I know you will find this hard to believe, but I didn’t really know what this band’s name meant when I was a kid. I thought some one had a “bad finger,” as in a bum digit. Hahaha. Yes. I have to laugh at myself. Innocent little preacher’s daughter.
They had some great early 70s stuff. As Guini would say, “That’s just some rock. and. roll!”
These are the ones I really liked waaaaaaaaaaaay back when.
This song was produced by George Harrison (apparently the Beatles were the first to sign and mentor Badfinger) and Todd Rundgren, who, by the way, sings one of my for-all-times favorites, “Hello, It’s Me.” AND he was in the American Idol audience this past week, yes, he was!
No Matter What
Without You
Harry Nillson covered this and it went to #1. Then everybody else in the world, including Mariah Carey and Celine Dion did, too. It is a great song and Badfinger wrote and performed it first. Then they were tragic. Their main talent killed himself in the 70s and a few years later, in the early 80s, the band member who had founf him did the same. Tragic. Talented. Sad.
Then there is just the love of the music they made that a dumb little girl, 12 or 14 – and now old enough to really understand, loves still, for the innocence it reflects in her heart.
I kinda took a blogging fast after epiphany (January 6), which I was afraid to say “out loud” until later in January {wrote about it HERE}. And I didn’t know how long I’d stay gone and there were birthdays I had to mention and a few times I couldn’t resist posting something like a link or video or quick thought. But true writing/blogging, I have not done. And how I have missed it. And how, especially right now, in the midst of the greatest joys anyone could experience and in the midst of the deepest of sorrowful things for people I love deeply, right in the middle of the messiness of life and celebration-worthy rites of passage and as the tulips are becoming glorious and the daffodils stand tall and proud – I just need to be and able to break-the-blog-fast to say, and {to declare loudly}:
God is good. He is faithful. He is SO faithful.
So, I am back to write that ~~~ plus lots of silly things and a little opining, too. I will write about sunny days and my quest for joy and let you in on where I find it. I will sing songs and share the lyrics and write about life as I see it. And I am back to write because my mom thinks I am good at it (everyone should have such a cheerleader!) and because I want a written record for my familia.
One day the grandbebes will grow up and be so happy to read this thing and see their faces and know o-how-much-I-do-love them & their amazing parents (the people I adore most in the world)!
And I am back to blogging because, to shamelessly rip off 1 John 1, I am writing about the Word of Life! I have not only heard of Him, I have heard fromHim myself, and have seen Him with my own eyes and touched Him and been touched by Him. So I want to share and tell the things I have seen and heard with my own familia and the ones God has made mine by His Spirit. My “motive for writing is simply this: [I] want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double [my] joy!” (1 John 1.1-4, The Message)
May this blog be a record for the generations to come of the faithfulness of God in our less-then-perfect, ordinary-yet-unique lives. And of the great, great joy He gives.
Plus a peek into the swirling thought collage of my very heart & soul.
And now,
here are some things that happened
while I was “blog fasting”…
Dave and Tara got settled into their new home
She is an amazing homemaker and it was cozy within days. She is also very creative and organized and it is a lovely, peaceful place. There is a giant, jetted tub in the guest quarters where the grandbebes could swim laps! Their yard connects to open space (which in Colorado is guarded like gold!) and their big window views are of the crystal-clear Colorado Rockies. They are home!
I visited my mom and dad in St. Joe, MO…where is snowed and snowed and snowed…bleak!
Parsonage on the left. Church on the right. Too close for comfort.
Rocky and Jovan bought a new house, too!
There’s a lot a-lotta pink in the girlie room!
It is cute as a dollhouse and colorful and sweet. It fairly screams Rocky + Jovan + 2 of the cutest little girls = Blue and green & lots o’ pink and JOYfully Ever After!
Averi turned THREE and had a CandyLand Party complete with an Ice-Cream-Cone-Castle cake
Aren’t the presents kids get at three just the most fun? Her Grammy and Papa hosted in Frederick and it was a sunny day full of cute kids and smiles!
Love was, naturally, in the air
My sister Tami worked on the Moslander Family Reunion in earnest.
