I’m not sure if this configuration on our living room console table is how things will look forever, but here’s what it looks like today.

Five years ago I would have made sure everything was as symmetrical as possible. I would have used taller candles on the left, so they could more closely match the height of the topiary on the right. I would have put the old family clock smack dab in the center of the table, directly below the goldfinch. That poor clock is broken — if you click to enlarge the photograph you can see the sad little hour hand fallen behind the glass. We’ve had this clock to the repair shop and the fixes have never lasted. We now just let it rest quietly without ever expecting another thing of it. (And if you’re new here and you’ve never read the story of how ridiculously frustrating it was to get that middle goldfinch picture into our home, you can click here for the weird account and some photos that will make you smile.)

I really like each thing on the table. If I were going off the deep end, I would elaborate on how each piece has great meaning to me, like the candles represent light in the darkness, and the candle holders are gifts from the SAGs, and the birds represent hope, especially the cardinal on the wall next to the goldfinch, and how a broken clock reminds me to quit rushing around and just relish the moments I’m given, and how the letter B is a unique and beloved gift from my sister-in-law and niece and nephew and has Bible verses all over it, along with the spine of a navy blue Bible and a taupe colored ribbon that matches our couch, and an old fashioned key, which could symbolize so many things, such as praise being the key to joy and Jesus being the Key to eternal life, and how the crown on the table stands for how the Magi (“We Three Kings”?) came from afar to worship Christ and gave him precious, costly gifts and how Jesus is my King and I should do the same, and how the topiary represents growth, which is what I hope will characterize my life someday….

But that’s only if I were going off the deep end.

What do you think — should I place the items more symmetrically? Maybe remove an item or two?

On January 10, 1997, Michael and I went out to dinner with some friends. It was ten degrees below zero that night (minus 23 Celsius), and after our nice restaurant meal we drove back to their house for some homemade cobbler and warm visiting.

The hours that followed that dessert will stay in our memories like a brand that takes a long time to heal and raises a scar that will never fade. At 10:00 p.m. a police chaplain from our city’s police department knocked on our friends’ door; he had been attempting to track Michael and me down for a few hours. He walked to the table where we sat, and kindly but bluntly announced that Michael’s parents, George and Bernadine, had both been killed in a car accident near their home about three hours before. Michael cried out, “No No No!” but when the chaplain laid George and Bernie’s driver’s licenses in front of us on the table, we knew there was no mistake.

I cannot even begin to describe all the ensuing hours, days, weeks, months. Michael has a younger sister named Patty, and he was in no condition to call her with the news. So after the chaplain said a prayer for us and left, our friends prayed while I called Michael’s sister with the news, and then George and Bernie’s many siblings.

After driving home in the frigid cold, Michael and I went to bed, but sleep was elusive. Shock, disbelief, weeping, crushing sadness; these were our bedfellows that night.

The next day was filled with the flurry and numbness of double funeral preparations, plans for the visitation, dozens of phone calls from sympathetic friends and family, non-stop visits from folks with meals, cheese and meat platters, desserts, cards, and wordless, tearful hugs.

Over 500 people attended George and Bernie’s visitation and the day after that, the large church where their funeral was held was standing room only. They were a couple with many friends.

George was a very fit and young 70 years old. He was an avid golfer, power walker and bowler. Bernie was also so active it betrayed her 69 years. She liked to walk and garden and she loved children. They had been driving home from an evening with friends, spent over a pizza dinner. They were about two miles from their home near a beautiful lake in our city. They had stopped at a highway intersection for a red light, then had proceeded into the intersection when the light turned green. A 17 year-old boy (whom we later learned was a troubled soul) was driving 50-60 miles per hour, ran the red light, and his truck slammed into George and Bernie’s Oldsmobile on the driver’s side, pushing them into a stoplight and flattening it all the way down to the street. They were killed instantly. They both had seatbelts on but were so severely injured they could never have survived the accident. Days later Michael and I went to retrieve their personal items from their car and we were both overwhelmed at the damage to the vehicle. I have never seen a car so crushed.

