Tuesday, March 26, 2024

"New" Glider For Our Living Room!

 

A few weeks ago we drove through our old neighborhood. We were just sight seeing; looking around to see what was new. Sitting on the curb was a glider chair and foot stool. I signaled for Mr. In the Mid-west to stop. I jumped out to check the glider over. It was in perfect working condition, in fact, it was in better condition than the one we currently had in the living room. The cushions were laying in wet leaves and, what appeared to be, fuzzy white mold had started growing on the fabric. We loaded the whole lot into the back of the van. I waved a friendly, "Thank you!" wave towards the house. I suspected that we were being watched through the curtains and, sure enough, a hand slipped past the side of the curtain and waved back at me. :)

The cushions needed considerable cleaning but they did come clean in the end. I didn't have to recover or replace any of the upholstery or cushions.

I am very grateful for my "new" glider! What a blessing!

I am very grateful for all the good stuff we found on the curb at that neighborhood. I found two different vacuum cleaners, a stroller, a nice rotary cutting mat, and other things that you can read about in the blog post that I wrote a couple years ago- Finds This Week. 

1 Timothy 6:6 
 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

If You Tarry Till You're Better.......



The phrase, "If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all," is found in the song, I Will Arise And Go To Jesus. This song is a favorite of mine from my childhood. The tune has a mournful, tantalizing quality, and the rhythm is hypnotic. This phrase, "If you tarry till you're better, you will very come at all," really hits home with me. I remember singing this as a child and thinking, "that's me. I am waiting to get better at doing what is right before I go to Jesus for redemption. I can't bring him all this mess that is me. I have to at least try. Or show him that I am making at effort. Show him that I am ready to be a Christian and live like a Christian." 

Now, the phrase hits home with me because I know people, people who I love and care about, who won't come to Jesus because they are waiting to be/do better. When I hear the last words of the verse, the thought just makes me cry, "If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all."

Oh my friend, please don't tarry! "All the fitness he requireth, is to feel your need of him." If you know that you need a savior, run to Jesus. He will embrace you in his arms. Salvation is easy. So easy. Jesus did all the work. Rely on him and him alone. You can't wait until you are better. You will never be better. You will never be worthy. You will never be good enough to pay your way or even, at the very least, show him that you are trying. He just wants you to trust him. He paid it all. Believe that he is who he says he is. Believe that He is the Messiah. The Savior. Your Savior. Believe that his death, burial, and resurrection was/is for you. That's it. Please don't tarry.

Revelation 22:17 
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. 
And let him that heareth say, Come. 
And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him 
take the water of life freely.

Matthew 11:28 
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. 

Romans 10:9 
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, 
thou shalt be saved.

Romans 6:23 
For the wages of sin is death; 
but the gift of God is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

1 Corinthians 15:3+4
For I delivered unto you 
first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins 
according to the scriptures;
And that he was buried, 
and that he rose again the third day 
according to the scriptures:




Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and pow'r.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Baby Gifts, Hems, Hems, Hems, & Mending

The most fun projects of the month were certainly the baby gifts. I made this dress for my expected niece.

I finished the sloth lovies and I made some whales.
 
I used velvet for their bellies. I am really excited to see how the babies like the velvet. I am thinking the texture will be intriguing to them.

It has been a long time since I had made a big whale. (Blog post about big whales) It was fun to work with an old familiar pattern. I stuff these with beads in addition to polyfil. The weight of the beads make this whale more interesting.
On to the hemming projects. These were not the fun projects of the month.
We had these brand new khaki pants for our boys. The only problem was that they had cuffs. What's the problem with cuffs? We are old fuddy duddies that can't wear anything resembling modern fashion fads. So my options were to donate the pants or hem them. And since my boys needed church pants I hemmed them.
The pants were a size larger than my boys needed. Taking off a couple inches means they can wear the pants now instead of next year.

A lady from church had two skirts for me to hem. I have finished one. I plan to finish the second one this week.

I have done hand mending projects this month. 
Starting with this coat.
This pile is next in the queue.
Two dresses with rips.
And a hole in my husband's jeans.
I am looking forward to a fun project next month. Stay tuned to hear about it towards the end of March!

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Winter Sowing

 

Last Saturday I started my winter sowing seeds.

The weather patterns in our area have been confusing. The first week in February robins showed up! I have never seen them in Illinois this early in the season. We had days in the 60°'s. We went bare foot and flew our kite.