We shall gather near Chicago late June. Frontier Airlines to Midway, car-to-go, please.
I discovered Rice & Bean Chipotle Cheese Artisan Snack Chips
All Natural, Gluten Free, Zero Trans Fat, Zero Cholesterol
“Aged cheddar cheese and just the right amount of spicy seasonings create a flavor that is highlighted by the adzuki beans’ subtle sweetness. Together with its light and crispy texture, this artisan snack is the perfect better-for-you snack chip because of the adzuki bean’s natural healing and health properties.”
Thank-you Candi, for this most wondrous introduction. I shall ever be grateful…and smiling as I crunch on them.
We unveiled the Heaven Fest 2011 Vision at 4 small, joyful gatherings with our volunteers and team
The volunteers for Heaven Fest, the leadership and everyone who is part are THE. MOST. AMAZING. PEOPLE. IN. THE. WORLD. I love them. {Stonebrook Manor in Thornton, Jim Elliot School in Englewood, Northern Hills Church in Brighton and Rez in Loveland} Thank-you, people! www.stonebrookmanor.com
Dave was in Prairie Playhouse’s “Willie Wonka”
He played Grandpa Joe to the great delight of crowds of people. Stephanie had to assure her friends he did not really walk or act that old in real life, because he was so good and a local news article said the “ubitiquous Dave Rhoades” threatened to steal the show. And? Even though it was sprayed gray, he got to keep his hair (in “Annie” a year ago, CLICK HERE he was shaved bald)!
We had the coldest days of the year and also reached the 70s in mid-winter – all within a 2 week period!
That is Colorado for you. And though March is our snowiest month, we didn’t get any. Uh-oh. Watch out, May!
Joe & Robin came to visit!
Joe made red beans and rice (to-die-for, mmmmmm) and I made an ok batch of gumbo. That got better each day until it was gone.
Tredessa got a boyfriend.
Is it ok to say that here? Well she did and he is cute (Army) and she kind of adores his muscles (Norwegian from Florida). And how sweet he treats her (prophetic intercessor). We all like him. That works out well. And since I don’t think he even knows I have a blog, I can pass all the news about them on to you. Haha.
I lost an hour, but the days got longer.
I am not against Daylight Savings at all. It tells me gardening is around the corner. Every night, as the blue hours (l’heure bleu) get bluer and last measurable minutes longer, I sigh happily.
We announced our super-cool NEW Heaven Fest 2011 location!
My niece, Christiana, starred in a commercial for shopping in Aberdeen, SD.
She is “Dorothy,” which seems so perfectly appropriate, somehow! VERY proud of our little working actress!
There was a “super-moon”!
It’s a wonderful night for a moondance…
Tredessa introduced me to a positively lovely way of looking at sarcasm, a mode of communication I tend towards:
…the last refuge of modest people, when their soul is invaded.
Spring snuck up on me
One day I woke up – and there it was, spring! And I looked out the window to a sure confirmation: the garlic chives were taking over the back yard already!
Stormie bought a house. Yes, she did.
Look at all the colorful dishes waiting for Dessa to finish painting the cupboards.
A 1919 bungalow. Cute and in pristine condition. Great price. The last owner {Ruby} had lived there since 1944.
Tredessa moved out of her apartment in Arvada.
She will live with her baby sister.
My lover turned 52
Sorely missed at the celebration were the Powers fam. Another celebration will have to ensue.
You have to see this {all the way through} to believe it!
Yep. That is Wrex. The Birthday Singer.
“Baby Belle” (better known as Amelie Belle), turned ONE!
And? God is still faithful! And we have lots to talk about. :)
The Twelfth (and final, *sniff) Day of Christmas ~ Epiphany!
Christmas is not over until Epiphany (January 6, today), the day commemorating the Wise Men, having followed the star, finally finding and gifting the baby Jesus, so let’s just get that straight right now. That said, I could keep blogging Christmas because there was just so much (I wasn’t finished!), but I won’t…for at least 10 or 11 months.
