blog, a profane song started playing on my playlist. It wasn't a song I had chosen, and the name of the song that was supposed to be playing was not. Until I can figure out what went wrong, I have disabled my playlist from this page.

I am very sorry if any of my readers have ever heard a song that was offensive here on my blog. Please know that it was unintentional.

Swimming, Tea, and Worldview

We have been thoroughly loving our summer! Besides the usual summertime routine of swimming, swimming, swimming, we have been spending our time off enjoying our friends! I usually space out the kids' visits from friends, and definitely am not a big fan of sleepovers. But I believe I have been taken over by a much more accommodating alien body snatcher. We are having sleepovers in abundance around here, and I'm also saying yes to everything that I can. Could I possibly be hoping for future credit on these investments when it comes time this fall to say no and knuckle down on the school work? Maybe.

Anyway, besides the kids' friends, I have been having a great time visiting with my friends also. In fact, today I had three ladies over for a tea party. We discussed some things on our hearts about our Biblical worldview, and what we see going on around us. It was very encouraging, and was also one of those moments for me where I felt like my mother's daughter. I neglected to take a picture of the table, but one of the ladies said it reminded her of my mother's teas. Lord, don't let me get proud! But anyone who knows my mother would understand my desire to become half the hostess that she is!

I used my blue and white dishes with a simple white linen table cloth. I put just three tea lights in clear votives as the centerpiece. I served cucumber sandwiches, lemon bread with glaze, vanilla bread, orange and cranberry scones, shortbread cookies, dark chocolate covered almonds, and glazed pecans. Wish I would have taken a picture... of the table, AND of the guests!

Christian worldview and the state of the world and the church are hot topics for me lately, and I love to take any chance I get to talk with like minded friends. Today I got to be part of one of those great conversations. There are not many things better than a stimulating conversation with ladies who are bright, positive, and encouraging. Each of these homeschool mothers today knew where her help comes from! They all so wonderfully expressed their desire to be all that God has for them to be at this particular time in HIStory. God is sovereign over time and space, the universe, planet, our country, our town, and every aspect of our days... even just trying to get through teaching a math lesson!

Only one problem came out of the day. My new book wish list grew by a few more books. I already have Brannon Howse's Christian Worldview for Students, Christian Worldview for Children, and Building a Worldview Verse by Verse. Now I am excitedly adding Grave Influence and Put Your Beliefs to the Test to my wish list. Ah, now if I could only get all of that practically new, barely used curriculum sold, so I can have some extra book money!

Monday, July 4, 2011

What a moment it must have been...

(Excerpt from The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall & David Manuel)

The decision was twelve to none. The Colonies had just become the United States of America.

In the silence that followed the announcement of the vote, the late afternoon sun cast its soft rays through the tall windows- on a brass candlestick standing on a green felt table-covering, a carved eagle over the door, a pair of spectacles lying on a polished desk. The magnitude of what they had done began to weigh upon them, and they realized that they and their countrymen were no longer Englishmen, but citizens of a fledgling nation barely a few minutes old. Many stared out the window. Some wept openly. Some, like Witherspoon, bowed their heads and closed their eyes in prayer.

John Hancock broke the silence; "Gentlemen, the price on my head has just been doubled!"

A wry chuckle followed, and then Samuel Adams rose: "We have this day restored the Sovereign, to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and... from the rising to the setting sun, may His Kingdom come."