The warmth was a treat, but being February, it is still winter, and.............

Five inches of snow! I was so surprised in the morning to find this snow. Just the prior afternoon the children were running around in the sunshine at a playground. 
I decided it was time to start my Winter Sowing seeds. I have been saving plastic milk jugs for this purpose.

I cut the milk jugs. I poked drainage holes in the bottom. Then filled them with a few inches of potting soil. I watered the soil just until it was slightly damp.

I pulled my seed box down. It is so exciting to pick out seeds and make plans for the coming garden!


I numbered each jug and wrote down on a list what type of seeds I had planted in each jug.
#1 & #2 - Roma Tomato
#3 & #4 - Rutger Tomato
#5 - Sunflower
#6 - Snapdragon
#7 - Bell Pepper
#8 - Jalapeno
#9 - Basil
#10 - Hibiscus
#11- Parsley
#12 - Cosmo
#13 - Black Eyed Susan 

Then I taped the seam closed and placed the jugs outside. The seeds will germinate when the soil temperature is warm enough to trigger that process. The jugs serve as miniature greenhouses. They warm the soil to the appropriate temperature a little ahead of the real ground temperature. That way I will have seedlings to plant in the garden with minimal effort on my part.

I started seed with this method last year (See Here) and I was very pleased with the results. I recommend it for anyone. 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

I Finished Reading The Bible Aloud!

 



I have committed to reading the Bible aloud to my children. I don't always get finished in a year. I just want to encourage you all not to quit if you don't hit your goal. Keep going. We didn't finish reading the Bible before New Year's Day this time. That doesn't bother me. We kept going and finished in February. 

There have been times when my life has been jumbled up and it took me two years to read through the whole Bible. That's fine. I am in this for the long game. I don't understand everything in the Bible. I believe that the Bible, as God's word, has supernatural effects. I keep reading it and hoping to absorb it's contents, looking to the Holy Spirit for help. I don't believe I can explain everything to my children that I read to them from the Bible. I don't want them to have the illusion that I have all the answers. God can help them understand the Bible and figure out what to believe. I'd rather my children have the actual Bible read to them than teach them a Bible curriculum or catechism. These tools all have to be tested against the Bible. The way I see it, testing these tools against the Bible is an extra step. I prefer to start and end my spiritual instruction to my children with the Bible and the Bible alone. The Bible is the standard. I want them to come away with a love for the stability that the truth offers. The Bible is true. They can count on it for the rest of their lives to remain, unchanged, because God who gave it will remain, unchanged, forever. 

They will come to challenges in their lives. They will come to circumstances that make them question everything they thought they knew to be so. I know I did. And what kept me from going off the deep end? God's Holy word. Even when I wasn't sure that God was real or that he was who I had thought he was. Even when my certainty of eternity was ripped from me and I was left in the deepest most hopeless despair. All that I had known was true turned out to not be true. Even when I thought God hated me and I really didn't want to read what he 'supposedly' said. I was in termoil and sharp emotional pain. I wanted to feel safe again. I opened my Bible and read to myself. It didn't matter where I read. It could be anywhere in the Bible. My storms inside would calm. I felt comfort. I felt familiarity. I felt that constancy that I needed. I could count on the surety of the Bible. At the time I couldn't count on the wonderful things I read there to be written for me. I wasn't willing to believe it and risk being wrong again. The Word of God kept me from going off the deep end, though. (Eventually, I came back to God the right way. I didn't have a great quantity of faith, but I placed it all on Christ. It was a simple faith. But, that is all that is necessary. What a sweet relief poured over my soul!)

All that to say, if my children come to a place in their lives that they need something to anchor to because their whole world is upsidedown, I want the Bible to be that anchor for them. Reading it aloud to them in these formative years can build that foundation, I hope. The Words of God are powerful in supernatural ways. I can't comprehend how, but the Words of God change people. They carry with them the power of the Holy Ghost. I feel that this (reading the Bible aloud) is the most important thing that I can do for my children. 

In closing, I am leaving you some verses that popped in my mind over the course of writing this post.

Word shall not return void

(Isaiah 55:11)
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: 
it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, 
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Words shall not pass away

(Matthew 24:35) 
Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away.

Wisdom for the asking 

(James 1:5) 
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,
 that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; 
and it shall be given him.

