We’re getting pummeled with snow and wind, Sara and I have bad colds with fevers, and in a minute I’m going back upstairs with a cup of tea to rest. But first I wanted to share a recent drawing that my granddaughter Clara did of me.

She and Elijah were spending the night a couple of weeks ago, and while I was sitting on the bed folding clothes and they were quietly drawing, Clara said, “Grandma, do you want me to draw a picture of you?”

“Yes!” I enthused, “I would love that!”

“Sit really still, Grandma,” Clara instructed, and for about ten minutes I did, until she was finished.

Here is her drawing, and I hope it makes you smile as much as it did me.

I am so glad she drew me looking happy, and I actually think the ears are pretty good.

1. It’s snowing today – three more inches is the prediction. The sky is low and gray and it’s a perfect afternoon for tree lights, Christmas music and paperwork a good book.

2. We put our tree in the corner this year instead of in the front window. It sits next to the newly installed fireplace mantel in our living room.

3.  I’m feeling my age. In fact, I think I’m feeling someone else’s age…someone who’s much older than I am. I’m pretty sure I have needles under my kneecaps. The elasticity has gone from my skin. I think a good night’s sleep is very exciting. And I’m thinking about prepaid funeral plans.

What also makes me feel my age is this:

The photo above was taken in December of 1982.

Now these three little sweethearts look like this:

**Sigh**

3.  My blog is currently being redesigned and it will look completely different within the next couple of weeks. Then, because I have a few difficulties with change, I will most likely never do it again.

4.  I am going to learn to knit. I think it’s about time since my oldest daughter dyes yarn for a living. If anyone in my area would like to take a class with me in January (once a week for four weeks, taught by Sharon), let me know. It will be at my home.

5.  Here’s what’s on our house stereo intercom today, while the snow falls outside and the tree lights twinkle inside:

6.  Here’s one of the best salad recipes you’ll ever try, called Panzanella. (Just be sure you plan on using more olive oil to cook the bread than she calls for, and I always double the dressing recipe too.) I make this a lot, and everyone asks for the recipe because it’s so eye-rollingly delectable.

7.  I’m trying to figure out if I need a travel agent to help with our trip to Scotland next September. Does anyone have any recommendations? Since there will be planes, trains and automobiles involved (and buses), I just don’t know.

8.  A gratitude journal can work miracles.

9.  Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid.”

I’m so thankful for this today.

What are your nine things?

“I would take those who question faith’s value back a few years to St. Luke’s in Duluth, where I pulled duty once a month as a night chaplain. Late one night I shuttled between two aged men who lay dying, their families around them. In one room, tears of hope, joy, and peace. An old soldier of the Lord awaited his final promotion. The other room, unassuaged anguish and loud crying. If faith is only an illusion, I’ll still take it.”

Lloyd Mattson

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Sara put up two of our three Christmas trees last night — one in the den and one in the living room, and we decorated both. I’ll take some pictures soon and share them here.

One of the ideas she had was to put some of my cardinal collection (all were gifts over the years) on top of some little chairs we have hanging above the bookcases in the den.

Way up by the ceiling, six wooden chairs are now occupied by a serious looking group of cardinals.

I wish I could have taken a better photo straight on, but the ceiling fan was in the way, and my camera is simple and I don’t have a wide angle lens.

Do you decorate for Christmas with anything unusual or meaningful?

Every year I vow to rebel against all the retail foolishness that happens this time of year, and I stay home as much as possible. I have a lot to do with our business and with loved ones, but I have never been a happy shopper, so staying out of the malls is no sacrifice for me. Some years I even achieve my goal of having all my (meager) shopping done, online, by November 30th, so I can enjoy the entire month of December. Quietly, peacefully, and pondering and soaking up what Christmas is about.

I’m putting my foot down again this year and I refuse to join the hordes. I’m staying home as much as I can, listening to sacred carols and paying attention to what the words mean for my soul, I’m going to do my tiny bit of shopping online, and I’m going to listen for that still small voice.

Several years ago a friend of mine was teaching a small group and I heard her say something that struck a deep chord in my heart and has stayed with me. She said that if our perception of Jesus Christ isn’t one that is full of grace and truth, then our perception of Him isn’t accurate.

I looked at the scripture that supports this, and am going to be meditating on this all month long.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14.

