Keepsake Quilt

We are on the letter K and I’m choosing Keepsake for my post.

This is a quilt my mother in law made before Alaska and Hawaii were part of the United States. It was in 1959 that Alaska and Hawaii became states so Verna made this quilt well before 1959. Rex and Verna got married in 1945. Verna was a one room school teacher in Kansas during World War II.

Each of the 48 states were represented with the state bird and state flower.

Verna’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren live in the states of Washington, New York, California and North Carolina as of this date.

Verna with my hubby long before we met. This is probably 1966 or 1967.

Dear’s Parents, Rex and Verna with their 4 grandchildren in 1982. Two more granddaughters were born in 1985 and 1991. Rex passed away in 1985 before they were born.

Rex, Verna, Dear, Josh me and Dan in 1982.

This photo was taken in 1988 or 1989 at our first home in Washington State. Verna was living with us at this time. My folks, sister and her girls were visiting from California.

This collage is of Dear’s only brother and him and Rex and Verna. I put this collage together to show the similarities the two sons have with their parents. Terry with Verna and Dear with Rex.

We had an unusual social distancing gathering on Easter at our kids home to exchange Easter meal goodies and to see JJ and Addy at their Easter egg hunt. It was a different but good Easter celebrating our Risen Savior! Later in the afternoon we had an extended family Zoom meeting sharing our highs, lows and buffaloes with each other. It was so good to see many of the family units from Texas, Indiana, California and Washington and sharing some prayer requests. I trust you all had a good day.

As soon as my broad band lets me upload my photos from yesterday I’ll share them.

Easter 2020 ~ Christ is Risen!

Christ Is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

Khristos voskrese!    Voistinu voskrese!

Христос воскрес!
воистину воскрес!

Blessings to all on this Glorious Easter Day!

Near the Cross

Jesus, keep me near the cross,
There a precious fountain
Free to all, a healing stream
Flows from Calvary’s mountain.

Refrain

In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Sheds its beams around me.

Refrain

Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day,
With its shadows o’er me.

Refrain

Near the cross I’ll watch and wait
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand,
Just beyond the river.

Refrain

Words: Fanny Crosby

Jesus Christ

We are on the letter J and Jesus Christ is the best choice for me to create a post on this Easter Weekend.

The Old Rugged Cross

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.

Refrain

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.

Refrain

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.

Refrain

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.

Thinking of all our friends and family who will be celebrating alone on this Easter 2020. May God draw you to a closer relationship with Him. Praying that God will wipe out this virus soon so we can meet together again.

Important Events ~ Good Friday

We are on the letter I and I’m choosing Important for my theme. This is an important weekend in the history of Christianity. Today we remember Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified on a cross and when he breathed His last was laid in a tomb.

Were the angels looking down from heaven to see all that would transpire?

Growing up there were Good Fridays when we would fast on that day until our church service in the evening with Communion breaking our fast and then having a meal together.

We will miss being able to attend Good Friday services this year but that will not stop us from our reading and contemplating the importance of this event in history and it’s importance today and in our future.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
From Matthew 27:

The Death of Jesus

45 Now from the sixth hour[f] there was darkness over all the land[g] until the ninth hour.[h] 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47 And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” 48 And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son[i] of God!”

55 There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, 56 among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Jesus Is Buried

57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. 58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 59 And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The Guard at the Tomb

62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard[j] of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

Tomorrow for the letter J my post will be about Jesus and His resurrection including photos from Easters past.

Home and Teaching

We are on the letter H for the A to Z Challenge and I have a resource to share with any of you who are finding yourselves teaching your kids at home during this COVID-19 stay at home period.

 https://kellybagdanov.com/

This is a photo of my brother Steve’s family with a link to my sister-in-law Kelly’s website that is a amazing resource for teaching art and homeschooling in general. Kelly home schooled all the young men in the photo above up to when they went to college. They all completed their college degrees and they are all married now and the young ladies are their wives.  (There are now two more little grands added to the family). Kelly also was a homeschooling  resource for others in her community that were homeschooling offering classes in Science and other subjects. We’ve all probably enjoyed gifted teachers in our lifetime, Kelly is one of the gifted.

