For those of you salivating in anticipation….here you go:
Coming soon….a post on youth & family camps (we’ve hit the ground running with the later you should know), and a special outing with the hubs. I’ve been slacking big time in picture taking, so I don’t have many!...hmmm….I’ll have to do something about that before I post again.
...I made a commitment to love, honor and cherish this man.
I think he’s pretty fantastic and here’s why.
He’s hilarious.
He makes food….really good food.
He’s strong.
He fixes things.
He is meticulous.
He gets excited about the simplest things (like seeing a movie in the theater, grilling burgers, and getting an ice cream cone from McDonalds)
He loves being a dad and is amazing at loving our munchkins.
He is an extremely hard worker and does things with excellence.
He gardens.
He cherishes God’s Word and will defend it.
He thinks long and hard before he speaks (who really does this anymore?)
He manages our finances with the utmost care, responsiblity and thoughtfulness (yes, I’m thankful for my ‘saver’ mentality husband!).
He has interests because he likes them..and doesn’t care what other people think of him (which is why you can find ‘Weird Al’ in his music collection).
He loves me and cares for our family with faithfulness.
I am sure that in my humanity I’m not holding up my end of the bargain we entered into six years ago. All too often I display my selfishness, my sin and my lack of honoring this fine man. But I also find myself reaching for God’s grace to fulfill my commitment and am thankful it is there, for it’s really the only thing holding any of us together. Today I praise God for the man He’s given me, and for the grace He offers me to love and honor him the way he ought to be.
Things are really growing in our garden these days. One thing I’m glad we didn’t have to wait too long on was to see the beautiful Zinnias blooming! We’ve been enjoying lettuce, peas, basil and parsley, but are in the waiting game on much of everything else. It’s actually kind of a nice spot to be before the storm of harvesting comes.
Even though our tomatoes were hit with blight this year (a fungus that is in the soil and almost inevitably will infect your plant!!), we see lots of tomatoes and have been assured that if we stay on top of picking the blighty leaves, our tomatoes should be largely unaffected - we hope so!
Onions are doing their thing….growing, growing, and now they’re in the process of dying back…a necessarily step in the process before they are ready to pull. I just LOVE the blossoms at the top of the onion stalks. They give such texture to the layout of the garden.
We planted green beans this year for the first time! I’m excited to see so many beautiful blossoms. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year though, it’s that I need to not be so scared to plant stuff in the spring….a few of our crops are a week or so behind because we were a little gun-shy. This includes our pumpkins….they are growing great…but no blossoms yet! Hoping they catch up soon.
Ahhhh Dill. We are thankful it really took off this year because Sam has been inspired to make pickles. We are gearing up for our picklers to come in soon and busy ourselves with the pickling process.
I just got done sweeping & hand mopping the kitchen floor and deep cleaning the kitchen sinks and counters….and it took me twenty mintues. Super Women you say?! Nope. Not in the slightest. It’s just that I’ve discovered a new way of thinking when it comes to gettting house work done fast. My problem is not so much procrastination these days, but distraction. I start one thing, and move on to another room and start something new…only to get distracted by the urgent need in the next room, (yes, I’ve been known….just ask Sam….to let more than one pot boil over).
So the other night we had some friends call up spontaneously to ask if we wanted to hang out. We, being in the not-so-spontaneous-but-really-trying-to-be stage of life, said “YES! Come on over!” But there we were with a table full of supper food and dishes, sticky-handed children, toys strewn about, and crumbs filling the floors to boot. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking things like “No one expects a house to look perfect”, “You won’t be known for your clean house”, and “Your friends just want to spend time with you, not your house”. Yes, yes, yes. These are all true statements. But ladies, (cause I know I’ve lost the male readers at this point), we’d be kidding ourselves if we all didn’t at least want a clean floor when guests come over!
So, knowing our kid-less (key piece of information:) friends would soon be over, we hurried on to clear the table and clean up the ankle-biters. I proceeded to sweep every floor I thought their poor feet would touch, and even managed to scrub the toilet, wipe down the sinks, change the hand towel, and get the supper dishes washed. Whew. During that process it dawned on me…..I need to be anticipating guests every day! Hmmmmmm. It’s amazing the difference it makes. So, no. I am not super woman, or mom/wife extraordinaire…..it’s just that now I expect you to be walking through our kitchen door at a moment’s notice.
This was taken several weeks ago when Sam was scheduled on dish crew at camp. Most of you know that Sam’s main responsibility is maintaining and caring for the buildings at camp, however, at different times throughout the seasons he is scheduled to work other areas around camp as well. Some of us at supper that night giggled over how he looked like a pirate with his bandana tied that way….he on the other hand, was quite confident in his attire:)
In all seriousness though, we are blessed to be a part of an organization that sees all roles and areas of service equally, therefore each staff member is involved in areas other than their “expertise” at different times throughout the year, (other areas where one might be scheduled are accommodations [read: scrubbing toilets!], serving snacks in Main Street Cafe, running the tows or supervising on the ski hill, and greeting guests, among a variety of other areas). This perspective demonstrates a heart of servant leadership, and communicates that no job is too menial or beneath anyone, but is an expression of love, unity and servant leadership.