Terribly Interesting

Hello, friends of Gomer, I missed blogging and renovating last week because I was with my momma. My sweet brother Mike went to be with Jesus six years ago and I make sure to always be there when his birthday rolls around. Denbigh was at the office so the Cherry girls and I packed up the family truckster and drove on up. We spent the day at the zoo, watching movies, and eating ice cream. Grand baby love is sweet healing to the soul. I'm waiting on my man to finish some things in the bathroom so I came home and continued working on the floor in the guest room. I'm halfway done with filling the cracks as of this writing. It's tedious stuff. I can't wait for phase three. Pray me on through phases one and two. Filling and sanding. Then we get to the glorious stain. Yippee.   My man sold our old Honda (the hog Honda) to a junk yard. We can use that money to fix our van and then sell it (and the other 3 cars we need to sell). Do any of you need an old...

I fell head over heels for this book, y'all. Sophie might be my new bff. I found myself wanting to reread the book once I had reached the end just so I could spend some more time basking in the Southern charm. I'm serious. If you live anywhere in the South, you can identify with Sophie. She tells the best stories about our family trees. I laughed out loud. I may have snorted. Her stories about her mother-in-law and her parents are hilariously endearing.  Let me tell you the one thing I loved about the book more than any other thing. It's the way she talks about Jesus. As we peruse our Christian books, most are often preachy and dry, but she accomplished a rare feat for her readers. She talked about our Jesus in such a natural way that it catches you off guard. Her delight and enjoyment of Him flows easily in her stories. She has given us a unique gift. Grab a copy and enjoy. Delight. Warning: This book will make you want to consume large quantities of bacon and c...

It's Valentine's Day and I am super excited. I think it's a Southern thing because we just love people a bit more than normal..and we love the idea of loving people. Every one always wants to tell you how hard marriage is and I would have to agree, but it is also a beautiful gift. Jesus has trusted us with someone to love. We think we are signing up for some grand need meeting romantic adventure. The truth is that if you are submitting your covenant to Christ daily, you signed up for gut wrenching emotional death through sanctification so that you might give true life to your spouse ( and yourself). That, my dear friends, is work. To stop complaining and jump in the spiritual fox hole to pray is our calling. If you want to evoke beauty, my advice is to simmer down and pray whole heartedly for God's idea of betterment for your spouse. Pray blessings. Speak blessings. This year, I prayed through Praying For Your Husband From Head To Toe as part of my Valentine'...

Hello, friends of Gomer, Last week we all packed up and went to visit our family. It made us miss a few few work days here, but I have found that grand baby love has special healing properties. Who am I to deny that?  The last few days I have been working on stripping the moulding around the doors in our bathroom. The people who have lived here really loved to paint. This is evidenced by the layers and layers of color as I remove it. I found a hideous peachy pink layer. Oh lawdy. It made me think back to when our bath tub was sponge painted in pinks. Speaking of bathtubs, cast iron ones are cold in winter when the floor is cold. It makes the water get cold fast. Denbigh and I have been dreaming up ways to heat it. He says we should just put a bunsen burner under it. Hopefully one day when we have heat downstairs, it won't be so chilly because the floor won't be freezing.  Dear Jesus, send spring. Amen.  We have several groups coming here ...

I recently journeyed  through Brennan Manning's last literary offering, The Prodigal. He had wanted to write a novel on grace. His desire was to place God's mercy center stage in story form. Though ailing at the end of his life, with the help of Greg Garrett, he was able to accomplish this. I'm generally skeptical of most Christian novels because they seem to detach from reality and head straight into a processed cheese that is hard to digest. I went into this partially expecting something great from Brennan and perhaps a little bit of this over the top Christian fiction.  In this story about a mega church pastor who fell from grace, we witness the depths of depravity. Jack got drunk and had an affair. The one person who he would have never expected to receive grace from is the only one offering. This act of kindness catapults Jack into the throes of God's radical healing mercy.  All in all, I truly enjoyed the book. When I turned the last ...

Friends of Gomer, do y'all like my new wallpaper in my bedroom? It says, "Lowes: Never Stop Improving." Totally motivational and romantic. My man finished doing the house wrap around the exterior walls inside of our bedroom. Our walls are solid wood. People are always wanting us to keep that look. Those people are crazy. You can feel the wind from the outside through those cracks. Next up for our room is foam and sheetrock. It's pure glamour over here. Send help, Abba. Send windows.  We took the guest bed out of the guest room so I can work on the floors. I started filling the cracks in with twine and putty. The bed went in to my girls room. If you remember, they (and some guests) broke their metal frame and had been sleeping on the mattresses on the floor. The bed looks beautiful in their room. It was given to my grandmother when she married my grandfather. It's close to a hundred years old. I stained and refinished it many moons ago.  My man made a cr...

I absolutely love to plan. If I don't write things down, they simply don't happen. I love having a planner around, but I never found one that was perfect for me. I love Well Planned Day, but I needed a bit more for my daily goals. I also enjoyed Donald Miller's productivity planner, but as a mom I needed more. The same with Ann Voskamp's. Recently, I downloaded this from Etsy and customized it to fit the things I like.  p On Donald Miller's productivity plan, he has a cloud on the side that goes down in percent through the day. It is a reminder that we need to do the work that needs the most concentration first. He also had a line for rest and reward for accomplished goals! I don't really do that for myself. I keep going until I pass out (except Sunday afternoon. I love Sabbath!) He also had a line for Life Theme. What a great way to stay on track. From his, I also took the Projects. They are limited to three. Can I get an Amen? The questions about what w...

Several years ago I read a five book series entitled the Chronicles of the Kings. It told the story of several of the kings of Israel. The historical fiction helped the story come alive to me. I enjoyed those books so much. I had received this book in the mail before I realized that it was the same author that had written that series. I was truly excited to dive in. p I truly enjoy historical fiction because it helps me put some humanity with the biblical context. You can see the day to day struggle that the people went through. In this case, it was the Jewish people being freed from exile in Babylon and allowed to return and build the temple in Jerusalem. You can see families torn apart. Some left and some were comfortable in Babylon. Some had begun changing to be like their Babylonian neighbors and no longer cared about the things of God. As you read the Biblical narrative, you don't see the length of time of the hardship that accompanied this journey.  p I had a great...