Birthday Celebration @ 55

Yep! Two nickels! That's about what I feel I'm worth sometimes! But, I guess some people think differently! All of my wonderful family and friends who lavished me with cards, gifts and birthday wishes in some electronic way. Here are some of the wishes and gifts I received in the order received:


1. From DH - Michael W. Smith's new CD, "Wonder" and a funny card:



...rest of the card reads...

For example, when I burp, that means you're one great cook! And when I make a vulgar sound, I love the way you look.

When I (rarely) pass some gas it means that I'm content. And when I answer with a grunt, you've got my full consent...

When I snore in bed at night, it's you I'm dreaming of. And when I don't say anything...I'm overcome with LOVE!


2. From Kara, Michael and Jessica - money for buying some church clothes and a card made by Kara (Kara always makes me a card and then mommy makes notes on the card to help explain it):

My arrow is pointing to Kara's "I heart you"


Hmmmm.........I am thinking Kara knows me pretty well........I'm becoming VERY round AND I'm a nut! :) LOVE IT!

3. From Liz and the kids always decorate a card with drawing/stickers:

Bath & Body Works hand soap in "Pumpkin" and "Caramel Apple" flavors.....YUM!

The decorated card from the kids.....the front reads....."Happy Birthday, Grandma! Now open this card slowly and carefully....
inside reads..... we wouldn't want all the hugs and kisses I put inside to get away! Have a Terrific Day I Love You!


Liz's card (with insert showing what is inside)


And, Liz, I have to say that I did have an outstanding birthday! But, NO birthday could ever match the outstanding occasions of giving birth to my babies!!!!!

4. From Tim's mom - money and this beautiful card.

inside reads.......And so this brings a birthday prayer For blessings from above And all the joy and happiness You're so deserving of.


5. AND, much to my surprise, at the church dinner on Saturday night before revival, I was presented with this beautiful birthday cake (pudding in the middle) and sung to. Also, a few people gave me gifts.....totally unexpected......all of it!



Bro. Jones gave me this beautiful card with the gift certificate (I wondered why it took him so long at Walmart that day! :)
inside the card reads.....A special birthday prayer that God will fill all your days with love, blessings, and the happiness you so deeply deserve. Have a Wonderful Birthday - Bob & Sue Jones. I gave him a hug to pass on to his wife!


A dear, sweet saint in her 80's, gave me this card with money. I told her it was a beautiful card and that I love butterflies.....

inside reads.....May today and every day be filled with wishes come true. Love, Vera Cole


Ed and Virginia Matthews gave me this wonderful journal and some wash cloths and a beautiful card.

The card reads: On your Birthday ..... And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Gen. 1:31) Then God created a special person with a warm and loving heart and a kind and generous spirit...And God saw that the person was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, a beautiful day. Your birthday. Many Blessings to You. We love you.

What a sweet card!

Last, but not least.....the former pastor's daughters had this beautiful planter delivered to the house on Friday.

And this card from the Parkses (former pastor and wife)....the inside reads.....God bless you on your birthday, God keep you all year through, And always, may His tender love bring happiness to you.

So, not to forget to mention all the wonderful comments to my facebook wall from my family and friends, that is a run down of everything received to date! I'm in the process of spending the money I received at the thrift stores we frequent. I'm in need of some new church clothes. Today, since it is Columbus Day, one of the thrifts was having a 50% off on ALL clothing! I got several things there and also found a few nice things at Goodwill. I'm washing everything up now. I'll post pictures of my new goodies later on!

Thanks to everyone for your words of love and kindness and the gifts! How blessed I am!

If you have girls, you've GOT to see this..........

I'm worn out after revival, so I'll try and catch up on my blogging tomorrow and give you some pictures from my birthday, but, for now..................

if you have girls (or boys, so you can warn them :) you need to take a look at the video playing at one of the blogs I follow, Candid Diversions. Leave her a comment while you are there. AND check out her blog!

See ya tomorrow, hopefully!

Today was a productive day. It started at 6:30, which was early for me! But, I did go to bed earlier than usual, too! So, I still got 6 hours of sleep, which is about my limit! First, I set the breakfast casserole out of the fridge for about 1/2 hour before popping it into the oven. We sat down to eat at 8:00. The casserole was (always is) a big hit! I forgot to take a picture to "send a piece" to my digi/designing friend, Kim. But, no problem there! The left overs are just as good as the first time around, so I'll try to remember to send her a piece tomorrow and also post it here for you all to have a piece! :) I don't know if I have posted the recipe before, but I will do that, too. I got it from a pastor's wife in Florida. Thanks, Ramona!

