THE BLESSINGS OF FAMILY

We have journeyed north to Indiana and are now well ensconced here with our family celebrating the holiday. It has been great reacquainting ourselves with relatives we haven't seen in some years. Cousins have grown very tall. One has surpassed my husband already and he's only fourteen! The boy cousins are enjoying their video games and the lone girl cousin (my daughter) is enjoying being fawned over. Tomorrow we will celebrate the marriage of my husband's brother and his wife of one year with a stateside wedding reception. And then we will trek back to Atlanta on Sunday. On the way up we passed the time by playing the license plate game. We spotted license plates from 30+ different states on the way up. We saw Arizona and Oregon and four different Canadian provinces. If anyone finds Alaska or Hawaii they automatically win the game. My father-in-law has taken over reading my book, 1776, by David McCullough. It is a great read. My brother-in-law has challenged me to read a thick tome on evangelical theology. And I really need to start reading this Russian novel that my sister-in-law has recommended. We will be dining on leftovers like the rest of all America tonight and I will be counting my blessings once again as I fall asleep tonight.

I hope all of my online friends out there are having a restful holiday. I'm thankful for you as well. Blessings to all.

PLEASE SHARE...

For fun, answer these questions and we'll get to know each other a little better ~

1. What do you like to do to indulge yourself?

2. What's one book you feel guilty of never reading?

3. What is one practical improvement you'd like to make to your house?

4. Do you like silence or do you have to have background noise?

5. What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

Blessings!

A MOTLEY GROUP OF RAMBLING THOUGHTS

I just finished the last book in the Anne series - Rilla of Ingleside. I didn't think it would amount to much but this one was definitely one of the best of the eight in the series. It is set just before WWI breaks out and tells the story from Rilla's point of view. She is the youngest of Anne and Gilbert's six children. She is also the least ambitious and most immature. I found her journey to adulthood and the chronicle of events in the Blythe family to be hard to put down. Should I be embarrassed that I am enjoying these young adult books so much? I don't care. I think they are timeless.

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I recently checked out a couple issues of Christianity Today from the library. I usually don't read that magazine but was intrigued by a couple covers. The first had to do with "fixing" church discipline. The second one had Rick Warren on the cover touting his newest concept - Purpose Driven countries. Did anyone else see this? Anyway, I won't go into it because I'd be sorely tempted to slip into a cynical, uncharitable commentary. For the most part, I didn't come away from reading these magazines being encouraged or exhorted in any way. I don't know if that's their goal. Maybe their goal is to just report on what's going on in the church. The one thing that bothered me was that it seemed they were trying to strike a moderate tone. Let's not be too evangelical here. We need to reach out to Catholics and Orthodox and others. There was one article by someone who has recently converted to the Orthodox church. It confused me. The whole process of reading these magazines actually made me sad about the church in this country. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant. It just seems that we're too wishy-washy and too worldly.

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Last week I got to meet my new sister-in-law! She became my sil last September when she married my husband's brother but I wasn't able to go to the wedding because it was in Minsk, Belarus. My brother-in-law has been a missionary with CCC in Albania since the early '90s. A couple years ago he met Yulia who was on staff with CCC in Belarus. They are now in the States for a long furlough in order to get citizenship stuff squared away. This Thanksgiving the whole Beatty clan will be gathering in Indianapolis to have a stateside reception for them. Yulia is a wonderful Christian woman and it seems we will get along just fine. We're so happy for David who waited until he was 41 to get married!

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I haven't really had the time to go blog surfing lately. Part of it is lack of interest but mostly I just have hit a slump in the housework department. Maybe I need to start following Flylady again? I don't know. All I know is that I need to get this laundry under control and do some work in my dining room/school room to get it ready to host a dinner party next month. I'm going to try making stuffed rock cornish game hens. No carving on my part. Everyone gets their own bird. Has anyone else ever made cornish game hens? I assume the preparation is similar to roasting a whole chicken.

Blessings to everyone out there who still checks in once and awhile. I'll try to keep up with you too.