The Number Two

The last few days have been tough in America. Two plane tragedies with loss of life. Devastated families and communities. May they find peace in the Lord during these times.

Our church had one service on Sunday mornings until today. Needed to expand to two services because we were at capacity. Lew and I went to the second service, which was nicely attended. Apparently the first service had a nice turnout, too.

Groundhog Day today. The 2nd day of the 2nd month. I heard the groundhog predicted six more weeks of winter. Sounds about right.

Tomorrow I start my final two-day work week. I'll be going to three days the following week. I'm hoping to go back to two days at some point, but we'll see.

May you have a blessed February!

Hungry After Church

This morning's church service ended and Lew said, "I'm hungry." I agreed.

What to do for lunch?  Lew made a decision....

Ice cream from the Dairy Corner.

Good idea, Lew!

🍨

March is Mad

Lots of stuff the past few days:

March Madness! The NCAA basketball tournaments (both men and women) are great sporting events. I love watching the games. Lew likes filling out the brackets.

More March Madness! It SNOWED on Saturday. Then it turned into an ice storm. We lost our electricity around 7:40pm on Saturday evening and didn't get it back until last night around 7:30pm... so almost a whole 24 hours without power. Besides being cold, we also missed watching lots of basketball.

Many area churches lost power as well and had to cancel services yesterday. Our church was one of them. A strange Palm Sunday indeed.

Dad had a good follow-up appointment with his foot surgeon today. The nurse at rehab is doing an evaluation tomorrow, so I expect he will be home within the next couple days. He still needs to stay off his foot as much as he can, but it is healing nicely.

Thanks for checking in!

The Book After Titus

We just had a two-week sermon series on the book of Philemon at our church.

How is Philemon pronounced?

During the sermon series, the preacher said it like this: fill-EE-mun. Emphasis on the middle syllable.

A variation that I thought I heard him say a couple times: file-EE-mun.  Fill vs. file.

Either way, emphasis on the middle.

Now we need a series on Habakkuk! 😁

Sunday Encouragement

Our pastor has been preaching through the book of Colossians. Two more weeks to go after today!

The main topic of today's passage was prayer, which reminded of the best encouragement I've heard regarding prayer. (Can't remember where I heard it.)

Many people, myself included, struggle with staying focused while praying. Here's the encouragement:

Pray until you pray.

Have a blessed week! 

Sunday Snowday

The snow started falling overnight. The worst of the storm was mid-afternoon today. It stopped a short time ago. I now hear the sounds of plows out doing their work.

Our church was one of the few that didn't cancel this morning, but we opted to watch online. It was a good decision on our part, especially since we weren't plowed out yet!

The football games have been fun to watch today. Except for the Patriots game... what a terrible year.

I believe my new office-mate is feeling better, so she will start with us tomorrow. Hooray!

Best wishes to all for the week ahead.

😊

Happy Easter!

Our church added a Saturday evening service this weekend, so Lew and I attended that last night.

This morning Dad and I watched a livestream of Kim and Joe participating in their church's Easter choir. (Joe was the director and Kim was a "directee.")  We enjoyed being able to sit in Maine and watch their service taking place in Illinois. 

I visited with Mom late morning. I played one of the songs from Kim and Joe's choir. Then we watched some of the dog show and some cornhole. 

Dad, Lew, and I went to Debbie's for an Easter luncheon. It was a lovely time and we all ate far too much.

HE IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Happy April!

Last night I was paying great attention to the weather in Illinois. Tornado warnings! Kim and Kaelen were keeping us updated via text message. We are all thankful that our Illinois family got through the storms okay. (Apparently they are expecting more bad weather mid-week. Ugh!)

Speaking of the weather, I have stored my winter boots until next season. Now that it is April 1st, I am counting on NO MORE SNOW. 

This is Final Four weekend for the NCAA basketball tournaments. I stayed up late last night to watch the women's semi-final games. I must say that the women are as fun to watch as the men are. They are SO good!

This is also Palm Sunday weekend. If our church hands out palms tomorrow, I will bring mine to Mom when I visit her in the afternoon.

I just thought, "April 1st! That's right, it's April Fool's Day!" I'm not really much for April Fool's jokes, so I hope your day has been kind and joke-free!

Happy New Year!

After an early New Year's Eve party at my friend Ellen's house, Lew and I thought we would both be sound asleep by the time 2023 arrived.

Instead we were wide awake watching the college football playoff game between Ohio State and Georgia. It didn't get over until after midnight (EST)!

Despite the late night, we did make it to the 10:30 service at our church this morning.

Happy New Year, everybody! Wishing you many blessings in 2023.

💗

Have a Merry Christmas!

We survived the high winds of yesterday.  Our power blipped a couple times and we did lose cable TV and internet service for a few hours.  But we were fortunate.  Some households lost power for several hours and I'm not sure whether all service has been restored yet.

Lew and I went to a Christmas Eve service at our church today. We will spend tomorrow morning with Matt, Emily, Eli, and Adam. Then — after a quick visit with my mother — we will lunch at Debbie's house.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

JOY TO THE WORLD!  🌟

Fall Kickoff

This morning I attended the Women's Ministry Fall Kickoff at my church.

It was a lovely time and I made some new friends! Got a chance to catch up with some "old" friends, too.

Coffee, tea, juice, and water were served.

As for the food?

