A Beautiful Day

This morning I happened to notice this quote on the top of my calendar:

"Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life." Mark Twain

That really struck a chord with me today. I am a lover of beauty and I love having beautiful days. So what makes a day extra beautiful to me? How can I give this (and every day) a chance to be a beautiful day? Here are some things that I came up with that I think help in making days beautiful for me...

• Starting my day with Prayer and time in God's word. This gives me proper focus and peace to go through my day. I believe this leads to beautiful days more than anything else. Part of my prayer each morning when I rise is that the Holy Spirit would work mightily in me and that God would give me the strength that I need for this day. As I read God's word I am looking for insight in how I can more closely follow God's will for my life. 
• Keeping my eyes open to all the gifts of beauty that God has sent into my life that day. Sometimes I am good at noticing and thanking God for these things and sometimes I am not. The beautiful days in my life are the days that I do a good job of noticing. I like to actually write a list each day of things I am thankful for but the noticing and saying "thank you" needs to go far beyond that one list in the morning. The pictures below are a few of the beautiful things that I have noticed and thanked God for this month.
• Trusting God even when it is hard. There are days that are hard. We might hurt physically or emotionally - whatever. But when I surrender to God and go ahead and trust through my tears that day becomes a beautiful day to me.
• Having times of truly fellowshipping and enjoying the company of others. When I truly take the time to listen to others and learn a little of their story I am so incredibly blessed. Those are beautiful times for me. I am also blessed when others listen to me and I can share a little of my life with them. I have had so many of those beautiful times just lately - I am so Thankful to God for that. I am not always good at listening. Sometimes I think myself to busy. Sometimes I just get to thinking about something else while somebody is talking to me. This is something I am working on. God is so patient with me! A couple of surprise incidents of this lately that I truly enjoyed was last Wednesday I met our AirBnB guest who was from Germany and she and I ended talking for 2 hours. Then on Sunday a new neighbor who I had tried to go meet a couple of times (I left notes as she wasn't home), came by and we had a great time getting acquainted. 
• "Praying through your day" was a phrase I heard while out at Nationwide Youth Roundup in July. It is basically the idea of praying without ceasing but it seemed a little more feasible. :-) I have been working on doing this and it is a huge blessing. I still have a long way to go in making this my life completely but with the Holy Spirit's help I believe it will happen. The idea is to invite God into every conversation and activity that you do, to keep a running conversation with Him throughout your day. This truly can lead to beautiful days!
• Fulfilling God's purpose for my life. There are things that God has blessed each one of us with, gifts and desires that He has given us to serve and bless others with and to Honor Him with. When I use the gifts that He has given me to the best of my ability I feel fulfilled and that makes for a pretty beautiful day. For me that often means doing something with music, flowers, adventuring, creating things or spending time with people (and for me I generally prefer to do any of that while spending time with people too). For you I am sure the list is much different. God created you with just the gifts and desires that He wants you to have. 

Those are some of my ideas in how to have beautiful days. I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well in the comments section!

Some of the beauty that I found in my days this August....

Produce from our garden - as weedy and messy as it is God still blesses us abundantly!

A deer waiting patiently by the roadside. Megan and I had fun watching it.

I had a lovely time driving along Lower Red Lake while making a flower delivery last Saturday. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Fun architecture while exploring Stillwater, MN 

A beautiful Netta on the bank of the St. Croix River.

Theo, Anna and Gigi were my other beautiful companions on that outing.

It was so neat to get to spend a little time fellowshipping with Wayne and Betty when we happened to be in the Twin Cities at the same time.

I always love spending time with these lovely ladies - Anna and Margaret (above) and Christy with Me (below)

My beautiful Megan enjoying some very attractive desserts from Cossettos.

We got to see my niece Beatrice at her job at Cossettos. Megan and I loved getting to explore that beautiful building a little bit and pick from the many delicious and beautiful options of desserts. Beatrice isn't working there for long as soon she is headed to Pakistan to help with mission work and I am super excited for her in getting to do that!!

So many beautiful things about this picture... This is a small portion of our church group - people who love the Lord and they love and care for one another. We are continually working to do that better. In this picture we were preparing gifts to give out in our community to spread the message that God loves them and that we care about them too. Several of these girls went with me last week to go and invite people that live near the church building to come to an event that we were planning. I was so blessed by their eagerness and cheerfulness.

One of the Crazy Olympic games that we had at our church picnic. It was fun for me to get to lead those games and for so many to get involved and enjoy participating.

Berry picking amidst the wildflowers. So many gifts from our Creator. Sometimes it is hard to grasp just how many He gives us each and every day!

These very neat and interesting little rosettes were growing on the rose bushes where we were picking. I have spent a lot of time out in the woods and fields and don't remember seeing this before. A pretty lovely gift that we enjoyed that day.