My 12 Favorite Things about Christmas 2010
No. Not really. I can’t be bound. There were more than 12, but I will try-try-try to edit as much as is humanly possible. Please don’t box me in.
Friends.
I wonder sometimes, how I have any friends at all because I am not great at friendship. But God gives them to me anyway. Denise just gave me a gift bag full of Tetra pens. She found an ebay.com source for these discontinued writing utensils (I’d written a mournful blog about them here), once made in France and available everywhere, my pen-love, my passion, and she just got them for me. Who deserves that? I know I don’t.
Then, my 3rd Thursdays ~ we meet once a month. They are my go-to prayer partners, busy, amazing women, but time. They gave me time. And we met at The Olive Garden and laughed and talked and thoroughly enjoyed steak gorgonzola alfredo, no dainty appetites or feigning diets: we eat, we are merry, together we spread joy.
And the young “Ww/God” group? Show up at my house on a December night and let me dispense advice and cheer them on. I was just in my 20s like 5 minutes ago, right? I feel lucky to be surrounded, I am letting their youth and exuberance rub off on me.
Cards from long-ago friends, sweet letters and notes, catching up over miles and years. At Christmas, I thank God for the friends that decorate my life.
Presents with a Past
Our family enjoys the search for treasure and aren’t afraid to gift something used. The girls have become masters at finding things I or some one else once loved and would love to have again. Daughters Stephanie and Stormie run a very successful business selling hip, vintage wares (www.maydae.com) so it is no surprise. But guess what surprised me the most? Pencils! Anderson-Erickson Dairy pencils!My dad was a milkman when I was little, at an amazing dairy in Des Moines, Iowa. He did his bookwork with these lightweight, narrow pencils and always had one tucked in his ear. I spent hours and hours writing and drawing with them as a little girl. I mentioned how I missed those pencils and Tara contacted the company and they sent some out. I LOVE them! I never use pencils, but now, I shall.
I got old issues of my fav late 80s/early 90s mag, Victoria. There are the cool retro 70s TV trays, and some crazy-awesome orange 70s pottery!
Gifts from the heart
My creative family is so fun. Besides the usual gifts and odds and ends you buy at all the fav stores, everybody throws themselves into love-projects and makes things for one another. I got THE CUTEST stud earrings from Little Bits and Giggles (Jovan’s business), bright turquoisy-blue and Jeanie green. She also made me an iPod cover (very cute!). Stormie embroidered me a perpetual calendar (she embroidered a picture of Steph and Tristan for them and a unicorn for Guini, too…and Tre embroidered old-fashioned kitchen towels for Stormie – what a bunch of loves!). So many cute gifts, handmade with love (CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME).
Oh-oh-oh: platform boots! AND the James Taylor/Carole King Troubadour Reunion Tour DVD/CD set (since I didn’t get to see them live…next best thing).
One fun project was that we all painted Stephanie red-haired-girl portraits. She has an entire art collection now – of images inspired by her likeness! CLICK HERE
Plus other gifts – like my favorite Jack Hayford sermon ever from Tredessa, worship music from Dave and Tara. There is this awesome travel mug and a Starbucks certificate. Jewlery and clothes and books and music (and my husband still is insisting on getting me a new phone (iPhone – because I adore my iPod Touch so), but I haven’t let him yet. We’ll see. Too many wonderful gifts, from so many wonderful, thoughtful people.
My Christmas card.
I just love how it turned out and how I got to preach it up on the card. I HOPE some one read it and was encouraged! Yeah for sweet, longsuffering grandbebes and their ever-enduring parents. Cheers-bells-and-love to Stef and Wrex for the use of the farm and animals (and baby Sawyer to play Baby Jesus!)! Thank-you, Tredessa for snapping madly over the course of the fastest 7 minutes in the world. And thanks to Stormiekins for putting the card together and somehow fitting all my words on there. My Christmas card makes me ever-so-happy!
Family
Gavin & Hunter wrote and performed their worship song at the pj party. The kids made presents for their parents.
