Dancing in the Rain

I know that my dog was the subject of a post yesterday , but having her around again got me to thinking about something today. Sugar is a loyal, dedicated dog (as most dogs tend to be), and she definitely knows that she is mine! Because she knows that she is mine, she follows me around wherever I go, my faithful "little" shadow. She loves so much just to be in my presence; it doesn't matter what I'm doing or what she's doing, she wants to be with me. And if I reach to pet her or talk to her, even though she doesn't really understand anything I'm saying, she gets excited like it's the greatest joy in her life to hear my voice and feel my touch. Some of you have probably figured out where I'm going with this. :D Yep...I wish I was more like my dog. Am I as loyal and dedicated to my heavenly Father as my dog is to me? He has done so much more for me than I will ever do for Sugar, and He loves me infinitely more than I ever could love my dog! So when ...

The sunrise through our bedroom window in Denison a couple years ago. taken by: me I'm thinking about changing this theme from "Silent Sunday" to "Simply Sunday", just because if I add a caption it's not exactly "silent", and if I don't add a caption everybody wants to know where the picture was taken and who took it. *shrug* What do y'all think?

My sweet, precious, most beautiful puppy came home today! While we were living in Midland, I couldn't have her at our house there, so my awesome aunt Sara has been taking care of her. But today, we went and picked her up and brought her home. Oh, how good it is to have her back! I've missed her so much... here is a picture; it's not from today, I'll have to kidnap my mom's camera at some point to get some new pictures of her. I think maybe I'll have to add a digital camera of my own to my Christmas wishlist... *shrug* I was going to post some other pictures of her, but I'm having trouble with the photo feature, so this one will have to do for now. Some other time I'll post a picture of when she was a puppy; she was SO cute! Brown Sugar ( Sugar for short) Well, I'm off to bed! Y'all have a great night, and a blessed Sunday tomorrow! Oh, and don't forget to vote on the "Tuesday's" poll at the top of the page; you have until Monda...

I can hear some of y'all laughing, but I have waited as long as I could to ask this question. I've forced myself to wait until after Thanksgiving so the number of weird looks I would get would be kept to a minimum. Don't get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving, too. But Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. It's so full of magic and mystery and wonder...how can I help but love it? The magic of soft little lights, emphasizing a feeling of peace and joy and rest that somehow fills this very busy season. The mystery of almighty God, come to us as a little baby, bound by limits of time and space. The wonder that He did it all for love. Just because He loved us . He loved me. He loved you. So He came. If it weren't for Christmas, there would be no Easter. If it weren't for Easter, there would be no Thanksgiving. And with no reason to give thanks, there would be no reason to live day by day, much less a reason for celebration of any sort. So when I say "I love...

Just a quick post before I go to bed...I meant to post this earlier in the day! Oh, well... I hope you all had a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving! Including my Canadian friends, who celebrated Thanksgiving sometime last month... :D Love y'all! Our Thanksgiving was great. We had some family that came out to our new house. Amber and Caleb were here, of course, and my dad's mom came. Two of his older sisters came--Janet and Sara. And Sara had her friend Michael and his son Richard with her. Richard is an absolutely adorable little 5-year-old, every bit as cute and charming as my brothers were at that age. He's got great manners, very carefully and diligently drilled into him by his father, and he's just so sweet. At lunch today, out of the blue, he made this announcement that totally stole my heart all over again: "Haley's my friend." :D He and I hit it off great the first time we met, a little over a year ago when I was at Sara's house for a writer...

I love the idea of "themes" for various days of the week, so I'm slowly coming up with some of my own. Be warned: I may eventually have a theme for every day of the week! :D I've thought of two different ones for Tuesday; both would have the same content, just different titles. The idea is that I'll post some interesting tidbit/trivia fact--from the Bible, history, science, whatever. So should it be called Tidbit Tuesday or Trivia Tuesday? You have until next Monday night to vote on the poll at the top of the page!! :D Here's today's little "tidbit": Moses and Aaron (from the book of Exodus in the Bible) were their grandfather's nephews. Their father Amram married his aunt Jochebed (his father's sister). Don't believe me? Read Exodus 6:20 ! :D In other news, Amber and Caleb came in from San Angelo really early this morning (as in, 2am). We've had fun with them today! This morning, we took our annual family pictures. We have decid...

I just have this little thought that has been spinning around in my brain since church this morning. The pastor at the little Baptist church we visited today said something interesting; he was talking about how people tend to not take hell seriously, and he said, "How terrible is hell? It's so terrible, Jesus died to keep you from going there. Jesus said, 'You'll go to hell over My dead body .'" (emphasis added) Over My dead body! Well, my little brain spun off like it does on occasion, all caught up in that phrase (I have notes from the rest of the sermon, but I couldn't tell you much about it *sheepish grin*). I've heard the idea before, just never heard it expressed like that, and something about the way he put it gripped me. Jesus Christ did, and is doing, everything possible, everything necessary to give us eternal life. He doesn't want one single person to die in their sins, to suffer eternal punishment. So He died. And rose again. And even ...