Unction of the Holy Ghost

(1 John 2:20) 
But ye have an unction from the Holy One, 
and ye know all things.

Need not man

(1 John 2:27) 
But the anointing which ye have received of him

 abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: 
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, 
and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you,
 ye shall abide in him.

Peace be still

(Mark 4:39) 
And he arose, and rebuked the wind, 
and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. 
And the wind ceased,
 and there was a great calm.

Faith comes by hearing the word 

(Romans 10:17) 
So then faith cometh by hearing, 
and hearing by the word of God.

Powerful two edged sword

(Hebrews 4:12) 
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, 
and sharper than any twoedged sword, 
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, 
and of the joints and marrow, 
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

My words are Spirit

(John 6:63) 
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: 
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, 
and they are life. 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Sloths and Patching The Couch | January Report

 

I resurrected the Sloth Lovie project from autumn of 2022. There are several babies expected this year! I am working on some baby gifts, of which, are these sloths.

I will drop a link here for where I got the pattern. It is a free download. Shinyhappyworld.com(Sloth Lovie)
This is our couch, technically a loveseat, but we call it our couch. I put several hours of attention and care into the couch this past week. I removed all the cushion covers and washed them in the washing machine. Before washing them I had to patch the top of one of the back cushions. 
The patch from the inside.
The patch from the outside.
The top of the cushion was split open. There was a gaping hole along the seam. The patch turned out nicely. It is barely noticeable.

The hole in the arm of the couch has been growing for about a year now. Little fingers love picking at it and I have been too lazy to patch it up while it was tiny. You know the saying, "A stitch in time saves nine." Well, I didn't heed this advice. 
This is my repair on the arm.
The cat who lives with us recently started using the couch as a scratching post. 
I dug this thick fluffy material out of one of my fabric bins.
I installed panels of the furry fabric on each corner.
Hopefully, that will keep the cat busy.

Working on the couch made me think about reupholstering it. I think I could do that someday. That would be fun project to figure out. I will wait until I am good and ready to tackle it, but someday I think I will.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Gingerbread Houses!

I had so much fun making these gingerbread houses with the children!
My siblings and I had fun doing these when I was young. My mother would wait until after Christmas and buy the gingerbread house kits on clearance. 
We would split into teams and work together. The first few years we split the teams into boys vs. girls. Everything was a competition with us. Now my family is so large that they have to get several gingerbread houses and split into teams of 4-5 people. I live too far away to join these current games.

This year I wanted my children to experience the fun. I went looking for gingerbread house kits after Christmas. I found kits but they weren't cheap enough for "tightwad-me." I bought gingerbread house cookie cutters that were on clearance instead. We made our own gingerbread from scratch.

I had never made gingerbread before. I followed the recipe on the back of the cookie cutter package. The recipe worked out very well. I will copy the recipe to my blog later for safe keeping.

I found a recipe for the Royal icing that we needed for glue. It was really easy to make. Just egg whites and powdered sugar. It dries rock hard and worked perfectly as gingerbread house construction adhesive.
We assembled all the pieces and began decorating. This step was so fun!
It was fun for me to watch my children make their own designs. They are so creative! Each child is their own person with their own personality and ideas. It is special to see them make their own choices. These are some of the really rewarding moments of being a mom.






We need to do this every year! 


Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Tightwad Tip: Lemon Zest

I read this tip a few days ago and thought it was brilliant! I was reading reviews on a recipe that I wanted to try when I came across this advice. A reviewer mentioned that she never likes to let anything go to waste (I am with ya there, Sister!) and so anytime she has fresh lemons on hand she zests the lemons and save the zest in the freezer to add to baked goods later.


I like that idea. I enjoy the flavor that lemon zest adds to various foods. 
This time I zested all the lemons, even though I only needed the zest of two or three lemons in the recipe. The rest of the zest is now waiting in the freezer to add fresh flavor to a recipe at a time in the future when I don't have any fresh lemons at hand.

Don't you think that is a smart idea?


More Tightwad Tips:

https://simplyinspirations101.blogspot.com/2023/05/tightwad-tip-lids-instead-of-foil.html


https://simplyinspirations101.blogspot.com/2022/01/tightwad-tip-save-onion-skins.html


https://simplyinspirations101.blogspot.com/2022/06/reuse-cereal-bagstightwad-tip.html