Hearts in Service Blog

Dan and I will have been married 24 years on June 24th. It's been wonderful and we've had a pretty adventurous life. There have been ups and downs and even lower downs. If I could do it over, I would marry him all over again! I love how our personalities and gifts blend together so that we make a pretty good team. I thought I would devote a blog post to the things I love about my husband. I came up with a list of 50 things I love about him. 1. He loves the Lord. 2. He loves me. 3. He would rather spend time with his family than anyone else. 4. He is humble. 5. He is passionate about social justice. 6. He is athletic. 7. He rubs my back every night. 8. He makes up silly games to play with the kids. 9. He loves people. 10. He is funny. 11. He gets excited about life. 12. He is an awesome teacher. 13. He is a deep thinker. 14. He has a servant heart. 15. He does the dishes for me every night. 16. He is easy to please. 17. He loves music. 18. He thinks of others more ...

I love flowers and would love to fill my house with them. But, they are expensive and it goes against my frugal nature to spend money on something that's going to die in a few days! I've been loving my home the past week because it's been chock full of flowers! There are the dozen roses that I bought for myself for $8 which was a steal. The flowers I received as a gift from friends. And then there are flowers that Dan brought home from a funeral. A man after my own heart - flowers the frugal way! I've been working hard to take care of them so they'll last as long as possible. It's been a bit of sunshine in the midst of dreary winter days!

We had about 30 people at our annual New Year's Eve party and everyone had a great time. Here are some pictures from Saturday night. One nice thing this year was there was a mix of people from church, as well as couples from the fire department. As usual, I had too much food. However, I always have this fear that there won't be enough and I think it's better to have too much than too little! Because there was church the next day and just because we are old people who can't stay up past 10, the party was only from 4-9! Fortunately, pretty much everyone at the party felt the same way. LOL!!! It was a nice night and we'll be eating leftovers for the week!

It's that time of the year again when most people set resolutions or goals. I prefer the word, goals because it gives me something to work towards without it being an all or nothing deal. I basically come up with goals based on different priorities and categories I have in my life. Here are my goals for 2012. Spiritual Goals ► Make time each morning for reading my Bible and spending time in prayer. In order to do this, I'm going to keep the computer off until this is done each day. ► Keep a journal of how God is providing for us so I don't forget. Marriage Relationship ► Work on saying 2-3 positive things to my husband each day. ► Have a date night 2 times per month. Health & Nutrition ► Lose 20 lbs. this year. I really must work on this as I haven't been feeling great lately and I know it's because I'm carrying around extra weight. ► Have an intentional exercise time at least 3 times per week. Household Organization ► Make cards for 6 months at a time...

Years just seem to fly by lately, especially now that I'm pushing 50! ;-) This year for the second time I decided to look back and review what my year was like. Maybe it will seem more exciting than it actually was that way! LOL!!!! January Dan & I were remarking on what a warm December we've had. No snow at all and mostly in the 40s. By early January last year, we had piles of snow. February Stephen celebrated his 18th birthday. Our church had a Chilefest to raise money for an orphanage in Chile. March The major event in March was a move to the parsonage. No more commuting 12 miles to go to church! April Most of April was settling in to the new house, celebrating our first Shabbat as well as the resurrection of the Lord. May We had two birthdays in May. Nathan's And Emily's. June We celebrated Dan's birthday in June. He ran in a 5K race and came in 2nd in his age group. Our Anniversary. The worst picture EVER!!!! We both look distorted like we are sta...

What a wonderful Christmas this was! I think it was one of the most peaceful (and I don't mean relaxed LOL) ones I've ever had. When I say peaceful, I mean feeling full of internal peace in the midst of a very busy weekend. I'm not known for being calm and collected. I recognize that I can be high strung at times and I've been praying that the Lord would help me to work on being peaceful in the midst of chaos. It was really so nice to just enjoy each moment. ► From the candles of our centerpiece. ► Taking the traditional Christmas picture. ► And having children that didn't want to cooperate and be serious. They were cracking themselves up! ► Hearing Emily and her friend sing. ► The candlelight service at church. ► Hearing my husband preach. ► Homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. ► Opening gifts. ► A scavenger hunt for my daughter. Yes, that huge, beautifully wrapped box only contained an envelope with her first clue. It then led her to get dressed and go outsid...