July

And so.... you've probably all decided that we'd never write anything again, but here I am!  It's been a busy spring and summer.  Really fun and exciting things happening!  I guess I'll just pick up from here.  I haven't kept up with OLW overly well, so I haven't been doing the blog hop.  I hope to work on that soon.  The month of July was sort of "adventure month" for me.  I went zip-lining, which sounds not that exciting and totally exciting to me, just depending on what kind of mood I'm in.  But whether it's really adventurous or not, by the time I actually got there and got up onto the two story structure to jump off, I was a wreck and almost went back down the ladder to wait!  But I did it.  I jumped off that platform with only a harness hanging from line to hold me.  Every time I jumped it was soooo scary, but riding down the rope was sooo fun!  Crazy stuff.  I'm glad I didn't go back down the ladder.  It was worth the scary. 

View from the platform

Then a week later I set off with 16 other people from our church to Kayenta, Arizona to the Navajo Nation to do a Vacation Bible School with the church of Christ there for 4 days.  2 days out and 2 days back, with 5 days there was a long trip for all of us.  But it was great!  We got to do some sight-seeing (Grand Canyon!!!) and it was really neat to meet the people there and see a little of how they live and what they're like.  I've never been to a more friendly place than the Navajo nation and it was beautiful.  The missionaries in that town are doing a great work and we had a great turn out for VBS.  It was fun to meet all the kids and get to know a few of them a little bit. 

Grand Canyon

On one night they made Navajo tacos for us.  Yum!  It's taco toppings on fried bread.  I got to help make the fried bread.  So much fun!  They had a tub of dough and you'd pull out a handful and shape it into a tortilla shape.  You squish the edges flat and then start passing it from one hand to the other and it gets bigger and flatter.  Until you drop it in the floor.  But they were very nice and had me try again.....and again... until I made some good ones.  I only dropped two!  Of course, that's two more than anyone else, but there you go.  I made several good ones after that and had so much fun! The people there were so nice to let me try again.  The tacos were really good and I'm hoping to make some here at home.  I just need the recipe....

Navajo Tacos

The VBS was a success, I think, and it was great to get to know some of the Navajo people and the missionaries there and the people from here that we traveled with.  

And then to top off the whole crazy, wonderful trip, I helped drive the church bus home!!!  I've never driven the church bus (or any bus) before and I drove it home, pulling a small trailer!  The only disappointing thing of it all is that no one got a picture of it.  But I have witnesses!  It did happen! 

It was great and now I am sooo glad to be home!  Great memories! 

~Contentedly Quirky

One Week After the Hundredth Day

                                                                                               

So one week later, 4 inch plants!  A few of them are still small, but most of them are this same size!  So fun to watch them grow! 

  It's also a beautiful sunshiny day completely with butterflies.  This one actually stood still long enough to take a picture! 

Lovely day in the garden!!

What to do....

So, I'm reading Emma by Jane Austen and getting near the end. Part of me wants to just start reading and not stop until it's over.  It's so good!  But if I read it all, then it will be over.  Sigh.  What do I do???

100th Day

My Grandma always said you plant beans on the 100th day of the year, so this morning I got up in the fog and the mud and planted beans.  When I say it that way it sounds unpleasant, but really it was nice.  I like a good bit of mud.  If you don't think of it as dirty it can be quite luxurious.  The fog was okay.  At least it wasn't hot.  And it was quiet and the fog makes the sounds and the sights soft and pretty. 

 This is obviously not a picture of my beans.  I checked this afternoon. They haven't sprouted yet.  ;-) Maybe tomorrow.

April OLW Blog Hop

Welcome to the hop!

So this month we were supposed to take Action!  I was a tad stumped for a bit.  I'd already been doing some things and I didn't want to just write what I'd already started.  So I was trying to think what I could do to have more grace, be more graceful, something!  At that point I realized I had an idea of what "grace" means, but not a real definite idea.  So my one little thing was a word study.  It wasn't a huge thing.  I just looked it up in a couple of dictionaries and my Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.  Grace means a lot of things!  So instead of writing the whole thing out here, I chose a few of my favorites that were kind of what I had in mind for my word when I chose it. 


