Saturday 21 April 2012

Random Facts

1. Today is a rainy day, but not a cold rainy day....one of those days that makes you think sunshine is just around the corner! April showers bring Mayflowers? :-)

2. My daffodils have buds on them!!!!!! I cleaned all the leaves,twigs, and brambles off them, and found out I have quite a few clumps of them, many of which have buds. I can't WAIT to see their sweet, yellow little faces!!

3. I went shopping this morning and stalked up on groceries to be ready for when my family arrives! Only 3 more days!!!!

4. I stopped in with a coffee for my man at the dealership while I was out shopping!It was SO special to be able to see him in the middle of the day!! Even more special to get one of his special kisses! =)

5. Matt's demo was sold yesterday, so he gets to bring home a new vehicle tonight! I wonder what he'll get this time!?!?

6. I LOOOOOOVE my man!!!! <3

Thursday 19 April 2012

My Man's Wheels

One of the perks of Matt's new job is after he has worked there one month, he gets to drive a company car. Monday was his first month mark, and this is what he arrived home in that night!


A 2010 Chevy Cobault.

Nothing like a 3/4 ton truck or an Equinox, but still a nice car. The best part of all is that the company pays for all of the gas!! The only restrictions are that he cannot take it out of the state of Maine, and he is the only one that can drive it. I'd say that's a pretty good perk!! :-)

Wednesday 18 April 2012

new fave

The last time I went to the hair salon, my stylist told me that my hair was VERY dry! She gave me some tips on what I should do and what products I should use to help moisturize it, so that I could have beautiful hair! ;-) One of the products she told me to use was the DesignLine Olive Oil Hair Masque.
My man, being the darling that he is, bought me some over the weekend, and I LOVE, LOVE it!! I use it twice a week and it makes my hair so much softer and more manageable. I was noticing that the ends of my hair were getting really frizzy, but after using this I have found that it softens and tames them a lot. It also adds shine to my hair and, on top of it all, leaves a beautiful, but subtle fragrance. Definitely a new favorite for me!! =)



Monday 16 April 2012

Spring Date

My sweet man took me on an impromptu date yesterday afternoon! It was a BEAUTIFUL warm, sunny day perfect for going on a drive,so with our car windows open and the warm breezes blowing in, we headed to the cute little town of Castine. The town sits right next to the ocean so many of the houses have a beautiful waterfront view, an also a harbor where fishing boats pull up to the warf and sell their fresh catch to a restaurant right there on the warf. The harbor docks the huge State of Maine ship used by the Maine Maritime Academy to train coastguard students. Each student that goes to the Academy has to jump off the bow of the ship before they can graduate. If you could see the ship,you would know what a feat it would be to do that! Matt said people of the town come to watch this event. The ship was docked yesterday, so I was able to see it! :-) He also took me to Fort George, a fort surrendered to the Yankees by the Britsh in the War for Independence. We enjoyed walking around it and reading about its history. Then we just drove through the town looking at all the GOREGEOUS houses and scenery and the cute little shops and cafes before heading home.
The whole way there and back I was treated with the sight of sweet little daffodils blooming in many gardens and beautiful snowball bushes loaded with white blossoms. The gorgeous scenery, spectacular weather, and being with my darling man made the afternoon one I will not soon forget!!
Thank you so much for the wonderful date, sweetheart! I love you!!

Unfortunately, since it was an impromptu date, cameras, iPads/iPods got left behind, so I didn't get any pics of the town. Maybe next time we go!:-)

Saturday 14 April 2012

Recent Projects

The last couple of days I have been working on trying to sew the apron below. I have sewed enough things now, that straight seams, turning square corners, doing things neatly, isn't a problem. But trying to sew curved or rounded seams is another story. This apron had a round pocket for me to sew, and it gave me a terrible time. I did finally manage to get it sewed to the apron, but I'm still not 100% pleased with the way it turned out. Does anybody have any suggestions for me?
I also have been working on knitting more dishcloths. I have so much fun knitting and find myself not being able to set my project down once I've knitted a couple of rows! :-) In the picture below my latest one is pinned to the apron. I found the yarn at WalMart and immediately LOVED the colors! You can't see it very well in the picture, but it is a mixture of green, teal, and white. I bought a whole spool of it, so I can see many more of these in my future! :-)

