I never saw that before....

In John 4, Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well. The disciples have gone up to Sychar looking for food. They return and the woman heads to town to tell the people about Jesus.
In v30 we read.."They came out of the town, and made their way toward Him."
Just a few verses further in v35 Jesus says...
"I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest."
Maybe Jesus was pointing to all the Samaritans that he saw coming down from Sychar to see Him.

I thought that was pretty cool....

Hugs
Yo

Jesus IS the Living Water

It's not just about pickles and blue jays...

...but I'll share those with you first.
Had a great week in Michigan with my sister and her family.
I showed off my pictures...of course...
When Samuel saw my BEAUTIFUL picture of a blue jay he said (in true American style), " My dad says I can shot those because they are a nuisance. When I shot them, do you want me to send them to you so you can take pictures?"

Another Samuel moment...we were playing Phase 10 and someone was being a handful...Samuel says..."It must be our upbringing".

And here is a great new pickle quote:
PICKLES ARE CUCUMBERS SOAKED IN EVIL!

As always Donnie and I completely enjoyed ourselves as we spent a week with this family that we love so dearly.
A bonus was that school was out for summer...well not everyone was completely finished...but close!

Samuel continues to be OBSESSED with fishing! Not really a bad way to spend your childhood! He is always so helpful. Loves to jump up and get you anything you want.
He had one little problem though....he was getting tired of hearing the name `Rowan'. And so he decided for every time he heard the word Rowan, I would have to take him fishing. Well...if that were to happen, I would be spending the rest of my life at the fishing hole! Samuel wants to move into the woods alone when he grows up...but he is an incredible people person and I don't think he would last a day.


Aaron has an amazing love for the outdoors and learning and sharing all he can about Edible Outdoor plants. He also loves his dog Shadow and is a good master.
He continues to impress me with his sensitivity. Last visit he had located a book from the shelf that he knew would be of interest to his Uncle Donnie, and this visit promptly pulled it down again.


Matthew is growing and maturing and continues to be a thoughtful and caring guy....I don't want to say 'boy' but not ready to say 'man'. He is not 'quite' ready to spread his wings, but yet I do see a shift in who he is that shows me he is definitely heading in that direction.
He still loves his 'explosives' and has quite a reputation!

Jessica continues to be near and dear to my heart. She still has a 'quietness' about her exterior , but her heart is full of laughter, joy and friendship. And as she played the role of 'The Beast' in a talent night production...I saw a very confident & 'mean' side to her. But don't worry, the mean side was just acting!!


I love the time I can spend one on one with my little sister Carol. I am so proud of the woman she is and all that she is accomplishing. Now if she could just find that marriage certificate and get a passport!! I love laughing with Carol..we need to laugh more! I love you sis..you are God's gift to me.


Ken is keeping busy with work...thankfully...as the economy in Michigan has certainly been hit hard. He enjoys coming home and finds peace working in the garden.
He also has a soft spot for the Chocolate Malts served at the Drenthe Village Dipper. Although he assures us that he doesn't stop there often (on his way home from work) he did walk in once and the owner asked..."Will you have the usual?"
So as we drove up after a day in Holland and Ken noticed the owner outside..Carol yelled out the van window..."Ken will have his usual!! " Sure enough, once we parked and went in, she had it made and sitting on the counter for him!

Such a short drive...6 hours...(4 1/2 for Cliff) and our lives are blessed...with rest. Rest through God's amazing creation...both in the outdoors and the lives of family who are so dear.
And a special time to rest in Him our Saviour and Lord.

hugs
Yo

If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable, - each segment distinct.

24 hours later...

#3,4,5,6,10 & 16 are done!!!

#20 isn't going to happen anytime soon.

#24 - put a paper towel under it for now...

I'm going to turn off this time waster for the day!!!!

CSAW

pronounced...SeeSaw...
This is an organization that I am hoping to become involved with.

Canadians in Support of Afghan Women

I don't profess to know or understand a lot about what is going on in so many places in this world, but I no longer want that to stop me from stepping in and doing my part.

I read a book by Sally Armstrong called Veiled Threat and it gave me some what of an understanding of what is going on over there.

This group that I have linked myself to has three projects on the go:

Nazaneen Jabar Khel Education and Health Centre Afghanistan
Library Fund
AWRC(Afghan Women's Resourse Centres) in Peshawar, Pakistan & Kabul, Afghanistan

This gives you just a hint of an idea what I am talking about if I mention CSAW.

Website: www.canadianssupportafghanwomen.ca

Hugs
Yo

Every road was made by people walking together.

