Book Review of Women at the Cross

Women at the Cross

WOW! Where to begin, this book is SO good.
Each chapter starts with a brief look at a strong woman from the bible, Mary, Elizabeth, Dorcas, Mary and Martha, just to name a few. We are told a little about each woman and how they lived their lives faithfully following God and what we can learn from each of them.
Next there follows several pages of how we can strive to live a Godly life, we are given challenges and suggestions. Along the way there are many scripture quotes that are encouraging and at times challenging.
Then the third part of each chapter has a story about a real modern day woman who lives a Godly life. The women in these stories are regular, salt of earth, good Godly women, they are wives, mothers (often of many children), some are single, some missionaries, some old, some young, but all have one thing in common, they strive to grow ever closer to God and to teach their children and others around them about God. The book is so gently encouraging, it is never bossy, never self-righteous, it is obvious that the author has walked with the Lord for many years, I would LOVE to meet her in person and give her a big hug and tell her just how life changing this book has been for me.

Do you want to read your bible each day without a sense of obligation, but because you truly want to be in the word of God? Well this book will get you there.
Do you want to be kinder, gentler, a listener, a good witness for the Lord? This book will show you how.
Do you want to be a Godly wife, a blessing to your husband? This book will show you how.
Do you want to be a good mother, a good grandmother? This book will show you how.
Do you simply want to walk closer with God? This book will show you how.
Do you want to have guidance for a better prayer life? This book will give it.

For many of us all ready striving for all of the above you will find that this book gives gentle encouragement to stay on the path of righteousness.

I have found that each chapter works well split into two parts, so I can savor each over two days. When I am done with this book I will simply start it over, because each chapter has gentle lessons that can be absorbed over and over again.

This is one of the BEST books I have ever read.

(I also posted this review on Amazon)

Women at the Cross by Mary Ellen Beachy

http://www.milestonebooks.com/item/14-171/ Book may be available here for $10.99, but for now they are out of stock.
The price on Amazon seems high, I purchased mine at a Christian Light Publications home school sale, I paid  around $10. However I cannot find the book on www.clp.org

A Chore Day with a Fun Diversion

Well today is Monday, and this is generally the day of the week that I get my heavy duty chores done, like cleaning floors and bathrooms, laundry, changing beds, dusting and vacuuming and whatever else takes my fancy.
I go into work for two hours on Monday morning and usually get home no later than eleven. Today I was barely in the front door when my neighbor called to see what I was doing, I told her house cleaning, she said it was such a nice day we should do something, I agreed but couldn't think of too much to do. So I asked Nancy if she wanted to come down and have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, she of course said yes. Fifteen minutes later, Nancy, Emily, and myself were enjoying the last of the  Razzle Dazzle Berry pie (Marie Callenders, and absolutely fabulous) left over from Mother's day.  While we were talking Nancy got a phone call, someone needed their mare transported for breeding. Nancy keeps her stud stallion, Diamond, at a local Amish farm and the mare that needed bred was at another Amish place about eight miles away.  The mare had had an ultrasound and it was determined that she should be bred this evening and tomorrow for the best chance of getting her with foal. Boy, the things I learn some days :)
Nancy's horse trailer was back by our steer pen, in readiness for taking Beef the steer in for processing next week, we decided we were up for the challenge and could transport the mare.
We walked back to Nancy's place, got in her jeep, drove out to our field, hooked up the horse trailer, went to get gas (decided next time, if there is a next time, we will get gas before hooking up the horse trailer), then drove to Netta's place to pick up her mare.  What a superbly well behaved mare, she just trotted out and walked right into the trailer and within five minutes we were on our way to Wilmer's place to drop the young lady off so she could spend a happy day or two with Diamond the stud stallion!!
With our fun diversion over I arrived back home and still had my list of chores to work through.. And, I wish that I had taken my camera, as today it is simply beautiful out, puffy white clouds and abundant sunshine. Nancy and I decided we would haul horses any day of the week, but only if the weather is beautiful and the drive scenic :)

Another thing I wanted to do today, and have accomplished, was to switch out the table and four chairs in our kitchen with the table and six chairs in the basement.  Taking apart the kitchen table and getting it downstairs was easy, I did not put it back together I simply stored it, I then removed the legs from the large table in the basement, transporting the legs and the six chairs upstairs wasn't bad. Next the table top had to come up, well I wrestled with it, and wrestled with it, and decided that I was never, ever going to get the thing up stairs by myself.  What to do, what to do, so thinking cap on, maybe I could pull the van around back and load the table top in, we have a walk out basement, and drive it around front, but I was not sure that I would be able to lift the heavy top into the van. Keep thinking, keep thinking, what to do, and I finally decided I could roll the table top, a large oval, out of the basement door, and around the house to the front door. Wow this worked really well, it is not wet outside, the table rolled surprisingly easy, and due to it's size each roll around  moved it a good distance. An hour later the table was reassembled and then it, and the chairs, washed down and now I have a lot more room to seat everyone when we have dinner. Yea!!

