California On Fire

I don't have much time, I'm at my cousins' house in Phoenix right now. This morning was the funeral for my great-uncle Bob. In case you didn't know, there are several fires going right now, one pretty near our city. Naturally, it's pretty scary for me being so far from home and not knowing if I'm even going to have a home to go to tomorrow. Read Ashleigh's blog, and Mrs. Mishel's blog, to read updates on how the fires are going. Pray, oh please pray, for all the folks affected by this already, and the ones who will be affected; the ones who lost their homes, had their homes damaged, or are fighting the fire.

Tiny Blessing

It is with great joy and gladness, and praising God, that I announce to you that ARIANA MICHELLE was born at 6:03 this morning, 19 1/2 inches long, weighing 7 lbs 11 oz. For those of you who don't know who she is, she is the newborn daughter of our pastor and his wife. As all their family is across the country, we get to play 'relatives'. We have said for a long time that Pastor Daniel and Miss Melonee are like my big brother and sister. My mom gets to play grandma. And me, well, I'm the aunt. So as a proud aunt, I'm going to show you a bunch of pictures.

Staring on the top, the first is the hospital picture. The second is Ariana in her proud Daddy's lap. Next is me holding her when she was only eight hours old, and the last is my mom and her.

And now I'll include a video her daddy took of her when she was only a few minutes old:

Ariana is Greek for 'most holy one', and Michelle, the femine of Michael, is Hebrew for 'who is like the Lord?'. Every finger and toe, even fingernails and toenails, she's perfect. Complete. I think it's the first time I've ever held an 8-hour-old baby, and it was an amazing experience.

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139: 13-14

Season's Firsts

O.K., so I love the cooler weather that comes with this time of year. So much so that I have to write a whole post just on how much cooler it's getting. You might ask, just how much cooler is it getting?

Well, yesterday for the first time of the season I was cold wearing just a T-shirt (and pants, of course -- I don't want anybody thinking wrong things here), and very comfortable wearing a flannel shirt on top of a T-shirt.

And last night I slept in a sweatshirt for the first time of the season.

And, the crowning joy, last night I had my first hot chocolate of the season. So naturally I had to take pictures of this Big Event, and post them here. First came the hot water...

Then came the cocoa powder and the stirring...

And then, O joy, the sip...ah, the sip...

So of course I just had to tell you all about the wonderful changes being wrought in the weather, even here in sunny Southern California. And just to put your mind at ease, I will assure you that I did enjoy every sip of that hot chocolate...and I'm looking forward to another cup pretty soon!

A Great Weekend

Thought I'd post a few bits and pictures from the weekend my mother and I just spent with some of our best friends. These friends of ours currently have 18 horses on their property (about to be 19) but only 10 of them actually belong to them, not counting two mustangs they just adopted for the purpose of training for sale. In the picture on the right Red is on the left side and is mostly obscured by Tony (Heart of Tonapah) on the right (see his perfect heart?!) Pockets is a mustang they trained through the Mustang Makeover program, and to read about that go to http://www.mustang4-u.com/ and his picture is to the left.

They also adopted a mustang all their own, an 18-month-old colt they named Montana -- isn't he a cutie!?!

I took a lot of pictures, and some of them turned out pretty nice. Below are two more, one of a mare named Dusty, one of a loveable mule named Rudy:

And I figured I'd include one more, of the layout of their ranch:

My Daddy's Website

This will be a short post, just wanted to tell y'all that my dad has a great website for old motorcyle lovers (that's old-motorcyle lovers, not old motorcycle-lovers!), The Motorcyle Project http://www.motorcycleproject.com/. If you love the old bikes (or, since most of my readers are ladies, I should probably say 'if your husband or dad loves old bikes) check it out! Love ya, Daddy-O's!

