"A Wiener is Meat?"

What do you think?  I think I should totally make this, well for one family member maybe.

Snood

Occasionally we turn off the TV and do something weird to entertain each other, like last night.  Snood has become a word in our family vocabulary this year due to recent news stories in regards to FIFA rulings. But we're not really sure what to call it when the Snuggie, which we all mock but everyone fights over, turns into a snood for 2.  Don't ask me how the Snuggie sleeves got around someone's head!

Siamese grim reapers?

 

ET?

It's definitely going in the laundry now!

Gracias

Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a quiet day today at home, listening to the rain outside most of the day and smelling turkey as it roasted  and pumpkin pie, yet to be savored. We were our quiet, OK maybe not so quiet, 4 since our usual family guests are in Vancouver this weekend.  We were happy with that today.  I'm in a bit of an anti-cooking mood lately anyways, wishing dinner would just appear on the table some evenings of late...  wouldn't that be amazing?

The kids are boycotting my annual Thanksgiving tradition of writing our gratitudes on a paper leaf.  We have done it the last 6 or 7 years, we can't stop now! Can we?  Maybe it was me telling Jacob he couldn't write "food, water, Ditto" this year again.  I'm only trying to expand their thinking.  I guess the house is just full of math/science geeks and I should embrace it, my own self included.  :)  Maybe they could all write a math equation instead of words.

Well... sharing our thanks on a Monday with others :


308. Kevin working, it's been almost a year since he's been back at it after the 18 month "break", and we're more grateful everyday for a great job that he enjoys, and provides for us and more.
309. Sunny, fall days
310. New friends, that we feel like we've known forever, and should have. I think the boys/men are somehow each others' missing twin, or triplet? 
311. My ladies ~ can't wait to start Tuesdays with you tomorrow morning, been missing it so much! Will be missing 1 of you though even more.
312. Pumpkin anything!
313. 4 weeks into Boot camp, not loving the during, but the after feels good
314. A new house for my sister in law, can't wait to see it and spend Christmas there!
315. Flannel sheets
316. Picking grapes at the orchard yesterday from our old friend Bert
317. Free apples from my neighbor orchardist
318. All the wonderful people in our life!  Thank you for being one of them.

I Have a Friend...

... that in itself is a huge joy and wonder!  To have someone that shares a part of your soul.  I have someone I can tell anything to, who still loves me.  Who can pick up in a moment, months gone by and say, "that's not who you are", "this is why you do that", because they know you, or "what I see is...".  That is a gift!  I don't have a sister who has seen everything about me from birth to now, but my life is full of sister friends who take that place.  I realize today how much we need to encourage each other, that we need each other so desperately much, to know we're on the right road, to pick us up when we're stumbling around.  To give wisdom from something we've already learned and pass it onto someone else who needs it.  To give our hearts to our daughters.

I have been restless, so restless for months now.  Stumbling around, not really knowing where this life is headed.  Wanting a cause, a purpose outside of myself.  I don't want to just fill a day with things to keep busy, or interested, or heaven forbid to stave off boredom.  There needs to be more, more purpose filling the moments, more life giving interactions.  But I feel so ill equipped to do that. And it seems so hard to find right now.

The thing about turning 40, is realizing how little I really have, how much I need a Savior.  In my 20s, I had the world by the tail, was confident, directed, a leader, led a campus ministry, and didn't doubt so often.  But probably stepped on a few more toes and hearts.  Didn't know the bits of silence that God gives to draw us.  He knows we can handle Him turning His back for moment, a blip of time that feels like way too long, but to Him is a way to test our faithfulness.

If God never spoke, would you still trust Him?  If you never again heard His voice, would you still love Him, want Him?  There was that 400 years of silence where no one heard from Him, what was He doing all that time?  Preparing a gift, a breakthrough, spending time with the Son He was going to give away?  Ignoring our pleas, or in some way drawing us out of ourselves?

It's easy to see how I need Him when I've had the lack of Him.  So I am thankful:


298.  Depth of friendships over the years, sharing, confessing, laughing
299.  Skies that look a lot like Alberta
300.  Oh I wish I had my camera.. the rich navy/black storm clouds gathering over the dark, Emerald  green of Kalamalka Lake with golden grasses dancing in the foreground
301.  Jacob's big schedule change and class shuffle ending up to be a good thing in the end, and his friend joining him there at the end of last week.
302.  A new window that KD has been working so hard to get installed
303.  Tomatoes overflowing their vines
304.  Mom and Dad going to Romania to visit missionary friends
305.  Feeling appreciated and good at my job
306.  Love this acoustic feel

307.  A delivery of books

Sharing Gratitude with Others

 

I'm going to lose all my readers if I keep up this blogging pace.  All 10 of you :)  September gets little busy, you know how it goes.  We've had a pretty smooth adjustment to fall, except for the fact that after 2 1/2 weeks of school Jacob had his entire schedule, classes, teachers, everything changed. He seems to be flowing with it right now, which is very mature of him.  He makes me proud and makes me laugh, his one liners lately have been really good!

Finally got my peaches canned!

 .

 Had a couple birthdays that sort of flew by with not enough recognition.  

Maybe we should re-birthday, is that allowed?

 Erin saw this awesome shirt online and ordered it!  It came, it's awesome she wore it to school and got comments, good ones.

The Pregnancy Care Center, of which I'm an avid supporter, is celebrating 5 years today.  I need to run and pick up some big cakes!   Hope fully I won't drop them.  That would probably about top off the kind of week I've been having!  Chat to you later with much more love and depth!

Write your own Caption:

I'm sorry, this just had to be posted.  Any clue as to what's going on?  I'll take guesses.

And They're Off!!

Who can believe the school year has started again?  2 more years and my girl will be deciding what to do with her life!  And poor Jacob, slogging through the middle of middle school.  Oh, I hated grade 8!  This is the first year in so many that he hasn't been plagued with anxiety about the first day of school, where for days or weeks before, physical symptoms creep up showing how he's really feeling on the inside.  In that way, it's a bit OK with me that he's growing up.  I can't stop it anyways. And plus having teenagers is a hoot!

First day of school photo:  They were a little uncooperative and running late, but still managed to smile.  And who can beat 32 degrees here yesterday?