Good Things!

Counting my blessings!!  There are so many things to be thankful for in my life.  Just returned home from a great outing with Heath.  There is a Photography Symposium this weekend in Moncton.  We went downtown and browsed through a couple of photo exhibits and walked down Main Street and enjoyed the brisk fall air and dreamed of the damage we could do with a digital SLR camera.

I am thankful:

1.  To be able to enjoy delicious treats like these with Nieche and Co : - )

2.  To enjoy a wonderful lunch (that almost turned into supper) with friends like these:

3.  For two of my favorite guys:

4.  For Mr. Furball:

5.  Being able to enjoy incredibly gorgeous days like yesterday - when the sun is shining brightly, the temp is a balmy 17 degrees celsius and I can spend a couple of hours reading on my back deck, in the sun....at the end of October!!

All free.....and priceless : - )

Sorrow....

A couple of days ago, we got the news that a friend had lost his young wife suddenly.  They had only been married four months and she died the day before her 24th birthday.  I cried for him when I heard...how his life will never be the same and how it would feel to lose a spouse and yet have to go on.

God's ways are not our ways!  It is difficult, even impossible, to understand what God's plan is when someone so young is taken.  Why does He take some and leave others??  This isn't for us to try and figure out.  His plan is far greater and, yes, far better than our tiny minds can comprehend.

It does make me count my blessings that I have enjoyed twenty years with my love.  Marriage is many things; changing, sharing, growing (sometimes together...sometimes apart).  Before we said our vows in front of our wedding guests, we vowed to each other that, no matter what happens, we are together for life.  There are NO other options and we must choose to love each other, each and every day!!

Thank you, Lord, for my incredibly wonderful husband.  For his integrity, commitment, faithfulness and the fact that he can still make me laugh after all these years.   I sorrow with Duncan that he and Bethany had only four short months together but I pray that they were among some of the happiest days in their lives.

Life is short!!  Cherish each moment that you have together and don't waste the precious time that God has given you.

A THANK-ful heart

I know...I know!  I suck at routine blogging.  As I stated in my last post, I only wrote in my diary now and then.  My only excuse is that things have been so incredibly busy lately that blogging hasn't made it to the top of the priority list until today.

We just finished two weeks of gospel meetings with Peter Ramsay and Matthew Cain.  God has gifted these two men with the ability to connect on a different level than many preachers.  They are very much a complement to each other...when one is tougher, the other is softer..and vice versa!   Between teaching Mad Science, attending the meetings and trying to catch up on all of the tasks that have fallen by the wayside in the past couple of months, things have been a bit crazy.  You may think I am exaggerating (as I am prone to do at times) however, evidence of this is the fact that I ironed for 2 hours straight last night to catch up on all of the Dave's dress shirts that have been getting washed....but not ironed....for the past month.  Those who know me well, know that ironing is my LEAST favorite housekeeping task : - )  To make it more palatable, I only do it when I am watching TV!!

Thanksgiving weekend was a family and activity intense four days.  On Friday, Heather, Ashley C and I went hiking at Fundy National Park.  It was a gorgeous fall day and I felt incredibly blessed to have the physical health and ability to hike 5 km through God's creation!

Saturday morning, we were up bright and early to head to Oxford for the Annual Patterson Wood Chuck.  Most of the family was there to put Grandma and Grampa's wood in for the winter.  I remember when we used to head to Grammie Swan's, with a bunch of cousins, to do the same thing.  It didn't seem like work because we got to spend the time with some of our favorite people.  I treasure those memories and smile when I think that my nieces and nephews will look back on these days with fond memories that they may not even realize they are forming!

We rushed back to Moncton in time to head to Reta's for a birthday celebration and cabbage rolls...YUM!  Nobody makes cabbage rolls like Reta.  I think it's her Syrian heritage that gives her special skills : - )

On Monday, we headed down to the cottage for Thanksgiving dinner.  The younger kids and I made a run down to the beach to look for beach glass but the tide was way in so that plan was squashed.  We stuffed ourselves 'to the gills' and raced back to Moncton for gospel meeting that night.  It was very hard to keep my eyes open once the tryptophan kicked in!

I am thankful for:
- Dave!!
- health and physical ability
- my family
- a car to get to the many places we want to go
- good friends

What more can a girl ask for???

Fallin' ......

Well, fall is full upon us!  The leaves are starting to turn and soon I will be able to get more pics like this one.

Obviously, my blogging frequency is going to mirror my diary writing of years past...in fits and spurts : - )  I always have it in the back of my mind to do but it is down the list quite a way.

Last week, I started teaching part-time at an after-school program called Mad Science.  We teach kids from kindergarten to Grade 6 about science-related topics.  I am thankful that the Lord sent a job my way that gives me exactly what I was looking for: much higher than minimum wage, part-time hours and complete flexibility for time off, etc.

We are teaching Spy Academy right now, which is right up my alley.  When I was a kid, I had a detective kit and used to spy on the neighbors in the apartment complex next door and dust their doorknobs for fingerprints.  After the initial chaotic beginning, I am really starting to enjoy the kids and their cute questions and comments.  I had asked them to come up with a spy name and told them it could be a nickname or something completely unrelated.  I had to explain nicknames and one little guy said "Oh, it's like my dad's name is Brian, but he goes by 'Dad'"....too cute!!

This weekend is shaping up to be quite busy.  Heath and I want to go apple picking but I'm not sure when we are going to fit that in.  Saturday, the plan is to go to Oxford with the rest of the family to put wood in for Mom & Dad P.  We will be rushing back to Moncton to join some of the Mix clan for Rita's stupendous cabbage rolls for supper on Saturday and then another trip to NS on Monday for Thanksgiving dinner at the cot-taj.  Burp!! 

Hope all of this delightful food will put some of the pounds on that I've lost.  Between Dave's restricted eating plan and starting to jog, I had lost about 5 pounds and I am getting REAAALLLLYYY tired of people commenting on how thin I am.  Geeesh!  If everyone commented on larger people's weight the way they comment on mine, I can see why people get really defensive about their weight.  Am I not fine just the way I am???  Dave thinks so....and he's the man : - )

It is a gorgeous sunny day and I spent some time this morning finishing up with the outside painting.  Trim and support column all done.  Now Dave just has to finish the garage door.  I got tired of looking like the 'white trash' house of the neighborhood.

Ciao for now!