Tuesday Tea Time!

Hiya Tuesday Tea Time friends!

This season of life I've decided to watch Dancing With the Stars instead of The Voice. I have also been looking for the glimpses of blue skies & sunlight amidst the gray days. Just yesterday I intentionally took a different route to work to be able to admire the small piece of blue sky.

Dancing With the Stars simply means flipping between the two channels we get for the show I prefer in the moment. The blue skies means I'm looking for the pieces of good like I always try to do. The days are getting darker much earlier already & the time change isn't for another month!

This also means cooler weather & hopefully the Fall colors soon. In this area of MI Fall means not simple apple cider but cherry apple cider. And yes, it's delicious! 

If you haven't gotten out & enjoyed a piece of Fall in you're area this Tuesday Tea Time go & explore, even if you have to go over your lunch break. A little exploration is good for the heart & soul.

Tuesday Tea Time!

Fall is here! While it is slowly starting to mean cooler days & evenings which is great for Fall pumpkin treats, it is not as cool as it needs to be if anybody wanted to dress like this animated figure around here.

Last week I splurged & had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season. To be honest, I'm not a huge follower of everything pumpkin. I'm not part of that craze. But I was someplace new, ordering my chai, & they offered me pumpkin, so I took 'em up on it. It was a wonderful treat & from what I could tell from the place & their menu, it was all home brewed.

There's something special about homemade anything. Am I right? 

Here's to finding that favorite Fall treat with your Tuesday Tea Time!

Friday Favorites!

Yesterday was a beautiful day to bike around Pure Michigan and we just happened to do it by tandem on Mackinac Island.

Happy adventure days await!

Tuesday Tea Time!

Happy Tuesday Tea Time! Today I'm enjoying the crisp Fall weather & bright colors that decorate the land.

One feature of living where I do that I always miss from other cities & countries is riding from here to there on a train. There's something mildly majestic about train rides no matter the conditions of the train. There's also a great sense of adventure that is simply part of traveling.

Adventures take my imagination on traveling ride of sorts & this produces my pieces of story telling, poetry, & doodles.

What perks your creative juices?!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Amidst all the rain there will be sunshine. Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out eventually tomorrow. Right Annie?! This week was packed with a little of this & a little of that. Each day until yesterday was filled with gray skies & lots of rain. There was so much rain that both Z & I didn't realize how depressing it had been till the sun came out & stayed out & made us so wonderfully happy & warm. The crazy part about the warmth is it was possibly the coldest day of this Fall yet. I actually pulled my winter 3-in-1 jacket out of the closet yesterday & didn't regret it one bit. As you can see from the photos, it was quite brisk. Wednesday we enjoyed the evening with the folks of our church & supported the youth in their annual fundraiser over a meal of spaghetti & a silent auction. We even won our bid for a gift certificate to the Dam Site Inn! Joyous times continued with the a visit from Ma & Pa N. We introduced them to the Cheboygan Brewing Company one evening, spent a low key day around town the next day, & enjoyed an afternoon exploring the local area near Petoskey the day after that. We tasted some wonderful apple donuts from Uncle Frank's & topped off the evening with dinner at the Petoskey Brewing Company. 

BAD: Ebola & other life altering viruses with no distinct remedy or no named diagnosis for some.

AWESOME: Making new friends. Meeting people at random, connecting over furbabies & thinking you'll actually keep in touch. AND getting to talk with friends - even if over Skype - who are together & in the same country as me & hopefully I'll get to see one if not both of them soon & creating so much excitement about these wonderful people that you can't even type in a real sentence. See what sunshine does to me?!

WORD: My friend MBR's blog Stumbling Into Faith

COMING UP: Life on the road again. A few days for work, a few days for fun.

Friday Favorites!

This week has gone by in a blink!

Favorites included:
BEAUTIFUL FALL WEATHER

FOOTBALL

BIKE RIDE

WALKS with MG

TEA TIME

FIRE PIT TIME

CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS

& a PUMPKIN BLIZZARD.

What are your Favorites today?!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

Oh Hello Fall!

