Courtney

Click on picture to see the entire collage.

See Courtney's Blog for an update.

Spring Cleaning: Making Paths for Peace and Beauty

"I hope your day is filled with beauty to overflowing; wherever you go, whoever you are with, whatever you do, whatever you say. May each one of us, yield our hearts, throughout the moments of this lovely day, to the One who is Love; opening wide to to His ways, that he might live and move, and have His being, in us, and through us." ~Jewels

It's that time of year again - time for Spring Cleaning. Usually, we set aside a big chunk of time to take down and wash all the curtains, wipe down all the walls, clean the windows, pull the stove out and mop underneath, etc... But this year, I'm taking a different tack. I'm spreading the cleaning jobs out over several weeks - and spending some time focusing on our routines: taking a fresh look at what we do and how we do them; what works, what doesn't; where we need to change in order to accomplish what's important to us.

Just read this post over at A Study in Brown about how our routines and planning for order in our homes makes room for peace.

I was discovering that if we live in a state of continual reaction to our circumstances, we find ourselves submitted to chaos. All our life becomes urgency and disorder. We need to step out of that and craft an environment that highlights and embraces the beautiful and the lovely. This will allow us to respond thoughtfully and appropriately to the needs in our lives. (and in the lives of others.)

So, this year's Spring Cleaning is focusing on "crafting an environment that highlights and embraces the beautiful and lovely," looking at our routines to see how we can make sure we're

focusing on what really matters, and rearranging our schedules in order to have the time to "respond thoughtfully and appropriately to the needs of people in our lives."

Happy Birthday, Ashley!

It's official. We now have THREE teenage daughters in the house. Celebrating Ashley's 13th with the family at her favorite restaurant: Outback.

Your Word Have I Hidden In My Heart...

I've realized that I haven't memorized Scripture in a long time and decided to sign up for a Scripture Challenge: To memorize the book of Colossians in a Year. I read about it on my favorite blog: A Holy Experience by Ann Voskamp.

I printed out 3x5 cards with two verses per week on them and pasted them into a small booklet like the picture above. I found that it was too easy to lay aside the booklet and forget (neglect) to review the weekly passages. So I searched around for some on-line tools to help me stay on target.

Here are a couple of tools that I have found very helpful for practicing:

This one converts your verse to just the first letter of each word.

And the one I use the most is Scripture Typer. I list out the verses I want to memorize and it keeps track of my progress. A daily reminder shows up in my email box and it provides the little push I need to actually DO IT!

I am behind schedule and working hard to catch up. This week is a review of all the verses we've learned so far this year. I'm using the extra week to get back on track!

Where in the World is Courtney?

This week: in Ireland spending her spring break with some friends of ours in Galway - Ray & Rebecca Clancy - a lovely couple we met last year.

Lucky for us, the elusive and camera shy Courtney was caught unaware by a stealth photographer and we are able to bring you this rare and exclusive photo.