It's a busy life!

This morning, after milking was done, I rode over to our rented land with Andrew and helped him fill the tractor tires with air (they have slow leaks that will need to be fixed when the guys have time...), and helped him hook up the mower so he could mow the tops of the ditches once more before bringing the tractor home. On my way back with Andrew's pickup, I checked the cows to make sure they were still in the right fence (which, PTL, they were!). Then I got home just in time to help make lunch, eat it, then get changed and head for work in town----which went well.....

It was VERY windy today, with dust blowing, and leaves flying North. It is still windy now. I heard that there were a couple fires around Napoleon this afternoon also and prayed for the fireman in charge of putting them out. I never did hear any more about it though.

Before I head for bed, here are a few random thoughts to brighten your evening/day: ENJOY~

Do fishermen live in the reel world?

You want to know a really, really hugely annoyingly bad
habit? It is: Over-exaggeration.

I may not be a great artist, but I am really good at drawing
a blank.

I wear glasses. Doesn't that mean that *everything* I see is
an optical illusion?

You can't stop progress, but you can unplug a good chunk of
it.

A chrysanthemum by any other name ... would be easier to
spell.

"Thank you, Lord"!

It's been a busy day around the house, filled with cooking, cleaning, and doing odd jobs that needed doing. What a blessing it is to have food to cook with and people to cook for; a house that needs cleaning and people to make it messy again; and odd jobs that need doing and to have the people to see them through to the end...


I received the following in an e-mail this afternoon and wanted to share it with you all, so you too can be reminded of some the very great blessings we have and so that you and I might think of (and perhaps share a little something with others, consequently?) those who go without.

Here is a piece to ponder:

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, ' This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them." I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section, my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed." How is it that there is no work going on here? ' I asked.

"So sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments"

"How does one acknowledge God's blessings? " I asked..

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord. "

"What blessings should they acknowledge?" I asked.

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world ' s wealthy. "

"And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity."

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness .. You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. "

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation . You are ahead of 700 million people in the world.."

"If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world."


"If your parents are still alive and still married ...you are very rare."

"If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair......."

Ok, what now? How can I start?

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you care to, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

ATTN: Acknowledge Dept.
"Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people with whom to share it. "

I'm heading for bed right away!

I just got home from work in town. My head aches, I'm getting a cold, and my fish are dying from "Ick" or something... These are the times when it's more challenging to be thankful for things than on nice days like, say, Thanksgiving, when you sit down to a feast with loved ones and name the things you're grateful for.

So, let's see...

• I'm thankful that it's only a headache and not a stomachache.
• I'm thankful that I'm home safely and can get some rest and hopefully get rid of this cold quickly!
• I'm thankful that there was a bottle of medicine (for if your fish get "Ick") in the box that came with my aquarium.

And, I'm thankful for a nice warm, comfortable bed! Sleep well~

Whether you're happy with the weather currently or whether you're not, I thought you may enjoy some thoughts on the subject!

I found these thoughts and quotes on-line just now and, although I could tell you about baking pumpkin bars with our last squishy pumpkin; or about getting the electric fence working again; or about cleaning the back fridge out; or about getting fresh water ready for my aquarium; or about babysitting for 3 hours this afternoon, I thought I'd post some food for thought instead. Enjoy! :)

• All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
  
• Bad weather always looks worse through a window.
  
• Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.
  
• A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. (William Arthur Ward)
  
• Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. (Kin Hubbard)
  
• For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather, every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously. (George Gissing)
  
• It is no use to grumble and complain;
  It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;
  When God sorts out the weather and sends rain -
  Why, rain's my choice.
  (James Whitcomb Riley)
  
• To everything there is a season...
  
• Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing,
  wind braces up, snow is exhilarating;
  there is no such thing as bad weather,
  only different kinds of good weather.
  (John Ruskin)
  
• There is no season such delight can bring
  As summer, autumn, winter and the spring. (William Browne)
  
• To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. (George Santayana)
  
• Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. (Anthony J. D'Angelo)
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  And a poem for you, called, "Weather"

Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

While I'm talking about the weather...... I was wondering if you'd kindly pray for the people of Fargo, Linton, Jamestown and other surrounding areas this week as there's a real threat of some major flooding again this year as the snow melts away.

~Thank you!

