God is good...

"God IS good ! He's the definition of good. He's the reason we need the word good, so we can describe things that remind us of Him." My son Jordan expressed this sentiment on his Facebook wall yesterday. He's beginning a new life in Burleson, Texas and has lots of time to spend with God and practicing music for his new role as worship leader at his church. I agree with him wholeheartedly!

I thought of Jordan's words as I watched television this morning and somebody said, "I have some bad news." Where did bad news originate? Not from God...so I only see one other alternative; Satan. Up until the time he came on the scene everything was good. That's not just a coincidence.

How often do we give God credit for the bad things that happen in our lives? Doesn't He make the sun shine on the bad people as well as the good? No, I think that sneaky deceiver who poses as an angel of light can take the credit for everything bad that happens.

Did you notice that Jesus healed everyone that came to Him for healing? The Bible does mention two exceptions. There were two towns where he couldn't do many good works because of their unbelief. So I have to come to the conclusion that doing good is His will, but we get in the way sometimes. Or maybe we DON'T get in satan's way when we need to?

I don't say that as someone who has a perfect life. My mother is going down the Alzheimer's road, my granddaughter has extreme diabetes, my husband has many health issues. It's not popular to say, but this is our fault! Or at least mine! God gave us all of the authority we need to come against such things, but we've become wimpy believers in the area of healing. Too many have droned on about healing being something for the past. Why? Why would it be just for Biblical times? We still need it obviously. So, the only solution is to see what Jesus did, and do the same. He said we would do the same things He did and more. I don't know when that all became obsolete.

As a Christian I do have the comfort of knowing that those I love will be healed when they reach Heaven, but I think healing as well as all good things were intended for life here as well as Heaven. Sorry for the sermon; my son just got me thinking. :)

(Afterthought: This post is aimed at myself. I have no business judging anyone else's walk. Somebody may be praying mightily against some illness but healing has not been manifested yet. We have no way of knowing what's going on in others' lives. I'm holding myself responsible because I know I don't pray as I ought.)

And now for some of those good things! I took some photos of my weird assortment of flower containers and some of my tomato plants. As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit of an old hippy, so you'll have to excuse the weeds and rustic surroundings. I kind of like it! :)
I love this old wheelbarrow. My hubby found it at the dump after someone used it for mixing concrete. I only planted half of it with flowers and intended to plant some lettuce in the front, but I didn't get around to it. Oh well! They look very pretty anyway!
Yes, I think this IS a chamberpot that these petunias are occupying. It works! :D
I have so many old water bath canners lying around, they have found a new life as planters. My tomato plant loves it!
And this little bait bucket has lots of drainage for sure. I have to water this little flower more often.
A promising spot of red bespeaks the presence of an almost ripe tomato. I picked one a couple of days ago that was bright red, but not quite ready. So I'll try to be patient!
This clump birch in our front yard is a great place to enjoy the shade on a sunny day. I would love to draw its beautiful bark, so I'm putting it here for that purpose.I love this ancient swamp willow. It was old when we moved here 21 years ago and it, as well as many others on our property has just about reached the end of its lifespan. So, I wanted to immortalize it on film and maybe in pen and ink later. I've enjoyed sitting in its shade overlooking a large vegetable garden we had next to it years ago. Now it's pasture for our horses.

Thanks for letting me share my sunny day! Have a beautiful day wherever you may be!

Sketching and holding the babe...

It was a lazy kind of Saturday. Bob ran outside and did chores, trying to beat the rain. He didn't quite make it, but he did get the chores done! I sat in my favorite chair and did some sketching and visited a lot of art blogs to watch videos. I got a lot of good ideas and learned a lot about watercolors.

By lunchtime Micah and Audrey arrived to catch up on some laundry. Their dryer is on the fritz, so we did a few loads and Grandma and Grandpa got to hold our cute little peanut of a granddaughter. Micah seems to like her a lot. I think she holds her about 20 hours a day. She's enjoying it while she can!

Have a great weekend!

Two little precious kiddos...

I just came across this photo of grandson, Nathan Aslan Richards, who lives in Ft. Worth. He just turned ONE YEAR OLD yesterday. I'm not sure if the picture is right-side-up, but it sure is cute! Awwww....

This is our sweet little brand new granddaughter, Audrey Rayne Yliniemi. She just turned ZERO YEARS OLD on July 18! My children were all pretty much bald at birth, so we were amazed at Audrey's hairdo. I guess it's common on her dad's side of the family. Do you notice something in common? Binkies! You gotta love 'em! :D

I just thought that these were two superb pictures. I don't have pictures of all of my grandchildren online. I should work on that. Hmmm.... I could visit Facebook and steal photos from my children's albums. Good idea!


