Grand baby Emma

Today I drove to Austin to visit oldest son DC, his wife AA, and their daughters Avery and Emma. Such a joy to be here!



Here is sweet Emma who is 2 1/2 weeks old and is being held by her daddy. I was lucky enough to hold her tonight; my heart overflowed with love.

Our Spiritual Path

“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We’re here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don’t have time to carry grudges; you don’t have time to cling to the need to be right.” 

~ Anne Lamott

Thanks to Quaker Dave for bringing this beautiful quote to my attention.

All Together Now!

This is only 1 1/2 minutes long and is so funny! Watch!

I am so excited!

I am excited because I get to spend the next week in Austin, helping with my new baby granddaughter, Emma. I hope I'll be able to hold her frequently and often.

Plus, I want to help Momma AA and Daddy DC in any ways they would like. There may even be some fun time with Avery, the new big sister.

I'll be going to Austin on Sunday after church, leaving Chuck behind.

We have a new hybrid car, which has bluetooth capabilities, so I could talk to friends while I drive. That looks like it will be fun, too.

I feel so lucky that it is my turn to go and help!

My son posted a picture of baby Emma with their dog Sampson tonight:

 

Listening

“In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. This is a moment of great risk and great courage, for it ushers us into a different way of being in the world. Over time, we may even cease to be people who listen and become people who are listening, people whose very being is shaped by the posture of listening. This is the posture of the servant, whose attentiveness is not a sign of cringing compliance but a mark of human life lived ever more fully in the Spirit of love (see I Sam. 3:10).”

                                                                      ~John S. Mogabgab

                                                                         Editor, Weavings magazine

I Samuel 3:10

          Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

NOW

“Presence is what we are all starving for. Real presence! We are too busy to be present, too blind to see the nourishment and salvation in the crumbs of life, the experience of each moment. Yet the secret of life is this: There are no leftovers! There is nothing -- no thing, no person, no experience, no thought, no joy or pain -- that cannot be harvested and used for nourishment on our journey to God. “

~Macrina Wiederkehr

Sweet

Avery holding baby sister Emma, almost 3 days old

Emma's Grandparents

Thanks to son DC taking pictures of the grandparents!

Blessing of a Second Granddaughter!

Today at 12:40 pm daughter-in-law AA had Emma Faith in Austin, TX. Emma was 6 lb. 5 oz. and 17 inches long. Chuck and I are rejoicing that she and her momma are doing well.

Son DC posted this picture of his two girls at birth. They look pretty similar though one picture is almost three years old.

Emma and Avery

Democracy: The Process is More Important than the Outcome

Fair and eloquent assessment of the current impasse in Congress of the USA by Fareed Zakaria:

Why Cats Purr

As a woman, did you ever wonder?

By using Zite on my iPhone, I found the formula for a woman's BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). It was startling to find out the rather low number of calories (1300+) I could eat to maintain my weight--if I sat around all the time. Still, it gave me a baseline idea of the number calories for a non-active day.

"The National Institutes of Health reports that the best way to lose weight is by taking in fewer calories than you use. That does not mean you shouldn’t watch what you eat. In fact, by not limiting your calorie intake to a number formulated to suit your age, height, activity level and gender, you could sabotage your chances of getting to an appropriate weight.

"Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
The Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR, which is sometimes interchangeable with your resting metabolic rate, is a calculation of the number of calories you burn when using the least amount of energy, such as when you’re asleep. By determining how many calories your body uses when doing nothing, you can establish how many calories you need to take in each day to maintain — not lose — your current weight."

How To Calculating Your BMR:
To calculate your BMR use this formula, which is specifically tailored for women:
655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years ) = BMR

From here.

Soon, Very Soon!

Soon Avery will have a new baby sister! We are waiting for this October baby to arrive.

Avery, AA and DC

Church Rummage Sale

Tomorrow is our church's annual rummage sale, For two days they have been accepting donations.

We got rid of some things, but I am most pleased with getting rid of clothes. I finally gave away most of the too-small clothes I wore 15-20 years ago when I was the thinnest I have ever been in my life--when I was suffering from clinical depression and was walking 6-12 miles each day. I guess I finally accepted that I will never be that thin again! (But I am a much happier person now.)

I also cleaned out our odd assortment of sheets and tied up "sets" with purple ribbon (that curling ribbon that I don't use much any more). There was quite an assortment of twin sheet sets that our four kids used over the years and left here at home when they moved on.

I know of two Methodist churches that are having rummage sales tomorrow, so there will be three in close vicinity to each other. Hopefully, all the churches will sell most of their stuff!