What to write?

I sit in front of my computer screen tonight,

Wondering what on earth I should write,

And as no answer comes to me in my plight,

I guess I'll just wish you a very good night!

~A special quote~

"Those who walk with God always get to their destination!"

Last day of 2009 in review~

What a busy and enjoyable day yesterday was!

In the morning, after chores were done, Jacob helped me make some of our favorite holiday treats--Almond Bark covered Ritz cracker sandwiches that have peanut butter on the inside...


Delicious!

Once the cookies were cooling, Mom and I gave Dad and Jacob haircuts. I combed Jacob's hair straight up, so as to get a good "Before" picture, but then he kept making such silly faces. I finally asked him to make a serious face and the result is as follows: :)

Snip, snip, snip...
It was soon time for lunch and, joy of joys, time to open the package that came from some dear friends of ours--the Wiechmanns. Amongst other delightful things, there was a long letter from my dear friend, Dorena, but I didn't have time to read it as I had a babysitting job to do, so I tucked the letter in my pocket and hurried on my way.

Remember these cuties?

While Amelia, James & Michael ate, I had a few moments to enjoy my letter. What joy a letter from a friend can bring!!!

I cared for these little ones until their mother came back around 4:30, at which time we visited until 5 something. I realized then that I'd best hurry home for the barn chores again, as we wanted to do the milking early so as to be able to get to our friends, the Geigers' house as early as possible.

Chores got done in good time; everyone washed up and changed and we headed out around 7:00. It felt so strange to be leaving our home to visit friends at such an hour, but it was a nice strange!

We stopped at my uncles' house in Bismarck on the way, to deliver some items he'd left down in SD during the Christmas weekend.

Finally, we pulled into the Geiger's long driveway and made it into the warmth of their home!!!

My dear friend, Miranda was there to greet us right away, along with her baby brother, Micah, and Mother snapped this picture for us...

Not-so-little boys blue (my brothers, Jacob & Andrew)...

Fellowshipping in the kitchen...

Some of the Geiger sisters... (The Geigers have a total of 11 children, one of which is married now and has a baby of her own.)

My parents visiting with Mrs. Geiger...

Morgan with her camera...

The host and hostess...

After a time of singing and sharing things from the Bible; and after everyone went through the long food line; there was a time of game playing amongst the younger people...

The one game turned out to be quite messy--a game in where you put shaving cream all over a balloon and then tried to shave it off without popping the balloon. Andrew was the only one in our family who tried this game, and he said it was actually quite easy...

However, somebody had to go and poke several balloons with their pocketknife on purpose, and shaving cream went flying all over the place! I'm guessing this game won't be repeated any time soon, as it required a lot of clean-up time...

Andrew had taken our PIT game along and taught the others how to play:

If any of you have ever played PIT before, I'm sure you know that it can get to be a loud game--especially with several players! For those of you who don't know this fact however, I'm including the following video!

I had thought to join in the game of PIT, but there were many people who wanted to play it, (and the limit is 8), so I asked Jubilee if she wanted to play Dutch Blitz with me and she readily assented. Soon we were joined by her little brothers, Justus & Isaiah--who didn't really know how to play very well, but we had a fun time anyway. :)

Here, Justus was excited that he was winning and wanted me to guess his score...

After a while, Miranda came over and I asked to see her new (used) car, as I had heard a lot about it, but had never seen it. We donned our coats and boots and went outside into the nippy, 20 (F) degree below zero weather. Once we got in her nice Buick, we turned it on to warm up some while she showed me all the nice features inside. Of course, once we got warmed up, it was really nice in there, so we stayed and visited for a while... :)

My family & I finally left the Geigers around 1:30AM and got home at about 3:00AM. It's not really surprising, I suppose, that I turned my alarm clock off in the morning (without remembering doing so later) and that we all slept in until a little after 8:00AM. I thought we'd be pretty droopy through this day, but outside of Mom needing a nap, we enjoyed our first day of 2010. We're very much ready for bed now though!

As I was thinking about this new year, and about "New Years' Resolutions" (things that teach responsibility and consistency!) and such, I remembered what my resolution had been last year. I found where I'd written it down in my journal and thought I'd share it with you now:

"Jan. 24th, 2009~

I have finally made a New Years' resolution... Starting today, I will write at least once a day in my journal--every day until Jan. 24th, 2010. It may just be one sentence, but that's something!

