His mercies are new every morning...

...and this is His gift of grace.

Good morning.  I'm sitting with my toast and marmalade and a lovely steaming cup of coffee. Mmmmm.

I am try to get into the habit of prayer at set times again.  When I go away on holiday it all becomes a bit hit and miss.

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A morning prayer
Lord, I light this candle because you LORD, are, "My light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?"
Without your light, Jesus, I am blind and living in darkness, for You said, "I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."  May I always live in Your light.
I pray, Heavenly Father, as a child of yours, that I remember always that I have the light of Jesus within me.  May I carry that light to others and always walk as a "child of light".
You tell us Lord, that we your children are, "The light of the world.  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house".  May I today be a light in my home for you Lord.
Kindle in me a flame by your Holy Spirit, may the oil in my lamp never run dry, may I always turn to you to be filled with life and light.  May I always be awake and alert.
And now, Lord, help me to meditate upon, learn and live your Word today.  May your life giving Word be, ...a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."
In Christ Jesus, who was and is and is to come, amen.

[Scriptures: Psalm 21:1; John 8:12; Ephesians 5:8; Matthew 5:14-15; Matthew 25:1-13; Psalm 119:105.]

I have a few things to do today, the garden is the most pressing...that and Squidge's toenails!  My word, I think she's been digging in the garden with them!  LOL. 

Haha, now there's a to-do list:

Laundry
Gardening
Toenails

You don't often see that on a to-do list. ;)

The garden is jungle like.  I'm pretty sure that whilst we have been away on holiday someone has been pouring miracle grow on the weeds!  No doubt as I am mowing the lawn I will uncover David Attenborough making a documentary about gorillas or something. "Here, in someone's badly maintained garden, we see a whole new eco-system has exploded."

Anyway, must get on.  Finish coffee and then smoke family out of their beds.

Have a blessed day!

Hugs.

More humour therapy...

Hahahaha this so looks like Boots.  Perhaps she has a secret life.

Anyway, G is on the phone to his sister, so a brief post. Boots has finally calmed down after coming home from the cattery.  She's been so stressed out, poor kitty.  Last year, knowing her stress levels, I got her some tablets from the vets to calm her down whilst she was in there.  Perhaps I should have done that this year too. On the first day back, she was purring away happily, then turned on me full claws hissing crazily.  She was cat-on-the-edge.

Yesterday I had a brief snooze...well it turned into 2 hours but that's another story...fortunately Boots decided she was hungry.  I woke up to her licking my elbow.  When I woke up she said, "Mew" hopefully and then ran off down to the kitchen.  Which takes me to this funny cat picture:

Today she's been very chipper, following me around meowing and rolling around showing her belly so that I will scratch it.  Life's never dull with a cat.

Humour as therapy

Haha, after writing the previous post, which to be honest was rather cathartic [I just checked the dictionary to see if I was using the right word there - well I was, but I just want to make it clear that it has nothing to do with my bowels!] I watched the video I added to end of the post and saw this picture.  I don't know who the author is, someone shared it on Facebook, but it really made me chuckle.

 

So, on that note, I'm going to go put some music on and get on with my day.

Happy Homemaker Monday - Post Holiday Chaos!

The weather...

Rain, rain, rain.

Right now I am...

Sitting on the bed typing this with a finally relaxed pussy-cat snoozing on my feet [we've just got back from holiday and being in a cattery totally stresses her out]

Thinking...

That I need to get tea going.  Hubster is on his way home and Chatterbox is going to a youth event at church tonight, so she needs to have had her tea soon.

On my TV...

Catching up on Big Bang Theory.

Top Gear.

I watched the revealing of the actor who will play the 12th Doctor (Doctor Who) last night on BBC. I wished I hadn't because it's much more fun to find out when he regenerates in the TV programme...but I'd have found out anyway, the papers, TV, radio, Facebook and Twitter have been talking of nothing else. Plus I find Zoe Ball a most annoying presenter.

What I found while surfing the net...



On the menu for this week...

Tonight, pasta bolognese I think.
Tomorrow chicken drumsticks and mash

I haven't really thought further than that.

In the craft basket...

Nowt.

Looking forward to this week...

Getting the house sorted out!  And the garden.  My word it's overgrown!

Looking around the house...

Mess.  An orchid that needs serious attention.  Snoozing cat.  The girls making jewellery at the kitchen table.

From the camera...

Crazy cat:

If I photoshopped her eyes red...scary! LOL


On my prayer list...

My hubby has a Urology appointment coming up soon, hopefully they will find out what is going on with his kidneys, etc.  I'd be grateful for prayers.
Our next door neighbour's mum has just died suddenly, I'm praying for her.
My cousin and a friend are both going through painful separations from their husbands both of which were precipitated by the husband have come as such a terrible sudden shock to them.

Bible verse, devotional...

Deuteronomy 31:8
"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

For more Happy Homemaker Monday Posts visit Sandra.

Excuse me I'm an introvert!

I've just found an article that explains me so well!

10 Myths About Introverts

Here are a few quotes:

"They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days."  

This is so me.  I really struggle with small talk, particularly with people I don't know.  Even with people I know I can find it hard to think of things to talk about. But I can talk for England about things that I'm excited about, and I am genuinely interested in people.

"Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting."  

Yes, I am baffled by all that beating about the bush and pretending.  I'm always shocked when people are dishonest or can talk about nothing when there is something more important going on. Plus, pretending all is well with small talk is just silly when you know that there's something up.  Makes me so frustrated.  Get it out in the open people and we can talk about it!

"Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts...But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with."

