Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter Sunday


I love this picture of Jesus. The artist, Akiane Kramarik painted it when she was 8 years old, after she had a vision. Today is Easter Sunday and those of us who are born again Christians celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I guess I love this picture so much because of the eyes, the kindness I see there. I don't need to see His heart, I know it has so much love for all of us that it is over-flowing. No one could have suffered and done what He did on that cross had He not truly loved us. I can not imagine carrying the burden of sin for every human being. I hope all of you are having a blessed Easter holiday and remember that this day is not really about eggs, bunnies and candy-filled baskets. This day is what gives us the hope through faith for an eternal life with God and His son in heaven. There is peace in knowing that. I hope you all find your peace. May God bless and keep you all. I love you ♥

Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday 2014

Once again I find myself trying to catch up. I do believe I am in a permanent state of doing that, never being done with any job long enough to move on to the next. It seems to be my cross to bear for the rest of my days. I try not to worry myself sick over it, but it remains a frustration, always on my mind that I am just not fast enough to ever stay ahead of the game, always lagging behind. So is my constant being, often upset with myself because being overwhelmed is not a good thing. It causes stress daily and at night it follows me to bed, and waits for me in the morning when I wake. It causes tossing and turning and restless clock-watching at night. I know many of you have the same problem and those of you who don't please tell me how you deal with it (or how you don't).


During these past weeks there have been several high points among the low. One was the Christmas cactus. I have 4 of them, all different colors, the one pictured is the largest of them all. During the winter months it sat dormant while the other 3 bloomed. Then a few weeks ago it surprised me and looked like this. And slowly it became this......


It was almost like the 3 smaller ones were blooming during the season of birth of our Lord Jesus, and now on Good Friday God has graced me with something beautiful to help remind me of a death and Resurrection. To show me there is beauty and joy even in times of sorrow. It also reminds me that all comes from and belongs to God. I do believe even though we are not suppose to put our treasures of things here on this earth, that God shows us he loves beautiful things just as much as we do. We are all beautiful in His sight, how could we not be, He created us.


Now, if any of you have been wondering what I have been dealing with these past few weeks, stick around and I will show and tell. They (the dumpster people) delivered the dumpster and the lumber company delivered shingles, lumber, siding and all the other supplies that were going to give my 2 out buildings their face lifts. Much to my dismay the crew started their work bright and early on a Sunday morning, 3 Sundays ago. They started out like gang busters, removing all the old shingles from the roofs.


I didn't document on which days what happened, but there were several days when the weather did not cooperate and the guys worked here, like on nasty weather days. What bugged me was they started another job (inside job) somewhere else and on some of the sunny nice days they didn't work here but were at the other place. I was annoyed, mainly because with the nasty wet weather came the MUD.


I don't mean to be mean about it, but some of the sunny days they could have been right here working and they were off doing a bathroom, then on rainy days they were here working in the rain which leds me to the conclusion that men are like turkeys, they have no sense to know when to come out of the rain.


Yeah, that is snow to the left in the above picture. Here in Northwest Ohio we woke up with 2 inches of snow. The day before it was 70 degrees. Much to my dismay all their equipment was covered with the white stuff. I was mumbling under my breath about how they could have had this job done if they would have spent those nice days here instead of somewhere else.


What upset me most was the ground was a muddy mess and once they got the new roof on the above building, they tracked the new shingles with mud. They tracked it everywhere, inside the building where they decided it was cool to store some of their tools, all over the little front porch, the deck in back of the house and the back porch where they put more of their tools and on my driveway that I just had resealed last summer. Now I know that they had to put their tools someplace and it was okay that they did, but it was the MUD tracked everywhere that got to me. There was 5 guys tracking MUD....I think you all get the picture.


 




The above pic is the completed wood shop. I think had my husband lived he would have been happy with what I had done with it. I had the new roof put on with shingles that have a 40 year guarantee and the vinyl siding so I don't have to ever worry about ladders and painting. They had to special order the siding because of the color. I wanted the old barn red similar to the color of paint that we picked out back when my husband built it. The shop sits on a bit of a slope and Rog had lattice work down all around the bottom. You can't see it here, but might be seen in older pics. The stuff was becoming an eye sore and after so many years it was falling apart. Animals like rabbits, ground hogs, and stray cats had also done their damage. Trimming close around it with the push mower didn't help it either. We came to a solution of closing up the bottom with treated lumber and adding air vents for some ventilation. I have a whole slew of hostas that I planted years ago on this side of the building. I see no sight of them coming up. When the guys worked on the siding they dug a trench all around to get the treated lumber down in the ground and when finishing up with the siding they trampled the wet ground so much it is now packed hard like concrete. I am sure if they were weeds there would be no doubt to their ability to spring out of of the packed earth. We will see.......


