Author Archives: Ellen

My Favorite Laborer

Time for Wednesday Hodgepodge where Jo asks the questions and we answer them.

1. Something you’ve done in recent days or months that might be described as a labor of love?

I think my labor of love these days is watching and running after our dear grandchildren.

2. Last time you ‘worked your fingers to the bone’?

The latest is transplanting some peony plants and weeding. My fingers get numb after a while.

3. According to a recent survey people named the following ten jobs as the hardest-nurse, doctor, paramedic, police officer, firefighter, surgeon, healthcare worker, bomb squad, farmer, and prison warden. Of the jobs listed which would you say is the hardest? The one you’d most like to do? Least like to do? What’s one job you would add to the list?

Honestly…I wouldn’t want to do any of these jobs but I’ll play along. The hardest right now is being a Police Officer. The everyday stuff they have to deal with is unbelievable and now they are being attacked by those they are charged to protect. The one I’d most like to do is none of them. The least I’d like to do is farmer because I think a farmer’s work is never done. The one hard job I’d add to the list is being a Pastor.

4. A recipe you make that is labor intensive, but worth it?

I have a easy stroganoff recipe that I can make in a pinch but my Sirloin Stroganoff with buttered noodles is a cut above and worth the extra effort!

5. Last job you did or task you completed that required teamwork?

This past Sunday we had some ladies over after church for brunch. Dear was in charge of the Swedish pancakes and I managed the sides, setting the table, making coffee, etc. Whenever we have company we work as a team to get-er-done.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

Today is Dear’s birthday. This guy understands hard work and doesn’t shy away from it. God was good to me when He brought us together. 

Happy Birthday Dear!

I appreciate your integrity, work ethic, love for God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Thank you for your faithfulness to me and our marriage. Your steadfastness in the Truth makes today and the future peaceful and joyful. May God continue to build you up!

Colossians 2:6: Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

This photo is from birthday brunch a few years ago at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. Tonight our kids in Colville invited us over to celebrate.

Tomorrow I’m starting a new challenge on my blog which will be a recurring event each Thursday. We will be sharing verses through the alphabet. Tomorrow is the letter A and we’ll be sharing a verse or verses with a key word starting with the letter A at the beginning of the verse or within the verse. More explanation HERE. Join us if you can.

9/11 Memorial

The 9/11 Memorial is dedicated to the first responders and victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed 2,996 and brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The HB 9/11 Memorial has a pentagon shaped base with two slabs of black granite representing the twin towers set in a cement wall. The words “We Will Never Forget” are set in brass letters contained on the cement wall between the two towers. The monument includes a plate and a section of steel beam from the World Trade Center. The base of the memorial has the names of the four airline flights lost in the attacks engraved on its sides.

I took these photos at the Huntington Beach Civic Center back in March while visiting family in Southern California. Vera and I stopped at the center so she could purchase her annual beach parking pass. While she was busy in the building I walked around and took photos.

Sharing this early on 9/8/2020. We stopped at another memorial on our way back from the Coast in June and I’ll share those photos on Friday.

Another Challenge

Way back in 2008 my blogging friend Pam started a weekly challenge called ABC’s of The Word. It was a great challenge that lasted through two cycles of the alphabet from 2008 through 2009. The challenge was on Wednesdays each week. I’d like to revive the challenge but change the day and the name. The new challenge will be called, Truth from A to Z. We’ll be searching the Bible for Truth to share on Thursdays. A treasure hunt of the best kind.

Starting on September 10th we will begin with the letter A and each Thursday thereafter we will continue through the alphabet. The Challenge is to find a key word at the beginning of or within a verse starting with the alphabet letter we are on.  When we get to X you have the option to choose a verse with a word in it that has x somewhere within the word.

Here’s an example for Thursday September 10 and the letter A:

A is for Ascribe…

Deuteronomy 32:3:

For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!

I am also adding a definition of ascribe.

ascribe, 1. to credit or assign, as to a cause or source. 2. to attribute or think of as belonging, as a quality or characteristic.

