Seems this week is full of lessons.

Borrowing from a friend, this week has been an “emotional casserole”. It might be a very good place to stay in.

Thinking about the recent events I’ve been a part of, being active in the present seems like the lesson which God is driving home.

Yesterday,  a girl told me she needed a ride.  After finding out the details, I made myself available to give that ride.

But that’s all I’d committed to.  I was glad to take her there. That’s all.  That’s where my generosity stopped.

Even the ride itself wasn’t particular fun or pleasant as the rider was quiet, and I felt like I had to constantly make conversation.

When we arrived at the destination some 20 minutes later, she asked me if I could come pick her up.

Now here is where comfort meets calling….

I had no intention of driving her back.

I had not offered it, expected it, planned for it or considered this request.

I tried to suggest she find another someone to bring her home.

After all, I’d done enough already, right?

I had taken her there.  I went out of my way.

If I hadn’t taken her, maybe she wouldn’t be there.

After a few seconds arguing within my head, I reluctantly gave her my number, and told her she could call me if she didn’t find anyone else to do it.

I went home and nearly forgot about it.

Had dinner with my family, watched tv, and had even started dozing off on the couch when the phone rang.

It was her!!

It turns out she needed that ride, and it was close to 10pm.

I tucked the boys in, and left to get her.

As I left, I was anything but gracious. I was annoyed, in fact.

It was late. I was tired. It was raining.  It was not convenient.

But as I drove into the dark night, and listened to the Christian Radio…

I was reminded that I was doing this for Christ…

The “still small voice” was speaking.

It was reminding me that doing things to serve Christ sometimes look unpleasant.

Sometimes inconvenient.

Often, it makes no sense at all.

But you never know its reach.

You never know what the outcome will be.

When I got there to pick her up, she was standing outside the house, and that made me sad.

I felt bad that she was outside waiting for me.  She was, essentially, alone.

The ride itself wasn’t a ton of fun.  In fact, I think we only exchanged 8 words in 20 minutes.  Kinda hard for a talker like me to be quiet for that long.

Nothing miraculous happened.  I don’t feel a sudden inexplicable bond with the rider.

All I know is that I answered a simple call.

I was able, in a very tiny way, to share some of my blessings with another.

Will she be changed forever because of my ride?  I doubt it.

Will I? Definitely.

It’s good to listen to HIM!

It has just been said,
“Listen to his voice today.
If you hear it, don’t be stubborn.
You were stubborn when you opposed me.” Hebrews 3:15[NIRV]

Some lessons take so long to learn.

I should know.

As a parent, I often feel as if I’ve said things hundreds of times, and I’m still getting the same results.

Apparently, as a child of God, I’m just as disobedient. Or perhaps hard-headed.

All this coming because of simple events.

I had just dropped the boys off at school.  They had missed the bus.

After the drop off, I got some coffee.   I headed home for a shower because I had errands to run before meeting a friend.

At home I was greeted by the beep of the answering machine.  Willik had left me a message, sheepishly telling me that he’d forgotten his lunchbox in the car. Going back to school was definitely not in the plans. I was not happy.

That lasted only for a second, as I heard the Holy Spirit say — “but you GET TO take the lunch box to Willik.  Annette doesn’t get to do anything for Ellen.”

Annette is an “oak of righteousness”.  When Isaiah mentions these “oaks” in Isaiah 61:3, Dan and Annette are who Isaiah was talking about.

A week ago tuesday,  they lost their daughter after a series of tragic events.  Although they’ve been in deep grief, they’ve been able to stand firm and show thousands of people that they serve a mighty God who sustains them in the worst case scenario.

I was flooded by guilt and thankfulness as I stepped out of the house and drove back to the elementary school.

The next 20 minutes consisted of much crying as I drove.

CRYING… in thankfulness

CRYING… with guilt

CRYING… for forgiveness

… for grieving friends

… in gratitude

… in petition

… in praise

It was possibly one of the most profound and poignant lessons I’ve had with God in a long while.  I know that I will not soon forget it.

The sorrow is still plaguing me, to the point of feeling ill at times.  I cannot imagine the grief that these friends are feeling.

Perhaps the scariest thought that the Spirit brought to mind, is that here I was learning a very important lesson about gratitude, but it meant that someone else was in terrible pain.

Why was I not in pain?  Why did my lesson have to come at someone else’s expense?

It seems an awful terrible price, and I certainly don’t pretend to understand the ways in which God works, but I know that He is amazing. He made me and he knows me better than anyone ever could.  I owe Him my life, and I owe Him my praise.

I hope that I will always be able to shine His light and love brightly and that I, too, can one day be called an “Oak of righteousness” by God.

