Worship

     Shane and Shane (great band, definitely recommend) recently Tweeted something to the effect of that when the Bible mentions praise and worship, it's not so much about music as the attitude of your heart. I was really struck by that statement.

     We have a whole genre of music devoted to getting people prepared and fired up for worship. Some of it is amazing, great music, and I love hearing it. My iPod is loaded down with it. But some of it is just insane, not worshipful at all (when you can't even tell the if the lyrics are referring to God...) and for some people it's almost become a prerequisite or a necessity for them to be physically and mentally able to connect with God. Every youth camp and conference you go to is structured that way, and even some churches have begun to default to it.

     I think worship is more simple and all-encompassing than all that. It's not about music, or preaching, or any number of things you can do to worship, but you can worship doing any of those things or none of them at all.
     Faith wasn't always so easy for me. As a kid trying to figure out salvation, I wanted to know in my head how it worked, and that's not something you can explain really. That was the hardest thing for me to overcome so I could get to the real heart knowledge of being saved, the actual trusting in something I had no way of ever understanding.
     But worship now, it's so simple and easy. I've never been one for big loud bands or concerts, or having some preacher who does magic tricks on the side. No, I'm definitely more old-fashioned than that, for sure. I don't like to raise my hands or jump around or yell and holler. Worship to me is much more meaningful in my heart.

Worship to me is:
     Hearing a song that's so beautiful you get goosebumps.

     Driving down the road and all of a sudden seeing the most amazing sunset - we talked about this in Sunday school this week.

     Praying while I'm all alone driving down the road (I got in that habit on the long drive back and forth to college), at night when I'm lying in bed and can't find sleep, while I'm ironing or folding clothes. I'm strange...I feel so much better praying with my head up and my eyes open. I think my brain works better that way, plus there's no chance of falling asleep while you're praying like that. It always feels like God and I are sitting next to each other talking, even if the other people driving down the road may think I'm a little crazy
     I've never really felt comfortable praying during Invitation in the altar. I always feel like my rear end is on display for everybody, or that I need to hurry it up. It's hard not to be self-conscious when you're in front of 200 people.

     Coming across a verse or a phrase in a book and all of a sudden it just hits you like 'Wow, that's exactly where I am today.'

     Praying a Bible verse, or even a song lyric, because sometimes they say what I need to better than I ever could.

     Growing up, singing 'Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow' with my family after we bless the food at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

     Practicing piano alone at church, just me playing and God listening.




     Everybody has their own way to worship. When you find yours, you know, because that feeling is incomparable. Don't try to match somebody else's, or force it to happen. It's a mind-heart-soul attitude deal. It doesn't have to be perfect, Lord knows my worship falls short of where it needs much of the time. But still, there's no excuse for not having real worship at all.

Centurion Challenge - January

     This year, I started something new. Not exactly a resolution, but along those lines. There's this thing called the Centurion Challenge. You can follow it on Twitter (@centchallenge) and on Facebook. Basically, the idea is that throughout the course of this year you're challenging yourself to read 100 books. Magazines and blogs don't count, neither do kid books. Go for something legitimately age appropriate. Sorry students, but sadly textbooks don't count either. The Bible does count, and it's good for two books (Old and New Testaments). You can re-read books you've read before, but make sure you start after January 1. No counting something you've been working on since Christmas break.
     If you're going it the Twitter way, when you finish a book, tweet: “Finished ‘BOOK TITLE’ by AUTHOR(twitter name if there is one) #(number book) #CenturionChallenge #Read”. (I'm not tweeting mine, just keeping up with the list.)
     The source for all this info is http://shatterthesubculture.wordpress.com/

     I'm not exactly following this plan to the tee. More like, I'm just keeping up a list of all the books I read this year just to see how many it turns out to be. I have no doubt it's not going to stop at 100, but it's something I've never kept up with and I'm kind of curious. Kind of like wondering just how many hairs there really are on your head.
 
