The Painting

This is a painting my daughter did for me. 

This is the reason for this blog. 

God gave me this verse one night when I woke up in a place I didn't want to live in anymore.

Where God is there will be peace. 

I had the name peaceful dwellings for this site. 

But someone else took it.

That's fine. They can have it.

Peaceful Habitation is actually a much better title for this blog, because where you live there should be peace. Where you work, there should be peace, where your children go to school there should be peace, because this planet that God created is our home. And we need to have peace here.

The definition of habitation is: The state or process of living in a particular place.

This is our home. This is where we live. 

We need peace.

According to Isaiah 32:18 God promised his people would live in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. 

I'm getting a tad bit sleepy here. I've been working on this blog since 7:00, it's now 10:10. I missed a game of words with friends with two of my nieces and my mom back in Indiana and Michigan.

I have to go.  There is so much I want to share but I have a job I need to be on time for in the morning.

I just wanted to explain my blog title in a little more detail.

So there ya go.

Have a blessed week!

Christmas in August?

 Yep, that’s right!

I’ve got some Christmas in my home. I was tickled pink when my klove app on Roku updated and I found the Christmas music. I have some peppermint sticks in my cabinet from last Christmas that I am contemplating opening up. They were a gift from my neighbors for my daughter and I. I don’t know if you are the same as I am, but Christmas music is okay any month of the year. Usually around June or July, I need a little “Christmas Fix”. We have Christmas music on our media player at work, and during the summer I told some of the students that on July 1st they should wear Christmas socks(I wore mine) or red and green socks or red and white socks. I wore my snowflake socks. I played some Frosty and Rudolph and we got down dancing in that classroom.

Good times my friends…good times.

I love my job. It’s a lot of fun. Even with crazy Covid rolling around we still managed to have a fun, busy, exciting summer with fun activities for learning with the kids. I did car line and cleaning…lots of that. I think that there should be a title for car line teachers and admin. Coffee Bars have BARistas, maybe car line assistants can be CARistas.

What do you think?

Too cheesy?

Maybe so, huh?

Moving on…

Christmas is now 117 days away. I cant’ believe it. All I want this year is a Covid-free, brotherly love-filled, all my kids and grand kids in my home, Christmas-loving bonus, let’s all hug blizzard-style kind of white Christmas. (Did I leave anything out of that list??)

I could use a little Christmas miracle right now.

Everything will be okay. The “old” me(pre-Jesus) would be freaking out about now. I would be having sleepless nights and snapping at everyone around me. Dont’ get me wrong, I have had moments in traffic, or times where the bank account said $1.25 and I needed to pay a utility bill, but I will say in those moments of fear and doubt God still took care of me.

I have this peace though that I know because of those past moments I can say, it’s going to be okay.

My rent will be late by a week, I had to make payment arrangements for my car insurance, and I still have to register that car. Thank you Jesus that I was on the tip-toe edge of the cut-off date for the extension. My registration literally expired on the very last day of the extension dates.

WHEW!

Raise your hand if you can relate.

I do count my blessings. I have a job, a roof over my head. My children and I have our health (with my occasional allergy flare up in the form of a sniffle or watery eyes). I have food in my belly, which to be honest I could afford to miss a couple meals…just a couple though. I have what I like to call a “Pandemic Pouch”. It’s S L O O O O W L Y going away and thankfully it won’t fit a baby kangaroo in it, so that’s promising.

I have been blessed also with some amazing church friends. They are wonderful sisters in Christ that I can turn to and we are all there for one another. We had a game night the other night and I never laughed so hard. I almost wasn’t there, but one of my friends from the group texted me the day of the game night and asked if I would like a ride. With all the mechanical issues I have been having and it shakes at the red lights still, I am so afraid to drive my car in this heat. I figure when we hit the low 90’s/upper 80’s if I stall on the side of the road it will be a little more bearable. Eventually I will find a mechanic who knows what they are doing and they WILL fix my car and all will be well again.

I won’t lie, it’s hard for me to accept help. I am usually the one who wants to help others. I am too stubborn and set in my ways to ask for help. I missed an important class at church last week because I didn’t ask for a ride. My friend, who for now I will call Betty, said she would have given me a ride. But I wouldn’t ask, because yes, hard headed Barbie would rather figure it out on her own and watch life pass by before her very eyes.

That’s called pride ladies (and gentlemen), that is also called a sin and I am working on that part of me. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to be vulnerable. We cry out to Jesus first, then we can cry out or ask help from a friend or family, whether that is our blood family or church family.

Christmas Eve by Trans-Siberian Orchestra is on now. I was waiting for this song. I turned it up. Sorry upstairs neighbor, it’s only 7:50, I promise to turn it down when this is over.

Spiced Chai tea sounds good right now. It’s 8:10. I am trying to get all my ducks in a row as I attempt to make my blog live.

I hope this works.

It will.

Hope to be back soon.

As my dear friend Myrtle use to say, “If the good Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Randomness

About 4 weeks ago I had to take my car into the shop. While it was hanging out there, my daughter and I were hanging out here while we made plans to head to Chili’s. We figured we would make it one of our many mother/daughter days deciding also to head to Michael’s after dinner for some art supplies. The guy called me around 3:30 and said my car was ready to pick up. They still haven’t fixed it and that is a story for another day. So we went to pick my car up at the shop, it cost almost $400 to fix it; a coolant reservoir($230) and a throttle body flush(I thought I was getting a new one to be honest, I plunked another $139 for that thing). Picture the confused look on my face when the mechanic told me what those were and how fixing those two items may or may not fix the problem.

