Adult Colouring Books

A while ago, on a trip to Chapters, I splurged and bought myself this colouring book.

On the first page I used both fine point markers and pencil crayons, and decided I liked the look of pencil crayons better; purging through some of M's cast offs last week, I expanded my pencil crayon count from 24 to 72.  I've completed a few pages and Nolan and I have coloured together a bit, and it's been a fun thing to have close by.

I've seen a number of other colouring books geared to adults lately, enough to know that is is a 'thing', and today I got an email from Margaret Feinberg (Author, Bible Teacher, Joy Seeker) talking about the one she has for sale - with Scripture! Her email highlighted 5 reasons why colouring is so great - read it here if you'd like.

While I was talking to Mom on the phone.

I loved the idea of an adult colouring book with Scripture.  Shipping was too high to order from her site, unfortunately, but it got me looking around online. I found this article from Business Insider saying that the best selling books on Amazon right now are adult colouring books! This one I've got was #2, and the #1 book was The Secret Garden by the same Author / Artist.

I know M has had some more intricate colouring books over the years that I've enjoyed with her - what about you? Have you been captured by the beauty of some of these new books? Are you thrilled with this new trend?

Reminders in the Garden - Part Three

After the snow, the city cleaners come and sweep the streets, but after a few months, dirt and leaves and garbage blow in and make it grimy looking again.  Nolan and I were out front one morning and I grabbed a rake and a garden bucket and we started cleaning it up.  Lots of it raked up, but then we had to go get the brooms to pick up the rest.

And it got me thinking...

Sometimes in our lives, areas can get dirty or cluttered simply because we don't notice a gradual build up.  Too much internet time?  House cleaning?  Not enough quiet time each day?  I find that all of a sudden you just notice - maybe Someone brings it to mind? - and it's not too hard to jump in and want to make it right. It's a quick fix, a simple decision to change.  But then comes the follow through, and the realization that it's maybe a bigger job than you thought.  Maybe you ignored that voice suggesting you 'clean it up' a little too long and you need to do more scrubbing than you expected.  Has that ever happened to you?

Keep it up!  Good habits in life (and in keeping up the yard!) take continual reminders and motivation.  Find new ways to stay motivated, picture what you want the end result to be, and be encouraged!  The dirt drifting in happens to everyone, but we all have the resources to make changes for the better.

I should warn you: getting one area cleaned up will lead to you noticing other areas that need changing. :)

Thanks for reading my Reminders in the Garden this week!  Here are Part One and Part Two if you missed them.

Reminders in the Garden - Part Two

On Monday I wrote that lately some of the jobs I've been puttering away at in my yard have reminded me of parallels in other parts of life.  "Spiritual principles just hanging out in the yard waiting to be noticed.  God's message speaking through nature." Here's another one.

In the back corner of the yard stands my beautiful majestic big tree.  I didn't get a before picture, because I thought of this while I was working...  This tree has been allowed to freely bloom this year because I simply didn't notice the slow growth that turned into lots of green shoots coming up from the lower trunk.  I cut them off partly to tidy up the looks of it, and partly so that the nourishment from the ground goes up to the branches and leaves above and is not wasted on unsightly sprouts that do nothing for the beauty of the tree.

What parallel do you see there?  

It made me think of spreading my energy too thin, allowing things in my life that don't line up with who I want to be, and not leaving time and space to really build up that person. This wasn't a big 'a-ha' moment or anything, but a pretty cool reminder that when I do have a choice with my time and space, I should use my energy for things that fit with who I am and who I want to be.  Feed the beautiful habits; starve the ugly ones.

Part One is here.
This is Part Two.
Part Three on Friday...

Reminders in the Garden - Part One

We spend a lot of our time playing outside in the yard, and when I'm not playing with Nolan in the sandbox or with his golf clubs or tractors, I'm usually puttering around, tidying this and that or pulling weeds.  Lately some of these jobs reminded me of parallels in other parts of life.  Spiritual principles just hanging out in the yard waiting to be noticed.  God`s message speaking through nature. 

In my back garden (which is pretty pathetic, really), I have mainly orange lilies; a couple are wood lilies (or western red lilies, like the one on the Saskatchewan flag) and the rest Michigan lilies, which bloom seemingly upside down.  I know these facts because I just looked them up, not because I planted them... I have moved them around some, but these bulbs were here when I bought the house 13 years ago.

