I'm still here...sorry for the silence.

It's been a very busy past few months. I kept thinking of what to post, but then finding other things that needed to be done instead. Hence, the three-month gap since my post in late July. I am sorry about that. But real life does keep moving, even when virtual life seems to stand still. And I've been learning more and more these days that real life is often more important than the virtual.

As a brief summary of what we've done, the highlights, but by no means an exhaustive list...

• We enjoyed our new deck after finishing it sometime in July. While the weather and the sunlight lasted for me, I was blessed to be able to spend many morning devotion times on the deck swing that my Sweetheart bought for us to use. We also enjoyed a movie night outside one night on that swing, as incredible as that sounded when we told some of our friends about it. We moved our small screen and DVD player outdoors one lovely evening in July and watched an animated version of the biblical story of Joseph--just me, my husband, and our little dog.

• We put in a paving block border around all of our backyard garden beds, except the one along the back fence, which really needs the higher fence that it has as a support for my flowers and for the bird netting that shields our raspberry bushes. We also put in paving blocks to form a path through the yard to the garden gate, which will eventually connect our backyard space to what we hope (Lord willing) will become someday our Asian-inspired garden space...I'll have to post photos of this sometime next spring or summer since there are leaves now covering that new garden path.

• And I baked a lot, and cooked a lot, and we showed hospitality to family and friends and enjoyed the Jewish holidays with people from my husband's Messianic (Jews for Jesus-type) church. We really enjoyed having meals outside on the new deck with family and friends. It was so pretty back there. Lord willing, we hope to do much more of this next year.

But now the winter is returning again, and I've been home these past three days with a rotten head cold. I'm feeling better again this afternoon, but I felt better yesterday afternoon, too. I was planning on being at work today--had my lunch packed and my clothes laid out to wear this morning--but I was up for a while last night with a hacking cough again. I finally took some generic Nyquil at around 4, and then slept again until 11 this morning. I think I probably got 12 hours of sleep in total, though now in one shot. But I'm still feeling groggy today, and my head is really stuffed up. I'm just thankful that this isn't turning into a flu.

That said, I'll try to post again soon, with a photo or two hopefully. If you're still visiting here occasionally, I want to thank you for remembering my blog. I hope that you and your loved ones are staying well.

One of my little onsies on the baby!

My coworker and friend, who had a baby boy last month, just sent me this sweet photo of the little guy wearing one of the onsies that I appliqued for him. Most of the time, when I make baby things, I never have the chance to see the baby wearing what I made. So this is a real treat for me! Isn't he sweet?...May the Lord bless this one with a deep and abiding love for our Savior Jesus Christ!

He Gives to His Beloved...Sleep

I love the Fighter Verse for this week. It's such a good reminder that without God, everything we do is truly in vain. Unless the Lord is at the center of my life, and I am willing to submit all that I do and all that I am to Him, my very life is, in fact, lived in vain.

And yet, I think right now, at this juncture in my life, I appreciate the second verse of Psalm 127 just as much as verse 1. The second verse is, as follows:

²It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

This has been a VERY busy summer so far. We nearly forgot, until this morning, that we had purchased concert tickets to hear the Minnesota Orchestra for Friday night. We don't go out very much, and we only see a live concert a handful of times a year, and yet because of the packed schedule we've been following recently, we nearly forgot about this concert on Friday.

The main piece, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is one of our shared favorites. and yet we didn't remember it until I (thankfully) opened my day planner this morning before leaving for work and saw that the date was nearly here. I commented to my sweet husband that I don't especially like the speed of our lives right now. He readily agreed, and suggested that we try to slow things down a bit...And that made me think again of Psalm 127:2.

I need that gift of sleep that our Lord promises to His beloved. We might not be able to rest as much as we'd like right now, but we are going to slow down on Friday night and just breathe deeply and enjoy the concert. God is so good to provide rest for his beloved...Lord, whatever the world is like around me, help me to always remember to find my rest in YOU.

Progress on our new back deck

My husband is working hard again this afternoon on our new backyard deck. A few weekends ago, he tore up everything but the joists in the old deck. This first photo shows the pile of old boards in our backyard, which our neighbor is slowly cutting up and using for fires in his backyard firepit.

