Celebration and Repentance

Today is Yom T'ruah, or Rosh Hoshanna. You can Google it for yourself, but here are a couple of sites that I found with some explanations. This one is audio.

What I could understand is that it is a day to celebrate the next 10 days of reflecting on your spiritual condition to prepare for atonement. Whenever this horn was blown it was for specific reasons and everyone's attention given. Some info on the shofar horn said that it may have also sybolized God's own voice.
Since Jesus the Messiah became my attonement, I appreciate the need for times of remorse for my daily sinfulness, remembering my unworthiness, because it draws me closer to my Lord. But God doesn't want us to "dwell" on this because He deserves my joy and gratitude for redeeming me in spite of all my garbage. I'm often overwhelmed with the realization that He has actually made me His precious heir, and that He has very intricate plans for my life.

Flooding

After days of steady rain, many counties around us (northwest Indiana/northeast Illinois) have been declared a disaster area. We have to boil our water and stay out of the flood waters. Our home escaped with only 2 inches of water in our basement, which is nothing compared to those who have lost everything.

When waters started receding many of our townsfolk came out to look over the damages in our little downtown area, which is situated beside a lake where our dam broke. Some streets are still closed off from flood or sink holes, and some bridges are crumbling apart. According to the weather history for our area, the last flooding this bad was 100 years ago, so we may not see it this bad again in our lifetime. Maybe that's why everyone was walking around taking pictures, like Steve and Deliverance were.
For more pictures visit Deliverances flicker pictures.

Slacker

... that's been me lately. For those of you who were faithfully checking my blog for new posts, sorry for wasting your time by not having anything new for long stretches at a time.
At first I was just under the weather for a while, then we got excited about looking at new houses on the internet, and visiting them.

Deliverance and Josh asked us if we would like to go in with them as co-owners for a house that has related living and we are looking forward to it (since we have the greatest kids in the world). We looked at some that wouldn't work out, but just recently we found a nice Bi-level out in the country that has a flat on each level, and an acre of land. All the others we looked at needed work done and things replaced, which we were prepared to do anyway, but this one has been kept up nicely and is in perfect condition. Even though it is a little more than we wanted to pay, we eventually decided it was a great buy.
We still have to wait about 6 weeks before we can move in, so that part will be tough, but we are very excited to move into such a nice home. I probably won't want my old furniture to go into it, but there isn't anything we can do about that - until later.

Related living is more popular in some other countries where it is probably more of a necessity. It seems like a good idea for family members to pool their incomes in order to have a better place to live. I've heard that families did that a lot in our own country's history, and some obviously still do since I saw houses listed as such. It keeps the family support system close at hand. I imagine it also teaches patience and tolerance.

Well, I will be busy clearing out all the stuff I don't want to pack so I don't end up storing things in our new house that I haven't used in years. After 30 years in a house and 34 years of marriage, we have plenty of stuff that we can live without, which haven't seen light in almost as many years.
I won't be blogging much for a while, but I hope you will still check in on me from time to time. I will try to make an occasional post until I can get back to normal after we get settled in a couple of months. We'll have fun putting our personal touches into that huge yard, too.

Have You Forgotten

It's not politically correct to remember, but I've never been able to understand politics anyway.

Awwwww

When Deliverance and Josh moved into an apartment for a while, there were no pets allowed, so I get to have their rabbits parked on my back porch. It's very convenient whenever I get an urge for cuddling something cute and soft. Ceilidh and Lady Grey are irresistible, and so sweet you could get a toothache!

They also have a play yard to jump around in. Stevie stopped by on his way to the car to pet them. He still works at the cinema 2 evenings a week and has made friends with his co-workers who watch out for him.
Bunnies are natural prey for our dog Scooby, so we keep them away from each other. Even though he's a gentle dog I don't want to take the chance.

The bottles of frozen water can cool them on a hot day if they want to cuddle up to it.