Babysitting....

Oh, the joys.

Our friend is leaving for a vacation with her husband but wants us to look after her little fellow, Allan.  These two deserve a vacation alone!

The little guy is really sweet, good natured, always happy.....so it looks like it will be a piece of cake.

It's not like he will eat us out of house and home either. He's quite the picky little eater.  Only likes "certain" foods.

He's used to being on a schedule too, so that should make it all bearable.

He's been kind of just wandering around looking things over.  He hasn't complained or even shed a tear.....yet.  He'll just have to get used to his surroundings for a time.  It shouldn't take long, I'm thinking.

Gee!  I haven't babysat for ever-so-long.  This will get me back in the ole' groove.

When I look into his huge dark eyes, I just want to give him a big kiss and tell him his mommy will be back very soon.  But he just isn't the cuddly, kissing type either.

Besides.....

neither my co-worker Twila, or I feel like it would be good to kiss Al, the Fighting Fish on his lips.

He'll have to be satisfied with just our presence in the office while he swims about and enjoys seeing us pass by now and then.  We certainly don't want to spoil him but he's just so cute...how can we not?!!!!

I really hope he doesn't croak while his mom and dad are away.

The things we do for friends, eh????

Trips...

Just thinking of past trips we would take this time of the year to Regina...and taking some action shots as we drove past flurries of activity at "a little over" 110 kms......

and home again.  Those were lovely fall days.

Sounds of the night....

I had managed to open the bedroom window a bit during the night.  This is a lovely warm building. Some time later we were awakened by someone on the street screaming at the top of their lungs.  It was a horrible, devilish, moaning scream.  I got up and looked out.  A young fellow with longish black hair, wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants stood on the sidewalk across the street yelling.  He kept saying "it's too much...it's too much"....from his sound, it was too much of whatever he took into his body and it was making him into a fiendish mass of humanity.

I felt sorry for him.  Sorry because this was his way of living, and perhaps he knew nothing different.  I most likely should have called someone to come to his rescue...police...ambulance....but he took off down the street running.  Not sure where he ended up or how.

The city is full of this kind of drug abuse......full of disillusionment, hopelessness and lives that are continually making wrong decisions about how to live.

What, I wonder, do parents teach their children.  I believe there is a great lack of parental instruction for these young people and they grow up aimless, lost and victims of their lack of upbringing.  Tragic.

Where is Prince Albert headed, I do wonder....

A September evening...

I could hear geese from where I stood.  They weren't quite visible so I just pointed to where I thought they were and hoped for the best.  I managed to capture a few of them (click on1st pic) on the other side of the river going out for their evening feed.  Their boisterous chatter broke the silence of a peaceful evening. 

I could almost see Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Jim floatin' their raft on down whilst smokin' their corn cob pipes....and hearin' Huck say..."I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before."

I loved that book!

"Shine on....

Shine on harvest moon, up in the sky
I ain't had no lovin' since January, February, June or July.
Snow time ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon
So shine on, shine on harvest moon for me and my gal."

I remember singing that with my mom whenever the huge harvest moon would rise in the eastern sky like an overgrown pumpkin.  It was fun to sing with her....

Too bad it's cloudy.  Last year's picS will have to suffice.  I always find the moon so eerie and intriguing this time of the year.  A HUGE globe sitting in the middle of the sky all lit up and pretty.

HAPPY FALL!!!

Cats...over the years....

We have had many, many, many cats over our 42 years.  I couldn't even begin to name all of them.  Here are a few of the last ones that we loved:

Here is Gus (Matthew's cat), his brother, Chiang Rei (my cat) and Coconut (everyone's cat).  Coconut, being the female, took to mothering these two youngins'.  Two of these were admittedly trapped by a neighbor and we didn't dare ask what he did with them....and Chiang was run over in front of the same neighbor's house.  We loved these cats....as we did all of our cats.  They were individuals and loved being in our home.  I think it is so sad when people just up and do away with them without even a word being said.