You can share your verse in the comments and I’ll add it to the post. If you have a blog you want to share the verse on just let me know and I’ll visit and share the verse on the appropriate post, too, with a link to your blog.

This is the announcement and I hope many of you will join in on Thursday September 10th for the new Bible Verse Challenge and the letter A.

Hope your Labor Day weekend is ending well.

Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder ~ Hymn

Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder

Let us love, and sing, and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame.

Let us love the Lord, who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies;
Called us by his grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears, and gave us eyes.

Let us sing, though fierce temptations
Threaten hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown,

Let us wonder, grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store;
When we trust in Christ our fortress,
Justice smiles, and asks no more.

Let us praise and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky.

Hark! the name of Jesus, sounded
Loud, from golden harps above!
Lord we blush, and are confounded,
Faint our praise, and cold our love!

Words: John Newton, 1774.

Morning Visitor

Outside, inside, all around the yard. JJ and Baba had fun for several hours on Friday while mommy and Addy joined Granny and Granny Great to help at their garage sale. Sales went well and not having charming, busy JJ made life easier on everyone. Addy had a great time selling things and people even offered her change just for being cute.

Hope y’all are having a good Labor Day Weekend.

Family Room Before and After

A while back we decided that our family room would work better if we moved out the wood stove which we have never used and don’t intend to use and move things around to flow better.

Before we moved the wood stove out the TV sat on a corner cabinet close to the slider which was the only available spot.

 

The new arrangement. Blame it on COVID. It’s something good that has come from it for our comfort.

The recliner by the slider patio door will be leaving once we find a good home for it.

More of a straight shot to the kitchen from my end of the sofa! We are really enjoying the openness of this arrangement and the fact that the TV is tucked in nicely to a larger corner.

Roof Panels Complete!

Here’s the last steel panel ready to hoist onto the roof of the shop. Be forewarned that this will be a photo overload post.

So happy our son could help.

Me and my shadow are happy to see that last panel fastened into place.

The Ridge Vent is the last part to install on the roof.

Dear is busy preparing the shop pad for the cement to be poured later this week or early next week. We’ll have to have a roller skating party when that’s done before the shop gets filled up with stuff after the walls, windows and doors are in.

Signs of Fall Hodgepodge

1. The Hodgepodge lands on the second day of a brand new month. Tell us one thing you’re looking forward to in September.

Looking forward to the beginning of Fall and all the events we will enjoy with family near and far.

2. Do you enjoy browsing second-hand shops? Last thing you bought or ‘inherited’ second hand?

Yes, please. This is our latest purchase from the Red Barn in Colville back in April.

 

3. Something you had second thoughts about after committing to, purchasing, or posting/commenting online?

I’ve gotten pretty good at not committing to things. I might be having second thoughts about purchasing an instant pot since I’m such a creature of habit in the cooking world. What we’ve made in it has turned out real good but I haven’t used it in about 3 weeks now. 

4. What’s a product or service you use that you’d rate as second to none?

Amway scrub buds and their Pre-Wash spray. 

5. Something you do so often or that comes so naturally to you it’s second nature ?

Creating a post for my blog. Coming up with a meal even if I haven’t defrosted something. Not saying the results are always stellar…

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Mornings in our neck of the woods have already felt very fallish. 

Thank you to Joyce From This Side of the Pond coming up with the questions. Click over to to join in the fun.

Faith

Well, here we are at the very last day of August and the last day of our challenge. Our word today is Faith. There are many verses to choose from on Faith/Faithful/Faithfulness. Thank you to everyone who followed this journey and posted verses. It was really hard to choose just one passage on faith, let alone one verse.

Hebrews 10:35 – 11:3 (ESV)

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

“Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

From Paul:

Hebrews 11:4: By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith though he died, he still speaks.

From Maristella:

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2 | NIV

From my sister Vera:

“in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭6:16‬ ‭NASB‬‬

From Happy One:

Romans 12:3 KJV
 
For I say, through the grace given unto me, 
to every man that is among you, 
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; 
but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of FAITH.

If you have a passage or a verse to share on Faith leave a comment and I’ll add it here.