Mornings

Ahh how I love slow mornings.  There is just something super sweet about them.  They say "Hello, it's a fresh new day!"  Devotions are a pleasure in the morning because I am more focused and awake and ready to start my day right.  Sometimes on a slow morning a cup of coffee is a wonderful treat.  However, there are mornings that are far from perfect.  (You know those mornings... I know you do)  Sometimes there is no time for a cup of coffee or I don't feel like devotions.  But on such mornings, I am missing the gift of a slow quiet morning where God whispers to me and says "This is a new day, a chance to start over."  Yes, sometimes life is too busy but we must learn to make time.  It's worth it.

Psalm 118:24

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

A Quick Post...

I realize that I haven't posted in a while but I am starting to work on some posts and designs.  An update is coming soon on what I've been doing since the last I've posted (IN JULY!?).  However, my blog is giving me grief.  A few months ago I customized another header but it won't fit the size of the header on my blog.  I think it has something to do with the HTML but I still haven't quite figured it out yet.  If any of you know how to fix this please let me know!  I would definitely appreciated it!!  Also, I tried to put a background on my blog since it was boring without the header but as you can see the top of it is white!  I would appreciated suggestions on how to fix this also. :)  Though I have neglected my blog for a while, I thought I would let you know that progress is in the works!  More posts coming soon... I PROMISE!  :)

Fabulous and Frightening Friday

Hi!,

I hope everyone has had a great week!  Our gang has!  I haven't done a Fabulous and Frightening Friday in a while so here we go.

Fabulous:

• Going to the park for a picnic

Click this link for a picture: http://instagram.com/p/cPUp-YIgqj/

• Finally getting headphones that work for my iPod.
• The lime cantoloupe we had for lunch. Delicious!
• Face Paint.  Introducing Molly the puppy dog!  (Click again!:) http://instagram.com/p/cPkOfQogku/
• Spending time with the best big brother ever.  We sat on the swings and listened to music together.  It was great!
• Sleeping in till ten this morning.  Since I got back from Student Life camp, I haven't really slept in because I was in a habit of waking up at six every morning.
• The fact that we have nothing to do this evening and dad has no meetings.  I can't wait.
• Our Wi-fi is back!  (I'll try not to put too many smiley faces.) :D :) :O !!!!!
• A sweet piano teacher who will totally change her schedule so ours works better.

Frightening:

• Getting ready for the day when  your little sister comes up to you and says, "Your face and hair do not go with that shirt!"  ...gee thanks sis?
• How hot it was today after a few pretty cool days.

Today was pretty wonderful.  For tonight's supper we are grilling.  YUM!  

How was your Friday?

Meg

Graceful

Hi everyone!  I hope your summer has been wonderful.  It is hard for me to imagine summer coming to an end soon.  It has flown by.  I just finished a book and wanted to post a review.  The book is Graceful by Emily P. Freeman.  It is a very rich book and I have MARKED IT UP!

In Graceful, Emily writes about things we hide behind, masks we put on, and how to come out of our hiding.  She opens the book talking about playing hide-and-go-seek as a kid with her dad when he came home from work.  She would hide in the same spots every time.  Her favorite part of the game was being found.  This illustration was a great way to open up the book.

There our many "good girl" voices in our heads that tell us to hide behind different things.

The Actress says "You have to perform."
The Girl Next Door says "You have to impress."
The Activist says "You have to make an impact."
The Heroine says "You have to be strong and responsible."
The Bystander says "You don't matter."
The Judge says "You have to be perfect."
The Intellectual says "You have to be the best."
The Dreamer says "Your life won't start until later."

We listen to these voices.  We hide behind our performance, our reputation, our causes, our responsibility, our comfort zone, our rules, our report card, our somedays.  We try to handle everything ourselves but we can't.  We need grace.  Instead of hiding behind these things, we can hide ourselves in Christ.  He gives us grace to live everyday.  That is what this book is about.

A phrase that stuck with me from this book is, "Grace plus anything is no longer grace."  And it is true. I would recommend this book for any young lady seeking after grace.

Meg

Summer (+pictures)

Some of you know that I lost my camera.  :(  I haven't posted a lot of pictures (or anything really) lately.  However,  I figured out that my dad's old iPhone takes pretty good pictures.  I thought that I would share some of the ones that i have taken with it recently.  These pictures just say summer to me.  A lot of them are of Kate because we had a "photo shoot."

