Blog connections

Tonight I found out that two of my blog links have introduced people to each other. My sister who is "Quid Nunc..." found out that she goes to church with the "Gentino family"! And they wouldn't have known except she saw the blog link on my blog. So cool, huh? The Gentino family wife is the daughter of our good friends from college, Kevin and Elaine. We have lots of stories of double dating days.....but we'll save that for another time!

Who knows who else will connect?!

A wedding shower

Yesterday we had a wedding shower at my house for the bride of my friend's son. She's my friend, too, since we sing together in church, but I knew her mother-in-law first. It was lovely! I think there were about twenty women in my living room. It's amazing that I can get that many people in here with that many places for people to sit! It was a very simple shower. Mostly we visited with each other. The bride opened her presents, so we ooo'd and ahhhh'd over them. Those of us married for many years wish we'd get another shower to update some of our things! We wrote advice on cute, colorful cards to go into a scrapbook along with photos of the shower. And we also said how long we had been married. The longest married has been married for 47 years and the shortest was one year. How fun to get together for such a joyous occasion. It's great to remember our own wedding showers and weddings, to think of God's faithfulness to us over ALL these years, and then to remind ourselves that OUR GOD is the God of the next generation as well. He will be their guide as He has been ours. Amazing how God even uses a wedding shower to remind us of His steadfast love.

Spurring one another on

Having been inspired by recent entries of Prone to Wander and subsequent comments. And having thought about the happiness/joy concepts, I was reminded of a passage I loved from an old book I read in college (molti anni fa!)

The son said, Forgive me, my Father, but sometimes I wonder if even in the Other Life there will be that for which my heart longs.
His Father said, In My presence is fulness of joy; can fulness be less than full? At My right hand there are pleasures forevermore; can pleasures be less than delight? Dear child of My love, trust My love. Would I leave one longing unsatisfied? You do not know your Father if you think that I would. You shall be satisfied with the plenteousness of My House: I will give you to drink of My pleasures as out of a river. Do you think that nothing could ever be as beautiful as once it was? Turn your eyes from your beautiful beginnings--I will do better to you than at your beginnnings. (from His Thoughts said...His Father said... by Amy Carmichael, with updated language by me.)

I always loved thinking about that verse, "In thy presence is fulness of joy..." and then the response from this writer, "Can fulness be any less than full?" And then the rest of the verse, "At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Sometimes we have a tendency to think the Christian life is not meant for pleasure. But our pleasures are in pleasing our Father. Our joy is full. Better than our beginnings!

Old friends

I could write tons about old friends, since I have so many of them. Not that my friends are old, but moving around, and well, just being alive after so many years, one tends to gather up friends without letting go of the first ones. So in saying all that, and not saying much, you see a photo of our old friend, Drew. Yes, those of you who know him, Drew came to town today. He's Andrew's friend from elementary and junior high school. They were inseparable for three years. Andrew even stayed at his house for several weeks one summer while I was studying away from home. Drew has been the "other brother". (We've had several of those. He's the only one to still come around!) He was in town for meetings, so he's spending the night. We just had a lovely pork tenderloin dinner with rosemary potatoes, green beans, cauliflower and homemade apple pie. Now the guys are bonding downstairs in the "media room." They've spent hours in that room together when it was Andrew's bedroom. Ah, nice these guys can pick up right where they leave off.....

Can you resist this?

This is what I've been doing this week. Playing with cutie-pies like this. He wanted me to take a picture of his lunch box! I've been helping out in the pre-school room this week. They only needed me for half the day Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. And it has been soooo fun! On Monday the little girl in the front had her dad come in and talk to the class about being a Navy pilot. He brought his helmet ( is that what it's called??) He let all who wanted to put it on. Then he pulled down the visor and some even got to try out the oxygen mask with it. Did I have my camera THAT day? Rats!

A productive Saturday

I used to keep a journal every day. In 1985 when we first moved to Scotland, my mother bought a little "diary" for me to keep track of all the new experiences I would have while living in another country. I wrote about my first impressions, new people I met, finding a new church and how different or the same it was to my American church experience. I also wrote and wrote about all the work I did. I didn't write much about feelings or thoughts in those journals. After that first little one, I bought "Scottish journals" that were big hardback books with dates at the top of every page. During those years, I had two new babies. But my point here is that I wrote about what I accomplished. Like washing clothes, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, baking bread, edging the sidewalk, feeding the family at weird hours since Den worked shifts, shopping in Thurso, walking to shops in Castletown. Sometimes it makes me tired just to read the stuff!!
Yet today was one of those days. Dinner's over, lots of baking and cleaning got done, and I am happy with clean beds, dishes, house and lovely sweet rolls ready for a wedding shower brunch for next Saturday. (Don't worry, they'll be in the freezer until then!)
Ah, so satisfying. Now I can read a good book while the guys watch more football!

We watched a funny movie last night called Keeping Mum. A play on words twice over. It stars Maggie Smith and Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) two name the well-known actors. You'll have to look it up on IMDB for a summary. We love both these actors and the movie used their varying talents well. A good Brit story! Funny and twisted if you know what I mean. Sort of fits this weird Minich sense of humor. TTFN!

I threw away my vegetable peeler!!!!!

AKA a potato peeler. Now this wouldn't be such a big deal if it were years ago, but now I own a Cutco potato peeler. This is the best thing I've ever used. The peelings melt off in seconds. I've had it for 5 years and it is still as good as ever. I thought that pile of peelings seemed heavier than it should be!!!