Hey folks! I promise to [try to] be back later this evening with a Tuesday readings post. As I discussed yesterday, I've been so busy with so many things my reading got away from me this week. And yesterday we had some students visit the office and I didn't get home till after 8, then we didn't finish dinner till after 9 and I was asleep around 10 and it just slipped my mind.
Anyway...here's what I've been loving this October...
Fall - cider & doughnuts with my hubby @ Fuhrman's
New projects! I'm currently working on some design projects for a friend - living room, dining room, family room, basement and laundry room makeovers! Can't wait to share the before and afters!
Halloween times means MONSTER CEREALS ARE BACK. Count Chocula has been a favorite of mine (and Josh's) since I was little. I don't care how old I am, it always will be!
Not having a cracked iPhone screen. YES!!!
Boots and scarves! Actually, I haven't broken out my boots yet - they are too "snowy" - I need some nice fall short boots...I think I hear Marshall's calling me...
My adorable niece learning new words! She can say both "Josh" and "Amy" and she seems to LOVE saying Josh! We watched her at our townhouse the other day and she just kept pointing at him and saying his name! She also was loving watching stuff on the big TV and kept saying "Whoa!!!!" whenever anything crazy was on the screen.
I apologize for being a little MIA on the blog-reading-commenting front the past few weeks. Things have been fairly busy at work and the majority of my free time at home has been spent either on the computer working on an [exciting!] interiors project with a friend or staying off the computer doing other things.
Anyway, this weekend I [again] spent a lot of working on this interiors project! On Friday I stopped at Andrea's Kitchens in Erie and Pier 1 for some inspiration for the project. Here's it all summed up in a little mood board for you all:
On Saturday I went with said project friend to look and possibly purchase some of the above items. We went to Padden's paints to look for more options for one of the rooms and searched - and found [we think]! - the drapery fabric for the dining room. I worked more on the project in the evening and hung out with the hubby, of course!
On Sunday after church Josh and I went to Best Buy where I picked up this sweet new case for my phone. I'm a klutz and fear for my poor phone screen's life now that I've cracked it once, so I knew I wanted something heavy duty. Loving it so far!!
In the evening we hung out and I made cupcakes for the Mercyhurst Interior Design student visitors we have coming tonight. Recipe later this week! Spice cupcakes [made with applesauce] and caramel butter cream frosting! They are pretty amazing.
Anyway, hope I'll be able to get back to reading your lovely blogs this week! Thanks for sticking with me and reading and commenting on mine!! Happy Monday! Have a great week, folks!
The reading for today was Isaiah 34-36 and Colossians 2. I wasn't as prompt with this reading - I finished it up right before I started this post!
The reading from Isaiah was another weird one and the first two chapters a little hard to get through. I did enjoy the last chapter more though, hearing about how the Israelites were challenged by the Assyrian king on their trust in God. They stood firm and did not respond to the Assyrians, even when they were promised food and their own land (while they were starving, waiting for God to deliver them). One thing the notes in my ESV Bible pointed out was how the Assyrian king continually put God on the same level as the gods of the other nations, saying their gods didn't deliver them, why would your God deliver you? You have to go on to read chapter 37 to know that God does in fact deliver the Israelites by killing almost two hundred Assyrians, and later on the Assyrian king is killed by his own sons!
The reading in Colossians reminded me to always be on guard, even if you are doing well spiritual (probably more so!). The Colossians were being told by some of their leaders that certain rituals, traditions, etc. from before Jesus came were still to be upheld and that they must need to be done to be complete in their spiritual well-being. Paul warns against this that Jesus's death and resurrection was enough for us - we do not need anything else! I also identified with verses 12-13 on baptism - that the rite of baptism is identification w/ Christ's death and resurrection. We had a few people get baptized in church on Sunday who spoke about how they were excited to show everyone they believe in Christ as their Savior and that this baptism was THEIR choice.
I also wanted to share a song that we did on Sunday as a special. We just finished up a series called "Can Smart People Believe in God?" The song is by Sara Groves and is called Maybe There's a Loving God. It resonated with me so hard during the first service that I broke into tears and couldn't finish the last few lines of the song! I held it together more during the second service, but I just love the words the song ends with. Please check out the video.
These were the words that got me - nearly every time I listened to and practiced the song:
Maybe this was made for me...
For lying on my back in the middle of a field.
Maybe that's a selfish thought...
Maybe there's a loving God.
Maybe I was made this way -
To think and to reason and to question and to pray
And I have never prayed a lot
But maybe there's a loving God.
And that may be a foolish thought -
But maybe there is a God.
Let me know if you read this week as well!