Humanity Is An Ocean

I loved this so much on Facebook that I had to post it on my blog. This image is a gift with all the disruption in the U.S. government right now.

Namaste Cafe also posted a lovely piece about Gandhi, so go here to read it.

Waiting for a Sign

In so many ways in our lives, we wait for "a sign" for action or even non-action. Guidance! Where is it?

I have RA, and my two medicines are controlling it so well that I only see my rheumatologist every two months for a check-up. The last time I saw him, I had delayed my Humira injection by three days because of a late return from a vacation.

He suggested that I might want to continue to try a longer time period in between the shots, even up to three weeks (instead of every two). For the last two injections, I have waited 2 1/2 weeks, with no ill effects.

This week I decided to try waiting for 3 weeks, which will be on Friday. I am taking it a day at a time. Four more days to see if there is a sign of swelling or pain in any of my joints.

If not, I will keep trying to go for three weeks in between shots. I like the idea of taking the least amount of medicine needed, especially with such an expensive one. It is much easier to schedule the injections with complete week intervals, rather than half-weeks--3 1/2 days added on makes it too difficult for me to keep track of!

With my doctor's guidance, I reduced the weekly intake of methotextrate in the past year from the maximum to half of that. However, after a few weeks, I discovered that I needed one more pill than that. By jockeying the dosage, I learned what works best for me. (The reduction also stopped my hair from curling which you can see here.)

I am hopeful that my physical signs/symptoms (pain-free or not) will indicate the path to follow. It worked before, so I am confident that this will happen again.

As Julian of Norwich said, "All shall be well; all shall be well; all manner of things shall be well."

Friday Five: JOY

Today's Friday Five for RevGalBlogPals:

RevPal Mindy recently shared this quote:

Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction.

Break the habit. Talk about your joys.

~Rita Schiano

What are your joys? Places? Food? Activities? Books? Season? Hobbies? Smells? Colors? To inspire you, Mindy came up with THIRTEEN things that bring her joy or make her happy. So go for it! 

~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Books! 
And reading to my granddaughter Avery is something else that brings me joy.

Avery and Jan, Christmas 2012

Avery and Jan, Christmas 2011

This picture is already two years old, but it also predicts the future because soon Avery will have a baby sister, for whom I will love to read!

2. Family
I have four adult children and a husband of almost 42 years, but there are few pictures of all of us together. With DC living in Austin, AE in Seattle, BJ in Houston, MJ in Salt Lake City, and Chuck's parents in Bellingham, WA, we rarely are all in one place these days.

I found one of three of our kids (but not DC's wife or child) and Chuck and his parents.

Friday Harbor, WA; August 2012: MJ, BJ, DC, Chuck's mom, Chuck, and Chuck's dad

3. Texting/iPhone

Getting an iPhone this year opened me to the texting world. It's a quick connection, especially when pictures are shared. When MJ received the teapot I sent her, she texted this picture to me:

MJ in her kitchen in Salt Lake City

4. Creches, which I collect.

Over the years, I've created a cache of nativity scenes. Many were given to me by members of my family. I have pictures of seven them here.

This is one Avery can play with! AND notice that Mary is holding baby Jesus!

 This picture also points to my love of the Harry Potter books, which I've read at least three times. I think of reading the series over again, but the task is too time-consuming and long-term right now.

5. Learning to play the piano!

Jan

I started taking piano lessons from a friend in August 2011 and keep on keeping on. It is a joy to play what I can, which diminishes when I don't practice.

That's true of anything, like prayer. Remember the old adage: The more you pray, the more you want to. That's how it is with practicing the piano, too.

Prayer

“Prayer is the voice of longing; 

it reaches outwards and inwards 

to unearth our ancient belonging.”

~John O'Donohue

We Build Walls

“We build walls around our hearts, around our homes, around our land, around our borders to keep out strangers, the different, the other; to protect ourselves from getting hurt or from having to share our space with others. We guard our hearts, our land, and our country with great vigilance until the very guarding obsesses us and we become so outwardly focused and defensive that we lose touch with ourselves and our humanity. In our efforts to protect and defend we become disconnected and fragmented.”

Edwina Gateley
Source: A Mystical Heart

From Inward/Outward. Subscribe here.  

Fall!

Officially, Fall or Autumn is here. That lovely time of year rarely appears in all its glory here in south Texas. Here is a lovely picture I found on Pinterest of fall in Bulgaria. I miss the leaves on trees turning yellow, orange and red.

However, we are unusually fortunate because yesterday a cold front blew through, which often occurs a month from now. Instead, we have much less humidity and cooler temperatures for today. This can be "fall" and "summer" will return tomorrow.