And, as a side note, in case you hadn't wondered, we now have fall colors! I love autumn, with the changing leaves (yes, a few do change in Southern California - but not very many!), the cool crispness in the air, and all the lovely fall colors. :-)

Sally and Signing

My first bit of news is that Sally appears to be dead. The other day I noticed her simply sitting on the bottom of her jar, and by Monday morning her legs were curled in and she did not move or react when I jostled the jar, causing her to flop around. She has been like that ever since. I do hope it was nothing I did...I know she didn't starve to death, because she could've munched on that cricket. I don't know what happened. At any rate, when we're completely sure she's dead, and that she doesn't have a bunch of spider babies just waiting to make an appearance, she will enter my famed dead bug collection.

The other bit of news is that this morning I did my first Deaf Event for my American Sign Language class. Three classmates and I met at a nearby mall to talk, drink lemonade, and window-shop. We're only halfway through our SL1 class, so we have a very limited vocabulary and found ourselves glad that one of us had brought along a laptop. We did not talk, except for a tiny word here and there, but if we wanted to say a complicated sentence with a lot of words that we didn't know, we'd use his laptop to write the sentence out. For the most part, though, we used our vocabulary or fingerspelled. So now I have to write a report on the Event, and take care of some other necessary educational projects, so that's pretty much all for now.

Great Links

I don't have much to say right now, but I came across some great posts by my friend Miss Heather from Just Laugh; the posts are Terrorism and Cancer, and Remember Them. Even if you don't agree with the first (why, I don't know, but some people don't), prepare to be impacted by the second. As the host of one of my favorite radio shows likes to say, 'have a great day -- it's the one the Lord has made!'

Prayer

Before I begin, I want to define what I meant by devotionals. I plan to post at the first (or near the first) of each month. These posts will each be a spiritual lesson that I have found meaningful, whether written by someone else that rang true with me, or something that the Lord has taught me that I then wrote out. So this first one is what the Lord has been teaching me lately about prayer.


Prayer
By Rebekah N.

One thing the Lord has really been bringing home to me lately is that He likes to, wants to, talk to me. He loves me, died and rose again for me, and wants to spend time in conversation with me. That souds so trite until you start thinking about it – really thinking. The Lord, the Creator of the universe, the Ruler over all that is, the One that set the planets spinning, governs over every proton, neutron, and elctron, and made everything out on nothing in 6 days (and could have made it all by a thought, but instead spent 6 days to give us a lesson and an example), He is the God that wants to talk to me. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the One who was, is, and is to come, Jehova, the I Am That I Am, He wants to talk to me. Me. Me who is like a dead worm compared to this Almighty God. He wants to talk to me.

You know, when I think about it this way, it starts getting harder to tell Him no. Harder to say, like some answering service, "I’m sorry, I’m busy right now, please leave a message or call back later." I think you know what I’m talking about: that nudge, that still, small voice, that says,

Come talk with Me. Come, sit at My feet while I teach you. Tell Me what’s bothering you, or what you’re thankful for, or just talk. I want to talk with you.

And when we do talk with Him, so often we give Him our grocery list of requests and desires, and that’s all. It’s like we’re saying,

Well, O.K. Lord, I’ll talk. But since we don’t do this very often, I better tell You right now everything I want. So Lord, would You please do this, this, this, and this. And this person needs this. Oh yeah, and I want this. And You really need to do this. And while You’re at it, could You do this and this too please? Thanks. Amen.

And if you’re really spiritual, you’ll make that Amen very deep and resounding. Aahhh-men. You might even tack on in Jesus’ name. But is that what He’s really asking for when He interrupts my busy schedule and asks for a conversation?

So what I’m trying to say is, I’ve been finding out lately how nice it is just to have a conversation with Him. Anywhere, anytime. Not just dumping all the requests, although they are important, and He has told us to be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6) He does want us to ask Him for things – but ask like we’re asking our loving heavenly Father, not a grown-up Santa Claus. And not just asking, either – praising is *so* important, as is just simply conversing with our Friend. After all, He’s not just our Daddy, He’s our Brother too.