The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN.JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
I am starting off the New Year right by jumping onto SHARE YOUR WORLD early this week…year. I love this challenge and will continue participating in it throughout the year, as it gives me an opportunity to reveal more about myself and life here at The Vicarage…which is one of my goals for the New Year.
So here are Melanie’s questions and my answers. When you have finished reading here please stop on over to Melanie’s blog, Sparks From A Combustible Mind, using the underlined link above, so that you can see what her other contributors have added to the conversation.
QUESTIONS:
What’s a relationship deal breaker for you?
I guess it depends what kind of relationship we are talking about. I tend to let people in as far as they can be trusted; So how close you are allowed to get to me in the first place relies on your trustworthiness. How close I let you stay is also dependent on said trustworthiness. That said, I don’t tend to go from”zero to hero or hero to zero” in one step with people. Relationships with me are slow growing and slow fading.
Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?
Of course! I just call them angels and demons or maybe Nephilim and Anakim.
In the morning, do you hit the snooze button on your alarm (sometimes repeatedly) or do you leap out of bed, ready to face the day?
I am a deeply committed button pusher.
If you came back in the next life as an animal, which animal would you choose to be? (and even if you don’t believe in that, let’s suspend belief for a moment just to have a little fun).
Oh! I played this on Facebook the other day. It said I was a dragon.
GRATITUDE (Participation is always optional)
What do you plan to work on this year to make it better than last year (personal goals, physically or mentally, or all three)?
I will give you a line from my blog...”You May Have Noticed.”
My goal this year is two-fold: Community and Stewardship. I intend to build community… and I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.
The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN..JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN..JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
In the Christmas lights
A little girl far from home
Finds the hope she needs.
Here are some daily highlights from the first week of 2021!
Jan. 1st- Well I did not make it to midnight on New Year’s Eve. I never do. I started rousing around 4:30 A.M. and finally got rolling around 7:30. I walked the dogs and then made a breakfast of stuffed French toast and bacon.
Daniella will be with us until little Abigail finally puts in an appearance, but that is OK because we are working into a good rhythm:Morning chores and then morning ride, followed by lunch afternoon nap (in which I get afternoon chores one), and then some afternoon activity, followed by supper making and eating, and then wind down time which usually includes a Disney movie, a call to Mom and Dad, and a few stories before bed time.
Jan. 2-Baby Abigail is still a no show, but Daniella is taking it in stride. We seem to have discovered a pretty good rhythm for our days.
I started drawing again thanks to a drawing prompt journal given me by some artists friends at Christmas. Thanks Ken and Betty. Note I was a little daunted by the concept of Angel’s wings…I opted to try a feather.
Jan. 3rd- Church Day! First church service of January!
Jan. 4th- We played in the snow.
January 5th-
My book is finished! I heard from my publisher last night. She is releasing me from contract so I can be free to pursue other publication possibilities. I am not discouraged though. I was pretty sure that this was going to be the outcome since I have been so long in completing this work. I am very excited about the forward momentum I am sensing now!
Jan. 6th- And the world welcomes Abigail Yvaine Franklin!
Jan. 7th- The last few days Daniella has kept us really busy. Now that Abigail is born tonight is the night we prepare for Daniella’s return home after 11 days with us. That means laundry and tubby!
It has been a fun, busy, and memorable week here at The Vicarage.
I don’t think many of us will miss 2020. It was a year of challenges the world has not faced in several generations, and for which we as a global community were woefully unprepared.
Yet I am thankful for 2020 too. First for the fact that it showed us our cultural soft spots. We cannot fix what we do not recognize. I am also thankful for what it has stripped away from my personal life and for what it has stripped away from the church. This year has certainly showed me what was important and what was just so much frivolous packaging.
2020 also had its own beauty. In the forced slowing down of life, many of us learned to watch the birds, to enjoy nature, to watch the sunrise, the sunsets, the moonrise and the stars.
Some of us also learned to prioritize family. We learned to sit on our porches, and tell our stories. We engaged in game nights and learned the Sabbath rhythm of life again. For all that we complained a lot about it because we had become culturally addicted to the race-pace of our corporate existence.
These last few days of 2020, I have not been blogging much because we have had a visitor to the Vicarage. My daughter Melanie is ready any day to give birth to my second grand daughter. Since we are so far away from her and James, we decided to have ‘Lella come and stay with us for the last days of Melanie’s seclusion.
Having ‘Lella with us has been so much fun, but it has been a long time since this house was graced for longer than an overnight by a two-year-old. The schedule of life has changed even if the rhythm has remained. The new priorities have made themselves felt. Things like blogging have been temporarily interrupted by activities like legos, throwing pine cones into the brook and plinking the piano.
Every December I ask God for a word or phrase to base my next year on. Last year my phrase was “shift focus to wonder.” There was wonder in 2020… We were awe struck by the magnitude of destruction a one celled creature could wreak. We were dumbfounded by fires and storms and earthquakes….and all these things have made me wonder, what comes next?
My word for 2021 is “Seperate”.
How can I curse
those whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce
those whom the Lord has not denounced?
9 From the rocky peaks I see them,
from the heights I view them.
I see a people who live apart
and do not consider themselves one of the nations. Nu. 23:8,9
This will be a year of becoming holy, a year of becoming new and different. More change is in the air. New challenges await. Like 2020, 2021 will have its own wonders and its own things to wonder about. That said, I am ready to leave mourning behind and to embrace the beauty of spiritual battle. I am ready to stop being shocked to dumbness by the fresh horrors of the world. I am ready to summon the beauty of God and His creation to the forefront of my life and ministry. I am ready to bring that beauty to fight against all this darkness which has consumed 2020 and to speak forth the FAITH HOPE AND LOVE which remain no matter how the darkness grows. I am ready to be separated from the hopelessness of the world and to become a creature of the Son who brings beauty to the twilight of this age. Good bye 2020. Welcome 2021!
This post is created in response to CEE’S FLOWER OF THE DAY CHALLENGE FOR DECEMBER 21ST 2020.
This post is created in response to CEE’S FLOWER OF THE DAY CHALLENGE FOR DECEMBER 19TH 2020.
This post is created in response to CEE’S FLOWER OF THE DAY CHALLENGE FOR DECEMBER 17TH 2020.
This post is created in response to CEE’S FLOWER OF THE DAY CHALLENGE FOR DEC. 13TH 2020.
Lillie-Put 