Random Monday Memories

I got a new camera for Christmas (thanks Bill!!) and this is what it looks like.


I don't know much about it yet but I'm learning. I've been taking a lot of photos with it. Last week I discovered that it takes pictures in black & white and in sepia! I am camera challenged....this was quite a discovery for me!

(Way) back in the early sixties, I had a camera like the one below. A Brownie. It belonged to my Great Uncle Albert (he worked for Kodak) and it was pretty old when he gave it to me. It was a very simple camera to use. But I was camera challenged back then too!


Now PLEASE bear in mind that I was pretty young when he gave this to me ~ somewhere in the 8 - 12 year range I would guess.
See the silver dial down there at the bottom of the camera ~ in order to advance the film you had to turn that dial. You turned it after each photo and watched the numbers advance in a little window (I'm working with a 40 year old plus memory here ~ hopefully I'm getting this all right). You could turn the dial and advance the film whether or not you took the next photo.

I remember one time I turned past the "next" number. I didn't want to waste a shot on the film so..........
I kept on turning and turning and turning ~ thinking eventually it would get to the end of the roll of film and it would start over again.
It didn't.
It just ended.
I think there were three photos developed off that particular roll of film.
I never did that again.

Serving Others

Each one should use whatever gift she has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10
NIV

One Little Word ~ Rest

On January 1st I told you about One Little Word 2010.

Today I'd like to share the word I chose.

Focusing on this word, used in various ways, can have a powerful impact on my life this year.

Rest ~ I definitely don't get enough of it. I'm a night owl. But I also have to be at work at 8:30am. I have a bad habit of fighting past the first signs of being tired until I catch that second wind. So many books & blogs to read, so much laundry & cleaning to take care of and lots and lots of errands to run ~ it's difficult to squeeze it all in after 5:00pm and before bedtime (whenever that is!). But squeeze it in I do and then when I'm done and ready to sleep, I'm too wound up. By the time I'm tired again the clock says the alarm will be going off in five hours! Oh my goodness ~ I need to fall asleep right away! I need to have those five hours!

I don't know about you, but I don't fall asleep well under pressure, even self-induced pressure. And so it goes. Many nights those five hours turn into four or three.........

I definitely need to work on this aspect of rest.

I know there must be a good idea or two or three out there for me!

Elijah is Two!

I know I just "showed off" some grandbaby pics yesterday but the cute little red head is two today. I can't believe this sweet boy has been in our lives for two years. When he visits me, and looks at me with those big ~ very dark ~ brown eyes, it makes my heart melt.

When he visited for Christmas this year he headed straight for the plastic tree. He saw the sparkly ornaments that said JOY & NOEL and immediately started spelling the words. He also loves to count ~ there were at least 20 plastic balls on the tree this year and he counted them at least 20 times. He loves his letters and he loves to count. I tell ya ~ this little guy is brilliant! And I'm not prejudiced at all either!

"You will always be the ONE, who took my heart by surprise.

Loving so completely, you're perfection in my eyes.

Dreams of you and me, would fill me with delight.

But nothing could compare to the first time I held you tight..."

The First Grandchild

The first "little" branch on our family tree

I wonder if someday he'll look lovingly up at me as we have this discussion?

"Gramma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?" "You're both old," he replied."

~Author Unknown

I Love You Elijah!

They Loved Their Snowstorm Jars!

My mom (aka the G-G-Ma) gave the little ones musical snowstorm jars for Christmas. There's a little button to push on each jar that makes the snow swirl round and round. The buttons also turn on (on off) Christmas carols. Elijah and Charlotte could handle the buttons all by themselves. All three babies LOVED this gift. They each opened them at the same time and were immediately mesmerized! The G-G-Ma (with a little help from her Maryland Elf) did it again!!

That's What Friends Are For!

Dawn from The Feathered Nest shared a "glimpse" at this calendar she found at Michael's. Visit her and you'll see a peek at the beautiful photos inside. Well I decided this calendar would be a perfect bit of pretty next to my desk at work, so I stopped in Michael's after work today.

I found the calendar and I love it!

I also found a whole lot of new goodies in the dollar section.

I only bought half of what caught my eye ~ I'm already sitting here thinking about what I need to go back for!

Look at these wonderful stamps ~ I bought ten of them. Enough of an assortment to do the first and last initials for all my family! Check out the Elijah and the Charlotte and the Penelope ~ and the M to go with the E for me! Aren't these great! $1.00!! (each, of course!)

