Party Of Five

Over the weekend we had my sister in Christ come over with her darling girls for a little tea party. It was a delightful afternoon fellow shipping with them, enjoying finger food and tea with good conversation. We spent hours just talking and making plans for upcoming church activities. It is such a blessing to be a part of this young mothers life and watching her go through her season with little ones. I pray the Lord will continue to use me to plant seeds and be a blessing to her and the younger mothers in our church, as well as the young girls. I am now in a season of my own life where I have been through the little people stages, the sleepless nights, frazzled chaos, the messy house and no time to myself.... I am now at the stage of life where I can give good advice for child rearing, home schooling and homemaking for these young mothers to glean from. I thank the Lord for giving me such a noble experience to be a Titus 2 woman. And I am thankful for the opportunity to be an example to my daughter, so that she in turn can bless others when it is her time. 

Thanks be to God for these moments in life. 

Moments we can hold dear to our hearts and cherish for years to come. 

It is a privilege to be a part of this beautiful journey.

It's Not Up To Me...

Today I am having virtual coffee with Amy over at Lucky Number 13. I have been meaning to participate forever...and finally got over there to have coffee with her...In my case it is tea, since coffee really messes with me in a bad way. So, as I was sipping my tea, my heart was heavy this morning. It is coming close to graduation day for my dear Mr. Darling, from his four year Seminary stretch. I just can't believe the day is almost here and we still don't know where we are going. Good thing is he has a lot of Professors and fellow Pastors passing his name around the country. So with prayer we hope to find out where God wants us to be.

14 years ago we lived in California...and I left with a really bad attitude about California. I said I would NEVER come back. We spent 10 happy years in Washington state where we thought we were going to settle for the remainder of our days. Mr. Darling was working a full time job and going to school  working towards a better life for us and giving our lives to something a lot more meaningful. He started working towards his passion to becoming a Pastor. Then the opportunity of seminary came along which meant moving....to CALIFORNIA. Oh my...really? I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime and who was I to stand in the way of God's will. I prayed and kept my mouth shut. We moved and knew it would only be temporary. God has a good sense of humor I tell you. I came back here with a better attitude than I thought...Yet part of me still would begrudge the possible fact of staying here. But it is not up to me. There are States being thrown around right now with possible Pastor ships. Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, North Dakota, Florida. When Florida came up I couldn't resist opening my big mouth, declaring a huge NO. I lived in Florida for a couple years as a child, I remember Florida, I didn't like Florida. But low and behold it upset Mr. Darling to the point where he didn't want to talk to me. Uh oh, I should have kept my mouth shut. Oh Lord help me keep my mouth shut. It is not up to me if it is His will to move us somewhere I may not like. I came back to Mr. Darling with a fat apology realizing that it is not up to me and if a wonderful opportunity arose to move to a State, perhaps one I didn't like much, I can't stand in the way of God's will. For God knows what is best for us.

The hardest part of leaving though...Even though we don't know where yet. Is leaving family and friends behind. We have grown close to our church family, spending every week with them, having them in our home, going to theirs. These people we will miss. But it's not up to me.
 
If you were really here having coffee or tea with me...I would share these things with you...and hope to be a good listening ear to whatever is on your heart as well. I would pray with you and hope you would pray with me too. Even though this is a virtual coffee and I was able to write out what was on my heart...This really did help telling you all this. It brought me back to God...that I can't and shouldn't lean on my own, to give it to Him, to pray...giving my heavy heart and burdens no matter how big or small they are over to Him. I am at peace now. Just knowing it is not up to me...And that is okay with me. I don't really want to make that decision alone. I pray He will shut my mouth when I have crossed over boundaries, to be there for my husband through this time, a time we are living by faith alone. For if the opportunity arose to take over a Pastor ship somewhere, It is not up to me where that will be, it is where He wants us to be.
Thanks for joining me. Please do come back again.
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51. Knowing I am not alone, I can lean on the Lord for everything
52. Thankful for this huge opportunity, one we will glorify God with
53. Realizing it is not up to me...It is up to God
54. Finding contentment and peace through prayer.
55. Being there for my husband, brings more peace to our home.

Old Fashioned Taffy Pull....

 

Our Literary Tea Group got together today for fellowship, fun, tea and Taffy pulling. We didn't get together for Christmas so decided to make it sort of a party this month. The girls exchanged tea and made taffy. Well we attempted to make taffy. It was more like Taffy Mayhem... We cooked it like the recipe said...let it cool...blah, blah, blah and tried getting into a taffy stage by pulling and rolling, but it was more like goo. We ended up refrigerating it for about 30 minutes just to get it to a consistency where we could cut it and wrap them. It seemed to be fine at that point.

