Dead or Alive?

This morning as I was sitting on the couch, I happened to glance outside like I do quite often when relaxing or watching TV while on the couch.  This time, however, when I looked at the trees I felt that the Holy Spirit was showing me something.  I'll try my best to explain :o)

If you know where we live, then you know that the lot just north of us is nothing but a big lot full of pine trees and evergreen trees.  Not only do we like not having neighbors right beside us, but it's also a great wind block from those cold northerly winter winds!

From the outside, the trees look great . . . tall, green and quite nice to look at too.

But if you venture to the inside, well, it's a whole different kind of story.

It's dead . . .

Very little sunlight and greenery . . .

and quite dry and barren.

I felt like God was saying this.  How many times do we put on a good front to those who come in contact with us?  We are always happy and smiling, always got it together, putting forth our best so that others won't come inside to know how we are really feeling . . . dead, abandoned, broken and dry.

The reason the trees on the inside are like this is because the sunshine can't get to the inner most parts of the lot.  These same trees look great from the top and from the sides because it gets all the sun.  In the same way, if we don't have the Son in our inner most parts, then we may look good to those on the outside, but on the inside we are just dead, not thriving and living as the way our Father God intended for us.

If this is how you feeling, ask Jesus to help thin out the trees (junk), so that the Son can come and shine in and through you and that you might truly be alive!

There you have it . . . nothing earth moving and nothing you probably haven't heard before.  But realizing God is speaking to you through simple things is still quite humbling and encouraging (to me at least).  Be blessed and encouraged today!

1st Day of School

Summer quickly came to an end this past week with the start of school.  This school year brings us a

5th grader

a 2nd grader

and a 1st grader

It's so hard to believe that this is Allyson's final year at Model Elementary!  It seems like it was only yesterday that I walked Allyson to her first day of kindergarten while pushing Janae and Kaycie in the double stroller.  AND this is the last year that all three girls will ever be in the same school building!  The next time Allyson will have a sister in the same school with her will be when she is a senior.  That means Janae will be a freshman . . . sure don't like to think that about that yet, so I won't.  :o)

They've officially been in school one week, and despite it being a bit tough (for the younger two) to get readjusted from being away from home for such a long time ("why does school have to be sooo long?!" - Janae), all are enjoying their new grades.

DIY - Outdoor Swing Canopy

I don't remember how long we've had our outdoor swing, but it was definitely showing its age. Last year we had to replace the cushions, and this year the canopy needed replacement.  The big question was do I try to make one myself or find a replacement on the internet?  After searching, I did find a possible replacement, but it was out of stock and with shipping added to the cost, the price was a bit high.

I then checked around for outdoor fabrics and discovered that JoAnn Fabrics had a 50% off sale on all outdoor fabrics until this Saturday  :)  Time to act fast!  I went to my local store and found what I wanted.

Here are a few pictures of the old canopy.  That dark spot just right of center is a patch I had just put on earlier this year to cover up a tear.

My new fabric cut into strips for the overhang.

The top of the canopy.

All pieced together.  At this point, I did not have the sleeves and velcro sewed on to attach the canopy to the frame.  One way I saved even more money was that I reused the velcro strips from the old canopy!  It's definitely not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but not too shabby for a first-time trying :)

Ta-Da!

Yes, the sides are longer than the front.  I needed to make them slightly longer as I didn't make my top part of the canopy long enough to account for the slight bow in the frame, but I didn't realize that it would be this much longer than the front and back.  Oh well . . . don't think I want to take it back down again and shorten it.  We'll just live with the way it is and hope it lasts for more than one season!  :)

Do You Really Know What It Means?!

This morning I read through one of my favorite chapters in Psalms - Psalm 145.

1 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever.  2  Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever . . . 10 All you have made will praise you, O Lord; your saints will extol you.

When I got to verse 10 and noticed once again the word extol, I decided it was finally time to find out exactly what this word means and not just think and assume I know.

After looking online, I was actually quite surprised by the definition of the word . . . it is a verb and means praise enthusiastically.  Some synonyms are:  go into raptures about/over, wax lyrical about, sing the praises of, praise to the skies, acclaim, exalt, eulogize, adulate, rhapsodize over, rave about, enthuse about/over, overpraise; (informal) go wild about, go on about, ballyhoo; (formal) laud.

Praise enthusiastically!  WOW!  Do we really worship and praise our Father enthusiastically?  Do we live our lives where people know that we extol our King?!

1  I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever.  2  Every day I will praise you and praise enthusiastically your name for ever and ever . . . 10 All you have made will praise you, O Lord; your saints will praise you enthusiastically.

May we truly Extol the Lord our God.

Another DIY

A number of years ago, a friend of mine gave me a wreath she had made for my birthday.  Once she gave it to me, I had decided to give it a try myself and make a few more wreaths.  Including the one she gave me, I have a total of four - one for each season.

The one I made for spring was never a favorite but it was nice.  For the past several years, I've been wanting to re-do it and use tulips on the wreath, but I could never find silk tulips.  That is until yesterday!  I found some at Michael's and the best part was that they were 1/2 price :o)

Here are a few pics of what I did.

My blank canvas - yes, I should have taken a picture of what it looked like before, but I didn't think of it :o(

I went through my pile of clothes that will be donated to Goodwill and found this shirt - a perfect match.

My two bouquets of tulips.

Gluing the fabric around the flowers.

The finished product!  Not too shabby if I do say so myself :o)

Trees

Twelve years ago when we bought our house, we had three huge shade trees in our front yard.  Over the years that has changed.  And for the past eight months, we haven't had any trees in our front yard :o(

I could not find any pictures that showed all three of the trees, but here are some that I did find.

This tree was the first to come down (in 2006) . . . NIPSCO cut it down due to a split in the trunk.  We now have a flower bed in that spot.

This was the last tree to come down.  We asked NIPSCO to take it down, and they did in July 2013.

Several years earlier NIPSCO had come to the door telling us that this tree was in danger of coming down in a storm due to the way the trunk was growing.  Our other tree (use your imagination - it looked just like this one and was right beside the driveway) we were told was fine. We told them we weren't interested and left it at that - I wasn't ready to give up all of my shade.  Well, guess what.  The tree that was suppose to be ok came down during a storm a few years later! :o(  And so when NIPSCO came by again, I asked them if they would still take down this tree and plant a replacement for us (all at no cost to us), and they said "of course".

I so miss my trees and shade!

So today after a long hard winter, we have finally gotten two replacement trees planted in our front yard!  :o)

Yes, the new trees are really hard to see, but I was told that they are somewhat fast growers so we should see significant growth in the next few years :o)  Also thinking that once they get some leaves, it will help too :o)

DIY Project

I noticed the other month that Allyson had quite a few necklaces hanging in her small jewelry box.  Her jewelry box is a very nice one, but is not the best place to hang necklaces as it is a bit too short.  It also wasn't very easy to see what necklaces you had, let alone to keep them untangled.  

So I decided to go online to see if there were any ideas for making your own necklace holder.  There were quite a few ideas to pick from, and here is what I ended up doing.  

All I needed was a smaller sized bulletin board, push pins, some fabric and a stapler.

A few weeks ago I found the bulletin board at JoAnn Fabrics, which happened to be on sale :o), for only $4.00, and I already had the push pins.  

And today I found a small piece of material at Walmart for only $1.00.

Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself :o)