I've been neglecting my journaling something awful and hope to get back in the habit of writing consistently again."

And so, I wrote--first in a journal and then, at my dad's suggestion, on my brothers' old lap-top computer, (to save time, as I can type so much faster than I can write by hand.) Then in March, my parents gave me the nicest birthday gift I've ever received--a new lap-top--one that was able to connect to the Internet even! :) About a month later, I started my blog--my on-line journal. Naturally, I don't write everything on my blog that I'd write in a personal journal, but a lot of what I was journaling about was of the things we do on a day to day basis--things that I thought may be interesting for my friends to read about as well as my family. Since I began blogging, the Lord has blessed me with even more, wonderful, new friends and I'm just so grateful that blogging has become a part of my life. (I still think the word "Blog" is a bit odd sounding, but that is what it's called...)

As far as last years' resolution goes, I've applied it to my blogging and have posted once a day every day since I started (except for when I was gone at my friends' wedding--at which time I resorted to paper and pen--and then still missed a couple days...)

I still have 23 days to go until my resolution is resolved and then I can rethink if I should resolve to redo my resolution for another round of writing posts regularly. Would you rather I did or did not continue?

For right now, I'm resolved to retire to rest some. Goodnight and, once again, happy new year!

A peaceful day together~

How refreshing it is to take a day to just rest from our labors!

We sang some hymns; studied some Bible truths; and played some games as a family. We had a couple quick visitors too, as some hunting friends stopped in to ask if they could walk our tree rows and then my music teacher stopped in on his way home from a meeting in Jamestown. Also, my dear friend, Miranda called and we had a few minutes to visit, so this was truly a lovely day!!!

Oh yes, the gift that Andrew & I had ordered for our parents (a "Just because we wanted to get it for you" gift) arrived in the mail today, so we gave it to them. "It" is an MP3 player. Andrew had the idea to buy it so that Dad can take it with him to play music or audio-books when he's driving all those long hours in the semi (or to watch Andy Griffeths if he gets stuck in a line!) and Mother can use it to listen to whatever she wishes to listen to also. They seemed to enjoy it--almost as much as Andrew did... :)

For supper, Mother popped some popcorn and she and I cut up some fruit for a salad. Mom snapped this picture of me dissecting the Pomegranate that the Dagleys gave to us. :)

I hope your day was as lovely as ours!

Here's a closing thought that I was blessed by today:

"Faith in small things has repercussions that ripple all the way out. In a huge, dark room a little match can light up the place." by Joni Eareckson Tada

The difference a year makes...

For some reason, tonight I got to thinking about the difference that one year can make....

I went back into our November 2008 picture file and found some pictures that really made me realize what has all transpired in one years time!!!

For example:

Last year at this time, Grandma Erdie was still with us and was doing well.... In April, she passed away quite suddenly.

Last year at this time, I was still taller than Jacob by a bit! Now we're about the same height (and he's the proud new owner of a drivers permit!) I wonder how this following year will change things? :)
Last year at this time, Millie was a rambunctious puppy who didn't know the first thing about manners. Now, she knows to stay out of the parlor while we're milking and is learning to control herself in other ways--like sitting still for a few minutes... (A big improvement!)
...And last year at this time, Amanda was still a single girl, with no notions of being a married woman the next time the Autumn rolled around... No notions that she told me about at that time anyway. :)
I guess this all proved to me once more the need to appreciate each and every day that we have--with people and things exactly as they are at this time, because change comes whether we want it to or not...
"Lord, teach me to number my days!"

~Psalm 90:12
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Thought for the day~

Thought for the day~

Thought for the day...

Thought for the day~

Thought for the--night?

I'll write about the events of this day in the morning, but for now, I'll leave you with this thought... (Isn't it great having someone to love?)

Thought for the day~

We received a forward with all of these cute sayings and pictures, so I thought I'd share some of them here....

Thought for the day...

Heart, be thou like the sunflower....

"Many flowers open to the sun, but only one follows it constantly. Heart, be thou like the sunflower, not only open to receive God's blessing, but constant in looking to Him."

~Jean Paul Richter

Thought for the day~

"Use what talents you possess:

The forest would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best."

Henry Van Dyke