Kelly has put together some encouraging videos for those of you who are now trying to teach your children at home.

Don’t miss her YouTube page. You will find her videos on works of art enlightening for yourselves and your students. Hop over and then click on her blog button and enjoy some great lessons to enrich you and your kids.

Wednesday Hodgepodge ~A Homey Easter

For A to Z challenge and the letter G scroll down below Wednesday Hodgepodge!

1. How will you celebrate Easter this year?

This will probably be the first Easter in my whole life that I will not be inside a church building celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ with other Believers in a jammed packed auditorium.

This year Dear and I will enjoy our church service online. We plan on delivering Easter goodies around town beginning with our kids and grandchildren staying at a safe distance. We won’t have our traditional meal of lamb or our wonderful Easter Bread (Paska/Kulich) or the delicious cheese spread, Seernaya Paska. Sigh…

My dining room table will not be set for a crowd.

2. Is it easier for you to receive grace offered or extend grace to another? Explain.

Definitely easier to give than to receive. It is a humbling experience to receive grace, to be forgiven. Pride likes to rear it’s ugly head. It’s easier for me to help than to be helped. Sometimes we are laid low and we can learn the lesson of humility in having to receive instead of being able to give.

Acts 20:35

35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

3. Do you say grace before meals? If so do you have a standard dinnertime grace or is it more ‘off the cuff’ ? Do you say grace when dining out? Do you have a favorite grace? Any special memory associated with ‘saying grace’?

We say grace when we have family around the table. When it’s just Dear and me we usually will say “Thank you Lord for this food!” Our grace changes as the season warrants. If we are having a meal around someone’s birthday we’ll include thanksgiving for them and what they mean to us. We always end our prayers with, In Jesus Name we pray, amen. Sometimes we say grace when dining out but not always. Lately Addy has been interested in saying grace and those are memorable. Our dear Pop’s prayers at special gatherings are very memorable as well.

Our father shared in this video that our mother thought this might be the last year they’d be having Christmas together and that did come to pass as she was ushered into heaven in September of 2013, on their 70th Wedding Anniversary. Our Pop followed our Mom to heaven in June of 2018.

4. What are some challenges you think the next generation will face? (Generation Alpha-born between 2011 and 2025)

Generation Alpha will have a very hard time honoring the purpose for which God created Man, Woman, Sex, Marriage and Family because of the twisted deconstructing of family and marriage that this world is legislating and forcing on us now. Like generations before they will be duped into believing it’s okay to kill a baby in the womb.  May God have mercy on us all.

5. Share a favorite quote or lyric featuring the word faith.

Current favorite quote about faith:

Faith is not a power which you possess to create your own future. Faith is a God-given ability to trust the future that God has promised you. ~ John MacArthur

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

My sister Lana recorded our Dear Pop answering some questions about prayer and fasting. Note: Our pop has a familiarity with the disciples. He calls John, Jack and Jacob and it might be in this video where he calls Peter, Pete.  Our Pop wasn’t perfect by any means but he knew what was important and that his righteousness came from Jesus.

Thank you to Joyce for posing the questions and thank you to all of you who visited my post. The link to the Hodgepodge is HERE.

Grandchildren

For Wednesday April 8th we are on the letter G and I’m choosing grandchildren and grandmothers for my theme.

Both of our daughters in law are the cream of the crop. During this distancing time Jamie had Addy and JJ’s hand prints made for the sweetest hugs I could get when hugs are out of the question. This is the note that came with the handprints connected with yarn:

Here is a hug with a handmade touch. Reminding you I love you this much!

So sorry but the internets at this country bungalow are not uploading my photos of my handprints. boohoo. As soon as I can I’ll add them to the post.

In the meantime here are the latest photos of the grands that I have from our DIL.