My beautiful sister Martha picking berries amidst the wildflowers. 

A bouquet from a wedding last weekend. I feel incredibly blessed to get to do the work that I do. God truly has made my life beautiful.

 I hope you have a beautiful day!!!

Happy Independence Day!

   I had a great day and feel incredibly blessed. I hope yours was good too!

   I feel blessed to live in a nation like the United States of America. A country that has a lot of flaws and problems but still was founded out strong principles and one where we still can celebrate more freedom than much of the world. I am grateful.

   There have been a couple of reminders to me today of how we get to choose our perspective and our reaction to the circumstances in our life.

  - One reminder was seeing/hearing various negative reactions on the condition of our country and how they didn't feel like celebrating. There are times for mourning to be sure and times to take a stand but I also think it is helpful to us if we look for the good in the situation and be grateful for the very many ways that we are blessed in this country. Just my thoughts on that. :-)

   - The other one was personal to me. For many years we have had 4th of July parties. I love hosting and it was something we worked together at as a family. And then the kids started going to Teen Bible Camp which is over the 4th usually and then Ken left. This year it was just me rattling around in this big house (Jonathan moved into his own apartment in April). Mara, Thomas and Malcolm had left on Saturday to spend the summer in Wyoming, Aaron and Megan had gone to camp and Jonathan was working most of the day. My first reaction was that I didn't feel like hosting a party on my own. But then I decided to go ahead. I was feeling  a bit blue about this day but God turned it into an awesome one!

Since Jonathan had to work most of the day I checked if he had any time available and he had some in the morning so we met up at 8:30 and biked around the lake. I really enjoyed getting to visit and spend that time with him. Lake Bemidji is around 16 miles around and we did it in 1 hour and 20 minutes. It was a lovely start to the day.

Next up on the agenda was time with these lovely ladies. I taught Barb her piano lesson at 10:30 and then we had Bible study followed by lunch. We usually do it at my place but we usually all contribute to have lovely lunches. It was a great time and everybody came dressed appropriately for the day which was fun.

 I decorated my table for the day which is something I love to do. I used my lovely Paul Revere Cream Pitcher for putting some of my garden flowers in. That made me think about all the lovely ladies that got that set of dishes for me this winter. I am very blessed!

  This evening a group of over 50 came to hang out at my place. Only a few of them did I invite before yesterday afternoon. It was pretty impromptu but people brought things to share - we had a lovely meal and some lovely times of fellowship.

SuSan did the majority of the dishes which was a blessing!

My friend on the left recently published a book and we enjoyed visiting with her about that. If you are looking for a new read which is the interesting story of her troubled childhood where she didn't know who her Dad was to finding hope in God the Father, I would encourage you to check out her book.

It was a lovely evening to sit outside and visit. The mosquitoes don't seem to be as bad as they were for a while this Spring.

This little car usually gets a lot of love when we had lots of little ones over.

The men's area. We do visit together sometimes but often end up a little segregated. :-)

The kids enjoyed using different wheels on our driveway.

Matthias had his own private chip snacking place on the steps. 

  This has been a wonderful day - I am so Thankful to God for it! I hope if you might be struggling with feeling blue or lonely or an any sort of a funk that you will make the choice to be thankful for the good things that you do have and start counting the ways that God has blessed you. Reach out to others and seek to encourage them. I believe you will be blessed!
 

So Thankful for Family!

Last weekend we went to a family reunion. Well to explain more accurately it is the Reunion of 3 families. 3 families that 70 some years ago met because of their mutual love of Jesus. They were all involved in sharing the gospel in a small town of Tilden, Nebraska and beyond. My grandparents lived there and the other 2 families came and went as the Dads preached in different churches. But these families liked to gather together every 4th of July and some very strong friendships were formed. And so we still like to meet together every 3 years (and many of us see each other and talk to each other much more often if we can). Our gatherings are filled with lots of visiting and laughter and tons of singing. Singing songs of praise to Jesus has tied our families together for several generations now and it continues to do so.

   The 3 pictures above are the oldest surviving children from the 3 families. My mom is on the right. She is number 4 in her family but the 3 oldest have gone to be with Jesus - 2 of them in the past year. Barbara and Lois are the other two in the picture and though they aren't truly my Aunts - they certainly seem like Aunts to me. I am blessed to not only have a large collection of biological aunts and uncles but also so many more that I also share a strong bond with.

Tom, Lois' brother who is my Mom's age joined in on this picture. It was fun to get to see Tom and make music together. We had enjoyed doing that a lot when I was in college in Southern Iowa and went to church where he also attended on Sunday nights.

On Saturday we enjoyed family olympics (though we did not divide up into family groups to play) led by my sister Anna. Our team (pictured above though missing my 4 year old nephew Mathias who was a part of our team too) ended up winning which was pretty fun.