After breakfast, I cleaned up the kitchen and then got dressed. I planned to start working on those commitments from last night's revival service. So I read my Bible and prayed and began thinking about who I could invite to revival and what I would do to be able to leave a gospel tract somewhere. I decided that I would invite the older lady next door, even though she goes to the big Moravian church behind us. Still wasn't sure where I was going to go to leave the tract.

Since it was still pretty early, I decided to work on my Christmas project I had started last night. Through the day, as I worked on it off and on, I got quite a bit done. This is going to be a sweater for Hannah. The back is done and the right front lacks about 2 1/2 rows being complete, but I ran out of yarn from the first skein. So I decided it was a good time to stop for the day. So, I still have to do the left front, sleeves and the hood, stitch it together and add buttons and what ever other paraphernalia might look cute on them. The color is called "Plum Pudding" but, if you ask me, because of the pink being so bold, that is what I see first! I have a "Pink Camo" version of the yarn to do Kara's sweater in, so we will see how that turns out! I may have to switch sweaters with the girls!

Tim and Bro. Jones left the house at 10:30 to do some visiting. I left at 11:00. My first stop was the neighbor's. She was home and accepted the flyer for the revival services and I was hoping she might invite me in, but she didn't. So, I left as I had some things to pick up at Walmart. I still hadn't decided what I was going to do with the tract. Since Tim and Bro. Jones were going to eat lunch out, I decided to grab a hamburger while I was at Walmart. While sitting at the table in McDonalds, I read the gospel tract. I decided that I would just leave it on the table. I prayed that someone who came to eat and sat at the table would find it, read it and be helped by it! His Word will not return void!

After I got back home, I did some more crocheting and baked a pumpkin pie. We were to eat at someone's home tonight, so I didn't have to worry about fixing supper! We were back home by about 6:30 and so I got dressed for church and then did some more crocheting.

Tonight's message was entitled, "Prepare to Meet Thy God" taken from Amos 4:12. Bro. Jones expounded on five groups that needed to be prepared to meet God:
1. America
2. Bible, Prayer, God Haters
3. Christ-rejecters
4. Professing Christians
5. Our Churches

We had lost people in the services. One in particular was squirming. I pray that person does not rest til they have accepted Jesus Christ as their LORD and Savior! Good attendance again tonight! Pray for our revival services. Pray that the LORD used Bro. Jones in a mighty way!

OK, so do you agree with me that this yarn should be called "PINK Pudding" vs the actual name of "PLUM Pudding?" Either way, it's pretty!

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.....

Remember yesterday I told you that I was going to do some crocheting before bed? Well, here is what I completed. It is a bib for Sawyer, the youngest addition to our family. I think it turned out super cute!

Jessica, you make sure you get a picture of our little "punkin" wearing his bib! :D

The bib is in the mail!

We had a wonderful first revival service! Lots of challenges to us for living the Christian live effectively. Much the same points as DH's sermon on Sunday. At the end of the service, several people came to the front as an outward show that they were committing to reading their Bible on a daily basis, pray on a daily basis and pass out ONE gospel tract on a daily basis! We are looking for more great things to happen this week! Pray for our revival and the evangelist, Bob Jones!

The Jobs I Love to Hate!

You know the ones I'm talking about.......cleaning the refrigerator.......inside AND out! YUCK! What makes it worse is having not one, but TWO refrigerators!
Another one.......cleaning the drip pans on the stove.......YUCK! Fortunately, I only have ONE stove!

The other jobs for today were not too bad! Sweeping, mopping, dusting, cleaning MY bathroom. ;P
And, what do you know! DH had to get his thrift store "fix" in for the week before revival starts tomorrow and the Joneses show up, so our Thursday date was on Tuesday this week! Works for me! :D

However, tonight we learned that Mrs. Jones will NOT be coming as she has been sick. DH says from Bro. Jones' description that she has had what I have had! What a shame, not only that she is sick, but that I won't get to spend time getting to know her! So, say a prayer for her, please! And you can include me, too, please! I'd love to get rid of all of this grossness that keeps me coughing and hoarse! THANKS!

Short and sweet, but that's it for me! Think I'll start knitting some Christmas gifts!

Sweater Weather

I'm LOVIN' the cooler days! The thermostat has been on 69 all day and it has felt great! Probably because I have been busy getting ready for the Joneses. I did my grocery shopping, worked on the bulletin board decorations, finished loading the dish washer and ran the load, did some dusting and moved some pictures from the dining room to the TV room and put them in the entertainment center since Tim got rid of all of his harmonicas. I fried pork chops and fixed mashed potatoes and green beans for supper and fixed a pumpkin pie.