Muffins! (It's been a "muffin" couple of days!) I had the pumpkin strudel.  😋

Friday/Saturday Rundown

Yesterday (Friday)

Morning: Continued cleaning and organizing the house.

Afternoon: Visited Mom.

Evening: Attended Portland Sea Dogs baseball game with Lew, Debbie, Glen, Josh, and Zack. (Sea Dogs lost, but we had fun.)

Today (Saturday)

Morning: Attended the women's ministry Renew Spring Mingle at church.

Afternoon: Visited Mom.

Late afternoon/evening: Posted several items on my town's "Buy Nothing" Facebook page and then corresponded (a lot) with people that actually wanted some of the stuff I posted!

Now:  Zzzzzzzzz....

Two Christmas Pageants

My niece Kelsey directed the children's Christmas pageant/program at her church this year. Her son, Bode, played a donkey. He was cute and squirmy! The program was last Sunday.  Mom and I watched the video of it online that afternoon, and we thought we had identified Bode... but we were wrong. So we watched it again today, eyes glued on the correct donkey this time! Great job, Kelsey! Great job, Bode!

I decided to read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to Mom. The book is by Barbara Robinson. We finished reading it yesterday, so today we watched the 1983 made-for-TV special. (I found it on YouTube. It's less than 50 minutes long.) Mom and I enjoyed both the book and the TV special.  If you have a chance to read/watch it, then I encourage you to do so.  Experiencing the Christmas story through the eyes of the Herdman family is a delight.  "Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

Our first heavy snowfall of the year is happening right now.  ❄❅❆

Easy Recipes Online

I am considering going to a ladies' breakfast at church next Saturday morning. It's potluck. I am not very domestic (understatement!), so I need to bring something easy to make. I have some "easy" cookbooks — all gifts from sympathetic family members — so I will probably find something in one of those.

But I did do a brief online search just now for "easy" recipes.  What I learned: "Easy" is a relative term. Most of them look fairly complicated to me!

Domestically challenged, I am.

Vacation Finale

Today, the last Sunday in July 2021, is the final day of my vacation. The week has been restful and enjoyable. Working backwards over the past few days....

Today: Rainy weather. Lew and I went to the 8:30 am church service and now I am doing laundry and some additional "let's get caught up on things before going back to work" tasks.

Yesterday: Beautiful day! Lew and I went to visit our friends Ellen & Paul at their lakeside camp. Our friends Anne-Marie & Peter were also there. We talked, went on a boat ride, had a late-afternoon swim, and ate far too much. It was wonderful!

Friday: The big event of the day was going out to eat at the diner. Dad, Debbie, Josh, and Bode sat at one table. Kelsey, Zachariah, Lew, and I sat at another. Lew and I enjoyed the chance to chat with Kelsey and Zach.

Thursday: Kelsey, Zach, and Bode arrived! 😍

A Three-Shower Day

1.  It rained this morning, although it did clear up by the afternoon. The sun made a nice showing.

2.  After using the elliptical machine, "yours truly" always needs a shower!

3.  We had a baby shower at church this morning. The baby was born in early September, so she came to the shower with her mama. She got all sorts of cute little girl clothes and lots of diapers!

Milestones

Dad, Lew, and I watched Josh's virtual graduation ceremony from Maine Maritime Academy yesterday morning. Congratulations, Josh! We are so proud of you!

For the first time in over two months, our church met in person this morning! We had to socialize in the parking lot after the service, but nobody seemed to mind. Lew and I really enjoyed seeing everybody.

Last Sunday, May 31st, marked my one-year anniversary at work. Although I started on April 10, 2019, I was a temp-to-hire and became a permanent hire on May 31, 2019. It doesn't seem like a whole year could have gone by already. Time flies!

The March Madness of 2020: II

So, how is everyone holding up?

My workplace is still functioning, although my boss did have me get my work laptop set up with VPN so I can work from home if it comes to that.

Kim and Kaelen decided not to fly home tomorrow. Getting on an airplane right now is indeed a risk. So they will be here longer, which is nice for us... but not as nice for Joe back in Illinois. (Hang in there, Joe!)

Mom is still at Pine Point Center and seems to be doing okay. She has the phone close by, and she is calling Dad quite often. I believe she called 10 times yesterday! Not sure what today's count is up to yet, but I think it will rival yesterday's. She may come home within a week or so; we are taking things one day at a time. Please continue to pray!

Our pastor delivered his sermon via Facebook Live today. For all its faults, social media has been of great value during this crazy time. It's important to stay connected.

Please take care, everyone!

Christmas Eve

Lew and I just returned home from our church's Christmas Eve service. It ended with the singing of Silent Night by candlelight. (We held real candles, not the battery-operated ones.) Our pastor delivered a great message of the Gospel and why the birth of Jesus matters.... It really is Good News!

Lew and I will spend tomorrow morning with Matt, Emily, Eli, Adam, Wayne, and hopefully Sarah, Rylie, and new baby Ryker. We will then come home for a few minutes to get ready for our afternoon outing, which will be at Debbie & Glen's house. My parents will be heading down there, too. (It's a long trip... about a 30-second drive!) Josh and Zack are both home from college, so it will be fun to hang out with them for a bit.

Although it will be a busy Christmas day, we are blessed to be spending it with family..

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

A Late Night

Tonight I went to a women's event at an area church. The event was from 7-10 PM. It was very nice and I'm glad I went.

But now I'm glad to be home because it is way past my bedtime!

💤😴💤