Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Oops!

Oh, my! When writing my "Daybook" post I inadvertently put something in it that has caused some of my dear readers to think I am expecting. So sorry Pat and Gina and anyone else that was confused. I am NOT expecting(although I surely would love more children). The baby I was speaking of has already been born and belongs to my dear choir director. She is a little beauty and I desire to make her a little outfit or bonnet:-)

Again, I am so sorry for any confusion. But, if I do become pregnant, I will no doubt let you all know:-D

Oh, and Pat, I am sorry...I didn't put through your comment only because I thought perhaps you were thinking of someone else and I apologize. I am so glad you enjoyed my blog!

Blessings,
Sommer

Monday, July 28, 2008

My Daybook

Peggy, over at The Simple Woman is sharing her Daybook and has invited folks to join in. So, I decided I couldn’t pass up the fun :-) Won’t you join us? Just pop on over to Peggy’s blog for the details!

For July 28th


Outside My Window…
Are little baby birds hidden away in a tree. I hear them from time to time.

I am thinking…
That I need to get a grocery list together.

I am thankful for…
A really fun Saturday at the rodeo with my hubby and kids. Yeehaw!!!!

From the kitchen…
Just lunch makings today and dinner at my MIL’s tonight.

I am creating…
A place of peace in my home, and garments for my family and a new little baby.

I am going…
To Costco and my MIL’s house.

I am wearing…
A blue t-shirt, blue jeans and my sandals.

I am reading…
A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit

I am hoping…
That I can get more sewing done than I have as of late. I have only a couple of weeks to make something for a new baby!

I am hearing…
Liam laughing while playing with Brenna.

Around the house…
A lot of toys…is that so surprising?

One of my favorite things…
Anything horse related. And a rodeo is especially fun!

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Household chores, working on a tentative schedule and plan for our school year, and just fun with the kids.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing…
This is a pic from our day at the rodeo on Saturday. This particular even is called "mutton busting". Sounds odd doesn't it? The riders are kids that are 7 years or younger and no more than 50lbs. The winner is whoever stays on the longest. Kind of like Bronc ridin...rather amusing. I think the sheep won:-)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Sunday Rest~Where is your treasure?



And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
~Luke 12:15
***

And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
~Luke 12:29-34
***
These verses are some of what we read today in our family Bible time. I've always loved these passages. However, they are especially good for me to meditate on now, as a mother and wife striving to make ends meet and put food upon the table. It is easy to get caught up in the worry and fuss about our needs. Yet, as important as those things are in providing for my family, it is even more important to think on heaven and the things of God. Material things are only a portion in life and we surely do not need as much as we are led to believe or choose to believe. In the end, it is my eternal state that matters. What does my heart betray? Is my treasure in things of the world or in heaven?
Blessed Lord's Day to you:-)
Sommer

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Poetry and Old Books

This afternoon, I decided to update my blog a little. One of those things I updated was my Poetry Corner(you'll find this on the side bar). I always enjoy thinking about and choosing the poems I place there. Sometimes they are mine, sometimes my Grandma Gloria's and other times they are from a favorite poet or ones I've never heard of.

Today, I chose a selection from John Greenleaf Whittier called Trust. A lovely poem..I do hope you will enjoy it. I happened to find it while leafing through my volume of Whittier's Poems. It is a beautiful book with flowers all about it and a butterfly in the center with a gold area for the title. I'm not sure exactly where I found this book..some antique store or an old book shop I use to frequent...it is a treasure to be sure. The book is 124 years old and in amazing condition. These are his complete poetical works. I thought I'd share it with you:



Inside the book, there are marks from the folks I bought the book from..I only paid $18 for this! I think that is an exceptional deal considering the condition this book is in.(I paid much more for my Byron which is in the same condition) Also, there is a lovely inscription to the owner of this delightful book. The picture is very fuzzy, I'm sorry. It says:

"Mother"
from Joe and Maggie,
Christmas 1884


I have a passion for old books! And even more so when they contain some personal memorabilia in them. I have books that have writing(like this one here) and also ones that have clippings and stationary pressed within the pages. Those make them all the more special. I am not one to remove the clippings from their pages..I keep them just where they are and admire them from time to time:-)

I hope you enjoyed looking at this little book and I hope you enjoy the poem in the Poetry Corner!

Blessings,

Sommer


Random Thoughts

I found this interesting meme on Shannon’s blog. It looked fun and I thought it would be a good way for you all to get to know me better. If you feel like it, join in:-) Do let me know in the comments!

I am: a child of God, wife and mother.

I think: that I have much room to grow in regards to my walk as a child of God.

I know: how to sew, but do not have the time to do it as often as I’d like.

I have: too much stuff in my home.

I wish: that I was more content with the life God has given me.

I hate: conflict, abuse and lies.

I miss: my Grandma Gloria.

I fear: losing my husband and my children.

I feel: a touch overwhelmed and a little down.

I hear: my husband doing his latin lesson.

I smell: my coffee..yum!

I crave: sweets, books(especially the very old ones), yarn and fabric!

I search: for things buried under piles on my table…all the time!

I wonder: what my children will be like when they grow up and will they be children of God.

I regret: the few years after highschool.

I love: my Savior; my wonderful husband; my sweet children; horses and books…and my treadle machine.

I ache: when my children cry…especially when I don’t know how to help them.

I am not: a very good house keeper.

I believe: in my Saviour.