Right now, I think I’m only a Pine…

But I’m trying to at least get a photo-a-day from our trip out West uploaded, so you’ll have to bear with me, if you’ve bothered to come and look here.

After leaving our first 2 parks, we drove up to the Salt Lake area.

We were tired from alot of driving, and hung out in the hotel for quite a while, but I felt like I didn’t want to miss anything.

I’d heard /read about this Island Park, and so we decided to make the trip.

It’s on the edge of The Great Salt Lake, and boy, was it ever worth it.

Antelope Island State Park provided us with perhaps the best sunset I’ve ever seen.  This was not Montana, but it was big sky country nonetheless.

It seems Fabio had to do alot of convincing on me doing climbing up kinds of hikes; I am ashamedly, very out of shape.

I made the climb, despite the pain, because I knew the photos would be worth it.

They were way more worth it than I could have ever expected.

God is an amazing Creator, and I’m so thankful I get to have a little taste of that with the talents that He’s given me as an artist.

Here’s my favorite photo from that day…

And the name was correct.  We saw antelope.  We also saw buffalo in the wild for the first time.  And we saw a gazillion birds.

You can see more photos on my facebook page.

It’s technically not a canyon at all, but the science, though amazing stuff, doesn’t really concern me…

I’m just in awe of the beauty!

This park really messes up with your mind, because those hoodos kinda change as you move and look at them from different views.

We did a strenuous hike in the middle of the day, called the Navajo Loop Trail.  Sounds innocent, but it was about 2 hours with about 500 ft of elevation change, and the whole park was at high elevation, so yeah, I was pretty wasted after it.

I did love it though!

Here’s a picture that really says Bryce to me.

that’s the famous Thor’s Hammer Hoodoo, which I think turned out to be the boys favorite hoodoo.

The best photo for this day was this:

Zion National Park was amazing, and although you don’t get the grandeur and perspective of the size of these rocky mountains, you do get the beauty and wonder of this park.

Gorgeous, thru and thru!!

Fried rice is my favorite thing to make for an easy to use leftovers and veggies. It makes for a quick and healthy meal.

We were able to go and spend the weekend with her and her family, and celebrate her birthday together.

She’s growing up to be a beautiful girl inside and out!

He turned 35. I’m a cradle-robber.
We got to celebrate his birthday at the end of the night, down in Maryland, with our niece, who shares the same birthday.
My sister-in-law made some delicious tiramisu. They blew out candles. We ate.

Fabio is working so much these days, that even celebrating his birthday was difficult.
I managed to make a special dinner the day before his birthday. Brasilian strogonoff over rice–one of his faves. I also made some easy brownies. I wish we could have done more.

This means the boys lost some valuable time of putting into practice what they learned.

That said, some great improvement was made.

Willik no longer is afraid of the deep end, and he can jump from the diving board without a care.  He needs to work on his stamina and his back stroke.

Phoenix moved up, and made great lengths in improving on his actual swimming skills.  He feels fine about getting his head in the water, and his freestyle form looks good.

This was Phoenix on his testing day.

They are easily my favorite flower. They embody summer, gardening and beauty.

Here is one, at the Mustard Seed Plot, looking up, as it should!

We were invited by a friend to join them in a hike, which would also include a creek and some rock climbing.

We were not able to meet them early, so we had to go on our own,  and meet them there.

My boys and I started the trail, looking for yellow blazes on the trees.

That wasn’t a problem, except that sometimes the trail split, and you weren’t sure if it would come back together, or this was the turn toward the creek I was supposed to go to.

I was feeling a little out of sorts, especially since my you gest doesn’t pay close enough attention, and he kept tripping at every other step, and I had visions of him going over a cliff.

My friend called, said they too had passed the point of going down to the creek, so if I kept walking, I should meet up with her.

This eased my mind a bit, and we kept eating our sandwiches and walking.

Soon after, we were rewarded with spotting a deer about 8 feet from us, and I was able to get pictures!  I know!  It was a minor miracle.

We kept walking some more, and a few minutes later, met up with our friends and the fun began!

We had the pleasure of getting to do some “real” rock climbing, with an experienced belayer/climber, so it was a treat.

My oldest loved every minute, and was a regular little monkey/bear on those rocks. The youngest, not so much, though he at least tried.

I even climbed, and I haven’t done that in like 14 years.  I didn’t make it all the way to the top, but I got real close, and I have some bangs on my legs to prove my efforts.

This was the best photo of the day…

Then there’s 4 more from the past….

April 28

Willik playing the saxophone with the school band

April 29

The race for education

April 30

The last set of paintingsI worked on for 30day artist.

May 1

this just felt like a photo that should be black and white. Willik playing the bass with Got Strings? at the Strawberry Festival in New Hope!

Yummy zucchini lump crabcakes.  Deliciousness. Perfect way to use lots of shredded zucchini from the garden.

