As I write this post, I think of the verse that I use for this site.

“This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

I do think of this verse each day when I start my morning routine and usually I think of the song that this site is titled after. It runs through my head as I make the bed, get dressed, start the laundry for the day. This song became a blessing to me when I awoke one morning at the age of 13. It was the start of spring in Vermont after a VERY long winter and it just brought joy to my heart as I watched the orange tint of the rising sun through my lace curtains. My mind will always remember that morning and the melody of that song…the words. It is so simplistic, but says so much.

If we think about that verse in Psalm 118 and really concentrate on what it is saying…it is difficult to have a bad attitude about the day ahead. God has created each new day for us. As I have said before here, each new day is another day to learn about Him, read His word and pray. Each new day is another opportunity. Whatever our status in life…single, married, divorced, widowed, children or no children, lots of money or just getting by…emotionally happy and joyful or sad and without hope…it is a new day! A new start. Another chance to try again. It may be the day that you accept Christ as your Savior and it may be the day you go home to be with Him!

So, as another spring starts, lets rejoice and be glad in it!

The sunlight coming in my window is almost glaring with it’s brightness. It’s reflecting off all that snow. We’ve sure had our share this winter!

We have two cats…one showed up on our doorstep a year and a half ago, the other we handpicked at someone’s home a couple of months later. Both were tiny kittens, barely weaned. The one we chose escapes each time she can. Believe me, the trips outside have been much quicker when the temperatures have been below twenty! The one that chose US never gets near the door and is very happy to have a nice, warm home.

Isn’t that the way it goes…even in us humans? I think about this because the cat that is always trying to escape spends the rest of her time sitting in my window…looking out…WISHING she could escape. She is now blocking my view of the gorgeous sunlight streaming in.

There’s a very simple message in all of this for all of us. Enjoy what we have today and don’t wish it away. I’m going to enjoy the sunlight and be thankful for it today…not wish it away on being warmer or spring again. Enjoy the cold, winter days spent in the house when I can spend more time with my children and have a more relaxed schedule.

If only we could learn these little tidbits when we are younger…when we are spending our lives planning for the future and trying to set and reach the next goal. Better yet to understand that as long as we are here…we have an opportunity to live each day to its fullest, because tomorrow will have more opportunities. That way we won’t spend our lives trying to escape, only to run back in when we find that it’s not what we expected!

Have a sunny and cheerful winter day!

Well, I was tagged over at Home-Steeped Hope…check out my blog roll. I don’t remember how to give that link in the post and I put my paper away instructing me how to do it! Such is the life of a blogger that doesn’t do it enough to stay on top of things and a mother of five children with brain damage. (Me, that is, not the children! LOL) Anyway, I was tagged and I’m suppose to list eight things about myself, include the rules and also tag eight other people to give their eight random things. It does sound like fun…but as I told Mary, I don’t know eight other people to tag and since I can’t find that PAPER, I can’t put the rules here without typing them all out. On top of that…I’m way out of time for using the internet…so after all that complaining, here are my eight random things! LOL

1) I wanted to be a ballerina in the worst way when I was growing up! I still wish I had been able to take lessons!

2) I love to cook outside over a campfire, but I hate camping.

3) I absolutely love shower gels and lotions that match…but I always save them for special occasions and then they are too old and smelly to use.

4) I’m very much a loner and could spend many days or even weeks all by myself.

5) My favorite foods are tossed salad and ice cream. Is there a problem with that?!

6) Tiny babies are one of my greatest pleasures in life.

7) When I was a teenager, I really enjoyed cars. I liked to help work on them, even getting the highest grade in auto mechanics at school. I loved watching drag racing or the demolition derby.

The first car that I paid for myself was a red, five-speed Mustang.

And there you have it! I’m looking forward to reading the others that were tagged.

Do you ever have days, or even weeks when that thought just keeps running through your head? I know I’m going through one of those again now. But, mine is going into a couple months now and I’m beginning to think that is must be me just doing something wrong! LOL

We are all busy. That is just the way life goes. When you have several children going in different directions, it gets even better. I think the problem is the way we tend to handle it, not the problems themselves. (Isn’t that the truth with just about EVERYTHING?) I know I start to have this sense of panic when my schedule starts filling up and I feel overwhelmed. The busier I get, the less sleep I get because my brain just won’t slow down. I definitely need down time to combat this. Believe me…it has taken me a lot of years to figure this one out! I used to think it was selfish to take that time…but I’m not so hard on myself anymore.

