Mountain Musings

G3 ~ Gospel, Grace, & Glory / G3 ~ Grinning, Gaining, & Growing!

We're back from Atlanta after attending the G3 - 2017 Conference held at the Georgia International Convention Center last weekend. This was our first time to attend this particular gathering; but since we know some very special people who live in Atlanta, this was our chance to see them again at the same time: Here we are awaiting the doors to open for the first session. We were among 2,500 other folks attending: Tim Challies (below on screen) was one of the many excellent speakers whom we heard during the three-day conference. Tom and Jonathan are readers of his blog, and we enjoyed hearing him speak in person. Other favorites were Phil Johnson and Steven Lawson: Here I am posing for a selfie with Hannah as we looked through the vendor hall on the last day of the conference. This is where we hung out while the music was playing. While the music provided by the main worship team was very disappointing to us, the speakers were very good:One of the pluses of the conference was meeting up with my long-time friend, Carol, who flew in from Texas to attend: She was very generous and offered her hotel room as a gathering place for lunch on Inauguration Day so we could watch history take place:While we were there, Sarah sent me a picture of this little tyke watching the festivities, too. He is the most adorable little boy, and I could hardly wait until the conference was over to go hug him!:Yes, we had two G3 experiences in Atlanta...the Gospel, Grace, and Glory one and the Grinning, Gaining, and Growing one with Andrew! Getting to interact with him and seeing him smile was wonderful! He had grown so much since we visited in late October.

And this Granny and Grandpa had a grand time with him: Two sweet sisters with Andrew: And one of his favorites...Uncle Jonathan. Here come the smiles now!:We all enjoyed the time spent visiting together, even though it was very short. We are so thankful that Andrew came through his surgery last week just fine. Thank you for praying for him! For now, he's still on NG feeds, but hopefully that will end soon. Keep remembering him in your prayers:

As always, thanks for stopping by and reading and keeping up with our family.

~Deb

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Friday Favorites

Here we are at the end of the week...and we have many things to be thankful for. I'll start with a beautiful sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains. I never tire of this scene, and a camera just doesn't quite capture the real beauty:Another very obvious reason to be thankful this week is...."We Have Water!"  The water guys showed up and started working on Tuesday, so we were only without water for 2 1/2 days--long enough for sure! 

Hannah made hot chocolate, and Tom brought it out to the guys to help them in their task on a very cold day:They changed out the old water pump and gave us a new and higher horsepower one. So...over $2,000 later, ugh, we're back in business, but I'm so thankful for hot showers again! Thank you for praying!We enjoyed celebrating Hannah's birthday earlier in the week, and here's the family singing Happy Birthday to "Sweets" as she is affectionately called: And a picture of the Chai Spice Cheesecake I mentioned in the last post. It turned out looking just like Sarah had made it--ha ha--well, not quite! :)Another praise this week...Granny went to her very last Physical Therapy session. She has improved so much in the last two months since she started going. She and her doctor became fast friends, and she gifted him with one of her baskets as a thank you!And now we're about all done with medical appointments for awhile. We have one more hospital visit for an IV antibiotic infusion this weekend--five days in a row of IV for Granny.

We get this done at the Cancer Center where folks are getting chemotherapy--our first time to be in this section of the hospital. Here's Granny waiting for one of those appointments. How very thankful we are that she's so much better and that we weren't there for the same reason as other patients: Hannah has been busy making soap this week. Here she is in the kitchen making Lavender Oat Castile:

And after it's made and cured for a couple of days, it's ready for cutting into bars. Don't those bars look lovely?:Two big mail days for me this week. I received five quilt blocks from a giveaway at Quiltmaker Magazine over at Quilty Pleasures blog. They are delightful blocks, and I will have to decide how best to use them. I'm thankful for the quilters across the US who made these blocks to donate for the giveaway: And a big batch of selvages from a fellow-quilter in Pennsylvania who found out I wanted some selvages to participate in Melissa's tutorial on sewing selvages over at Happy Quilting. Thank you, Kathie! Before I close up, I'd like to ask that you pray for sweet baby Andrew. He's doing very well, and at 9 months old he's becoming a happy, smiley baby!

What a praise to the Lord for getting him this far! He's having surgery on his airway Tuesday afternoon, so please pray that the doctors would help Andrew get to his next level of development. Thank you all!

Do you have any specific praises or requests to share?

~Deb

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Inside Looking Out...on a Snowy January Weekend

Hello, Everyone! Welcome back to another year of Mountain Musings!

I promised to see you in January...and here I am, only a tad bit late climbing back into the saddle! Ha!

We hope you all had a lovely holiday and are ready to experience all the new things the Lord has for us in 2017! Happy New Year!

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.~ Isaiah 43:19

The snow that greeted us and many others in the South, kept us inside all weekend with extremely cold temperatures; church services being cancelled; internet service--slow and spotty; and ack! no water in the house on Sunday morning!

Yes, we're practicing being content in whatsoever state we're in...while boiling water from grocery store jugs for hot face washes and trying to make do until the well-drilling guy shows up with a new pump...if, indeed, that's what's wrong!

We're all praying for wonderful fresh water, which is so often taken for granted, to be pumping sooner rather than later. Praising the Lord for electricity, however, to make hot water until then!

I'm planning out how to complete Hannah's birthday meal today...I'll just have to pretend I'm living in Little House on the Prairie days and boil a sink full of water to get everything clean after cooking in the kitchen. I don't think Laura was accustomed to a dishwasher!

Yes, it's Hannah's birthday today! Happy birthday, sweet Hannah! Here's a picture of her eating out recently on a quickie lunch date with Dad:Hannah put in her usual out-of-the-ordinary request for her birthday meal, and I purchased all the ingredients before the snow came....now, just to get started. I'm not a whiz at cheesecakes like Sarah, but we'll see how this new recipe turns out...Chai Spice Cheesecake, which she found over on the blog Lady Behind the Curtain.

The main dish she picked is Thai Green Curry Chicken, found over on All Recipes. This recipe called for green curry paste and fish sauce...not typical ingredients found in my southern kitchen. But we heard that Sarah made this dish at her house, so we're going on her recommendation.

Okay...you know where I'll be. I'd better get started. After I finish I can relax and watch the birdies. This was the scene early Saturday morning when we awoke:Wish me success in getting this birthday meal on the table, wish Hannah a happy 33rd birthday, and wish (pray) for water...please!

~Deb