Tomorrow will be the REALLY busy day of sweeping, dusting and mopping. Then on Wednesday I'll be cooking all day!

On the creative side, I have worked up a couple of pages with my newest kit, Sweater Weather. My favorite of the 2 is the first one, hands down! I love doing the double layers of picture, blending the back one into the background and cropping the top one, adding a shadow to it and then adding a few elements, tweaking the back picture just a bit more and you are done! Not only did I erase the definite picture edge at the top, but I made the border along the bottom of the picture to end with the ribbon!

The second layout is a picture of something else I did today.....I knitted this scarf in about 1 1/2 hours. I got these HUGE knitting needles with this bulky yarn at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago. I was straightening up in my computer room a bit when I ran across the bag with the yarn and needles in it. So, I decided to work up the yarn into a scarf. It is really too short, however, so I think I will rip it all out and make it more narrow! Next time you see it, I will be wearing it! :)

Revival Preparations

Psalm 85:6 - "Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?"
Why wouldn't God want to send revival to His people? The answer is, He does! However, our sinfulness hinders Him from doing that! It isn't His fault that He doesn't send revival! It is ours! Here are the notes I took (to heart) as my DH preached this morning as he gave the congregation 7 reasons why God doesn't send revival. I hope this hits home to you like it did to me!

1. Uncommitted Christian living is why God does not send revival.
Proverbs 3:5, 6 - "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understand. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
Until we die to self and wholly live for Him, God will not send revival! How many times do I make my considerations/choices without even consulting God first? Way too many times I make my plans without even talking to my LORD about it!

2. Unbent knees is why God does not send revival.
2 Chronicles 7:14 - "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
Did you notice the conditional statement in this verse...if.....then. We have to act before God will heal us. God is talking to His people, not the devil's. Dead people cannot be revived! Only the living can be revived! And IF we, that are alive in Christ, will humble ourselves before God (and confess our sins), pray, seek His face, AND turn from our wicked, sinful, uncommitted ways.....THEN He will hear our prayer, forgive our sin, and heal us! My friend, that would be true REVIVAL!

3. Unread Bibles is why God does not send revival.
2 Peter 1:19 - " We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:"
God's Word is TRUTH! We can be sure in God's Word! More people than ever own a Bible, and yet the Bible is the unread best seller! We will answer for our apathy toward God's Word! It has the answers for the problems of life. It has the answer to the reason for life. God's Word has the answer.....period! It is told of a little girl whose family was getting ready for revival and she could say the word just right. She was calling it "ReBible." Oh, how true! We need to get back to God's Word!

4. Unconfessed sin is why God does not send revival.
Proverbs 28:13 - "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy."
Why is it that as kids we always think that our parents won't find out about what we've done? It is true that moms have eyes in the back of their heads, you know! The sad part about this is that we don't grow out of trying to get by without our Parent finding out, even as adults! Why is that? I think it basically is because we don't really believe that God is Who He is, the Sovereign, Holy, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient (all knowing) God of the universe! Sin separates us from God! God cannot look on sin! If we have unconfessed sin, He cannot give us revival! And until we agree with God about our sin, He won't give revival. After all, confession is agreeing with God about how awful our sin is.

5. An unforgiving spirit is why God does not send revival.
Ephesians 4:32 - "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Matthew 6:14 - "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:"
How can we expect God to forgive us if we won't forgive one another? How hypocritical is that?

6. Unpaid tithes is why God does not send revival.
Malachi 3:10 - "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."
DH said that it has been said (I don't know who he was quoting) that people, annually, spend more money for dog food than they give to church. No wonder our economy is in the shape it is in! The dogs are getting fat and the churches are going under! This verse is almost like God is saying, I double dog dare you to try and outgive me! No pun intended!

7. Unbroken hearts is why God does not send revival.
Romans 9:2, 3 - "That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:"
Paul wished he could give up his own salvation if the Jews would be saved. We need to have a heart for the unsaved. We need to be brokenhearted about sin. We need to intercede for sinners and then go and tell them about the gospel. We go to church faithfully every week, but we leave our Christianity within the 4 walls of the church! We need to take our Christianity to the world! It is very sad to think that some people were going to leave our church before we came because there was no visitation program. And yet, where are those people when we meet on Saturday for visitation? Makes you wonder!

I hope that these points spoke to you, or made you think, at least, the way they did me!
Are you committed to Christ?
Do you pray regularly?
Do you read your Bible every day?
Do you confess sin every day?
Do you forgive others as you have been forgiven?
Do you pay your title?
Do you care about the lost world?

Have a blessed week! Pray for us as we begin Revival services on Wednesday with Bob Jones.