By Grace We Build

Mom, you mentioned needing to mark more than one spot in your journal.  Rather than stapling something in the back, just get however many ribbons and tie them together at the top.  Then you have multiple markers for your journal or Bible.  They don’t need to be stapled in or anything.  We do this to mark our Bibles since our Bible reading plans cover three or four sections of the Bible at once.  I like them to be all different colors so I don’t get confused!

Recently I got to thinking about things that surprise even me in my life…

1.  I never thought I would see my my three youngest daughters give their older sister (now age 9) a BABY shower. Rachel is planning to adopt a baby doll, like Ruthie did after her birthday.  The other three girls gave her a shower to give her clothes and other baby necessities.  They simply took doll clothes and things that they all play with and wrapped them up.  Very sweet!

2.  I never thought I would end up at a “knitting circle.” Rachel, Ruthie, and I are learning how to knit.  We went to our library’s knitting circle last week.  True, we were the only people there, along with the coordinator, but she assured us that more ladies and girls do indeed come.  We hope to make some friends and learn more about knitting.

3.  I never thought I would eat tofu on an almost-regular basis. Forced into that one by my husband’s almost-high cholesterol.  It’s not too bad when mixed into things like spaghetti sauce and chili.

4.  I also never thought I would enjoy tomatoes of any kind straight from the garden (only in ketchup and spaghetti sauce, please!). But I absolutely LOVE fried green tomatoes!  Rachel and I shed tears of sorrow when we see tomatoes begin to turn pink.

4. I never thought I would leave Chesapeake/Sovereign Grace and all of our dear friends (and Kelly!). Still, here I find myself in Ohio, at COGC.  We know that God’s hand moved us here, but that sure didn’t make leaving any easier.

5.  I never thought I would love it in Ohio and COG. And yet, it has felt like home, almost from day one.  There may still be adjustments to make, and we still may feel rather lonely at times as we continue to make friends, but this church and our new church family have become very dear to us.  I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

I won first prize in the squash category at a fair today!  Okay, so it wasn’t the state or even the county fair.  A large local church had a fair of some kind.

I gave a squash from my garden to my neighbor a couple of days ago.  She must have taken one look at the squash and noticed its potential!  Without my knowledge, she entered it in her church’s fair – and I won first place!  Unfortunately, no real prizes were given (or so my neighbor says!!).

Here is the prize-winning beauty!  I don’t even know what kind it is – some kind of yellow squash.  Do you have an answer for that, Charlene?  (My mother-in-law gave me the little plants that she had grown from seed – I’ll split my prize with you!).

If anyone is desiring some squash, let me know.  There is plenty more where this came from!

We recently did an overhaul of our dining room.  You can see from the pictures below that it had wallpaper on the top half, and the wall with windows was a dark knotty pine.  (These are just pictures from different family events this past year with Grandma and Grandpa Tyrrell.)

We got new windows a few months ago.  This past month, I stripped down the wallpaper, and Jake painted the whole room a light yellow.  He was a champ, especially when I changed my mind on the bottom half of the walls – TWO TIMES.  At first it was a shade darker than the top, then we decide to make it two shades darker.  In the end, though, I think it looks best all one color.

Thank you, Honey, for all of the painting and re-painting.  The room looks great!

Yesterday I wrote a post about how much I like karaoke.  Thank God I never published it!  I wrote it during the day after I had just done karaoke with the girls.  It was a lot of fun!  Then Jake came home, and doing it with him sitting in the living room revealed my true feelings on the matter.  I HATE KARAOKE!

The girls got a karaoke machine a few years ago for Christmas.  For awhile we only had CD’s of children’s songs.  Last summer, though, we found a good deal on a bunch of random CD’s with songs from several different genres – 70′s, 80′s, country, etc.  The girls have a blast hearing some of the songs that we enjoyed growing up.  (We, on the other hand, can barely believe what we enjoyed growing up!)

Anyway, karaoke is one of those things that I really wish I was good at and did not fear doing.  It just looks so much fun!  However, I have this little thing called fear of man (a.k.a. my intense pride, which is totally crushed once people begin to laugh at me).  When I get up to sing a song, not only do I mess up because I can’t quite remember the song, but I can also not sing it at all like the original version.  Do you know how hard it is to sound like Cyndi Lauper – and when you do sound like her, is that a good thing??  I get so embarrassed, even in front of my husband!  

God uses many things to mortify our pride and make us more like His humble Son.  At least this is one that I can choose to avoid!

I have finally decided to start a blog.  The purpose?  It surely cannot be to share any wisdom that I have!  It cannot be to display my wit and charm!  Oh, how lacking I am.  But I do have some treasures to share – namely four that we call Rachel, Ruthie, Ellie, and Suzie, plus my dear husband, Jake. 

Now that we live in Ohio, far from much of our family and many dear friends, I am really feeling the desire to share a bit more of what we do during our seemingly mundane days, especially so that grandparents and friends can get a glimpse into our lives.  It is just a simple way that I can feel a bit more connected to those who feel so far away.  (Plus, Jake says that I just cannot write the same e-mails over and over again to explain to several people what we did on a given day – HE is the one who suggested blogging!).  

So, here we go…  join us every now and then to glimpse through a window into our home.  Wish you could all just walk through the door in person, but this is the next best thing.