It's been beautiful this first "official" week of summer.  

We are learning to enjoy central air--not too hard to do!

Caeden in his music producing spot

He is really liking the midi controller he got at Sweetwater last week!

Friday afternoon, Jeremy took Sylvia to Indiana.  He spent most of Saturday helping around his' parents' place. I tried to clean up and organize our back porch and also worked on staining and sealing the new wood pieces Shannon put in the entry way. It is looking so cool!

Erin took the girls shopping in Fort Wayne. Sylvia tried on formals that were on clearance at Von Maur just for fun and ended up finding and buying her senior prom dress for a really great price! They had so much fun, too!

Tonight Caeden and I watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  He loved it.

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.)

I emailed all my piano and voice students this week, and have loved hearing back from them how they are using their music and what they are doing during this difficulty.  One dad responded that he is playing music from different eras and genres for his kids each night!  So cool--a little "music history class" in their kitchen and they probably don't even realize they're learning!  That same dad said to me "I think this was God's way of reminding everyone what is truly important in this world." Yep, I think he's right.

Another person said to me, "God has a plan in everything, and I pray we can use this time of a slower pace of life to really evaluate where we are in life and how we are using our time in service to Him!"  Ohh yes, and did I need to hear that!!!

During this past week I have been able to connect/reconnect with friends I haven't made time for in a while.  One morning my friend Kim called me after she sent me and Jeremy a text to check in and I told her I was having a rough morning.  We talked for probably 45 minutes, and I bet we haven't talked on the phone in years!  She was such a comfort to me!

One day, Pastor Todd issued a Facebook challenge to our church to reach out to 10 people, and I did that.  I delivered a couple of the bags I crocheted last week to friends and was able to visit--from 6 feet away--with Jenna and Will (and Martin) for a while.  They are such cheerful people, and Jesus' light just shines out of them...such a refreshing joy to just talk with them for a little bit!

I also texted dear friends that are far away that I haven't caught up with in too long, and had sweet conversations with Lori and Cora.  Ohhh, that does a heart good!

Friday evening I received a really difficult message from a friend and I have been extremely upset and emotional about it all weekend.  I decided to fast my phone for the weekend, and it has helped not to have it in my hand as much as usual.  

Saturday morning, the girls and I started an online women's small group with several women from church.  We will be studying this book, and I am really excited about it!

For the first couple weeks, we are just chatting and praying together, since we need time for our books to arrive.  It was so wonderful to see the faces of some of our closest sisters in Christ on the zoom meeting yesterday, and to hear about what the past weeks have been like for them, and to pray for one another and feel encouraged!  Every person is experiencing the situation differently, but we can all appreciate and support one another through it.  Such peace and comfort in that!  I am so grateful to have the time to be part of this group and study, as it occurs during a time when I would usually be teaching and unable to participate.  Thank you for that, God!  

We have loved our PoC online worship service each Sunday morning.  Sundays have been crazy busy for us for the past I-don't-know-how-many years! It is so refreshing to get up and come to the living room and worship at home, then have lunch and spend the day relaxing together.  A beautiful sabbath, really.  I know it is still a lot of work for those on the church staff, the worship team that is rehearsing and playing, and especially the technical staff.  They are doing a great job, and it is so meaningful and wonderful for our congregation.

Annah recorded this for her recital at school.  We've all enjoyed hearing her learn this very difficult piece these past few weeks!

Today was a gorgeous day here, and we all got at least a little time in the sunshine. Jeremy spent a lot of yesterday outside removing a stump in the yard, and starting to fashion a fire pit in the corner of our yard at Annah's request.  Today, he and Sylvia threw a little nerf football back and forth for quite a while, and Sylvia spent time skateboarding, of course. Sometimes it would be nice to have a bigger yard, but I am thankful for the little spot we have.

Annah stood on Sylvia's skateboard and has pretty good balance.  I got on for about 7 seconds and found it pretty scary, haha.

This evening, I noticed these flowers by the garage looked so pretty in the sun.

I apologize for the lack of posting over the past many months. Sometimes I get to busy and get behind and post a month's worth of posts at a time.  Sometimes (like this time) I have trouble with Blogger.  I finally figured out that the trouble I've been having with Blogger for the past year and a half is from having too many Google accounts signed in on one device!  If I sign out of all accounts, then Blogger works just fine!  Of course it gets confused with 10 different accounts wanting to be signed in!  Anyway...hopefully with that figured out and my being home and nonessential during this pandemic, I will get caught up.  Not that I will have that much content now...since everything is canceled.

It is such a weird feeling of waiting. 

Jeremy took advantage of a BOGO iPhone deal through Verizon last week, and yesterday my new phone arrived.  Here is a photo I accidentally took with it while I was setting it up.  Annah is working on getting my "old" phone set up to use as hers.  Caeden's first phone will arrive in a few days.

This morning it was absolutely gorgeous outside, and Caeden and I went for a walk around the village.

Love this teenager!

This afternoon, Sylvia spent some time with her skateboard.

While she rode in the road, I pulled last fall's leaves out of the flower beds in front of our house and filled a whole trash can.  It was such a beautiful day to be outside!

This evening, as Caeden was getting warmed up for his guitar lesson, he played a few songs for me.  I love how slow and mellow this one is!

We had a beautiful sunset behind our house tonight.

I needed better and more consistent photos of many of my crocheted items, and Sylvia agreed to help me by modeling them today.  It was overcast and not too hot, so it was the perfect day for it.

We were just finishing up taking the last photos of this top when Annah came home from the girls' shared babysitting job at Finding Eminence Farm with flowers! 

This huge pink flower is a Cafe Au Lais dahlia.

The reason they sent flowers home with Annah is actually because these are called Sylvia dahlias!