I noticed one stalk that was bent right over and was just about to cut it off when I saw that the buds were still healthy looking.  Either it was a recent injury or they were still getting what they needed through that broken stalk.  I remembered, too, the verse that says "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out" (Isaiah 42:3), and I thought I would leave it alone for the time being.  Sure enough:

 

Beautiful flowers, growing right down there on the dirt.

I think of how God doesn't throw us out when we're not perfect, doesn't see us as useless, but gives us a chance to flower and shine and bring beauty to this world in spite of our circumstances.  Maybe situations beyond your control have left you broken, maybe you've made the choices that have left you bent, in the dirt, and feeling that you don't have the potential to become all that you once dreamed... either way, God can still use you to bring beauty and joy to his world.  He can and wants to use you - there is hope and wonder in that.

Though the stalk on those flowers was broken, it was still able to take the nutrients to the flowers and make them bloom.  Your circumstances do not need to determine your outcome.  Let God work in you, and may you shine out the beauty he made you with.

This is Part One of a mini-series - Part Two and Part Three coming up later this week.  Thanks for visiting!

Caragana Shoots

When we moved into this house, there was a nice row of Caragana bushes in between us and the neighbor.  They were nice enough, but every time I thought to prune them, the thought went right on through and out the other side.  So over the last decade, they grew nice and tall with all the foliage mostly at the top, leaving the main body pretty sparse. We are thinking of taking them out to put in a proper fence at this point, but the fence is still a 'someday', so last summer I got out my saw and took them down to about 18 inches.  I figured a nice short row of hedges would be better than the bad divider it is now.  And if I ended up killing them, well, no big loss.

I was thrilled about a month ago, to see this:

So excited to see them sprout new buds.  So glad that God does his work in renewing and restoring and redeeming his creation.  Gives me hope for our world, to see what God does in silent chopped down sticks.  This is what it looks like now:

It's getting quite a bit fuller & makes me smile every time I walk by.  Grow, green things, grow!

I have some tulips that came up in the back, too - so nice to see color in the spring.  The irises and lilies are growing taller, and I am looking forward to seeing their color, too.  Next step is to pick up some bedding plants for our pots.

A Baking Fail, A Mom Win and A Bunny Named Josiah

It was more of a mom fail, really, if you saw my attitude and impatience during the whole thing.

My 12 year old came home yesterday with, "Oh, yeah, it's our potluck tomorrow - I have to take something from New Zealand."  What?  Sean & I had to go out to our hospital tour, so I had an hour that I could help, but no time to shop if we didn't already have the ingredients...  She found a traditional meringue cake called Pavlova that I was skeptical about - to my mind, it looked not quite simple enough for her to pull off on a first try.  But I told her to pull out all the ingredients and after supper we'd give it a shot.  I just coached - she did it all herself.  It may have been the bit of yolk in the egg whites, it may have been the blended too fine sugar, it may have been the imprecise measuring, but it ended up a nice flat meringue layer instead of a big glorious puff.  This morning she broke it up into cookie size pieces and took the cool whip and kiwis to top it with... If worse comes to worse, she'll just cut up and serve the kiwis solo.

Part of what made this a stress was that she also asked if we could make something for her friend, J, who's mom was catering a wedding and would be busy in their kitchen and not able to help her make something for the potluck.  They each did a report on a different country and had to bring food from that country for their potluck today.  I didn't promise anything, but we found and printed out a recipe for Icelandic Pepper Cookies - "a recipe made in every home in Iceland at Christmas!"  M's recipe used all the eggs, but on the way home from our outing, we stopped and I got some eggs and I made the dough - here's where the mom win comes in.  I don't even know for sure if her friend ended up coming up with something, but on the chance that J would have to miss out on the potluck, I baked the pepper cookies.  I was glad they had to be in the fridge overnight - I had more energy for baking this morning than I did  last night.  So this morning I baked them all up, and M got her stuff for plan A and plan B packed, and everyone's happy.  We also had apologized to each other last night for our attitude fails, which was a good thing. 

