Strawberries are Finally Planted!

We are really behind in planting this year. We bought a used tiller this spring to help with preparing the soil, and it has had several issues which have led to planting being delayed and delayed. Jeff finally went and rented a tiller yesterday so that we could get it done before it’s too late! I am pleased to report that the big garden has now been tilled, as well as beds for the sunflowers and berries we are planting. All that’s left to do before planting is to finish supplementing the soil (we have clay here), which should happen in the next few days.

We had already bought enough supplement for several small areas, so I was able to get the strawberry plants in yesterday. This made the plants very happy, as they’ve been living in small pots on our patio table for about 2 weeks, getting watered when I thought about it, which was not often enough. Now they can dig their roots down deep and drink in more moisture. Hopefully, they’ll decide to do this, and not shrivel up and die.

I couldn’t get the whole plot in one picture, so I took two and you can use your imagination to patch them together in your mind for the full view. Behind the strawberries, in the square on the left (top picture), I planted yellow and red sweet onions (this is way late for these, seeing as how I planted them in February last year!). In the square on the right (lower picture and behind the strawberries), I planted zucchini seeds, which should provide an over-abundance of zucchinis this summer, if these guys are as productive as the ones we planted last year.

The kids and I also planted sunflowers yesterday, against the barn as we did last year. These are so much fun to grow and make a nice view for summertime.

Blessings,
Nancy

Exciting Bird Sightings!

Sunday we saw two exciting new birds at the feeders – at the same time even! We couldn’t grab our cameras in time to take pictures, but I found a couple of pictures on Flickr to share with you.

This first one is a painted bunting! The picture shows a male (on the right) and a female (on the left). We saw the beautifully colored male! Thankfully, most of us were in the kitchen at the time it appeared outside the window, so many were able to see it. The back of this bird is a yellow/green, so you can imagine how lovely he really was! Here’s the picture I found –

Photo by leppyone

I have never seen one of these birds before in my life, so I was really excited!

Believe it or not, at the same time that the painted bunting was here, an indigo bunting also showed up! He was the most beautiful color of blue!! I may have seen one of these about 2 years ago way out by the pond, but have never seen one this close up until now. Here is the picture I found of an indigo bunting –

Photo by hart_curt

Later in the day, the indigo bunting came back to the feeder (I was camera-less again!), but I didn’t ever see the painted bunting again. Just knowing he’s out there, though, will keep me peering out the kitchen window a bit more from now on! Maybe I’ll park my camera by the kitchen window, too.

Blessings,
Nancy

I Won a Prize!

I was so surprised to learn that I won a prize in the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival! I didn’t have much chance to sign up for too many giveaways, so I really didn’t expect to win anything. After all, the most fun part is finding new blogs to visit and reading all of your kind comments! But, hey, it’s always nice to win something.

Here’s what I won – a beautiful custom clipboard from Sue at Country Pleasures! She has a lovely Etsy store which you can visit here. She is very talented and has a number of adorable country farmgirl type items. Sue was willing to make my clipboard from my choice of colors and themes, but when I saw this one in her store, I knew that it was the one I wanted –

Isn’t that so cute?

I will enjoy using it in my kitchen and can’t wait ’til it comes in the mail!

Just wanted to share my excitement with you.

Blessings,
Nancy

Bloggy Giveaway Winner!!

Well, I’m home from church this morning with a sick child, so I decided it was a good time to draw a winner for my giveaway.

I had 126 entries, so after inputting the numbers into the Random Generator at Random.ORG, I called one of my children to come and push the button (or click the mouse) to select a winner. Michael was the child who got the job, resulting in the winning number 29!

We then counted up to 29 starting with the first comment left and we discovered that Emily at It’s Stamp Time Somewhere is the winner of this Spring Scrapbooking Package!!

It has been another fun week with the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival, although I didn’t get around to as many blogs as I would have liked to! (real life has a way of doing that sometimes!) Thank you so much to Melanie at Don’t Try This at Home for hosting this great carnival. She says the next one will be at the end of July, so we can all look forward to that!

In the meantime, Congratulations to Emily!!! and thank you to all of you who entered my giveaway!! I hope to see some of you again in the coming days – feel free to stop by anytime and leave a comment so we can get to know each other!

