Sunday Devotions - Calvin Hart #3, Time Marches On

As I've mentioned before for my Sunday posts I'll be sharing some poetry from Mr. Calvin Hart, a Christian poet. This weeks poem, Time Marches On, I think is a theme that parents especially can relate to. Just this past couple weeks I have been reminded of how quickly time breezes by. 

Time Marches On

Seconds to minutes, minutes to hours,

Hours turn into days,

Days to months, months to years,

Nothing stands in times way.

Spring to summer, summer to fall,

Fall to winters cold winds,

Time marches on, the seasons change,

Then its winter to spring once again.

Days of childhood, filled with pretend,

Safe in your parents arms,

Childhood gives way to teenage years,

The world presents new dangers and charms.

With age should come maturity,

The ability to understand,

Eyes open to a world that is all to real,

As they become a young woman or man.

Into the world as young adults,

With hopes, dreams and plans,

Like sand slips through the hour glass,

Time slips through their hands.

Into the world as full adults,

With responsibilities,

Bills to pay, deadlines to meet,

A family, and children to feed.

Days consumed by busy lives,

Filled from dusk to dawn,

Then one day you turn around,

And your children are grown and gone.

You stop to look around you,

In a state of semi-shock,

Where did all the time go?

Who sped up the clock?

What happened to those care free days.

When time seemed to just stand still,

You wish those days would come again,

But you know they never will.

Seconds to minutes, minutes to hours,

Hours turn into days,

How many do we have left?

Only God Himself can say.

For only He knows the day and hour,

When Gabriel’s trumpet sounds,

To herald the return of the King of Kings,

To announce that time has ran down.

What have you done with your time so far?
Have you wasted it all away?
Have you used your time to serve the Lord?

Are you ready for judgment day?

Have you taken a few precious moment,

To bow your head and pray?

To ask Jesus Christ to save your soul?

To wash your sins away?

If you have not, I pray that you do,

Before your time is gone,

For when time ends, the Lord comes again,

And time is marching on.






Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the time on Earth that you have given to us. We do not know how much time we have left but we know that this time is Your time and we need to be using it for You. Help me to use spend my time wisely; not on frivolous things and ideas. Rather bless me with the knowledge that I should use my time on Earth with You and spreading Your love. Amen. 

Feeding Insects Painting

Finally, I finished this painting! I think I've been working on it on and off for two or three months. 

I kept having other projects I had to finish first pop up along the way. 

Acrylic on gessoed cardboard and it measures roughly 10 inches square. 

Normally with my radial paintings, I've worked hard at making the "mirror images", for lack of a better term, exactly the same. However with these insects (I guess they are insects) I really enjoyed the challenge of making them all different while making it look as though they belong together. 

Of course, I still am working in the dots. Something about the way the dots turned out reminds me of Islamic works and architecture. Perhaps because the visual elements have become so stylized and more decorative I guess. 

The corners are the only element of the painting I'm just not sure about. I finished them last but I don't know if I like them but I don't know really what to do with them. 

This is my favorite part; the meeting of the three bugs. 

I like the tension of space between them as though they could almost touch but not quite. 

I have an idea in my head for my next painting to be somewhat similar but with stylized sea turtles and waves. We'll see how it turns out; I'll have to get some sketches done first. 

....or maybe I need to finally get that bathroom mural done....hmm, but I have some thinking to do on that one too! 

Foody Friday - Cabbage Casserole

I love cabbage!! I know, weird right? I can't help it, cabbage is one of my favorite things to eat. Since St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow I thought I'd share my newest cabbage recipe! Just because we'll be wearing the green tomorrow doesn't mean we can't shake up the traditional corned beef and cabbage! 

Cabbage Casserole 

(Here's the original recipe, but I made a few changes to it.)

butter

3 cups chopped cabbage (red makes it prettier!)

1/2 cup chopped carrots

1/2 chopped onion

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 c. milk

3 T. shredded cheese

1/4 t. seasoned salt

parsley 

Parmesan cheese

Saute the cabbage, carrot and onion in butter until crisp tender, just a few minutes. In a bowl, combine the egg, milk, shredded cheese and seasoned salt. Add the cabbage mixture and combine thoroughly. Pour mixture into greased 8x8 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with parsley and Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until knife inserted newar the center comes out clean. 

My kids did choke down one spoonful and my husband kept giving my distrustful glances as he dutifully ate his. None of them asked for seconds, but that's okay....because I LOVED IT and I'll gladly eat it all! If you are a cabbage or veggie lover, then this casserole is for you. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow! 

Is anyone else celebrating with cabbage? 

