Thankful Thursday

(a few weeks late)

* honey bees landing on me while I'm floating in the pool
* the Strawberry moon
* free Amazon credits!
* hot baths
* watching Jd. and L. kayaking in the bayou
* new DVDs
* pool hair
* heating pads
* swimming with Henry (our dog)
* soft pillows, blankets, and time to rest

June Review

Read:
Death of a Liar- M.C. Beaton
When You Reach Me- Rebecca Stead
Warcraft: Durotan- Christie Golden
Uprooted
In a Dark Dark Wood- Ruth Ware


Watched:
Warcraft
Party Wire (1935)
The Whisperers (1967)
Ladies in Retirement (1941)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936)
Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955)


Made:
-Sleepy Owl cross-stitch ornament
-Monkey with Beads ornament


Highlights:
(I didn't do a very good job with recording the highlights this month)
-finished painting/re-decorating bedroom
-bought a new laptop
-kayaks!

* watching a hawk circling the empty field behind our house
* Magnum ice cream bars
* tomatoes and broccoli
* getting lost in a good book
* coleslaw with tomatoes and green onions
* sunshine
* swimming pools
* ice cream cones
* Farmville 2 (yes, I'm one of those people)
* L's lemon seedlings growing in a cup

* The random tomato plant I found growing in the middle of the back yard. I stuck it in a small pot, intending to transplant it but never did.  It now has 3 tomatoes.  I'm shocked it lived, much less made fruit in such a small pot.

* the dragonfly I rescued from the swimming pool today

Stitching Update

I have been making Christmas ornaments since the beginning of spring.
I know it's not the right season, but I like working on them because they are small enough to be portable.
I take my stitching bag outside every afternoon and stitch away while I listen to my favorite podcasts.
Here is what I've made so far:

I also have a bigger project in the works.
I will spend more time on it once the summer heats confines us to the house (which should be very soon).
After my “vision scare” last year (long story short: I needed bifocals), I decided that I wanted to make a framed cross-stitch for each of my children while my eye-sight is still good enough.
I already made four that I love but they’re all flowers and birds…very feminine.
And I have three boys.
So I put together some examples of more masculine designs and let them choose from them.
I didn’t plan it that way, but it looks like we have a boat theme going on.
I'm currently working on the "Peaceful Silhouette" kit.
It's the biggest one in shades of brown and sepia.
The petite Gold kits usually take me about four months to complete.
So....all three of these should take me over a year.  Oy!

Until Next Time,

Y’all hold on because I’m about to preach. Some of you may disagree, but I’ve got a huge bee in my bonnet over a few issues this week.  More precisely, I have been really saddened to see people who call themselves Christians acting so hateful.  I truly do not understand it.  I would love to point out these verses to them:

Matthew 22 : 36 Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.38 This is the first and great commandment.39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So, then what is the biblical definition of love?

1 Corinthians 13: 4 Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It doesn’t say “unless you disagree with their way of life, if they’re living contrary to the bible, or if you’re a racist jerk….then it’s totally cool to do whatever you want.”  No.  It says love your neighbor. Period. I don’t think “mourning for our country” over the legalization of gay marriage or protesting the removal of a racist flag qualifies. If you go on to read the rest of that chapter(1 Corinthians 13) it talks about progress and leaving behind outdated practices and beliefs.  It ends with the phrase “The greatest of these is love.”  That sentiment occurs many times in the bible.  But people don’t seem to focus on those verses too much.

Am I saying that you have to approve of everything that everyone does all the time? No, of course not. You’re entitled to your opinions and beliefs. But we do need to treat each other with respect and dignity.  Everyone deserves freedom and equality.  Try putting yourself in the other person's shoes for awhile.

The greatest of these is love.  The greatest of these isn’t condemning others and there should be no room for hate of any kind in the heart of a true Christian. That includes hate disguised as “concern” or feeling like it’s your duty to point out sin in other people’s lives. It's not.  God can handle that just fine without you!  The bible also tells us not to judge:

Matthew 7: 4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye! (Jesus said that, btw)

It is God’s place to judge and convict:   John 16:8-8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin.  This is talking about the Holy Spirit.  It says HE will convict /judge. Not you.  Not me.

Y’all are free to do whatever you want, but as for me and my house, we will always choose love.

(very, very late and possibly incomplete) February Review

I have gotten so bad at blogging.  I have the best of intentions, but I always forget. 

Read:
Agatha Raisin & the Murderous Marriage
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Interrupted Tale
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place:  The Hidden Gallery
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Unseen Guest

Watched:
Tobacco Road (1941)
The Big Bang Theory (season 1)

Made:
finished knitting chevron scarf

Highlights:
* my oldest son's 19th birthday

and here are the "lowlights"
`was followed by a weirdo in a white van until I drove to the police station
` saw a horrible wreck, the car was crushed and on fire.... it was HUGE fire.  We  could feel the heat inside our car when we passed it (20-30 feet away)
`asthma flare-up

* Jd. rubbing my back and offering to play  an Andy Griffith Show dvd for me when I wasn't feeling well
* My son, C, cleaning up the yard and putting up a new bird house
*  Jm. bringing M. to the dentist for me last week
* C. buying power tools with his own money
* cozy afternoons next to the "fire" (aka my fake fireplace electric heater ;))
* nebulizers

January Review

Read:
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place- Maryrose Wood
Driving Blind- Ray Bradbury
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia deLuce series)- Alan Bradley
The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe (No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series)-      Alexander McCall Smith
We Have Always Lived in the Castle- Shirley Jackson
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Watched:

Poirot (season 1-2)

Rosemary & Thyme (season 1)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Power of the Whistler (1945)
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
I Lived With You (1933)

The Fly (1958)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

Made:

a knitted scarf for my mom (the silver and black on in a previous post)

Highlights:

-not much happened this month- just the usual stuff

-one of L's guinea pigs died (not a "high"light, but I had to mention it). RIP Geogie.

-our dog, Henry, had a bad allergic reaction to his vaccines, but thank God he's fine now

- I was sick with an asthma flare-up for about a week (blegh)

Learning to Knit

One of my goals for this year is to improve my knitting skills.  I already know how to knit and purl (barely).  

In order to learn more, I decided to jump in and try a new pattern (the zig zag / chevron stitch).  I ended up frogging it 4 or 5 times, but I think I have FINALLY gotten the hang of it!  The scarf looks awful because I was learning along the way, and made many mistakes.  I decided that my goal for this project  isn’t the finished product. My goal is to learn. Once I’ve got this pattern down pat, I will try it with some better yarn and try to make something nice. ;)

So far, I have learned how to KFB (knit front and back), K2TOG (knit 2 together), and SSK (slip, slip, knit). I also learned how to knit on (instead of single cast-on), a much easier way to purl  and how to carry yarn up the side of your work (twisting).   Now I am working on improving my tension.  That has been the hardest thing so far. :-/  I am hoping to finish this scarf by the end of the week.

Thankful Thursday

* a new year and a new decade (for me- I turned 40 last month)
* curling up with a warm blanket and a good book
* electric heaters
* nicely organized bags for holding knitting, stitching, etc.
*  rain
* Netflix
* books