Blessings,
Nancy

Thankful Thursday

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I missed last week’s Thankful Thursday due to computer challenges, and I almost missed this week due to our Internet going down in the storm last night! It looks like I’ll make it today after all – we’re back up and running.

I have a number of things to be thankful for this week, but I am going to focus on the one that has had my heart soaring and my joy overflowing all week.

Our son Ryan (almost 20) has been seeking the Lord for several years about his future and what direction (career-wise) God wants him to go. He has spent those years testing out a few possibilities while working full-time, all the while asking the Lord to show him what he was to do. He put off college, because he didn’t want to go there not knowing his direction.

One evening, earlier this week, Ryan came to us and told us that he had his direction from the Lord. He doesn’t know the specifics of where it will lead him, but he does know which direction to head. He wants to study God’s Word and serve Him in some form of ministry – yet to be revealed. Ryan has been a Christian for a number of years now, having trusted Christ as his Savior in his childhood, but he said that he has come to the realization that nothing in his life is as important as serving the Lord and while that can certainly be done in any career – for him, it needs to be a career in ministry. He plans to begin taking classes at our local community college this summer, and transfer in a year or so to a college where he can get his undergraduate degree. After graduating, he plans to go to seminary and then see where the Lord has him go from there.

Needless to say, my heart has been smiling all week! Jeff and I have thought for years that Ryan might possibly end up in ministry, although we only mentioned it to him once or twice (really! – no pressure whatsoever!) We have been waiting on the Lord just as Ryan has to see what He would have for him. It is the desire of my heart that my children would love the Lord, first and foremost, and would center their lives on Him, no matter what their life’s work is. To hear Ryan share his heart with us was such a tremendous blessing to my heart. It ranks up there with my wedding day and the births of all of my children (no, I don’t exaggerate!).

So, this Thankful Thursday, I am so thankful to the Lord for answering prayers, for leading and guiding us, and for showing us His will. I am thankful that He revealed His specific will to my son and that Ryan’s heart and life are His.

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” -James 1:5

To read more Thankful Thursday posts, click the button below to find more participants in Thankful Thursday this week.

Blessings,
Nancy

Bloggy Giveaway Time!

It’s time for the quarterly Bloggy Giveaway Carnival again! Time to get those fingers warmed up for many hours of cruising blogs and signing up for giveaways! Time to visit some old friends and find some new ones, too! Please come back and visit me again when your fingers have cooled down and you have time to sit and visit a bit!

My giveaway this time is a lovely Spring Scrapbooking package –

This package includes a dozen sheets of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper in various spring shades and patterns (yes, of course I included some gingham!), embellishments by Jolee’s Boutique and Laura Ashley, gingham buttons, pastel mini-brads, pastel sticky stitches, vellum stickers with various spring/Easter sayings, picket fence border die-cut and four lengths of spring ribbons.

All you need to do to win this package is leave a comment on this post! This giveaway is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike – just make sure to include your blog address or an e-mail address so that I can contact you if you win! I will be shipping the prize out to you completely free of charge. International entries are fine.

This contest will close at midnight (Central time) on Saturday, April 26th. I will draw a winner using a random number generator and will announce the winner on Sunday, April 27th.

To enter more marvelous giveaways, visit the Bloggy Giveaways site for the list of participants (almost 700 now!) and get ready for some wonderful blog surfing!

Happy entering and I’ll see you at your giveaway, if my fingers hold out!

Blessings,
Nancy

This is my 100th post!

As you can see, I’m not the only one who’s celebrating.

I am not at liberty to name names, but here are a few more excited family members -

Okay, so maybe that one was not so excited – but this one definitely is -

It just doesn’t get much better than that, folks.

But seriously, I want to thank all of you kind readers who make writing this blog worthwhile. And an extra thank you for all of the lovely comments you leave which encourage me and brighten my day. I have been blessed enormously by you all, and can hardly wait to see where the Lord takes us in the next 100 posts!

Blessings,
Nancy

Making My Home a Haven – Decluttering

It’s been awhile since I did a Making My Home a Haven post. It’s definitely time for this one – decluttering! With spring in the air, I am finding myself wanting to clean out everything around my house. I have actually been working on this hit and miss for a little while, but am feeling an extra push right now. Something about spring that makes me want to dig in and make everything fresh and new again – like the earth around me.