It was one of the most terrible things I’ve ever known to see my husband grieve that sudden, horrible loss. It was so hard for him to grasp that he would never fish with his dad again, never help his mom in the garden again, never spend Christmas day with them again, and that they would never see their grandchildren again. So many nevers, so much pain, so few answers.

We knew we would have to begin our own new Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions with Michael’s parents gone. We had always gathered at their small, comfy home, and that could never happen again.

During that whole first year without them, I was more aware than ever before of how quickly our lives on this earth can end, how swiftly things can change forever and the chances for love and tenderness can be lost. I remember the first Christmas as a family without Bernie and George, I found myself still pondering and weighing the events and lessons of the previous eleven months. Life seemed surreal in many respects. But I was so struck by how fleeting a person’s life and passing can be, and I wanted to learn and change from what our family had gone through.

And now as I post this picture of my dear in-laws, I see that even after fifteen years, I’m still fairly adept at pondering and utterly lame at changing. When my own mother died suddenly in 1993 I resolved then to live in such a way that I would have no regrets if my life ended unexpectedly or someone else dear to me was taken. Why now, all these years later, do I find I haven’t been very successful in that resolution, that I continue to have some regrets and that my good intentions are often only that?

I can still remember the last time I saw Michael’s parents. It was on December 25, 1996, and sixteen days later they were gone. Our Christmas day with them had been a nice one and when we left, I kissed and hugged them both and thanked them, and said I’d talk to them soon.

As I said goodbye to their bodies at their funeral, there were so many things I wished I had said to them. Thank you, George and Bernie, for loving me and accepting me so lovingly into your family! Thank you for never calling my older daughters step-grandchildren, but always your grandchildren! Thank you for how generous you were with us! Thank you for your son Michael, who is the best gift of a husband to me! Thank you for all the Sunday chicken dinners! Thank you for everything…..I would have discarded the reserve and politeness that too often dictates our best behavior, and I would have grabbed them to me and held them and planted kisses on their faces. I would have said more, so much more. Looking back I could see that I missed many opportunities to be an encouragement to Michael’s mother. I saw that it had been easier for me to make small talk with his father rather than risk embarrassment by attempting to talk about deeper things with him. I am certain that George and Bernie knew I cared so deeply about them, but I’m not sure I ever let them know how much I loved them. Yes, of course I had said the words, but I think there could have been more actions to follow up the words. Words are easy for me. Sometimes living a life of real love is not.

Do you ever feel like there’s something in your life that you’re supposed to learn, yet you keep going around that same mountain over and over again, without ever really getting to the top? Oh, how thankful I am that God doesn’t have a Six Times Around the Mountain and You’re Out! kind of plan. His patience with me is so humbling, and sometimes it’s hard to fathom that He’s willing to work with me after so many failures.

I do know that if you and I are still alive, He’s trying to teach us how to love. He wants us to come to Him and place our trust in His Son Jesus, He wants us to love Him, He wants that love that He so freely pours into our lives to spill out onto others, and He wants us to be changed.

Most people are familiar with God’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 — it’s often read even at non-religious weddings. I wonder if people truly understand that the kind of love we’re called to, is quite impossible to live out, without God’s presence and work within us? If you don’t believe that, just read the words below and then try to walk in that kind of perfect love toward every person you meet, for one day.

Here’s part of the love chapter from The Message Bible:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never dies.

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So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

That is scripture.

Today, I will be going once again to the foot doctor to have the new viral outbreak of plantar warts on the sole of my right foot frozen. If you never got to see the charming photos from my first momentous visit, you can click here if you’re brave.

So this means, to my knowledge, that today I will have contact with my husband, my youngest daughter, my two Fosters, and the people at the doctor’s office. I know that if I stay close to the Lord, ask Him to fill me with His Spirit and presence and power this morning, and help me be sensitive to His promptings all the day through, I will be able to love the ones in my life in an extraordinary way. A smile, a fervent, silent prayer, a touch, an extra bit of patience, an unkind word not spoken….only God knows what kind of love He’ll ask me to give today.