Three frames ~ wonder what, make that who, I'm going to put in these? I'll give you three guesses!
Orange, Red & Pink. These are for my workroom.

A place to jot down ideas and stuff!

And pencils to jot with!

Aren't these little tubes of pencils so cute? I'm hoping the labels peel off without tearing the tube. But if that happens I'll just have to cover them with a nice paper.

Of course I went with a 40% coupon ~ how could I not!
I found these sparkly, glittery brown photo corners and saved $1.60! I don't know what I'm going to do with them but I needed them!

Thanks a bunch for mentioning the calendar Dawn ~ I love it and all the other treasures I discovered along the way!

Random Monday Memories

Year two has begun for A Swap for All Seasons. Last years swaps were such fun ~ one of the best parts about them is enjoying all the fun things Linda has for us to do. Right now we're working on a Valentine's day swap and in keeping with the heart theme Linda posed a question for us on our swap blog. Who was your Favorite Teen Heartthrob? Well, that certainly brought back some GOOD memories!

Meet my favorite teen heartthrob!

Bobby Sherman

I met Bobby (aka Jeremy Bolt) on the TV show Here Come the Brides. I also met Robert Brown and Daid Soul ~ aka Jason and Joshua Bolt ~ both heartthrob material themselves. But I was about 13-14 years old at the time and thought they were a tad too old for me!

Anyone else remember this show?

I know I was ready to pack up and set sail for Seattle.

Here's the main cast.

I never missed an episode.

Guess what!? While I was browsing around online, looking at Bobby Sherman photos, I discovered that you can purchase Here Come The Brides on DVD at Amazon and I have Christmas $$ to spend!! Hmmmm!

Click that arrow to hear Bobby singing the theme song from the show.

Ahhh ~ be still my heart!

Almost Time To Pack It Up

I have a porcelain nativity but I thought this one would be better for this year. Elijah and Charlotte and Penelope all loved to play with it. I think one of them had the little angel that sits above the star when I took this photo. Soon enough I'll be able to unpack the other one, but for now this will be perfect for teaching our babies "the reason for the season"!

Pretty soon it will be time to pack away this and all the Christmas decorations. I thought I'd make a couple mosaics for you to see the decorations before then. If you left click on the mosaic it will enlarge the photo. The display of cloches, glitter, angels, house, etc in the first mosaic is something new for me this year. I was inspired by some of the other blogs and went through my home and found all the items you see in the photos. A lot of it was packed up and forgotten about. I'm so grateful for the inspiration received. This was my favorite display this year.

The little ornament with the three squirrels (middle row, right side) is new this year. I love scripture, I love squirrels and I love the number three (as in grandbabies of course). This ornament has all of that. It makes me smile!

The second mosaic has the ornaments I made for my children many years ago and a couple new swap treasures. It also "shows off" my plastic tree ~ I was very happy with it and so were the little ones. They could touch to their hearts content! See the little striped tree (top row, right side) I found it at Dollar Tree. It's a candy cane without the cane! I love it.

Well, that should be it for Christmas photos from me. It was such a special time for our family!!

It Was a Lovely Day!

Something rare happened this afternoon. I was alone ~ well pretty much. My father-in-law is home, but he was watching the Rose Bowl in between naps. Bill's working (he's been in retail for 30 plus years ~ not a lot of holidays off for him) and Mandy is visiting a friend. No babies visiting, no more Christmas (before or after) shopping to do, and no work! (thank you boss for the day off!) I took a nap, went to the grocery store to do some re-stocking of the empty pantry, bought some magazines and made a frozen pizza for dinner. In between all that hard work I sat, sipped hot tea and visited friends all over the world. (I ignored some housework that I should have been doing ~ but it will be there tomorrow!)

It's been such a wonderful day!

The tea was this lovely Afternoon Blend from Harrod's in London. Katie's mother-in-law was here for Christmas. Brenda always brings me such special treasures. In addition to the tea she brought me the pretty plaid Christmas tree cloth and a cute little plaid Santa for my tree...and some "figgy pudding". It was VERY good to be queen.....if only for an afternoon!

There are so many inspiring things in the land of blog. I'd like to share three that caught my eye today. First is this quote that Tracy posted on her blog today.

"We will open the book. It's pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Great quote ~ don't you think!! Thanks Tracy!