We then had brother and sister Tabbies.  Here is the brother, Chiang Two (named after the one that was run over) and a beautiful black tomcat (Devil in disguise), Boots!  Chiang Two was lithe, sleek, smooth, a hunter and a cuddler.  He slept under the covers beside me most nights....when he wasn't carousing!  The beast beside him, although to look at that face, you'd think he was an angel, was the dreaded "Boots".  Most of the time we called him The Devil because he was always causing trouble with one or another of the other felines.  Looks innocent, doesn't he?  Not so. I think he was either a tax man or a politician in another life!

And the one cat that was able to face the Devil and put him in his place was none other than Job!  I wonder if it had something to do with his name....being a Bible character and all.  Job was LARGE, had patience, was a definite creature of habit, was kind of a gentle giant and exuded great confidence on one side and a simple humility (if a cat can be humble) on his other side.  Yes.  Cats have sides too!  He was likable and sweet and went around making folks happy.  As the picture shows, he was also able to keep the Devil at bay.  Job had a happy face too, I think.

Those are just six of the cats we have had in recent years.  We speak of them often...and remember how they were such a part of our family life.

I love cats.....

We have sun....

As I sit at my new front dining room window, the sun is shining, the leaves are turning their typical fall yellows, I'm twisting spaghetti onto my fork and telling husband that it's too bad the next door neighbor's huge fir tree wasn't six feet further south.....because when it snows, I'd then be able to still eat spaghetti while watching snow gently falling on that particular tree.  As my chair is now situated, I would have to move my chair all the way down to the other end of the table, hence leaving husband situated at the furthest end, whereupon he would be eating HIS spaghetti all alone.

I shall have to think on that one.....close, intimate supper of spaghetti with my man.....OR eating spaghetti whilst watching snow fall on the fir tree.

The decisions one must make on a daily basis......;-)

Drip....

By the time we wake up, it may be raining, yet again.

It's been a relaxing day...a good day.  There were some very thought-provoking conversations that happened after church today as we discussed the sermon. 

Stacia preached on the Luke 16 passage where Jesus told a parable about the shrewd manager.  In short, it goes something like this:  A guy was canned from his job because he wasn't careful enough with his boss's money.  And before he left his job, he went to various folks who owed his boss a whole whack of cash and told them to immediately repay his boss (but not the full amount....afterall, I'm a good guy...you don't have to repay everything).  Another fellow owed cash too, and he gave him a huge discount on the amount he owed to his boss (pay 20% back...that's all!).  Of coure the guy did this because, knowing he was out of a job very shortly, he knew he'd need to ask for favours from people to help him over his period of unemployment and since he did these various folks huge favours by not having them pay back everything they owed, these people would be indebted to this guy.  He was a shrewed manager AND a dishonest one!!!!  So how can Jesus condone this type of behaviour, as he seems to in this portion of Scripture????  We came to all kinds of conclusions.  Being shrewd in business matters was a good thing.  Being dishonest was not a good thing!The end result though seemed to be that we are NOT to worship money, rather we are to allow it to BE USED.  We are to be extravagant with it, but not let it rule us.  We are to use it wisely but not have it tell us how to live!  So, shrewdness is good...to use money in ways that are helpful to others.  At the end Jesus says that we can't serve two masters....you cannot serve both God and Money. You will either hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other!

Money.

No one wants to discuss it.  We say it's a personal issue.  It's OUR money, after all.....or is it???? 

But Jesus talked openly about it quite a bit...to the crowds that gathered about him, about how we need to use it and how not to let it control us.  I think he may have been a bit of a "spiritual financial advisor"!

It can be a curse.  It can also be used to bless.

May God bless you....and your cash this night.

Psalm 130...

"1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.


3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?


4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.


5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.


6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.


7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.


8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins."

A good Psalm to hear today. 

It is not always easy waiting on God, waiting for him to direct, to lead, to speak.

