Life is rollin' on here in the village!

Caeden tried on a facemark today.  

Sylvia, wearing her baseball cap, glasses, and elephant blanket to watch tv...

This made me laugh.  I bought a couple hot water bottles on Amazon and just went to use one tonight.  I've never used one before, so I decided to read the instructions.  I'm pretty sure this was not made or printed in America...!

Cobbler Explosion

One of the things that is different in our home during the COVID19 pandemic is that Jeremy has done all of the grocery shopping for the past 7 weeks! I started using a new grocery app called Our Groceries. Within the app I can create and organize categories based on stores we shop at, so I've been using a list with our local Meijer store aisles in mind and the way we usually walk through the store. Jeremy and I like the feature that lets me text him the entire grocery list, still sorted in order by aisle.

Since Jeremy is doing the grocery shopping, and he also keeps our little freezer on the back porch organized and inventoried, he knows what we have that we need to use up.  He mentioned to me that we had several bags of berries my parents have given us.  We talked about Sylvia baking a pie or two, but today I decided to make a cobbler.  I defrosted 3 bags of red, gold, and black raspberries my parents had painstakingly picked, cleaned, vacuum packed, frozen, and delivered to us.  I carefully drained the juice into a measuring cup separate from the defrosted berries to use instead of water in the recipe I was using.  I greased up one of my beloved glass 9x13 pans, and mixed up a beautiful double-batch triple berry cobbler and put it in the oven. Jeremy was grilling burgers and waited until things would time out to be ready about the same time for a very late lunch.

A few minutes into baking, I was sitting at the kitchen table for a moment when I heard something hit the bottom of the oven.  I opened it to see THIS!!!

The glass pan exploded and shattered all over the oven, and the cobbler hadn't even begun to set up yet so it was all over the place too! So surprising and sad!

I really don't know why this happened, as everything was at room temperature when it went into the oven.  I've used the pan for years, so maybe it was just worn out?  I don't know, but we were all pretty bummed because that cobbler had looked really gooooood going into the oven!  I am just thankful that no one was hurt, and that the mess was really not as hard to clean up as I thought it would be. Wow!

We are working our way through the Marvel movie series, and tonight we watched Dr. Strange. 

It's one of my favorites of the series, strangely enough, haha.

We continue to entertain ourselves with stupid SnapChat filter photos and videos...

Surprise Birthday Drive-In

Such a beautiful and refreshing Sunday today!

PoC had a great live online service. There is really something cool about worshipping at home in our living room, just the 5 of us. I don't miss the morning rush and worrying about how and when everyone is getting to church and what they're wearing and what car(s) are going where when for the rest of the day and where we are eating lunch and what else is going on and, and, and!!! It's so nice to settle in and just spend time worshipping with my family in my home!  (I do miss the making music part, but those who are helping are doing a great job.)

After lunch today, we were outside for a bit. 

This evening, all 5 of us got in the car!  We tried to remember the last time all 5 of us got in the car together, and we couldn't. We figured it must've been around the holidays sometime. It was really nice to go out for a drive and see all the green and new life of springtime! We have definitely been cooped up at home too much for too long!

We were actually heading to church!  But not to go inside.

All these cars were gathered (6 feet apart) to surprise Samuel Keller on his 16th birthday!

Even this guy kept it a surprise!

It was so awesome to see some of our church family and dear friends!!!  I was so overwhelmed I had to hold back tears for the entire time we were there!!!

Kim got Samuel and the whole family to come through the building to the "garage" part, and she drove around to the outside and opened the door and we all started honking and shouting happy birthday when we saw Sam.

He was pretty surprised!

Caeden was so happy to wish his buddy happy birthday!

It was SO GOOD to celebrate Samuel today and see loved ones, even though we weren't allowed to hug anyone.  (It is hard!  PoC is a very friendly hugging church!!!)

We love our these dear friends, and are so thankful God put us together in life! 

Promdemic?

Tomorrow evening would have been Sylvia's junior prom. She is junior class president, and had already put in a lot of time planning the actual prom itself, and was looking forward to attending. (Her favorite part is dancing with her friends!) She now has some things to do tomorrow, with our online Bible study in the morning and a cello lesson at noon. And the weather is going to be yuck-o for dressing up fancy tomorrow. So, today she did her own hair and makeup and put on her prom dress anyway. She ate Oreos and watched part of the Broadway Newsies movie (which has been our go-to uplifting movie that we all LOVE watching on repeat during this pandemic!), and she let me take some pictures of her outside before it started to rain.

I think her hair turned out gorgeous!  I had seen a styling video of this months ago and thought it would look awesome on Sylvia, so I'd sent it to her on Pinterest.  I can't believe she did it totally by herself! So pretty!