Reading for October 25, 2011 Isaiah 50-52, 1 Thessalonians 5
This week's theme is FALL! I love fall! The colors, the smells, the temperature [usually], the recipes!
I think this outfit encompasses fall in Erie, PA perfectly. The last three days have been cooler, rainy and not very bright. This outfit - for me - would be a nice work outfit or out for a night with the girls. It's comfy, cute and you're prepared just in case there is a rainstorm...
Forgot to mention [still new to this] I'm linking up over at Friday's Fancies on Long Distance Loving!
I suppose this goes along with my love for mid-century modern furniture and anything Knoll, but here are some other favorites around the web of "splayed-leg" furniture. Enjoy!
This past week's reading was Isaiah 17-19, Ephesians 5:17-33
I'm proud to say I got this week's reading all done by Wednesday!
I love reading from my ESV Study Bible. Half the pages are notes or maps regarding the passages. It really gives you a different look at the scriptures that I often times miss.
The reading from Isaiah was a hard one to get through as is a lot of the Old Testament I find. It always seems difficult to find something to relate to. With the study Bible, there were a few notes that sparked my interest in the passage:
19:12 - "Human expertise, however brilliant, fails before the overruling purpose of God." Something I need to be daily reminded of - whatever intelligence or wisdom I have in life is always surpassed by God's perfect will and purpose for me.
The reading from Ephesians(I'm going to just write these down as bullets like how I had written them in my notes)
5:17 - Understand the "will" of God - is saying we must understand general guidelines, not that we should try to understand his hidden will that we cannot know.
5:20 - Giving thanks always and for everything.
5:22 - Wives submit to your husbands - means submitting to the "ultimate leadership of the husband for the health and harmonious working of the marriage relationship." [From the notes.] This gives a different perspective on the often "sexist" view that some people get from this passage.
5:25 - Husband's love - "husband is bound by love to ensure the wife finds their marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the Lord." [From the notes.] I like this perspective! Sometimes I think in this day and age we think it's wrong to believe your husband should be your provider and protector. Although I think that many things in a marriage should be equal - a partnership - I am happy to say my husband is the head of our household - though we are still early in our marriage years, we haven't crossed every mountain yet!
5:26-27 - Husbands cannot sanctify wives (only Christ can), but they should promote holiness.
Hope you did the reading along with me! Let me know if you did! I'm looking forward to next week's reading!
Reading for October 18, 2011 Isaiah 34-36, Colossians 2
I cannot believe how GORGEOUS it was in Erie all weekend! Mid 70's, beautiful breezes and gorgeous colors. Fall has hit Erie hard and the colors are unbelieveable.
Friday on had to drop off some books at the library so I picked up FIVE new ones! I was lucky enough to find five of the books on my Pinterest book club reading list, so that was pretty exciting! In the evening we had a worship team meeting where we talked about the upcoming year - the schedule, new praise & worship and prayer nights and ways to connect our three "venues" together (we currently host two contemporary services on Sunday mornings as well as one traditional service at our McKean location. There is a third contemporary service hosted about 25-30 minutes east in Harbor Creek). We had a great time of food & fellowship with one another and prayed for the new year and over my brother-in-law, who is our worship pastor. It was a fun night!
The last two Saturdays have rocked because I've been able to sleep in past 10 am! Josh heads off to work and I have the house to myself to do whatever...or nothing. Mostly nothing happened this past weekend. Catching up on blogs, enjoying the breeze and just plain old laying around. We hung out after Josh got back from work doing the norm - catching up on the week's TV shows we missed (Fringe, The Office) and just spending time together.
Sunday church involved a life story video by my amazing husband about his coming to Grace Church that had tears in my family's eyes in the end! We hung around for a little watching my adorable niece Chloe run around the church yelling "Josh!" "Mamma!" "Dadda!" and "Oh nooo." Then my parents took us out for lunch at Applebee's!
We finally got to enjoy some of that gorgeous weather as we went up to Fuhrman's Cider Mill for some donuts and cider and a quick scenic drive back to our house.
We spent the rest of the evening lounging around until we went out at 930 pm [past my bedtime] to Josh's friend Katie's to watch the season finale of Breaking Bad. I don't normally watch it - I can't take it! It's too suspenseful! - but I wasn't going to miss out on hanging out!
Hope you all had fantastic weekends! Was the weather as lovely for you as it was for us up here?
Just wanted to point out for any of you who may have been new commenters/viewers last week: I switched back to the standard Blogger comment form as I did not like the one I was previously viewing. If you see your comments are deleted - they really haven't been [by my choice] but that is what happens when you try that stuff out! So I want to make sure you're aware I appreciate your comments and saw them! Thanks!