Thursday 12 April 2012

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Happenings

You never know what may happen at our house when we wake up on Matt's day off, and have no plans for the day! Yesterday was one such day! Since we didn't have to go anywhere,my man wanted to do something to work on the house in some way, but he didn't know what he wanted to tackle. After doing some measuring and planning on how he would build our new back deck when we replace it, he announced that he was going to tear our old deck off the back of the house. "I could sit here saying that I'm going to tear the deck off and replace it sometime this summer, or I could go out there and get started on it," I recall were his exact words. Thus started his project for the day. He headed outside with a wrecking bar and some work gloves and pretty soon I heard the back deck getting dismantled. After a little while my man popped his head in the door and asked if I would come out and be another set of eyes for him. When I got around back, the deck was propped up by two posts,and my man was slowly pounding on the bottom of each post to take them out from under the deck so it would come off the house and land on the ground. He wanted me to watch and make sure that the deck didn't come down on his head as he pounded out each post. He got the posts pounded out at and angle, but they wouldn't come all the way out with just him pounding on them. So the next step was to wrap a chain around the base of each post and pull until it came out. On the count of three we both would give a mighty heave on the chain, and the post would move a little more each time. After 3-5 tugs on the first post it came flying out, landing that side of the deck on the ground, and me on my backside! :-) The other post gave us a little more trouble, but we got it out in short order, and had the deck completely on the ground. Matt then took a saw and cut the deck in pieces small enough to handle. But now how were we going to get rid of the wood? Most of the boards were rotten, and we certainly didn't want to just leave a bunch of wood laying on the ground all summer. This is when my man announced his next plan for the day! We had a huge brush pile out front that needed to be burned...a perfect place to get rid of the wood from the deck! So we headed to town to get a burning permit. About half an hour later, the brush pile was touched off and my man was in business. With the help of his brother, who just happened to show up at the right time, Matt got the pieces of the deck thrown on the brush pile. We also cleaned out all of the boxes and cardboard from the basement and added them to the pile. We had a good blaze most of the afternoon, but in the end we were rid of a rotten deck, all of the garbage in the basement, and our brush pile! :-) Next Tuesday my man plans to replace a sill under the house!!
On the domestic front, I had started a sewing project on Monday, and things were going fine, until I got halfway through my first seam(for the third time) and the pedal on my sewing machine wouldn't work anymore. No matter how hard I pushed, I could not make it work!! I spent most of the afternoon just trying to get it to work enough for me to finish up my first seam. I texted Matt about it, and he said he would take a look at it when he got home from work. When he got home, he sat down at the machine, and the pedal took right off, working perfectly! "What did you do?" I asked in unbelief, "I worked all afternoon to try to make that work!" " I just sat down and pushed it," he said. Quickly I started in trying to finish my seam up, while he watched. Not five minutes after I began sewing, the same thing happened again! The pedal would not work!!!! After trying different things, my man decided that the motor was probably burning out of my machine. My machine was an older model, and we had already put $50 into getting the tension repaired (more than what had been payed for the machine), so my man was not too keen on putting more money into getting the motor fixed. Instead, he took me straight to town and bought me A BRAND NEW sewing machine!!!!!!!