Dinners and craft sessions, thrift store shopping and ice skating. Christmas movies and Christmas concerts and Dave starring in the community theater – with family, all the more delightful. Grandbebes everywhere, pj parties and pancakes. We got to borrow the Phipps’ on Christmas since their families are far away. Dana came for a visit from Indiana early in the month. And right after Christmas, Elise-the-Niece and her little sister Christiana from Aberdeen came for a week to hang out. “God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68.6a
Elise with Stormie; Christiana with the kids on move-in day at Tara’s
Christmas morning
I am so blessed. My grown kids still love the magic of a Christmas morning at our house. How cool is that? So, at about 9 am, they begin trailing in and we meet in the living room until everyone arrives. Then the grandbebess line up waiting to go see their “big” unwrapped gifts from Nonna and Poppa. The chaotic joy begins!
9:30 am While the kiddos enjoy the first of the gifts (o, there are more) and the contents of their stockings, breakfast is served. The grown-up-kids are very particular about breakfast and have determined very specific food they must have so I let them. Cinnamon and orange rolls. Little Smokies. Mini-bagels and cream cheese, juices and good, strong coffee – right next to the Hot-Cocoa-Makin’-Station. Eggs and whatever else. We eat, the little ones play.
10:00 am My husband gathered everyone. He read scripture and exhorted the family. He prayed over us all.. Then we dive in to gifts!
10:15 am Paper flies, laughing, loudness. Squeals of “Oh-look!” and “Thank-you, I wanted this.” You hear “I am opening a gift from you,” so no one will miss an important reveal. Paper fills bag after bag, is mounded high. The kids are on overload. Your face gets tired from smiling. I sit is a nice chair and sigh with satisfaction at all the thought and generosity that is shared among siblings on Christmas morning. We open gifts for over 3 solid hours, alternately trying to go just a few people at a time and just everyone tearing in with zeal.
1:30 pm We look at everything and take pictures and smile and play with our new toys. We reveal secrets that almost didn’t make it to Christmas and how we hid things from one another all season long. We exchange gift receipts for wrong sizes and the little ones love the family gift-wrap wars (balling up used gift wrap and declaring a battle with some one lse – usually Uncle Rocky!).
4:00 pm The Phipps’ arrive and there are piles more presents all around. Then a big family Mexican meal and Christmas movies on the big screen until we are so tired we nearly drop.
10:00 pm Silent night. Holy, peaceful night. Thank-you for this blessed day, Father.
These are a few of the things, my favorites, that made this past Christmas season so warm and sweet. Seasons come and go, times change and things may be different in the years to come. So, I hold these days close and thank God for them. It was a Merry Christmas, not pain free, not perfect, nor idyllic, but in its zaniness and realness, it was merry. Hope yours was, too.
“I bought a new journal this week because my old one had filled up, and I had more time this morning than usual to linger with God before heading in to the day. So I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit down on the couch, and pull out the journal. I always feel strange about writing on the first page of a new journal – all those, clean, white pages, nothing yet having been set down. It feels momentous, kind of like a new beginning. Or at least a new era. What will unfold? And what shall I put on the first page? I always have this feeling that it needs to be significant. After all, this is the opening page of a new book in my life, the next chapter with God. It seems to deserve something so weighty. Something transcendent.
“Looking down at the blank page, I quietly ask God in my heart, What needs to go here?
“You know what he said.
“My love.
“So that is what I write down. That is all I write on the opening page. Two words. “My love.’ It is more than enough. Whatever else gets written in this journal, whatever stories told, whatever prayers, all the processing of life, let it all come under this. Let it be a continuation of this, His Love.”
Psalm 19.11-14 the Message
Clean the slate, God,
so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-My-Altar
What are the first words you’ll write -on this fresh, clean-slate, blank-page of a New Year?
Downtown Louisville, CO a few days before Christmas, our very own Family Ice Capades.
WINTER SKATE~A sunny warm day in the high 40s suddenly got icy as the sun set. Gavin tracked down the way to the hot cocoa and Rocky and Tristan pretty much freezed their buns off. Averi, however, who became a skater last Christmas at the age of one, was raring to go! “Bring on the double-bladed skates!” she seemed to be saying.
