drawer full of stuff

Not sure why I started, but I just spent a couple hours cleaning out my desk drawer - (maybe because it was so full and had so much stuff piled on top of it that I could no longer close it nor could I get to the file drawer below it.)
Yes, I said a couple hours - for just one drawer only 15" x 15" and about 3.5" deep (plus the 2" piled on top).

In it I found:

• an old drivers license
• several old credit cards (that I never used)
• a budget from 1996 (Dave Ramsey would be SO proud)
• LOTS of notepaper and sticky notes
• about 40 pens and other miscellaneous writing utensils
• an old gummy eraser that is surprisingly still soft!
• the 1997 article about Ben's surgery that I've been looking for
• my marriage license that I had also wondered where it was
• old greeting cards that I thought I needed to save
• Endust wipes to keep my computer screen clean
• old photos
• old negatives that I found about 5 years ago and was going to scan back then
• the remote to my box fan
• a few phone cords (hmm... wonder if I still need them)
• an old statistical calculator (that I still don't understand how to use)
• a large button calculator (ahh - THAT one I do use!)
• an old "tot" stapler and 2 boxes of staples most likely purchased in about 1967

There were more things, but already I can't recall what they were. I'm sure I'll need them sometime, so I don't dare throw them away.

My dilema now is that the nice clean 15" x 15" drawer is already filled about half way back up with my pens, markers, glue sticks, shears, ruler, calculators, staples (I did consolidate the 2 boxes of tot staples into 1), a few notepads, etc., and I still have a mound of items in front of me with no place to put them.

Oh, was I supposed to get rid of some stuff???

Maybe next I'll take an inventory of the "stuff" buried in my heart that has been forgotten or hidden underneath everything that's been piled on top. I expect I'll find some treasures that need dusting off and readied for use again as well as old items I've hung onto needlessly.

Yup, time to clean that drawer too.

Search me oh God and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there's anything wicked in me. Ps 139

perfectionism - the curse

I should have known this would happen - I set the bar too high - thinking everything I put on my blog needs to be creative and noteworthy. Therefore I don't write anything unless I have this great inspiration with corresponding photos.

Let it go Judith!!
Think about the word "blog". It doesn't sound too thrilling does it?
Blaaaahhhg...
How boring. How mundane.

So I've just given myself permission to write random thoughts that may go nowhere. Okay - permission granted - will the brain and fingers take that permission and just write???

Only time will tell.

Growing old ~ growing young

This morning, as I was “waking up with Dave and Michelle in the morning” (aka, listening to my favorite radio station) they relayed a great story. Apparently their young son, in shocked amazement, had recently announced,

“Dad, you are growing lines on your face!”

I have a similar story that has lived in our family for years.

Mom worked as a school librarian, maintaining both elementary and high school libraries in two different wings of our small town K thru 12 school system - and I might add that is where she earned every grey hair on her head, not at home!!

Here are a couple photos to put this in context:

You can see that she gracefully grayed while standing behind that desk, stamping check out cards and shushing noisy students, but what isn’t obvious is that the hair at the nape of her neck remained very dark.

One year she decided to let her hair grow a bit longer so she could wear it pinned up in the back ~ a lovely “french twist”. So as you can imagine, when seeing her from the back, that lovely dark hair from the nape of her neck became the prominent color.

On one particular day, as the kindergarten class filed quietly into the library, (quietly? oh those were the days!!) a little boy let out a gasp and announced,

“Mrs. Pierce, your hair is turning black!!”

Mom loved to tell that story and obviously now so do I.

What is it about the innocent observations of a child that catch our attention?
Is it that we long for that same ability to observe the basic things of life

with awe and wonder and fascination

without criticism and judgment?

Oh for the heart of a child…

“Unless you humble yourself as a little child, you will not see the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 18

following in my footsteps

I recently saw some pictures of my great nieces playing piano. They were having lots of fun, making memories at Grandma's house (which just happens to be the same home where I grew up.)

Aren't they adorable????

I remembered an old grainy photo that was taken of me when I was a child in the same house ~ a different piano, but located in the very same spot in the house!

All together now.... aawww!!!

After I got all misty eyed about the concept ~

my sister living in the house where we grew up,

her kids coming home to experience family heritage,

her grandchildren experiencing the joy of

the modest little house that love built in 1944

~ I got thinking of something else...

