Mom’s Musings

My friend Storyteller posted her quiz results on her blog, and I, being a copy cat, copied her. Here are my results:

The Dogster site actually looks quite fun and informative. I’m going back to check it out . . .

“What’s with the recent interest in health posts?” you may ask. My answer, “I don’t know! This just really caught my interest!” Maybe it could be because BPA is especially bad for pregnant ladies, and I currently know several expectant mommies. Please view this video to learn about BPA.

I saw this on the blog Funny Things are Everywhere.

My online friend, Storyteller, has been handing out cute badges again. Thank you, Friend!

She is the author of Small Reflections and Sacred Ruminations.

I received this lovely award from a blogging buddy at Small Reflections. This is her “Thank You” to those of us who leave comments on her blog. She and I both LOVE writing Haiku, which we do every Friday. Then we visit each other’s (and lots of other bloggy friends’) blogs on Fridays to read and comment.

This is the logo for Catalog Choice. These wonderful folks will do the hard work of contacting the various businesses who send you paper catalogs, and tell them that you no longer want all that paper to go to waste.

Think about it. Do you do more shopping after perusing a paper catalog, OR after searching the online company site? If you’re like me, you search online, and then you shop for a book, music, a comforter, or whatever. If that’s the case, think of all the resources you can save by opting out of receiving catalogs.

I found out about this program from my online friend, Jennic’s blog post on Needless Paper Waste. (One of her commenters actually suggested this site.)

How many paper catalogs will you opt out of receiving? So far, I’ve started the process to stop receiving 18 catalogs.

(This meme is from my friend Marmee.)

If I were a shoe, I’d be a pair of comfy Crocs

If I were a city, I’d be Old Fairhaven, Bellingham, WA

If I were a season, I’d be autumn.

If I were a car, I’d be Suzuki Grand Vitara.

If I were a vegetable, I’d be broccoli, fresh from the garden.

If I were a fruit, I’d be a crisp, home-grown apple.

If I were a color, I’d be green.

If I were furniture, I’d be a computer desk.

If I were a song, I’d be a soulful, Celtic ballad.

If I were a country, I’d be Scotland.

If I were a beverage, I’d be a brown sugar caramel macchiato.

If I were clothing, I’d be waffle-weave PJs.

If I were weather, I’d be autumn crisp but still sunny.

If I were an animal, I’d be a faithful hound.

If I were a dessert, I’d be an apple dumpling with cream.

If I were a plant, I’d be a fern by a waterfall.

If I were a word, I’d be well-read.

I’ve been thinking a lot about MARRIAGE, probably because of the emphasis on romance that is part of the holiday just past.

In theory, most of us are willing to admit that we have our faults. We will admit, as well, that our husband has his faults. This leads to the reasonable conclusion that there is no such thing as a PERFECT MARRIAGE.

Personally, I have noticed some faulty thinking on my part which does NOT contribute to happiness:

• I am generally surprised and disappointed at instances of imperfection which occur. I want them to be fixed. NOW.
  
• I tend to FOCUS on the imperfections and failings (of myself; of my husband), until they seemingly FILL my view of the marriage.
  

I was thinking today what a downer it must be for my husband that I get so sad when things are not PERFECT. I have been praying that the Lord would help me, through His Word (the Bible) and through the teaching of His Holy Spirit, to think about things properly.

I read something this afternoon from the titus2talk blog that really hit home. It puts into words the vague resolution that had been swirling around my heart and head. This portion of the post is my favorite, and is from a sermon by John Piper in a series entitled Marriage: Forgiving and Forbearing:

Picture your marriage as a grassy field. You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your relationship is the field and flowers and the rolling hills. But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and your spouse. You try to forgive them and endure them with grace.

But they have a way of dominating the relationship. It may not even be true, but it feels like that’s all there is—cow pies. I think the combination of forbearance and forgiveness leads to the creation of a compost pile. And here you begin to shovel the cow pies. You both look at each other and simply admit that there are a lot of cow pies. But you say to each other: You know, there is more to this relationship than cow pies. And we are losing sight of that because we keep focusing on these cow pies. Let’s throw them all in the compost pile. When we have to, we will go there and smell it and feel bad and deal with it the best we can. And then, we are going to walk away from that pile and set our eyes on the rest of field. We will pick some favorite paths and hills that we know are not strewn with cow pies. And we will be thankful for the part of field that is sweet.

Our hands may be dirty. And our backs make ache from all the shoveling. But one thing we know: We will not pitch our tent by the compost pile. We will only go there when we must. This is the gift of grace that we will give each other again and again and again—because we are chosen and holy and loved.

So, what do you think? Do you find this advice to be biblical and helpful, too?

This morning I was awakened by my husband bringing me a cup of coffee. Umm! Very sweet, I say.

We are the only ones up, since this is a day off from school in our district, and the young folk are sleeping in a bit. So . . . I’m allowing myself the leisure to read some new blogs. I’m a regular reader of Challies.com by Tim Challies. Today he recommended a post in Radical Womanhood, a blog authored by Carolyn McCulley, which I read and appreciated so much that I added the blog to my Google Reader feed.

I was still feeling relaxed, timewise, in our quiet, warm, sleepy home, so I decided to scroll down and read some of Carolyn McCulley’s earlier posts. I came across her book recommendation for A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, The Pursuit of Man. She posted an excerpt entitled “The Rules for Self-Discovery”. Take a look at this list:

Rules for Self-Discovery

1. What we want most

2. What we think about most

3. How we use our money

4. What we do with our leisure time

5. The company we enjoy

6. Who and what we admire

7. What we laugh at

I’m reminded of Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” There’s A LOT to think about here; I like it. I really like it. I want to live life thoughtfully and wisely, not bump around ignorantly and lazily in the dark. It is so easy to SAY something complimentary about oneself (I am speaking for myself, here, not criticizing anyone.), but the things we ENJOY speak more accurately about us.

I’ll just let this simmer on the back burners of my heart and mind now, and hopefully something beneficial will percolate for later postings.

I don’t REALLY have a CD, dear Reader, but this is a fun game that I snitched from my friend Secret Agent Mama’s site, with one little alteration.

To make your own CD cover, just do the following:

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random - The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 - The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. (This is the part I changed, because the images I found were copyrighted, so I just used one of our own photos.)
Visit http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ - The third picture will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

Our pastor has done a funny post on his blog about Thanksgiving foods and traditions which he finds to be either UNDERRATED or OVERRATED.