Category Archives: Thanksgiving

Inspiration to Shoot…

I’m thankful today for fellow bloggers who inspire me to look at the big picture and the beauty in the details. Karen at Ocean Soul is one of those bloggers along with her co-blogger Jukavo who inspire me with their photography.

Here are some of my artsy fartsy shots from Dan’s place…

This post and the rest of my posts in the month of November will be connected to the Grace Challenge I’m participating in. Here’s a quote from my brother’s blog about grace:

“Grace may be the word that best summarizes Christianity. In English, “grace” is connected to two other important words that teach us a response to grace: Gratitude and Graciousness.

Here is how it works. First and foremost, our life, salvation and everything in between is a result of the grace of God. Every breath I take is a grace of God. I cannot be saved apart from grace. Grace emphasizes and points to God as the center. Life is all about Him. He reveals Himself to me not by force, but by grace.”

To read the whole post click here.

I want to continue being specific in my thankfulness. I’m really thankful for digital photography. Digital photography affords me failure in photo taking while at  the same time giving me an incredible chance of shooting a beauty. God does the same thing for me through grace. I fail and he picks me up and He lets me try again and with His help He makes things good for me.

Hope your week has gone well. This weekend ends daylight savings. Don’t forget to fall back an hour!

A Month of Grace…

I’m taking part in the Grace Challenge from my brother Steve’s church that begins today. One of the things I’ll be doing is being deliberate and specific about what I’m thankful for.

There are so many things to be thankful for each day. Today I’m thankful for the home God has blessed our son Dan with. Not just the home but the land and and all the equipment that came with the home.

I’m just guessing but I think Dan might be most thankful for his huge shop!

This is the back of the house. We’re discussing new paint colors with Dan and the possibility of building another deck off this part of the house.

He has lots of time to make things his own and according to his style.

What are you thankful for today?

Joy!

Thank you to all of you who prayed that the Marine’s would let Andrew come to Atlanta with Katie. The powers that be approved his trip and we are pleased and filled with joy!

I made a trip to Hobby Lobby this week and they had a lot of goodies on sale for 40% off and other items for 50% off. I bought that Joy sign that was in their Christmas section but it’s staying up at my house all year long. They also had all their glassware at 50% off so I bought some glass containers for my Smirntopf. I’ve been waiting for this kind of sale to purchase them.

Sure hope my Smirntopf turns out well. It will look pretty in these containers for gift giving.

After Thanksgiving we’ll start thinking about giving the Smirntopf a taste test and getting it ready to package for gifts.

Today I’m thankful for…

~ God making it possible for Andrew to come to Atlanta.

~ Our trip to Atlanta where we get to see Andrew and Katie.

~ Our second cookbook and all the encouraging words we heard from all our friends in blogdom.

~ Getting a couple more of my recipes for the cookbook completed.

~ Our small group and the 2 new couples that have joined us.

~ Dear’s promotion at work.

~ A day off today to just putz around and get ready for Atlanta.

~ Our Women’s Bible Study and the beginning of our study of the book of John.

~ That our son Dan is now the proud owner of his own home and land and has slept there for a week!

~ That our son Josh was recognized in his industry for his humanitarian endeavors.

Last but not least…I’ve lost 12 pounds!!!

What are you thankful for…

Across the Line…

…our Canadian friends are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend.

They have a long weekend lasting into Monday.

A question for my Canadian friends. Do you wait till Monday to celebrate or do you choose a different day on the weekend?

I know for us with married children and children scattered here and there we go with the flow and share with our kids’ in laws on which day we claim for the turkey.

It was so nice having Dear home all day today. He doesn’t like to just sit around so we moved some furniture around which then meant he had to raise some art work. We are making the living room roomier because our small group has grown to 12 people and we need to fit everyone in there.
Hope you all have a very nice weekend.

Before the Leftovers are Gone…

…I better share our Thanksgiving Day photos!

I was going to share photos of Andrew and Katie’s new home in North Carolina but I left my camera cord in the rental car downstairs and I’m too wiped out to head back down there to get it. Katie and I arrived safe and tired and muscle sore to Jacksonville on Tuesday. I’ll share more when I get my photos uploaded.

Even though we’ve moved on to Christmas joys I want share our photos from our Thanksgiving Time at our friend’s home with more than 50 people enjoying each other. We ate well, played games together, and ended the evening dancing off some of the calories!

On Wednesday Katie and I are looking forward to a relaxing morning before we do some more shopping for her new home. Hope all is well with you and yours!

Thanksgiving Came Early…

…at our house this year. As I think over the last few years this early celebrating has become somewhat of a tradition. When you have adult children that are hither and yon you learn to seize the moment when you come together and celebrate.

There were eight of us at our early gathering.

My turkey was ready earlier than expected. No problem because everyone was ready to eat early.

Thanksgiving food is such a nice shade of golden beige. Hilarious. I do not feel the need to add something green like a salad because there is never any room on the plate anyway. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! To solve that pesky “something green” problem I used a green tablecloth and green goblets!

Our kids, my sister and her husband, Dear and I made up the 8 guests. When Josh prayed for our meal he also prayed for our missing family member who is overseas serving his country and all of us. We missed you Andrew!

One week and Katie and I fly to North Carolina. Time will tell how often I’ll be posting the next month. If you don’t see anything new around here you know I’m busy checking out a part of the country I’ve never been to before, helping Katie find the things to make her new home comfortable, and getting ready for Christmas.

Hope life is treating you well. For those of you in the states a very Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

I’m linking up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

Don’t Forget…

Time for Miss Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday. We are on the letter C. C is for cute cookies or corny cookies or candy corny cookies.

You could have fun making these funny looking turkey cookies for Thanksgiving!

Bought my turkey and all the ingredients for the trimmings. All the cooking will be happening on Saturday because our family will be celebrating Thanksgiving early. Our Canadian neighbors celebrated Thanksgiving a whole month ago!

Since C is our letter this week I’ll share that I just finished a deep cleaning of my kitchen. Now I can mess it all up again on Saturday when I chop chop chop and stuff and mash and cook all the goodies for our celebration!

What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

You Can Never…

…be too thankful!

So we decided not to wait till November to celebrate Thanksgiving. We decided to celebrate with our Canadian cousins, our neighbors to the North.

We had a great evening with Katie, Steve and Lana. I’ll be sharing a couple new recipes soon that were a hit.