It has about 20 different stitches you can do with it as well as button holes and an automatic needle threader. I used it quite a bit yesterday and it works BEAUTIFULLY! The instruction manual was very clear on how to get it set up to start sewing, and it hums along SO smoothly! No more problems with getting my sewing machine to cooperate! Most of my problem now is trying to learn how to sew neatly, and without mistakes!;-) That will come with time and practice I guess, and you can be sure with this new machine, I definitely WILL practice! :-)

Monday 9 April 2012

Update

As promised here are the results of my knitted dishcloth. I finished it after church last night,and I didn't run into any problems following the pattern written. The directions were clear and easy to follow. I did have to watch a video on how to bind off my stitches because I had never done that before. However, the video was made by the same person that posted the pattern for the dishcloth, and that was quite simple to follow as well. (The video is a little grainy, so follow what she is saying even more than what she is showing.) Here is the link to the video showing how to bind off.
http://verypink.com/2010/03/13/video-binding-off/
This project was so fun and simple that I definitely will be making more to replace my old dishcloths, and they make great gifts as well!:-)


Sunday 8 April 2012

The Best Easter Present of All!!!!

For the past couple of Sundays we have been picking up our two little neighbor boys and taking them to Sunday school. I have also taught them in Junior Church both Sundays. Today I had the Easter story and was telling the little guys how Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins because He loved us so much. I told them that since He did that for us, we could ask Him to come into our hearts and save us so that we could go to Heaven.
The older little boy spoke up and said "I would like to ask Him to come into my heart and save me, but I'm afraid I might be too embarrassed." I told him that nobody there would laugh at him or make him feel embarrassed, in fact, we all would be SO happy if asked Jesus into his heart. "Well, there's this bully at school that would make so,SO much fun of me if he found out that I love Jesus," he replied. I told him that the only reason that bully would make fun of him is because he would be jealous that he had something the bully didn't have, and that he would be going to Heaven and the bully wouldn't unless he asked Jesus into his heart. He thought about this for a few minutes, and then a little smile came onto his face. As I watched him, I told him, "I can help you, if you want Jesus to come into your heart and save you. Do you want to?"
He nodded his head yes and came over to my seat. There in front of me he knelt down and closed his eyes and put his hands together. "Can you help me?" he asked. Carefully, with my heart brimming over, I helped him pray a salvation prayer. When he was done, he got up with a big grin on his face and said "I feel so happy inside now!" My heart melted! I told him that all of the angels in Heaven were rejoicing, and Jesus was so happy right now, and that his little heart was all clean and white instead of black with sin. Another grin came on his face and he said, "Jesus said 'Yes, I'll forgive all your sins and you can come to Heaven now!'" The next thing he asked was "Can my little brother pray and ask Jesus to come into his heart too?" I told him if his little brother wanted to, and was sorry for his sins, he could. The next five minutes he spent earnestly pleading with his little brother to "Please pray, I want you to go to Heaven too! Please, PLEASE pray!" The little guy didn't want to, although he did go through the motions just so his older brother would leave him alone. As we walked out of class, the older brother said, "I'm so, SO glad my brother prayed that prayer, now he can go to Heaven too!"
I have been praising the Lord for the rest of the day for helping this little guy see his need of being saved, and for giving me the privilege of being able to help him! The Lord is good!!

Saturday 7 April 2012

How to Knit a Dishcloth

Just after we got married, my dashing prince taught me how to knit. I found out that I LOVE knitting, and have made several scarves. My sister-in-law, Vanessa, knit me a bunch of dishcloths for my bridal shower, but I have used them so much that they are all getting holes in them. I thought I would like to try my hand at knitting some, so I went in search of a pattern on the Internet and found this one! It is really simple and makes just a basic dishcloth with a small border. I haven't completed it yet, but am in the process of decreasing stitches and haven't run into a problem yet! I'll let you know how it turns out when I am finished it. In the mean time, here is the pattern.
CO 4 stitches. Knit 1 row.

INCREASE SECTION (EVERY ROW):
K2, YO, K to end
Repeat this row until you have the desired width you want. (44-50 stitches)

DECREASE SECTION(EVERY ROW):
K1, k2tog, YO, k2tog, K to end.
Repeat this row until you have 4 stitches remaining.
Bind off(BO)all 4 stitches, break/cut yarn,and pull end through last loop to fasten. If desired, weave in ends and block.


Abbreviations:
CO: cast on
YO: yarn over
K: knit
K2tog: knit 2 together

Thursday 5 April 2012

In thinking of Easter....

