These are the Moments I Thank God I’m Alive

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think

THE question for 2013, for me (probably you, too), right now:  Not “what time is it?”  But “What is it time for?”

“There is a time for everything and season for every activity under the heavens…”  Ecclesiastes 3.1 NIV

Edwin McCain’s voice used to stream through the musak-system of a party store I managed, the volume too low to actually hear for understanding, but loud enough we’d all to try to hum-mumble along.

The song isn’t in my top 100 or one that I even even ever thought of in forever.  But after I watched the video below (one I have liked for several years and just came across again again today), I found myself hearing his far-away voice and singing along:

And these are the moments,

I thank God that I’m alive.

And these are the moments,

I’ll remember all my life.

I’ve found all I’ve Waited for,

And I could not ask for more.

And weren’t Mary and I just discussing these things this very morning at Starbucks?

http://www.theyearsareshort.com/

In the ancient Greek language, there are 2 distinct words that mean “time.” 

One is chronos, referring to chronological or sequential time.  See a clock.  See a Dayplanner.  Think about making lists and hurrying to get them done “in time.”  Chronos asks the question, often frantically throughout my life, I fear, “What time is it?  What time is it?”  Wasn’t the rabbit in Alice-in-Wonderland having a chronos meltdown?  I’m late, I’m late for a very important date.

But kairos – it is different.  It seems to refer to the “supreme” or most “opportune moment.”  It speaks of an indeterminate amount of time in which something very special happens and is the word used in Mark 1.15:

The [appointed period of] time is fulfilled (completed), and the kingdom of God is at hand (Amp),

fully defining kairos to mean the appointed time in the purpose of God.

The appointed time!

Kairos asks this question: what is this time for?  What is this time meant to capture/accomplish?  What purpose does this time serve?  What are the moments this time is about?

Standing at the entry of this New Year with a whole houseful of rooms to explore and doors to open, the question, with complete disregard for the clock on the wall, is:

What is it time for?

This year, my life, my relationships, my work, my plans, my hopes, my dreams, my God-defined purpose…what is it time for?

Keep asking yourself that and you will be spot-on living the life you were meant to live every day of this year and beyond.  Answer this question and you won’t be rushing willy-nilly towards the future, but living each rich day with gusto in the now.

For my sweet protege, Mary, it is her time for being an amazing wife and creative, loving mommy and leading young women to finding their worth in Christ.  She is in her sweet spot doing these things.

For you?…

Six little grandbebes, playing outside

2 Mi Familia, 7 Keep Christmas

Stephanie surprised me with these on Christmas day.  {{LOVE}}

Forth they went together

Through the rude wind’s wild lament

And the bitter weather

I hear it was cold that day, brrrrrrrrr.  So, thank-you, Stephanie, for the pictures and to all the mommies and daddies who loaned their babies and especially thanks to Gavin (9), Hunter (8), Guinivere (7), Gemma May (5), Averi J (almost 5) and Amelie Belle (2 1/2).  Because they are so darn-tootin’ cute and sweet to their Nonna.

The first 6 grandbebes are my world, my loves, now adding on…!

Tweet-tweet

Stuff I Actually Think

I decided to do Twitter, to send myself, more than anyone else, encouraging messages about God’s faithfulness.

my new twitter
My first 4 tweets ever…started in November.

I never remember the terminology so I have been known to say something stupid like, “Oh, guess what I just ‘twittered’?”  And that is wrong.  I am not famous (or promoting anything) so there is no reason for anyone to follow my tweets, though good friends and family do so, of course, because they know I will like that.

But I enjoy it because I get to “hang out and listen” to people like Frank Viola, Rick Warren (who is admirable and just plain like-able, actually) and Max Lucado and a bunch of other tweeting-machines.  Some of these guys tweet so much, I wonder how they get anything else done.  I imagine an intern [insert thought-cloud here] following them around with a smart-phone, ready to tweet, at a moment’s notice, any amazing ponderance they have, every word that falls from their wise lips…