We’ve had some beautiful sunshiny days and the grands have enjoyed the sunshine. Addy is enjoying painting rocks and JJ is supervising.

The whole family have enjoyed some walks in the sunshine.

Addy received her birthday present from Uncle Andrew and Auntie Katie and this is one of the creations from these magnet blocks.

This little guy is 9 days shy of being a year old! He will not have his epic 1st birthday party on his day or anywhere near his day. It was going to be a lumberjack birthday with ax throwing and log rolling for the adults!

Here’s the latest photo of me, the paternal grandmother/baba of these two…

Here I am in the mask I made from my Beatrix Potter fabric that is from my stash. It’s over 40 years old.

The following photos were posted randomly as they showed up in my media library. They are not in chronological order. With my internet issues right now this is the way it is…

This is a photo of me with my mother and maternal grandmother. We called her our little Babushka. This is in the early 70’s. April 8th was our mom’s birthday. She would have been 97 today.

After our little babushka had an apartment of her own that was just a few doors down from the Russian Baptist church that we attended we’d enjoy Christmas breakfast before church services at her apartment. The photo above is of her with our sister Lana.

Photos from our wedding at the end of 1974.

My paternal grandparents at my sister’s home in Huntington Beach in the 70’s.

Our maternal grandmother with all of her grandchildren in the mid fifties. She would enjoy 5 more grandchildren born in the late fifties and early 60’s. Our mom only had one brother who survived into adulthood. Our mom’s only brother, Uncle Paul and Aunt Nina had 4 children. Our parents had 4 more children after the time of this photo which happens to be an Easter photo.

Our little babushka is in this group. Can you find her? This was taken at our second home in Huntington Beach where our 2 sons were born. Our little Babushka Vera died in March of 1980.

These photos with me and my babushka are at my 9th grade graduation and 12th grade graduation, 1965 and 1968.

Our maternal babushka had a more hands on relationship with all of us but that is not to say we didn’t have a relationship with our paternal grandparents. We honored them and loved them but we didn’t enjoy as close a bond with them as with our dear little Babushka. Since she immigrated as a widow she was more free to spend lots of time with us.

I’m sure all grandmother’s are looking forward to spending hands on time again with their grandchildren. We are missing those sweet hugs and face to face interactions.

Favorites

Today is the letter F and it took a while to settle on a theme or a word starting with F. How about Favorites from Easter’s Past or Flashbacks from Easter Past. These photos were from a cooking class the Mennonite Girls Can Cook taught at Lepp Farm Market in Abbotsford, British Columbia in 2014. The class was for Mennonite Heritage (Russian/Ukrainian) foods we enjoy at Easter especially Paska (Kulich-Russian Easter Bread), Seernaya Paska (Sweet Cheese Spread for the Paska) and other Mennonite foods.

Paska (Kulich) a very traditional Russian/Ukrainian Easter bread that is frosted and sprinkled!

Our daughter Katie traveled with me to Canada for this cooking class and took most of the photos during the class. This will be an Easter where our family does not gather to bake Russian Easter Bread together.

This is what our family’s Easter bread looks like. We bake the bread in old coffee cans we’ve saved from years past.

And here’s a flashback to the fifties, a family photo in our Easter finery. I’m in yellow with my classic Buster Brown haircut!

Back to the present. Today is Tuesday April 7, 2020. Yesterday I started the process to try to make a couple face masks. Pray for me because sewing has gotten me into so much trouble in my past. I was sent to detention in 7th grade because of something I said to my sewing teacher. OYE! My sisters are more talented in the art of sewing than me. My mother was a great seamstress, too. Me…not so much! I hope I can finish a mask today!!

Elastic is so hard to come by these days and look what I found in my sewing bin! A new package of the right kind of elastic for making masks!

I can’t remember why we bought this sewing machine but there it is and here I am hoping the threading is right and the tension is right and the stitching will go without the bobbin thread getting all backed up, etc. etc.

