A November Saturday

 

This Saturday I had the chance to go flea market shopping and cute-store looking in beautiful Lambertville, NJ. But the best part was the company.  I still have a magent that Jenah gave me years ago that says "Friends are the family we make for ourselves".  I'm so thankful and blessed to have found family here.  I'm continually in awe of how God provides what we need and more.

The cold, windy bridge.

Two Years

Two years.  It feel somewhere between 6 months and 20 years depending on the day you ask me.  Abbie started a little tradition with her and Ben where they take a picture each year on or near their anniversary.  Corey and I are starting the same thing.  I'm sure that every picture will have it's own feel and take us back to our life at that time.


Year 2 picture feels like this:

Rush home from work "early" at 6pm.
Say hello and "man, that was another crazy day at work."
I told you not to get me flowers but why didn't you get me flowers?
A real fall day.
Corey goes to the neighbors house to see if they can take our picture so we will remember how skinny we were one day.
Neighbors aren't home so we settle for a self-made portrait and hope we are skinny next year.
You're moving the camera before it gets finished, that's why it's blurry!
We found street parking in Center City (and a grouchy meter man).
El Vez.  Our Favorite.  Caesar Chavez Guacamole. Blood Orange Margaritas.  Mahi Mahi Tacos. Amazing.
What do we want to do better next year? 
Be more selfless.
Dessert or home and bedtime?
Home and bedtime.

Beautiful

A tucked away spot on the side of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the midst of the crazy week don't forget the beauty. Happy Tuesday

Help?

I walked into heaven on a hot June day in Dallas, Texas. Rows and rows and rows of beautiful boots. I want a pair of genuine, awesome, timeless cowgirl boots to wear until I'm 85.

Any suggestions?

Gifts

Every Friday is on the one hand the most wonderful and freeing days of the week. The week is over, you have a couple days free from the cubicle forget that life insurance, annoying financial advisers and the phrase "pounding the phones" EVER existed. On the other hand, it often fills me with sense of "I have so much that I want/need to do and I don't have enough time to fit it in!" This Friday I felt that strongly and actually started going through the things that I "wanted" to do to check them off my list.

Ok, got those magazines read that I was dying to have time to read, check. Ok, I picked something new to cook, check. But I wasn't actually having fun, I was making what should have been enjoyable, a chore!

Corey was working on his car out front so I just went outside to sit on my stoop and clear my head. There was a cool breeze.--- Let me just take one moment to describe the gravity of that statement for those of you that are not from Alabama. That sentence is unheard of, unspoken and impossible in an Alabama July. I am always shocked to feel such a breeze at this time of year and still have to convince myself that it is not a figment of my imagination. So, I'll say it again.--- There was a cool breeze. It was around dusk but the sun was hitting the clouds just right to make a beautiful sky. The street was a peace. --For those of you not from Philadelphia, let me just take a minute to describe the gravity of this situation. There were no screaming children, there were no fights, there were no stupidly loud motorcycles, nor was there a curse word uttered in earshot. So I'll say this again.--- The street was at peace.

I felt myself loosen and sink into the peace myself. I felt the sweetness of the moment and it was ten times better than the "fun" things I marked off of my list. I didn't orchestrate this moment like I had been trying to orchestrate my perfect weekend, it came to me. And then I though of this.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows" James 1:17

All that is good is from Him. I'm once again reminded that I'm powerless to create my own happiness and what He provides is infinitely better than what I can create for myself.

The 4th!

Corey got home from a 7 week trip on Friday night of 4th of July weekend. We had a jam packed weekend to celebrate his return. 2 huge fireworks shows from two different roof tops, visiting a new restaurant, cookout at our house and a tubing adventure down the Delaware River. Here are just a few shots from the weekend.

Frankford Hall, a restaurant with ping pong.

And games! Please excuse lousy iPhone photography skills (see finger).

Toni and Ben with his mustache holding our new favorite friend, Evan.

Charis and Joel taking their turn.

We don't mind crowding in to our "backyard" which most of my friends and family wouldn't consider a backyard at all. But it's our little taste of the 4th of July outdoors.

Trenton Ave by night.

Fireworks going off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, seen from Ben and Toni's roof.

One of many secondary fireworks shows. They were going off all over the city!

Oswald on Fussing

"Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how very wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord was never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not 'out' to realize his own ideas; He was out to realize God's ideas.

Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all 'supposing' on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All of our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God."

-Oswald Chambers