What's your story?

Yesterday went well. Rory seemed back to his normal self. The worship team went well. The evening concert was special. And today is the day to stay home and get caught up in other areas that have taken a backseat last week.

We've just had our last message in a series from "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. The last purpose is about sharing our story with others. Oprah once said that everyone has a story. And the popularity of reality shows attests to how much we love watching the stories of other's - even if just a segment of a person's life in a manufactured setting.

The song our team will be working on for next Sunday is about our story. Avalon's "Testify to Love" is talking of how God's love has impacted our life in such a huge way and how we will spend our lives testifying to it - telling the story of God's love in our lives. There's no more amazing story than that - how a Creator God loves his creation..you and I...so much that there is nothing He wouldn't do to bring us into a relationship with Him. I'm thinking I'll share a bit of my story here in the next couple of days.

What a crazy week! This morning our worship team is on and we had a great practice. I came home to a sick boy. Rory had been sick to his stomach all evening. He was fine all night though so we'll see how he's feeling this morning.

Tonight is a piano fundraiser evening for our new grand piano. And I've been working on a piano solo of Fairest Lord Jesus. And then I thought our violinist would set the piece off really well so we got together to give that a try. And then the organizer asked if we could also do another number as a prelude.

So it's been a lot of work pulling that all together (and practicing).

Plus our worship team has been asked to prepare a number for a celebratory Sunday special service ....next Sunday - we've started to work on Avalon's "Testify to Love". And I've agreed to play piano for one of my voice students who wants to audition for the Kinsmen Telemiracle (which means a trip to Regina on Saturday).

So this means I'll be a crazy busy woman for another week at least.

But with everything that's zooming around in my head, it feels good to finally sit and write about it. Everyone else is sleeping and the house is so quiet. It won't be like that for much longer this morning. *grin*

My friend lent me a book the other day that I've been wanting to read for awhile. Indeed, she's rescued me from Nicholas Sparks.... not that I have anything against romance fiction. But I do find that unless the plot involves a lot more than a budding romance, I tend to get a little bored with it. I've borrowed "A New Kind of Christian" by McLaren. I'm almost halfway through and I'm still waiting for it to 'shock' my conservative, evangelical sensibilities. My friend has seen some sparks fly in discussions about this book (and others like it) when discussing PostModernism.

Here's are a couple of quotes from the book that I'm enjoying pondering:

"I'm not in any way saying truth isn't important. But I am saying that truth means more than factual accuracy. It means being in sync with God."

"What if faith isn't best compared to a building, but rather to a spiderweb? Instead of one foundation, it has several anchor points... But where does the Bible fit in?...It could be seen as one of the anchor points. Or perhaps every passage in the Bible that has affected your life could be seen as an anchor point. Or perhaps the Bible isn't only in the anchor points. Perhaps it is part of every thread of the web."

I'd be interested to hear what you think of these two quotes.

Needin' a little creativity....

This week has been busy as I've been preparing for our worship team this Sunday. I just can't seem to pull it together these days. Half of my team is unavailable this week and we don't have much time for songs so I'm wondering if I shouldn't skip the practice on Saturday night and go with a smaller team. It would help if I could even figure out the songs I'm going to use. I'm stumped....maybe suffering some brain fatigue. *grin* Well I'd better get cracking as I only have an hour to finish up this morning and make lunch before I head to school and then off to a birthday party this evening with the boys.

Rory's a lucky boy! Monday he got gifts from us. Tuesday he got gifts from Grandma & Grandpa and today he was ecstatic to receive yet another parcel in the mail from his other Grammie! I think he's hoping his birthday never comes to an end.

We had MOPS on Tuesday and our craft was card-making. But I was surprised that a few were not used to my free-style way of doing things. Some prefer to follow a specific set of instructions and copy a sample done up ahead of time. It amazes me the difference in personalities at times. I love getting ideas from others but I love to dive in and see what I come up with on my own too. There's such a feeling of accomplishment in creating something. I thought the end result was incredible - some brilliant looking cards were made. And I hope those who thought they couldn't do it were pleasantly surprised at what they came up with.

I got a parcel with music I had ordered so I'm up late playing piano. I'd better get to bed as I have a long day tomorrow (teaching music lessons).

Sunday was Rory's birthday but as we couldn't get his parcel from the post office, we had to celebrate today instead. It really helped that we had Bible study after church at our friend's house. Most of the couples who attend have children around our boys' ages and so they really enjoy it!

And so first thing this morning we went to town to get 'the parcel' and birthday cake and a big balloon (a police car). And then it was home to open his new Rokenbok building/remote control set. He's been playing with it all day so we're pleased that he's enjoying it so much!

It's been a long, good, tiring, happy day.

French Canadian, eh?

Sometimes I listen to Paxton point out different things and hear a little French embellishment. C'est ball. C'est cat. C'est Rory. C'est book. C'est bon! Ok, not that last one. But everything he points to and names is preceded by eh! Maybe it's not French at all...maybe it's our Canadian heritage shining through. But usually 'eh' is a question mark after a statement..as in Ball, eh? Cat, eh? But with Paxton it's "Eh ball. Eh Cat". So what is he? French, Canadian or French Canadian, eh?

Today may be the last day of harvest! Ladger's heading out to our last field - the one that got hit the hardest by hail this summer. There's a good chance he'll get out there and decide it's not worth the fuel to harvest it. If not, it will be another three days until we are finished. Either way, things are wrapping up and none of us will be sorry to see this season come to an end.

