Going to Sydney!

Denis and I were trying to think of where we could go for our big vacation this year. We've been talking about taking a really big trip for a number of years, but never took the plunge to buy tickets. Well, this is the year. We bought our tickets and are going to Sydney, Australia in September! I was able to get one ticket with my frequent flyer miles, so we only had to buy one ticket. We are going to visit all our wonderful blogging friends that have become such a part of our lives. Ruth and Nixter, the dearest two, plus Erin, Rodeoclown and Craig. I'm hoping that we can find time to fly to Tasmania and back to meet the great Pablo (and his mum, Kate) as well as Mike and Christine.

Ruth is going to help me plan our activities and accomodations. We have to come up with a list of people we want to see and places we want to go.

I would like to see this fellow in the Toronga Zoo. Isn't that the cutest picture?

We are just getting started with our research. Will keep you posted.

Busy Weekend

These are pictures from last week when we were busy pricing all the items for the garage sale this weekend. So I guess I should have titled this post a busy week! The sale was pretty successful. None of us made a ton of money, but we did get rid of some of the largest items that we really wanted to be rid of.

An interesting thing to note is that Denis and I were not actually around for much of the garage sale taking place at our house. We both worked on the first day of the sale, Friday. Saturday afternoon, we left for a wedding at 12:30 and didn't return until the sale was over. And Sunday we went to church and then out to a local vineyard to pick up our wine club selections. We returned in time to make quick work of the pack up. A local charity will be picking up all the left-overs on Wednesday or next weekend.

So who was manning our sale while we were gone? Our staff - my mom and her good friends who came down from Yakima, WA for the occasion. They have a whole system for doing garage sales and did SOOO much work. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures of the "staff" at work, though. We had them over for dinner (with our locally produced wine) last night as a thank you.

Signs up Life

Here are some signs of life at our place...

Daffodils were blooming a few weeks ago. I felt guilty that so many of my friends were still buried in snow!


Our rock garden is really starting to fill in and look more mature. The plants that we put in last year are spreading out and blooming nicely. Denis picked out some new ones that we'll get to see more from next year. I'm imagining how this area will look in another two years.

Our little "courtyard" with siberian and pacific coast iris is getting ready to do it's thing. The flox on this side of the walk looks great! But the other side has a bald spot in the middle.
I love the color combo on these tulips and their pointy blooms.

This is our garlic that we planted last fall! It will be ready for harvest in June, I believe. Isn't it pretty? I love garlic, so I'm looking forward to having "home grown". MMmmmm....


And this is our newest addition. A baby japanese maple. The leaves come out red in the spring, turn green for the summer and then back to red before they come off in the fall. It should be very pretty.

Blogging Excuses

1. I have been working more than usual - doing some extra projects on Tuesdays
2. Denis and I went away for two weekends to professional conferences recently. One was in the Mt. Hood area and the other in Portland.
3. I have been consulting for Denis on new plant location in our garden and admiring his work.
4. I have been monitoring our cats' adjustment to the new Litter Robot (see beolow).
5. I am on the American Diabetes Association fund raiser committee and I have been doing some leg work for the walk.
6. Denis has been working more day shifts and so I've been spending the evenings with him instead of blogging.
7. I have been going on some day trips with a friend from church.
8. I started discipling a gal from my church.

All of the above are true, but they are not the real reason that I have not been blogging lately. I am hopelessly addicted to the Facebook game Packrat. I'll just come out and admit it. I have been spending waaaay too much time playing that game lately.

Finding Balance?

I've really been struggling with balance in my life lately. I find that I can totally fritter an entire day away being absolutely lazy - games on the computer, TV shows, etc. I've been feeling really convicted about that for quite a while. I know that leisure time is an idol for me and I can let my games petty entertainments totally eclipse God right out of the picture.

But the last two days have been the opposite. I've had two extremely busy days, running between errands with hardly any time to breathe. Well, I can breathe, but I quite literally have not eaten well the last two days because I had no time. This is certainly not laziness, but my attitude on these days has not been great. I get to feeling really put out that I can't catch a break between the phone calls and demands on my time. I forget in those days that God is orchestrating my life, that He never promised me comfort all the time and that my attitude is just as important as my actions.

How do I find a balance? How do I fit in harmless entertainment and avoid slothfulness? How do I fulfill my responsibilities with a good attitude? I seem to feel guilty for something that I'm doing or not doing much of the time...

I don't necessarily need answers or suggestions for these questions. I know they are just the perpetual struggles of life. I know that one of the key factors is prioritized time spent reading God's word and praying. But this is how I've been feeling lately.

What I want for my birthday

One of these.

Child of the 80's

You Are 72% A Child of the 80s

Not only did you experience the 80s... you are practically an expert. You should be totally stoked!

Are You a Child of an 80s?

I graduated from high school in 1985, so it's no wonder...

Larry's gone?

Wow! Such a strange feeling when I heard that Larry Norman died yesterday so soon after I had been reintroduced to his music. Here is an article from The Oregonian's website about Larry's life and death. He had been sick for a long long time with heart failure. There is a wonderful last statement posted on his website. Farewell Larry. I look forward to worshiping with you in heaven one day.

Wireless

We've decided to ditch the home phone line and use only wireless phones. It's a step that I have resisted for the last several years because I prefer the quality of a land line call. However, we've had unending trouble with our current land line anyway. Our line went dead a couple of times, seemingly due to one of the older style corded phones that we had. It was impossible to tell which phone it was that caused the problem, so we were only using our cordless phones. And for some reason, the cordless phones that we had (not very old at all) we not working very well. Needless to say, the "land line quality" that I was looking for was sorrowfully lacking and we were paying an arm and a leg to the phone company each month. Our wireless venture is going to save us about $50 a month.

So, to celebrate, we each got a new updated cell phone with more features than our old ones. I haven't had a flip phone in a while, but so far I'm liking it. I'm just afraid that I'm going to forget it somewhere.

Larry and Terry

What does seeing Terry Fator have to do with Larry Norman? That's what I was wondering when I saw Larry's CDs for sale in the foyer of the concert hall last night. If you don't know, Larry Norman is considered the "father of Christian rock". He recorded the bulk of his music in the 70's and influenced a lot of musicians over the years, both Christian and secular. I was introduced to his music by a friend in college. Larry has had serious health problems for years now (I remember hearing about his chronic illnesses about 15 years ago at a concert I attended.) Well, Larry now lives in Salem, Oregon and most of his income is dependent on continued sales of his albums which he re-releases with some new tracks from time to time.

It turns out that Terry Fator has met and become friends with Larry Norman. He donated all the proceeds from the concert last night to help with Larry's medical costs. In my wikipedia research I found out that Terry also performed at Larry's 60th birthday party. Anyway, that was just the icing on the cake of a great evening. The show was really great. Terry has about 6 different puppets all with their own personalities. He also did some singing on his own, most of it impersonations of other singers. He's really good and really funny. There were some great interactions with the puppets. It's really impossible to describe. I bought the DVD that he has available of his first Las Vegas performance as well as a couple of Larry Norman CDs.

Mom and I got home at 2 AM, so that wasn't bad at all.