This time of year we celebrate that God Himself took on human form and came to live for a time on this beautiful but sorrowful sod called Earth. Jesus didn’t just come to see what taking on human flesh was like. It wasn’t a nice neighborly visit. He came to accomplish many things, like setting captives free, binding up the broken hearted, proclaiming good news to the poor, and to show us what God is like.

"Heaven's Loss" by Ron DiCianni

And if Jesus is full of grace and truth, then that means God is too. God is also holy and perfect and stunning in His glory and majesty – none of us could stand in His presence without help. His ways are inscrutable and His timing isn’t often to our liking, but He is full of grace and truth!

So, this whole month I will be pondering on the fact that Jesus is full of grace and truth, and how that should inform my life. If He is full of grace and truth and dwells within me, should I not also be full of grace and truth?

What do you think of when you hear the name Jesus?

If you need grace in your life (as I do) and if you are searching for truth (as I am), I know Someone who is full of grace and truth. Has anyone judged or condemned you? Have you been betrayed and lied to? Jesus is full of grace and truth.

As you go about your Christmas season activities, I humbly ask you to consider joining me in thinking on and praying about these two attributes of Christ.

Grace and truth. Grace and truth.

What could these mean to you?

I welcome and am blessed by your comments! Have a wonderful weekend….

Thirty-five years ago this week I got married. I was barely eighteen years old. Aside from the minister, there were eight people at our small ceremony at the Wayside Chapel in Rough and Ready, California, in the Gold Country of the Sierra Nevadas. I made my dress for $35.00 and my veil for $10.00. I put a navy blue ribbon around the dress to complement the color of my husband’s Air Force dress blues. 

I don’t know for certain if back then I really thought we would make it, or if I just hoped we would and didn’t think about it much.

We made it three and a half years.

While we were living in Germany during a military assignment near Birkenfeld, my husband decided our marriage wasn’t what he wanted, and he left. It all happened rather suddenly. My daughter Sharon was 2 1/2 years old and Carolyn was 8 months old. I thought my life was over, but what helped me hang on were my two precious daughters. Their smiles and the way they reached for me every morning helped me put one foot in front of the other.

I flew home to California, lived with my mom for six months, and then got a good job and a place of my own. Gradually and eventually, healing came. I asked God to help me forgive, because I knew even at that young age that holding on to unforgiveness only enslaves the bitter one.

I look back now and clearly see the enormous red flags that were waving in front of my face as we were setting our wedding date. There were things I wasn’t paying attention to that I should have looked at very carefully. I was starry-eyed and thought I was in love. He was tall, handsome and a bit remote, and I did not know who I was back then. It was a recipe for disaster.

But I have learned that God can take the most disastrous things in our lives and bring good from them. He even repairs things that we ourselves have willfully broken. He has been so patient and generous with me. The life He has given to me stuns me most of the time.

In 1975 my young husband and I began our marriage thinking we really loved each other. Looking back from this vantage point I can see we didn’t know the first thing about love.

1 Corinthians chapter 13 holds high that lofty standard that helps me remember what true love is, and reminds me of how impossible true loving is without God:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

These are the attributes that should be in operation for a relationship to be happy and growing. How do I know this? Because I have been the opposite of all these ideals: impatient, unkind, prideful, dishonoring, self-seeking, angry, distrusting, hopeless and ready to give up. I’ve tried the other way. It doesn’t work. At all.

My life still isn’t notably characterized by the real flavor of love the Bible speaks of. But now I know what the real thing is, and I can more quickly recognize the taste of the cardboard counterfeit and spit it out of my mouth at first bite.

With the exception of the pain the end of my first marriage brought to my sweet daughters, I do not regret those years and experiences. They were excruciating, but they were also very instructive.

Thirty-five years ago I thought I was deeply in love. I was a starry-eyed bride. These days I am learning instead how to love deeply.

And there are still stars in my eyes….but now I keep searching to see if I can get a glimpse of the One just beyond them.