Sylvia chose 1 picture and wrote this on her Instagram: 

Dear Covid-19,

My God is greater. You’ve changed my plans for this year. Because of you, my future went from looking organized to complete chaos. My “big picture” is this: in the next year I may have to pick a college I don’t get to visit, apply with no test scores, and finish high school, all with the pressure that is put on 17 year olds to figure out what they want to do with their life and start executing it. And yeah, I cry, I’m stressed, and feel like I’m staring at a black hole, but the thing is my God WRITES my story. My future isn’t some picture of what things look like in the moment. He is in the action of orchestrating and creating and moving and living. He is not a “big picture” God. He is a now God, who doesn’t let current circumstance affect his path for me, he’s already made up his mind and is setting up the blessings. I don’t live in tomorrow, 6 months, or a year from now, but he does. And they will be completely different than what I see now when I get there, because his plan is perfect. My God is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Any darkness ahead of me won’t be dark when I get there. So back off Coronavirus: I can miss 100 proms, 1000 concerts, never visit a college and not know what I want to do or where I’m going, and still be joyful and blessed and love life because Jesus is with me in the present. And he’s growing me to handle my future, so I don’t need to fear at all. 

#peacethatpassesunderstanding #joydowndeepinmysoul #nofear #athomepromforfunsies #liveforjesusnotyourplans

Today's news in Illinois:

These girls.  Trying to support and encourage each other while talking about their education and future in the midst of this unsettling time. They still fight and struggle, but they really do love each other.

We played Last Wordand Skip-Bo tonight. 

There was laughing, thank the Lord.

And snacking. 

I am so thankful we are together.

7 Sacred Pauses

I'm pretty sure I've posted this photo/prayer before. It resonates so well with how I feel, well, most of the time.  Our prayer pastor sent it in her encouragement email yesterday morning, and it really helped me.  I was able to pray for the right words and address a difficult conflict, and praise the Lord have forgiveness, an apology, and resolution!  Hallelujah!

The other night, I was really upset and kept waking up in the night. I didn't want my mind to wander or overanalyze a particular situation, so I tried to think of something that had made me laugh recently.  I am not really a meme person (Annah gets so frustrated with me not understanding them or not finding them funny when she thinks they're hilarious.) But this one, really made me crack up the other day.  It is the Tellytubbies sun from the intro of the show, which usually has a laughing baby in it, but in this case the famous annoyed meme girl's face is in it.  It just hit me as hilarious this week, and strangely enough, helped me relax, laugh, and get back to sleep every time I woke last night and focused on it instead of letting negative thoughts run wild in my brain. Whatever it takes, I guess!

Another thing I am going to try to get back to this week is being mindful of the 7 Sacred Pauses or watches of the day/night.  Years ago, Pastor Todd bought this book for me and I read and really loved it.  (Amazon link on picture)

I need to read it again now.

At one point, I set up Reminders for each of the 7 pauses in my Google Calendar. 

I have reset my reminder list to pop up on my phone and remind me to pause 7 times a day.  Now, obviously, I am not holding my phone at all 7 times of the day to even notice these, but if I hear the reminder chime, I am going to try pausing to do these. Hopefully this will help me memorize what they are so I can continue to do them throughout my life. I think it is a really beautiful way to reflect throughout the day!

These are the 7 pauses:

6am - Awakening  – Focus on God’s goodness.  What needs to awaken in me today? Forgiveness, love for others, productivity, rest?

9am - Blessing – 2 things to meditate on: The Holy Spirit’s presence and the work He has set out for me on this day.  I am seeing even menial tasks as sacred when done for God’s glory.

noon - Illumination – Being a light. Think about ways to serve and give hope to others.

3pm - Wisdom – Perspective on the shortness of life – what will really matter in the end? Themes for this pause are surrender, forgiveness, and wisdom.

6pm - Twilight – Gratitude.  Thanking God as we transition from work to rest.

9pm - Great Silence - A prayer to conclude the day taking time to evaluate what the day has held: strengths, weaknesses, and accomplishments.

midnight (or middle of the night) – Night Watch – prayers offered for those suffering in this world.

Jeremy went to Meijer today.  He found fruit roll-ups on sale for $.99 a box.  

They are unicorn tattoo fruit roll-ups.

Today's SnapChat filter comic relief...

 

 

Sylvia and I went for a walk this afternoon. 

The trees in bloom around the village are so pretty right now!

We visited Magnolia's magnolia tree again.  Soooo beautiful!!!  Now I have a new wallpaper for my phone background!

My fuchsia tulips bloomed today!

And the grape hyacinths are full!  (And the dandelions are creeping in too, of course.  I let this one stay because Sylvia said she likes the color it adds.)