The skating is in historical downtown Louisville {Old-fasjioned Ice Skating}, where WinterSkate continues until February 1 (free horse-drawn carriage rides on the weekend) CLICK HERE FOR INFO, situated on “Front Street” which if you know our family….Anyhow-they played Christmas music and some 60s sort of pop-jazz (they played Frank and Nancy Sinatra singing “Something Stupid” my kinda music!) and generally made it a fun experience for the whole fam.
Boo-hoo for me. Because of the knee thing, I didn’t go. I so wanted to, but too wobbly still, I fear. Stormie and Steph in the Skate Hut where a wood-burning fire made me smell like a Camp Fire girl. Guini’s rented skates had laces to match her. Averi was first to be ready to tear out on to the ice.
ok!
It should read “Go to the bathroom at your own risk”, because they had this nasty port-a-pottie and poor Gemma had to use it. It was almost full of you-know-what, if you know what I mean and she cried in mortification when she saw it, so I sort of held her up in the air and prayed to God I wouldn’t gag (or drop her). Go pottie before you arrive! Seriously!
Stephanie and Tredessa get Gemma and Guini going. Lots of resting on the wall.
The Powers Fam. And Tristan and Stephanie coming around the end of the rink with Guini in tow (see also the 9-second video above).
Jovan captured these shots of the “original 5” kids {Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa, Rocky and Stormie} trying to relive the glory days of their childhoods when they all, at one time or another, may or may not have secretly been entertaining thoughts of becoming olympic skaters….back in the day. Remember? When skating was so big? Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Good times, huh? Haha. No, my kids loved Scott Hamilton, though!
Lottsa laughing going on out there on the ice.
Rocky and Jovanie. And? L’heure bleu. The blue hour was a gorgeous backdrop to the early evening fun.
This was my fav picture of the day {above}. The sun setting, the Christmas lights just beginning to twinkle. Guini waves hello as Steph pulls her on a sled (hey! why didn’t anyone pull me on a sled??)…and Rocky and Jovan, holding hands and pulling Averi-kins along are right behind. In the background is my husband (in his hockey skates) and Gavin is actually skating alongside Tris, which was rare because that Gavin skated 90 miles an hour the entire time we were there (taking after his G-pa)! Around and around and around he went! He didn’t need hot chocolate. He kept peeling off layers as he went.
Me and Jovanie, me and Mr Skater-man, me and Storm-kins and me and the Gav.
I WAS there…manning the video camera. This is proof.
We’ve skated. We’re cold. We’re hungry. Let’s go to Chick-Fil-A!
Well the Worship and the Word Movement & Friends Christmas Concert was a rousing success!
Incredible music: Dave & Tara Powers, Rocky Rhoades, Dan Wakefield with Todd Herbic (drums) and Stormie Rhoades (bass). They were joined by special guests Lewis and Ramona Brownwho brought the house down, Dave Beegle the world-class-guitarist, and our good friend, Mary Ellsworth, plus Churchill played! Churchill! And DJ Life (of Transform DJs, aka Luke Bodley of Heaven Fest) brought a lot of Christmas joy by spinning some high energy traditional-gone-techno stuff. My friend Heather’s sweet little girl was heard to say “I danced my butt off,” which means she had great fun, I believe. Then Ellie Pickettbrought it on O Holy Night! When Dave started harmonizing with her toward the end, wow! Actually, I mean W O W!!
I think (partially judging by the mad rush for desserts and sweets provided by sweet-Patrice of Patrice’s Pantry), we had about 600 or so in attendance. It was fun, it was touching and it was filled great joy and good fellowship. It was a great night for families and friends, for kids from 1 to 92. Just a good show and sweet worship, too.
Here is a look back at the the very end of the night when the “band-of-brothers” Dave, Dan and Rocky closed the evening. My husband, I am certain, will be posting more of the great music from the night on his youtube channel.
Finale to the WWM & Friends Christmas Concert:
Oh, AND, we collected over 2200 pairs of socks for the homeless! YEAH!
