Time is of the Essence

I can't believe that over a week has past since I have updated my blog. Where does the time go?

God has given us this gift of TIME. So often I do not appreciate it. So often I waste it. Life for me right now is exceptionally busy. There is so much to get done in a day and often I am wishing for just a little more time. I suppose if I was given more hours for my day, I wouldn't have the energy to use them anyway. I do believe God knows what he is doing and gives us just the right amount of time to do the things He has planned for us. So my prayer has been for Him to magnify the time I have. You know how there are times that time just flies by and you feel like you haven't accomplished much at all and other times when you can be amazngly productive in a short period of time. I really think that is God's doing. He is, after all, the creator time.

Here is what God says about time:

1 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born
and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time
to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a
time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones
and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a
time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a
time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a
time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

This is a good reminder to me that although God wants me to accomplish much, He doesn't want me to do it all at the same time. I need to remember that I don't always need to be multi-tasking, but to live IN each moment and focus on the one thing He has given me to do at that very time. It may be cleaning, working or just sitting and hugging one of my little ones.

I chose this photo for this post because it was a taken with a long exposure. Of course, in terms of photography, a long exposure is 5 seconds which doesn't sound very long at all in terms of life. But this photo was taken well after sunset and the sky was pretty dark. It amazes me what you can see by taking just a little more time. The residual light from the sunset gives the clouds an eerie orange glow while the first stars of the night are apparent. Kinda cool!

Have a great day and appreciate the gift of your moments of time!

My name's in the paper!

Check out this article! It is actually a great piece about my good friend, Kim, but she was so sweet and mentioned my name:

"With the support of church members and the creative assistance of her good
friend, Trish Richhart, she came up with “Photos of Faith” in 2004."

Speaking of Photos of Faith...pray for me. Photos of Faith is a photography contest that our church sponsors where scripture is used for the theme. It is a wonderful opportunity to visually express your faith. I ask for prayer because once again I have taken on the task of scanning all of the wonderful entries and compiling a photo book and a video with them. It is a project I love BUT I have to do it in about one week's time. Please pray for peace in our home and me and for God to magnify the hours I have available to me.

Mother's Day Story

Ok, I got this forwarded to me by a friend. I normally don't spend a lot of time reading forwards, but this one totally cracked me up and I thought I would share it here.


So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who
just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids
would carry him around and sit on him and
nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang
out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.
Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story
they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old.
The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick.
LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and
then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where
in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he
could use it whenever he wanted to but he
needed to put it right back in the drawer when
he was done.
Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the
typical rush around and try to get ready for Church
with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys
are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am
trying to nurse my little one at the same time I
am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess
and everyone has long forgotten that this is a
wonderful day to honor me and the
amazing job that is motherhood.
We finally have the older one and the baby loaded
in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched
everywhere and I finally round the corner to go
into the bathroom. And there was Eli.
He was applying my chapstick very carefully to
Jack's . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes
and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you
know that he is right--their little butts do look
pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem
to mind.
And the only question to really ask at that point
was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done
that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.
And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment
ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard
we try to civilize these glorious little creatures,
there will always be that day when you realize
they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

That last line is the one that gets me. It is still making me laugh!
Have a great day!

VOTE for me

On a whim, I submitted this photo to a photo contest. The theme was "The Meaning of Life." There are a LOT of entries and the winner is decided 50% by votes and 50% by judges. I figure that if I am going to have ANY shot at winning the cool camera prize, I need to solicit the help of my friends to vote. HERE is a link to my entry. The only catch is that you have to be registered at the site to be able to vote. Registering is easy and FREE. On the entry page there is an orange button that says, "Log in here to vote." This takes you to a login page. At the top of that page, there is another orange button that says, "New User? Sign up here!"

If you have the time to do this, I would be so appreciative of your vote! Thanks!

***EDITED***

Well, since there were over 1700 entries into this contest and no one would realistically look at them all before voting, Crestock decided cut it down to just 500 entries. Sadly, I didn't make the cut :-( [sigh] Oh well. Thanks for looking anyway.

The Person Who Did Stuff To Me

A story by Anna Richhart and the Crazy Libs site:

As I was meandering weirdly down the sea one fine summer's day, the most
obnoxious, pretty dude angrily ate me, stopping me in my tracks. "Look here," I
said, smacking my finger at him quickly, "That was terribly cute of you. I
demand an apology."
The dude fell at me fast and ate me again, this time with
both ears.
"Excuse me!" I said, this time more well. "Desist at once, or I
shall be forced to hug you. You're a very fluffy dude, I must say."
"I can't
stop," the dude said badly. "You see, my mother was a bee keeper, my father was
weird, and the trauma was just too much. I'm blinky as a kitten, I'm bright to
say."
At hearing his pink story, I felt for him. But I lighted the shiny
idiot anyway and moved on.

My daughter really enjoyed doing these online Mad Libs. The bonus was that it is teaching tool to discuss the parts of speech!