The last time I was at this doctor’s office, the two women behind the front desk were unhappy and bitterly complaining to each other about someone else in the office. Their conversation made me sad. I have no idea how I could make any difference in a situation like that, but I can ask God to fill me with His love and presence, and hope that somehow a bit will spill out on them today.

My husband Michael needs my love as he deals with Parkinson’s. He’s like a sponge for my love and for God’s love. When I pour out my love and kindness on him, I can almost see his heart and spirit swell with hope and joy. When I’m distracted and inattentive to him and weary of his neediness, I’m sorry to say I can almost see his soul and spirit shrivel.

Who are the ones in your life that might be a tad difficult to love? I’ll bet a face or two comes to mind as you read this. We are bankrupt without love. And the kind of deep, sacrificial love we’re called to exhibit cannot be mustered up. There is no deep, untapped well of life-changing love within each human soul. The only real place to get real love is from The Bank of God. If we’ll go to Him and admit how parched and barren our lives are, and ask Him to pour His love into us, He will. But to keep going back to Him again and again requires humility, honesty and relationship.

This might sound very cliched, but that person in your life, the one who sometimes irks you to no end? You might not have him/her tomorrow.

I would never want to come across as preachy — I hope my words convey to you that I write about things I wrestle with in my own life. But I hope today you’ll allow me to encourage you, as someone who has been there, that there will be people around you today who need your love. And if you feel totally incapable of loving them, God is waiting for you to ask Him to help you do the impossible.

I must go and make breakfast now. The sun is coming up and the new day is beginning. On my way to the kitchen I’m stopping at The Bank of God to make a withdrawal. I’m bankrupt this morning and need some resources. Did you know there are Bank of God ATMs all over the world, even in your own house and car? There is never a line, and you don’t need a special card. There is always one within reach when the sincere words, “God help me to love!” are uttered. You never have to remember your PIN, and the reserves at The Bank of God never, never, ever run out.

God bless you all today,

What do you have planned this weekend, friends?

Michael will be going out on Saturday morning with our son-in-law Jeremy because the first weekend of every November is deer hunting opener. Michael says yay and I say bleh.

I think I could shoot a deer if it were the only thing I had to feed my family, but it would make me very sad, I would cry when I gutted it, and then I would get all Indian-like and gravely thank the deer for giving its life to provide for our family. I would probably eat each venison meal very thoughtfully and intentionally. Coming from Southern California, I have never quite understood the deer-hunting culture we have in Minnesota, but I know being able to go out walking in the woods means a lot to Michael. He has done it every November since he was 12 years old. That means 51 years. I’m glad Jeremy is going with him, because he can’t be in the woods alone anymore, and I know it makes him sad and mad. Just this morning he was having an extremely difficult time getting a sentence out in an understandable way, and he muttered under his breath how much it s___s to have this disease. 🙁

While Michael and Jeremy are gone tomorrow, I will prepare for a granddaughter sleepover! Mrs. Nisky and Li’l Gleegirl are coming over, and we will play Farkle, draw pictures, perhaps make cookies, and read. Maybe we’ll even watch a movie. They will take a tubby in our fancy bath, and then sleep on pallets on Grandpa and Grandma’s bedroom floor.

If you read this post about my experience with Wart Warfare, you might understand what I’m feeling right now when I share that my recent surgery spread the virus. I have a new wart emerging on the bottom of my foot, right next to the old, slowly filling crater. Sigh. I have another appointment to have it frozen, next week.

I’m reading a book called Down the Common by Ann Baer, recommended by my Cornish friend Kay. I’ve finished two chapters and I’m already moaning and rocking (well, almost) with sympathy for the way the main character has to live, in medeivel times. What are you reading right now? Enquiring minds (and blog readers) want to know.

