Remembering

Coming up on memorial day brings out lots of memories of those I've loved that have passed on. Mostly thinking about how they have affected my life. This, of course, makes me think about how I'm affecting other peoples lives. It is such a challenging season of life right now. I never could imagine how full our schedules could be. Most days I just struggle to get my Bible reading in (gotta do it first thing in the morning or it just doesn't happen), work (which is mostly boring but we need the income), taking care of the home/kids/husband, and possible an outside activity with friends (few and far between). I think to myself...."how did my mom do it?"....or "how are others handling it?" I think that I have to really focus in on the true priorities. God first, husband/family, work, then everything else. I have been working on my speech/verbage and making sure that my language truly reflects this priority list. Anyway....I hope that my life will be a reflection of the greater work that God did in me. I also need to keep remembering that this season will eventually slow down and for now...I need to keep focused on the family because they are my mission field right now.

Planting Trees

The weekend turned out to be quite lovely. Husband was back home following his 2nd week away to Bethel campus (he is gone this week too for a leadership conference for InterVarsity). Anyway, we went up to the Earl May garden center on Sunday and picked out a flat of flowers for the 4 planters that I had. Been meaning to plant those up for the last 2 Years(!!!) and am just now getting it done. The girls had a blast planting them! Of course....I forgot to get pictures of them in action....I need to get my picture groove on!!! The other item that we got was a ornamental tree! I am super excited about it. We found a flower plum tree that should be just the right size for the area near our back door (our garage sits behind our house and makes an "L" shape back there). The area was in desperate need of a tree (southern exposure....very hot in the summer) but because of the driveway there was definite limitations to what could go there. Got it planted and mulched in....now hopefully it will thrive there. We decided to get the tree from the garden center because they have a 1 year guarantee on them.

While we planting the tree we started remincincing about other trees we planted (a total of 9 others) and awful walnut trees that we have removed from properties (3 in total!). We have always enjoyed driving by our old houses (whenever we visit or drive through towns we have lived in) and seeing how "our" trees are doing. I think of it as a gift to future owners of our houses!