I often pray “Lord send me a godly mechanic husband”. I am still waiting.

On a positive note, I was just happy it happened on a payday weekend. God definitely worked a miracle there at least. I paid the guy behind the counter and it’s ten minutes before closing. My daughter and I head out the door to my car and she hops into her seat and is already buckled and glued to her Iphone in a matter of seconds. It’s about 10,000 degrees out(that’s what it felt like as beads of sweat dripped down my forehead), I open my door and stick the key into the ignition, turn the key…”click, click, click…“, I think to myself “this cannot be happening” and I turn the key again…”click, click, click...” I know that sound all too well… It’s the sound of a dead battery.

I go back into the shop and inform the guy behind the counter that my car won’t start. They are closing up and shutting off lights and the one guy says to the other guy, “Did Barb just say that her car won’t start?”

What I wanted to say was, “Yes Barb did, and Barb is very hungry but will still smile because she is trying very hard to be like Jesus in this moment, despite the fact she just plunked down a good portion of her check for her car to be running and it’s hotter than bacon in a frying pan out there.” What I said instead was “Yes, that is exactly what I said. I believe it’s the battery. It’s dead.” So he took his little machine out there to see for himself what I said was true, and sure enough it was dead. He didn’t need the little machine, I know the sound of a dead battery. So I ended up spending another $149 for a new battery that has a 5-year warranty. This desert heat eats up batteries, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I get two more free batteries in that five year period.

He finally installs the battery and finally we are on our way to Chili’s. It was a very good meal. We had a relatively good time. We played our usual games on the little machine there on the table, enjoyed our appetizers and our meal. We were finally ready for dessert. My daughter isn’t much of a cheesecake fan, so we opted for the hot fudge cookie dessert with the ice cream on top.

The waitress brought it to our table and I was talking to her about how to redeem my free rewards item and I grabbed my spoon as I was talking to her. She walks away and I dug into that dessert not realizing how toasty hot that hot fudge really was until it hit the right corner of my top lip.

I jumped and my daughter laughed so hard.

Then I started laughing and we just kept on laughing. I then proceeded to say “Is that pan hot?” and I touched the goofy thing.

She laughed even harder.

We were happy to be heading to Michael’s. However, as we drove to the mall we noticed the parking lot was quite empty. It was only 7 p.m. It was then we realized all the stores closed at 7. I am not going to dwell much on that C-19 word floating around these days. It’s gotten enough attention and I am not pretending it doesn’t exist, but all I want to know is, does that C-19 come out after 7? I want to know. The sun was still up. People were eating food at the restaurants. Does it only like to visit art supply stores and clothing, shoe and party stores attached in strip malls after seven?

We seriously didn’t understand why all those stores were closed, but the Walmart down the way was open.

Interesting.

We were a tad bit annoyed, then we laughed about how ridiculous it was that they closed so early and realized we couldn’t control it(the stores being closed at a weird hour) but we knew we could control how we reacted to the minor inconvenience. I just drove us back down the road into the sunset. We arrived home, grabbed our food out of the car, hopped on Netflix and enjoyed leftovers later on that evening.

Welcome to My Blog

 I am so happy you are here.

I honestly have no clue what I am doing here as far as the layout of this blog. I have no idea which column this blog will end up in. I don’t even know if the columns will still be there when I am done.

I’m technologically challenged.

I am sure I will figure this out over time so please bear with me if my blog is a tad bit scary looking or looks “light” at the moment. It’s a work in progress…I’m a work in progress. We all are a work in progress I suppose.

This blog is not meant to be “preachy” by any means. However, as Paul wrote in Romans 1:16 “I am not afraid to share the Gospel of Christ”; I’m not. Ask any of my coworkers, friends and even my neighbors I love to talk about Jesus, I love to read my Bible. I listen to worship music. I also listen to Country and Christmas music.

Does this make me some Superpower perfect person?

Far from it my friends…I am just as broken as every other sinner on this big blue marble we call Earth.

I have so much to share. I decided to write this blog as a means to first, share the Gospel, second, to make people laugh, cry and know that when the chips are down in your life, you are not alone.

You are never alone. There is a Savior out there who, no matter how bad you have strayed from the Father, He is still hanging onto the back of your shirt saying “I’m right here. I know you are angry right now that you lost that job, but I told you in Romans 8:28 that ‘all things work together for good’, even when they don’t seem so good in this moment. I have something much better for you. This moment is just a speck of your life, a tiny season.”

Sometimes though, He let’s go of your shirt and you wander off even further from Him. He is like that mom or dad sitting in the bleachers while you played baseball for the first time and tripped running to third base. Oh how badly your mom wanted to run and kiss your knee and hold you tight so she could “make it all better”, but she let you brush it off on your own and and eventually you figured out how to maneuver the field and make it to home.

I hope this journey we share will be an enlightening one, not just for you but for me also. We are God’s children, He created us in His image. We can share a cup of coffee, glass of wine (or a beer if that’s your style…not mine but hey, no judgment from me ) and share this life journey.

We can laugh, cry, ponder and question life and how our amazing God fits so awesomely in it. If you think God doesn’t exist, I’d still love for you to sit at the table here(or your dorm, or patio, or wherever it is you are right now) and hang out with us. If you have questions you’d like to ask, please email me. If I don’t know the answer we can find it together.

So get cozy, grab a warm or cold drink, pass the cookies please, and let’s get started.