Weekend Reflection # 25

Man do I love my life. I mean I really love my life. Every week it seems that I am blessed more than the last. How is that possible? God is good and makes that known to me all the time. Whether it's spending time with friends, or enjoying a good pizza with my family, He is there with us, with me. I take comfort in that and I wish that everyone could feel the love of God like I do. I am so glad that He called me out of the world and to Him. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The first part of our week was relatively normal. No big happenings, just mostly hanging out around the house. On Wednesday, I decided to sew up some things for my secret mailer partner. I got involved with secret mailers through a blog I happened upon late one night and I've had the most fun gathering things for this package. I'm late in getting it out but that's ok. One of my favorite mottos is the old "better late than never" phrase. I decided I'd make a table runner and some place mats for my partner. She doesn't have a blog so the only thing I know about her are things I found out through the lady who organized the mail swap. I hope she likes them. It was my first time making anything like this and I'm happy with the way they turned out. The thing you have to know about me is that it's hard for me to have patience while doing something like this. Sometimes, I do great. Other times, problems arise and I lose my patience. That's when I resort to name calling with my sewing machine. This project should have taken me a couple hours at most but it took me nearly three days. Why, you ask? Well, let me just tell you! It could be that I'm a little OCD when it comes to cutting out material. I have to measure, re measure, and measure again before I touch it. There's good reason for this. Even after measuring three times, I still cut some of the material too short. Go figure. That was the first night and believe me, I wasn't EVEN going to try and sew them together that night! The next night consisted of me attempting to sew some of them together but my bobbin decided to have a party. Literally, the thing kept getting tangled which resulted in a huge mess of thread attaching itself to the back of the place mats. Great. Just what I needed. Needless to say, I dealt with that for a little bit and then called it a night. Night three was even more funny. I was really on a roll with these babies. I was going strong and I noticed my thread was getting low. Ok, I thought. I can do this. I've got plenty left to finish the last place mat. WRONG! Can you believe that I had ONE corner to finish and the thread ran out?!! Where's the justice in that! I put it away for the night and actually I do have to sew that corner up real quick before packing them into the box. Sheesh! That'll make me think before I decide to whip something up quickly again!

The table runner:

Back of table runner. The place mats look like this also but I didn't snap a picture of them:

Here are some the beautiful zinnias that are planted in the garden. I just love these colors!

On Friday, the hubster took me to BAM and bought me that fabulous book I mentioned earlier in the week! He's such a wonderful hubby. He would do anything, within reason, for me :-o) I love that about him. After BAM, we ran to the video store and happened to see Jeff's brother there. So, he and my nephew came back to our place to watch Ghost Rider with us. Nicholas Cage fans, close your eyes and plug your ears! Better yet, just skip this whole part! Who told this guy he could act? Please, enlighten me. Seriously, am I the only person in the world that thinks he should be mowing a lawn or cleaning a pool somewhere? A Cage fan, I am not. I knew that I wouldn't like this movie before we even watched it. Partly, well mostly, because Cage is in it and also because the story line is just too silly to be entertaining. Harsh, I know. I also thought the female actress, can't think of her name, did a terrible job too. A complete waste of a time.

Saturday we had the pleasure of being invited to supper. The P's hosted us and also invited another family from our church, the Mc's. This was such a wonderful evening. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I had! The P's served up some awesome cheeseburgers, brats, grilled onions and peppers, and baked beans with bacon on top. We took along a salad with some homemade dressing I whipped up. The Mc's brought some pasta salad and one of those jello pretzel salad things. It was so good! It was orange, which is one of my favorite flavors in the world! Mrs. P and her daughter made blueberry cobbler. We were so stuffed after the meal but that didn't stop me from guzzling the coffee concoction Mrs. P made for me. It had caramel and sugar mixed into the coffee and on top was foam with chocolate shavings and another drizzle of caramel. Heaven in a glass! We feasted and laughed until around 9:30. I came home refreshed and recharged because of these two ladies. We were able to exchange cooking stories and ideas and also talked about all things homeschooling. Fellowship with the body of Christ is the best!

This morning, worship was just wonderful. I feel very blessed in the church we currently attend. The church community is unlike anything I've ever experienced. After worship, we came home and had a quick lunch before taking our Sunday nap. We rested well and the hubster headed back to church for the men's meeting tonight. I am passing the time by baking some chocolate chip pumpkin bread. I'll have to let you know how it turns out. If it's good, I'll share the recipe :-o) We're watching Premonition tonight so I'll give you a review in a day or two. Oh, one more thing to mention. Remember earlier this week when I talked about how we were being over run with cucumbers from our garden? Well, I took two bags to church this morning and I'm happy to report that they were all taken home by families there. There wasn't even one left. Now, I just have to run out and pick the other ten that are waiting on me today! Tomorrow it'll be cucumber avocado dip making day plus any other recipes I come across with cucumbers as the main ingredient!

Here are a couple of the girls and what they've read this week. We got the HP book at the midnight release last Friday at BAM. Logan had the thing read by Sunday evening! I told her she could have read it slowly so that she could have prolonged the end of the series! Caroline really enjoyed A Bear Called Paddington, which we checked out at the library.

I hope your week was wonderful! I'll leave you with the link to one of my favorite Psalms. Have a great week!