The little out building is all done too. They got the latch on the inside top of right door to help hold it in place so both doors are stable when they are closed. I am so glad these buildings are done, one less headache to worry about. I started on this project a year ago, trying to find someone willing to come do this. Now I can cross this off the "To Do" list.


In the evenings, in my spare time I did make a some things for the Guardian Grandmas Project found here. You can find out more by going to Debi's blog and searching in her right-hand column for the link to the sight. The first blanket and matching hat I wrote about in my Saturday, March 29th, 2014 posting. This second set is also a free and easy pattern that I found on the wrapper of Lion Brand Pound of Love Yarn. You do have to go to the website LionBrand.com for the instructions. The number of the pattern is #90425. The instructions are for the blanket only, there are none for a hat. I just improvised and made one up, using the pattern stitch and sheer hope that I could pull it off. I sent both blankets and hats to Debi who made a video about them when they arrived. I am working on 2 more projects, one knitted and one crochet. My knitting is my portable project and of course I switch back and forth when I get tired of one then I work on the other.

I am ending this post on a sad note. On Saturday our family lost another good soul, my sister-in-law Dot. A lot of people called her "Dottie" although her name was Dorothy. I just called her Dot. I don't know if there was anyone who enjoyed life as much as she did. She knew how to have fun, she always warmed up a room with her presence and I can honestly say she loved everyone. She never took a bad picture, always photogenic. She loved to sing and play the guitar. One of her favorite songs was Amazing Grace, but she could belt out Proud Mary with the best of them. She turned 80 in October and in December she found out she had leukemia. The last 5 months of her life were so very hard on her and her husband (my husband's oldest living brother). We are averaging about 1 death per year in this family. God knows what He is doing even if we don't.


Rest in peace my dear sweet sister-in-law. I know you loved Jesus. You can sing for Him now in heaven. I love and miss you ♥

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A Few Things to Share

If any of you follow me on Facebook then you know that I post a lot of things like yummy recipes. Needless to say, I have never made a single one of those calorie laden delights. I do also post healthy dishes, but the fattening ones basically out number those. I like to think that one day I will try a few when I am not going to be alone to eat them. They are kinda stashed away for the future if I need something that makes one drool. So, I no longer call it Facebook, but renamed it "Cookbook". It seemed more fitting. Then I also pass on neat ideas, postings on faith, quilting, crochet, knitting, and animal things. I try to avoid political stuff, it is pointless. All that brings me to this picture below........

 

this one is a picture from "dirtgirlworld" for a neat use of an old swing set that has lost its original use and re-purposed into a chicken run. Now how clever is that. I had to think of my blogger friends who are raising hens and wanted to pass this along. Unlike the standard chicken coop, this one can be moved around the yard so there are fresh bugs.


I wanted to add this quote from Kevin Hart. It was also posted to Facebook. My reason for adding this is because the other day I read my friend Kris's blog. She has been going through a lot of stressful moments because of her mother's health. At the end of Kris's post she put up a picture of herself and commented that she didn't have any makeup on and then pointed out some things that she felt were flaws in her appearance. This quote is for you Kris. I think you are beautiful just the way you are, and since it wouldn't be fair for me to not include all the rest of my blogger friends, I want to include all of you as well......you are all beautiful. My feelings have been quite raw these past couple of years yet none of you have insisted "I get on with my life" or "get over it". Quite a few have you have lost loved ones, so I know we are walking this road together. I am sure I am not the only one who has those tearful moments.

And last but not least I wanted to post this picture from WOWT 6 News, a picture of this darling sweet baby waiting for its daddy to meet it for the first time. He had been deployed and is from Bellevue. Now I know there are a few other Bellevues in the country and the Bellevue here in Ohio is just 15 minutes from where I live. I just had to post this picture. If it doesn't melt your heart then I don't know what will. From what I understand this photo went viral in a very short time. If you want to read the story then you can go to my FB page and get the scoop. You can email me to get my FB id for a friend request.

 

Now I hope I haven't stepped on any toes here and I tried to give credit where it was due. If I messed up then I truly apologize cause I sure don't mean any harm. I have a lot of wonderful things posted on my Facebook page. I guess if you were to see it you would know what is important in my life.

My next post will be about all the outside work being done around here right now. The last 2 days have been beautiful. Our temperature actually got in the 60's today. It was so nice. The weatherman says to expect rain showers the next 3 days, ugh! Until next time, take care and thank you for all your nice comments on my recent posts. Stay safe ♥
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~WRITE IT ON YOUR HEART................
THAT THE ONES YOU LOVE ARE LIFE'S MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS~