sometimes, silence is our best work

I've come to accept it. We bloggers are lovers of words and secretly we know.

We are writers.

If for nothing else but to jot down the "noise" which clamors in our head, we grab words for relieve. And the pressure explodes and whether with ink, or pencil, they spill out on pages or are tapped down to monitor screens by the "tic-tic" of a keyboard.

Last night, my head was full of words. But that isn't always the case.

And I've come to accept that too.

Because sometimes, the best words are the ones not spoken.

Silence has a way of refreshing a soul but I wasn't always a friend to quiet-ness. My needs seemed to scream me down and I was ever running to meet their demands. That is, until I realized, my needs weren't needs at all, just the world encroaching and demanding my time in ways I hadn't planned.

It's those moments of reprieve found in the secret, quiet corners of our absence which I've come to also accept. Because our word-less vacancies may just very well mean, we are in the race of chasing after the Source of all words.

And silence is the best medicine for our ears.

Besides, it's hard to talk when you're mouth is full of feasting on the Word Himself. While other times, it's the lounging and napping with the Restorer of our soul which shuts our mouths like a roar-less lion.

And I've come to accept that too.

For not only do words belong to Him, but so does the silence. Quiet-ness is like a megaphone, a turned up dial for our heart to tune in to the melody of His beautiful voice so when we finally do write, we're just singing His song.

--reading so many books and finding so much praise and worship to fill a heart full (right now, it's a collection of Charles Spurgeon which has me many times, laughing at loud by his wit. And no matter his theology, I never think twice of it, as I'm always, lovingly thinking of Christ when Spurgeon writes and all else pales to that.)
--warm, restful Sunday's which remind how much I need time to just be
--cicadas, those reminders of summer nights, making their return this week and playing their familiar lullaby which also reminds of me of Texas and childhood days, (I missed them when I lived away)
--building plans, finally coming together
--landscaping our little farmhouse and making it better with each turn
--protection for our oldest son, who twice this week, discovered poisonous snakes and wasn't bit, 'though he touched one (in the bush) and surprised another under some debris...but neither bit him
--family and friends and camping trips.....together

the prodigal wait....

She was born June, twenty-two years ago, in a country a world away.

And I had traveled from home and high school, without hope of college or higher education and moved to Japan.

Some days I forget. 

How He's making it all new, every day and I'm not who I was or even who I am. And parenting is a crucible for which we lay down our lives and sometimes we feel we laid it down all wrong.

In hindsight I see all the crooked turns and all the ways I lost myself in the world and how I had passengers traveling with me. Never a turn alone, never just one in a crook, but two or three.

I was looking for Something but the world offers so many some things.

It's the loud clambering noise, always advertising the next best fix, the world has to offer us. So we grab the wrench of how-to's in hopes we'll find ways to tighten our loose ends. But it doesn't work or not for long. Until we return to the worldly toolbox looking for ways to nail down a better path to secure ourselves. On it goes in a deseperate grasp for some tool to do the trick and fix the machine of life and self.

And so my life went 'round and 'round but not 'round the One place I needed to circle back. Not for several years.

So it is, some days I forget. A life I once lived, no more.

Twenty-two arrives next month and it's such a lifetime away from where I was, from where I am today and how it's all miracles every day the change of One thing. Not a tool box, or a fix, or self-help temporary shelf-life, but this eternally deep abiding change which clears out the old for a constant pouring of the New.

And if He can do it for me, He can do it for her too.

My tool box I dropped years ago, to only be found by someone else.

The cold, steely reserve of worldly tools I hadn't meant to give to anyone. Sometimes people just need to try for themselves. And so it is my daughter inherited the thing I never meant her to have.

But I know Someone who's a miracle-maker, giving us more than we ever had and grafting us to the Family tree.

Grafting. A broken, open wound of a branch merged with an open wound of the Source plant until the two become one. And my daughter, born to me in a far off asian country while still a girl myself, has inherited more than what I meant her to have.

More than all the gold of the universe, more than all the pits of things I wasn't, she inherited this knowing of what He has and means her to have (more than I could ever give)...

.....and all she needs, is grab it.

At Em's "Imperfect Prose".

the spiritual diet of words

It's only day two, but already I feel better. Over a month of contemplating about my diet: high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, lots of sugar, and all the preservatives thrown in, all this daily ingesting of stuff and how it's possible these things could short-circuit my body, did I finally do some thing about it.

After eating last week's caramel, buttered popcorn and had my fill of cakes, and diet coke and my favorite artificially sweetened waters, did I feel prepared to start. And this is where I'm at. I'm not fanatical when it comes to whole foods, in fact, I'm a reformed microwave-er, still in need of work.

And somehow, just taking that first step, the mental health of finally doing something seems to make it feel better, whether or not my body is actually better or not.

But it's all those preservatives and chemically altered additives which has me thinking. How our spiritual live is infused in this way, finding altered acts of worship through artificial, man-made means outside the truest Organic way.

I've wondered how high-fructose corn syrup really does trigger an unquenchable sweet in my body causing me to heap spoon-fulls on a pancake. Versus the real, organic maple syrup which satisfies with each little drop.

Hidden deep inside molecular breakdowns, my body works in secret those items digested. In the quiet recess is a work in progress, artificial or not.

And what a joy to find Organic eaters who worship with their words. Ingesting alphabets and letters and wholesome praise, reminds me of how Organic we need our spiritual life. Freed from artificial sweeteners which are only cheap substitutes of His sweet fragrance.

Words have been quietly feeding me. And who knows the working of praise inside our innermost parts than the Source who feeds it? This spiritual nutrient of Organic worship and us feeding eachother from the same source which feeds our stomach, our lips.

"If a writer only has information to offer that he has obtained by research, I will pass on him. Give me the writer who has the passion and fire of God in his soul, which flows onto the page." ~~A.W. Tozer "The Purpose of Man, Designed to Worship" (compiled & edited by James L. Snyder)

And so I've been on a diet of more than wholesome foods but also being feed by wholly adoration of all that's wholesome. A nutrition at the top of any food pyramid, an inner-working of worshipping words going down, digesting, circulating to vessels, limbs, through Blood to blood.

What a benefit is this Organic praise done in the secret, that my own words have been few and far while feasting and feeding the inner workings of spiritual hunger.

The stomach breaks down food under folds of skin and muscle, unseen, like worshipping words digested inside fleshy hearts do hidden works. How when we praise Him together, our words brings us to the Fruit of all our hunger.

Reading worship on a page by another writer, a corporate praise, hearts joining the same song, swallowing down spiritual lyrics as the Body nourishes the body.  And worldly preservatives won't do, those of religious works, or entertainment, or artificial additives which keep us hunger but never really satisfy. It's this spiritual diet of words, of feasting together on the true Organic source.

At Ann's.

the danger of blue skies {homeschool "field" trip}

This was how the day was, all blue and mild, chairs looped 'round like a chuck wagon circle. Homeschooled Mamas taking lessons under the sun. You pulling your virtual chair up to join us, might hear me tell 'bout the Red-Eared Slider turtle that got away at our place, yesterday.

If you looked close enough, you'd notice a huge clump of hair I somehow missed in my morning haste to meet you here at the lake-side gathering. Burrowed under like a bird's nest hibernating just below the surface but I'm not concerned about how my brush missed this uncombed mess.

We're all Mama's in need of grace, of parenting each our own style and we're here to breathe in this air of comfortable talk and "socializing" our kids and outdoor lessons all in one. Our informal greetings says alot of how we need this time-out, of how this day makes homeschooling just the right fit in each our life's puzzle, bringing our pieces together so we can see the big picture.

Maybe you'd notice how my oldest son, with his daring, adventurous and exploring personality, keeps me on my toes and at times, tied up in impatient tones. My voice becoming shriller each time I'm faced with another reminder about something I'd already said. But once the boundaries are firmly in place, I relax.

Then come, books at the lake, pirate linguistics, treasure hunts, noticing flowers and bugs, a "mud factory" in session, talk of school and lessons, or curriculum's and just plain, what "are you doing"s fill up the day. And what group of Mama's would have just the book to look up flower species and scientific tree names, at a lakeside gathering, but a homeschooling one.


Because homeschooling is more than being home.

It's counting miles on the road, math games at the library, vocabulary 'round the dinner table. It's history made alive with books and videos, with maps posted on walls, pointing out Egypt or Mesopotamia, or how Italy is like a boot. It's about finding science up a tree or down a flower stem, where school isn't determined in intervals of a school bell, but it's a continuum of learning which flows steadily all day. Both inside and out.

And this lake is like a field trip for the Teacher-Mama to take some deep breaths of blue air.

After we rotate our chairs between shade and sun, cool and hot, relaxing and tensing between children drama, the late afternoon would have sneaked up on us, arriving on wispy white clouds bubbling up overhead.

The danger of blue skies begins to emerge as we pack up our leave.

The way blue and soft breezes hypnotize us like a sunflower head pointed straight up to trace the path of the sun. The way we rolled up sleeves and pant legs to sponge up every drop of vitamin K.

It's not summer, but still there is a sun.

And gorgeous days like this, you forget about the burn.

That is, until you're driving home and feel the skin warm right up. But some days are just worth the danger and for what it's worth, a whole day of encouragement outweighs two days of red sting.

of loneliness and worthless words?

Some days I wonder: who do I think I am? Of what should I consider my words of any value?

These thoughts came and went all weekend, 'round in a circle like a dog chasing a tail. But I kept coming back to the One thing which matters and this is why words come and need to spill out.

I've tried to be silent, but I couldn't. So I leave the quiet business to the rocks because praise builds like a dam, and worship, in words, like the overflow valve which relieves the pressure.  And I'm reminded:

"Then I said, 'I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.' But His word was in my heart like a burning fire  shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back,  and I could not." Jeremiah 20:9

I'm reading A.W. Tozer's "God's Pursuit of Man" where words are filling me up, right full to the brim. My highlighter will be busy marking many passages in this book. If you've read this book, perhaps this will be a nod-shaking "yes" to part of what I'm about to share. But I'm just newly discovering these works.

I spent years dismantling things, lit (denominational) doctrines up so only Jesus burns and I've been rebuilding on this mantle ever since. But it's meant not reading a plethora of books like I've done before, and just read One, not only in by words but His life.

So I feel behind, in a sense. Even though I know no one is never really behind because we all have one and the same Counselor.

Lovely, Ann, she beat me to it, ya know. A different book but same author I already had planned on sharing.


God is good like that.

I'm sure she won't mind....as so many words from his book have made me want to shout them from the rooftops.



But I'll have to settle for a corner instead, this little angled space, sliver of blog-land which is like a world-wide gulf. And I'm just a wee dot here, a blip really, but I want to give a shout-out from some wonderful truths I've been reading. Of course, they all point to our biggest Truth and this alone is worth every letter, word, paragraph and, yes, value.


It's why I write, at all. And why silence isn't always golden. Who can shut in? And who would want to anyway?

"We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of temporary atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent, and we think of ourselves as inhabiting a parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be. And we are lonely with an ancient and cosmic loneliness....So we try by every method devised by religion to relieve our fears and heal our hidden sadness; but with all our efforts we remain unhappy still, with the settled despair of men alone in a vast and deserted universe.  

But for all our fears we are not alone. Our trouble is that we think of ourselves as being alone."      ~~A.W. Tozer's "God's Pursuit of Man" (Oh my, I'm only in the first chapter! underlining was mine)

We think ourselves alone, in the now. But it's an illusion, a mirage of our task-focused life of doing now for this or that.


I'm hoping for just a moment, you could imagine, put on your spiritual eyes and see the true Author sitting right beside you. Brushing your skin with closeness, peering over whatever you're doing this minute as if He's there and saying "I love being here with you."


Because you are not alone. You just think you are, sometimes.

--friends who challenge my thinking and give me spiritual truths to chew on
--always coming back to the only Good I really have...over and over again
--beautiful sunshine, cool temperatures and open windows which let life waft right in
--faithful wordsmiths, who wrote His heart and passed it on, what a wonderful blessing to read like-minded folks speaking the same language, Jesus, just Him and more of Him.
--listened to a an elder gentleman, wise, soft-spoken, full of Truth snipping it all down to the core...and I learned more about mercy I'm still marinating on (via web)

be ready to be {pleasantly} surprised...and {in}courage{d}

{click the word >Rambellwood<  for photo information}

A homeschool family who

writes beautiful, poetic music and plays too?

One brother, Sam, did

this video above.

{would you take a few minutes to watch this amazing talent?}

And their blog "The Band At Rambellwood".

Pssst.....If you're visiting from {in}courage...maybe you would take a few minutes to "notice" the family in this post. Besides incredible God-talent, their Mom is a stage 4 cancer survivor, who's still fighting for the Kingdom.

I'm sharing more about being noticed (or not)...or in my son's case: "...and then they ignored you". Click here to join me for some {in}courage{ment}.

the breath of what i need.....and 5 minutes

Some days it's all I have.

Deep breaths.

Yesterday, the weariness took hold after sleep eluded me in the night and I awoke trying to find breath. I inhaled the new day with a need for energy to start, to kick off something productive and I slowly tackled what I needed done.


I felt like a shallow breather, a wispy shadow of who I am.


What a difference a day (and good rest) make. It's the deep breath of God which vibrates the lungs alive. And today will be about breathing more of That in.



At Lisa Jo's place.

["So, here’s the skinny: I’ve been thinking about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And I figured, why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing." ~~Lisa-Jo}

of nakedness, dust and clothes--Resurrected attire

When I became a Christian, again, after a full-heart-on rededication between me and Him, this gypsy-carnival life I'd lived was still with me.

I'm learning the art of longevity.

Year after year, town to town, school upon school, friend after friend, meant starting over again and again. Our family moved annually (sometimes bi-annually) and friendships came in spurts, familiarity sputtered, and relationships fractured.

Our next move was about leaving behind a trail of towns in our dust.

Each new turn was an adventure back then, but now I've seen how it affected my view of those in my life, how I was near-sighted, only seeing things up close and immediate. Never able to really imagine long-term or knowing how to maneuver beyond the short-sighted temporary life.

And it followed right into my new and re-founded faith, this carnival life of pulling up the stakes.

I became a dust-shaker.

Right beside me, I plopped a scripture down, buddied up to it as if to comfort my familiar lifestyle, my way of pulling back as I went town to town, or wandering to wandering. "When you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet..." Luke 9:5

And this is how I've seen it lived, how I've lived it, sisters or brothers in Christ as perpetual dust-shakers. I was an expert in dust collecting.

But not all is dust. Life flows and weaves and ebbs like a river glistening as it bends a squiggly girth on it's way to the sea. The tides change, relationships are pulled along and away like river banks being tugged at the seams. Who was in our life yesterday may not be the one who's there today because life sometimes takes us different directions.

But getting dusty was easy for me. Yet now, I'm learning the art of longevity, of grace, of long suffering, how we are deeply bound by Christ.

This past year, I've begun to feel the prick of taking up my cross. The drawing out of all I knew how to live and nailing it to that dead tree and burying the familiar. Starting over, but different.

I want to know, really know, the great conflict of love, this mysterious knowledge of God which enriches our lives. This conflict for one another where we're knitted body to body, member to member, stitch upon stitch until we are a fabric of Love.


"For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you....that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God.." Colossians 2:1


And resurrecting a new way of living feels like a stretched wineskin pressed out by the fermenting intoxication of His new wine being poured in us. Some days it's sloshing full joy while other days, the uncomfortable stretch and thinning of skin to make room for His work. Church really is about how we dress, what we wear, it's donning our Sunday best outfit because resurrected living is how everyday is the chance to be clothed in Christ.


I've wondered, how do we really live the Love-life? Put on tender mercies? Mercy is one thing but tender too? How do we truly long suffer one another? Bear with one another? How do we become the garment bonded in the perfection of Love?  {Colossians 3:12-14}

Miracles.

That's what I've learned.

Love is about our children, or family, or spouse, but also more. It's seventy times seven forgivens, and more. It's how we're living love (or not), and then more.

It's about miracles. The fiber of Christ, the fabric of our faith. It's about allowing us to be stitched with supernatural workings and how we're given a new robe. It's about dressing our best and leaving the house clothed in our finest Love.

 At Ann's.

when you're a condemned {wo}man, walking

I used to imagine every one saw me the way I saw me, condemned.