And so, I pray with the psalmist this night...."my soul waits for the Lord, my soul waits and in his word I put my hope".

Visioning is not always about "seeing"....it is also about waiting...on the God of the universe.

We shall wait for the morning....and the beauty it brings.

Jesus said "I am the vine..."

you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."    John 15:5

These three pictures follow Jesus' analogy quite accurately, I believe.  He is the vine and we are the branches.  If we keep attached to Him (like that lush green leaf above clings to its branch) we can bear fruit like that apple (fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control).  If we become detached from Jesus and go our own way, we become dry, withered and the fruit that could have ripened on the vine, didn't.

I often wonder what great potential is lost because of our disobedience and unwillingness to become God centered...

Five years ago I wrote these words...to myself as I was thinking about that particular Scripture:
"Today, You passed by. I recognized You.  There were times when I did not, or would not...or could not...I've been waiting for this day when You would shine Your glory on me.  I picked a leaf and waited...it was detached and would die.  Graciously, O God, you passed by on the wind, whispering your truth....'Apart from me, you can do nothing'".

Those words meant a lot to me five years ago...and reading them again today, still do.  I am once again faced with  the truth of God's intentions.  He desires to have me close, to be nourished by Him and to learn from Him, and he desires me to walk forward and become all I was intended...not just allow myself to shrivel up and die...spiritually speaking, of course.

We will be meeting tomorrow as a church body to speak of these things....to vision together as to where God is leading us...because apart from Him....we can do nothing.

Some serious thoughts....

some pretty significant truths here....

"I think the starting line of the spiritual path to this kind of surrender is the clear intention to actually transcend our ego's dominance. How we get to that point doesn't seem to be so important, we do whatever we need to do. BUT once we get to the starting line and our intention is to walk this path, being met where we're at isn't good enough. We need to be challenged and confronted in seriously demanding ways.


We need to be continually reminded - so that we might continually recognize for ourselves - of the paradox that where we are at is perfectly fine...but it is not a place we can stay. If we're really serious about growth and development and, ultimately, transformation, then moving forward, both individually and collectively, is the most important thing we could ever do and we need to be held accountable for this movement...or the lack of it.


Jesus wasn't kidding when he said that the path that leads to life is a narrow one, and that few will find it. The path itself is demanding enough let alone the fact that most of us never make it to the starting line. And while the ego has no desire for us to be truly transformed, this transformation is what our deepest longing is all about. The more I really engage with these ideas the more I discover that if we want to move forward we must abandon all of our cynicism and casualness. This doesn't suck the enjoyment out of life. On the contrary, it is only in manifesting Spirit that we will ever discover true joy and it is only through our conscious and deliberate intention to surrender ourselves to God that this will happen.


Let's just be honest: is that what we really want? "
 
     - by Matthew Philip Dale Kent
 
I've been thinking on these thoughts for a few days...

Changing clothes....

She's doing it alright!  Changing her clothes while I'm not looking.  She warned me it would happen but I didn't think she wanted to change them THAT quickly!  I like the ones she wore last month.  Now they had class.  The new ones, well, even though they're certainly different colors and shades in the warm tones, I don't like them nearly as much.  But they're still pretty....if you like those colors.

But she can't help herself.  One little cool day sends her running for her fall outfits which she wears with great flare and abandon.  No one can tell her what looks best!  She knows.  And I give her credit, she actually does have exquisite taste.  The thing is, she just throws out her old clothes and goes for the new ones.  If it were me, I'd be keeping those older ones....just in case.  But it is not to be with her.  I guess when you get everything given to you...you just simply take it and don't ask questions.

She was begging me to take her picture, of course.  I didn't want to encourage her in her quest for the new and fashionable but I'm a sucker for beauty!

The mist rose up to attempt to cover her but the sun peeked through, displaying her in all her bright fall digs.  I hadn't paid much attention to her for a few days.  It went from lush green to this in three short days!

