Christ in the Arts Winter Dance Performance

Daughter #3 and I went to Lubbock this weekend to see Z in her dance recital. I was very impressed with the program.They had beautiful Chrisian music, the performers were dressed modestly, danced beautifully and the choreography was excellent. The First Baptist Church of Lubbock is a beautiful building. Miss Z after her performance.

I walked to church with some of the kids. We visited a church that is new to Miss Z and her family. It is a 15 minute walk from their home. (That's if you are walking with a granny.)

Will you open the ketchup for me?

E made spinach and cheese ravioli.

M's hair is growing.

W had a successful trip to JoAnn's to find fabric for the nursery. (not the blue plaid..that is a purse)

Preparing for a trip with 3 little ones is a big undertaking.

A couple of cousins tried unsuccessfully to trade siblings. They offered to trade I. for just about anyone. Mom didn't go for it.

You never know what you might see on the street in Lubbock!

Bathroom Makeover

Every year at Christmas, my husband asks me what I want and I ask him to do a project in the house. This year, we did a bathroom makeover. I don't have a before picture. but it was hunter green and cranberry red plaid with a map of the world wallpaper that we put in there over 20 years ago and was very 80's. I did find a couple "before the before" pictures, though and I knew you would love to see them. Here is daughter #1 getting her hair done on her wedding day. She is going to celebrate her 25th anniversary this year. This wallpaper is original to the house. I had forgotten what it looked like. I like it better than the green and cranberry.
Another before the before picture with daughters #2 and #3. They think it is a prophetic picture. Daughter #2 last name is now Morris. Oops, actually this is the other bathroom. That wallpaper is still there! Well, at least the carpet is gone. Maybe this will be for next Christmas.
I think the rug may be too small for the space. It is the only size available that matches the shower curtain. Since the walls had never been painted, we had to texture it, then painted it grey.
We got a new light fixture, and painted the mirror frame.
This is one of our photos of the trestle near Cloudcroft, New Mexico after a snow. I can exchange it for a different photo in the spring.
With the map of the world gone, I had a space for another one of our photos. This is a lake near Tampa, Florida where Jenny took us when we visited her.
I started with the shower curtain and choose my colors from it.
I found this trash can at Ross for $8. The regular bathroom trash cans are $20.
We got new towel racks and paper dispenser and made this little shelf. I need another something to put up there. This photo is the "Overseas railroad" in Florida.

Things can get embarrassing on facebook when you are friends with your grandmother

Or "Your mama dresses you funny" OK, maybe I did the wrong thing, but I thought this was the cutest little picture, ever. Isn't she cute? Her mama made that hat and took her somewhere (Sears?) and had this made. So on her 17th birthday, I thought I was being really clever and posted it on facebook. AND IT DISAPPEARED!
Go figure.
I hope she doesn't unfriend me.

I don't want to be a fake, either

I will never forget the Sunday that I sat in the congregation on Sunday morning and listened to the pastor preach one of those sermons that most of us have heard more than once.

"Just have faith. You will never be sick. The people you love will never die. People will always like you. Money will grow on trees. You can live a safe and peaceful perfect life."

The truth was: in just 2 hours, the people who sat in that audience, including the pastor, were to be attending the funeral of our friend, 40 years old, who thousands of her friends and family had prayed for many years who had died from breast cancer.

Philip Yancey is my favorite author. Some of his books have interesting titles. This is his latest. I got it for Christmas.
Some of his others are:

Disappointment with God
Where is God when it hurts?
What's So Amazing about Grace?
Prayer: Does it make any difference?
Reaching for the Invisible God
The Gift of Pain
Church: Why Bother?
Soul Survivor: How 13 unlikely mentors helped my faith survive the church

Here are some things Philip says:

• God seems to value character more than our comfort, often using the very elements that cause us the most discomfort as His tools fashioning that character. We are all a story being written, with an ending only faintly glimpsed by us.
• God does not accept me conditionally on the basis of my performance, but loves and forgives me despite my failures.
• Human beings need problems more than we need solutions. Problems stretch us and press us toward dependence on God. Success represents a greater danger..toward pride and self satisfaction.
• On this planet God allows us to be put in harms way. Buildings collapse, tectonic plates shift, viruses proliferate, evil people resort to violence. If we believe God's promises, these things do not reflect his ultimate will, but while we spend our days on planet earth, bad things will happen.
• In the face of tragedy, we can respond by blaming God or turn to Him and trust him to fashion good out of bad, to use whatever happens as the raw material for a new story. A story that will be much different than it would have been without the tragedy or failure, but in some ways even richer and redeemed.