It wasn't a magical overnight sensation which finally took hold in me.


Somewhere in the years of reading His words,
planting their seeds to only replant again, until they began to slowly grow. Truth blooming into who I am, of who we are:


Betrothed to the Lamb (Lion of Judah), King of kings and we're a Bride to this...a most beloved inclusion into Heaven's royalty, like a fairy-tale-little-girl dream and our child-like faith enabling us to "see" the unseen promise.


My prodigal way was turned around by conviction when I collided with my life's rubble and a Redeemer of it all. A rescuer found in an unlikely ally of conviction.  And I've learned that conviction is the blessed upturning to Him; while condemnation devalues our worth and reminds us of failure.

And this is where we get stuck. Giving long and lingering looks to what's behind us as we eye our past sins. But we're like Lot's wife, looking at the pillar of on old life which only dissolves us like salt. Ruined by transfixing our eyes on rubble versus deliverance.

And condemnation loves to salt the wound.

There's only One cornerstone to build a sure foundation of worth. Some times I've had to have the veil ripped and torn away. Or allow holy cinders to scorch any false structures of who I thought I was. Even if it meant entirely changing believe systems. 

So it is, Truth's absolute sustenance may quake our world, sending ripples down artificial beams or toppling the studs on which we've plastered a facade of man-made how-to's. But His demolition is a safe place to be because He's sure to rebuild even better.


And somehow we get mired down between condemnation and conviction, thinking they are one and the same. It's that untangling of the two which requires throwing them in the wash. Agitated by the Word and cleansed pure by Holy Spirit's rinsing, laying down how we think this and that, coming as babes to cycle truth with Truth.

By focusing on His worth, we really see ours. Because we've ate the rotten fruit of trying to attain knowledge outside of God, from a false value system dating to the Garden. It's the new figs of Truth we must wear, clothing ourselves in Christ's honor, His righteousness covering our nakedness. No opinion of man can adequately clothes us.

Christ is our only suitable garment. Our eyes may become clouded by the filthy rags of all our mistakes and sins, so He must heal our vision by dropping the scales, made whole and wholly desperate by "I AM". And we see by the Light of our paths and breathe the very air of God to know how He lives and moves and has His being, in us and with us.

No matter how we arrive, it's this knowing the measure of worth's True source and then fully embracing the Truth of it. Christ alone, for He counts our worth above precious stones and became condemned, so we wouldn't have to be.

{edited from the archives}

"For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh..." Romans 3:8

Shared this at Saturday Evening Post at E.E.'s place.

At Laura's place "The Wellspring" and...



At L.L. Barkat's chats around Mondays.

And here, at Emily's "Imperfect Prose".

Mother's Day {and a Saturday Evening Post}

These past couple of weeks I've been reminded how interesting life is. I'd miss lots of fun "drama" if my Mother wasn't here. I'm reminded how imperfection is who we all are and if nothing else, why not laugh. And that's something we do lots of, laughter.  Happy Mother's Day to my Mom! And to all the other Mom's out there.




And from April...when your life feels like a shipwreck, I re-visited this post of mine for E.E.'s "Saturday Evening Post". Click over for some good reads: E.E's Saturday Evening Post for a series of April posts from different folks.

just when you don't have time, become a prisoner

Repeating it over and over, didn't make it true. It was painfully obvious.

Day five of being gone, again, was taking it's toll. And now it was Sunday, planned with games, food, fellowship and worship all rolled into one.

And as much as I love these get-togethers, this day my energy didn't match my typical anticipation.

So I said it in hopes my kids would have mercy, "I'm so very tired and grumpy." And I repeated it over and over that day.

It wasn't their fault I was exhausted.

Drudgery seemed to be in every effort to ready ourselves out the door. People normally energize me, so I had hoped to be revived.

But, this day wasn't normal.

Like a lump in the car, I sat, when my kids asked "Are you feeling better now that we're driving there?"

Loading up was over and now I could rest for the long drive. There was that. "Yes." I said without adding "for now".

And that blessed revival never came.

I remembered how long it'd been, five days now of weary sleep, early mornings, three days of sinus headaches, fall-into-bed-bone-tired and I missed being alone.