     If you want to do it, go ahead and try! It doesn't necessarily have to be a Jan-Dec thing. If you're a little apprehensive, 100 isn't that many, especially when you think about it as a little less that two books a week. They don't have to be the boring classic books you read in school I PROMISE you. You'll not catch me reading The Canterbury Tales for fun! Girls, go grab a Nicholas Sparks or Karen Kingsbury and some Kleenex! Guys...I have no idea what you people read, but I highly doubt it involves Kleenex.
 
     So I'm going on a month by month tally, and in December we'll see how it adds up! Let me know if you're doing it too!
 
 

JANUARY 

Fall of Giants - Ken Follet

Message in a Bottle - Nicholas Sparks

Sing Me Home - Jodi Picoult

*New Spring - Robert Jordan

The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks

The Lost World - Michael Crichton

*The Dragon Reborn - Robert Jordan

*The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan

Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende
Handle with Care - Jodi Picoult 

*The Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan

Julie and Julia - Julie Powell

 

* - Starred books are books in a series. I have a bad habit of getting caught up in series books, so that's why a lot of my authors are repeats.

     So that gives me a total of 12 for the month of January. Check back with me next month and I'll see how I'm adding up.


     On an additional note, I'm looking for a new library. Pontotoc is...well, Pontotoc has the worst library I've ever known. So I'm going to have to choose between Oxford and Tupelo. If you have an opinion on which is the better of the two, I'd love to pick your brains!

Prayer Request

     The last week has been very trying for my family. My Papa (that'd be my Dad's dad) fell last Friday and broke his hip really badly. He was already in bad health from advanced Alzheimer's disease and metastatic cancer in his lungs, plus being 82 years old, so his already full plate really couldn't use this extra helping of trouble.
     We had hoped Friday after getting through the chaos of the ER that he would have surgery that day or early Saturday, but trouble with a less than helpful or knowledgeable hospitalist delayed his surgery until Sunday when a specialist from Memphis could come and step in. The surgery itself went well, very quickly and no complications, but this last week Papa has pretty much steadily declined. As of today he had failed his swallowing test three times.
     Today he was discharged from the hospital, and was moved to the Sanctuary Hospice House. As it worked out, yesterday when my Dad and his brothers and sisters were looking for a place for him, it 'just so happened' that their evaluator was in Oxford and could see Papa, and that they had a bed open up just when they needed it. God knows when there's a need, and He can work things out so perfectly, can't He?
     Anyway, please pray for Papa to have peace and rest, and for my Dad and his siblings and their families to have the extra strength they'll need in the next few weeks.

Papa and Granny, dressed up for church, circa 2007

    

     In my personal life, I'm having a few other difficulties that are driving me slowly crazy...and at this point I think I'd rather take the freeway and just get the trip over with. I've been waiting on news from some jobs I applied for back during Christmas, and this particular company is being painfully slow with their hiring process. I keep being told that they're still working on the paperwork, that it's still going through the systerm, but that's a long long time to wait with no real feedback to go on. I'm also having a few health issues that, added to the job stress, are making the senic route to crazy real fun indeed.

     I'd just really appreciate just a quick moment in your prayers, if you remember as you're running through your list before you nod off to sleep. Thank you all so so much.

 

The Lull Life

     This week has been kind of slow at the Falkner house. I think the nasty weather here is somehow contributing to an attitude of blah-ness. All I've wanted to do is nap all day in the recliner closest to the fireplace, with my fleece pajama pants and a big quilt.

Highlights of the week:

     My cousin Devon stopped by yesterday with her baby :)  Italy Claire was born December 19th, one more little leaf on our BIG ol' Falkner family tree. This was my first time to meet Miss Italy, so definitely a yay day. I love love love babies, especially when they're so cute and sweet and lovable! Italy was just a doll for us...a TINY little thing. I almost can't wait until I have one for myself...that's almost, now. Dev was telling us how little sleep she's had - Italy is a night owl - and how tired she is being mama while her hubby is back home in North Carolina, even with Nana and Granddad there to pitch in. I'm thinking that motherly instinct I have can stay dormant a few more years yet! But I'm sure loving sweet Italy :)

Isn't she just adorable?

