Hearts in Service Blog

I've spent the majority of this week working on ministry items which included participating in an online conference. So needless to say, I'm a little tired of staring at a screen.  I have multiple projects that need to get done so I really would like to start working on those over the next few weeks. These days are zipping by and it's hard to believe that January is almost over. My sewing room is a mess and I would like to organize it better, including moving a larger work table into the room. I have our old dining room table and I'm going to see if that works in there. I also have boxes of pictures sitting around that I brought home from my mom's house and need to find space to display them. I have a box full of my grandmother's writings and genealogy research which I'm going through so I can get a package off to my uncle. My grandmother was in the middle of writing a book and it's fascinating to read the few chapters she had done. Emily has her own apa...

It's been such a busy week and one in which I spent many hours at the church. We are having our first "on-site" service tomorrow with restrictions and after three months of being closed down there was much to do to help get ready for the service. I had online and in person meetings all week and unfortunately, my house has been neglected for some time. Today is going to be an at-home day. Nathan and Emily are working, Dan and Steve (who is visiting for the weekend) are headed out to a golf tournament this afternoon. So I will have the house to myself. I'm making today a "roll-up-my-sleeves" and get to work cleaning day. I also have some sewing projects to work on and other around the house projects I want to do. I have windows to clean, floors that need to be mopped, some patio work I want to accompish, as well as a number of other items. Sometimes it's good to just focus on things at home. The weather is much cooler...

This blog has always been a mixture of my faith, family, ministry and life in general. Lately it's been heavy on the moving and personal as we are in the middle of chaos. And today will be no different! It's been a great way for me to chronicle our lives and something that I hope our children will look back fondly on.  We had a wonderful and quiet Christmas at home with our favorite foods and traditions. We opened gifts, had a nice dinner and played a board game. I buy a board game each Christmas and some year's games are better than others.  I found one this year called, Stupid Deaths, and it seemed like it would be humorous. Half the family finds it hilarious and the other half finds it, well.....stupid! 🤣 It really takes no skill except guessing if the incredibly stupid way someone dies is true or false. About 1/2 way through it Emily said, "Could we play something else that requires some intelligence!" You can guess which camp she falls in.  Dan ...

  I'm coming to the end of my food challenge and it's getting to be more of a stretch as I'm down to the bare minimum. I did buy meat this past week, and tomorrow I'm going shopping for Christmas eve and Christmas day. I will continue to fill in with items from the freezer and pantry. It's definitely looking bare which was the goal! My Christmas eve and Christmas day menu is centered around some of the items I still have. I'm crossing them off here as I use them.  Here is the plan for this coming week: Breakfasts - cereal, eggs, whatever Lunch - Sandwiches, leftovers Monday Dinner - Will pick up something at the store when we shop tomorrow. Tuesday - Christmas Eve Finger foods - Shrimp with cocktail sauce, cocktail meatballs, bruschetta with capers and black olives on toasted homemade baguettes, stuffed grape leaves, cheese & crackers, veggie platter with homemade hummus, Christmas cookies, eggnog Wednesday - Christmas Day Christmas b...

A few weeks ago I started a "don't want to pack it and move it" food challenge to use up items in my pantry and two freezers. It really will make the move easier if I don't have to try and transport boxes of canned goods and freezer items the 5 hour trip. My plan for last week kind of fell apart in the busyness of the week. But this week is quieter and we aren't going out of town so I should be able to stick with the menu. Here is the plan. Everyone is on their own for breakfast and I'm making homemade granola to have on hand. Lunch is either leftovers or sandwiches. I am going to have to go grocery shopping later in the week for a few essentials we don't have. I'm crossing things off my pantry and freezer list HERE as I use them. Monday Dinner - Fettuccini with bacon, onions, garlic, diced tomatoes and parmesan cheese, Tossed salad. Tuesday (Dan & I will be out with our church board for dinner; making this for the kids) Dinner - C...

