Category: Uncategorized

A BIG MESS……BUT SO MUCH FUN !!!!!!

this past week, i made a wedding cake.  it’s been a long time, but it all came back to me……..the mess, the fear that it won’t turn out the way it’s supposed to, almost dropping it on the way to the car – all the things that make me say “never again”.  then i see the finished product, and the joy it brings to the bride and groom, and hear everyone talking about how amazing it tastes – all the things that make me say “it’s totally worth it”.

kinda like life…..

some pictures:

decorating in the kitchen


some help from my sister (her wedding was the last time that i did this)

the finished product

the lovely bride and groom – my husband’s brother and his sweet new wife.

frisbee and serenity

today mike and i went to the park to play frisbee golf.  i have always been miserable at frisbee mainly because i try to throw it 2 or 3 times and then give up because i decide that i will never learn to do it right.  what made this time a little different was that i was determined to keep trying and i actually listened to the suggestions of my support system (mike) as i concentrated on learning.  as i practiced, i found myself getting better and better at making the silly disc do what i wanted it to.  i actually began to enjoy the game. 

this made me think of the serenity prayer and having the courage to change the things i can.  so many times in my life i have decided that i will not even try to change something about myself because i gave it a half-hearted effort once (usually without seeking help from God or support from others) and it didn’t work out.  i love the full version of the serenity prayer which most people have never heard.  here it is:

Prayer for Serenity

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

                                                                                Reinhold Niebuhr

ambushed by garrison keillor…

i wanted to read something light, something neutral, something safe from God’s hand working in my life.  you know, a little break from spiritual growth.  calvin and hobbes?  no, God’s gotten me there before.  chronicles of narnia?  definitely not safe.  ahhh… a little 12 page neighborhood paper with real estate listings.  oh look, an essay by garrison keillor.  i love prarie home companion.  i love garrison.  so i read the essay which ended with this paragraph:

“Who tells the truth to the man who is driving straight into the setting sun and thinks he’s heading due east?  His wife murmers that, uh, maybe we should look at a map, and he accuses her of being a defeatist who tries to tear him down any way she can in order to conceal her own lack of ideas.  The man is heading the wrong way and speeding and the idiot light is flashing -low oil pressure- and the idiot is trying to be manly and authoritative, but everyone can see he’s faking it, hoping for God to rearrange the landscape for his convenience.  Someone ought to speak up…”

anyone besides me identify with this man? (or perhaps his wife)

oh well, back on the road with much-afraid…

once again, it’s all about my heart…..


“Sin is not about behavior, but about our defiant claim to the right to rule our own life.”
   H.W. Schaumburg                                             

    Search me, O God, and know my heart;
       test me and know my thoughts.
    Point out anything in me that offends you,
       and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT)

two posts in one……

today I worked in the back yard.  there is a bed that has been overgrown with apidistra (cast iron plant) for many years.  although this plant can be beautiful, lush and green with the proper care, this particular bed was a mess.  most of the leaves were brown and half dead looking and should have been pruned out long ago.  new shoots had very little chance to make it above the tangled web of the sad looking growth above.  last year i spent a day cutting out some of the old, dead leaves and the bed did look better, but there was too much there and i became bored and discouraged with the task before it was completed.  i was a little afraid to cut it all back and start with just the new growth because it is slow growing and i was used to the way it looked with tall leaves (ugly as they were).  

at the back of the bed is a tree that does not belong.  it grew from an acorn (possibly planted by an invading squirrel) and no one ever bothered to dig it up.  it would have been an easy matter the first year or two, but now it is a well rooted tree up against the fence where no tree should be.  it has been cut down to a stump before, but it continues to put out unsightly growth because the roots are still in the soil of the bed.   not  pretty!

AND SO…….
this is the year that i have cut down all but the tiny, healthy new aspidistra, and
this is the year that i am going to poison the stump and dig out the roots, and
this is the year that i am saying yes to God doing the same thing in the bed of my life.