We had to do various relay races, taking shirts that were frozen into solid chunks of ice and beat and pull them apart until somebody could get it on and other fun activities.

A contestant from each team also had to stuff their mouth with marshmallows and then sing the National Anthem.

It was rather entertaining.

He is the 4th generation (that made it to the reunion) from our family. Only Jonathan of my kids was able to make it this year but I did have quite a few nieces and nephews there.

Speaking of Nieces and Nephews - I had a fun time with these munchkins. I had sore muscles on Sunday after playing follow the leader going up and down stairs I have no idea how many times on Saturday night. 

Friday afternoon we had a tea party for the Ladies and girls. We were encouraged to bring a hat and a tea cup. Lois brought along a whole collection of old hats for anybody to use. So everybody was well outfitted.

June is the only surviving person from the first Generation. It was neat to see her again. When I got to visit with her she told me that she prays for me every night. I am so incredibly blessed to have so many in my life who care about me and know that God has the answer and the help for all of our problems. 

Vicky and Aunt Ellen along with Nancy have been organizing these reunions for quite a while now. They have done a great job and I am super thankful for them! They are retiring from it now so we in the 3rd generation are going to attempt to do it now.

There are some pretty tall guys at the reunion. This group is Jonathan (around 6'5") and Bobby and Harrison (who are around 6'6").

I didn't take many pictures there so this is a pretty incomplete snapshot of the reunion but it is at least a bit of it.

   Highlights for me were.....

-Dad and I leading a nature walk with a huge group good naturedly following along. Getting to visit a bit with Lois as we walked.

-Some times of real sharing and good conversations with several of my cousins. 

-Getting our NYR menu figured out with Sarah while we were there. We are taking the youth to a big youth rally out in Colorado in a few weeks and we need to feed them while we are there.

-Singing around the campfire.

-Singing and playing the Violin at the Hymn sing on Friday night. It was so fun to play the violin along with Suzanne (also on the Violin) and John (on the piano). It was also fun getting to play "Hold the Fort" on the piano from ear/memory for the group to sing as there wasn't any music and John didn't know it.

-Having some real bonding time with Theo and Netta.

-Traveling with my parents and Jonathan and getting to visit a bunch.

  Are you blessed with a supportive family who loves the Lord and encourages you in your walk? Even if you aren't - it can begin with you and your family and you can do like these 3 families did and become like family with others that also love the Lord. The family of God is pretty awesome!

 

Our AirBnB is Up and Running!

   After over a year of working on our basement on free evenings and weekends I finally got it listed on AirBnB on April 16th (though it didn't go live until the next day). You can see the listing here. This project definitely stretched me as I learned how to trim windows, hang doors, lay laminate flooring, trim floors, put mud and  texture on walls and more. I had to refresh my tile laying skills and figure out how we would make this work to have other people (that we didn't know) in and out of our home. Everything - even the fun and fairly easy things like decorating took time. I was so blessed by the many people that helped me out as I worked on this project and the many more that encouraged me. 

   While working on it there were certainly many times I wondered if this would actually work. Would people actually pay to stay in our basement? Was there a need for a place like ours? 

   I guess the answer is "Yes!". Just hours after the listing went live I had an inquiry about someone look to come for the month of August. That one didn't end up working out as our place really isn't set up for long term stays and the guest was wanting a quiet place to write a book and our place might not be that quiet. :-) Then we did got for almost a week without any other interest but then the next Sunday afternoon 4 bookings came in within an hour or so. We have now had 2 sets of guests stay with us and next month is pretty packed with guests and then we have quite a few more booked later in the summer as well. I have also had 2 separate parties talk to me about pretty much filling up the rest of my summer as one is coming here a couple of days a week for work and would like to stay here and the other is interning here and is interested in staying as much as I have open. I said that I would like to meet both of them first before I commit to them being here for so long so they are both coming in early June. We shall see what happens.

     I had decided that if it didn't work to do AirBnB it would still be nice to have a finished basement but I am thankful that God has truly blessed with sending people to stay with us. Our first two sets of guests were super easy and fun to have. If everyone is that easy that will be a huge blessing!

Here are a few (maybe a lot???) pictures....

The eating area. My sister Keren was getting rid of this cute table and gave it to me and my sister Anna did the same with the chairs. My brother Luke gave Aaron this old radio which I polished up and thought it looked cute as a place for the coffee pot and water dispenser. My brother Peter made the coat rack for us years ago and I thought it went well with my look. The bright light in the corner is an old lantern that had some glass broken on it so I was able to stuff it full of Christmas lights for some extra lighting. There is not windows in this room and I thought it was a little dark. I was able to use a couple of photos that Mara had taken for decor in this room.