When we try to make our life sound like a picnic, we hurt the cause of Christ. If we pretend that our lives are perfect, how can we hope to help those who are going through bad times or enduring hurt and disappointment?
Our wounds are the very things that God uses to allow us to receive grace and empower us to reach out and offer comfort to another grieving, hurting, disappointed person.
Our testimonies are our best opportunities to minister. Jesus knew the power of identification. He was betrayed. He knew what it was like to have friends walk away and gossip about him. When Thomas doubted his resurrection, he showed him the wounds. Sometimes, people will only listen to you after they have seen your wounds.
But he giveth more grace, Wherefore he saith, God resists the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. James 4:6

Help me choose colors for my bathroom makeover

It seems the colors this season for bathrooms are #1: grey and aqua or

#2: brown and beige. The colors are a little off in the pictures, but in real life they match. This shower curtain is described as a chenille stripe.Or #3: aqua and beige. This is the same shower curtain in aqua instead of beige. The towel looks darker in the picture, but it is really the same color as the curtain.

This is me today. I wore my socks to the mall to shop for shower curtains.

I am happy to report I started back to weight watchers 3 weeks ago and have lost 6.8 pounds. Even lost 1 during Christmas week. A big thank you to Jesus! Now I need to put those socks into some shoes and hit the street.

Nativities

Last year, after visiting The Arboretum in Dallas and seeing the thousands of Nativities displayed, I ordered some for my house from ebay. I had fun decorating with them this year. This one is in the kitchen on a bookcase. This one is on a little shelf above the bookcase

with this one.

These are also on the bookcase. (My Native American heritage overcomes me at times.)

I have my old, childproof ones on the bookcase, too, with the books I want to read to my grandchildren.

In the den on the piano

and on the table This one I bought in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

and the entertainment cabinet...this is another old one That is my digital photo frame with pictures of my family in the middle. I need a larger picture there. Maybe I will make my family dress in pink and blue for our Christmas photo this year and enlarge it for this space next year. I know they would be happy to do that for me.

The mantel

This one really needs to be a little larger for the mantel. Maybe I will look for a larger one for next year.

also on the mantle This one is a music box snow globe.

This one is in the window but I had to move it to get the picture.

I found a little strand of battery operated lights, too.

The Absolutely Last Cruise Pages

Halifax, Nova Scotia was our last stop. I got my pages out of order. This page is the ship leaving the port. I think the people on this ship were feeling no pain....they were waving and shouting to us. It was another beautiful sunset and as usual, we could not tear ourselves away from it until it was totally dark.

Peggy's Cove is a small fishing village near Halifax. Our bus took us there and we got to stay and hour and 15 minutes. When we got off the bus and looked around, I told Basil, I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony. (Know what to do but not where to start)

I also told him when we left, that if we had been on our own with a car, we would have stayed a week.

The famous lighthouse....the challenge was photo shopping all the people out! There were lots and lots of people there...it was a big bus. There was one guy who kept pacing back and forth in front of it, talking on his cell. There were at least a dozen people waiting near us to take a picture, and there were some unflattering things said about him. (Not by us, of course)

This church was on the way back to Halifax. The guide let us off the bus again!

We stopped at Citadel Hill in Halifax, too. It is a military fortress established by the British in 1749. Halifax harbor is one of the largest natural harbors in the world and was an important port in WWI and WWII.

I was very interested in the Halifax explosion that took place during WW I

in 1917 and read several books about it before our trip. It was caused by

the collision of a ship carrying munitions to Europe with a ship carrying

relief supplies. All structures for 1.25 square miles were obliterated.

The explosion cause a tsunami in the harbour and a pressure wave of air that snapped trees, bent iron and carried fragments of the ships for miles. It killed 2,000 people, injured 9,000 more and left 10,000 homeless and without shelter. 12 doctors treated 592 people for eye injuries. 249 of them had eyes removed, 16 of them had both eyes removed. The eye injuries were mostly caused by flying shards of shattered glass.

The following day a blizzard hit the city, hindering recovery and rescue efforts. In the following week, help came from all over North America and donations from all over the world. The most celebrated relief effort came from Boston and every Christmas Nova Scotia sends a tree for the Boston Common as a thank you for their help during the explosion.

We had a little time to walk the streets of Halifax. The mansion is the official residence of the Premier of Nova Scotia.

This is the cover of my album. Do you think I should leave that on the front? I thought it would help me find it. With 70 albums laying around, sometimes I have trouble finding the one I want.

This one of my pocket pages. I have 3 in this album. I had street maps from most of the towns we visited to use for the backgrounds.

When I was almost finished, I found some more pictures of New Bruswick.

This page is the mall, city market and street scenes of St John. Husband does not like the moose in the middle, but I do. I just knew I was going to see a moose and get a picture but this is the only one I saw.

These are more Reversing Rapids and Le Peau falls. I was surprised to find so many wild flowers in September in Canada.