We now have three grandchildren with birthdays in about a one week period! Wow!

Library sale!

Have you seen on the news that Border Books is going out of business? It's a sign of the times, apparently. It was mentioned that e-books/Kindles are the main reason for the demise of this huge bookstore chain. To that I say...

BOOK LOVERS UNITE!

I, personally, do not intend to succumb to e-books. It goes against everything that is enjoyable about reading to me. I love OLD books with history behind them. Books that have been owned by lots of people before me. The old yellowed pages are part of the charm of the experience.

Determined to do my part to preserve the old-fashioned paper books many of us love, I will continue to grow my personal library so that my grandchildren can enjoy the heft of a good book; so they can turn pages and enjoy illustrations up close and personal. What better way to collect these treasures than through a library book sale!

Below is a list of all the books I found for a grand total of $8! Of course, I also spent an additional dollar for the quilt raffle. :)

Children's books:
(Many of these books I chose for their illustrations and they will probably spill over to my art blog in the future! Others I picked up just because they are delightful books to read to youngsters.)
Ride a Purple Pelican-Jack Prelutsky/illus. Garth Williams (love Garth Williams!)
Arthur's Christmas-Marc Brown
Brownies-It's Christmas! by Gladys Adshead/illus. Velma Ilsley (quirky little old book...reminds me of Scandinavian folk tales)
The Snow Queen-Illus. Bernadette Watts (beautiful illustrations)
Diary of an Early American Boy-Eric Sloane (love his pen and ink drawings!)
Georgie and the Magician-Robert Bright
The Great Cat Chase-Mercer Mayer (a favorite illustrator)
Star of Wild Horse Canyon-Bulla
Groundhog's Horse (These two horse stories are for granddaughter Audrey because she will LOVE horses!)
The Coriander-Eilis Dillon (This may be a YA book. I bought it to read myself!)
On Market Street-Arnold Lobel/illu. Anita Lobel (another favorite illustrator)
I Can Color-Usborne (some coloring activities-cute little book)
The Egg Tree-Katherine Milhouse (unusual Pennsylvania Dutch-type illustrations)
You Are Special-Max Lucado
Fantastic Mr. Fox-Roald Dahl (My 29 year old son, Jordan, loves quirky movies and we've watched a movie based on this book. I didn't realize it was based on a children's book. I'll be mailing this to him as an inside joke.)
When We Were Very Young-A.A. Milne
Now We Are Six-A.A. Milne (These two A.A. Milne books are full of wonderful little illustrations by E.H. Shepard. Drawing practice! What a treat!)
The Little Golden Book of Poetry
Farmer Boy-Laura Ingalls Wilder

For Paperbackswap:
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All-Gurganus
Chop Wood, Carry Water-Fields
The Creators-Boorstin

For me:
Dialogues of Plato (I keep giving away my copy and have never read it!)
Cashelmara-Howatch
Country Woman-Smith
Gossip at Thrush Green, Battles at Thrush Green, No Holly for Miss Quinn-Miss Read
If You Can Talk, You Can Write-Saltzman (This title and next for my writing collection.)How to Write and Sell Greeting Cards-Wigand
The Golden Bible Atlas
Vanity Fair-Thackeray
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings-Angelou
The Brothers Karamazov-Dostoevsky
The Country of the Pointed Firs-Jewett (about a writer)
The Sketchbook-Washington Irving
(Some of these are classics I just want to maybe read someday and others just sounded interesting. If you see something here that you know is really strange, let me know!)

My bookshelves are bulging, but I keep culling and adding new things. I love the feeling of knowing I can always find something wonderful to read anytime of the night or day!

I feel like I had a baby....

Actually, my daughter Micah did all the laboring and delivered a beautiful Audrey Rayne Yliniemi into the world yesterday at 6:23 p.m. Audrey weighed in at 6 lb. 12 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. The doctor thought she was a month early, but we think they miscalculated, because she's a fine size and very healthy.

I left my laptop with Micah at the hospital so she would have something to do when she wasn't feeding and holding her new treasure. This computer tells me I don't have disk space to hold more photos, but here is the link to the Facebook photo album I made of Micah's birthing day. Hopefully you can still see them even if you aren't on my Friends list!

