Moody, snowy, hazey Saturday morning: this is the view from one of our eleven, yes eleven, casement windows in the family room. This is "our corner" overlooking the river encased with bare winter-bitten trees. Every morning I look out our windows and thank God we live here.
Years ago, on the outskirts of the city, there was a new cond complex going up. Bigger that the realator's sign was a billboard that read "If you lived here, you would be home by now." That saying has become almost a mantra as we drive up to our lovely home. We are here, and it's become home by now.

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Fourteen years ago I visited this incredible place: The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. This morning I met and listened to a lecture given by the man who curator of this incredible collection of ancient scripts: the complete and oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament known to date. It was awe-inspiring.
The story of their discovery and winding journey from Israel to the United States back to Israel is incredible, to say the least. The journey from a jar in a cave to this architectureal jar in display winds through inconceivable coincidences that could have only have been engineered and appointed by an all knowin, all loving God Who longs for us to know His Story as truth. What a thrill it was for me to relive the awesome experience of seeing these bits of God's Word retreived from the wilderness! As the Lord has said, "My Word will go forth and accomplish the thing for which I sent it. It shall not return void."

I enjoy scrapbooking! Sitting on the couch in my new living room, dividing gazes between the window and the soft blues and greens I had just painted the walls, I was smacked with a revelation. My rooms are beginning to look like scrapbook pages! I live in a scrapbook!
The walls are like the paper I use, the fabrics are the fibers, and accessories, well, every cropper knows about "embellishments". The more I thought about it, the more I realized that every room, much like a scrapbook page, has its own theme and story to tell. The living room is done in "L'le Davis" with its imagined seascape of placid blue and serene green echoing the comraderie of a seasoned sailing crew and high seas adventures. The Master bedroom is definately, K&Co. "Journeys" atmosphere in rich browns and brozned bordered on three sides with old world maps, sailing vessels, and nymph-like maidens gracefully poised between explorers in Cortez fineries. The Garden guest room must be done in Anna Griffith, swirling in antique colorand elaborate floral paper, lace and ribbons, amid measured pleats and draping folds.
And just as in a scrapbook, every room page includes journaling: a scripture, in a different language in every room! French for the Kitchen/ dining area, Italian in the master bathroom, Hebrew in the study, Latin in the Master bedroom, Kangi in our son's room, Dutch in the guest room, and Old English in the Living Room. (Now I'll have to figure out how to work a room in "pop-up" )
Just as my scrapbooks reflect and reveal what is heart and pulse of my soul and being, my gratitude for and joy of living, so does our home...well, it will when it's done.

All Things New

Our new home is brand new. The only other creature that has lived in it besides us was a disoriented field mouse, but he has since moved on. Not only do we have a new home, but it has brand new address. No other house in our town has ever had our address. Together with our son we are embarking on the new experiene of home schooling. A new home, a new address, new educational experience, and now I have a new job at a brand new store. It reminds me of the passage in Revelation: "Behold, I make all things new. Former things have passed away." I wasn't looking for a new life. I loved the life I was in. But there are many things now, living here, that are richer, warmer, even more gratifying than even the best of what was before. And if it's this good down here, think of how wonderful it will be when the Lord returns and there is a brand new heaven, and a brand new earth!
PS. I like the NEWsboys.

O Shute

I love our new home. It's brand new, built by Design homes with our modicfications. They finished an open pass through between the living room and the kitchen for our 45 gallon acquarium and cabinet. They opened a closet to become a display unit for my music box collection. They installed custom windows the size that would accomodate the stained and etched glass windows purchased specifically for this home. But they did not, would not, build a laundry shute.
The last two houses we have lived in have had laundry shutes. If you've ever had one, you would agree, laundry shutes make life slide easier...especially on wash day. So, my spouse chuckled when I announced, "I need a laundry shute." Upon inspection of the guest bathroom, central to the house, I discovered an unocuppied area about 9"x 10" that could easily funnel straight down to within two feet of the washing machine below.
Glory be. That's all I need for a proper laundry shute! So I enlisted the capable skills of two of our friends who, after a chuckle or two, quite agreed that a laundry shute is one of God's descrete blessings. No more hauling dirty clothes down the steps and through our basement that is currently serving as a warehouse. No more gathering dirty socks and yesterday's underwear. No more collections of sweaty T-shirts and work pants that can stand on their own. No sireee. Lift the lid, and watch them slide to the waiting basket below!
I'm not one to get down and get dirty, but I can sure get the dirty down!

Not Enough Room for Me in About Me!

This is what I would have written in "About Me" if there had been enough room.

Long ago, in a memory far far away, curled up in a knot known only to seven year olds in Grandma's ample pink petti point chair with Michaleangelo's picture book stretched across my horizons,I could lose my self among the portraits and statues of people from a distant land and far-away time. I think it was then that Renaissance people fascinated and inspired me.
Certainly, Michaelangelo was one of my heavies, but my first true bigger-than-life, "I-want-to-grow-up-to-be-just- like-that-person" hero from the time I was about six ( I found Grandma's picture book on him first), was Leonard (no, not DiCaprio) DaVinci (before they messed with his his code). He could do anything and did everything: invent, sketch, paint,sculpt, study the stars, and do math. I don't know if he played an instrument, or sung in the church choir, but if he did, I would imagine that he would play like a virtuoso and a Second Tenor.
By the time I was a Junior in High School, Leo had to play second fiddle to my second hero choice: King Solomon. He had the good sense to ask the Almighyty for wisdom! Go for the top, and God went over the top for Sol! He had it all!
At the same time in my life I read A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall LeSourde. Even though Peter Marshal died before I was born, I felt a kindred spirit with this robust Scotsman who's sermons were pure poetry in the ears of his bulging congregations.On several occasions I wrote to Catherine thanking her for her books that opened to me the life of a man not too far from my generation who lived and experienced the reality of God as a Savior and personal friend.Surpisingly, this
his man's life has shadowed mine in curious ways in that I have met people who are from his home in Scotland, attended the church where he preached, and even the former wife of the man who later married Chatherine.
By the time I was in college, Leo and Sol remained my best buddies and didn't seem to mind at all when I beatified Abraham Maslow as my patron Saint of Psychology! I wore black and mourned on the day he died, deeply disappointed that I never had the chance to meet the man. Not that I would know what to say to a fully actualized human being like Abe Maslow!
What "about me"? I'm no DiVinci, or Solomon, Rev. Dr. Marshall, or Maslow, but I have admired those who have sought to fully live their their God-given potential. A dear friend was describing to me another friend of hers who I had not the pleasure of meeting yet. She said of her friend, "She's a renaissance person, like you." Until that moment, I had never thought about it. I'm not into Goth, but in the sense of realizing all my God-given potential, I guess I am Renaissance...with one severe omission. I don't do math!
It has haunted me from the time I was in high school. I passed Algebra I and II in highschool, by the pity of the teacher. I barely passed Algebra in college with industrial strength tutoring, but I never LEARNED Algebra. No matter how many languages you study, how many artifacts you create, how many books you devour, you can't be a true Renaissance person until you mastered the universe of highschool algebra! HA!
So now, committed, absolutely, intrepidly, with sheer determination of a neanderthol against the mastedon, I am meeting math at pencil point! En garde, you phantom of past failure, you have met your doom! I can factor! HA!

My First Blog

I have just been belched into blogdom! My youngest son and oldest daughter's blogs have persuaded me, "this is good". This novel experience has all the excitement of landing a new job, finding that perfect outfit for 75% off, and having your first credit card application being accepted!
So thank you, my dears, for inspiring your parental figure to let go and "compose" herself.