I dance: rarely…although my babies can usually convince me to:-)

I sing: in my church choir….soprano(usually).

I cry: when very sad.

I don't always: finish what I start…I need to change that.

I fight: change.

I write: poetry.

I win: very rarely.

I lose: time.

I never: want my children to doubt my love for them.

I always: have wanted a horse.

I confuse: myself at times.

I listen: to my husband playing piano and my children laughing.

I can usually be found: in the kitchen with my hands in dish water.

I am scared: of spiders.

I need: my husband.

I am happy about: the prospect of moving somewhere larger.

I imagine: stories that I’d like to someday write.

I am wearing: blue jeans, a cream colored blouse and sandals.

I look forward to: getting to sew.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Sunday Rest


Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

~Phil 4:8

May your Lord's Day be full of lovely and pure thoughts. May you think on the One that is awesome and lovely!

Blessings,
Sommer

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Another Interesting Book Meme

I saw this on Serena’s blog, The Hermit of the Southern March, today and thought it would be fun to do. Apparently, according to the Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the books on this list. I don’t know how true this is, but I thought it would be fun to see how many I have read.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE. (Like Serena, I’m going to highlight the ones I love in red…just thought it would be more fun.)
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
WATCHING MOVIES DOES NOT COUNT!!!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare(okay..I’ve read some and intend on reading more:-) )
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graeme
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (isn't that a bit redundant?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne(I’m working on this with my daughter…so techinically, we aren’t finished yet..you don’t mind do you?)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


So, I’ve apparently read 26 from this list. I’m glad to know that I am not one of the average that have only read 6. I will say, there are definitely a few there that I would have not read if it wouldn’t have affected my grade:-p And there are plenty more that I’ve never heard of or have absolutely no desire to read. And I do love to read. This was fun:-) How many have you read?

Monday, July 7, 2008

My Daybook

Peggy, over at The Simple Woman is sharing her Daybook and has invited folks to join in. So, I decided I couldn’t pass up the fun :-) Won’t you join us? Just pop on over to Peggy’s blog for the details!

For July 7th


Outside My Window…
Very hot and hazy day.

I am thinking…
That my little boy may be teething.

I am thankful for…
A good friend that encourages me.

From the kitchen…
Meatloaf, bread and butter and broccoli

I am creating…
A more peaceful home...I hope :-)

I am going…
Grocery shopping.

I am wearing…
A black t-shirt, blue jean shorts and my hair up.

I am reading…
“Don’t Make Me Count to Three!”
By Ginger Plowman

I am hoping…
I can get Liam sleeping better and eating more solid foods. Mamma is tired!

I am hearing…
Fiona taking her piano lesson with Daddy.

Around the house…
Dishes, decluttering and laundry.

One of my favorite things…
A very cool breeze.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Going through homeschool stuff, reorganizing several places in the home, cleaning, sewing and groceries.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing…


Sunday, July 6, 2008

Sunday Rest



Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
~Proverbs 16:24
***
Hope each of you are having a blessed Lord's Day! And yes, Fiona did get her hair cut(by me) and I really love this particular shot of her.
Blessings,
Sommer

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy Independence Day!


Just wanting to wish you all a very happy and blessed Independence Day!


Thank God for our freedoms and let us pray for all those in office, that they will make godly choices!


Have a great day!

Sommer

Thursday, July 3, 2008

What We've Been Doing...

Now that we've finished up the school year, we are taking a brief break. I don't homeschool year round, but we do have a short summer break. I like to start early so that if anything comes up, we can afford to take time off:-)

We've been on "break" for almost two weeks now. So what have we been doing? What has kept me away? Well, last week we were kept quite busy with VBS and the girls really loved that. They did well and had a blast. Only bad thing was the added stress of making sure Fiona and Brenna were kept safe from possible allergens. Fiona is allergic to peanuts and nuts and we have not yet tested Brenna. For Brenna we follow the same precautions...checking labels obsessively, warning people to not provide items with nuts of any sort and such. Of course at VBS they provide snacks and I had to talk with the snack staff to keep them from making anything that might, well, kill my kids! That is very stressful..you feel like your nagging, and yet you would do it to save the life of your child...it is just that bad. Well, on Friday they had a program with singing and a special treat for the winning team(memory verse stuff). Fiona's team won...ice cream sandwiches...with nuts! She was devastated, for one...she couldn't eat the hard earned treat and she couldn't eat with her friends. It was awful. I felt horrible..but what could I do? Well, there was a dear lady in our church that always thinks of my girls and she had made special cookies/brownies with no nuts. Bless her heart! It didn't fully make up for the stigma of not being with your friends, but it did soothe her soul a bit.

We've also been doing some other fun things...I hope you enjoy the picture tour of our doings:




Sunday afternoon playing mancala. Liam has mastered the little chairs and really wanted to join Brenna in the game. Fiona was playing with little animals quietly.

Liam is learning to be an elephant rider. A career in his future? :-)


I'm working with Brenna to learn sewing. She is doing wonderfully and is very neat with her stitches. Look at that sweet concentration.



Here is her finished rectangle. The stitches were very neat and straight and now she is working on her name and a heart. She says it shall be a pillow!


And finally, Fiona is learning to play the piano. Her lovely daddy is teaching her with a Christian piano curriculum from Davidson Music. So far both are pleased:-)

So this was just a quick catch up, but I do hope to be more regular with my posting again. I hope all of you are well and having a splendid summer!

Blessings,

Sommer