Then Rocky at church on this fine {warm and sunny} Sunday morning before Christmas, O Come Emmanuel:
Christmas is for singing, just like the angels did!
There is some great stuff out on the web particularly dissecting and thoughfully interpretting C.S. Lewis’ Father Christmas character, a man in red who brought what was needed to defeat the witch and make way for Aslan to usher in the Christmas celebration and end the Winter of the World. He represented the coming Hope of the world, the great anticipation symbolized by the evergreen Christmas tree standing strong against the skeleton trees of Winter. The Narnian Father Christmas brought the beavers and the children gifts, not like the materialistic Turkish Delight which, after consuming, caused the devourer to crave more and more, but he brought what they needed: weapons to destroy the evil of the white witch. People who delve in to C. S. Lewis’ grand factastical allegories understand much more than I ever will.
But I thoroughly empathize and understand the longing in children’s hearts around the world and through the ages who have longed for a father to love them, a father who believes in them and knows how to give them good gifts. That isn’t hard to comprehend, is it, in this day and age where so many children are raised in fatherless homes or homes where a man resides, but does not lead his family, does not fulfill his call?
I grew up around Christians spending their time trying to prove Santa was a tool of Satan (and if you move a couple of letters around, “doesn’t it prove Santa is Satan??!”) and the point has been missed, truly. The point has been misunderstood completely that while the Santa Claus our commercialistic society has created does to seem to garner more focus than the Son of God himself, though it is supposed to be Jesus’ birthday we celebrate, isn’t Father Christmas, or Santa Claus also a representation of the longing in people’s hearts for a daddy who loves them, makes them laugh and delights in them? One who’ll give them what they need to defeat the woundedness and evil in their worlds?
Father God IS the Father of Christmas who gave Jesus.
1 Tim. 1.11 says, we have been entrusted with “the glorious gospel of a blessed [happy] God.”
You have a Father who is happy. He thinks well of you. He rejoices over you with singing. He delights in you and knows how to give you even better gifts than what an earthly father could (Matthew 7.10-12]. He’ll give you all you need to defeat the enemy of your soul. That is a lot of HOpe!
I tend toward the sentimental with Christmas music. And I’m a little bit {more} country. At Christmas. For some odd reason.
But certain sings must have certain singers.
“Happy Holiday”s has to be Andy Williams.
“Winter Wonderland” belongs to Johnny Mathis.
“Drummer Boy” has to go to Bing, but Bing gets bunches of them (including “White Christmas” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”) because I love him. he is Mr Christmas!
Ellie invited me to do a Christmas music swap, my favorites for hers and I decided, though on different days I am in love with different moods and melodies of Christmas, to put together 12 songs that represented our family from 1981 to the present. They include Bing, and there is Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” but I included Whitney Houston (“Joy to the World”) and Mariah Carey (“O Holy Night”). Kenny Rogers got 2 selections (“Kids” and “Christmas is My Favorite Time of Year”) because his was the first cassette Christmas music tape we bought as a new family. I did include Casting Crown’s updated version of “I heard the Bells” because Dave really likes it and of course, the collection would not be complete with the Charlie Brown Christmas song, “Christmas Time is Here.”
I didn’t get ot include a lot of songs I love by Dolly Parton, Karen Carpenter or Elvis, Alabama, Amy Grant or the Partridge Family. I just really love Christmas music and I have lots and lots of it representing the 1940s to the present. They made thousands of recordings in the 50s, it seems and each year, a new song or two is added to my list Christmas songs I love…
And I am kinda in love with this duet, which is more about winter than Christmas, but don’t you just love Willie and Norah? I do! CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN*
It WAS actually cold yesterday for about 17.238 minutes and we actually got at least 6.798 minutes of some sleety, snow-ish, rainy/gray/sky something or another before blue skies busted back out just before sundown. I had inserted the word “finally” above the word “cold” but alas this morning, another sunny, temperate day and they are saying no snow for Christmas. But I am sure we’ll have some for May Day. Grrrrr…….
What are you singing these days?
*Willie Nelson & Norah Jones – Baby, It’s Cold Outside