Micah began having back labor on Sunday afternoon. She and husband, Adam, were on a shopping trip to buy baby stuff with Adam's two sisters (one of whom is due with her own baby any day). They were 2 1/2 hours from the hospital and didn't have their delivery day suitcases with them in the car. After all, she wasn't due for 3 or more weeks! So they ran home, got the bags and headed to the hospital. Micah labored the rest of Sunday, through the night until Monday afternoon, at which time she finally opted for an epidural. Poor thing! She worked really hard at labor, but she was so relieved after the epidural. She had had about 1 1/2 hours of sleep, but she really perked up after the epidural. She labored a few more hours and Audrey came into the world. She has the greatest doctor and the nurse was so good with her. Micah and Adam are 20 years old and have been married for 2 years. They are eager to learn how to care for their little girl, so she is staying in the hospital until tomorrow to get familiar with this new little person and also because she has a blood clotting condition, so they want to watch her. She's having no problems, praise God!

Grandma (that would be me) acted as photojournalist, and I posted pics on Facebook as quickly as I could so Micah's six brothers and sisters and assorted friends scattered over the continental U.S. could follow her progress.

All is well, and Micah and Adam are excited to be parents and finally see their little girl. Grandma and Grandpa are excited to get to do some babysitting!

Ira Sleeps Over...

This is my latest Paperback Swap acquisition. I loved reading this book to my boys years ago. I think I liked it more than they did.
I love Ira's intellectual/musical family....
and the charming old New York row house they live in...
I love the way his parents are so easy going and slightly hippyish...
I love the secure feeling of having a best friend that lives just next door, so sleeping over isn't so scary!
And I love this little attic bedroom. Bernard Waber really captured the fun and tribulations of sleeping over. :)

The demise of the cloth diaper...

My dear daughter, Micah, is due any minute and a baby shower is planned next Saturday. After looking over all of the elaborate plastic "stuff" that has been created in order to separate young parents from as much cash as possible, I decided to take a more practical route. Though Micah intends to start out using disposable diapers she is open to also using cloth, so I thought I would set her up with diapers, pins, waterproof pants and a pail. I never realized how difficult it would be to reach this simple goal!

I purchased two dozen cloth diapers at Wal-Mart. Mysteriously, they do not carry waterproof panties or pins. What do they expect people to do with the diapers? Oh, I see. It says you can dust furniture with them!

So, I drove to both 24-hour grocery stores, Family Dollar (where the lady said, "Oh, nobody uses those anymore."), a pharmacy...and then I gave up.

I did find a pail at Family Dollar that will suffice as a diaper pail. For the waterproof panties and pins I had to resort to ordering online from clothdiaper.com. I also found a good article on caring for cloth diapers at The Diaper Pin which I will copy and include with the pail, etc.

I realize that the majority of people opt for disposable diapers, but I think they're ridiculously expensive, not to mention...where do they all magically disappear to when we throw them away? I also know that there will be days when the money to buy a box of astronomically expensive diapers may not be there, and that's when I can feel good knowing that Micah has a backup plan! :D

Good luck to all of us old hippies who still believe in cloth diapers! And thank you clothdiaper.com!!!

I brake for garage sales!

Actually, I rarely go to garage sales because I know myself well enough to know that I'll bring home lots of stuff I don't really need. Today we were supposedly taking our daughter in search of inexpensive furniture for their new home. She did manage to find a coffee table and end table, but mostly I had fun buying "lots of stuff I don't really need"! And heeeeeere it is! :DA northwoodsy throw complete with loons and a cabin. I love loons...AND cabins!
A little duck family and "Strawberry Girl" by Lois Lenski. Love those illustrations!
A colorful crocheted throw. I don't crochet, so I'm always impressed by those who do. I want to learn some day if only to crochet my own pot scrubbers!
A couple of cute tea cups embossed with leaves. Teacups are another favorite thing of mine.
See! :D I love the little detail inside of the cup.
I think the pictures on this set are beautiful. My love of drawing influences even my choice of dishes!
Here's the set. Minus a cup, but a steal at $3! (And I can only use one cup at a time anyway, lol!)
A cute little bluebird plaque...
...and a another plaque with a good message.
A Psalm plaque, a couple of "I Spy" books for when Audrey (my granddaughter who's almost here) is old enough...maybe six years from now? And a cute roll of wallpaper border with colorful birds.
Oh, I almost forgot! I also got a Sewing Genie, which is a tiny sewing machine, for $2. Hope it works! I don't have a machine and am not a sewer, but every now and then I wish I could stitch some quilt squares together or something, so it's nice to have.
Gee, I guess I really DO need all of this stuff! :D