I have spent the past week not doing much of anything except baking. Not a box has been packed, nothing has been organized. There is an unfinished sewing project that needs to be done before we move. Cleaning needs to happen. Instead, I find myself sitting in an overwhelmed, anxious-type of state doing not much of anything. Well.....except that silly baking. I have been working on items for a spring conference and had a dentist appointment, but the more I sit and ignore the task that really needs to happen, the more overwhelmed I feel. We had a time of prayer at church last night and while only one person showed up it was still good and as we prayed, I felt some of the anxiousness leaving me. I woke up at 5 a.m. today and had a sweet time of reading and prayer. A batch of granola is in the oven, dishes that were in the sink are done and the sunroom has been straightened up, and a load of laundry is in the wash. It seems that whatever was paralyzing me from doin...

Now that a move is looming in front of us, I often feel like a person who takes a huge bite of food and finds it's too much for their mouth. In other words, I've bitten off more than I can chew! I feel a bit overwhelmed with all that needs to happen before we can move, especially with the holidays in front of us. I need to find boxes, pack them up, get things transferred over, finish up a couple of sewing jobs, plan Christmas services, help Stephen find a place to live, get him moved in, get Nathan set up with the services he's going to need in our new place, get us moved out, and on and on. However, I'm going to tackle this by making a list and just  start plugging away at it. I did manage to pack two boxes yesterday just because there were two boxes laying around. Nathan is supposed to be bringing me more from his job. The biggest issue I'm going to run into is we just have no storage here for either empty boxes or full ones so timing is key. We...

I'm having a difficult time focusing on things this week and have been struggling with a headache the past few days, as well as being distracted with waiting for something. I thought I should go back to my old standby of making a list. I've always tried to plan out my work and then work my plan so I'm not looking back at the end of a week and not seeing anything accomplished or having what I'm experiencing this week and having a hard time getting started. So I'm putting things down on paper (or blog, in this case) so I can have something for which to aim. I find if I don't aim at anything I generally will hit that every time. So having some goals for each week is helpful. Here are the major things I would like to get done this week:  Write up a quarterly report for our district executive committee  Follow-up on something with the hotel where we are having a spring conference   Sew a custom order for two clients  Deep clean...

We had a wonderfully relaxing Memorial Day yesterday. I sewed, did a couple of loads of laundry, worked on a barbecue, and played board games. It really was a good day. I have so many projects looming around here and yet, the summers are so short and I'm also busy with ministry. However, I can't just ignore them all forever. I did get my planters filled with flowers this weekend and set up on my deck. I took all of my inventory down the road to a local nursery/winery that offered to let me put my items there for sale. So that's all set up. One of the things that has really been bothering me are the flower beds around my house. It really is starting to look like an abandoned house, and yet, I can't do anything because of my knee. Just walking across the yard to hang a load of clothes hurts it. So I finally humbled myself and took a couple of deep breaths because I don't like spending money on something I could do myself and hired a yo...

I mentioned last week that I have a number of projects sitting around this house that were started and never finished.  My goal is to steadily work my way through them this year. The first set of them are probably going to be the hardest because they were little Christmas projects.  Since the holiday is over, it's very difficult to want to do anything Christmas related however, I didn't want them to sit for another year. A while back someone gave me a bag of mini grapevine wreathes.  I kept them, but had no idea what I was going to do with them.  I also had a box  of Christmas buttons that my mother-in-law had given me many years ago.  Before Christmas I started turning them into ornaments.  However, I never finished and still had a few to go. I was able to sit down and finish them on Sunday afternoon while watching a movie. They are packed away with the rest of the ornaments and ready to be enjoyed next year. ...

A few weeks ago I posted that I wanted to get some things organized around here.   I'm making some good progress and finished one room so far. My living room is a fairly large room and is long.  I had the furniture around the perimeter of the room but I wasn't really satisfied with how it looked.  So after fiddling around with things the past week, I came up with an arrangement that makes me happy.  It also feels cozier. Here is one end of the room. The other. Yep, I have to put that laundry away!  The white basket by the window is full of magazines that I still have to go through and then it will be moved under the end table. The set up is great for watching movies or entertaining guests. The piano used to be under the blue clock and moving it to the other end of the room helped free up some space to put the easy chair and bookcase there. I'm almost done with my dining room and I'll post some pictures when it's finished. What do you think so ...