Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think

Up, Up and Away

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think, , , ,

This week in Gunnison.

Dave is teaching for the county here.  We went really-really-really almost-above-the-timberline high to get here, over Monarch Pass.  Here is a sign Dave saw in the county building:

I am visiting lots of wedding sites and www.marthastewart.com greets me with a countdown each time I log in, which I have to say does not really thrill me.

So, like 75 days now…actually less.  Luckily, though, Ryan and Tredessa are having a small family wedding, so we should be able to pull it off.  I mean I have got all the talent in the world in my fam!

In other wedding news ::

Elise-the-Niece is getting married to Matt in 11 days.

This gorgeous beauty will be at my house, along with little Miss Sawyer by the time we get home.  All the way from hot-hot-hot Texas!

Better bring a sweater, Stef.

Dave and Tara are celebrating their 8th anniversary today.

Love your love, my sweets.  8 very, very good years.

Rocky and Jovan will celebrate their 5th anniversary Friday.

Five beautiful years for two gorgeous lovers!  Congrats, my sweets!

So

I am catching up on reading and writing and organizing my computer files and photos and downloading video and editing video and getting room service every morning.  From Dave.

And I have suddenly realized I want to start thinking ahead to:

Yes.  It is time.

UPDATE 9/14/11 :: Apparently rain in Denver = snow in elevations over 10,000 feet.  Living in Colorado this long I should know that, yet am here, expecting up to 6″ of snow tonight, in flip-flops and a hoodie.  Hehe.

Engaging.

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

So here is what happened in our familia on 9.10.11

Just after the proposal – sporting the ring.

Recently.

We are happy.  Congratulations, you two.

UPDATE from MayDae.com ~

http://www.maydae.com/love/they-will-forever/

http://www.maydae.com/fashion/music/

A super-tiny family ceremony to follow in really short order.  On with the business of being married!

The Cabin

3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think

In the Mountains.

“Front side of the cabin”

“Back side” of the cabin, where the trail leads down to the middle fork of the St Vrain.  This is where you can usually find me.  {NOTE:  my poor little cheap Kodak could not, try as it might, capture the water.  It always just whited-out, but that is water down there.  It’s OK, though, it did pretty well on colors and textures.}

Rushing waters.

Dappled sunlight.  Warm, hot even.  Yet a cooling breeze blows over.  Fresh.  Exhilarating mountain stream baths.  Blue-jays cackle loudly on their way by.  Hummingbirds swooping and frolicking, feeding frequently and zooming in so close I am afraid they will scratch my glasses lens.

The chipmunks try to hide in the shadiness of low brush, but betray themselves by their own relentless chatter.

The path down to the water on the left.  The path up the driveway on the right.

The blue of the sky :: what blue is that?  From where does it get that depth and clarity?  Bluuuuuuuuuue….saturated with intoxicating substance.  Mmm.

How many different greens am I seeing?  How many different textures?

Moss, earthy and sweet.  Moss is safe here.  Is that why I am drawn?  Did my very name at birth identify a part of my souls’ homeland that draws me, still?

Large boulders stand settled, immovable for the truth they represent.  The waters flow freely around these altars, splash against these planted “tables.”

“You prepare a table before me”

The Aspens quake like the religious sect of old, the trees clapping their hands and roaring their applause to great God.  When the breath of the Lord blows through, the forest-stadium is filled with home-team-victory ear-piercing, loud, standing ovation excitement.  I cannot quit watching the leaves – trying to capture them by digital recording – knowing it is all for Creator.  They’ve never learned to dissipate their purpose in delighting Him by doing what anyone else thinks they should do.  It is all song and dance to Him, for His good pleasure.

He and I keep laughing at these tiny, energetic hummingbirds.  They are just so happy and busy, so full of life.

Laughing with God in the mountains at Peaceful Valley is so good.  He is giving me a clue about what makes him happy, what brings His smile.  I feel like He is letting me in a secret.  I am giddy to find that the birds of the mountains crack God up.

This is the Rocky Mountain {most} High.

Omygosh, I am weird, but wow I love it, too.  My Father is putting on a show for me, or maybe, more accurately, He is letting me see the one being put on for Him.  He claps.  He laughs.  He sings along.  He sees that His creation is good.  Here I am, lucky enough to sit in the Divine box seat with Him.

I am struck by how all of creation just does what it does and is in constant worship by very nature, created to bring Him glory.  I wonder what the heck we are doing?

I can’t help singing Andrae Crouch’s old song~

If I was a tree all I could do is lift my arms to You, Lord

If I was a bird, all I could is sing a song to You

If I was the sun all I could do is shine for You

Everything You made I know You made to give to praise to You

But You created me in Your image to give You the highest praise

Yeah, that’s right.  I sang my head off.  I was created to.  I couldn’t help it.  The waters splashed and pushed by loudly headed toward destiny.  The birds did sing.  The trees did clap their hands, the sun shined brilliantly and I sang and laughed and cried.  My soul sang.  It sang.  I was born for it.

Peaceful Valley was…peaceful, in its’ own raucously full-of-living kind of way.  Good times.