*****

Out my window at work this fall I've noticed a fair sized divot in the grass.  Then I began to see a rabbit lying in it sporadically.  This week, with the snow, he's been there quite a bit.  I told Peggy (our secretary) on Tuesday that if he was back tomorrow, he was getting a name.  And so yesterday, my friendly neighborhood bunny was christened Josiah.  I chose that because I am currently reading through 2 Kings, and had just got to the end of a long list of king fails and up comes Josiah, a boy who became king at age 8.  He was good and led his people in God's ways - even though he was small, he made a big difference.  I thought Josiah would be a great name for my little bunny friend.  I wonder if I'll see him today?

Now I'm off to do a third trimester workout video before I head to work.  Have a great day!

Kayaking!

This is what we did tonight on this beautiful sunny calm night.  It was perfect.

Our little town has a lake at its center, with the Legislative Building and gardens and marina surrounding it, and a path that is possibly the most popular place in the city for walking, running, biking, and rollerblading.  I've done all of those but skate - someday I'll do that, too.  This is the second time we've rented kayaks at the marina, but we'll do it again before summer's out.  I want to get M out there for her first time.

Off to Camp!

Camp started today.  M's friend T has gone with her for the last number of years and this year was no exception.  I took the two of them early so we could geocache on the way, but alas, it has been a while and I forgot that I needed to upload the caches to my handheld gps, so that ended up not working out so well for us.  (I have all the ones around home in there, so haven't had to add specific ones for a while.)

So we got to the camp nice and early and I got some pictures to share with you instead.

 With the flooding and the altered beachfront, the swimming area is now between this new dock, and the old one, which is now over by where the slide was.  A decent sized area for them.  They wanted to dip their feet in (and at 40* out, I was wishing I had brought my suit for a jump in the lake, too!) and I was happy to pull out the camera and capture this.  There was a new water trampoline that had them excited, as well as four new double kayaks that I'd love to take out someday.

 

Trying to catch minnows.

 

Found a couple of dead crayfish on the beach which they carried around until they fell apart.

It was good to be out there and see a bunch of good friends.  A great day.

Home Again

I started choosing photos to post and the list got way too long, so I posted them on facebook instead; follow this link to see them.

The pictures are all from Jasper, but we spend a day and a half in Edmonton on the way there, and came back via Banff so we could see more of the mountains.

We had a great time seeing awesome sights, and although slightly sunnier and dryer and warmer would have been nice, the weather didn't stop us from much.

Rainbows, Blog Changes and Camera Classes

 

I wanted to do something together tonight so I was running through a list... we could play a game, have a tickle fight, go for a walk in the rain... the last one got a nod, and I figured why not.  Sean wanted to join us, so the three of us put on our rain jackets & I grabbed the camera (because you just never know!) and we hit the street.  As soon as we got to the end of the walk, I saw why Someone had planted the idea in my head - a double rainbow & the bottom one was super bright.  Awesome.

 

I love those curls that pop out when the humidity gets up there.

Foiled!  Our intent was to walk down to the mailbox and mail M's camp registration form.  Because of the strike, it was locked up with a 'temporarily out of service' notice.  It was well worth it to get out of the house, though.  The rain was beautiful, not too hard and it wasn't windy at all.

You might notice some changes around here - not so many that you can't tell you're at the right blog, but I've had some fun playing around with my look this week.  One new thing that they've added since I last messed around is the email option - right at the top you can add your email and get my posts emailed to you as soon as I publish one.  I haven't tried it out yet myself, but I know there are a few blogs that I get emailed to me, and I quite like it.

I've signed up for a camera class at Big Picture Classes, called Mastering Manual Mode.  It's an 8 week course that runs from the end of July to the end of September.  Part of that is a busy time, but lots of photo opportunities in that time frame, too!  I've been wanting to take a class for a while, and this one looks like it is going to be exactly what I've been looking for.  I dug out my camera manual and got a recommended book out of the library and am all gung-ho to do some pre-work to make the most of it.

What are you planning to learn over the summer?