But…look at my delightful fabric that I’ve kept in my sewing bin for over 40 years now! Our firstborn’s room was themed after Peter Rabbit/Beatrix Potter and I bought this fabric thinking I’d sew curtains or something. Now I’ll be able to use it for Covid19 masks!! Who would have fathomed!

Forging Forward full of faith forever founded in Father God the author and finisher of our faith!

Looking forward to fun family and friend fellowship in the future!!

Do you sew? I’m sending my excess elastic to my sister Vera who has received requests for her to sew face masks for them. Eeek but now I have to make sure and finish a mask before I head to the Post office to mail that elastic to her!

Happy Tuesday y’all!

Easter Week

We are on the letter E for the A to Z Challenge and my choice for the letter E is Easter Week.

This Easter Week will go down in history as the Corona Virus Holy Week of 2020!

Our church will be celebrating Easter together in the flesh once the Stay at Home orders are lifted, sometime in the summer. We will have an online celebration this coming Sunday, on Easter.

Part of Easter Week (Holy Week) is Maundy Thursday, The Last Supper and the Washing of the Disciples Feet.

The Last Supper and the Washing of the Disciples Feet are both remarkable events.

While in Milan in March of 2013 I was able to see Leonardo da Vinci’s mural of the Last Supper. The original mural is on a wall of the refectory (dining hall) in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. No photos allowed.

Dear and I were in England in 2014 and we saw two amazing paintings of the last supper, one in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist in Windsor and one in the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford.

The Thames 104 - Copy - CopyFrom the Lectern, look down the centre aisle and observe in the West Gallery a painting of The Last Supper. This is a national treasure. The picture was originally presented to the Royal Chapel c. 1660 by Brian Duppa, Bishop of Winchester, Prelate of the Order of the Garter. It was “bought by him beyond the sea”. Another tradition ascribes it to Franz de Cleyn (1588-1658), Rostock, Mecklenburg, Court painter to James I. It was rolled up and buried “in the plumery” (plumbers workshop?) in the Great Rebellion. It hung over the altar at St George’s, Windsor in 1702, and can be seen there in Sandby’s drawing dated 1786.

The Thames 094

Oxford Day 6 141Above the stalls in the chapel hangs Giampetrino’s remarkable 15th copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, on permanent loan from the Royal Academy. In view of the bad condition of the original fresco in Milan, Magdalen’s copy on canvas is a piece of increasing historic and artistic significance.

Oxford Day 6 144This next sculpture of Jesus washing Peter’s feet is at the Gardens of the World in Thousand Oaks, California.

GOTW-practice035

Excerpts from John chapter 13…

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;  so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.  “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Thinking of all my friends and family during this time of “Social Distancing”. Hoping you all are holding up under this time of unrest. It’s a good time to heed Jesus’ words and love one another and care for one another and wash one another’s feet.

This song is one that our Russian Community sings at funerals but it is a song with words that are relevant in this time of being apart. I am looking forward to that time “till we meet again”.

Jesus is All the World to Me ~ Hymn

Jesus is All the World to Me

Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all;
He is my strength from day to day,
Without Him I would fall.
When I am sad, to Him I go,
No other one can cheer me so;
When I am sad, He makes me glad,
He’s my friend.

Jesus is all the world to me,
My friend in trials sore;
I go to Him for blessings, and
He gives them over and o’er.
He sends the sunshine and the rain,
He sends the harvest’s golden grain;
Sunshine and rain, harvest of grain,
He’s my friend.

Jesus is all the world to me,
And true to Him I’ll be;
O how could I this friend deny,
When He’s so true to me?
Following Him I know I’m right,
He watches o’er me day and night;
Following Him by day and night,
He’s my friend.

Jesus is all the world to me,
I want no better friend;
I trust Him now, I’ll trust Him when
Life’s fleeting days shall end.
Beautiful life with such a friend,
Beautiful life that has no end;
Eternal life, eternal joy,
He’s my friend.

Words: Will L. Thompson, 1904.

This is Palm Sunday and it’s hard to not be in services with other believers. So thankful for being able to meet online and enjoy time together in another way…