GOOD: Exhaustion from too many good things is an okay problem to have. This last week was rich with conversation sharing memories of the past, stories of things once gone by, & dreams & hopes for the future. Many people have asked how AJO is doing & I would say all things considering, she's doing pretty fabulously. We enjoyed the scenery of her new home area & the beauty of Lake Michigan on a few walks & of course a trip to Target too. Then there was the precious hours of holding little miss ESG so her momma could do things like take a shower & fold clothing. Add a touch of family time with my actual family & my heart is full from this last week! My exhaustion mainly comes from such a big road trip on my own. I booked it back to be able to enjoy an afternoon celebrating the joy of another little one yet to come & to take in the changing colors of early Fall.

BAD: Star-crossed lovers separated by poor parenting & bad timing. Yes, I am that hard up for something bad this week I'm referencing August Rush.

AWESOME: Excitement based around so much new & so much unknown & a promising things for so many people. Trust me, I'll say more later!

WORD: I have come to a hiccup in my reading of Malala as it is hard to get to point of the story which I don't think comes till the end. Maybe. I might just have to read the end. Aside from that I've been enjoying my daily e-mails of scripture & reflecting on letters from Paul again.

coming up: Making this brain a little less jumbled!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: The plank challenge continues! To push myself more since I was already including planking in my routine before the challenge I do 30 extra seconds on top of what's asked of participants for the day. September is already half way over, say what?! Here in Northern MI there's no denying that Summer is closing or has closed & Fall is upon us. There's even murmurings of snow before the end of the month. Let's pray that those are simply murmurings! While I love the freedom of sandals weather, I also welcome the opportunity to wear scarfs & boots & cozy up under old loved quilts. This week our day off adventure even allowed me to wear my puffy vest. It was refreshing to do some hiking near to home in the cooler weather. MG even got to come with & have her first experience with a snout-full of sand. We all can learn lessons on happiness & allowing our curiosity to lead us on great adventures from this puppy!

BAD: My mom took a trip this past week & banged herself up good. Thankfully no bones were broken, but she got quite the shiner that will last her for a while. Being nearly an entire state away I've only been able to check in on her via phone. Thankfully my cousins were able to respond to her need to be taken for stitches. There's nothing quite like communication through text messages & social media to share something like this (Thanks Mom, you goof!)

AWESOME: Having reason to use my old lap quilts from cancer camp. As a kid I used to go to Camp Watcha Wanna Do every summer & each year we would get to pick out a lap quilt to use in our cabins. The sweet thing was it was generally too warm being IN in June to need them but now they are perfect for sitting around the fire or just getting some fresh air on the front porch early in the day.

WORD: Psalm 103 & thinking about what this actually looks like when one believes it with all that they are & lives it with all that they are.

coming up: ROAD TRIP! This week I am on the road visiting friends & family.

Friday Favorites!

Happy Harvest Pumpkin from Celestial Seasonings! There's no changing the the cooler weather so why not embrace the crisp mornings with a touch of Fall?

As my sister-in-law pointed out, it's boots & jeans weather. I'll add to that & say, it's scarf weather, but when isn't it scarf weather? Scarf's go with my daily life as much as a mug of tea.

Friday Favorites are inspired this week by my co-worker who sweetly surprised me with a box of this tea earlier in the week. While I did make one last batch of sun tea in the last week in my attempts to cling onto Summer, I am not gently welcoming this touch of Fall.

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome

GOOD: This past week we ate a LOT of leftovers. There's only so much cucumber salad soaked in a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water, salt, pepper, & sugar one can handle. Thankfully it is all gone now & none of it went to waste! I love eating fresh, so really no complaints. The productivity continued this week with cleaning, some house projects, bike rides, & grocery shopping. Our fridge was stocked all week from the leftovers of last Sunday's cookout to the charades of food that always come with family visiting. You might say that eating is one of my "love languages." Really it is quality time, but often food makes time together top notch quality. Am I wrong? Thursday the reality of Fall set in with the first home football game & family rolling in for a visit. Friday was a great big adventure that we all needed to feed our souls. It's so fun to share the local area with family! Plus a trip to the island means a treat of fudge & other goodies. No, I'm not a fan of fudge, but Z is & like I said, there's other goodies!

BAD: Unnecessary lives lost. This is more than bothersome. Is prayer enough? It has to be for now.