I woke to the skittering and gnawing sounds of a mouse in the wall. It was 1:50 a.m. Even though we’re in a residential area, we live on the edge of a small wood full of creatures of all sizes, and when the weather turns cold it’s not unusual for mice to try to find warmer places to stay. Apparently a little rodent found its way into our house and climbed its way up through the walls, deciding that the best place to chew and get his exercise was in the space of wall just to the left of the fireplace in our bedroom. I turned on the nightstand lamp, then got up and put my ear to the wall and could hear it clearly just beyond the plaster. Chomp, chomp, skitter, skitter, crunch, crunch. Michael woke up and saw me with my cheek pressed against the toile wallpapered wall at 2:00 in the morning and asked, quite understandably, “What are you doing?”

“There’s something in the wall,” I whispered. He turned over and and pulled the comforter over his shoulder and said, “Will you turn out the light? I’m trying to sleep.” I knew there wasn’t much I could do about the mouse at this time of night, so I did crawl back into bed, but the noise kept me awake. I mentally prepared how many traps we were going to need, how I would put peanut butter and a chocolate chip on each one, and carefully position them in the most obvious places. We’ve only had two mice come to call in this house, and each time, even though we heard them in the walls at various times, they came to their ends in the basement. Somehow they had gained entry under the siding or through a basement window frame, and I assumed that this one came in the same way. I knew that at least two of the traps would need to go down there.

I couldn’t get back to sleep because the mouse was now using a tiny rodent microphone. He tore off a dry little piece of plaster with his teeth, and then held the tiny mic up to his furry jaws as he chewed, and the amplified sound filled our bedroom for a long time. I got up and pounded on the wall a couple of times to see if he would stop, and he did. For about a minute. Unfortunately, Sara, who was sleeping on the third floor right above us, thought my pounding was someone knocking on her bedroom door at 2:00 a.m. “Come in!” she called groggily. “Come in!” she kept saying. She got out of bed, opened the door to her bedroom, knowing someone was knocking, and was confused as to why no one was there.

One floor below Sara, I still could not get back to sleep, so I got up and went downstairs to start my day. At 2:00 a.m. I prepared my daily Cappuccino Cooler, turned on the computer, turned up the heat, and put food in Edith and Millie’s dishes, then sat down to read what I normally read online in a day.

I checked my email, and answered a few. I looked to see if anyone left a comment on my blog. I love comments – have I ever mentioned that? When you leave a comment it’s surprisingly comforting. Someone is reading! I think, and I’m encouraged to keep on sharing. Next I usually read the local newspaper. Then I check bear.org to see if they have den cams set up yet for Hope and Lily, the mother and daughter black bears. Then I check a handful of blogs I enjoy perusing – I love the ideas and personality of Melissa at The Inspired Room, the color and humor on my daughter Sharon’s blog at yarnista.com, the writing and chuckles at Jessica’s Bits and Pieces, the deep thoughts and transparent writing at my friend Ember’s Kindred of the Quiet Way blog, and the constant amazement I find at Joni Eareckson Tada’s blog. At Ganeida’s Knots, I enjoy the conversational essays written by Jehane in Australia. I love the gorgeous creations at my dear friend Carey’s Etsy Shop, the photos and dishes from Scotland at A Wee Bit of Cooking, the book recommendations and cultural commentaries found at The Rabbit Room and the never-ending fount of astronomical knowledge from my friend Astro Bob. Then I look at the forecast and am usually ready to start breakfasts for everyone. Notice I didn’t say breakfast, but breakfasts, since everyone eats something different for breakfast around here, for various reasons.

On this particular day I didn’t have to rush through answering e-mails – I had hours before the sun would come up. After a good long while I went to the kitchen and set out meds, prepared sack lunches, made sure the women we care for were properly dressed for the weather, then saw them all off at different times for their days’ work. Later in the morning I placed two of the mousetraps upstairs, and Michael took three of them to the basement.

After I got dinner going in the crockpot, a load of laundry started, the kitchen cleaned and my own self dressed for the day, it was wonderful to sit in the quiet and open my Bible and this year’s CBS study on the book of Acts. It’s like I’m a bone-dry and dusty vessel that needs cleansing and filling, and if I’ll sit before Jesus, the Living Water, I will be filled and refreshed and washed.

After a day of errands, housework and paperwork, I was ready for night to fall. I thought I should pick up Ben Hur, which I’m reading in a two-person book club with Carey, but instead Philip Yancey’s newest book called my name and I read the first chapter of What Good is God – In Search of a Faith That Matters. I marveled at his writing and insights, and then my eyes reminded me I had only three hours of sleep the night before and it was time to give them a rest. I turned out the light on my nightstand and was asleep in no time.