Or green beer? 

Happy St. Patrick's to my cousin (you know who you are) who will be celebrating in Terre Haute with LOTS of green beer!! Wish we could join you!! 

Week 11- Smooth

This week has been spring break for my kids and although we haven't gone anywhere we have sure kept busy. The weather has been in the 80's and we've spent a lot of time outside riding bikes and playing at the park so it's no wonder that I waited until almost the last minute to finish this week's theme of Smooth.  

f14, 1/250, ISO 400

During Yahoo's naptime yesterday all was quiet in the house. The boys were playing at the park with friends so I slipped outside for a quick walk around the house looking for smooth but everywhere I looked I noticed textures. I sure hope texture is a theme for one of my 52 weeks. 

f13, 1/200, ISO 400 (This one is too over exposed to suit me)

The sky was pretty empty and smooth looking so I tried to take emphasize the blue while including some elements that put the sky in context because a rectangle of blue may be smooth but I don't think it would be interesting to look at. 

f13, 1/160, ISO 400

I like both of these exposures and just love the colors that came out in the pine needles. 

f13, 1/200, ISO 400

Next week's theme is DOOR. I have the perfect doorway I've been waiting to shoot too! I might go on a country jaunt to find some old rundown farmhouses if the weather is nice. 

Tuberville, the Old Farmer and Feeding the Hungry

Just about a year ago I posted this picture of my great great uncle Emanual, an Indiana farmer. You can go here and read the original post (and the comment from Amber is funny too!) 

Actually I had totally forgotten that I had ever posted it until I received an interesting email last week. A woman by the name of Virginia Hastings contacted me asking permission to use this photograph in a web series she is working on. I was taken totally by surprise but after a bit of research about her project and permission from other relatives I happily consented. 

Ms. Hastings is working on a mini web series on the story of Tuberville (the Series). 

Tuberville the web series a fictional account of

the real life Tuberville organization in Vermont. Tuberville, both in the

series and in real life, supports farmers who grow potatoes to give to food

banks.  The series will consist of eight, six to ten minute episodes that will follow the fearless Tubervillians through a year on the farm. Although the only episode up on the website is the nine minute pilot, it does a very good job at grabbing the viewers interest and telling a compelling story in a short amount of time. Perhaps they do such a good job in a short amount of time because like many real life farmers the Tuberville characters aren't a gabby lot of individuals. 

Tuberville (the organization) was started on the old David B. Thompson Farm, in the fall of 2004, a small garden was tilled to provide foodstuffs for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. In 2005, Peter Perkins and his son Ralph, harvested a very modest crop of 1470 pounds of potatoes for the food shelf.

In 2006, the field was more than doubled in size and with the expansion came Tuberville. Since Tuberville has spread through Vermont and into Maine. 

Ralph Perkins was kind enough to email me back and had this to say about Tuberville:

"Tuberville ( www.tuberville.org ) wasn't really a project when we started.

It kind of happened on its own and sucked us in. In 2004, when my father was
talking about planting a few rows of potatoes, I didn't really think about
it as something I might be doing year after year. In 2005, my daughter Kate
turned 4 and we began talking about flowers and trees. For me, helping my
dad with his potatoes seemed like a great way to begin exploring nature in a
way I could explain to Kate. By the next summer, my wife Jeannie was asking
what the fertilizing schedule needed to be and I was beginning to understand
this was more than a part-time hobby.
In 2007 there was enough interest in what we were doing to ask the IRS for
non-profit status. Although this project was still taking its first steps,
we wanted to make sure that every dollar counted. By doing this, we were
able to expand our reach to other food shelves in the area. In addition to
growing food, Tuberville's mission is to increase awareness of issues that
surround hunger. Often hunger can seem invisible, though the effects of
hunger on those impacted by it can be tremendous. Tuberville's philosophy is
not one of preaching or propaganda. We believe that anyone who decides they
want to help others in their community through this kind of project will
come to their own conclusion about this issue.

Obviously, the idea of community and helping others is not new. Neither is
the saying that communities that work together, play together. We have a
number of ways to keep in touch with folks that are on the internet. People
can take control of a row of potatoes that we grow through our Sharecropper
3.0 program or they can just follow us through our fictional web video
series about a town called Tuberville at www.TubervilleTheSeries.com"

Check out their website, it won't take long at all. The Tuberville (org) is a very simple website to navigate with a very simple idea that they are trying to share; local farmers feeding the hungry in their own communities. I think it's a wonderful idea and a wonderful story that could and should be spread to every state in our country. I'm not a farmer and can't grow food to donate food banks but I support the idea of what Tuberville is all about. 