Nature.  She loves the debutante lifestyle....new outfit for every season.

Some tranquility for your bedtime....

There.  Now go to bed!

I almost missed it....

aren't you glad I didn't......

The colors were enough to make me giddy.....and it's cold out there!

Early morning....

I managed to feel secure enough in my walk to lead worship today!  Thanks God!  It was a good morning actually.  Had a bit of a music practice after 8 a.m. then headed into a breakfast downstairs to kick-off Sunday School classes.  Unfortunately, I had signed up for looking after the library so didn't get the opportunity to sit in on the upstairs group.  That group sits and talks about how the sermon spoke to them, and to hear other people's perspectives on what was said.  I think it will be very good.

After church and all that that entailed, I was wiped out.  Came home and napped for a time.

I took a picture of the church this morning.  It's looking like fall out there even though the leaves are still green and the grass looks like it's still growing, the shadows have lengthened considerably.  The clouds too are taking on that wild and dark look as the northwest wind blows with gusto!

Pretty though in the early morning....it was a very good day, indeed.

So much for those three days...

Since Tuesday morning, I've had this thing happening...dizzy, nauseous, migraine...all those good things of life:)

The only thing I could do was to keep flat and lie down...no choice....just lie down......or throw up.  I chose the horizontal.  It's really difficult trying to make my way around without hanging onto a wall or whatever is closest, preferably with my eyes closed as that keeps the depth perception to zero.  I did manage to stagger to the doctor who said it was an inner ear thing happening which can be from many things, even barometric pressure changes (which, no doubt has been the case around these parts for the past several days!!). So I got some medication which helps with the nauseousness but the imbalance is still there.  She said it could leave in a day or two, or a month or two.  We just won't know for sure.

I somehow think it was an affliction that was graciously allowed me to get some much needed rest.  The whole move thing took it's toll on me and I think I am just exhausted, although I did go back to work Monday and Tuesday.  I guess I have nothing to say in the matter.  This sickness is forcing me to take my leave and totally rest...not sitting up either!

Funny how things happen isn't it?  But today really is the first day since Tuesday that I feel I can make it half way down the hall without holding on.

On another note, how's the rain happenin' out there for ya?  I haven't even had a chance to look out the window!

And to finish up here, thought I'd post a picture Matt took on his way home from Colorado a few weeks ago.  Beautiful!

Enjoy your evening.........me, I'm going back to bed!

Oh no.....

It's flu season already....I'm sick......

More thinking....

There really is so much to think about these days.  Life...where I'm heading as a person, as a Christian, as a member of a family, as a part of a church community.  All these things I know, are interwoven to somehow make us who we appear to be.  But what if there was more?  More of something I don't see or even know exists?  What if I have been missing out on things....important things.... What if I am more of a person than even I realize?  Why do I hear about the important issues of life that have been offered to me during a Sunday morning sermon and I go home and do absolutely nothing about them?  I listen to the words of Christ as they are preached "give up everything and follow me"...."if you don't make me first, you can't be my disciple".....Now I need to "hear" those words...not just listen to them.  They need to make a difference in my life, in who I am, in how I can change the world around me for good.  Jesus was a perfect example of how to do this as he went about his ministry.  Words.....and actions.....need to converge.

Between thinking on these things and preparing for Sunday, I managed to get a feel for the day that is happening outside....

Our poor red truck has to stay outside the property as there is no parking room for him inside the walls.

Keep dry......more rain is on the way later this week!

Rain....

it makes me melancholy....in a good sense.

It soothes me on a day when I need soothing.

It's a good day for thinking too...about conversations that took place with son....about how to lead worship this coming Sunday, the songs, the prayers, the feel of the worship time.

So, I seem to be lost in thought as the rain continues to pitter-pat at my window and gather on the leaves below.

It makes me want to put my mouth under there and drink it all in...so refreshing.  Looks like it's building up to an overnight rain fest too.

And now for a slice of pizza...and more thinking....