Offering

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think, , , ,

What it really means to be an intercessor.

….and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain

and bore  o u r  suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for {our} transgressions,

he was crushed for {our} iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds  w e   a r e   h e a l e d .

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

and though the LORD makes his life an { O F F E R I N G } for sin,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After he has suffered,

he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors

{aka the wrongdoer, the miscreant, the guilty party, the villain, the sinner, the evildoer}.

Jesus, the great Intercessor.  He was familiar with pain.  So He knew how to take ours – both what we’ve been hit with and what we have dished out.

My sweet mama called today and we talked about love, the real stand-in-the-gap, intercessory-like-Jesus kind of love.  It is the love that says :: even if your sin/rejection/disdain kills not only my heart but also my mortal body, I will still love you ’til the day I die.  I’ll love you while you pound the nails into my hands, I will love you when you spit in my face.  I will love you while the blood runs from my body and my life-flow hits the ground.  I will love you until the day I die.

Wow.

It is a wonder, Jesus being who He was was, I can even lay claim at all to being a “Christian.”

Happy Birthday to the Man of the Kelley House

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

Son.in.Law

Our very first son-in-law just drummed his way right into our hearts and and still keeps the beat, all these 10 years later, to the soundtrack that is our family-life.

Wow, we got spoiled.  We lucked out.  We got blessed.  We couldn’t have done it better if we’d spent years and years auditioning candidates.  God just knew.  He knew what we needed.  He knew what was missing for us, for you, too.  And He put you in our family, where you are looked up to as the big brother, the musical genius, the technological wizard, the guy who knows everything we need to find something out about.   Ask Tristan.  You’re like our very own, personal search engine.  AskTristanDotCom.  *smile

Happy Birthday to a man we are so grateful to call son, a man who loves our daughter and is raising three of the most amazing little kids ever.  You were born to be a part of us.  We are blessed.  Yes, happy-happy birthday, Tris!

That you are a good man, one for which we can thank God everyday, is evidenced by Stephanie’s success and deepening beauty.  That you are a trustworthy and righteous man is proven by the honoring and great-hearted children you are raising, so loved and so loving, each distinctively developing their own joy-bringing personalities.  Your family, Steph and the kids, look at you in a way that says: Tristan is in his element, right where God created him to be.

We so appreciate and admire your bravery and courageousness in providing for your family creatively.  We applaud the sacrifices you’ve made for the greater good and commend you for good choices in hard times.  Yours is a colorful, thriving, gorgeous family.  All you are doing right – shows.

Your parents got you at birth.  You are their son, the best of the best, the great product of the heritage they have given you.  But then God knew what we Rhoadeses would need.  And He sent you our way as a gift.  And that was a blessing for us.  So we celebrate your birth.  And we thank your parents for the way they raised you.  And we thank God for showing us His favor in this way.

Here is my birthday card for you, Tristan.  It’s a little of what I see and what makes me thank God for you.  Much love.  ~ The m-i-l.

Peaceful Valley.

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think

O God, let it be so.

With all due respect to laborers far and wide across the miles and the years, I am ceasing from my labors for Labor Day weekend.  In the Rocky Mountains.  Near a rushing river stream.  White waters and trees.  Cold, cold baths and the roar of nature.  Some reading,  Some writing.  Some meandering through wooded areas.  Singing my heart out as loudly as I want to for no one but God will be able to hear next to that roaring river.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz………..

NOTE TO SELF: To get all this and more – must pack!

Relate?

9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

This is for all my multi-tasking, entrepreneurial, mommies-wives-friends-and-all-around-amazing-young-women friends and daughters.

I love late night Frazier reruns.

He gets a call.  It is a young mom and wife and you can hear the kids crying and yelling and the dog barking and she is breathlessly trying to express her frustration at the lack of time she and her husband are able to find for romance.  She pleads for advice on how they can find time for sex again and even says she is getting so desperate she may have to find a stranger at the store.

The doctor is in.

Frazier’s {very good} advice:

Sex with a stranger is not the answer.

Why don’t you just pack the kids off with Nanna and Pop-Pop.

Lock Lucky downstairs in the basement.

Grab your husband – take him to the sturdiest kitchen table you have.

And. let. the. postman ring twice.

Well worth it.

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

I spent $7.99 for a tropical houseplant the fall of 2002, October, I believe.  It sorely needs re-potting.   It just insists in gargantuating constantly.  {I believe I just made up a new word}

Friday afternoon I lopped off 3 big meandering “branches” and threw them on top of the trash.

Saturday morning I came down to the kitchen and was greeted by a

“What the heck gives?  We still have plenty of life left in us.”

And it is true.  Every few months, I  trim that plant up and then vase the trimmings and get a week or three of pretty, big green leaves.  Still, I was surprised they seemed to have suffered no major damage, tossed aside as they were.  I plopped them into a large apothecary.  Today I am very happy with my reasonable decision to keep them for as long as they wish to be here, in spite of my initial laziness.

Though houseplants in general give me the heebie-geebies, this one continues to romance me with liveliness and spontaneity.  $7.99 well spent.