Garden Tour

I would like to have a beautiful yard, but I do not have a green thumb.  It usually falls somewhere in the realm that there are things growing & I'm satisfied, but with ugly spots.  This year we made a change or two because the front should be getting leveled at some point this spring.  These bricks came from the work we did in the front two summers ago, and replaced the rotten wood ties that were there.  Some fresh dirt, and new plants at the edges & it's a nice refresh.  The ones growing in the middle are some perennials that I tried to replant.  They are up but not flowered yet.

Some of the new plants we bought.  I want to put in more perennials; if anyone lives close and has some to share, I'd be a very happy recipient!

The planters on the front deck.

Probably the most fun flower of the bunch.

This is the front of the house that we have done nothing with; it's full of purple jump ups!  I'm thrilled - there's nothing quite like color where you didn't expect it.  I'll try to move them to the back before we dig this all up.

And a close up.

May your day have bits of unexpected color in it!

 

Friday night M and I went out to the camp along with the board and core staff to meet our potential new director.  We stayed overnight and helped with the work day on the Saturday - this shot was after breakfast and before the work started.  I'm pleased that she jumped in with the staff girls and did some good work.  She was happy to get in a little zipline action; she wanted to go up the climbing wall, too, but some things will have to wait for summer. 

 

Sean came out for the afternoon, too, and reinforced all the picnic tables, and prepped a few new ones to be built this summer.  My big job was to roam the property with Holly and find good spots for their geocaching skill.

 

 

This was our view out the back door this morning.  That one tree has beautiful what blossoms for one or two weeks each spring, and the rain brought down a petal carpet for the deck.

Attack of the Squirrels!

Or, Signs of Spring.

Here are a few shots from the backyard yesterday - you'll want to stay tuned right till the end for the squirrel bit.

Trees are starting to green...

 

Flowers are starting to sprout...

 

Birds are in the grass, searching for food...

And Sean's in the garage.  Taking apart and putting together.

On this particular spring Saturday, I was out at a costume sewing bee for the camp, and when I got home, these two had bought some paint and were about to begin a bird house & feeder paint job.

 

While taking down the duplex, a squirrel surprised Sean by jumping out of the building in his hands!  (He managed to stay on the ladder, happily.)  

About 20 minutes later, back comes the squirrel with four of his family members, to check out his houseless home.  They were stealthy on the way in, slinking along the branches nose to tail, then when they got to the tree they were chattering - I don't speak squirrel, but it sounded pretty ticked off to me. 

I was ready for an attack. 

After assessing the situation, however, they made their way over the neighbor's roof to another tree perch.  I'm still keeping my eyes open, though!

No bird (squirrel) house here, but can you see all five in this picture?

The Waterfall Tree

I picked M up from her Grandpa's this afternoon and had to pull out the camera to capture this - the tree by the front porch has been collecting all the drips off the roof and the branches have become host to a cascade of icicles.

It was a nice week of plus temperatures and the snow is sinking; the side roads are still horrendous, though, and I look forward to the consistently plus temps, the clear roads, the green emerging.  Spring is here!

N is for Nicole Flats

Can you say 'Packed'?

We went camping this weekend at Buffalo Pound - the original plan was to come home today, but with the forecast of rain last night, overnight and all day today, we packed up late afternoon and were home before the thunderstorm hit.

I didn't realize until we were halfway out there that the reason we seemed fuller than usual was that this was the first time we'd gone camping with the Escape.  We've always had the van before, with 4 more feet for all our stuff.  Glad we still fit!  Thinking next year we'll put the Thule roof box on top.  Haven't needed that since we got the van - guess we'll be needing it again!

She will always brave the water - happy we got this in on
the Saturday afternoon, the warmest part of the weekend.

I checked for geocaches in the area before we left and downloaded the seven close by into my GPS.  They were all down at the end of the lake in the Nicole Flats nature area, which has miles of hiking trails, great scenery and an old homestead.  On Saturday we drove out to one end and found 4 before the sun started going down, and then yesterday we started from the other end to try for the last 3, but only got two before we had to turn back.  Two good days of hiking!  I think that will make up for not running 3 times this week... Well, I'm hoping it will.

Saturday Sunset

With the four caches we had found before, this brings us up to 10; I told M we had to find 10 before we could make our own, so now we're in planning mode for how we'll make ours, what will go in it and where we'll put it.  We'll give you a sneak peak when we get it done.

What did you do this long weekend?