This morning I was getting ready to pay some bills, and I pulled out the next box of checks that had come in the mail recently. I’ve been ordering our checks from this company since 1984, and have had some issues with them the last two orders. Anyway, it’s a good thing I looked, because as I was getting ready to write a check to Minnesota Power for our monthly electric bill, I noticed that the account number at the bottom of the check was wrong. So of course I leafed through every single check pack and they’re all wrong. Hundreds of newly printed checks. I called the company and they’re reprinting them with the correct account, hopefully, and said they’d send them out with a rush on the order. It was irritating, but how thankful I was to have noticed before I started writing out a half dozen checks!

Sometimes I play a CD or a song over and over because it just hits me in the song-gut and I need to hear it again and again. I have no idea why that happens, but this is the song I’ve been listening to on repeat these past few days — quite the oldie. Michael and I took our two sweet foster gals out to dinner last night, and we had this playing loudly in the car on the way. Michael and I both sang the “doodle doodle doodle doo” part with all our hearts. Yes, we really did.

My country goes to the polls in four days to vote for the next President of the United States, and it can’t come too soon for me. I’m a political cynic if there ever was one. I think I would label myself as a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative. I just don’t fit squarely into either side. But I do cherish my voting privilege, and I will prayerfully cast my vote and then watch the results on television with the rest of America, since the polls promise a very close race.

I just had a handful of these chips and a small bowl of cottage cheese as the dip. I am not really someone who craves chips or salty things; but a flash back to my childhood brought this snack to mind and I thought I’d try it. As I munched I could see the blue and green flowered couch, the marble coffee table and the avocado colored sculpted carpet in the den of my house on Eckerman Avenue when I was a little girl. How can potato chips and cottage cheese be so powerfully transporting? Wow. Do you like any unusual snacks?

I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend at home with two-eights of my grandchildren. What does your weekend look like?

Thank you for making time to stop by here.

Doodle doodle doodle-doo,

Ten years ago when my friend Pat read a book called The Saving Graces, inspiration struck. What if she could gather a few women together so they could meet monthly over a meal, talk through their troubles, rejoice in each others’ joys and triumphs, pray for each other, and see each other through life? She asked three of us if we would be The Saving Graces with her, and it was unanimous–we all said yes and held our first meeting. That was in 2002, and the way we remember that year is because the birth of The SAGs happened right around the birth of my granddaughter Clara.

The acronym SAGs made us all chuckle. Not only did we all need saving, need loads of grace, and have a few sags of our own, but God knew how much we would come to mean to each other.

To celebrate ten SAGgy years together, Pat, Gail, Lorna and I recently drove a couple hours north to Grand Marais, MN, and stayed at one of my favorite places, Croftville Road Cottages. We went up on a Thursday night and stayed until Sunday.

We ate candy. And kept a fragrant Frazier Fir candle burning. (Pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.)

You would never know by looking that such a little cottage is quite spacious inside, has two bedrooms, a good sized kitchen, living room and bath.

Pat and I drove up together on Thursday afternoon, and after dinner at My Sister’s Place, we drove up to an overlook on the Gunflint Trail. Even though it was dusk, we could still see the autumn reds and oranges all around us, and the ocean-like grandeur of Lake Superior on the horizon.

Gail and Lorna drove up later, and below you can see Gail getting the first look at her bedroom. A nice little stove kept things toasty, and just outside that sliding glass window at the foot of her bed we could hear Lake Superior pounding.

After a good night’s sleep, we woke to a beautiful sunrise the next morning. This is Lorna with her chair turned toward the view, spending some time in God’s Word.

A distant view of Lake Superior:

A close view of Lake Superior, taken from our cottage living room window:

We each had our own bed to sleep in. I set up my queen-sized inflatable mattress each night, and put it away during the day.

When the SAGs get together, we never lack for things to talk about, and we never feel uncomfortable with silence or tears. We were all looking forward to three days of just hanging out.

Pat and Gail spent some time on the swing, right on the edge of the Lake.

