True Love

1 Corinthians 13: 1 - 8

 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels,

but do not have love,

I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

 If I have the gift of prophecy

and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have a faith that can move mountains,

but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor

and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,

 it is not easily angered,

 it keeps no record of wrongs.

 Love does not delight in evil

but rejoices with the truth.

  It always protects, always trusts,

always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails.

Scrapbooking 101

January has become the month when I go through all of my pictures in Picasa from the past year and choose the highlights. Then I order all the photos at once, kind of thinking them through as to how they will fit on a page . . . so that I can fill a page or double page on a given subject.

I'm not serious about embellishments. It's basically about the photos and getting an overview of the year. I choose a photo album and get an assortment of coordinating paper that flows easily for the whole album.
This year I found a nice K&Company pad with 36 double sided, mostly black and cream patterned sheets. The pages in the album are black and I mixed them up with the pages from the pad.

My favorite tool is the cutter. Very important.

The black and cream patterned paper pad also had a splach of colored pages and I added some to match those.


It's always kind of hard to know how to begin .  . . this time I chose three photos that depict three highlights of the year. . .  Lacey's birth, a family trip to Disneyland and Koen's birth.



Then I lay out the next two pages and work on two at a time, so that it basically looks like one page.

You get the idea.

Some pages get very full!

I allow for little spots where I can add some details when I'm done with the whole album.

Sometimes I'll add a bit of embellishment . . .

Here I used part of a card that was given to me by a friend.

If I use a colored page for background on one side, I'll use that color for framing the photos beside it.
That's all.  The simpler I keep it the quicker it will be done . . .  and even so . . . it's not happening fast enough . . . I've only done up the the summer. But it should be done soon now.
And maybe. . . just maybe . . . next year will be the year I try the online book.

For my Cousins

Let me see that number . . .

Ring . . . ring . . .

Are you there? Where are you?

Kiss goodbye.

Who am I?

I’ve been reviewing Beth Moore’s chapter on "Believing you are who God says you are.” It’s not only a mouthful, but a topic that can go quite deep . . . Beth is good at that . . . but at the moment I feel like a took too big of a bite and need to chop it up a bit.

To get perspective, the first place I went to is one of my favorite Psalms . . . Psalm 139. I will highlight parts of it.

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar. ..
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in – behind and before:
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain . . .
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light become night around me,
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being,
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully
and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
All the days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,
O God, How vast is the sum of them!”

I remember, as a small child, not feeling comfortable with hearing that God sees everything. I went as far as hanging a dark towel over the window, thinking that what I was doing may be wrong and I did not want God to see. I can smile about it now, but I also realize that we can have the wrong perception about how God may judge us.

A fact that encourages me now is that because God made me, He knows me. He’s okay with me not being perfect and delights in the fact that in my imperfection, I still seek Him. If I were a perfect puppet in His hands, would His pleasure be the same?

“He knows how we are formed; He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:14
Therefore He gives me strength . . .
“My strength is made perfect in your weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12 :9
and He makes me able . . .
“Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” 2 Corinthians 3:5

Who I believe I am may not always correspond with what everyone else believes. Noah was terribly outnumbered and scoffed as he built the ark that God had asked him to build. It took him a hundred years or so . . . time enough to doubt that what God had said, would ever happen.

In conclusion, I am content in the knowledge that I am not an accident, that my life has a purpose and that His thoughts toward me . . . .and you . . . are precious.

Missing Kenna

I took this photo of Makenna last September, just days before they headed back to Indonesia. I really don't know who enjoyed this moment more . . . me watching her or

her eating them with such care.

Such a simple pleasure!  There is something about this photo that helps me remember her sweet spirit combined with her love for pretty shoes and purses.

Since we have not had the best connections via skype we have resorted to just talking (without video) or we phone.  She is always eager to come on and say, "I love you. I miss you. Bye." A number of weeks ago I told her that we would come to visit when she is three years old . . . sometime this year.

Then, last week I got this email from Jules . . .

This is what I overheard Makenna saying to herself the other day:
"Grammy go on plane when my turn 3. Wear my pretty dress."
:-)

We had not talked about what to wear . . . I wrote back . . . tears in my eyes . . . I think I will buy a pretty dress for the occasion too.

Yes . . . maybe in just a few more months . . . for that last leg of the 2 day journey, I will change into a pretty dress. Wouldn't you?

Chowder from Leftovers

What to do with leftovers . . . the cook is happy to find them in the fridge . . . sometimes a life saver . . .  but the ones grabbing the food might think otherwise . . . so we try to hide them in another meal. I think I may have some ideas to share . . . it may take a few boring random posts to cover these.

 
 
Corn Chowder is a simple soup that can be ready in a few minutes.You can use a can of potato soup mixed with a can of milk, a can of creamed corn and a cup of grated cheese.
This week I happened to have about a cup of leftover mashed potatoes, a cup or so of cooked corn and a serving or two of leftover BBQ'd salmon . . . actually I had baked it in the oven.You can also use leftover chopped farmer sausage instead of fish.
Mash the cold mashed potatoes with a fork, blending in the potato soup ... add the corn, 1% milk, grated cheddar and salmon, separated into small chunks. Heat and serve.

I toasted some bagels and lunch was ready. Completely different from the salmon dinner we had earlier.

With leftover salmon you can also make these yummy salmon melts or just mix it up with some mayo to make cold sandwiches.