    
     Secondly, this Saturday I get to pick out a new mattress! I'm currently sleeping on what I fondly refer to as the Taco Bed, meaning that it starts out nice and tall and fluffy on the sides and dips waaay down in the middle where I sleep, like a taco shell. Not that I don't love my bed and still spend some great quality sleeping time there, it just really needs some TLC.
     My bed frame is a great old antique iron frame. I'm talking traveled in a covered wagon old. I got it from my great grandmother, but it was the most awful English peas mixed with avocados green. Hideous, plus a little rusty, so we had it fixed up and powdercoated in a satiny black finish. Now it's really beautiful, and a really great antique. Can't wait until my new mattress makes it even more amazing!


     Not quite a highlight, but my mom got to do mini-surgery on me this week. Usually this is entertainment in our house, since my mom and older sister are nurses and my little sis is planning on majoring in nursing. I'm usually the guinea pig - Molly practices giving shots every other week with my B12, and they all had fun taking stitches out of my old appendix scar. But this time I woke up Wednesday morning with a horribly hurting toe - ingrown toenail. Zero fun, sir! I haven't had one since I was a little kid, but oh do I remember how much I don't like them. But I sucked it up and asked mama to come doctor on me.
     I'm really proud of myself. I didn't scream, cry, beg or plead at all haha. Only a little moist-eyed and tensing up a lot, and that's more than some grown men I've seen. I have a high pain tolerance, but I think I would have traded that for a kidney stone and quite a few migraines!
     I told Mama that after that pain, I was definitely not going with natural childbirth in the future. Not that I ever really considered it, but now I'm pretty sure that my mind has just been solidly made up. If Jesus had meant for people to hurt that much, He wouldn't have given us anesthesiologists.


     Found some cool pins this week. Some are totally unrelated to my current life, but hey, who says I can't plan ahead? :)

So true, but that's what is there for!

I like this so much better than a big calendar...and you can change it to match your decor! And the frame comes from WalMart. Love that!

Cheap WalMart or Claires bracelets...meet cheap dollar store candles!

DIY spoon rings. I have one, but it's only made for one finger on one hand. Making one that's more versatile would be amazing!

Source: kirstenerickson.blogspot.com

DIY glitter laptop case. I'm hoping that Gateway makes hard cases for my laptop so I can make one of these ASAP!

Source: lookwhatmelissamade.com

J.Crew Martha bracelet...love it. I think it'd match everything I own.

Pale amethyst ring. Love the shade of these, just perfect.

Instead of decorated chocolate strawberries, decorated chocolate fortune cookies! Perfect for people like me that aren't just in love with fruit, or for people like me who just love sweet things :)

Feng Shui

     I love to change things around, furniture and decor wise. I thing that your decor gets stale if you keep it the same way for years on end. Come on, admit it, you get tired of looking at the same four pictures on your walls, and if you sit in the same place on the couch every day you'll end up making that one place sag faster than all the other seats! Plus I'm a big believer in anti-packratism. Yes, I just made that word up. I throw things away constantly. I think it's because I've moved so many times, but I don't like to accumulate. Just having to keep paperwork like tax receipts and school records hurts me, because it's paper piled up in drawers that I'm not ever going to use. The only thing I don't like getting rid of is art supplies. That stuff is expensive! Plus, there's pretty much nothing you can't reuse somehow :) That's the beauty of up-cycling.

     Anyway, this week, I decided to get a little creative in my room. I have a pretty small room, and I really can't move the big furniture around, but I've been wanting to do some changing up with the little things like my bookshelves and my reading nook and such.

This is one new addition I just got back from getting framed. It's hanging over my bed now. I just loved the frame - it's like old barnwood, not smoothed out or finished.