GRACE

Why is it God can love us so-
Such sinful creatures, sunk so low,
And ruined by the fearful fall?
Have we some virtue after all?


Ah! no, there's naught of good within
Ourselves, but only shame and sin;
'Tis but the grace of God above
Makes us beloved-for God is love.


His grace is greater than our sin-
So great he died our souls to win;
Praise God! Though sin in us be found,
His grace doth e're much more abound.
~Author Unknown

Wednesday 4 April 2012

"Openings in Heaven"

"Perhaps they are not really stars,
but rather openings in heaven
where the love of our lost one
pours through and shines down upon us
to let us know they are happy."



It has been a month today since we had to say a hard goodbye to my big/little brother,Spencer.
If somebody had told me a month ago that I would be able to live a whole month without him, I would have told them they were crazy! Yet,here I am a month later, missing him like I have never missed anyone before, but being able to carry on with life. I can't say life has returned to normal because it never will be the same "normal" without Spencer here, but life has returned to a "new normal" in which I enjoy every day of my life with Matt, and rejoice knowing my special brother is in heaven extremely happy,and free of pain, hurt, tiredness, or temptation. BUT.. there is a huge hole left in my heart and life that nobody can fill, cause that was a special place ONLY for Spencer. All those fun things we used to do together-going to horse pulls, scooting the horses, driving out to Teen Thunder together, talking long into the night when something was bothering him or me, listening to music together- I miss being able to do those things with him. All the fun things we planned to do together-coming to visit Matt and I, going to the gravel pit to try out Matt's guns, going to watch him pull in Cumberland, Maine when he qualified to pull there, watching him pull at the Lawrencetown exhibition this summer-knowing I'll never be able to do those things with him hurts and leaves a big empty space in my life.
But one of the things that really helps when I am hurting and missing him SOOOO much, is to go outside at night, and look up at the stars. There is usually one that is brighter than the rest, and I imagine it is Spencer saying "Hi" with that little grin of his, and telling me that he loves me. I mentally, and sometimes even physically, blow a kiss to him and whisper "I love you, Spencer!" Then the hurt goes away, and it feels like he is right there with me, telling me that it is "Ok", and that he truly is happy.
A peace and a calm assurance comes over me as well whenever I read Psalm 18. The Lord gave me this chapter to help me in the days after Spencer's death,and I have read and reread it many times since. The whole chapter is full of promises, but there were a couple of verses that were especially helpful to me.
Verse 2: The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Verse 30: As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
Verse 32: It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.
So,a month later, although I GREATLY miss our Spencer, the Lord has given a peace and a strength that only He can give, and the hole that Spencer left is only being filled with more and more love for that special brother of mine. :-)


Monday 2 April 2012

Date Night

My darling man has been needing a new jacket since starting his new job. The one he was wearing was eight years old, and the zipper was completely broken on it. On cold, windy days like we have been having for the last couple of weeks, the old, worn out jacket was not keeping him warm out on the lot. After I commented Friday morning that we needed to get him a new jacket, he told me that if he sold a car today, he would get a new jacket, but ONLY if he could get me a new purse as well.
The Lord helped him to be able to sell not one, but TWO cars on Friday, so that night my sweetheart took me on a shopping date. We were able to find him a gray Columbia fleece lined jacket that fit him perfectly at TJ Maxx,on the clearance wrack.It was the only one left in his size, marked down from $115 to $40! While there we also found a new Nike belt for him to replace the one he was wearing which was falling apart! So excited about our good finds and good deals, we headed to WalMart to pick up some groceries and look for a purse. I had seen one there a while ago that I had immediately fallen in love with, so it didn't take me long to pick out the purse I wanted! *wink* My man, being the darling that he is, spoiled me with this gorgeous purse below!


What could be a better date than being able to spend a whole evening walking through the stores holding my man's hand while we did our shopping?? Being able to find a quality jacket at a very affordable price, and being spoiled with a BEAUTIFUL pink purse made it just that much better!!

Thank you, honey, for the wonderful date!