I think my Uncle Emanual and various other relatives long since gone would be smiling to know that this picture might be doing it's small part to encourage agriculture, farmers and local communities to work together helping those in need. I can't wait for the rest of the episodes to get up on the Tuberville Series site; I'm looking forward to the rest of the story! 

Skills every little girl's mother should have.

Yahoo turned three this week and DR made the comment that I am much more girly now than I was when my sons were the same age. I've had to become more girly! Yahoo plays so different than boys I've had to learn a whole new skill set. 

I've had to learn all about Barbie hair. Did you know that you can actually change Barbie's hair? I always thought that once Barbie hair turned all ratty it was a lost cause. Yahoo's new doll had curly hair but Yahoo kept asking me to make it flat...so I Googled it...how to make Barbie's hair straight. 

Boil a mug of water in the microwave, about 2 minutes, and hold Barbie's head over the sink and pour the boiling water all over her hair and then comb. 

Voila!! Straight hair!! 

And it works the opposite way too. 

Do you have a straight hair Barbie who is desperately in need of a new style? 

Curl it up, I used pipe cleaners, and pour on the boiling water. 

Let it air dry completely, about 24 hours, and style!

Isn't she beautiful? Okay, Vidal Sassoon I'm not. 

Maybe she just needs a little backlighting...ah, gorgeous...yep, lighting makes all the difference! Remember that when you are looking at gorgeous models in magazines!! 

Geez, had you asked me a few years ago if I'd ever willingly style a Barbie's hair I'd have thought you were crazy. Not only that I've made Yahoo her own makeup. She kept getting into my makeup and you can't buy toy makeup that isn't just colored glop that gets used up in a day. 

I found this great idea on Pinterest, fake makeup. 

I cleaned out some old makeup containers. 

Then I filled up the compartments with some cheap fingernail polish. 

Warning!! This is very smelly! It will take a few days to harden so it's important to place it somewhere well ventilated. 

Great! Fake up that doesn't get all over the place. 

Being the mother of a little girl is like living in another world. I was such the tom-girl growing up and it's amazing the things I've learned to do since I had a daughter. Being the mother of a girl is having to learn a whole new way of thinking. But she's only little once right? 

Sunday Devotions - Calvin Hart #2, A Father's Prayer

This is the second week I am sharing a poem by Mr. Calvin Hart who has some wonderful Christian poems. If you Google his name you will come across some of his lovely Christian poetry. 

A Father’s Prayer

High as the heavens, deep as the oceans,

Filled with hope and despair,

As broad as the east is from the west

Describes a fathers prayer.

A prayer of conviction, a prayer for strength,

A prayer for faith foursquare,

A seeking of counsel, with his God and King,

This is a fathers prayer.

A plea for guidance, in leading his clan,

Made in all humility,

From the head of the household, to his Lord and Master,

With bowed head, and on bended knee,

For he is entrusted, by the creator Himself,

With the obligation to oversee,

That the needs of his family are met and fulfilled,

Both physical, and spiritually.

A prayer for forgiveness, when he is in err,

When to weakness he succumbs,

A prayer for wisdom, to make the right choice,

When the time for decisions does come.

A prayer of dire urgency,

A daddy’s desperate plea,

Take my children’s suffering,

And give it unto me.

Give my children peace and rest,

Give to me their pain,

Give to me their sickness,

I will bear it and not complain.

To keep his family safe and sound,

To lead past pitfalls and snares,

To protect his loved ones from danger and evil,

All of this, is a father’s prayer.

For a very long time in my life as a mother I was under the assumption that I was the parent with the most stress in our household. Oh, not that my husband was a lazy no good dad. Far from it!! He is a very caring and hands on father. But being a stay at home mom I just selfishly thought for years that I had the harder job. 

My mind has been changing on that front for the last few months but it wasn't until I read this poem that I could put my thoughts into words. (Lousy words but words nonetheless.) Men and women are not the same. We are created so very differently with vastly different roles to play. I can't even grasp what it must be like to be a father but I feel that so much more is expected of men in our society but at the same time they are expected not to complain about it. 

Sometimes I think fathers have to be even stronger emotionally when it comes to their children and families than women! I can't imagine what strength my husband has to summon everyday because I can only see the tip of the iceberg. 

Dear God, Thank You for my husband, the father of my children. As a woman, I can't know what his role of a dad is like. We are so very different. But you made us to complement one another. I can't be a father any more than my husband can be a mother. Give us both the strength to fulfill our separate parental roles to the best of our ability while working together for the very best for our children. Amen.