Category: memories

memories · Uncategorized

Getting Over Hump Day

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Sometimes weeks roll by, each day the same, boring by nature.  We get to Wednesday, “Hump Day” and we are told if we can just get past it, we’ll roll right into the weekend and we will have survived another week.

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Is survival the best way to face a week or each day?  I don’t think so.  Scripture reminds us that we should number our days and apply our hearts to wisdom.  If you find yourself just limping through this week, why not change things up a bit and add some fun, some life and some interest to even today?  Here are some suggestions:

  • Drive to work on a different route, if you can.  Take the country roads, if possible.
  • Pull the sun roof back a little, or roll down a window and get some fresh air.
  • Ask the Lord to show you someone with whom you could stop and pray today.
  • Do something different at lunch. Take your lunch and eat it at the lake, a park or outside at the restaurant.
  • Go out for ice cream at a drive-in after dark.  Splurge on the sundae.
  • Take time to sit on the front porch and just be still.  Watch the traffic or read a magazine or book you’ve wanted to start.
  • Search ideas for a new hair style.  Change the way you fix your hair – even if it’s just parting it differently or adding some curl.
  • Go to bed early and sit in bed and read a passage of Scripture with your mate before you turn off the lights.
  • Go out for breakfast somewhere you’ve been wanting to try – that bagel place, the local pancake house or Cracker Barrel!
  • Have your Bible reading outside early in the morning.
  • Pray for the neighbors as you walk past each house in the neighborhood.
  • Get a new color of fingernail polish and paint your fingernails.
  • Find an interesting You Tube video and watch it while you do your hair in the morning.
  • Make a sweet bread or muffins to take and deliver to someone who needs encouragement.
  • Go through the drive-through restaurant and “pay it forward.” (Pay for the person’s order in line behind you.)
  • Make plans to have someone over on Friday night.  Make up a fun menu – grilled pizzas, or S’mores.  Make it easy, but plan for fun.
  • Watch a movie outside after dark on your lap top or tablet.
  • Write a note to someone and tell them how much you appreciate them.  Send it in the mail.
  • Journal about the best part of the day.

The possibilities are endless.  The point is, don’t just endure the week.  Make every day count, because they each do!

Refresh your week,

Dinner · Family life · memories

Making the Most of Suppertime

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Mealtimes as a family are important.  It helps you connect, teach, relate, understand, regroup, rest, refresh, encourage, and be nourished physically, spiritually and emotionally as a family.  It takes lots of effort to make it happen, doesn’t it?  So while you’ve got everyone there, let’s make the most of it!!

Last Sunday night at church my husband finished a series on the home.  He ended the message by giving suggestions and taking responses from the congregation about how to make the most of suppertime and after the meal-time.  Here’s the list I compiled in my notebook.  These are great ideas!

  1. Create conversation.
    1. Talk about God’s Word
    2. Talk about answered prayer
    3. Talk about what God is doing in your life!
  2. Play a board game afterward.
  3. Read a book together.  You could use missionary biographies, fictional fun books, or devotional books.
  4. Take a family walk in the neighborhood.
  5. Call meal time a “No Phone Zone.”  No phones at the table.
  6. Lay a puzzle out on the cleared table and assemble it together.
  7. Walk the dog as a family.
  8. Eat in the dining room with cloth napkins, candles and a centerpiece.  Make it happen at a regular time and shoot for 5 x’s a week.
  9. Occasionally eat together at a “fancy” restaurant so you can give your children the experience and training (and also the treat!) of a nicer place out.  Your preparations at home will have them ready and you won’t have to “sweat it out!”
  10. Sing after the meal.

I love having my family gathered around the dinner table – even if it’s just my husband and me!  It’s a special time of day and we need to do all we can to maximize that time!

Tell me:  What do you do to make the most of mealtime?

Lovingly,

memories

A Peek Inside the Parsonage

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“Dear Jesus, Help my mommy as she works around the house, and help my daddy as he sits and reads the newspaper.”

That was our daughter’s prayer when she was about three years-old.  Funny stuff comes from our children’s mouths, doesn’t it?  After that little prayer was uttered, I went to the calendar hanging on Allison’s bedroom wall and wrote it down on the date it happened. Though I thought I could never have forgotten her funny words, I’m sure I would have.

A calendar was my simple way of keeping record of the things that happened in our girls’ lives when they were young.  We love pulling those out now and laughing as we remember their silly antics, the day they were saved, or the funny things they said. 

Don’t trust your memory; find a way to record special events – big and little – in your family’s day to day routine.  They will one day be gems in your heart.

What do you do to record memories of things you don’t want to forget?

From my parsonage window,