I am coming to the slow realization (I wish it were quicker!) that clutter = chaos in my home. I really want to get to the point of having a place for everything, so that we can actually put everything in its place with ease, rather than trying to shove it into a full drawer or putting it elsewhere from lack of knowing where it goes. I have become very frustrated with the fact that it seems that every spot is filled to the brim in this house. Now I love that it is filled with people, but the stuff is a definite problem. You see, I tend to get quite cranky when I see junk around me all the time! I don’t mind things being out when they are being used, but so much of the time, they are out because there really isn’t a good place to put them, and the children don’t know where to put them. (Of course, sometimes it’s just that someone doesn’t want to do it – which is another matter altogether!) Or is it? – maybe it wouldn’t seem so hard to them if it was easy to put away.

Here are some of the ways that I am hoping decluttering helps make my home a haven –

- The atmosphere of our home will be less stressful when things are more orderly.

- Mom will be less cranky and spend less time complaining and more time enjoying life with her children.

- We will have more time to enjoy life when we have less stuff to tend to.

- My children will learn to value people more and things less.

- Our home will feel more peaceful and comforting and relaxing.

- I will feel less stress with opening our home to others as it will be less of a huge undertaking to prepare for these times.

I’m certain that there will be many more benefits to decluttering that I will only realize as it happens.

How to go about it? Well, for me, I just try to tackle one thing a day. If I don’t have much time, I do a small thing – maybe one drawer or a basket. If I have more time (and energy), I work on a larger area. Some days, I don’t get to anything, but since I’d like to speed up the process a little, I am going to try harder to do something every day.

I am also working on paring down our clothing. We have had so many wonderful people give us clothes throughout the years that we have amassed quite a surplus of these – way more than we really need. As I do the laundry, I am trying to keep only those items that we really like and wear and donate those items that are just taking up space, but not being worn.

Over the years we have saved most all of the children’s clothes that we have had, since I have thought that someone would need them later. This has resulted in many large Rubbermaid tubs in the attic, and many bags of clothes overflowing into the upstairs hall, creating more visible clutter (since it’s such a chore to sort through and rotate them in the attic boxes!). A problem with saving everything is that so much of the time the clothes don’t work for the next children – different sizes/seasons, preferences, style changes. I am hoping to get through all of these clothes and get rid of most of them, keeping only the classic basics – getting the Rubbermaid boxes down to a manageable number.

As I declutter, I ask myself if this item is contributing positively or negatively to our home. I’m amazed to find that so many things just aren’t necessary or wanted and are only taking up space and adding to the chaos. It is such a freeing feeling to get rid of bags of things that have been weighing down our home and our attitudes. I am so far from where I want to be, and so many times I become overwhelmed by the job, but it is exciting to think of the calmness and peace that will be present when I finally get the upper hand in this area.

As I view this project from the aspect of ministering to my family, I am even further encouraged to plow ahead and stay the course. It is my desire to provide a home of rest and peace for my loved ones, and simplifying our possessions is going to help our home to be more of that haven we so long for.

Blessings,
Nancy

It’s back!

Hooray! My laptop has recovered from its near fatal illness and is back on track again! My thanks go out to Dr. Matthew who brought my sick friend back to health, and with all important information intact. Great job, Mattie!

I’m looking forward to getting back to posting, although the silver lining has been that I was able to get some organizing done in the craft room that was long overdue.

Blessings,
Nancy

Computer Challenges

I have been offline for several days now . . . the result of my laptop being attacked the other day by a vicious virus/bug or something.  (Maybe it caught our cold virus that we’ve been passing around the house.)

I am now coming to you live from the “family computer” – the one the kids all use – the one that I have a hard time getting a turn on – and which is located in the middle of the chaos as opposed to my nice quiet bedroom – which will explain why you haven’t heard from me until now. 

Matthew is working on resuscitating my laptop.  He ran a spyware scan and a virus scan (this took 2 days to fit into his schedule.)  Yesterday he declared that the only hope for me and my friend would be to totally reformat the computer – all I understand about that is that he wipes everything out and starts over.  This, as you might understand, made me quite nervous to hear.  He assures me that he will save everything that I need – like my graphics file, favorites list and e-mail and documents/pictures.  (Time to pray.)

Sooo, as of last night, he was doing the scary deed and I hope to be back up tonight (more praying). 

Feel free to pray with me!

Blessings,

Nancy