Friday Favorites!

Hello Friday! While quite damp & Scotland like, you have been good today. Alright, most anything that reminds me of Scotland is good.

This week has been filled with little adventures. The photo of MG captures just that. God only knows what she had her nose in near this old building on our friend's property!

She was so incredibly smitten though to be out in the country running free with her friends. And that's what matters. Adventures of all sizes are good for the soul!

The funniest piece of our country adventures was not captured on film, but just imagine this fur baby bounding towards you across a field after losing sight of one another for a minute or two with complete joy to see you again.

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

Credit to The Telegraph

GOOD: Today is Installation day! Some have joked that all these big churchy terms like consecration, ordination, & installation should really just be regal & therefore like a coronation. While consecration made life as a Diaconal Minister that much more real, this will set our current calls in stone (the sword in the stone?!). This week we have experienced the quiet of January, so it is nice to celebrate the church with so many people today. Christmas is put away at the JZ Parsonage with a few remaining wintry decoration pieces filling the shelves. And in place of the Christmas tree now sits a bench we were gifted (by gifting others we were able to gift ourselves) that is really for our front porch. In the middle of January in northern MI it is not so much fun to put things on the front porch, so in the living room it sits for now. Though we think it'll be alright outside year round. It was a decent accomplishment simply to take the pieces out of the box & assemble the bench to start!

BAD: The other day we decided to check out our local Family Video - yes we live in a town without a Redbox & a classic video rental store instead - & it appeared that the majority of the films that were on the wall considered "New Release" were about warfare on a broad spectrum. This could be warfare in history, spiritual worlds, or made up worlds. What's the deal? We don't have enough warfare in our day to day living or world that we need to infiltrate more through media. No thanks!

AWESOME: Sharing in the joy of our friends' ordination & commissioning services happening across the country. While I sincerely wish we lived close enough to each event to be able to attend - & let's be honest, that means living somewhere in Z's part of the mid-west (Minnocentric Midwest) - that is not the case nor the need of the church. We are where we all are because we are called & set apart to live as leaders in the church.

WORD: So I've realized that I've stopped receiving a daily devotional that I often relied on to share something here. I tried to switch the e-mail address it went to & now I don't know where it's actually going. I'm working on starting something new.

coming up: Living the life in the winter wonderland of Pure Michigan!

Tuesday Tea Time!

Hello sleepy time! Tuesday Tea Time has come & not quite gone. I do believe I over estimated my ability to get back from my travels & jump back on board with my bit of routine. Oops!

Many many thanks to Timothy & Allison for sharing Friday Favorites & Sunday Snippits while I was away in hoosierland.

What a crazy milestone in my call to ministry to have come & gone. I had the same feeling of joy on my consecration day that I had on my high school graduation day. At high school graduation many of my friends were red in the face from tears & I had this ridiculous grin that I could not wipe away.

Today I spent part of my time in the office setting up all the cards & new decorative gifts that I received. The picture though shows the long awaited gift of a basin, pitcher, & towels. These are the symbols of Diaconal Ministry. My basin & pitcher were crafted by the great Jim Alworth & his wife Grace. The most beautiful piece about it is that the design is one of a kind.

And now it's time for bed!

Friday Favorites!

Finding peace in the recent past.

One Word 365: Health Update and BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hello! It has been a while since I have checked in with my One Word 365 choice for 2014. This year has simply breezed by. It's mind boggling to know how much has happened in the last 9 months of life. And because I thrive by being in community that cares & listens to & for one another I want to share with you an update!

Today the sun is shining & it is rather warm outside. So there's no denying the need for a walk or two with the dog & possibly even a bike ride. While I love this time of year & all the changing colors, I also know that the cold white & gray colors of Winter are not too far off for this part of the world & bike rides will be impossible & walks potentially a little less enjoyable.

That aside though, recently I find myself filled with immeasurable gratitude. My time of living in the seemingly never ending state of limbo that I have been in for many months now is over. Praise be to God!

By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit I have been called to serve as Coordinator of Youth and Family Ministries by the good people of St. Thomas Lutheran Church.