My Dad had cut this wood "frame" for me when he was cutting up trees from our place on his sawmill. I liked it but didn't know what to do with it. When I was decorating this room I really wanted to use it to go with the Paul and Babe/Logging theme. My niece Heidi suggested that I make a background picture in it to go along with my little birch canoe that I placed in the foreground. I still want to add some 3D Iris and Cattails in the foreground as well but even without it I kind of like the way it turned out.

I made this little kitchenette from scraps of wood that we had on hand. Mom and Dad had this little fridge that they gave to me to use. I found the microwave last summer at a garage sale. God really blessed with that - I don't have much time to go to garage sales but I knew I needed a microwave and coffeepot and so a couple of different Saturdays when I was out delivering wedding flowers I stopped at a couple of sales and I found both of those items and spent a total of $15. I did also get some pretty red mugs for 25 cents each at a sale. My sister Martha gave me a toaster,  my sister Keren an electric tea kettle and a little crockpot came from my neighbor. God so abundantly provides!!!

    The Paul and Babe on the top of the shelf were something I made from Paper Mache to go in the Christmas window scene at Ken's office. When he sold the business I said I wanted Paul and Babe.

I made a new rug for the bathroom. I am loving the bright colors that was have going on in here. The paint I found at the dump. The towels were some my friend Heidi had but didn't need when she moved (they were a whole set and brand new) so she gave them to me. The tile I bought for a good deal at the Habitat ReStore. 

I had to include a picture of one of my favorite helpers!

I found this picture in a Calendar and loved how the colors and subject matter went along with my bathroom and the basement in general so I decided to frame it for a decoration. Eventually I want some photos that we have taken or some art that we or somebody we know has made but for now I am enjoying this picture.

In the bedroom we also have  desk area to work at. I love how light and bright this room is even though it is in the basement.

My friend Christy gave me some rustic looking picture frames. I found some old local pictures (a couple we had from a local museum and the rest I found online and printed out and then rubbed with shoe polish to make them look like an old black and white photo) and put them in the frames. 

The playhouse has been enjoyed by many of our friends little ones and One AirBnB guest and her grandkids have already made use of it as well. It is underneath our stairs.

There is a bit room with ping-pong if people want.

  Once our first guest booked we had to work fast to get all the final things done. That was a week of very little free time and not a lot of sleep but it was so fun to finally get it all done! We had decided that if we had guests we would put up a door between our Kitchen (and the majority of our house) and the Side door that goes into our laundry room and then from there you can go down into the basement. 

 We couldn't put in a regular door - there wasn't a place that there was room to swing it- so we decided on this style of door. I am so grateful for parents who are so incredibly supportive and help me so much! I was going to tackle the door but felt a little in over my head and my kids thought I should get some help on this project too. Dad and Mom to the rescue! They went shopping with me on Monday (after the Sunday booking) to figure out what we needed to get. We managed to get a whole sheet of plywood in my mini van. Then they came over that evening and Dad cut it for me. Then I sanded it that night and put on the first coat of paint. I got up early the next day for painting the other side. Through the day I was able to find a couple of breaks between music lessons to get a 2nd coat on each side and that night Mom and Dad came back to help me hang it. It was ready in plenty of time before our guests came on Friday.

Though I think it would have been kind of fun to get to really know our guests and have them in our main living area more the kids are much more comfortable with this set up so that is good. 

   Our first two sets of guests were really nice and pretty quiet and left our place very, very clean. I am so thankful.  Though I know it may not always be quite this easy I do feel that God is really blessing this experience. He provides for us so well!

  I don't know if any of you have ever thought of hosting with AirBnB but if you think it would be neat I encourage you to give it a try. Their website is super easy to work with too. You just have to upload pictures, answer some questions and add some details. It is pretty nice. You communicate with people through AirBnB and get paid through them as well and it all goes quite smoothly. If you ever think it would be fun to host with AirBnB I encourage you to use this link as it would give you an extra $40 when you get your first booking and I also would be blessed financially if you go through my link.  I would appreciate that! :-)

  Anyway - that is some of what is going on my life and it has been a lot of fun! I was just looking through my pictures and realized there are tons of other things I would like to blog about but there just isn't time to do everything. This coming week will be a busy one as I am teaching Sunday School tomorrow (I have been teaching on the Sermon on the Mount to about 8 boys - and sometimes a couple of girls- ages 5-8 each Sunday and it has been such fun!!!0 and then in the afternoon I have the recital for my music students. 18 of them are playing (quite a few couldn't or wouldn't). The week will be filled with work- at the Florist, teaching lessons and working on Abbi's Bridal Design as I have several quotes to write- and then on Saturday is Aaron's Graduation Open House. So a busy but very fun week!

  I hope your week is blessed!