52home

6:42 p.m.

 

Talk and Silence

Tomorrow a new conversation starts up in another corner of the Internet. Author Lydia Brownback (she’s also our much-beloved editor at Crossway!) will host Tuesday Talk—a live devotional time via video.
 
We hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to get to know this godly lady and discuss one of the most attractive--and endangered--qualities of biblical womanhood: purity.
 
Here are directions to the conversation:

Join Crossway and Lydia Brownback for Tuesday Talk—a new interactive Bible Study on Facebook (Tuesday Talk) and at the Crossway blog. Starting June 1, 2010, Lydia will kick off the discussion on Purity: A Godly Woman’s Adornment. We will be pursuing purity and godly womanhood together for 42 days! Lydia will be stopping by every Tuesday during these six weeks to host a devotional time via video. Participants can comment, ask questions, or interact with the author throughout the week as well.

We would love for you to join us! Here's how:

1.     Join the Tuesday Talk group on Facebook by clicking the "like" button at the top of the page.

2.     
Consider inviting some of your friends to join in!

Today, in honor of Memorial Day, our country observes a National Moment of Silence at three o’clock this afternoon. Please pause and thank God for the freedom we enjoy to worship Him in peace, and for the men and women who sacrificed their lives to make it possible. And please pray for the safety of the men and women currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Enjoy your day with family and friends!

52home

7:32 p.m.

 

Friday Favorites

One of my favorite stain removal tips...

To get rid of ink stains (which we get a lot of around here!) pre-treat clothes with hairspray, blot with rag until stain disappears or fades considerably, and then wash as usual. Always works for me! (Note: try on inconspicuous area first to make sure hairspray doesn't discolor fabric.)

52home

6:26 p.m.

52home

New on Fridays

Friday is fun day here at girltalk. That’s not going to change (not if Janelle can help it!). But we want to mix things up a little bit. In addition to Friday Funnies (don’t stop sending them!), we’re introducing a new feature: Friday Favorites.
 
What is “Friday Favorites”?
 
Just a few of our favorite things (cue Julie Andrews here)—a book we’re reading, a stain-removal tip, a rainy day idea for kids, a new recipe we’re making a lot, a website we frequent, a song we’ve set on repeat, even some of our husbands’ favorites.
 
The four of us are always swapping tips and solutions, and Friday Favorites is a way to include you in these conversations. We don’t think we have the best ideas (far from it!), and this isn’t a sneaky way to bring advertising to girltalk. We just want to share with you stuff we like, use, and benefit from—our favorites.
 
So here’s the deal: you come on Fridays and we’ll have something fun. Sometimes it will be one of your funnies. Sometimes it will be one of our favorites. Whatever it is, we hope you'll like it!

52home

6:41 p.m.

Part of Something Bigger

On Saturday I attended the out-of-town wedding of my sister-in-law. We drove home on Sunday, and I arrived just in time to witness the birth of a dear friend’s baby girl on Monday. It has been an exhausting and exhilarating week.

But now I have suitcases to unpack (still!), laundry to do, and week-old emails to answer. The adrenalin has drained away, and the days ahead seem downright dull.

These words from John Piper on the book of Ruth place my recent past and immediate future in proper perspective:

“God’s purposes for his people is to connect us to something far greater than ourselves. God wants us to know that when we follow him, our lives always mean more than we think they do. Naomi had no idea in the land of Moab that God was making her the ancestor of the Messiah. For the Christian there is always a connection between ordinary events of life and the stupendous work of God in history.

Everything we do in obedience to God, no matter how small, is significant. It is part of a cosmic mosaic that God is painting to display the greatness of his powers and kingdom to the world and to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10). A deep satisfaction of the Christian life is that we are not given over to trifles. Serving a widowed mother in law, gleaning in a field, falling in love, having a baby—for the Christian these things are connected to eternity. They are part of something so much bigger than they seem" (p. 121).

Thank God—as Christians, “We are not given over to trifles!” The ordinary events of life and the extraordinary ones are all “part of something so much bigger than they seem." And everything we do in obedience to God is significant.
 
Kind of changes how I think about unpacking my suitcases.

52home

6:28 p.m.

Photography Talk

So it’s time for some photography talk! As I said in my first post, if you hear an expert contradict what I say, go with them.
 
At first I’m going to share ideas that everyone with a camera-- point-and-shoot or slr--can apply. I might get to more technical aspects of photography later on.
 
My first suggestion is to overshoot. Take tons and tons of pictures. When I was in school my teachers would always tell us that film was the cheapest part of photography, so shoot lots and lots of it. And now that most of us shoot digital, we don’t even have to pay for film! It only costs a little time to delete bad pictures.
 
Realistically, I hope for one to three really good images for every hundred or so that I might shoot. I know that might sound a little silly, but I’m being serious. The best photographers out there aren’t getting that perfect shot with every click of the shutter. We just never see the dozens of images that they don’t use.
 
Take, for example, the image that I used for 52home yesterday, the one of the cousins eating ice cream together. I have forty-nine of those. I just showed you one. And after looking through them, I wish I would have taken one hundred and forty-nine! I didn’t love all the expressions in the one I chose, but it was the best of the forty-nine. Imagine if I had only taken ten shots. I would have regretted it later. I’m regretting only taking forty-nine right now!
 
So next time you go to take a picture, press that shutter a few extra times. When you think you might have nailed it, take 10 more. Deleting later is the easy part! But recreating that moment--probably impossible.

52home

7:04 p.m.

52home

Summer Plans

School is almost out and it's time to make summer plans--swimming and biking, eating dinner on the back porch, and berry picking (I guess Janelle has already gone to the Strawberry patch).

But here's an idea for you—in addition to the fun activities, do one thing this summer that you’ll be really glad you did come Fall.

Last summer, when we knew we were going to homeschool our oldest son Jack (at least for first grade), I ordered curriculum and got advice from other moms. But I also needed to prepare someone else--my (then) two year old Tori.

If I was going to teach Jack, I needed more than five minutes of peace at one time. And I didn’t want Tori to sit in front of the TV all morning! So, throughout the summer I eased Tori into a new daily rhythm.

Each day she had “kitchen time” and “puzzle time” and “coloring time.” She also had lots of breaks where she and Jack ate their snack and played together. I gradually increased these times from a few minutes to 30-45 minute blocks.

The strategy paid off and our transition into homeschooling—though not without its challenges—was smoother than I had expected.

Whether your kids (or you) are going to school this fall, or if you are homeschooling or teaching a class, think about one thing you can do in June that you’ll be glad you did come September.

52home

10:25 a.m. Strawberry Picking

52home

Friday Funnies

Our friend Trillia sent us this cute video.

"These people were always finding water all over their pool deck and furniture, every time they came home, after being away for a few hours. They thought the neighbourhood kids were watching for them to leave, and using the pool. However, they could never catch them doing it. So, they set up their video cam and left. This is what they found out..."

See ya Monday!

Nicole for the girltalkers

52home

4:00 p.m.

52home