    

No matter.. The girls still had fun making a huge sticky mess. And they still had some candy to take home even though it was smooshy. Oh well..They didn't seem to mind one bit, and that is a good thing.

 

  

 

They had a good time and that's all that mattered. I decided not to give out this recipe, since it was a complete flop...If anyone knows of a full proof good taffy recipe, please send it our way. My daughter is determined to find one that will work so we can try again.

Gatherings....

In the midst of all the canning, baking and preparing for the Literary Tea this last Saturday...I failed to take any pictures of the event itself. Boooo on me. I got a few pics. before hand...And that's all I got. It was a nice afternoon as we had apple spice tea and Madagascar vanilla tea. I made a pumpkin roll, spinach and cheese tarts, and ham tortilla rolls...yummy. The girls all brought some goodies to share...a couple salads, muffins and veggies and fruit...It was a nice spread indeed.
 
I decorated the table...and made this fun bunting with brown crumbled coffee filters and book pages strung above the table...It turned out quite charming I think.
  
Of course there was candy corn and pumpkins...What would the Autumn season be without those things. We almost finished the Little Threads book which we started last month...just a couple more chapters to go then on to a new book. I am already planning the menu for next month...We have loved having these special teas with our friends. I hope they too find it a blessing. The remainder of the weekend was great. We had a lovely Sunday at Church then we had a gathering of several families over for fellowship for the day in our home. I made honey hamm and swiss sliders, sweet potato~ potato salad, served with jello, watermelon, salad and a delightfiul colossal caramel apple trifle...all was wonderful and filled our friends bellies...It was wonderful. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too.

Literary Tea Time...2011

 
Today was the day....Our literary Tea Group has officially come together for the year. There were some changes however.... Our hostess last year is busy with college classes and decided she would not be able to continue the group. As many of you know, who have followed my blog for a time... Freckles and I have grown to love the group so much that I asked our friend if she wouldn't mind if we took it over. She was delighted to pass it on to us. I am so happy to have the opportunity to bless young maidens with this sweet tradition. A group of young ladies and their mothers coming together once a month to enjoy a traditional tea, food, fellowship, prayer and reading from sound Christian literature. I now consider this my ministry in the making to encourage young ladies as the Bible instructs. Our afternoon started with reading a few excerpts from The Valley of Vision, a collection of prayers & devotions.(Thanks Marilee). We then started reading from Little Threads by Elizabeth Prentiss written in 1863. It is a story about obedience. We read about the contrasting lives of Tangle Thread and Golden Thread, one the cause of much grief for her godly mother, and the other the only bright spot in her poor mother's world. Yet, we only got half way through the book. We will look forward to next months tea to finish the rest of the story.

I pray our time together this year will be fruitful and glorify God. I pray this time will strengthen our bond as mothers, daughters and sisters in Christ, that we would grow in our faith together.
    
Of course there was food. The table was set for our young maidens to enjoy the fruits of their labors, since everyone contributed something wonderful to share.
  
There was plenty of tea...
We must have had about 5 pots full.YUM!
  
It was thoroughly a wonderful time spent together. I was blessed by each and every one of these young ladies...and now, looking forward to next month when ...Lord willing we will come together again.
Thank you for stopping by....Have a blessed weekend!

Our Week At A Glance....

We are finally getting over the 3rd bout of the bug..... I am ready to get back on track. It is hard for me to even think about much at this time since the earthquake in Japan. There are several families from our Church Missions that are out there at this time....One family in particular are friends of ours. It took two days to get news that they were alive. My heart goes out to everyone and those who have lost their lives in this tragedy... On a lighter note. I have been working on some art stuff for my shop. There is lot's of paper and paint flying around as well as some dolls brewing.... Can't wait to get those out of my head.

 
Our school week was rather short due to the fact we were all sick. Towards the end of the week we picked back up in our studies. We even had a lovely time walking to the park with the kids and the dog. Your never too old to play ya know. Geesh... It's great to see that our kids still like to enjoy the park and play together....Being silly is always good medicine...that's our motto!

 
Over the weekend Maestro got his hair cut by a friend who is going to
The Paul Mitchell Cosmetology School. I think she did a pretty good job...
Maestro seemed to be just fine with it...That's all that counts. Good thing is he didn't lose an ear.

Freckles and I had a lovely Saturday having tea with
the girls for our Literary Tea get together. It was a delight...As always!

Look at our sweet Bluebell Knoll sitting like a pretty bird on the chair...So adorable!
Hope y'all set your clocks forward...We did...Just to be sure we
 made it to Church on time. That would stink if we got there and the service was already over.
Well, Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.