AWESOME: Exploring the local cemetery & finding tomb stones & other things well over 100 years old. Yes, this is where I led us to on our bike ride the other night. Just until recently, on another bike ride, I realized I didn't know where the - or if there was just one - local cemetery is. This seemed strange to me to not know where this public site is. So we ventured through the uneven broken down trails & the more recently kept up roads of the local cemetery finding hidden treasures for this church nerd.

WORD: I've been returning to Romans & pondering on the theology that God has for us through Paul. Many of my fellow female colleagues often point out Paul's gender bias & so I'm chewing on that as well. Plus reading 'I am Malala' with AJO.

coming up: Maybe a bridge walk, we'll see what tomorrow morning brings. Definitely laundry will be happening & a little more of this & that!

Friday Favorite Foto!

Fall colors, treats, & family time 

Friday Favorites!

LOTS o fresh cooking!

FALL smells!

Christmas Cheer?!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & ugly

Sunday Snippits with

GOOD: Fall is here! Not only by the cooler weather, but the smells & the changing of the leaves & the fact that the calendar says so, FALL has arrived. I love Fall! This last week is a bit of a blurr. Yet again it was spent doing more networking & community building. Two things that I really enjoy, so it doesn't seem like work. Early in the week I got to connect with some of my family & congratulate my 16 y/o cousin for his 62 YARD TOUCHDOWN! He's a sophomore & gets to occasionally play on the Varsity team & a few games ago now, he had one of the best moves of his football career. This makes me excited to be able to make it to one or two of his future games before he graduates & goes off to college. We also go to take the short road-trip to Camp Michi-Lu-Ca to see the beautiful land & get to know our new colleagues & friends in ministry A,D, & I. Yesterday, in our attempts to get to know more about town, we decided to go for dinner at This Old House. While they claim to have the best pizza in town, we decided we liked Alcocks better. The motif was fun & we'll prolly go back for something else on the menu, but not the pizza.

BAD: A few weeks ago I shared about this cycling accident & added to a number of prayer lists. I only sort of knew the couple, but know several people who were quite close with them. Both of them were working in specialized ministry & had a great way of bringing joy to those around them. While Rob passed away on the scene of the accident, Hilary had been on life support until a couple of days ago when the family made the hard to decision to let her body do what it would & join the glory of God in heaven. My heart aches for their family & friends, the church that she worked at & the cycling community who had come to know them & their energy for safe cycling.

UGLY: Last week, I said to turn on the news. Well this week that proves true again! This morning before church, while I was trying to think of what to share with yall, the news was about the mall massacre in Kenya, the potential of the US government shutting down, people fighting about healthcare, & more death in Palestine.

so I turned to the WORD: & read Luke 16:1-13 (the Gospel lesson today for those who follow the Revised Common Lectionary) which then also threw me for a little confusion. Check out, focus on the last two or three sentences & tell me what God's saying to you.

COMING UP: Next weekend we get to go on a vacay back to the beautiful state of MN to not only hang out with family (from IN, MD, MN, & AZ!) but for Z's ordination as a pastor in the ELCA. I already have plans to go to Target & Caribou Coffee. I'll catch up with Sunday Snippits after all the festivities & travels are over.

Tuesday Tea Time!

 Welcome Back!                   It's Tuesday Tea Time!!!

We are back up & running with internet at home & glad to be connecting our lives to yours!

SO many things could be talked about after the last month and a half of transitioning. But I'll spare you the boring parts. If you're an avid follower, you know that we moved, not once, but twice. 

We are now settled into our new home - our first house - in Northern Michigan - but not the UP - where there is a lake, river, or Great Lake within' a short walk or drive in every direction. This also means it's pretty regularly sweatshirt weather. Today though, it's a balmy 84 degrees.

I'm taking this chance to make sun tea at least one last time before it gets too chilly to put things outside. That is, things that you want to heat up & steep in their own herbal goodness & not keep refrigerated.

While Fall is possibly my favorite time of the year, there are some things that I would keep all year, like sun tea, if I could.

Here's to keeping your favorite summer things around for another few weeks! And shoot, if you live in the southern part of our country or world, share the love of sun tea year round with us Northerners!