So these little girls are now doing and loving what I used to do and love so many years ago, but does it go any deeper than plunking a childish song on a piano?

If they are following in Great Aunt Judith's footsteps, I pray that it will be the footsteps of a godly woman following Christ as best I can ~

certainly not perfectly, but learning as I grow

Once again I'm reminded of a song...

"may all who come behind us find us faithful

may the fire of our devotion light their way

may the footprints that we leave

lead them to believe

and the lives we live inspire them to obey"

365 days ~ 180 degrees

The other day I was pleasantly surprised by a lightness in my spirit and a bounce in my step. I caught myself thinking, "2009 - it's gonna be a good year."

Then I thought back to just a bit over a year ago and vividly remembered how differently I felt at the time.

It was December 2007. I was so weary of Jim being in Muskegon - a 150 mile drive each way every time I wanted to visit.
So tired... how long could I keep it up?

...and then he got moved.

Closer to home?

oh no - transferred to Kinross - twice as far - 300 miles from my door to his.
I can't do it - that's what I thought - I just can't do it.


Thank God for my wonderful siblings.
We were all together in Mio anyhow, so surrounded and strengthened by all of them, we made the journey together to see Jim.


Even so, it was really awful. I was just so depressed and kept thinking, "I can't do this anymore."
Dark days...

Then in January it got worse.
My beloved brother-in-love Roger died suddenly. Perhaps even more difficult than his death was having to see Marge and their daughters go through such pain.
So hard...

Darker days...

There's a song by Sarah Groves that I love called "Less Like Scars". Some of the lyrics are:

It's been a hard year, but I'm climbing out of the rubble...
I feel you here and you're picking up the
pieces...
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation,
but You are able...

Well a year has passed and

1. I've found the strength to make the long trips to Kinross
2. Marge and the girls are moving through life with God's strength
3. and I have been pleasantly surprised by that bouyancy I felt just a day or so ago.

I'm reminded of another "song".
This one a bit older than what Sara Groves wrote.
Psalm 40ish is one that I always come back to

year after year,

crisis after crisis,

discouragement upon discouragement.

It says...

Why are you so downcast and why is your spirit disturbed within you?
Hope in God because you know you are going to praise Him again!

and back to Sara's song...

Just a little while ago I couldn't feel the power or the hope - I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing

Just a little while back I was desperate,
broken, laid out, hoping You would come

Oh He came of course (was there all the time) and once again turned me around 180 degrees and set me steadfastly facing the future once again.

...hope in God, we will definitely praise Him again.

Yup, 2009... it's gonna be a good year.

Daddy's Memorial website

This website was created in 2004 as a memorial to

Walter Dale Pierce

but it has great old family photos

and memories of both

Dale and Rosamond.

Check it out by clicking on the title above

and enjoy...

Nice coat

Why do I wear black wool pants in winter?
Because they are warm for one reason, but unfortunately they are lint magnets - especially in the cold dry air in Michigan.

So there I am, in Sault Ste Marie, in a WalMart bathroom, using my newly purchased roll of sealing tape as a lint roller (try it - it works great!) when a woman comes out of the stall behind me and says, "nice coat."

Side Note: It really is a nice coat - very warm with large fur trimmed hood - perfect for the 20-degrees-below-zero-weather it was that day.
The coat had been Daddy's last Christmas gift to Momma just before he died in April of 2004. Of course I had taken Mom to Penney's that year to help her purchase a new coat, then when we came home, she modeled it and proclaimed to Daddy that was what he had just gotten her for Christmas!!
The next winter, after Momma died, I decided I would wear the coat as a constant reminder of the warmth of Momma and Daddy's love for each other as well as for me.

Okay, back to my story...

Barely turning around, I started to say thanks to the woman, but then immediately noticed that
she was wearing my coat
- well actually it was a coat identical to mine.
I chuckled and commented that "they really are nice coats aren't they?"

As she replied, she pulled her coat closer around herself and said,
"It was my mother's coat. She died last year."

I looked at her and said,
"This was my mother's coat. She died 3 years ago."

Two daughters ~
Two coats ~
Two hearts full of love for the wonderful women who loved them.