Back again!...Sorry for the long silence.

Well, I can't believe that it's been so long since my last post on this blog. I'm almost tempted to start a different one, but I guess this is what I started, so I'm going to keep going here.

Long story short, I was busy with Christmas (lots of homemade gifts and extra cooking and baking), and I also have been busy off and on with a little extra work beyond my day job.

My husband's work has been slow since the economy has slowed down, and though he has more piano students now than ever before, the handyman work he's doing this week is the first he's had since last October. So when I was offered a free-lance editing job helping with a pastor's doctoral dissertation, I jumped at the opportunity to help a bit more with our family's income.

Originally, I had turned it down, in favor of suggesting another person we know who had been laid off and whose wife was expecting another baby. But that other person turned it down, for some reason, and the offer came back to me. And I've really been enjoying the project, especially since it can be confined to weekends, when I don't have such long days working and commuting to the city.

We ended up being paid most of what I'll earn for this free-lance job as a lump sum just before the end of the year, and since we've been managing on my ministry income and my husband's income from teaching piano, we set aside the lump sum in a new savings account just to use for auto repair and eventual replacement...God is so faithful to provide for all of our needs. We've been wanting to start an emergency auto account for quite some time now, but we didn't enough the money to do it until now. So, while we're both praying and asking the Lord to help our cars keep running as long as possible, we're thankful that He has given us some money now to cover some of the expense of repair or buying a new vehicle when that need is here.

In the meantime, I made many of our Christmas gifts, and I made more than a dozen Valentine cards recently to share with family and friends. And then, just this weekend I made some things for a friend who has a birthday this month. I need to put some of my photos on here, but right now I thought that I should just get off the block and write a new post for this poor little neglected blog before another day passes.

I'm sorry to my friends who checked here over the past few months and wondered what had happened to me. I'm especially sorry for my blogging friend Leslie who posted a comment on this blog back in November giving me the URL of her new blog. I really feel bad about not looking here and seeing that comment. But I'm so thankful that she's blogging again, and that I can read and catch up on her life again. I had missed reading your posts, Shorty. Thanks for sending me your URL.

Until next time...Lord willing, within the next week when I hope to write again.