MOVING!

     THIS WILL BE MY LAST XANGA POST!   I'M MOVING TO A NEW BLOG!!   : )

COFFEE MORNING

     Saturdays used to be coffee morning for Ron and I.  We'd get ready for our day, and then we'd head for Starbucks to sit and read the paper, discuss articles in the paper, meet up with friends, and drink hot, steaming coffee.  But, now Ron works Friday nights, so we don't do coffee anymore.  I miss it.  Now I get up by myself and make my own cup of coffee in the kitchen.  I like having coffee in the kitchen, mind you, and this morning its an especially enjoyable coffee time because I'm using a special kind of cream.  I'm using Budge cow cream!  You see, Jessica Budge has a milk cow.  She milks the cow morning and night.  When her family visited the other day, they brought us a large container of fresh from the cow, milk.  Now, how cool is that?  So far, I've used the milk to prepare a gourmet dinner of kraft macaroni and cheese, and I've used it in my coffee (several times : )   I think I'm going to use the rest of it in some home made corn chowder.  It's been fun to have this special milk (not just because it's fresh from the cow but because every time I use it I think of Jessica, and I think of the rest of family, even Halle, and those thoughts are sweet reminders that God loves me)  So, it's a treat, and its helped me not to miss coffee day as much.  :  )

BTW:  Halle is the Budge Family doggie.  She's so sweet.  She's a beautiful yellow lab.  My sister Mary picked her out of a litter of puppies a few years ago.  Mary named the puppy, Halle, because she was born on Halloween.  Mary ended up being allergic to the puppy and needed to find her a good home.  I called Rebecca (Jessica, Makenzie, Courtney, and Madison's Mom, and my adopted sister : )  and kind of talked her into taking Halle.  It's been the best match.  Halle loves her family, and her family loves her.  The best part of all this, is that I get to see Halle and enjoy her too.  Mary got after me for not taking a photo the other day, so I'm going to add one later.  It was taken last summer, but it's a fun pic of the Budge women, including (can I say?)  Halle.  

So come back to the this page later and look for the picture. 

Here it is, the pic of the Budge girls (and Halle)  Funny Note:  My sister Deb was assisting me when I took this photo, and she was blinding the group with one of those reflectors (per my instructions of course).  I've since learned to have people shut their eyes when using a reflector, and then at the last minute have them open their eyes for the photo. 

A Special Visit

    Yesterday the Budge family came to Central Oregon!  All of them!  Even Halle! 

Here's what we did:

Madison made sugar cookies for all us.  They were delicious.  Makenzie and Courtney helped.

Jessica pulled up kitchen remodel plans on the email, and Rebecca and I discussed them (with fun interjections from all the girls). 

The girls took turns listening to the little musical ditty that comes across the headphone set when calling someone on "skype". 

Joe and Ron sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking while watching all the "girl" activity going on around them. 

And best of all,  Makenzie and Jessica and I went to a writer's guild meeting in Redmond where Rod Morris, senior editor for Harvest House, spoke on writing good dialogue.  We learned some really good things, and Makenzie came away just a little bit inspired to learn more about what is involved in being an editor.  It was a huge treat for me to have these intelligent, really special young women with me at the meeting.  It reminded me of when I took Rachel (I think she was in the eighth grade) to a children's writers conference at Seattle Pacific University.  Rachel, of course, was the youngest person at the conference, and she went away inspired to spend more time on her writing projects.  She really enjoyed it, and I loved having her with me.  Sharing our love of reading and writing has always been a special bond for this Mom and Daughter. 

So, it was a great day!  So much fun.  Loved it.  Love them!  I hope we can do it again very soon.  :  ) 

The God Who Makes You Laugh

      There is a young man who spoke at Westside Church last Saturday.  He's an amazing man.  He was born without any limbs, and is just a trunk of a body and a head.  He's more amazing yet in that he travels the world over to proclaim the good news of God.  He's been to Egypt, and in fact the people who heard him speak there were amazed and have asked him to please come back.  "We want to know about the God who makes you laugh" they said in their invitation to him.   They said that because this young man is full of joy and laughter, and he makes others joyful by the time he's finished sharing his story of faith.   

EASTER SUNDAY

     This year Ron is working the weekend night shift at a hotel, so our Easter was really quiet because after church we came home and Ron went right to bed.  Our kids all live far away so we aren't together with them during the holidays.  All our extended family lives far enough away from us that it's just not conducive to having a holiday dinner together.  No matter who we would go to visit, we'd have a three or four hour drive over snowy mountain passes (one way) to get there.  And, like I said, Ron works the weekends so we wouldn't have been able to go far even if we wanted to.  

     So, our Easter was quiet.  But, it was not uneventful, or without joy and blessing.  We did get to talk to relatives on the phone (that's always fun), even Rachel in China.  We met a lovely family at church who brought along a sister visiting from Victoria, B.C.  I had a wonderful conversation with the sister (Adrianne) who wouldn't let me go until I promised we would come to her home for tea when we're in Victoria in June.  The importance of "tea time" in Canada cannot be underestimated.  Canada is quite British, and the British love "tea" in the afternoon.  It is not uncommon to be invited to tea on a moments notice, and it is something I've very much missed ever since I was a student in Alberta, Canada many years ago.  So, I'm really looking forward to having tea with Adrianne and her husband when we visit Victoria after picking Rachel up in Vancouver, B.C., when she comes home. :  )

     While at Barnes and Noble for the afternoon (so Ron could sleep) I heard three young people speaking Manarin to each other.  I couldn't resist going over and introducing myself to them.  We had the lovliest visit (they really were genuinely interested in Rachel's adventures in China).  I learned that these young people have a friend who lives in Hong Kong, and they are preparing themselves for a visit to Hong Kong and Beijing.  They've been learning some words in mandarin by audio tape purchased at the bookstore.   Since Rachel had just taught me how to say, "hello" in mandarin, I picked it up out of the cacophony of voices around me, and zeroed in on it.  Isn't it funny how all of us have little invisible antanae coming out of our ears, for picking up certain sounds or phrases or cries for help, or whatever?  I'm fascinated by that.  I remember when I was a new mother and my baby would cry in the midst of a lot of other babies crying (maybe in a nursery at church, though I don't think I left Steven more than once).  But, I was intuned to my own baby's cry.  I new his sound and his cry, and I knew it instantaneously.    And how about when you hear your name spoken in a crowd of talking people?  You may not even be listening, but then there's that name and it's your name and you know it, and recognize it above the din.   That's the invisible antanae.  It's there and it's up and it's probbing for sounds even though I may be asleep or daydreaming or focused on a book or project, trying as I am to tune everything else out.  And I think I am being successful at tuning everything else out.  It's interesting to me because when you think about it, it's part of what makes us as human beings, unique. 

     Well, I got off track a little.  But I wanted to say that I had a lovely Easter day.  That God was with me, and He blessed my coming in and my going out.  Even though I was alone for most of the day, I was never alone.  The Jesus who died for me, and now lives, He was with me.  And, that is, I think, the definitive difference between being borning again of the Spirit of God, and not being born again.  It's the difference between having an encounter with religiousity, or having an encounter with the living Christ.  The living Christ, living in me though the Holy Spirit.  Being with me, always.  I know it's true.  I know it in the joy, I know it in the blessings, I know it in the contentment.  

JESUS LIVES!!!!!!