I think it was the first time I saw the sun’s rays at sunset…

We were just leaving Peace Valley Park after a lovely picnic dinner, and I’d given up on taking pictures because it was just getting too dark, when I spotted this!

Thank you God for your majesty in nature and creation!

I have a record of the chrysallis before hatching. I will post more later.

For now, enjoy this gorgeous black monarch…swallowtail.  Eastern Black Swallowtail. Thanks for the correction, Lorraine!

The boys looked so handsome, and Willik had said Phoenix looked like a boy model.  So I decided I should take some pictures.

This one was my favorite.  Just look at the love on Phoenix’s face.  Willik often does not realize how much his brother adores him.

Since they were posing, here’s one more.  They are indeed, quite handsome, aren’t they?? I guess I’m biased!

The, the back up photos from April.

This includes April 23, 24(Easter), April 25th(my birthday) and April 27th.

As you can see, I’m missing some days in there…. Life must go on, even if I did not snap a photo.

Soon,we will move into May….

107 yeah! art supplies!!

108 macro close up of a tulip

109 the garden in a friend’s yard

110 silliness in Lancaster

I had technically stopped at 100.

So here’s 101-105… in that order…

101 Willik at the Reading Olympics making faces….

102 the moon looking gorgeous during the day time

103 a close up of the barrel of a “gun”

104 raindrops thru the dashboard

105 palm sunday presentation, synchronized…

Yesterday was a rainy day.  Actually most of the weeks have been rainy.  April was to be showers, may was to be flowers, but it’s mostly been non-stop showers, and occasionally you get a chance to actually look at flowers without getting wet.

Anyway, yesterday, despite some rain, I had taken pictures, but I kept my camera in my car, just in case.  That was the best decision of my day.

It turns out that at Phoenix’s piano lesson, I was able to spot a nest of house finches who built their nest on the wind chimes right at her back door.  What a treat to see little baby birds close up.

Sure, they are a mix of cute and ugly, but they are a treasure.

Here are my best shots… I’m hoping to go back in a couple days and get a couple more photos…

I did take a photo on this day!

I just haven’t uploaded… til now….

96

97

98

i’m almost caught up!

A fuzzy plant, which I think is part of the willow family.

I bought it as a prop for my artwork.

I can’t believe it’s fuzzy texture.  Very cool!

Look what he made!!!

Enough said!

After school, and after homework, I coaxed the boys into going outside, rather than sitting inside to watch TV.

Although they didn’t thank me, I think they had a good time…

Not from doing art, but from doing too many other things, and barely finding time for art.

In order to see my daily art, you have to go to the 30dayartist website.

Or you can like my artist page on facebook.

I will continue to post my daily project365 photos here.

The day before yesterday, we attended a spaghetti dinner concert for Willik’s Got String? orchestra.

Here’s my favorite picture of him…

I love how concentrated he is.

Yesterday, I was at someone’s house with a beautiful backyard, but I didn’t have my camera.

Instead, I took a picture of my cup of paint water.

I love how the paint swirls when I just do a quick dip to get some water in my brush.

It’s cool how physics are working to do that, even though I don’t understand any of it.

You may be seeing more artist at work pictures this month than you care too!

What’s crazy is, that we had the biggest April Fool’s joke here, because we woke up to tons of snow.

So, I took pictures of snow while we drove toward Philly, for our breakfast date.

This was my favorite of the bunch…

Also, today is the first day of what will be a very busy month for me.

I am the featured artist for the month at a website called 30dayartist.com.

You can go there each day to see my artwork.

I did this last may.

The goal is to try to get 40 pieces done during the month.

Thinks it sounds crazy?  It is, but it’s also fun!!

So, I was walking outside, just to see if any other flowers had bloomed, and I spotted droplets.

I ran inside to get my camera, with macro lens, and this the result!

This was one of the leftover crocuses that came up late, and hasn’t died yes, despite the snow,  cold, and tons of rain we’ve been having.

March is leaving like a lion too!

I went to visit a new friend who has chickens.

I had a blast taking pictures of these chickens.  They were skittish sometimes, and some of them were bold and came right at the camera.

Can you believe I took almost 400 photos?

The beauty of digital is that you can delete all the bad ones.

Anyway, here’s the winner….

And did you know that chickens have clear eye lids?  Yup, compare the next two photos…

They can also look so regal…

…and as you probably noticed, they have unique and individual eye colors…

And they can also look at you funny!!

But mostly, these Rhode Island Reds love their “mom” and she loves them!

And they live and free-range in a beautiful place!

Thanks Barb for sharing your chickens and your eggs.  Thanks for the coffee and good conversation.  It was a great morning!

Caught this one just in time!

Thank you God for such lovely colors!!