Cleaning cleaning cleaning

One of the things I’m going to be taking away from my summer adventure in Wisconsin is a feeling of purging. After living with my grandparents and seeing how much my grandma has hoarded over who knows how many years I can see that I could easily get stuck down that road. I have a pretty small apartment and have it too full if you ask me. When I get home it will be time to clean, throw away, and rearrange. I’m actually kind of excited about the thought. I want to feel comfortable inviting my friends and family over and not feel like I can’t because my place is such a mess. I want to host a tea party with my friends or coworkers. I want to have sleepovers with my niece. I’ve decided that I’m going to make a goal of inviting people over to my house once a month. I love being a hostess! So what am I waiting for? Time to get things they way I want them to be in my apartment and enjoy living there.

Wisconsin Diaries - Baby Shower

From 7.7.13

Today I finished up a baby quilt and stuffed monkey for a baby shower that I’m going to. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I don’t even know the woman having the baby. Haha! She is my mom’s cousin’s daughter-in-law.My grandma was invited and it turns out that she doesn’t even want to go now. I laughed when she told me that after I had already finished the gift. Oh well, I’m still going to go. I’ll know some people there and this is a good opportunity to fight the fear of man that I so easily struggle with.

I finished reading the book “When People are Big and God is Small.” Everyone should read that book! I was challenged so much with my view of people and my view of God. Since reading the book my prayer on a daily basis is that I will fear God more.

Wisconsin Diaries - Quilting

From July 6, 2013

I’ve been making some progress on my quilt! I’m so excited! I have to laugh though. My grandma is very much into traditional quilts and doesn’t really like what I’m making. There are definitely traditional aspects of this quilt I’m putting together, but also some non-traditional parts to it. When I first bought this fabric I knew I wouldn’t have enough to use it across an entire quilt. So I decided that most of this quilt would be the solid fabric with a band of the patterned fabric in the pinwheel style. I really like the idea. I think it is going to turn out nice. Grandma was giving me a hard time tonight when I was laying it out and trying to figure out how I was going to put it together. She kept trying to tell me that I needed more squares and how to arrange the colors the way she liked. Multiple times when I told her I liked it the way I had it she said, “Well, to each his own.” Yup, that’s right. I like how it is looking and I think I’ll like how it looks on my bed.

Quilt Progress!

My quilt is coming along! I think in the next couple of days I'll have the top done. Then to layer and quilt it all. Not sure if I'll be able to do that here or if I'll have to wait until I get home. But I love how it is turning out!

Summer Reading

One of my goals for the summer is to read as many books as I possibly can. As I was packing for my summer in Wisconsin it was really hard for me to chose which books to bring along. I have a major tendency to buy books and then never read them. I think I brought about 15 books with me. They are almost half and half fiction and non-fiction. So far I’ve finished 3 books: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Helen Keller’s Teacher, and The Adventures of Edgar and Allan Poe. So far they’ve all been juvenile fiction, but honestly I have no problem with that. My plan is to alternate between fiction and non-fiction.

So now for the next book I picked up “When People are Big and God is Small.” A good friend of mine gave me this book a while ago and I and just now picking it up. Usually when I read non-fiction books it takes me forever, but this one is different. I’m already several chapters into the book and boy am I feeling convicted. I’ve always known that fearing man is something I’ve struggled with, but after starting to read this book and answer the questions at the end of each chapter I didn’t know how so many of my actions show how much I fear man.

At the end of the third chapter the author encourages the reader to make a list of your actions that demonstrate a fear of man both from the past and the present. Oh my goodness!! I started making my list and it made me realize how badly I’ve feared man throughout my life.

So within the first 4 chapters of this books I’ve felt extremely convicted, but I’ve also felt challenged and comforted. I’ve felt challenged to be much more focused on Christ and comforted over how much God loves me.

This passage really stuck out to me as I was reading tonight. The author asked, “Will you trust in man or will you trust in the Lord?”

“Cursed is the one who trust in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.
Jeremiah 17:5-8