Mountain Musings

A Musical Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours! Last night we all enjoyed the Girotti Family's annual Christmas program. The tradition began back when the kids were knee high to grasshoppers (as they say down south)!

Back in the early years, Tom read from Luke 2, and all four kids participated in the nativity story as Joseph (Micah), Mary (Hannah), a shepherd (Jonathan), and an angel (Sarah). Here's a picture from '89. Is that adorable or what?

As the years go by the productions have gotten a bit more sophisticated with various readings, solos, duets, flutes, guitars, whistle, keyboard, and hammered dulcimer being a part of the program. All the kids work hard to come up with the songs and arrangements each year. Jonathan and/or Hannah types up a program for us to follow along and sing on designated songs, and Aunt Bet participates by reading poems and stories. The rest of the family listens, enjoys, and asks for encores of our favorites.

One of the songs this year that was a favorite was "See, Amid the Winter's Snow."

"See, amid the winter's snow, Born for us on earth below, See the tender Lamb appears, Promised from eternal years.

Hail, thou ever blessed morn! Hail, redemption's happy dawn! Sing through all Jerusalem, Christ is born in Bethlehem."

A new one to me this year was "Jesus, the Light of the World" written back in the 1890s. The tune has stayed with me all today, and I think I may request it again next year!

All our company leaves tomorrow. What a quiet, less rambunctious house this will be without the two dog cousins barking at each other!

We hope you had a wonderful celebration of Jesus' birthday! See you next week on the blog!

~Deb

My Next Reading Project

Deb gave me this book about a year ago (last Christmas), and I am just now starting to read it. I really look forward to it!

From the Introduction by Tryon Edwards, 1851: "The subject of these Lectures is eminently practical and important.  Love is the first outgoing of the renewed soul to God - "We love him, because he first loved us."  It is the sure evidence of a saving work of grace in the soul - "The fruit of the Spirit is love." "

From Lecture 1: "The word [charity] properly signifies love, or that disposition or affection whereby one is dear to another... [re 1Corinthians 13] And by the apostle's mentioning so many and so high things, and then saying of them all, that they profited nothing without charity, we may justly conclude, that there is nothing at all that avails anything without it. Let a man have what he will, and do what he will, it signifies nothing without charity... Love will dispose the Christian to behave toward God, as a child to a father; amid difficulties, to resort to him for help, and put all his trust in him... It will dispose us to praise God for the mercies we receive from him... Love, again, will dispose our hearts to submission to the will of God, for we are more willing that the will of those we love should be done, than of others."

~ Tom

Giveaway Winner Announced!

As a Vision Forum Affliate, we are excited about the special promotions and giveaways which are planned to advertise their affliate program--including this first giveaway, The League of Grateful Sons DVD.

Are you an affliate? You can be...and you could participate in giveaways just like this one on your blog. Join now!

Okay...down to business. Here's Tom (in Jonathan's absence this morning) drawing the winner's name from Jonathan's World War 2 helmet. Drum roll, please..........

Congratulations to: Becka!

Becka, please email me your mailing address as soon as possible (girotti at ntelos dot net)  so I can forward your name to Vision Forum as the winner of our giveaway!  We hope you enjoy the video.

~Deb

Christmas Giveaway

Here's our Christmas giveaway - compliments of Vision Forum.

The League of Grateful Sons is the untold story about the godly legacy of the fathers of World War 2. We've seen this DVD as a family and thought the stories and experiences of those men who fought for our country were very encouraging, heroic, and commendable. Click here to watch the trailer for this film.

Would you like to own a copy or win one to give to a loved one? All you need to do is comment on this post and tell us why you would like your name to be the one drawn. The contest ends this Thursday, December 20th, at 8:00 p.m. EST.

Since Jonathan is our World War 2 buff, he will draw a name from the pool of commenters and will post the winner's name on the blog. The winner must furnish us with their name and address no later than Sunday, December 23, which we will send to Vision Forum who will ship the product to the winner. Thank you to Vision Forum for this generous offer!

See you back here on Friday morning for the drawing results! In the meantime, this week I'll be busy writing my Christmas cards (I'm so late!), finishing up some knitting I'm doing for gifts (will I finish in time??), wrapping presents (none are wrapped!), planning menus and baking for company, and working on another secret gift in my spare time! Is anybody else as behind as we are this year?

~Deb

An Icy Sunday Update

Well, I would say it's a winter wonderland outside this morning with trees sparkling in the sun with lots of ice from last night's freezing rain, but when your husband works for the power company, it's a winter work-land!

Yes, it's Sunday, and Tom is also supposed to be taking vacation this week...but there are folks out there without heat or lights. I'm sure if I were in that situation I'd want those workers to get busy restoring power so my life could get back to normal! So when the phone rang at 3 a.m., out he went. Our area is also supposed to get high winds later today which could make the power outages even worse. But...aren't we glad this is happening this weekend and not next? Yes!

For those who have asked about Hannah, we are praising the Lord that she is feeling much better. Yesterday she felt like sitting up in bed doing some cross-stitch, which is a big improvement! My cough is also a little less this morning, and the guys didn't catch this from us. We were especially praying that Jonathan wouldn't get sick with exams this past week. Thankfully, he's finished for the semester...yay! [You might want to check out the interviews over on his blog he promised from the conference speakers a couple of weeks ago--probably best listened to using high speed.]