My great-grandmother Angel Falkner was an artist, and I think every one of my family members has at least one of her pieces. I have this piece (Foggy Morning in the Spring) and a pretty aqua blue and cream one of dogwood blossoms (that my mama is going to have to give me back - it's hanging in her bathroom at the moment).

Don't you just love Hobby Lobby? Flowers 50% off means I get to make something for the naked corner of my room. I love the cream ostrich feathers against the plum here. And yes, my room is two different colors of purple. The long walls are the light color, and the short wall and the bay where my window is is the dark.

     While I was gone to Ecuador, my parents had a chaise and a rocking chair recovered for me. I had bought the rocking chair at an antique store and it just needed new cushions, but I inherited the chaise from my grandparents and it was in really really bad shape. As in, 'it's not coming in the house until it's fixed' bad shape. One of our neighbors does upholstery and builds furniture, so he took on the job. It came back a new being!

Isn't it pretty? And the fabric is devine. It's a kind of soft linen-cottony blend, but that creamy white color will match anything I ever want to use it with. And it sits like a dream.

I even bought new pillows. Actually, to tell the truth, that wasn't entirely my idea. The dog sort of befouled one of my other black pillows, and beaded pillows and washing machines don't go well together. Oh well, I like these better anyway!

      I had that nook built into my room specifically to make a reading nook like this. I've always wanted some place just to be able to curl up with a blanket and read for hours, and now I have it!

I just love the lamp in my nook. Isn't it just fun and quirky? I found it at Redesigning Women, a kind of thrift/antique/anything store in New Albany, for twenty bucks, and all I had to do was put the black shade on it. You never know what you'll find going hunting in there.

The mirror I got at First Monday years ago, for I think five bucks. Some clorox wipes and a few coats of paint later and voila! Beautimus.

Oh, and if I ever complain about needing more room for books, I ain't lying! I have this bookcase and another just like it on the other side of my room, and only about one and a half shelves left! I have more books than I do shoes and purses combined!

Now you've all seen where I live...or at least where I lay my head down at night. Hopefully one day I'll be able to start those dream house decorating blogs I'm already planning out in my head!

Christmas Decor

     This is a kind of long post, but since I've been kind of going crazy lately cooped up in the house, and spending WAAAAY too much a lot of time on Pinterest, and I only get to use the Christmas excuse for the next couple of weeks...ya'll get the pleasure of a good, long post! I've seen tons of amazing ideas for holiday decorating, and decided to try a few out. I don't have an apartment or house of my own to go crazy in this year, much to my dismay, but my mama is willing to let me have a little decorating freedom in the house. She just doesn't see the Christmas spirit in my purple lights and silver ornaments :)

     Okay, inspiration picture number one:

     We have a ton of red, silver, and frosted white ball ornaments from when I was a kid that we don't use anymore, and some extra 'filler' ornaments we bought a few years ago when we used to have a big tree (now we have one of those skinny ones). They still match the colors we use at Christmas, so why not dig them out again and make something pretty? So, here we go.

My pretty glitter sprayed pinecones...definitely want to wear gloves if you're going to do this. Pinecones don't stand up too well, so you have to hold them while you spray. My hand was solid glitter when I got done.

These are my glittery pinecones with the old ornaments. I just love them! I remember decorating the tree with these when I was a little bitty girl.

Dining room decor. The candle sticks are there year round - my dad brought them as a gift for my mom when he visited Africa a few years ago.

Awesome huge glasses from Wal-Mart!

I just found this random container of mini-presents mixed in with our ornaments. No idea when somebody bought them, or why, but they look cute in my bubble glass bowl!

     Fun story: This project was a little more labor intensive on the front end. The other day after we made dressing (check out my blog about it!) I went out with Mama and Grandmama to hunt for pinecones. That was an interesting experience to say the least. My grandparents live next to a whole strip of pine trees, and I'm totally expecting to go and find a billion pinecones on the ground I can just pick up. No such luck. Not a single pinecone to be found, except about fifteen feet up in the trees. I'm a very short human, and I'm not about to just shimmy up a tree just to get a pinecone. (My luck, I'd fall out and break something, and have to tell some ER doctor this story). So, my mama gets on top of my grandmama's truck, and drives up along the trees trying to knock them off. We get a few, then finally my (tall) cousin Rodney comes along on his way to his deer field and decides to take pity on us and help the crazy women get their pinecones.