Oh my gosh! Two posts in one day!! What the what!?
I decided to give it a try and link up with Long Distance Loving for my first Friday's Fancies!
This weekend I'm hoping to hop in the car with the hubby and get out there with this gorgeous fall weather, beautiful colors and yummy cider. I thought I would base my Friday's Fancies today on the perfect outfit for fun fall activities! (It's supposed to be mid 60s - low 70s and sunny this weekend, so we are totally lucking out!) So necessities include: scarf, blazer and sweater to kill the chill, messenger bag so I'm hands free, boots to trek through the woods, sunglasses (since it's supposed to be sunny!) and a camera to capture the memories!
Another feature on to-the-trade fabrics for homes: Duralee Fabrics.
Duralee was founded in 1952 and is a family owned and operated company. They are one of the fastest growing decorative fabrics companies in the interior design industry. In 2001 they introduced a luxury brand - Highland Court - offering the finest in design and quality. Recently they created Trimmings to enhance their fabrics and furniture, and their contract division has earned a high standing in the hospitality market. They are headquartered in Bay Shore, NY
42179-5 from the Classic Prints & Wovens Collection - book #2819
51014-113 from Sheer Encyclopedia Volume IV - book #2768
90861-66from Raspberry/Strawberry/Pomegranate - book #2800
90870-181from Raspberry/Strawberry/Pomegranate - book #2800
[Check out the recipe from How Sweet Eats.] You think you don't want to add all that cinnamon, but trust me, you do. It's amazing.
They are like granola bars. Chocolate chip, cinnamony granola bars...in cookie form. With more butter.
Totally acceptable (and delicious) for breakfast with your morning coffee.
I'm sad these only made about 20 cookies, because they lasted two days. Well, three days, but one cookie left over thanks to my hubby and brother-in-law doesn't count.
I had been craving chocolate chips and oatmeal in some combination and this satisfied that. Or, I mean, made me want more. These are so good. Make them!!
Okay! So it took weeks, but I've finally figured out how to get this blog + Bible reading thing going. It is going to be called "Tuesday Readings."
I will probably be getting my passages from BibleGateway.com under their "Reading Plans" section. I've chosen the Old/New Testament to pick readings from. They post them daily, sections from both the Old and New Testament, and it's technically a one-year study on the entire Bible. I'm not going to lie - I'm no good at reading and studying the Bible, so we're going to work up slow - one section of a few passages per week.
On Tuesdays I'll post about the past week's passage and I'll post what the next week's reading will be (I'm going to try to be consistent and put this at the end of each Tuesday post). If you want, feel free to follow along with me and link up (except I'm not quite sure how this works - I think you just click the "Links to this Post" on the bottom and enter your info? Someone who knows more about this - HELP!!). You can do whatever you want here - write a whole post dedicated to the reading, link up and mention you're doing this with me, or just stop by my blog on Tuesdays and tell me about your thoughts on the passage!
As there was no reading last week, there is no "about the passage" for this week. Some days the "about the passage" might be a lot. Might be in-depth and hard to work through. Other times it will be quick, short and it might not feel like much.
The point of this study is for me and a few of my blogging fellow lady friends out there to keep ourselves accountable and get reading! As I've explained before, I want this to be geared towards young women bloggers, specifically married without children. Again, I'm not trying to exclude anyone, just trying to reach out to ladies out there like me!
Really, I don't have much to share about this weekend.
Friday afternoon/night Rachel + I shot our cousin's wedding (well, our mom's cousin's son...) and it was cold, rainy, gorgeous and so much fun. We danced, hung out with our family and stayed for the whole reception (that doesn't always happen). Can't wait to see the pics!
Saturday I slept in, had a horrible headache almost all day and did lots of laundry. Seriously, that's it. Oh and I tried getting caught up on some blog reading and I made chili for dinner. It was yummy. Josh and I finally got to spend more than 40 minutes together that night as well, since we had been pretty busy the rest of the week. It was nice just spending time lounging with him.
Sunday Josh and I were on band duty at church, then we had lunch, took a way long nap, and now it's almost 730 and we're just waiting for our Pizza Hut to get here.
The last three days have been cold (in the 40's - 50's), rainy, gloomy, kinda fall-ish, and fairly lazy (except for Friday). It's supposed to clear up this week in Erie and get warmer again, but I mean, let's face it. It's October. It's fall.
I'm looking forward to a not crazy week at work. No bids due, just time to get caught up on projects and get a lot of stuff out the door!
Hope you had fun and relaxing weekends!!! Next weekend will hopefully have some better weather so maybe we can get some fall fun in!
