Blogging Hibernation

:: big yawn ::

I feel as if I have just crawled out of a big cave and am now trying to wake up from blogging hibernation. Winter is a time for hibernation for certain creatures, and I suppose I have followed them into a cave. Now that it is so warm out I can't use winter hibernation as an excuse, so I suppose I will just have to find something to blog about.

Enter 2009

2009 entered just like every other year, the clock ticked down to the countdown, and everyone all cheered as we heard twelve strokes. It is now time to remember to write your checks '09 instead of '08 which is always new and weird.

Winter 2009-

Fresh new snow is falling and makes everything look pure and white. Sheets of ice and blankets of snow make beautiful beds for ground and trees alike. Everything looks so clean and new.

Spring 2009

A time for new things to burst through there covering of winter, to make there appearance, to pop there heads up and say hello to sunshine and to blue skies. And of course we can't forget about the lovely brown, smooth, Mud!

Spring somehow always make you want to brighten up your home too. It is a time when you see rugs hanging outside to get rid of the winter dust. New curtains are being made to be hung in the windows. In helping my sister Bethany make new curtains, I realized that just by hanging material on you windows you can give a room a whole new look and feel. When you walk into a room with nice new curtains you can feel at home, warm, and peaceful.

Spring is also a time when you make an appointment with your hairdresser so that she can tame your winter coat. I don't know about you but I was very ready to get my hair cut after long winter months of frizzy uncontrollable hair.

I think that in reading this you will know that I have had a bad case of spring fever. Now don't get me wrong I love winter and all of it's coldness and snowiness. But after months of cold and harsh weather, I was more then ready to feel the soft touch of the suns rays, and to feel a gentle warm breeze. I do believe that when God made the seasons he was giving us a picture of seasons in our lives. Sometimes the winds are going to blow and the cold is going to chill you to the bone. Sometimes life will just seem downright harsh and mean. But then God will give us a season of rest when we can feel the soft sun caress our cheek and we can feel the breeze slowly warm us up. Now that is not to say that there isn't any mud during this time, but God can help us dig through the mud to reveal all the "new" beautiful flowers that are coming in the next season of life.

Spring

Here I am once again sitting in the lodge at our favorite ski resort and I am wondering what to blog about. Ya'll won't know what to do getting a post three days in a row :) It is a bright, beautiful, sunny day here in WNY. This morning as I was loading the car I just enjoyed the feel of the brisk cold air as the sun was coming up over the hill... knowing that it would warm up through the day and become a lovely spring feeling day. I love the spring when you can feel the cold fingers of winter losing their grip, don't get me wrong I love the winter too, beautiful moonlight, snow covered nights when you can curl up on the couch with a blanket and a book. But by the time I get to the last of February, first of March I am ready for warm weather, for green grass and trees, for the first flowers to peek up through the ground. It is such a lovely, hopeful time of year, when everything is new and fresh.
For me this spring means change, it is the first for me being a wife and that for me doesn't just mean a new name and home but a new country and langauge. Intimidating? Yeah, I must admit it is, a little anyway. But I have no doubt that I am where I am supposed to be and that gives a confidence that I wouldn't otherwise have. So as I sit here looking at snow covered slopes and bare trees I can look ahead to the promise and the great "unknown" of spring with complete peace because I have the knowlegde that whatever I have to face in the future and whatever comes my way I don't have to face it alone. I have a father who knows everything from the end to the beginning and not only knows it but planned it himself. And that is the most reassuring of all!

Brain Power

This last Sunday Curtiss and I were scheduled to speak about Romania and what our plans are for returning there at a church about half an hour from our home. So Saturday was get everything ready day. My husband and in-laws spoke at this church once last year so the folks there knew a little bit about Romania and the work there but not near as much as some of the other churches that we have been to so we wanted to be able to bring a little bit extra in the way of "show and tell" so to speak. People love pictures and that is the best way on earth to help people understand some thing that they have never experienced for themselves.
So while Curtiss worked on a slide show I started digging around for some poster boards that my mother in law had made for previous churches that they had visited. And I found some, slight problem though, all of them were several years old and the village that was shown in them isn't even the same village that we work in now. "No biggy" I thought, "we just got some pictures developed from this last summer, I'll quickly make a new one" HA,HA,HA. Have you ever noticed that whenever you think some thing will be easy and quick it ends up being just the opposite?
I have worked on several different picture boards in the past and they aren't hard so whats the big problem?
Well, I am not one to just take a few pictures and tape them on some card board and call it done.
I don't like to go some where and hope that no one finds out that I made "THAT" horrid monstrosity. In order to have some that that you're not ashamed of is to have some materials to work with that give subtle but dynamic details and that is exactly what I didn't have.
after looking around for a little while I found a good sturdy box that would work well for a base, now all I needed was some paper to cover it and give me a nice background.
We only had white paper. I didn't have anything to use for a background or for backing the pictures themselves, no crayons or markers nothing to add some contrast to the board.
I started getting visions in my head of an "asylum" picture board,
white walls, white clothes, white everything except a little splotch of color here and there where you saw the hands and face of the doctor :)
So I started thinking, there had to be something around that I could use. And this is what I came up with...



The background is a table cloth that was made in Romania that I taped to the card board.
The picture of Romania that is in the center my wonderful Husband printed for me and any of the backings that you see I made myself with a red pen and a permanent marker. O and a red envelope that clashed with the red in the table cloth but if put next to the picture and then put with another layer of white it didn't look to bad.
I was like completely brain dead by the time I finished but it was done, simple but done :)

The Happy Hunter

The sun was low on the horizon as the man slowly crouched down to pick up his weapon. Cautiously so he didn't attract attention he took his aim and fired. BANG! the rock hit the side of the side of the building and bounced off to hit the target and the startled possum ran into the supposed safety of the barn...

You may be wondering what in the world I am talking about and some of you may be wondering if you want to but what is the point of a blog if not to share the every day events of our lives and to brag about one husband???
The other day when Curtiss got home from work I noticed that he was getting out of the car in a different way than normal. He was all crouched down behind the door of the car, it looked like he was either hurt or hiding from something. I couldn't see him well because of the car door so I didn't see him pick up a rock but I heard it as it hit the side of the barn and low and behold a possum goes ambling across the yard and into the barn. Curtiss quickly came inside and asked me to get him his gun and the hunt was on.

I could see him through the kitchen window as he moved around inside the barn looking for the fugitives hideout and it took him a little while to find it. I was moving around the house taking care of some things when I heard the first shot so I went to watch, I could tell that he knew where the possum was but couldn't get a good shot at it, later he told me that it was being a smart possum and playing dead but it didn't play long enough :)
It is amazing what you can tell by body movement, just by watching Curtiss I could tell just about what the possum was doing whether it was playing dead or moving into a better position for shooting:)
It didn't take too long for the possum to pull it's slightly bleeding self into range of the pistol and O the fun that my man had :)
BANG! BANG! BANG! the gun shots rang out as Curtiss stood there in his shooting stance, then BANG! BANG! BANG! and it was done. No doubt about it after getting shot seven times the possum was dead.

Now I know that some of you might not appreciate it all that much but I have to show you a picture of the happiest man alive as he brought out his kill to show his lady love :)