Catching up

Now this is getting ridiculous -- blogging once a week or less is just not the way I prefer to blog.  However, I know that these days it is not life as usual for most of us, and I am no exception. 

So first, I hope that each of you is having a good week so far and that if you are among those who ordinarily celebrate St. Patrick's Day that it has been a fine day for you.  For a great St. Patrick's Day read, may I suggest Blessed, Not Lucky by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings.

I made some gluten free, refined sugar free, Irish soda bread for our Sunday snack time at church and it went over well.  Today we're not having anything Irish (in spite of some Irish heritage on my dad's side), but I've put together a casserole with leftover turkey.  Trying not to waste any food these days!  It was a new recipe and eventually I'll blog about it.

I've not taken time to share much concerning COVID-19.  There is so much information out there, and some of it is conflicting.  I will say that I was pretty conflicted about it in my own mind for awhile.  Not worried, not afraid -- I know for sure that my all-wise, all-powerful God is in control of every facet of this situation.  But so much information concerning possible causes, the sure knowledge that in our town grocery shelves are emptying as fast as they are stocked,  and the nagging feeling that maybe as citizens we aren't being told everything, had me sort of riled up inside.  On Sunday I came to a conclusion about this: none of that matters in the end.  It's here, it's real, it's serious -- and regardless of the cause or whether we like it or not, we have to deal with it.  And the only way I can deal with it is by remembering what I know to be true about God, and by seeking to live my life in light of that.

Although I haven't done this personally, I've seen that a number of other Instagrammers have been sharing powerful Scripture verses almost every day.  Those are a huge encouragement.  And some bloggers have been writing wonderfully encouraging posts.  Here are a few that I heartily recommend:

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do, by Whitney at Come Home for Comfort.  Whitney shares from her own quiet time and a look at Proverbs 14 some intensely practical, helpful, and God-honoring ideas.

And from Brenda at Coffee, Tea, Books and Me, two wonderfully helpful posts:

Turning My Thoughts to That Which Brings Peace and
Cultivating Peace in Turbulent Times.  In fact, if you browse around more on Brenda's site, you are likely to find even more posts you will want to read.

I hope that these posts will encourage you as they did me!

Let's see, what else?  My life has been so busy lately that I just don't get much time at the computer.  Hence my lack of posts.  I currently have eight posts started -- everything from the 40-day sugar fast to summer memories to books recently read to easy recipes and more.    I can't even begin to speculate when I will get to finishing and posting these, but I will do the best I can as I really miss blogging regularly.  My Christmas blog has suffered even more from neglect than this one!  And again it's not for lack of ideas, but time.

My major busyness has been spending a couple of hours each day at my childhood home, trying to clean it out.  I've also had to declutter here at our home, to make room for things I'm keeping.  Drinking glasses (or maybe you call them tumblers) are a case in point.  I had some green ones and some amber ones, along with a special set of strawberry themed glasses and then various odds and ends of other glassware.  To make room for the green set I found at my parents' home (which I'm pretty sure I had given them originally, but was still in the box), I had to remove the amber ones and the odd ones.  Off to the thrift store they went!  Mr. T also found a set of 12 glasses with sort of a white gingham look, and he felt there are are often times when we could use a set of twelve.  He's right, and with all that I removed from our own cabinets there was plenty of room for them.  (Eventually I'll do a post on that decluttering, too!)

We've also been busy with some church related things -- hospitality for pulpit supply friends, and, most recently, helping to prepare our church building so that another church body can use it for Sunday afternoon services, having been displaced from their rented facility by recent events.

Of course we are trying to walk as often as possible and stick with the sugar fast.  We're just finishing up Day 23!

Our supper is nearly ready so I'd best go and set the table.