24 Things I want to do this morning...

some of this I've done...the rest is still to happen!!
1) read my email
2) received an invite from from Liz, one of the girls that is from the CSAW (Canadian is Support of Afghan Women) to attend "Artist in the Country 2009". Her mom will have work in the show. I met Liz for the first time on Thursday. (More about CSAW in another blog.) When I looked at the list of Artists that will be there...I knew 3 of them!!!...all dutchies!
3)...so now I need to e-mail Jane and ask why her name isn't there...she often paints with some of the names on the list
4) ...which reminds me I want to tell Jane I'll miss the next meeting
5) and I want to write all the members about an incident at the last meeting...
6) I should see if Hendrea wants to attend the Artists in The Country with me...she is familiar with the work of one of the artists.
7) back to CSAW...I am getting so many e-mails from them, I need to set up a separate e-mail account!
8) I want to e-mail Benj about an opening act from the Michael W concert that I think he'd like...
9) Gotta reply to Jenny's e-mail about why I am planning to go to Stayner with her.
10) Gotta e-mail my Sisterchick to tell her to enjoy her reunion which is coming up real fast!!
11) Take a picture of my purple and yellow flowers along with the wooden wreath I painted and e-mail to Rosalie
12) I should take some pictures of my lilacs that I have in a vase in the kitchen
13) I think I'll try a picture of the Lilacs amidst the greenery in the bathroom.


14) Gotta write a check to the dentist (now that I found some cheques)
15) Gotta sort through all these pictures...
16) Need to make a card for Theresa so I can mail it tomorrow and it will arrive on Wednesday. Since I'll be missing our bi-weekly supper date, I want her to get the card in the ail that day.
17) I gotta put on my Michael W Smith music and remember the great concert last night
18) Gotta remember to pack my neck pillow for the drive to G.R. on Wednesday
19) Make sure to pack knitting books for Jessica
20) I should do a scrapbook page or two of pictures og me when I was young. I got the perfect paper for it! (Garage sale at the Memory Keeper yesterday)
21) Found the perfect picture to replace the one of Rowan I decided to take down...
22) I need to transplant this old cactus...some of it is definitely dieing.
23) Now that I have transplanted it and moved it to a different plant pot...I have room to put my 'Women of Faith' books where the plant was before and I can put Rowan's new picture where the books were.
24) I need to find a plate to put under the new planter...water is getting everywhere.

I PICKED 24 TOTALLY RANDOMLY....but it worked...kind of

At 10 o'clock I decided I had to stop!!!!!....refocus...and get ready for church.
So I decided to take a bath and relax for a few minutes. I wouldn't bother with my hair...I washed it yesterday....well next thing you know...I'm washing my hair...just automatic. Too bad, now I have to dry it!!

Here are the #'s of all the things I not only thought about doing, but already did...(by 10:00)
1,2,7,8,9,11,12,13,14,15,17,18,19

I'm tired.

Hugs
Yo

(God) said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Then (Moses) said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. Exodus 33:14-15

Special Blessings

from God through special people. I sometimes almost feel His touch when I connect with others. Like He is taking my hand and holding it out to their hand...and I clasp it.
And I walk a while with them.
This week I held hands with many people.
My siblings though the internet or on the phone.
My very special sister-in-law who is hanging on to me, always, no matter what.
Through a card
from an aunt,
from a niece,
from a co-worker,
from a special ministry in my life.
-through a phone call from an extremely special lady.
-having lunch and going for a beautiful walk with another special friend.

-My daughter, my son-in-law and my granddaughter...
-My special friend at the Memory Keeper...

And I spent a day with a group of incredible women who are working hard for the human rights of Afghan women and children...

Thank you God, for touching me in so many ways.

I choose not to travel the road most traveled, but the one of Your choosing.

Hugs
Yo

"He doesn't wait for you to have a need before He comes up with a plan to solve it.
His solution was made long before you discovered you had a need."

It's a NEW DAY...

and I continue to be so blessed. My mailbox overflowed this week and so did my phone. And a perfect week to be working in the yard. I made my photography excursions take second place this week.
Right now I am working on organizing (cleaning up) my computer room. This is extremely difficult for 2 reasons!
1) I get very interested in the stuff I'm organizing and start 'playing'.
2) I start playing on the computer.

OFFICIAL NAME CHANGE!!!

I am now going to call this my play room!!! (maybe I won't feel so guilty when I play)

But I do have a purpose for tidying this morning. I am going out for lunch with a good friend and she 'requested' I bring pictures of Rowan! I feel I must oblige. So now I am going to look under all my mounds and see what I got!

What playing looks like...Kirsten D talks about a certain summer in her life that she spent with Tami and I...I 'think' she called it the BEST summer of her life...but I think that raising 4 amazing kids, although exhausting, is truly the best season of her life!
Anyway...I decide to look up pictures of said summer...especially since we are trying to decide if we went camping that summer. I come across a few pictures that absolutely need to be scrapbooked and so I leave the whole pile out so I don't lose track of the idea. But I need one more pictures to complement this page. So I pull out a bunch of pictures called 'Schryers'. In this envelope I find a little envelope ALREADY marked...'to scrapbook'.