That down time for me comes from many different directions. Just an hour or two reading a magazine or book. Working in the yard…arranging flower beds and decorating with pots. Not the hard work of actual digging, planting, etc. Just sitting on the patio in the cool of the evening. Or sitting out at our local lake, watching the sun set. A day spent with a cherished friend, just relaxing to the point that you could almost nod off from the calm and peace. All of us need little interjections of those kind of times to help us regroup and evaluate where our life is going. Maybe we will decide that we are too busy and we need to not volunteer ourselves so quickly. Maybe that time will refuel our minds and bodies so we can continue to do those things that mean the most to us.

The biggest point here is…just stop every once in awhile. Most of the ‘things’ we feel are so important will wait just a few more minutes or hours or even days. Make the quiet times in your life when you pray, reflect, spend fun time with your family just as important as all the rest that we feel like we HAVE to do. I think your family will thank you for it!

It is very late for me and I don’t usually stay up using the computer. But, there was just something hard to resist about the quiet and solitude of the house tonight. It seemed like I shouldn’t let it go to waste. Now, I should be writing…but my brain is probably too tired to tackle that right now. I would be doing a lot of rewriting tomorrow!

I think back on the years when my husband and I were first married. It seemed as though we just had hours and hours where we could just sit and relax. It was always peaceful…almost lonely for me at times since I had come from a family of four children. Now, I find myself really cherishing these quiet times when I can actually hear myself think!

So, just a couple thoughts before I shut this down for the comfort of my bed and hope for a few hours of sleep before my toddler decides to join us. I’m still trying to figure out how one small body can take up so much space in a king size bed! Oh…the joys of parenthood…and the tranquility of alone time!

What inspires you to post?

For me it was pretty easy when I did a few on health, because it is just part of my everyday life. But usually it is difficult for me to think of something to post about. I know there are some blogs where they have a real purpose and I have gained so much information from them. MInTheGap, Home-steeped Hope and The Space Between My Peers are a few that I check out pretty much everyday. You can see my blogroll to get there easily! I especially like the issues that MInTheGap brings up. They are usually issues I feel very strongly about, but not what I want to discuss here at my blog as of now. That may change at some point if I feel led to do that. I do enjoy commenting over there and getting my brain to thinking.

So, what inspires you to post on a certain topic? Or… why did you choose your topic for your blog if you have a theme? I would love to hear the responses!

As I look out my window, close to my desk here, I see a beautiful day. The weather in the midwest has been wonderful the past few days and it looks like it’s getting better still…60’s+ on Friday! I’ve been going through my garden catalogs and planning the layout of my garden. I just love spring and the hope it brings after a long winter with snow and ice.

An update on our two-year old. She did great with the potty-training! I think we are officially on the way to girlhood. Where have the two years gone? We have another daughter ready to leave for Bible college in June, so we will have two daughters on the east coast…so far from home. Of course my husband thinks we need to move back there so we can be close by them!! But, I think he would be just as happy with a cabin in the Adirondacks for the summer or a few months of the year. I could deal with that! Especailly when it is 100+ here!

So yes…spring is coming. It brings hope and a sense of renewal. Trees and flowers go into a growing cycle again and turn green, wild animals start new families. It’s a time to begin again…and sometimes that means people too. I’m happy and excited for my daughters as they start their ‘new’ lives as adults, making decisions, maybe meeting the man they will spend their life with. But it is also a time of change and even a sense of sadness for me. Babyhood, childhood, is over for them. In a blink of an eye…

I’m sure we all have a problem with this one.  If someone out there knows they have their life all together…please let me know what your secret is!

Magazine articles, talk shows, news articles all say if you have organization in your life, all will be well. I’m here to say that I don’t think that’s true!  I’m a type ‘A’ personality, very organized, rarely procrastinate…and life still doesn’t go smoothly. I still feel as though I’m running behind, trying to catch up and not doing very well at anything I need to do.