Without further ado.....

 

  

Selfie :D

Kate wanted pictures in her new, fancy outfit.  We found out that it was a great spinner! 

What's a new outfit without shoes?

I hope you are having a wonderful summer!

What have you been up to?

Day 1 of our Special Time Together

This week Cole and my dad are both in Honduras and Kate and Molly are at my grandparents.  This means that my mom and I are able to spend a few days together.  It has been a blast so far and I am looking forward to the days ahead.

We started our first day together on the porch.

Then we started a book together.  It is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne.  Many reviews say that it is a heartbreaker but we are enjoying it so far.

Next we watched The Princess Bride.  That was the first time I had seen the movie and I really enjoyed it.

For dinner that night we ate Brown Rice Pasta With Tuna, Olives, Fried Capers & Parsley.  It was delicious and very picturesque.  

We ended the evening by watching a bit of My Fair Lady.  We will finish the rest sometime today.  It is very wonderful so far :)

I can't wait for today's adventures.  Hopefully I will post about them tomorrow.  Chao for now!

Meg

Inspiration

After a busy day...  I have finally had the chance to just lean back and say ahhh.   Today I picked up Kisses from Katie and was quite inspired.  I walked into the living room after a while to give mom an update on the progress I had achieved book.  She reminded me of an email forward that she sent me a few days ago of a Holy Experience blog post that I hadn't had a chance to look at yet.  So, I hopped on the computer to check it out.  The post was about Kisses from Katie and talking about a lot of the things in the book that I had just read.  Every day Katie finds at least 100 children in her yard ready for lunch, homework help, and showers.  This chapter was about how Katie found scabies on some of the children that were in her backyard on that particular day.  She took them into her home, gave them food, a bed, warm baths, and courageously treated their scabies with the risk that she our any of her girls could catch them.  Katie's willingness just blows my mind!  A convicting fact from this chapter was that if 8 percent of Christians would care for only one more child, there wouldn't be ANY orphans or needy children left.  Katie also says that if you go into a village to teach a child about God's love, how will they ever understand if they don't know what is?  The only thing you can do is just love.  Love.  That should be our goal.  Love.  That's what we can do.  Love.  That's how we will make a difference.


Let's love others together.  What do you say?

Books

Hi! :)  I wanted to tell you all about some books that I've enjoyed recently.  The first one is Perfectly Unique by Annie Downs.  

This book is perfectly charming.  It teaches you to use your body to glorify God in many different ways with many different parts of your body.  Annie writes in a fun loving, down to earth tone which I enjoyed greatly.  She blogs here.  The appendix of the book contains many recipes, websites, and more.  I loved Perfectly Unique.

The next book happens to be a fiction book that I zoomed through.  It is called The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, The Mysterious Howling.

This book is well written, different, and captivating.  It is about a well educated woman named Penelope who is looking for a job.  She finds an ad that says there is a position for governess available at the house (more like mansion) of Lord and Lady Ashton.  However, Penelope does not find the children in the nursery where she expected.  She keeps hearing mysterious howls that seem to be coming from the barn.  She strolls outside to take a look.  She finds......  THE CHILDREN!  They are howling like wolves.  Most think they've been raised by wolfs.  They are drooling, licking, and did I mention howling.  With sooo much to teach them, Penelope is not pleased to figure out that Lady Ashton is hosting a Christmas ball... and inviting the children!!!  With many mysteries along the way, this adventure is thrilling.  It is one of the many books in the series.  The Mysterious Howling is a great read.




These are the recent favorites of mine.  Next are some that I have started reading and plan to finish soon.

Amazon says Graceful goes along wonderfully with Perfectly Unique.  So far, this book is great!  I hope to read more of it soon.  Emily blogs here.

Kisses from Katie has been both heart breaking and gripping.  It tells the story of how Katie came to Uganda and became used to the culture there.  It is interesting how she planned to go on a trip to Uganda for a week and then it turned into coming back for a month which turned into living there and adopting many children.  I can't wait to finish Kisses from Katie.  Katie blogs here.

I got a hold of this beautiful book yesterday.  I am loving it!!!  I love Jenna's writing.  Redefining Beautiful is about what true beauty means.  I have read another book by her called From Blah to Awe which I posted about here. 


What are you reading lately.  Comment and let me know!


Meg

Check it out!!

Check out the new video on my ukulele page!!!! Finally put one up!  Hope you like!!! <3