(just had to run...heard the mailbox...I can hear that thing anywhere in the house...)

So back to my good intentions. I have to leave all this stuff out as well...it is high time this page gets done! And as I will be visiting said in-laws very soon, that should be incentive enough.

I've also been working on scanning pictures and pages for a disk to send my family. So I pulled out my box of 'mom' stuff....ahhhh.....and my box of Holland stuff....ahhhhh

AHHHHHH...but in such a good way!

I have a quote for the day....God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.
I think my version will be so that gardeners/photographers can get scrapbooking done!
Or attempt it any way.

I think what I've done here is what Kirsten calls rambling...I'm rambled out for now!

Hugs
Yo

I learned a lot today!

The tree in the front yard that hasn't grown much since we moved in is an Ornamental Pear Tree. It's not supposed to grow much! It was interesting to hear what it was, because I had just thought to myself the other day that the blossoms looked exactly the same as my pear tree in the back yard, but I knew it didn't produce pears. Thanks to my neighbour Alex for the info.
Also today was day #5 visiting the Trillium forest. It was a most excellent day because I went out with Tante Janny and she pointed out so many other interesting plants to me.
Wild geraniums (purple)...
Jack in the Pulpits (which Rosalie had seen on our previous visit, but I hadn't),
Trout Lily's...the leaves resemble the scaling on a trout...if I want to see them in bloom I have to head over mid-April next year!
Wild violets (purple)
May Apples - they look like little umbrellas.
I've taken pictures of them all and hope to continue to gather and absorb information about all these amazing plants...all part of God's creation.

I also learned that the white Trilliums turn pink when they are dieing.

Hugs
Yo

Wisdom has two parts: 1) Having a lot to say; 2) Not saying it.

don't buy me a present

I've never been big on presents...giving or receiving. I much prefer a gift from the heart. You know, where you see something and it tugs at your heart....you just KNOW someone who would love it..or it reminds you so much of them.
Not a present because it is an specific occasion, so you must buy it no matter what. It doesn't matter what you buy....just buy it!
Like today, we saw someone in the parking lot at Zellers. They had brought a gift bag ...took a gift out of the Zellers bag and threw into into the gift bag. O.K...all set, let's go to see mom/grandma.
Oh no, I just had a terrible thought. That is what Donnie did today too!!!! AAAHHH!!!!!!
I think I have passed on this way of thinking to Tami, so as you can imagine, I don't get a TON of gifts. That's o.k...I don't want her to buy something because she has to.
BUT...
Last Saturday at the Craft Sale, Cori was selling a beautiful trivet with one of her pictures that I have always admired.
So I handed it to Tami. "Here. buy this for me for Mother's Day."
Today I picked Tami up (to drive her to her car) and gave Rowan a 'gift from the heart' to give her mom.
When I dropped her off at her car I shouted as I was leaving..."remember...you have a present for me..."
...
blank stare...
"you know, from last weekend..."
blank stare...
"FROM CORI!!!!"
"Oh, yeah!!!!!!!!!"
When Rowan and Tami dropped by later...'did you bring me my present...'
"no...I forgot..."
She also forgot something else...so we had to go back to her house...
and I got my beautiful PRESENT.
Sometimes you can to be satisfied with a present.

Hugs
Yo

Thank you God for the GIFT of Your Son

Tomorrow, I'll see you next week!

If I were to begin to write about all the amazing people in my life there would be no end.
Isn't that wonderful?
Yes, Yolanda, it is wonderful!!
So what is your problem??
Why do you struggle so?


So yesterday...which was Saturday the 9th...Jessica says to Carol...

Tomorrow Uncle Donnie and Aunt Yolanda are coming next week!

We are going on the 20th!

I love those kids...

Hugs
Yolanda

A boy's definition of Fathers Day..."Father's Day is just like Mother's Day, only you don't spend as much on a present (or gift :).

Extreme Makeover

What a day we had yesterday. Tami decided a few weeks ago that James should have a nice model room. James LOVES his models. Vintage aircraft...anything from the wars...and he is happy.

So Tami visited Ikea...got some things....
(She needed to empty two rooms because she switching them! )
And enlisted lots of help!
Drew ran the cable into the room
Tammy helped move things
Donnie put up new curtain rods
Stephanie put together furniture and did anything she was asked to do.
Cliff and Alice watched Rowan.
Tami and I painted..Steph helped with the touch-ups
We put up all his pictures!!

