The Highway I Travel

You are the highway I travel

'Cause I watched you carve streets of gold

From the sand and gravel

I gave you brokenness, you gave me innocence

And now this road leads to glory

Verse from For Love of You - Audrey Assad

Pine Cone Frames

"Gone was the old-fashioned combination bookcase and secretary that Mrs. Baker used to say belonged to her great grandfather; and all the musty old books that gloomed forth behind the grimy glass doors.  Even the two faded photographs of deceased parents framed in gilded pine cones were gone.  They used to swing on red worsted cords and when the wind blew in at the front window it would waft them around till they made a scratchy sound on the old ugly red wall paper that was faded to a dull magenta in spots.  They were all gone and the rooms were dusty and empty."

~ Partners by Grace Livingston Hill

Necessities

"She came back with her coffee pot, bread, butter, some cereal, a tin box of crackers, half a dozen oranges, and a little bottle of milk.  She felt that she would rather get her own breakfasts than to be always going out for them."


~ Partners by Grace Livingston Hill

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I'm cutting out Starbucks save for the weekends with my husband.  I love saying "my husband." :)  And really, while I Starbucks, I love saving money even more than that if you can believe it.

Holiday Bliss

My favorite magazine has always been Victoria, and the special "Bliss" editions are also incredibly inspiring. They feel much more like a book than a magazine so I don't minding spending a bit more for them.

I can't wait to try some of the recipes...
*Chai Shortbread Buttons
*Smoked Cheddar & Sun-Dried-Tomato Crisps

And the visions of Christmas decorations are sure to light a fire in me to spruce up our house for the holiday season (pun intended).

If you can find a copy for yourself, I highly recommend the investment!

Honeymoon in Bloom

I'm finally getting through some of the photos from our honeymoon and the flowers at Butchart Gardens are stealing the show.  We both got in on photographing the gardens because they are SPECTACULAR!  Everywhere you turn you lose your breath from the gorgeousness of it all.  As you can see by the light in these photos the weather was as close to perfect as we could have hoped for.  Sunny skies and about 70 degrees.  Pure bliss!  We'll treasure these memories for as long as we live.

We're Married!

Haze

This summer has brought a rare bloom, surely.  We are all sniffles and sneezes, blurry eyes and barely breathing.  Never have I chewed more children's grape antihistamine.  Like candy.  Bogus, mind blowing, candy.  I love where we live...it's beautiful as any place could be, but I wish all the blooms would hide themselves away in preparation for fall.  It can't come soon enough.  *sneezes*

Reverb

I choose stillness, but my heart still flutters ~

And begs for placidity.

Edification

We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. 

For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.   For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.  

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.


~Romans 15: 1-7~

And in Seeking

My temperament is prone to vacillate between two extremes, nonchalance and anxiety.  Rarely do I nail myself full of the holes that plague the spirit when thoughts become anxious because I tend to ask the question "why?" more than enough and that prevents worry more than generates it.  Even though, for the last week, my dreams (which I give more credit to than is due to them), have been rife with struggle.  Struggles that lead to inevitable deaths...little ones (puppies I'm trying to save) or big ones  (mass wartime atrocities).

So, why?  Why am I dreaming and seeing such awful things?  I feel these deaths keenly because I fight with all my strength to prevent them.  I gently caressed the ears of the frightened pups, cradled the dying men in my arms and carried them away to quiet places, spinning them yarns of more poetic times, when light revealed the hope of another day, fresh air, and the quiet of a dawning suns.

It ends badly, no matter how much my heart yearns to change the course of the dream, even when I recognize that it is a dream.  I am powerless to do anything, but strive, to fly the poor things away from evil, grasping hands of death.  Even in the light, my sorrow is deep.

And my payment for this sorrow is...a stomach ache.  Yes, I have had a stomach ache for about a week now.  Stress induced...from dreams.  That, or the dreams are manifestations of worry seated in some other, conscious place.  But, by the break of morning, other than the lingering tear on my cheek, I feel no stress, sadness...just as easy as my happiness was interrupted, a smile spreads across my face and a song rises up from within me just as it does when my dreams are of a more pink and sparkly variety.

But there are moments, when cries of "help" tumble around in this home of my head and I just want to reach out and offer that hand of hope, that help, that anything that is needed.  Anything, to lift the curse of fear and bless their ears with lilting Hallelujahs.