At 1:55 a.m. I was awakened by the gnawing and skittering of the mouse inside the wall, exactly in the same place as before, and I sighed, wondering why our peanut butter and chocolate hadn’t yet lured him to his (hopefully instant and painless) death. I guess when I’m sleep deprived I’m not very merciful.

Somehow, this time the noise didn’t keep me awake and I fell back to sleep before 2:30. I woke fairly refreshed hours later, ready to start the day, and write the most boring blog post I’ve ever written. (Except for the blogs I’ve mentioned above – they’re not boring at all. You might want to visit them when you have some time.)

I hope your weekend is blessed!

How wonderful it is to have reason to give thanks! How comforting it is to have Someone to thank!

For my family, for my friends, for my Savior, I say thank you, Lord…..

From our home to yours….Happy Thanksgiving!

One of my favorite old movies is “The Shop Around the Corner,” a romantic comedy from 1940 starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. Have you seen it? It would be a fantastic choice for a cozy night at home with someone you love. Anyway, our youngest daughter Sara works at a shop around the corner, or a shop on the corner you could say, and recently I visited her there and took some photos to share.

Sara is a florist, or as they say nowadays, a floral designer. I think the latter term is better, because what Sara and her gifted co-workers do is truly gorgeous design.

Some of the photos enlarge quite a bit when you click on them. Here’s a large table arrangement that would look stunning on a large, set holiday dining table:

These kinds of arrangements are what I love about the shop on the corner where Sara works. Look at the huge pods, the asymmetry, the elegant ribbons, the lavish use of different kinds and textures of greens:

When I visited, Sara was working on a tall arrangement for a customer who wanted something “wild looking.” There is thistle from Scotland in this, curly willow stems and fragrant cedar.

Sara has worked at Angela’s Bella Flora for a few years. Our city has many florist shops, but people tend to go to Bella Flora if they want something stunning and out of the ordinary. Angela hosted a “Holiday Hot Chocolate” event last week so people could drop in and see how they’ve decorated the shop for Christmas, and place their orders for the coming holidays.

The label says “Sara’s Holiday Extravaganza” and the photo doesn’t do it justice – the arrangement below was huge and interesting, full of different textures and color, and the ribbon itself looked like it had tiny dried cabbage roses on its surface.

You could do this with your own oranges, and let them dry:

Bella Flora always looks beautiful at Christmas time, and I wandered through the shop, appreciating the artistry in their displays.

I always think of Sharon when I see aqua and turquoise paired with brown – her favorites.

I love how the shop is always decorated with old things that some people would throw away, like this shutter in front of the cooler.

I wish I had been better able to capture the sparkle in the shop.

I love this bird sculpture, full of personality:

Look at the old, yellowed book pages pasted randomly in the fireplace opening:

This bucket of muted florals was sitting on the floor near Sara’s workspace, waiting to fulfill a customer’s order for something specific and lovely.

I wonder why my house doesn’t look as inviting when we leave our drawers open like this?

I liked this rusty sleigh right outside the shop:

I always order my Christmas wreaths from Bella. They last long past Christmas and Sara matches the ribbon to our outdoor shutters. You can see a photo of the wreath (with artichokes and oranges!) she made for us last Christmas, right here.

I wasn’t asked to take these photos or post about this on my blog – I just thought I would share some of the extraordinary talent and beauty found at one of our local little shops around the corner.

Not long ago I received a gift in the mail from one of the nicest people I’ve never met. Her name is Patty, and she’s a customer of my daughter Sharon’s. For those who might not know, Sharon hand dyes yarn and sells it online. You can take a look at her website here.

I read Sharon’s blog and occasionally leave a comment there, signing my name as the “Yarnista’s Mama.”  Patty sent me this beautiful tote bag with the logo from Sharon’s business perfectly embroidered on it, along with my title. 🙂  I was absolutely thrilled! What a personal, thoughtful gift. You can click on the photo to enlarge it if you like.

Patty and I have chatted by email about our grandchildren, and she has been so generous and complimentary about Three Irish Girls yarn. Isn’t this the neatest tote?  I’ve been using it every Tuesday morning when I go to CBS.

Thank you Patty!

I think it’s amazing how through the internet, you can meet the nicest people you’ve have never even met…