Wow!  I'm glad the weekend is over!  My husband and I did a lot of stuff around the yard.  Well, it seemed like a lot of stuff.  We finally finished the boardwalk in front of the barn.  My husband had been holding off hoping to find some more free wood.  We finally went and bought the rest that we needed.  Then I got to play a couple of games with the wood.  One of the games was to mix the old and new.  Another game was mix different widths.  Another game was put the narrower ones over supporting framework so they wouldn't bend when we walk on them. 

Then I had to spray it all with bleach.  The bleach took the bright pink out of the new wood so it didn't look so fresh and it killed off any termites in the old wood.  That really works, by the way.  I buy cheap garden sprayers (the bleach is caustic and it doesn't take long before it ruins the sprayer) and put straight bleach in them and spray any wood that has termites. 

I haven't seen any evidence of more termites in the old wood we used for decorations on the side of the barn.  The only thing is that it may bleach out the wood you spray it on.  That was fine with me since we wanted our barn to look like a rustic town.  Oh, yes, you also have to wear clothes you don't care too much about in case you get overspray on yourself.

We have some Flowering Plum trees in our back yard in the grass area.  I put three in a group so we can have a nice clump of shade in the mornings during the summer.  However, I had to think of some way to make it so my husband wouldn't have to mow and weedwack in between the three trees.  So, I took a bunch of bricks that I wasn't using and made a zig zag border around the perimeter.  That was another game I played.  I had to get the beginning and the ending brick to match up.  You should have seen me going around and around the trees moving the bricks into different positions.  I finally got it.  Now I need to go find some rocks to fill in the center.  That was one of the things we were going to do yesterday and didn't get a chance.

My husband was working inside the barn on his work area.  He was hanging things and finding places to put everything.  He's moving his work benches and stuff out of the garage into the barn.  So, a lot got done out there, too.  We wore our poor little selves out!

I finished organizing the Sunday School supply room at church!!  Done done done!!  It is even inventoried.  After I finished that I was able to concentrate on the Information Booth.  I can't finish it until I find out the final arrangement of the counters.  After we came up with some ideas the pastors remembered that they might be cutting into the sanctuary to enlarge the women's bathroom.  So, the location and design of the Information Booth is still up in the air.

However, I stationed myself there Sunday morning.  My friend, who agreed to help me since she has been going to that church a while and knows more people, didn't show up for a while.  I was standing there feeling rather strange.  If someone asked me a question I probably wouldn't have the answer.  Then, a woman came up to me and asked me a question!!  OH NO!!  She asked me my name!  Uh, uh, uh.... wait!!  I know the answer to this question!!  LOL!

My friend came in and pointed out two young men who were new.  They were standing by the door and nobody was noticing them.  So, there I went!  My first really important customers!!  Wow!!  How exciting!

God blessed me last week.  I told you I needed to clean my camper.  I bought some cleaner for rubber roofs which required scrubbing.  The entire time I was scrubbing and washing my camper roof as well as the entire time I washed all the rest it was overcast and cool!  As soon as I finished wiping off the last little bit of water the sun peeked through the clouds.  It was like God was telling me He loved me because He held it back until the very instant I was done.

As I was mopping and scrubbing the camper roof the thought passed through my head, "It's hard enough having to mop and scrub my floors in the house and here I am doing a ROOF!"  So, when do I get to go somewhere and enjoy the fruits of my labor??

Actually, that may be soon.  My husband may not get a summer school teaching job and that will make him available to go places in the camper.  Of course, if he isn't teaching summer school then we will be short on money by the fall.  The way the gas prices are will hinder us from driving very far.

Speaking of gas prices, if California has lots of oil then why are the gas prices the highest here?  I buy Mobil/Exxon gas.  My mechanic has a list of the types of gas that cause car problems and Mobil is one of the better brands.  It is around $2.35 near here.  It's just plain greed is my guess.  Since we tend to drive farther then they are taking advantage of us.  Shame shame!

I finished writing the article, A Call to Holiness.  It takes what we've been studying the last two weeks and goes into more detail.

I just can't escape it.  God is showing me that there is no "accidental" sin.  It is all choice and mostly, if not all, self-centeredness.

I'm starting to get my first produce out of my garden.  I've gotten squash and string beans.  Yesterday my first sunflower opened.  Everything looks real lush and green.  I planted a few different kinds of squash and pumpkin.  Next year I will move them somewhere else.  My garden isn't real small, but seems small when the vines takes over.

I'm not a serious gardener.  There are years when I just don't plant one and there are years when I allow the veggies and weeds to duke it out.

I really do love fresh tomatoes, though.  If I planted only one thing in my garden it would certainly be tomatoes!  I keep trying to get my husband to build me a greenhouse so tomato season can be longer.

I wasn't sure what this week's Bible study would be and now I am stuck on God's love for us.  There's nothing else better to be stuck on than God's love, don't you think?  Ahhhhhhh.....wonderful!

In case you didn't get to read it last week, here is the finished article, A Call to Holiness.

I've been struggling against behavioral habits I have.  When certain things happen I react in a particular way without thinking.  I have to keep thinking about God.  After I say something I shouldn't have said I realize I should have asked God first what to say.  There are times when I know I need to say something and I feel resistance from my "self."  Many times I say something that the other person "deserves" to hear rather than keep my mouth shut according to God's wishes.

God doesn't work by our rules.  Moment by moment we need to seek His will.  We need to be prepared to fight our habits and our urges to say and do things we shouldn't.