My friend Joyce at Scrap for Joy sent me an email about this next bit of inspiration. Ali Edwards began this on her blog in 2007 because she wanted to begin "tradition of choosing one word for myself each January - a word that I can focus on, mediate on, and reflect upon as I go about my daily life".

I would love to try this too! Visit her blog to read all about what she does with this. She shares some great stuff!

Ali Edwards

And finally the Top 100 Tutorials according to Ellen who has a blog called The Long Thread. She posts so many incredible ideas ~ and now she's put 100 of them all in one post!! I can't wait to try some of these. There's so many cute grandbaby gift ideas!!

Top 100 Tutorials of 2009

Needless to say this is just a teeny bit of what's "out there" as far as inspiration goes. I've known about this land of blog for about 20 months ~ I can't figure out how I managed without it!

I'm off to visit some more of my friends!

Happy New Year

I hope you had a wonderful eve of celebration ~ no matter what you did ~ and I hope and pray that this new year will be a joy-filled one for each of you!

Pray For One Another

dayspring~lisa leonard

Be strong and take courage,

all you who hope in the Lord.

Psalm 31:24 NRSV

I read something today that has left me thinking hard about "stuff". It was an email I received from someone who doesn't realize how much she has ministered to me the past several months. Through that email I discovered that she's been going through a difficult time. But I never would have guessed that from her blog. Especially during the time leading up to Christmas.

I have a book called "The 12 Ways of Christmas". It's written by David Jeremiah. This is what it says on the back cover of the book.

Every year, we strive to make this Christmas the best ever. Then we decorate and bake and shop, and end up wearing ourselves out - just like last year. And in the midst of our plans, we struggle to capture the essential purpose of the holiday. We forget that real Christmas joy begins in our hearts, in quiet moments of meditation and worship.

"The 12 Ways of Christmas....offers twelve truths of Christmas that often get buried under the busyness of parties and activities - things like wonder, giving, humility, and simplicity... With candor and wisdom, these reflections will help cultivate God's ways of Christmas in our own hearts, bringing us closer to the true sense of wonder and awe we long for during this very special time of the year."

Now back to the blog I mentioned ~ I bought the book because I hoped I'd find in it some answers to the longings her blog created in me...longings about Christmas, about family, about marriage, about life. Really! I saw this book and thought "oh my goodness"!

I knew it would address some of the things stirred up inside me by this wonderful woman's blog.

Oh dear, I'm afraid this post may not make as much sense as I'd like it to. I think what I'm trying to say is 1} I got a good dose of "real Christmas joy" from her blog; 2} It isn't always as it seems ~ as we make new friends in this wonderful place called blogland we need to remember to pray even if we don't see a specific need for prayer and; 3} As I mentioned in another post .... "there is nothing new under the sun...what's happening to me has happened to someone else...their experience can help me and mine in turn can help another." As we make those new friends we need to share. Not necessarily on our public blogs, maybe just through an email.

Either way...I truly believe the Lord leads us to one another. He puts women in our lives (even in blogland) who we need or who need us.

While my special blog friend was (unknowingly) ministering to me she was (and still is) going through a difficult time herself. I count it such a privilege to pray for her.

I'm so glad she shared with me.

Pray For One Another

Wednesday is Baby Day

Thought I'd share a photo of my big babies first this week. This was the first picture I took of the four of them this Christmas. And it came out well! That doesn't happen often. There's usually a lot of "photo malarkey" going on!

See what I mean?!

Charlotte & Elijah both really like the toy Uncle Kevin is opening for his "girl". Joe & Jo look ready to jump right in and help him out, don't they?

Two of the small ones are getting a ride in this shot ~ Elijah thought his Uncle Mark made a great rocking horse ~ back and forth the went ~ Mark's spine being the rocker! Looks like Charlotte is ready to give her Daddy's face a big hug!

Arms full of love!
No, I am not this strong. Joe is holding Penelope up.
I love this photo!!

Isn't this a sweet baby girl!
She just loved holding onto plastic ornaments this year.

He likes to taste test his toys.
I wonder what a lime green wooden bead tastes like?

Speaking of taste tests ~ just like her momma ~ she loves black olives.
She even likes to eat them. Check out the cheeks!

We tried several times to get a photo of the
small babies together.
They don't like to look at the camera at the same time.
(Elijah looks about done here!)

They don't like to sit still either ~ right Jacqi?

The easiest way is to just put them together ourselves.
This photo is the one I sent out in our
Christmas cards this year.
We are so very blessed!
By babies big and small!