Every once in a while we put things outside, just to get them out of the way. But every couple of hours we'd have to rush to get them back in due to MAJOR thunderstorms.
Unfortunately, one of those times we forgot to bring my vacuum cleaner back in...

So when James left for work in the morning the middle room was a hodge smodge of very old furniture, odds and ends and his models. When he got home the end room was his domain.

It really had the feelings of a makeover show. It was fun.
Way ta go Tami!!!!

Hugs
Yo

gotta run...no time for a quote!

I'm so thankful...

...for such a beautiful week. I have been feeling so much more like my old self these days. I am praying it will last. I promised myself (for the next little while anyway) one day out a week to enjoy and photograph nature. And this week I hit pay dirt. The weather has been perfect. The rains have been coming mostly at night so things continue to blossom.
The joys of nature include those in my own front yard. Since changing birdseed my bird feeder is now attracting golden finch. Hoping the cardinals will come back too.
And although my daffodils didn't make an appearance, I am happy to with a few tulips for the first time...I planted the bulbs in the fall.
On Monday I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens to take in the beautiful tulips.
And then I went over to Cherry Hills Gate and totally enjoyed the walk in solitude...only a few people out...but lots of birds. Woodpeckers, very noisy Canada Geese...I caught a glimpse of an Oriole, lots of red winged black birds, swans, morning doves, chickadees, cardinals and my beautiful blue jay.
Tuesday I took a bike ride to the Trillium forest close by and enjoyed the way they carpeted the ground...almost like snow!
But enough already....that is 2 days of pictures WITHOUT Rowan!
So Wednesday Rowan and I went out for a walk and she willingly posed for me in the Trilliums.
I am just loving my time outdoors. I love that I have time to work in the yard.
And I am learning to accept what the inside of the house is looking like. It's not a pretty sight. I gotta quit walking in with mud on my shoes.
I also stopped at Stephen-on-the -Mount Anglican church to listen to some Bible Reading. Each year in different places the Canadian Bible Society has two week readings of the entire Bible. They read from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday to Friday for 2 weeks.
It was really neat to sit and listen for a while. I heard readings from Jeremiah, John & 1st John.

So did you notice something? I gave myself a day for nature and this week have taken 3 days and part of a fourth. This is me. I just don't seem to know how to organize my life in a way that sees me accomplish a little bit of everything in any said week. Instead, when something is working, I just run with it. I'm going to accept it...but still keep on working towards a little more balance.

Hugs
Yo

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

A friend I haven't met

Sometimes really cool people cross our paths, and although we may never really know them, we feel like we do.
I am reading a book called 99 Windows..the Reflections of a Reporter from Arabia to Africa and other Roads less traveled. The journalist is Thomas Froese. Many of these 99 Windows have appeared in the Hamilton Spectator and I always appreciated his writing and was always hoping he would put them together in a book.
And he did.
In the short pieces I've read so far (not all in order) I've learned that he has read A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins.
His wife Jean Chamberlain organized a symposium at the Royal Botanical Gardens and Sally Armstrong...Author of Veiled Threat was one of the speakers.
Jean has written a book and launched a program called Save the Mothers .
He has read The Jesus I Never Knew )...
He has read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel ...
He has read The Cross and the switchblade...
He has read Through Gates of Splendor...

The theme of all these books??....I have read them all too.
Thomas Froese speaks things that in some small way give voice to things I feel.
He writes in ways that shows he knows the heart of God.
He writes with depth, with passion, with humour.
He makes me think.
I respect what he writes...

Like this...
...but why is it so easy to get worked up over this type of thing...the removal of Christ from Christmas, and so hard to get angry over other liberal attitudes that creep from culture into everyday Christian living?
Like, say, the lax response to God's demand for justice for the world's poor and oppressed.
This Christmas (2006), at least half of Earth's 6.5 billion people will be malnourished. This low class lives on $3 a day or less. Many are in sub-Saharan Africa. No gifts for these kids. Just brain damage from a lack of protein.

Thomas and Jean who have 2 young children just recently adopted a 3 year old Ugandan girl...one of the 2.4 million Ugandan orphans. How do you pick one?

I am thankful for reminder of the many things I have had a passion for in my life. It's not to late to revisit them...

Hugs
Yo

Quote: "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. C.S.Lewis

National Scrapbook Weekend

Almost 4 years ago I celebrated my 48th birthday with three special ladies. We had SO much fun. This weekend I wanted to put together this amazing kit I picked up at Scrapfest. So I started browsing through my MANY pictures to find something suitable for the colours. I am SO pleased with the finished product. Hope you like it too, Kirsten...hope you had a great Scrapping weekend too. Looking forward to seeing some of your finished products. And don't worry...tomorrow is Monday, But you DON'T have to go to work!!!

Hugs
Yo

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a scrapbook page is worth a million memories!