Even though it doesn’t actually feel like a workshop thing, I’m always pleased when I finish a puzzle, especially one that’s visually appealing. I use my puzzle doing time to listen to podcasts.

I did some painting as well. I recently re-read my story about Herda and decided to try to paint her.

Herda was my D&D character the one time I played it a couple years ago. You can read Herda’s unfinished story here if you want: I Am Herda.

A friend of mine recently did her first felting project and I was immediately filled with happiness upon looking at it, as well as a desire to start doing stuff like this. I didn’t ask her permission to share the photo, so I hope she doesn’t mind.

I’m considering buying one or both of the following craft books to get back into sewing little felt creatures. Let me know what you think!

---

Too cute!

Lastly, I’m back at the family history project in earnest and can see the light at the end of the very long tunnel. I came across this fun photo of my Dad on his first day of school back in 1932. Look at those pants!

Awww… I think he’s an adorable kid.

That’s it for this week, folks. Thanks for tuning in!

I’ll probably delete this in the good old A.M.

Yesterday I ran across a Mother’s Day letter that my daughter had written to me almost 10 years ago. What sweet and encouraging words those were! I felt awash with gratitude and emotion. Sometimes I feel like I save too many things, but I have no regrets about saving correspondence.

Today, I was looking through an old Bible cover of mine – time to throw it away (but not the old Bible in it, the first one I ever owned as a young Christian). Tucked away in the side of the Bible cover I came across some old notes of encouragement written by some sisters in Christ in Indiana before we moved to Minnesota in 1997. I sat down and read through them, greatly moved and, again, encouraged. Some of you may remember that back in 2021 when our car was broken into and some of our belongings stolen, the loss that grieved me the most was my Bible. It was my second Bible, filled with all sorts of underlinings and marginal notes by me. But also, I had kept a collection of encouraging notes in the Bible cover that had been sent to me over the years. I was sad to lose those as well. What a blessing to find these other older notes that I’d forgotten about, like a hidden treasure!

Best of all was finding the note written to me by one of our deacons back in Indiana, a solid Christian man named Mac Lockard who had grown up in the foster care system. I was having a perfectly rotten Sunday at church that day, struggling to keep our two little boys from misbehaving, my husband being out of town. (I’ve written about this before on this blog, but it bears repeating.) After the service, Mac gave me this note and it nearly made me cry.

He paid me the ultimate compliment of telling me not only that I was a good mother, but that if he were young, he would have wanted a mother like me, and that he would have been pleased to have a daughter like me. I cherished that note and read it over occasionally on days when I was needing to hear it again. A few years later I had left it out on a desk and my little mischievous twins found it and cut it into pieces. I saved what I could find and taped it back together. But in recent years I never knew where it was and assumed it had been lost.

Thank you to all of you who have written words of encouragement to me over the years. They are words to remember.

I’ll probably cut this in pieces in the morning and then y’all will have to tape it together.

Today was one of those “never-got-above-zero” days that we have in Minnesota in January. I usually swim laps on Mondays, but the closer it got to time to leave, the more I felt myself succumbing to the inward dread of going out in the cold. I said out loud, “I really do want to go swimming.” I had to say it a few times to convince myself to get ready to go and then to actually go. What are the things you have to talk yourself into?

Sometimes if I’m the only one in the shower room after I swim laps, I’ve been singing through a hymn that my husband and I have been working on memorizing. It’s quite stirring by the time I get to the last half of the last verse:

Oh, my God, I pray Thee
In the combat stay me
Grant that I may ever be
Loyal, staunch and true to Thee.

Got a FaceTime call from Little Miss Cutie Pie last week. “Can you see me well enough?” I asked her. “Yes! And I can see your mustache, too!” she answered brightly. I went to some lengths to explain to her that I do NOT have a mustache. I felt paranoid after that, checking the mirror to make sure.

Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits.
FaceTime calls!
A sun dog on a very cold morning
Painting with a friend
The last of the Christmas caramels
The joy of writing
Long-distance conversations with old friends
Driving around the Twin Cities with hubby
Good worship and fellowship at church

I’ll probably delete this in the morning after checking AGAIN to make sure I don’t have a mustache.,

Sometimes I like to try to find my inner Emily Dickinson, she of the oddly placed Capital Letters and the obscure phrases that nonetheless fit. Tell me what you think of my efforts to be Dickinsonian. In this case, the first two lines came to me easily and the rest was hard fought.

Pardon the Cardinal
Forgive the M. Div.
With the Thesis in pieces
Do we live and let live?

But Woe to the Crow,
Shun the Bad One,
When sinning is winning
Will we ever be done?

Cling to the Red-Wing
Repent and relent,
With Grace upon Grace
He’ll enter your Tent.

Flog the Blog,
Don’t boast of the Post
Suborn in the Morn
From coast to coast.

I’ve always liked the color red. Maybe it started with the short film “The Red Balloon,” which I watched as a child. That red balloon was the most beautiful balloon I’d ever seen. For some reason I was not traumatized (like my children were) by the fact that scores of marauding boys puncture the balloon at the end of the film. In spite of that, it had a happy ending.

When I was in college I had a red jacket that made me feel positively sparkly with happiness. And who doesn’t want a shiny red car? Red is the color!

It was also the main color in my paint palette this week.

---

I was inspired by the work of Emma LeFebre on YouTube.

I’d like to take another pass at the cardinal. It was a learning experience.

I’ll probably delete this in the red skies of morning.

My toes are warm from sitting in front of the heater and my belly is warm from drinking hot tea. What time is it? Time to share more quotes from my Commonplace Book.

No unwelcome tasks become less welcome by putting them off until tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing and there’s a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, walk straight up to it and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.
Alexander Maclaren.

As the former Queen of Procrastination (surely someone else has taken over the title by now!), I appreciate this quote so much. I’m often one to put off “unwelcome duties.”

The joys of Christmas are not a break from reality or an escape from reality, but an invitation into reality. In the great scheme of things – that is to say, the eternal scheme of things – joy is the rule, not the exception.
Jonathan Rogers

Did you hear that? Joy is the rule, not the exception. Amen!

Fear arises when we imagine everything depends on us.
Elisabeth Elliot

Truth without beauty can be a weapon;
Beauty without truth can be spineless.
Andrew Peterson

In order to see birds,
it is necessary to become part of the silence.
Robert Lynd

In order to delete this, it is necessary to become part of the morning…

I need to take a survey. How many of you do this with your brown sugar:

Is it just a Minnesota thing? I keep a crust of bread in my brown sugar to keep it from going hard, like my mother did before me. It feels like important lore that should be passed on from generation to generation.

New topic: flooring. We’ve been in this house for just about 20 years and have replaced a lot of flooring (almost all of it) over those years. This year, in 2025, the last remaining carpet original to the house will finally be taken away from our sight like the eyesore that it is. The carpet is dead, long live the new Pergo flooring! My husband will be doing all the removal and installation, but I played a somewhat significant role in boxing up all the books that resided in the bookshelves.

---

---

Isn’t it exciting? We have to take what excitements we can whilst living through January.

Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits – Here are a few from this past week:

a husband who loves working hard
Cortisone shots and happier knees
Prayer time with women at our church via Zoom
Tea time in the afternoon
homemade bread and soup
having a local swimming pool
A formal ball hosted by our church
The hymn: Rise Again Ye Lion Hearted

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…

Knees: A Reminiscence.
I heard these good old knees recall
The former days of glory
When everything they wanted to do
Was an eloquent song and story.

Jumprope? A thing of ease and grace.
Running? No one could stop them.
Kneeling and squatting? Good heavens, those knees,
Nothing, but nothing, could pop them.

