Two Days

Two days and I can start getting discounts to eat out. I have a short time before we leave to go to Michigan. Carrie called and asked if we could stop at a Gordon's and get 2 gallons of milk and 2 packages of potato pearls and 4 turkeys. She has done this before to ask her Dad to stop for something that she needs when we are coming up. She knows Dad will do anything for her. In fact, He is bringing her car home to change the oil for her and bring it back on Sunday when He comes to pick me and the kids up. What a Dad. The Lord has blessed this trip and made it possible to have dry roads for a safe trip. On Monday I will tell you all about the weekend.

Happy Birthday

This is 3 days early, but I will be out of town and I want to celebrate a little. I am going up to help my daughter, who is the Camp Cook, at Youth Haven at Rives Junction, Michigan. During the month of December the camp has Christmas for as many at risk children as they can. The children are introduced to good meals for the weekend, play time on snow covered hills,lessons on how Jesus is a haven for them, the story of Christ and His birth, and a well filled garbage bag of Christmas gifts. My husband and I are taking 2 young people up from our area and I am going to stay the weekend and help in the kitchen.

About my birthday. I will be 60 years old. This Sunday is the day and I always feel that this day is more special to celebrate then any other day of the week.

Candle Give Away

Hello all, another blog friend invited me to enter for a candle and I would like to pass the invitation along to those who are interested. Here name is heather and I have a link to her site on my favorite links. She has an interesting site.

Christmas Meme

For the holiday season,Hootin' Anni has started a meme. "The Twelve Questions of Christmas" If you'd like to participate, I'd be honored to have you to go down to the Over 50 list and join in the fun. Here are my answers

1. Christmas is. [fill in the blank with ONE WORD] Children

2. In memories, what was the best part of your Christmases past? When I was 11 my parents bought us a record player and each went out to buy records and came back with the same ones. The one set we gave to cousins of ours for their Christmas.

3. Was Santa ever good to you? [describe how and what] Christmas as a child was not one of my favorite holidays. I was scared of Santa and ran when I saw one.

4. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or both? For us when the girls were home they got to open one on Christmas Eve and it usually was the one from an older lady who had adopted them as grandchildren and the ones from us on Christmas morning.

5. Is there something you make each and every year? [craft or recipe] Not really, I am not a crafty person

6. What is your favorite five[5] Christmas songs/hymns?
1. Silent Night
2. O Holy Night
3. Ring The Bells
4. Mary Did You Know by Mark Lowery
5. We Three Kings

7. Is there a new tradition for Christmas since your childhood days? While the girls were at home we set aside Christmas Eve day as a day to make no baked treats to give to friends and family the evening of Christmas Eve.

8. Describe one of your Christmas trips. [whether it's across town or across country]
This was across town. (Three brothers married three sisters, one set were my parents) All three set had Christmas with the rest of my Dad's family and my Mom and Aunts would have to make English pudding that took a brandy sauce to go over the top for the desert. I remember my mom and her sisters going into a room off the kitchen of my aunts house and they would finish off the rest of the bottle during the day. My Grand Father never caught on what his daughter-in-laws were doing. We cousins always had fun making up a play to present in the afternoon after all the adults got done playing cards. This happened for many years as we were growing up.

9. Do you have a special Christmas outfit to wear for the day? Not really.

10. Have YOU or any of your family members sat on Santa's lap? Yes, we have many pictures of our girls setting on Santa's lap.

11. What is/or will be on your Christmas tree this year? On one will be angles. On another will be all the ornaments that the girls made at school or Sunday school. and one will have an English theme

12. Do you/or have you decorated your yard for Christmas? No, for many years we lived in a basement home in the side of a hill and in the last 10 years are living in the upstairs that we built over the basement.

Answering these questions brought back some very pleasant memories and I hope you will go to Hottin' Anni's site and read hers and maybe do something like this on your blog. All have a very blessed Christmas.

Fun Was Had

I finally have time to tell all of you about the romantic weekend my husband and I had. It was a Christmas party for the insurance office He works out of. Dick, His boss treated us to a two day visit to Shipshewana, an Amish community in Northern Indiana which began on Friday. We stayed in Home Stead Inn and what a beautiful room we had. On Friday evening we were treated to an Amish home style dinner of a garden salad with home made dressings, fried chicken and roast beef, home made mash potatoes and gravy, home made noddles, green beans, and for dessert a choice of 5 different kinds of pies at the Blue Gate Restaurant. The restaurant was decorated for Christmas and was breath taking. After a delicious meal we were entertained in the Blue Gate Theater by David Pendleton, a ventriloquist from Urbana, Ohio. I wish I could relate a few of his jokes and stories told by 4 different wooden figures, but sorry I can not. His figures consisted of a young man named Otis, Aunt Tilly (who was designed and made after his 95 year old Grand Mother), a sad-eyed dog named Buford, and a very rude vulture named Vern. I watched David closely and it was impossible to detect any movement of his lips as he skipped deftly from one voice to another. After the show we were to take a carriage ride, but it was to cold to bring out the horses so we have a ticket that can be used in the next 7 months. Saturday morning we enjoyed breakfast as a group at the inn and the rest of the day could be spent in shopping in downtown Shipshewana. They have one building that is built with a live tree as their center and goes through the roof three stories high with a basement. We did not do much shopping since we are in the area many times during the year. Driving home was enjoyable and we made it home as it began to snow. On Saturday night we had snow then sleet then ice. I recommend any one to take a vacation in the area. There are events that go on year around and what ever you are interested in you can enjoy. Feel free to search on the Internet and see what is available.

Marriage Monday

What makes a marriage Christian? My husband and I have been working on our marriage for over 38 years and it takes 24/7, 30 days a month, and 12 months a year to make it work. My favorite Bible verse is Philippians 4:13. I can do all things through Christ who strengths me. (my words) That verse has kept me in line for the 40 years I have know my husband. I am a sinful person who only by the grace of God makes it in the day to day existence. It takes both partners in a marriage to make it Christian. For me it helped that my other half was also a Christian from the first day we met.

For the past 2 months God has convicted me to study the 5th chapter of Ephesians and especially verses 21-27. The word submitting was a bad word for me in the past few years. I was getting hooked on the worlds view of a women being free to be free, to be able to do what I wanted not what we wanted. I praise God that we were led to a Small Group Bible Study on marriage in the past few months. My other half had no clue what I was thinking so to tell him was eye opening and healing for me. Through God I am coming back to a true partnership of a Christian marriage and working on submitting to a man who loves God first and has put God at the head of our house hold.

I am not perfect and God has and is there to put me back on track. Our marriage is not perfect and I don't want anyone to think it is. Work has and is being done to make it what God sees as good.

For all I believe in a Christian marriage not the shack up kind of living together. It takes work and the prize is eternal life.

Hope

This was suppose to be a Sunday Seven, but this morning during our Church service, the person who gave the Communion meditation gave a testimony of his past year and the verses that keep Him smiling through it all. The verses filled my heart and I feel I need to share them.

1Jo 2: 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1Jo 2:16 For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world.

1Jo 2:17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (NIV)(Blue Letter Bible.com)

He particularly spoke on 1 John 2:17 that it dose not matter what the world presents to us, what makes all the difference is when a man does the will of God we will live for eternity in a place we can not imagine and dream of. This is the HOPE all of us has and what a HOPE. All we have to do is not to love anything of this world we live in. How simple is that? Can I achieve it? I do not know. I am working on it, but it is so hard. We all have to face it on our own.