We brought our own food for the most part, but one night we ate dinner at The Crooked Spoon. Pat and Gail were happily anticipating their French onion soup.

Lorna and I had garden salads along with our soup.

We never grew tired of the Lake. One day it was grey and restless, another day it was deep blue and glistening. I don’t think I’ll ever get over living so close to such a treasure.

Our last dinner together was a treat. Lorna made a mouth-watering quiche, with bacon and all sorts of vegetables in it. We had Great Harvest bread, fresh cherry tomatoes from Lorna’s garden, a green salad. I can’t remember what we had for dessert.

Probably more candy.

We played Farkle. We read. We did our Bible studies. We watched a movie. We talked. We encouraged each other. We recounted some of our best SAGgy memories.

And we wondered if we will all be here to celebrate our 20th SAGgy anniversary. If we are, we’ll all be in our mid-sixties by then.

I took my gratitude journal along, and devoted a couple of pages to our weekend together, thanking the Lord for bringing us together ten years ago, and for the fellowship and friendship we share.

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one glory, which is eternal.

If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

~~St. Teresa of Ávila

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Sometimes the most surprising things make me happy.

Recently Michael and I had lunch at a favorite Vietnamese restaurant of ours, and when we were finished we strolled through the kitchen/cookware store in the same building. I don’t usually buy anything because I’ve spent the last several months getting rid of so many unneeded things in our home. But I love to behold beauty, and I always appreciate an innovative invention, and you’ll find both of those in most well-stocked kitchen shops.

After browsing, we were almost ready to walk out the door when I glanced at a pile of hand-woven table runners and dishtowels. I rarely find anything with both red and blue in it, but on this day I found a wonderful plaid table runner with the colors that make up my kitchen and dining room, and I bought it. It was inexpensive too. Before I even took my shoes off when we returned home, I put it on the table, and felt very happy about it. Plaid has always pleased me, and this plaid makes me downright chipper. I think that is proof enough that Scottish blood runs through my veins.

From a distance it looks like it has purple in it but it doesn’t. There’s cardinal red, deep blue, a little forest green, and some black, yellow and white. I know there’s probably a name to this plaid. I checked online to see what some of the most common Scottish and Irish tartans are, and it looks similar to a few I found. It reminds me of a MacLachlan or a MacDonald tartan, but it’s a bit less symmetrical than both of those.

I think I’ll call it the MacMerry tartan, until someone lets me know what its true clan name is.

There are a few other things that make me feel happy these days. Like the taste of hot chai tea on an afternoon when it’s close to freezing out and the wind is howling. Like the sound of the furnace going on at 5:00 in the morning, so that when I’m making breakfast and setting out meds, the chill is gone. Like waking from a deep sleep at 4:45 a.m. and the first conscious thought being of Jesus. Speaking of Jesus, His mercy makes me happy. I have needed His mercy every single day, and I’m old enough now to accept it gratefully, instead of wondering if it will run out, as I used to fret about when I was young.

My daughters’ voices make me happy. Seeing the whitecaps on Lake Superior today gave me a little thrill, and then I smiled to myself as I remembered that Michael always says they’re “sheep on the Lake!” It makes me happy to write down the things I’m grateful for, and to know that soon my gratitude journal will be completely full and I’ll be over the 2000 gift mark. It fills me with awe how transformative saying thank you to the Lord is when a dark mood is brooding.

It makes me happy to attend Community Bible Study and to sit with women young and old, plump and slight, poor and well-off, seekers and believers, Catholic and Baptist, Pentecostal and Lutheran, and let God’s Word speak to our thirsty souls. It makes me happy that almost every time I open the Bible for my own devotional time, the tears stream down my face.

Fresh flowers in the house make me happy. Here’s a closer shot of the white stocks on the table.

I am also sad about some things. Yes, I feel all this happiness in the midst of sadness, and it doesn’t feel crazy at all. It feels like life. I carry deep sorrows in my heart that I take to the Lord and try to leave at His feet. I know I’m not meant to carry them, but sometimes I just do. Don’t you relate? Aren’t all of our lives woven with many strands of grief, joy, hope, dreams, peace, disappointment, contentment, and sometimes plain happiness?

Maybe that’s why I like plaid. Maybe it reminds me on some deep level that the dark days and bright days of our lives can be woven together by God into something lovely. (I don’t really think that’s why I like plaid, though. I think I like it because I’m Irish/Scottish and my teeny, tiny, invisible DNA bagpipes are ever calling out to anything that comes from that part of the world.)  🙂

Lord, how thankful I am that you have preserved my life, given me a family, made yourself known to me. I give you praise for teaching me how to live with sorrow and happiness, how to trust you with one and exult in the other.

It makes me happy that God is not a quitter. I have told Him many times “Thank you for not giving up on me!” It makes me happy that He hears my prayers and knows the deepest wails of my heart, and can be trusted to answer in His way and in His time.

It makes me happy to think that a handful of people, friends, family, read this humble little blog. It surprises me that anyone cares about my thoughts and ramblings, and it delights me that I have found new friends here. Beloved friends.

What kinds of things make you happy? Thick socks? Werther’s Originals? Poetry? Falling leaves? Perry Como? Babies? Blogs? Books?

Or does plaid make you happy too?

I look forward to reading any comments, dear ones….

On Friday nights I always go to bed a little giddy because I know that, barring anything unexpected, I get to sleep in until 7:00 on Saturday morning. Picture me doing a little happy dance in my plaid flannel nightgown every Friday evening and you’ll know how much I appreciate the extra hour and a half of sleep.

When Edith and Mildred woke up this morning (Saturday) and I could feel in my half-sleep that they were both sitting up on the bed staring patiently at me, I knew it was time to let them out. It was still dark out, but that didn’t make any difference to me; I looked at the clock and it said 7:00 a.m. Yippee!

So we trotted to the kitchen, or at least they did, I put their bark collars on their little Schnauzer necks (still so sad to me, and if you don’t know why we’ve had to recently purchase bark collars for them, click here for the heartbreaking story) and let them out. It was 28 degrees on our front deck (minus 2 Celsius) and because of that I would have scurried back in, but when I looked across the street to Lake Superior behind the houses you see below, I saw this:

A brilliant line of magenta and cantaloupe, just above the horizon of Lake Superior, under the low hanging periwinkle clouds….the sun coming up in our part of the world. I wish the picture would convey how glowing, how neon, the colors looked.

I wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm, and stood there and stared for a few minutes while Edith and Mildred sniffed in circles where a skunk had walked in our yard during the night.

“If you ever want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.” 
~~Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses.

I can’t think of a time when I wouldn’t like to be reminded of the love of the Lord.

I’m so thankful to have witnessed His reminder this morning….

A while back I had my little office wallpapered with a dark red and cream toile. I don’t know what it is about toile, but I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember. Once the wallpaper had been hung, I began to think about curtains for this room. I wanted something heavy so they would be warm and also give some privacy. I thought I would choose a taupe velvet, or if I was really daring, a deep cardinal red velvet. But the latter seemed too boudoir-ish to me, so I crossed if off my list pretty quickly. (Also, if you’d like to see what the room looked like when we first moved in on May 31st, you can click here.)

But then I started thinking about some posts my daughter Sharon did on color combinations and how opposite colors often really do look good together. If you’d like to see what she said and see some example photos, click here.

And one morning it came to me in a flash of inspiration: aqua or robin’s egg blue curtains with my red and cream toile! A few people I told said, “Heh?” or, “Uhh, no” and some didn’t get it. Some of you still might not think this looks good together, but I love it! The curtains are not a true green or a true blue. They’re too dark to be called robin’s egg, I think. So I’m just calling them my aqua velvet curtains. (Remember Aqua Velva? If you do, you’re as old as me.) Maybe they’re even a dark turquoise, I don’t know.

My office is also our temporary guest room. We have two spaces in our new house that could potentially be very nice guest rooms some day, but for now when we have visitors, they stay in the office. I shut down all office operations and the room belongs to whoever comes to see us. It’s large enough for a new queen-sized inflatable mattress (very comfortable), and a small nightstand, and it has closet space for folks to use too. You can click to enlarge these photos if you like.

Eventually I plan to hang some things on the wall but am still thinking about that. You have to be careful with toile.

There are two good-sized closets in the office. The one on the right has delightful little cubbies and shelves for all my stationery needs — it helps me stay organized. Or semi-organized. The closet on the left is almost empty and anyone who comes to stay has a nice place to stow their stuff.

If you would like to come for a visit, we’re ready for you! (As long as you’re not one of those people who hates toile, gags at complementary colors paired together in decorating, or detests Minnesota. You probably would want to rethink your plans to visit us if any of the above are true.)

Putting up aqua velvet curtains in a red and cream toile office was definitely thinking outside the decorating box for me. I’ve always leaned toward being a matchy-matchy person. I think doing something unexpected like this just seems to go along with our lives in general these days. Sometimes things don’t really fit, don’t seem like they go together, are not your first choice, but you make do and search for beauty anyway.

This morning it’s raining and how welcome it is after a summer drought! I sit in this office as I type this, and it’s still dark out. I can hear the wind gusting right outside these closed velvet curtains and I know the last of the leaves on the trees will be carpeting the ground soon, and the bitter cold season of greys and white will soon be upon us. It will be time for more soups and stews, thick socks, candle-light, knitting, journaling, pondering and hunkering.

How do you like to spend your winter months? Do you do any hunkering and pondering when winter comes?

We Christians allow our performance-oriented society to rush us into a flurry of religious activities at the expense of genuine intimacy with the living God. It was in “being with Him” that Jesus would equip and empower His disciples to do the work of the ministry.

Are you able to enjoy the intimacy of quiet moments in God’s presence? Or is your primary goal spiritual productivity which demands that either He do something or He give you something to do? 

His call is no different today — He still calls men and women to “be with Him.” Consider these words from Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest): “The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship.”

~~Marguerite Hermanson

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This is not the clearest picture, but I thought I’d continue with my intermittent tour of our new house, and show you our laundry room. I took about ten pictures of it and none of them turned out great, but it’s not like a sharp photograph of our laundry room is of earth-shattering importance, so I’ll just go with this shot:

Can you believe that this room is literally one foot from our bedroom? So handy! I am very thankful for a main-floor laundry room at this stage of my life.

Lord, I thank you, and my knees thank you.  🙂

The walls were painted by the former owners and are a blend of what I’d call terra cotta and salmon. The aqua counter is a retro-print Formica with the nicest little stainless sink and faucet at one end. I use this sink for hand-washables. I probably wouldn’t have chosen these colors myself, but I’m so carefree in the decorating department these days. If my new house has it, I like it! That’s my philosophy. It makes life a lot easier.

The hardwood flooring is maple. The cabinet doors open up and out, and on one end I keep laundry stuff, and on the other end all my gift wrapping supplies are neatly stored (thanks to Carolyn, who did that for me). I could even do all my gift wrapping in here with such a great, long surface to work on.

When I was growing up in Southern California in the 1960s, most people I knew had their washers and dryers in the garage. In 1981, I moved to Northern Minnesota where most houses have basements, and I learned that most people had their laundry area in their basement. When this house (built in 1948) was extensively remodeled by the former owners, they split the old main-floor master bedroom and converted it into an office and a laundry room. Then they built a huge new master bedroom over the garage. Click here if you’d like to see how huge the master bedroom is, and if you promise not to judge.

I’ll post more pictures of other rooms in our new house soon. Today, because I’ll be tending to laundry, I’ve been telling the Lord how grateful I am for this laundry room.

Is there anything you’ve thanked God for today? I would love to know, and if you share I will give thanks with you!

Thank you for making time to stop by my little spot on the web….