All my days spent being here, there and with good, sweet fellowship. But then I'd run out, spring a leak of time until I only had enough to get to bed.

"And it happened, as He was alone praying,

that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying,

“Who do the crowds say that I am?” Luke 9:18

Who do they say I am? Who, but the crowds? The swarms of people, following, listening to every dripping word like honeycomb, crowds. He was tired. His flesh weak with physical exertion from all the travels, walking, ministering, talking, fellowship times of being near these people He created.

And my week had been a flurry and I felt squeezed. Days crowded by activity to the exclusion of getting alone. When the house goes quiet in sleep and my lone bedside light shining and I feel butterflies inside, "It's just You and me."

Alone. Precious time crowded out by worldly activity and sustaining rest is really about getting alone.

When the world caves and crushes with it's demands, I need a stronghold that withstands pressure. A communional of time, set alone, where rest comes to restore. Easter living remembering who is He, my eternal hope. The marvelous thought which sends shockwaves to electrify my senses and chains me, gloriously bond to an abiding restorer of Hope.

It's about taking the time to be a prisoner of Hope, daily.

"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

Even today I declare that I will restore double to you." Zechariah 9:12

Shared this at Ann's.

And at Emily's "Imperfect Prose" ....

of throwing stones.....

In the past, I'd been wounded by those in the church. I spent much time away from it. Running from it. But realized I too was away from Him. It’s been many years now, since I've returned. This is about those stones which were meant for destruction. I wrote this gratitude post over a year ago. It was my first. Maybe you'll join me at the bottom.

A stone is thrown…

Rumors follow this old grave stone. Rumors, ugly if they're true. I don't know if any truth be told, so I won't. Whatever the reason, she (for her stone sits oustide the fence) is not worthy of those gated stones. At least that's how the rumor goes.

It stands solemn and gray. Far from the others outside the fence. Aged by time, it leans.
Outside these gates, I too am placed. Where no fence or many others are found. The tongue which cuts, bites, wounds, and separates, is where I thankfully lean on Him.

A stone stands alone…
Surrounded by those who’d accuse me, I stand here. Caught. Guilty. Alone. Stones ready for the lashing I deserve. Those “righteous” accusers. In their abuse, I’m brought to another place. To Him. In all my sin, dragged to Jesus. Who now stoops, with His sinless finger in the dirt. Writing. Words not revealed but in them, Mercy.


A stone with mud…
When I left the Father’s house, I didn’t intend to leave HIM. Just the ones who lived there. So how is it with a spent inheritance, did I find myself in the waste of a prodigal? Stained (by sin), broke (in spirit), disheveled (in life), desperate (to return), I went back. If only just to serve Him.

So I’m greeted by a FATHER who rejoices in my return. Despised from a distance, is the same return from the one who never left. Despite my unworthiness, Father welcomes me back…His child.


A stone sinking….
Gathered along the merciful banks are these defiled stones. For the tossing. Skipped across the smooth waters of grace, they’re pulled down. Ever farther they go into the cool depths. Tumbled, cleansed, smoothed, are the ones down below. Where mine have come to rest. These waters of His rush over, moving, washing, and refining. Their sinking is mine too. His depths over us. Here at the bottom.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fullfill the law of Christ." Galations 6:2 NKJ

{--posted from the archive}

PS. A real grave, with a real rumor. It's located near my house. I've often wondered who she was & if she needed some of His grace.

Starting here at the bottom...thankful gifts with Ann:

1. Grace

2. A Husband who makes me laugh and sweetens my journey (read more at "Slipped in the Night..." ).

3. Three kids.

4. His beauty and wonder I'm always finding in His creations, nature.

5. For friends, both new ones made in person and ones made through computer keyboards.

6. Laughter!!

7. Music....sometimes it feels like angels singing (I hear they like it :-) ).

8. Sunshine!! Perhaps I should've put that beside Laughter...I love them both equally.

9. Fitting into my regular clothes....not squeezing into my LARGER ones.

10. My husband loves what he does flying for an air ambulance company.

11. A house in progress (a stepping stone for now) meets all our needs.

12. Farm life.

13. Country roads.

14. Hairspray!

15. Cows munching on grass.

16. Gratitude. :-)