Beautiful blogger award!

I just won a Beautiful Blogger Award from Amy at Whisperwood Cottage!  So, I am supposed to tell you seven things about myself and then pass the award on to 15 other beautiful bloggers!

So here goes...

1) I was Dolly in my school's  third grade production of Hello Dolly.

2) When I was little my siblings morphed my name from Beth, to Bethie, to Becky.  I was known as Becky until I started asking to be called by my real name about 11 years ago. 

 I love my real name, and never really liked Becky.

3) I am allergic to shrimp.

4) The first boy I ever liked had one brown eye and one blue eye, and I got to "kiss" him in a school play.

5) When I was little I was a terrible tattle tale.

6) I was editor of the high school yearbook my senior year.

7) When I was six years old our family traveled by car to Maine and back and visited 28 states that summer.

I am giving a beautiful blogger award to the following:

Blogs by my wonderful family and friends:
Jenn Becker

Journey of a Wannabe World Changer

Everyday's Different

My Life

A Mother of Two Boys

Endeavors of the Heart

Blogs I love about heart and home:

Lisa Notes

Getting Down with Jesus

Tomato Soup Cake

Flower Patch Farmgirl
The Magoo News
Splashin' Glory
Homespun Heart
Tea with Tiffany
a beach cottage

Hoping you'll find some new favorites from my list!

When the cats are away at Men's Retreat...

When the cats are away at Truelife Church's annual men's retreat,

the mice decide to do a little shoppin' at Ikea!

Grandson and granddaughter like Ikea.

Middle daughter, baby granddaughter and her mama, my oldest daughter, and our good friend like Ikea.

Time for some dinner!

The swedish meatball dinner is on sale for $1.00 this weekend! 

We are livin' large while the fellas are gone!

My grandson, aka Mr. Funny, is enjoying his meatballs with a side of fries. 

 Baby granddaughter looks on and eventually tries her first french fry too.

Beautiful baby granddaughter thinks the food is mighty tasty.

Beautiful oldest granddaughter is enjoying dinner as well.

And I feel so blessed to have my beautiful girls and grandbabies around while Papa is away

...except somethin's missing

...or should I say someone...

and I'm missin' her bunches.

Blessings to you this beautiful weekend,

I simply remember my favorite things...Friday's favs

Since forever, Friday has been hubby and my date day...our day off together.  Being a pastor, on Saturdays he is preoccuppied about Sunday, and holes up in his office going over his notes for Sunday.  Other ministers that we know take Mondays off, but we find that just never worked for us.  And so Friday it is.  I love Friday.

And so, in honor of Friday, I post the words to a song from my days of working at the school:

Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite day

Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite day

Monday is a bummer

Tuesday's only fair

Wednesday's gettin' better

Thursday's almost there

But Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite, Friday is my favorite day.

Happy Friday everyone!

More dollar store decor...

Any one else out there in blog world using the Dave Ramsey envelope system?  Getting our debit card information stolen and having to go through that hassle encouraged us to go back to using good old cash.  So we have our gas money, our grocery money and our entertainment money.  For me, taking a five out of the entertainment money and going to Dollar Tree to see if there's anything new and interesting is fun.  Hubby looks at me a wee bit like I'm mentally challenged when I do this.  After almost thirty four years of marriage you would think he would get this need of mine to tweak things around the house...the need to feather our nest...even when we're being budget conscious.

Three glass cylinders and one wall sticker...that's four dollars...

One roll of grosgrain ribbon...and that makes five dollars total.

Hot glue on some buttons from the sewing box...this just isn't doing it for me.

Try adding some ribbon and buttons on the bottom too...still not lovin' it.

Set them on top of some black candlesticks I had tucked away...now that's better!

Bible Study...

I am teaching an 8 week Bible Study class for our church.  The study is open to both men and women.  Our first class was last night. We had a great group in attendance and a wonderful evening together.  The topic is understanding and entering into intimacy with Christ, so I named the class Awakened Hearts.  All the men, and even some of the ladies, said the name was too feminine for a class for both men and women. So what do my friends in blog world think a good, gender inclusive, name would be on that topic?  In the meanwhile, thanks to all the guys who looked past the name and came anyway!

Hungering for God...

Hunger for God is the homing device He places in our heart,

drawing us back to the place of our origin,

back to His great heart,

back to His love.

We may try to silence the growling within with

people

possessions

position

and while they may momentarily muzzle the hunger pains

they never truly satisfy.

We may search for God among the gods of this world

thinking the hunger will find satisfaction there.

But it tastes like sawdust in our mouth, trying to love a god
made in our own image
 who cannot love us back.

We are made with a hunger for the Love that loved us first. (1 John 4:19)

He is both the Source of the hunger
and the Satisfaction.
He desires us (John 14:24)
and places within us
a desire, a hunger,
for Him.

Mama and bread...

If you are from my family, chances are you love bread. It is quite a family joke that the answer to all hunger pains when we were young was, "Go have a piece of bread and butter.", or "Do you want some toast?" Some of my fondest memories are of my mama making her homemade bread.  She is 84 now, and her fingers are swollen and misshapen from arthritis, so she no longer does much cooking.  But, the tradition continues as I now am the primary bread and yeast roll producer for our family events.  However,  it still doesn't taste as good as Mama's bread, in my opinion.

Monday evenings we designate as "Family Dinner" night.  We get together for dinner, hubby and I, my mama, and our girls and their families.  We rotate houses, myself and the girls each taking turns.  Last night it was our turn, so I decided to whip up a batch of pizza dough and set out a bunch of toppings, make a nice green salad to have on the side,  and have a make your own pizza night.  Toppings and cheese on what is basically a type of bread...it just doesn't get much better than that. Even Mama enjoyed it.