I read something that gave me a new perspective on the far-reaching extent of being holy:
"Eternal destinies are involved in the matters of thy holiness and thy faithfulness and thine obedience to My direction and will; but My love for thee is independent of these factors."
From Come Away My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts

I hurt my back this weekend.  You're not going to believe this.  I hurt it picking up my toothbrush.  I turned to the side and bent over slightly and felt something give way in my lower back.

I must have done something before to get it to that state.  I had gone shopping and bought some heavy things.  I am aware that my back is tender and always try to lift properly.  However, I know that it wasn't just picking up a toothbrush that did it!  Oh please, somebody tell me that I'm not so weak that a toothbrush is too heavy for me!!!

I've been using the heating pad and trying to take it easy.  It feels much better.  It doesn't hurt every time I take a step now.

It has been very difficult for me today.  Tomorrow my husband and I are going away in the camper for five days.  Tomorrow is the last day he has to be at the school (he's a teacher) and Monday starts summer football practice.  So, we are leaving on a short vacation.

I've been trying to get things packed as well as catch up on things around the house.  Well, I can only do so much and will have to let the rest slide.

My garden is starting to produce zucchini, yellow squash, and beans.  I've got some sunflowers smiling at the sky, too.  I also have a bunch of healthy looking weeds in there, but I can't do anything about that until my back feels better.

This morning I made a great bunch of food for my son's iguana.  I used all sorts of veggies, those from my garden and others from the store, to make a delicious feast for him.  When my son fixes food for him he usually only gives him green leafy vegetables and nothing else.  So, since I am such an animal lover, I told him I'd make the food.

Now the iguana loves me.  Not really.  He doesn't love anyone.  He is probably mad at us for keeping him in a cage instead of letting him out to find his own food.  What he doesn't know is that dogs or cats would have finished him off a long time ago.

That's what I do a lot.  I think that something else would be better than what I have now when all along I have the best thing.  I need to be counting my blessings and even counting things that don't seem like blessings.

Last Wednesday was the last day my husband and the rest of the teachers had to be at the school.  We had planned a camping trip from Wednesday night through Sunday.  My husband had to be back in time for summer football practice Monday night.

One of the other teachers had gone to a campground about 90 minutes from here and had recommended it.  So, that is where we went.  It was nice and quiet until the cub scouts got there.

There were lots of trails that we walked.  They were hard enough to ride bikes on as well.  On one of our walks my husband and I saw a bobcat!  At night we heard coyotes nearby.  There were lots and lots of ground squirrels, gophers, and jackrabbits, too.

They had a catch-and-release fishing hole where my husband went to fish.  It was a relaxing trip.  Well, except when I fell coming out of the camper carrying my dinner.  I'm not quite sure what happened.  All I know is that I ended up flat on my back on the ground.  I've got a big bruise on my back just above my tailbone and I have a large lump on the back of my head.  My head took the worst blow.  I was wearing a plastic hair clip and landed right on it.  I blew the clip up into a million pieces.

So, now I guess I am working on cracking my head open from the back.  Maybe next time it will split in two from the blows I've given it in the front to the blow I've given it on the back.

I had lasagna from one of myself to the other.  I must have flipped my plate up in the air.  I've got to practice being nicer to myself, don't I?

I was observing some birds finding things to eat in our back yard.  A Mockingbird was running around picking things out of the grass.  She was moving her legs like we do, first one, then the other as she ran across the grass.  Unlike crows, whose body kind of sways as they walk, the Mockingbird's body didn't move any more than ours does as we walk.  She would stop, watch, and run when she spotted something tasty.  If anyone was outside she would occasionally stop and jerkily open and close her wings in our direction to warn us to stay away, I guess.

The sparrows hop.  Their legs seem to stay stiff and they hop hop hop.  It made me wonder if they get headaches with all the jarring their heads take as they hop.

Pigeons have a funny way of moving their heads as they walk.  Their head goes rapidly and smoothly forward then backward as their legs move.  It looks like they are poking holes in the air in front of them.

Then there is the Phoebe, a fly-catcher.  That bird doesn't spend time walking around.  It swoops and swirls and dives after flies and other flying insects.  They are fun to watch.  They look like they are going to crash into things, but they don't.

What if the Mockingbirds tried to take over bird-land and insist that any other way of catching food was wrong?  After all, their way feels very right to them and seems to be the best way.

Isn't that what we do sometimes as humans?  I used to be that way.  If something worked for me I tried to convince everyone else that it was the best way of doing things.  I think it made me feel important to think that I had been able to convince others to change their way of doing something to my way.

If we all did things the same way and thought the same way, the world would be very different.  Gosh, we might not even be here.  Maybe everyone would have decided to be a farmer and there would be nobody left to be doctors or storekeepers or all the other things that we need!  It is important to embrace differences.

Once I did a Bible study on setting Memorial Stones.  More and more I'm feeling that maybe God wants me to expand that teaching and add more.  It really is an important concept to help us to grow in our spiritual walk instead of slip backwards.  We'll see.  The study I did was pretty basic.  I wonder how much more God wants to add.

Boy oh boy, have I been disobedient lately.  I've been failing a lot in my quest toward holiness.  I'm on a diet and I've been eating ice cream after dinner.  Why?  Because I like it.  At this time it isn't good for me, but I eat it anyway.  Why?  I'm lusting after it.  I don't even ask God to help me.  I just do it.  Then there are other things, too.  It isn't just the ice cream.  I respond in anger when I shouldn't, use the wrong tone of voice or facial expression, and more.

It seems like it isn't such a big deal, but holiness IS a big deal.  Holiness includes the small things, too.  I'm not giving up.  I'm not going to let the enemy convince me that it is impossible!