That is true. I do enjoy being with people. I love sharing ideas and talking about a variety of things.  But I do also need time alone.

But this one was so helpful to me:

"Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways."  

So true.  It explains so much about why I react to things like I do.  The church we are in now is very, very social, which I love.  But I also need peace and space and I find it stressful if I have to do too much.  I can't be doing with people in my face all the time; yet, I love people and I love to talk and find out things about people. However, a whirl of social activities get's me where my head feels too full of stuff and I crave space.  I can't cope with going to church where everyone's lively and in top emotional state and then have to do something social and busy straight after.  Well, that's not true, I can do it and have done it and enjoyed it, but I find it exhausting and need a day to recover, lol.  Being out every night gets my head in a total spin.

It's so nice to realise I'm normal...ish. :D

-------------

Hat tip to Leila.

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 227)

It's late here, but here's a post!

--- 1 ---

As I'm doing Jennifer Fulwiler's 7 Quick Takes Meme I'll also mention one of her other posts from this week that I rather liked: Organizational hacks for the rest of us you know one of those posts that makes you sigh with relief when you realise it's not just you that struggles with perfection - LOL.

The notion that I have a medical condition (Housework ADD!) that prevents perfect housekeeping was just the excuse I needed for my chaotic ways.

I am unable to stick to a schedule, but I LOVE putting them together. A Home Management Binder! It will be beautiful.  I like making the folder, spending hours picking the font colours, working out how long each task should take, colour coding each task dependent on its nature, etc.  Such fun.  I never finish it though. I think I have about 4.  Equally, I am unable to stick to my perfectly thought out schedules.

Here's why:  Say I decide to clean my kitchen, it can go one of three ways...

1) I start off cleaning, then I notice my cupboard is a bit dusty inside, so I take all my pots and pans out, but then I notice that some of the pans at the back of the cupboard are grubby with rust spots, so I then get on the internet to see how to deal with rust spots on cooking equipment, I find an article but notice that it links to another article about learning to crochet and I would like to learn how to crochet, but I wonder how much hooks are on eBay so I look them up, then I remember I need to finish off in the kitchen, as I get to the kitchen I notice the time! It's 3.25pm and I am late for picking Squidge up from school, I leave the kitchen in a state of devastation, messier than it was before.

Or, 2) I start cleaning the kitchen, I notice the light fitting has cobwebs, I clean the light fitting, whilst I'm up on ladders I notice the top of the cupboards are a bit mucky so I start to clean them, but because the kitchen air is greasy the tops of the cupboards aren't just dust - I need some Vim, so I get more cloths out and a bucket to start cleaning with that and then notice that mucky water has splashed on the cupboard fronts, so I start to clean those, as I'm cleaning the doors I notice my cupboards are really grubby inside, so I empty them all out, I then notice the clock and it's 3.25pm and I am late for picking up Squidge from school and I leave the kitchen in worse devastation than it was before.

Or, 3) Knowing that my kitchen is a Pandora's box and quite possibly one of the seven circles of hell I avoid cleaning it and spend all day pottering about generally wasting time only to finally look up after getting distracted by the boxes of children's artwork, deciding to sort it out and spending hours reminiscing about their childhood and how cute their pictures are or some such nonsense to see that it is 3.25 pm and I am late to pick up Squidge from school and my kitchen is in a worse mess because I have, during the course of the day, contributed more pots from lunch and snacking, plus I now have artwork strewn about the living room that wasn't there before.

--- 2 ---

If you read all of --1-- and its excessive use of commas and never ending sentences, you deserve a reward.

--- 3 ---

So how do I manage my Housework ADD (or whatever)?  I set a timer.  15 or 10 minutes per room.  I put on some jolly bouncy music to motivate me.  My aim is to do everything as quickly as possible so that I get lots done before the timer goes off.  First I have to tidy the room (I have a box to throw things in that belong in other rooms, which I return to their correct location when I reach that particular room), if I still have time left after tidying I start to clean the room.  As soon as the timer goes off I have to move onto another room.  After I've been through all the rooms (I don't have a big house) I have a nice break.  I then do 15 minutes ironing, or something else.  If the house needs a thorough cleaning I will start again at the beginning with the timer.  I can use the timer on other projects that tend to get out of control, like filing or sorting photos, etc.

--- 4 ---

We've been in Cornwall this week.  It's been lovely.  The cottage we have stayed in is comfortable and roomy.  But I'm really looking forward to my own bed.  There's nothing like your own bed is there?

--- 5 ---

I have a new camera and have been playing around with various settings.  Here are some macros I took:

--- 6 ---

I'm looking forward to picking up Boots from the cattery.  I do miss my cat!  Sad I know.

--- 7 ---

It's Chatterbox's birthday soon.  She'll be 12! Moving closer to those teenage years.  I'm not sure I'm ready. :)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

A blog a day keeps Facebook at bay

Well, it's the last post in my 7 posts in 7 days.

I really have no inspiration what to post about.

The other night I dreamed I'd got four numbers on the lottery.  I was very disappointed to discover that I'd only won £14.99.

So when I got up I told my hubby. "I dreamed we got four numbers on the lottery.  All we won was £14.99, what was that all about?"

"When did we start playing the lottery?!" Sayeth the G in incredulity.

"It was a dream! Chuh, you never listen to my stories properly."

I then saw Mum.

"Mum, I had a dream last night that I got four numbers on the lottery and only won £14.99! Wonder why I dreamed that?"

"Is that all you get for four numbers?  When did you start playing the lottery?"

"IT WAS A DREAM!"

No-one listens to me.

LOL