Rory's birthday is this Sunday and the gift we ordered for him hasn't arrived yet. I wonder if I should not let on that it's his birthday and celebrate it later - at this point he has no idea when his birthday is so it probably wouldn't hurt.

The boys are watching cartoons and I have a little time this morning to get the house caught up a bit before I head to school for the afternoon to teach music lessons. So I'd better git!

Off to Australia...

Last night we had some friends over for supper. We won't be seeing them for awhile as they are moving to her home country.....Australia. They brought a beautiful bouquet of roses and we enjoyed a special evening together. The good thing is that it's not hard to stay in touch these days with email and reasonable phone rates. And maybe the best part is that Ladger and I will probably make the exotic trip to Australia some day to visit them. How cool is that?

This morning Rory flew out of bed and started asking where M & J were? He was missing them a little already, as will we all.

In case you think I'm good at being a SAHM...

I can be a terrible cook sometimes! I've avoided roasts like a plague because I've had so many disasters and then I thought how it would so much more economical to cook up a roast for sandwich meat then buying deli meats all the time. So I tried a nice roast beef taking care to follow the instructions for my slow cooker. But something went wrong and it was way overcooked by the morning (I left it overnight). Then I tried roasting one in the oven and it ended up pretty red in the middle and tough! So I chopped it up for soups. And then I thought I 'd try a pork roast. And when it was as dry as a bone I could have cried (I think maybe I did shed a few frustrated tears). Just last week, a friend was talking about how she cooks roasts a lot because they were so easy!!

Finally I invested in a better meat thermometer and tried it out yesterday on yet another pork roast. And finally, success!! I hadn't really planned a Thanksgiving dinner but since Ladger was home and I had a decent roast (plus a pumpkin cake), we ended up with a nice holiday dinner after all.

And then I took the boys out to the field with me. I had to do some of the trucking as Ladger's mom hurt her knee. For sure, the first time I came home to dump a load of peas into a bin, I overloaded the conveyor and it stalled. So I had to get about 10 - 10 gallon pails and sccop a lot of the peas out of the conveyor before I could start it up again. But the rest of the day went well and we are getting close to the end of this harvest, finally!

A day of mishaps and strange events...

Today was a strange day. I had planned to stay home all day and maybe I should have.... But it's the start of a long holiday weekend and we ran out of diesel this morning. We had enough for today but not for the next couple of days. So I quickly changed and took Ladger's lunch out to the field so I could go to town directly from there. And then a friend called wanting to borrow a playpen. So it was no problem to drop that off on the way.

A few minutes before I got there, I hit a dog that had chased my car so many times when I was zipping along there. This time I was going slower so I wouldn't miss the house and sure enough I hit the crazy dog. By the time I turned around and went back, there was no sign of him. My friends had a good idea whose dog it was so they'll phone for me and check it out.

And then it was on to town which was uneventful except that my shirt was irritating me for some reason....and then I realized it was on backwards! There's a little bow that's supposed to be off to one side on the collar only now it's sitting on my back shoulder. And the tag is irritating my neck in front. Surely other harried housewives have done the same thing now and then. You'll make my day if you 'fess up and make me feel just a little less pathetic. *grin*

And then I was heading to the truck to head home and a guy walked by me and held out a bag. I asked, "What is it?" And he said, "Oh, just some treats for you and your kids if you'd like". So I thanked him and took the bag. Inside was a bag of chips, a coke and two chocolate bars. That doesn't happen every day (good thing or I'd be a blimp). It's a funny thing these days - it feels very strange to accept something from a stranger without secondguessing and questioning. But for whatever reason he wanted to give away a treat, Paxton and I enjoyed a little snack on the way home.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have I ever mentioned that I love teaching music? I've got another great group of kids to work with this year and I thoroughly enjoyed getting back into it!! Rory went to spend one of the two days at one of his AWANA leader's home. So he gets to experience a whole new side to farming - livestock. When I picked him up, they were all out working with the sheep. And I guess he helped with watering the cows too.

And today is my 'catch-up' day. I let some things go in the house and it's time to whip it into shape.

This weekend is Thanksgiving here in Canada. We'd rather have it in November like the Americans do because our harvest is often not over in time to really enjoy the weekend properly. And that is the case once again. Ladger's hoping to get in a good day tomorrow and wrap things up next week if the weather holds. I guess we'll just have to have our own family thanksgiving when the crop is all in and we feel like celebrating. Not that we aren't thankful....no, we just don't have the time to sit and think about it these days. *grin*

Here's our new little baby...

...guinea pig, that is!! Rory named him Luke (maybe he likes the name because of one cool counselor at camp).

I'm back!!!

I could kiss my telephone repair man! I've been offline for a whole week and it's been a very long week for me. It turns out there was a problem with our phone line and it just got fixed. So I'm so glad to be back.

So here's highlights from my week:

We're not done harvest and the header broke down again. Ladger's hoping to get it fixed and going for after lunch today.

We have a new addition to our family.....our guinea pig collection that is. We bought a baby - 3 weeks old. He's so cute!!

I've started music lessons this week. Tomorrow and Friday will be busy with teaching voice, piano and guitar.

Well I'd better go and settle some raging dispute out in my kitchen :-)

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