You KNOW how wordy I am

But it is also an exercise in brevity for me.  You cannot, under any circumstances, use more than 140 characters and so it forces me, as I meditate on the goodness of the Lord, to narrow it down to what I am really really really hearing/getting.  {NOTE:  If I were tweeting that and I really, truly believed there should be three “reallies” I’d have to shorten it to something like “reallyx3” so I could fit the rest of me message in.  :) }

the day the 7th grandson is being born
My 3 most recent tweets have a theme.  Two were written this very morning.  :)

It is just another way to use my words, however few, to record what I need to say,  what I need to hear, what I need to remember.  I tweet to myself to remind myself…

…whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Philippians 4.8 NKJV

Follow, if you want!  I will follow you back.   https://twitter.com/jeanierhoades1

The 12th Day of Christmas, aka EPIPHANY!

5 Songs I am Singing, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think

At the risk of being totally seasonally irrelevant, I shall yet be posting pictures and videos of Christmas.  I just will, so brace yourselves.

Though everyone rushes to do away with Christmas, today is really, the final day of Christian-tradition Christmas.  And each year I tell Dave he and I need to enjoy the observance longer by gifting each other one gift daily through Epiphany.

Because, you know how everything seems a blur and you have no superfluous time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to really reflect and prepare Him room and distribute joy to the world and hearken to hear the angel voices and all that?  Well, good grief then.  Let the 12 days of Christmas (beginning on Christmas day) be a time for it, people.

What is missed, I wonder, as we rush to set our goals, barrel into getting back to *our* lives, formulate strategies and resolutions and obliterate every symbol of the Christmas season as fast as we can?  Did we get all we could have from the season?  What if, as the song admonishes, we’d set aside time to receive the gifts of Christmas from our True Love?  Christmas Day is just the first day, ya know?

the 12 days of christmas

Today, January 6th, is a Christian Feast day (read: holiday/holy day) celebrating the manifestation/striking appearance of Jesus (God the Son) come to earth as a human being.  And the Magi showing up to worship Him.

We’ve all already moved on the Valentine’s Day and Easter on Pinterest, haven’t we? Tsk.

Somebody-please groom that dog!

The best medicine

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

Having a head cold, booooooo.  But one good thing.  Watching old movies-for medicinal reasons.

TWO yesterday!  Two I love and have watched many times before.

1]  Mother is a Freshman, 1949, Loretta Young and Van Johnson

So 1940s east coast.  Trashy novels and sororities.  The colors, the sweetness of passionate (but not sordid) love.  The beauty of Loretta Young and the dashing debonair-ness of Van Johnson.  Yes, I like it.  Very old-fashioned and lovely.

mother is a freshman, loretta young

2]  And “You’ve Got Mail,” 1998, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks

Well, I mean there is the scene where Kathleen Kelly is home with a terrible head cold.  From my own experience, I can tell you she played the scene very well…except they should have reddened her nose up more.  Don’t ask me how I know.  Here she is with her cold~

 

There are a million quotes from this movie that I adore and have adopted as part my life’s philosophy.  That is because Nora Ephron directed it, she and her sister wrote it, adapting it from a French play and her sensibilities are just, with such sweetness and modernity, spot on.  But I thought this exchange especially poignant at the beginning of a brand new year with fresh new possibilities.  It may or may not have actually caused me to cry, while I laughed.

When our heroine decides she has to close down her children’s book store, being forced out, really, by  the “big, bad, book superstore,” she lets her colleagues know at lunch~

Birdie: So, deary, what have you decided to do?

Kathleen Kelly:  Close.  We’re going to close.

Christina [sad]: Close.

Birdie, brightly as she pours tea:  Closing the store is the brave thing to do.

Kathleen Kelly, feeling defeated, yet resigned:  Oh, you are such a liar.  But thank-you.

Birdie:  You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life.  Oh I know it doesn’t feel like that.  You feel like a big, fat failure now.  But you’re not.  You are marching into the unknown armed with [pause] nothing.  Have a sandwich.

I mean – if you are trying to figure out your life’s theme right now, have a sandwich, ya know?  March into the unknown and dare to imagine!  At least with nothing, you have a clean slate.  Happy New Year!!!  *smile*

Good medicine

Furthermore – did you know you can now watch free full-length movies on YouTube (like Doris Day and James Garner’s “The Thrill of it All,” a thoroughly 1965 little-bit-of-wardrobe heaven) and with an HDMI connection or an Apple TV, you can just stream it onto your high-def flat-screen?  Oh, the-best-medicine is just advancing all the time!  :)  Why have I not known this before?