After all of this, I had to clean the basement. Last month we purchased 12, day oldish chicks, they have lived in the basement since. The 4' by 6' crate they live in at the moment needed cleaned out, it was getting just a tad pongy, and I needed to clean up all the DUST the chicks generate. Chickens naturally create a fine white powdery dust, it drifts over everything, I have to stay on top of it or pretty soon we would ankle deep in the stuff.  So I cleaned out their coop, this always sends them into a tizzy, then swept and vacuumed up all of the dust they created and all the fluffy little downy feathers that seem to get everywhere.  One thing with the chicken dust is as it drifts everywhere it lands on cobwebs, basements seem to have a bazillion cobwebs no matter how often they are swept and vacuumed away, the coating of dust makes the webs extremely noticeable, which isn't a bad thing as it has made me much more vigilant about clearing them away.
So two major chores are accomplished, I still need to dust and vacuum, and the bathrooms are awaiting my attention, but all in all it has been a productive day.

Mother's Day Blessings

I am thankful for my mother, she raised us three girls well, raised us to be responsible, caring adults, she took good care of us, loved us and has always encouraged each of us in all that we do. For this I am blessed.

I have been blessed with a good husband who has worked hard for the past thirty years to support our family. For this I am thankful.

We have been blessed with four lovely children, two sons and two daughters. For this I am thankful.

We have been blessed with a great son-in-law, and a great daughter-in-law. For this I am thankful.

We have been blessed, so far, with three fine grandsons and an adorable granddaughter. For this I am thankful, they bring so much joy to our lives.

On this Mother's Day may you too see all of the blessings in your life..

Indiana Springtime

WOW! Can you believe it is May already?  Where does the time go? We are having such a pleasant spring, a normal spring, sunshiny days, cool evenings, a bit of rain, a perfect combination for all to enjoy.  The forsythia went into bloom almost three weeks ago, they just started losing their beautiful yellow blooms this week, the lilacs are in full bloom, as is the crab apple tree, and the fruit trees. The grass is a vibrant green, the  trees are leafing out, the skies are blue with puffy clouds, it is truly idyllic.

Spring is a busy time for getting the gardens ready and planted, tidying up flower beds, mowing the grass, and the myriad of other chores that suddenly need attention. But oh how wonderful to be outside to feel a gently breeze, to smell the damp earth, fresh cut grass, and blossoms galore.

We have started planting the gardens, I finished putting the first one in on Monday,  I have carrots, snow peas, peas, kohlrabi, kale, radishes, purple onions, and a couple of rows of flowers, cosmos and zinnia, I am looking forward to all the green shoots that should appear in ten or so days. Yesterday evening Dave tilled a small area in another garden for our grandsons, as they want their own vegetable garden and  want to plant corn, carrots, onions and squash, lots and lots of flowers and a rose bush!  I think I can accommodate most of their requests, they are also going to have romaine lettuce as I ran out of room for it in the first garden.  Dave will get the other gardens ready for corn, tomatoes, green beans and peppers.  I would like to get a lot of cucumber plants going this year as I want to attempt pickles and it takes having a lot of cucumbers ready at the same time and the only way I can figure to do that is to plant a lot of cucumber plants.  We have never made very good pickles, they end up too soft, I like a nice briny crunch to a pickle, we have not even come close to achieving that.

In a week or so the first of our steers, Beef, will head off to be processed, we had hoped to get him in this past Monday but it was not to be, so he had a reprieve and gets to enjoy the springtime weather until the May 20.  Noodle is not as big as Beef, so we will take him in towards the end of July.  We will be glad to get the steers processed. Because of the drought last year the cost for corn and hay skyrocketed, during the winter it was not uncommon to find hay selling at $10/bale, it has now dropped back to around $6.50 which is still high considering before last summer a bale sold for around $3. The price of corn went insanely high too, it will be a relief to our budget when we no longer have to buy hay and corn each week.

On Saturday we had some unexpected visitors, Dave pulled into the driveway and came upon a peacock and peahen standing by our van, he called us on his phone (don't you just love cell phones? How did we manage without them?), so we all ran to the living room window to look out and see the visiting couple.  Mr. and Mrs. Peacock stayed all afternoon and all night, they kept walking to the barn door as if they expected someone to let them in. When we left for church on Sunday morning the lovely couple were heading over to our neighbors property and we have not seen them since, the peacocks I mean, not the neighbors :)

I have been reading some super good books recently, one I am particularly enjoying is by Mary Ellen Beachy, Women at the Cross - I highly recommend this book. Each chapter focus on a woman from the bible, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, Dorcas,  and unnamed women such as the woman who was healed by reaching out and touching the hem of Jesus' garment. Each chapter includes inspiring stories about modern day, ordinary women, who truly live the gospel to best of their ability. I am finding the book very uplifting and encouraging, I read half a chapter in the morning and the other half in the evening and I am now most of the way through the book and know that I will just start over because it is simply that good.

 The more grandchildren we have the harder it is to get everyone to look at the camera and smile at the same time. Patrick had just woken from a nap and did not want his picture taken, and Alivia was fussy because she needed a nap.  Anyway the goal was to take a picture of the four grand babies modelling their splendid knitted hoodies that my mom, their great grandmother, had made for each of them for Christmas.

Well that is my little update today, I will not let such a long time pass between posts, I can't believe it has been two months. Looking at the picture in my last post I can tell you that I sure don't miss the snow.