My very favorite, the one I think best fits the idea I had was from Vine's.  It's one of the meanings of the Greek word (pronounced charis) that is translated "grace":

That which bestows or occasions pleasure, delight, or causes favorable regard; it is applied to beauty or gracefulness of person, act or speech.

 The friendly disposition from which the kindly act proceeds, graciousness, lovingkindness, goodwill generally. 

I like those.

From the dictionary my favorites were: 

Beauty or harmony of motion, form, manner, or proportion.

Favor or service freely rendered; goodwill.

The act of showing or granting such favor. 

I think the study has helped me with my word.  It was fun to look it up, write it out and all that lovely stuff.  :-)  Here's what my pages look like.

 I hope everyone is enjoying the blog hop.  Your next stop on the hop is at  http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

Here's the list in case you like to hop around. 

APRIL 1 OLW Blog Hop Participants (FINAL)
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog/one-little-word
Monica http://scrapinspired.com/
Jill http://jillconyers.com/
Jenn www.studiojenn.blogspot.com
Kara http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com
Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com
Catherine http://myview-catherine.blogspot.com
Nikki www.inkyart.com.au
Cindy http://www.cynthiacrysdale.com/
Lisa http://backtoallen.com/category/one-little-word/
Donna http://holimess.blogspot.com/
Coley www.coleybelle.blogspot.com
Naomi http://poeticaperture.com
Stephanie http://playinghouseinmaryland.blogspot.com
Ruth http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com
Eydie www.whatwecreate.net
Janet http://lifeinsideascrapbookroom.blogspot.com
Orange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com
Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com
Jen www.jenritchie.com
Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com
Kaylea www.myscrappylife.com
Missus Wookie http://www.mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.co.uk/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com
Beth www.thesingularlyordinary.blogspot.com <------------you Are here
Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/ <------------you Go here
Kelly http://mindingmynest.com
Heidi http://mommy.heidimdavis.com

In my Garden

It's an absolutely completely beautiful day out today!  Just wonderful.  And now that my allergy headache is clearing up, I'm enjoying it even more. 

The roses are blooming, the grass is green and soft, trees are all green and shady now. 

I spent a couple hours weeding today.  My poor herb garden was completely overgrown with weeds of one kind or another.  It isn't finished, but you can tell it's a garden again.  A winter so warm that it never killed the grass made for a lot of extra weeds in the spring! 



There are so many bugs out in the garden.  I remind myself it's a good thing.  That means the soil and grass are healthy enough that a bug would want to live there.  It wasn't that way when we moved in here oh so many years ago!  But now things grow.  I watched an inch worm inch his way across a branch of a rose bush, green squishy caterpillars crawling here and there and I wonder what they'll turn out to be.  Will they be a beautiful butterfly, flying around our yard someday?  Or a moth coming in to eat my clothes?  The hope of a butterfly keeps me from getting rid of them. 

Instead of having one big garden, I have several little gardens.  I like it that way.  They all seem so small and sweet.  I wonder what will go in them this year.  Time to start planning pretty soon.  Anybody have any tips on growing squash?  I'd love to grow squash, but they never turn out right.  But I'll probably try again this year.  Ever hopeful!

Bird's Nest Necklace

Aren't these sweet?

  A while back my mom found them on one of the blogs she reads with a link to this tutorial.  These are so cute that we had to try it.  We've had a lot of fun with them.  The site my mom first saw used silver wire for the nest, which was really pretty, but we found this brown wire and aside from the fact that brown is my favorite color, it seemed very appropriate for a birds nest.   

They were so fun to make it was almost a shame that they came together so quickly! But that was probably part of what made it so fun!