 

Yes, if I must have a head cold and be waited on hand-and-foot, then I should get to watch silly, old movies that make me happy.

Aaaah-chooo!

It’s the Music

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

By Marcie @ Dirty Laundry

Listen to the Music

To stay young

listen to the music of your youth:

it will tune you into yourself.

 

To stay young

listen to the music of today’s youth:

it will tune you into now.

 

To stay young

listen to the music of the centuries:

it will tune you into eternity.

 

To stay young

listen to the music.

I am listening and staying young, doggone it!

Averi & her IKEA doll

2 Mi Familia, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

ikea dolls

All the grand-girls got IKEA dolls from a certain Nonna (aka “Nonni,” as dubbed by a few of the grandbebes).

My first dolls were fabric, embroidered faces.  Good memories.  :)

I meant to get a picture f each of them holding their babies, but alas, forgot.  Did get a few of Averi, though, a couple of days later.

And may I say POO to Youtube for mis-identifying the original music and banning it from mobile playability???  I had to change to one of their ugh selections…YT is ticking me off. 

Helllllloooooooooooo?

6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think

So, growing up in a TV-less home for almost 6 of my very formative years, I was often found, past dark when I had to come inside, poring over the 1940s pictorial encyclopedias some one had given my parents.  Don’t let the word pictorial make you see visions of amazing eye-candy style books.  No – there were thousands and thousands of words and some grainy, black and white drawings or photos at best.

But nonetheless, I found it all very interesting and was especially thrilled when my dad bought a giant 3-volume dictionary set which had basic languages included in an appendix – French, Spanish, Italian, among several other languages like German, Dutch and Swedish.  “Buongiorno, il mio amore,” I was rather fixated on Italian.


Ahoy would have made it all very different.

So, um, yea-I actually DO visit Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com fairly regularly.  Of course I do.  And I L-O-V-E the cool stuff you pick up there, like how we came to say “Hello” when some one calls us.

I just watched the episode of Downton Abbey where they got a phone in the house.  Delightful.  You may click on the yellow telephone above to find out all about it.

Telephone synonyms: call, buzz, contact, dial, get on the horn, give a jingle, give a ring, make a call, phone, pick-up, put a call through, touch base with

There you go – fun stuff to know!

Cutting the Cord

9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, , , ,

We tried to go without cable or satellite or any type of TV augmentation once before…we made it about 5 days.

So today is a red-letter day.  We are cutting the proverbial TV cord.

We have had a gazillion options over the years (direct, dish, cable, comcast – everything) and just hate almost everything that is on TV and actually rarely watch a show when it is on anyway.  How is it possible to have 897 channels available and not be able to find one redeemable thing on when you have a few minutes???

So we figured, for instance, when Dave wants to watch that horrible “Walking Dead” show, he can use Hulu and see it a day late.  Which is fine, because he just finished watching 6 back episodes that he’d recorded months ago but hadn’t had time to watch.

Plus we got our AppleTV a year ago and even though we couple it with our Netflix subscription, we haven’t really fully explored everything it avails for us and I don’t think we will until we take the plunge.

So, we did it.  We called them.  We said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

We bought one of those exterior digital antennas ($40 @ WalMart) to get local channels in hi-def and it looks good.  But I am still hyperventilating.  I am madly surfing before they actually pull the plug with no intention of watching anything-just afraid of losing the control and selections.  And I truly hate 92% of what is available anyway.

Tell me: have you done it?  How do you de-tox?  How do you change what you have done for 30+ years?  What will help me transition when I feel like I need a fix?  Please, friends and family: get me through this.  What do I need to know and where will I find everything I neeeeeeeeeed???

I will miss Paula Zahn and Dateline on Investigation Discovery.  And for the grandkids, whom I have raised on Sprout (Caillou, and Angelina Ballerina and so many other sweet little shows), I will miss “119.”  But I will miss you the most, Judge Judy.

I take this leap willingly.  Let’s see if we can go longer than 5 days???