Knees: The Middle Ages.
And then one day, a creaking was heard
A pain upon climbing the stairs,
Alarm bells rang when trying to stoop down,
Or lower myself onto chairs.

I’m sorry I took you for granted, my friends
Your service was simply unsung.
Knees of my youth, it wasn’t your fault,
To arthritis you now have succumbed.

Knees: The Cortisone Days
I limped my way to a young MD
A learned doctor of bones,
“You can’t get new knees quite yet, my dear,
But a shot of cortisone!”

“It’s effective, it’s wondrous, it’ll bring relief.”
He said with a smile on his face.
But I, I wondered how long it would last
Before I’d be back at his place.

Therefore we do not lose heart,
But though our outer man is decaying,
Yet our inner man is being renewed
day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

I’ll probably give this tired old blog post a shot of cortisone in the morning.

But then, aren’t all snowmen cheerful? These inanimate creations of snow have no troubles, nor anxieties. They don’t even have minds, which cause some of us a lot of trouble some days. But they’re also lifeless and made of stuff that will melt, so there’s that.

Copied from the Instagram account @beck_and_rose.

I’d like to do some knitting this year and maybe make some more felt creatures – I still have a lot of felt leftover after finishing all the creatures in the book The Little Travelers” featuring our favorite froggie, Fig Newton. And I might take up sewing some small projects as well. And small cross-stitch pieces. And of course, I’ll continue to paint and hopefully get better at it.

“Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.”
Excerpt from James 5:13

This cheerful, yet inanimate blog, will melt in the morning.

A friend gave me this charming blank book (thank you, Teresa!) over a year ago and I spent some time contemplating just how I wanted to use it. Prayer request journal? A place to enter books that I’m reading? A place to record ideas for my blog posts?

A couple months ago it came to me: this would be the perfect commonplace book! If you’ve never heard that term, a commonplace book is simply a book in which you record quotes that you come across that you want to save.

And lo, it came to pass. I’ve filled several pages with quotes and plan to continue doing it – from books I’m reading, things I run across online, or something I hear on a podcast. I’m loving it!

Therefore, on Tuesdays this year for a while, I’m going to share some of my commonplace quotes (along with occasional true stories from my life). Feel free to share in the comments section any quotes you’ve enjoyed and appreciated. I might add them to my book!

Send a heavy heart up to Christ;
it shall be welcome.
Samuel Rutherford

The taking up of the cross is the continual daily practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.
Elisabeth Elliot

Tradition is not the worship of ashes,
but the preservation of fire.
Gustav Mahler

When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. …
You will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea.
Micah 7:7b and 19b

You can’t solve problems for those people who
don’t want their problem solved.
Anonymous – found in my mother’s music cabinet November 2024

That’s all for now – and you can quote me on that! Unless I delete this in the morning.

First of all, happy new year!

Yes, we stayed up until midnight – pretty bold move for the over-60 crowd, right? We watched “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which ended right before midnight. What did you do to ring in the new year?

We had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year. It shed needles constantly. Even as we would vacuum needles off the carpet, the tree saw this as a sign that MORE needles were needed to cover the carpet and would send a shower of them to make up for what we vacuumed up. By the time we escorted it out the door, whole branches were denuded.

---

But no matter – Christmas came and went and ours was lovely. I hope yours was too.

There’s a Bible verse that says, “Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits.” (Psalm 68:19). I want to take a season on my blog to explore these daily loads of benefits – I’ll just do that on Mondays, but will be looking for them every day. Maybe you’ll be inspired to do the same. Here’s a couple examples:

I’m still enjoying the presence of this “Mom Bear.” (See: The Mom Bear) It watches over me while I read the Bible in the morning and is a frequent reminder of my Mom who passed away last year. Thank you, Lord!

A little heater in our living room on these cold days. Thank you, Lord!

All righty then! As usual, even in the new year of 2025, I’ll probably delete this in the morning.