     I also did a few more simple things to use up the filler ornaments. We have a ton of big glass hurricanes sitting around the house - my mom loves to put candles and stuff in them, so they're perfect for this kind of stuff.

The extra ornaments in one of my mom's big glass hurricanes for our mantle...gold and red for the living room.

Another hurricane of ornaments for our coffee table



Mantle decor this year...sweet and simple.

A few shots from our Christmas tree...I mean, I already had the camera on, why not?

I love swirly hand-painted looking oraments (who knows if this one was actually hand painted, I bought it at a Hobby Lobby after-Christmas sale!)

I love big ornaments too!

One of my favorite ornaments, it's so heavy we have to put it really close to the floor in case it slips off the branch!

And our awesome glitzy treeskirt made for us by my Dad's secretary :)

My FAVORITE ornaments on our tree. We have three, two little and one big. I may have to covertly swipe them for my tree when I get a tree of my own...

This is my room's Christmas decor. I didn't put up a tree, mainly because I have a small room, it's on the back of the house where nobody would see it, and I didn't feel like dragging the little tree down from the shop's attic. But, I do have a few ornaments out and about.

Gotta love a Christmas sock monkey :)

Favorite! I found the glasses and bottle at Hobby Lobby years ago, they live on that silver plate on my dresser. But when I found miniature ornaments to match the swirly pattern on them...awesome!

Annual Dressing Making Day

     Every year around this time, my grandmama picks a day for us to come over and spend the day making dressing. Its pretty much an all-day event - we make the entire year's worth all in one day and put it up in the ice cream and cool whip tubs we've been saving all year just for this occasion.

     Now i have no idea what the recipe for dressing is. I'm not a fan of the stuff (yeah, I know, unAmerican), and it's a ginormous recipe for anybody to try to take on.
  
     Last night we started cooking the chickens (4, whole) in crockpots. My grandmama also cooked 4.

Three of our fat chicks :)

Rule #1: Save your broth! You'll be needing it later.

     After we woke up this morning and cooked a couple pans of cornbread, Mama and I loaded all that and our empty containers up in the car and headed to grandmama's.

We make dressing out in my granddaddy's shop. It's kind of the Cadillac version of a 'shop', heat and a/c, knicknacks on the walls, full kitchen, plenty of room to spread out our stuff. If we have more than our immediate family at my grandparents' house to eat, there are tables and chairs set up in there so we can eat out in the shop.

Our mixing 'bowl'. 

Mama and Grandmama 

Our 'scoop'. Yeah, we're not too picky about our cookware around here...

One 'making' of dressing. We save up ice cream buckets and cool whip containers all year for this reason.

You have to use your hands to do this properly. (For anybody who happens to eat our dressing, we promise we wash our hands very very well and very very often!)

All our dressing for this year, about 15 gallons!

Me, Mama, and Grandmama :) 

 

These are pics from around the shop. Granddaddy and Grandmama have a ton of really awesome stuff they've inherited from their parents or older family members, and most of it's out here.

Singer sewing machine

Old radio

Tea kettles

I'm pretty sure this is a candle holder, but it's really neat

A yoke, painted with my great-grandparents' names - Hazel and Euree Hale

Super old telephone, complete with green lei. It actually still rings too.

This is a pretty amazing idea of my Granddaddy's - a recliner swing. It's pretty awesome. I'm definitely installing one in my future baby's room.

Propellers - my Granddaddy was a pilot. The first time I flew was with him on my second birthday. I asked him why there were ants on the window, and he said 'Honey, those aren't ants, those are cows waaay down there.' haha