Thus I am in the joyous throws of planning a worship service to include my consecration as Diaconal Minister in the ELCA. While it is a whirlwind of information & change, I wouldn't want it any other way. Through the joyous throws the Holy Spirit is affirming & reaffirming my call to this roster & service of ministry. Some times it's funny when you're made to do something that isn't the most enjoyable for you on a typical basis - like worship planning - but on this special basis it turns into a world of fun & imagination & affirmation of the knowledge one holds.

My immeasurable gratitude is for all that have been a part of my journey to get to this point & for all that continue in this piece of my journey with me. So thank you - as simple as that sounds - thank you with all my heart for supporting me & praying for God's lead to be my way of living.

Friday Favorites x2!

Just in case you aren't aware of the wonderfulness of the Lusty Month of May sung by the one & ony Julie Andrews.

Tuesday Tea Time!

Welcome to Tuesday Tea Time with my friend's God-daughter & friends!

LBG shared this photo after a stressful week of her last semester of seminary & I loved the joy it brought her. It's got some great friends in it too. I mean, how many people often have tea with Barney the purple dinosaur & Snoopy? I think Curious George might be there too!

So in lieu of today being the funeral of my friend TE & the stressful week that LBG was having last week, I share the little things that bring us joy & hope that there will be abundant smiles in our future.

Today I find joy in the puddles from yesterday. While these puddles may be seen as messy, they are a beautiful mess. They are a sign of a long hard Winter. They are a symbol of the variety in creation that God brings us each year. They are a sign of being washed clean for the coming Summer months when we'll think it's too dry & hot.

And of course there's joy in this tea time, remembering the times with TE, & the shared tea time with LBG & her God-daughter.

May tea time bring you a daily dose of joy!

Tuesday Tea Time!

It's TUESDAY TEA TIME!

My loose schedule has been thrown off a bit by having visitors & it's always a happy moment - as some say happiness is fleeting, but joy is more permanent - when I remember it's TUESDAY TEA TIME!

Today's picture is credited to Sandy at My Fiddlestix

While I am not much of a coffee drinker, I have a LOT of coffee drinkers in my life. One being my husband.
This morning, I decided to use my porcelain thermos that was a wedding present from my cousins BH & OH. We had these thermoses in storage for our first two years of marriage so as to preserve them & use up our already beat-up & well-loved ones. Now that we're in a home, we have all the space we could need & have been using many of our wedding gifts that were in storage for 2+ years.

What's the point Juls?!

Today my tea tasted like coffee. Somebody - ahem husband - has been getting our mugs mixed up! In all fairness, they are exactly alike & plain white. His lid is definitely stained differently with coffee oils than mine with tea. And we tried to mark them to differentiate, but it just washed off. So now I have to be patient & embrace the hint of coffee because it'll take a few rounds of strong tea to get rid of the coffee taste in my mug.

Woah is me. or should I say Fiddlestix?!!

Tuesday Tea Time! It's a Midnight Tea Party!

It's Tuesday Tea Time! Sorta...it's after midnight, which means it's Wednesday.

Z & I were out celebrating our 2 year anniversary today & I didn't sit at my computer long enough this morning to share tea with yall. My Tuesday Tea was on the go & then enjoyed on the way to our adventuresome full day date.

We ventured across the river to explore the history of Mill City at the Mill City Museum. This was a great museum with experiential learning opportunities for all ages. Something that Z & I didn't realize before today is the large fire that burnt down a significant portion of the mill, just burnt down in 1991. The mill had been closed since the 1960's, but it had been left vacant & when a person escaped into the mill to get out of the cold (the frozen tundra) they lit up their cigarette & boom! Flour is highly flammable!

We spent our evening at the theater enjoying the action, thrill, & comedy of The Lone Ranger & then happy hour at Granite City Brewery.

It was a joyous day filled with fun memories of our wedding & dreams of our future.

May you look into your day (or night) & find the same joy in memories past & dreams yet to be revealed.

& check out the website for the Midnight Tea Party!