Many, many thanks for all the prayers for Hannah and for the emails and phone calls asking how we were doing. We appreciate your concern and are so thankful we can use the blog to ask for prayer and folks will start praying! Thank you! Hopefully, another couple of days of recuperation, and we'll be ready to get busy baking and planning for our family arriving on the weekend.

Check back here tomorrow for a giveaway that Vision Forum is sponsoring, allowing us (as their affliates) to offer our readers a wonderful gift, and you can win it!

~Deb

Giveaway over at The Gathering Place

Julie and Alli over at their family blog, The Gathering Place, are having a wonderful giveaway. Check out their 100th post for your choice of art painted by Tony, the dad. The three prints are beautiful, and it's very hard to choose my favorite! But...I think I'd have to pick Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal sitting side by side. Make a comment and a selection soon; they draw a winner this Friday, the 14th, at noon!

~Deb

Please Pray for Hannah!

Unfortunately, we've had some sickies in the household since we returned from the weekend at the conference, and Hannah has been the sickest with a diagnosis at the doctor's office yesterday of pneumonia! Sarah is much better, and I'm hopefully on my way to improving, although you can't tell it by my bark! The guys are hanging in there. If you think of our family, we'd appreciate your prayers for complete healing before relatives arrive next Saturday. Thanks!

~Deb

Answering a Couple of Knitting Questions

In the recent post about my visit to the quilt and yarn shop while at the conference, my sister asked what colors of yarn I purchased. I decided to take a picture of them all so she could see what I brought home.

They're stacked up in my bedroom window right by the corner chair where I knit. The colors on the left (navy and red, green and purple, and black and yellow) are the ones I recently purchased in Wake Forest at Quilts Like Crazy.

The lighter hues stacked next to those were brought home from a yarn shop in Roanoke back in August. They include one lone pink (I was supposed to buy a match for that one!), medium purple and green, aqua and white, and another green and lighter purple. The skeins lying on the sill not balled are darker pink and yet another variety of green. This will definitely be one uniquely colored afghan! I probably should knit what I already have into squares before I buy any more yarn, don't you think?

I'll be knitting the mitered square afghan found in the Mason Dixon Knitting Book using Cotton Classic Tahki - Stacy Charles yarn. It seems relatively simple enough, and I plan to start the first of the year and post each square as it's finished--there are 80! Below right - I took a picture of the page in the book that shows the sample mitered square afghan they knitted for the book. (Also partially shown in the picture is a Fun Fur purple scarf I'm working on.)

Another question...my friend Dorothy wanted to know what type of yarn I used for my dishcloths and a link to the patterns I use. Well, I've used Sugar and Cream brand by Lily and also Peaches and Cream. They're both 4-ply worsted 100% cotton yarns and cost $1.49 unless you find a great sale at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents each. However, when I was buying the Tahki - Stacy Charles yarn in the top photo for the afghan, the sales lady said that the Cotton Classics brand was great for knitting dishcloths. Since that yarn runs $5 or more a skein, I've stuck with the Sugar/Peaches and Cream for all my dishcloths so far.

For the references, I've gone back through the Crafts index and dug out the various patterns I've used and posted them on the Continuation page so they'll be in one place. Hope that helps!

~Deb

Birthday Outing

Last Thursday, I finally went shopping with my gift certificate. I've been waiting for the quilt shop's big 30% off sale, to make my money stretch farther. And since it happened to be right at my birthday, it turned into a fun little outing to celebrate with lunch out at Pizza Hut beforehand. My friend Sarah joined us, and we had a wonderful time! :)

With Sarah and Hannah's help, I picked out the cloth I need to start a double wedding ring quilt. I decided to go with shades of rose and burgundy this time - 7 different fabrics. They took awhile to choose, since we had to make sure that they matched well.

I'm quite pleased with the final decision. I was able to buy all of them plus thread with my gift certificates, and there was even $10 left over! Of course, I didn't get the background muslin, the batting, or backing, so that money will go towards my purchase of them at Patchwork Plus. :)

Sarah and I also bought some light purple fabric to make matching dresses...something we've been meaning to do for a very long time. Mom got some material as well so we kept the workers busy cutting everything for us. :)

After finishing up at the quilt store, we were going to go to a downtown bookstore. Unfortunately, they had closed down the DAY BEFORE! Oh well. We still had a fun-filled afternoon! :)

~Sarah

Uniting Church and Family - Church on Sunday

Here's the tranquil scene that greeted us after we followed the directions through the Wake Forest area and turned onto the lane with an old wooden sign that read, "The Browns' Farm."

We arrived somewhat early in case there would be other families with whom we could get acquainted. We spotted the barn-turned-into-a-home which the Browns use for their usual church services and which we've heard so much about.

But this day, because of the extra folks, we met in the big tent you see, which is situated just out of sight to the left in the larger picture above. There were families around and more arriving as many of the conference attendees elected to stay a day longer and attend the services at Hope Baptist Church.

We sang and several men prayed for awhile; and after listening to the main teaching by Scott Brown, one of the elders, there was a time when the men of the church could ask questions about the message or clarify or add a point. This part of the service was one of our favorites as we saw the interaction of men of the church with the elder bringing the teaching. Then we had a time of communion before the ladies of the church brought out large containers of lasagna, salad, and bread for the crowd.

It was interesting and encouraging to attend another age-integrated assembly, and we are thankful there are churches like this who support parents' efforts to keep their families together in church.

~Deb