So, am I doing poorly…or is this just the mind set of today? I tend to think it is the mind set of the world’s system.  We all put certain expectations on ourselves, our spouses, our children, extended family, church, friends, our jobs…and the list goes on and on and on. The list itself can tire you out!

This all comes to my mind today because I have a couple very busy months ahead in my life. No, this is not a ‘do or die’ situation, but I’ve made it one in my own head. It’s called stress and we all handle it in different ways. I tend to work harder and harder, getting more anxious about everything I need to do. Obviously not the correct response! The Bible says ‘be anxious for nothing’, so I know this is an incorrect response but I do it anyway.

Will we ever have time for everything? Of course not. I think one of the biggest tests for me in my life is to stay calm, ‘be anxious for nothing’ and just keep my priorities in line. God, husband, children, church, extended family and friends should be our priorities as Believers. If I make time for theses things…I do Have Time for it All!  

AWANA was cancelled this evening due to cold and ice everywhere. I can’t remember a year when we’ve cancelled so much. It may sound terrible but there is a sense of relief for me. When the temperatures are around zero I would just as soon stay at home! This kind of weather is one of the reasons that I have enjoyed not living on the east coast anymore.

 When I was logging into WordPress a few minutes ago there was a blog that was written about a couple moving from New York City after 18 years there.  All I could think about at first was, “What took them so long?!” Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to New York City a few times.  It is a very interesting place to see…so much going on, so many people.  It is like you are almost in another country.  I think it is a good sight-seeing trip.  But to live there would not be to my liking. If you were single, or married with no children, it would probably be a lot of fun going to the restaurants, seeing all the expensive stores, etc.  There are so many museums, plays, musicals, etc.  But for me, living there with a family would be very hard, especially with a family the size of ours.

When I was younger, before I was married, I always thought it would be fun to live in a big city.  The excitement, the culture, all those people to get to know! Since I’ve been married we’ve lived in a few…San Antonio, Austin, but I’ve always been very happy to get back to a small town environment. For me, the big city way of living seems a little empty.  It is usually about your entertainment on the week-ends and your job during the week.  Now, most of us probably live that way to an extent…but when you are in a smaller town I think you tend to weave normal life into all of that a little more. Instead of going to nice restaurants all week-end, you may go on a picnic or a hike.  I think your everyday life takes on more substance.  For me, whenever I’ve lived in a big city, my life always felt like a perpetual vacation and that became tired after awhile.

The couple that lived in NYC for 18 years moved to Toronto.  I’ve been there too and my opinion is that they went from bad to worse.  For them, that may be a great life…but for me, I love my small town and group of friends.  And if I ever need a city, there is always one close by!

A friend of mine has been posting things about love, marriage, etc. at her blog in honor of Valentine’s Day next week.  It reminded me about my dear husband. 

I think we all become frustrated with our spouses from time to time.  Afterall, we married someone that wasn’t raised exactly the same way as we were, they are different people and they have different personalities, likes, dislikes…you name it and the list goes on.  But, the wonderful thing about marriage is that you choose to live with that person anyway! My husband always says that God brings two people together that are different so that you become strong through the testings of living with that person everyday.  If everything was perfect in your marriage, you wouldn’t turn to God and His Word to get you through the rough times.  I guess I’m starting to agree.  The things that really bother me about my husband are the areas that I’m learning to have more patience in. The things that I thought were so very important don’t seem such a high priority anymore. When I say this, I mean silly things that aren’t going to change the world anyway!  But, I’m learning to relax and to concentrate more on the good attributes of my husband and not the negative. 

But that all brings me to the topic of this.  The good in my husband was things like he did today.  He encouraged me to go away for the day and he stayed home on one of his few Saturdays off and took care of the children and made them spaghetti and meatballs.  He even cleaned the oven.  (I won’t go into why this was necessary!) That was all very special to me and since he won’t ever read this, I will tell him at some point. But, the little things like that are so HUGE to us all and take such little effort usually. For me, that said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ more than anything else. He does so many things like that and I need to spend more time concentrating on those, rather than the things he doesn’t do.  My Dear Husband…thank you, God!