We were so thankful that despite the wear and tear on the deck boards, railings, and a few of the joist boards, we were able to keep most of the joist boards and build up from there.

Then, another weekend he dug three 42-inch, 12-inch diameter holes for footings. My job, at that time, was to haul away the wheelbarrows full of dirt so that we could use it to build up an area in another part of our yard.

Yet another weekend (when you're doing everything yourself and also work full time, you become a weekend "warrior" for everything related to home improvement), he mixed 23, 60-pound bags of concrete to fill those holes with concrete to support the new deck posts...My job then was to fill in around the big cardboard tubes he used as concrete molds with dirt and then tamp it down to make sure that the concrete posts are really firm and secure.

And now, this weekend, he is finally able to start screwing new deck boards onto the joists. Oh, and I also helped with cleaning and repainting the siding that was behind the original deck (probably built when the house was new more than 30 years ago)...I'll have to post a photo on this project again when enough deck boards are in place to make it look like something again. I'm so thankful for a husband who is such a helpful and handy man!

No, these are the good guys!

My husband and I took a little mini vacation up north recently to enjoy the Duluth and Lake Superior. We were disappointed to see that the shipping traffic there is dramatically down from year's past because of the poor economy...When car companies aren't manufacturing as many new cars, they don't need as much steel, and they don't need as many ships to transport steel on the Great Lakes.

But we were blessed to see a U.S. Coast Guard cutter come into port. We watched it when it was far out on the lake, and were so happy to be able to see it up close. As always, along the port in Duluth, a crowd gathered along the dock to watch it come in. A little boy and his mother were close to us, and the little boy kept saying "Mom, look it's a pirate ship!" The third time he said this, his mother told him that it wasn't a pirate ship, but he insisted that it was, and that he could see pirates along the deck. Both my husband and I come from families with war veterans from the various branches of service, including the U.S. Coast Guard. So I finally interjected, saying "No, that's not a pirate ship. It's the good guys. They're ours, and we should all be proud of them!"

Thank you to all of you who have family members serving in our U.S. military. We are forever indebted for your sacrifice.

My first shirring project

I really enjoy sewing, as you might have gathered if you've been looking at this blog for any length of time, but I had never tried the technique of shirring to create gathers in fabric with elastic thread. I had been wanting a new pink tank top for summer to wear with my embroidered denim floral shirt, so instead of buying something from the thrift store (we rarely buy "new" clothes from regular stores), I decided to make a shirred top using some cute summery fabric that my mother-in-law gave to me earlier this year.

This was actually a remnant from a lampshade cover that she made some time ago, and she suggested that there might be enough for a summer top if I made up my own pattern. I just shirred the top several rows to bring it in close around my top and bust area, then shirred the straps to help them to stay up, and sewed it all together (just a seam up the side and then to attach the straps at the front and back).

It fits really well, and it actually quite flattering, but since I didn't have a helper to take my photo today, i just snapped a picture of it sitting on my little portable ironing board in the sewing room. I'm thinking of making two more little summer tops from small remnants soon. It's so fun to have new clothes!

Strawberry Freezer Jam

Last weekend, I made strawberry freezer jam, something I've thought of and have been missing since my mother died in 2003. She used to make wonderful freezer jam every summer, and I know that we're going to enjoy having this on toast, muffins, and pancakes in the months to come.

It was a very easy recipe using 1 packet of Certo liquid pectin, 4 cups sugar, and 2 cups crushed strawberries. Just follow the package instructions and enjoy!

A New Wrap Dress for Me

This isn't a great photo, but it does show a bit of my latest sewing project, a new wrap dress made from some vintage brown floral fabric from what my sister and I divided from my mother's stash.

Thanks to my sweet husband, who graciously agrees to help with marking my hemline, I was able to finish it just in time for a wedding a couple of weekends ago. It was really fun to wear, especially when a couple of my friends there gave me compliments on it.

It was Butterick pattern 5030, and the only changes I made to it were to add more closures (for modesty's sake). It only called for hooks and eyes in two places at the waist line, but I added three snaps to the bodice area to pull it closer at the top and avoid gaps when I bend over, and two to the skirt to keep it wrapped when I climb in and out of the car.