Pooped

Seriously.

But I do want to share this before I crawl into bed: frogs aside, camping out is actually quite fun. One should never underestimate the beauty of the Lord's creation, no matter how fearful one is of creepy crawlers and hoppers.

Yesterday's adventure was truly a blessing.

Good riddance to bad rubbish

Those who know me also know that I am very slow on the cleaning uptake. Believe me, I have rubbish in my boxes and shelves and whatnot that date all the way back to pre-school!

Now before anyone gets huffy on me for admitting this, I will point out now that it is not a matter of pride for me. I am merely stating a fact.

I hold on to a lot of things hoping to hold on to the memories, hoping I can reuse those things one day. Most of them fall under the first category.

Long Distance Inspiration

As happily as 2011 ended for me, 2012 has, thus far, been very difficult to deal with.

This makes me immensely grateful for Lismore Mama sharing this link to the Lismore Bible Church. I've just started listening to the audios of the sermons and so far, I've heard nothing but comforting words and reminders of all the things that, despite all my complaints, I am very much blessed and grateful for.

I'll probably listen to the same sermon twice each time. It just takes that time for it all to really sink in and I'm so happy that there are audio downloads in case I missed something the first time around.

Best of all, thanks to this, I'm actually getting to know the Bible better. We'll leave the irony of that a secret. ^_~

The beauty of automation

Let's face it, hardly anyone who does a bazillion things each day of the week will ever still bother doing laundry by hand.

Admittedly, I feel guilty about this because clothes last longer and just feel ever so much more comfortable when they're done by hand. But I've chosen, rather than spend my time washing clothes that way, mechanical help would be welcome and if I need two dozen laundry bags to keep all the delicates safe from getting caught on other materials, by golly I will get two dozen laundry bags!

Just one of those things #3: When the help is away...

Grateful as I am for having household help (I've complained about some nasty help habits here), it's when the help is unavailable that you can really see the measure of a man.

The secret is in the details #1: The Invitation

There are a number of "secrets" that only my husband and I, sometimes a few others, were privy to during our wedding. I swore I would blog about it and actually attempted to create a full blog page on the subject but somehow, it just made it all the more difficult to tell the story that way.

So I'm trying again here. At the very least, there are tags and all related posts will be fairly easy to find.

Shelter Volunteering #1: Don't just say it--do it!

NOTE: The opinions expressed in this entry are purely my own and do not reflect those of other volunteers or the organization. Just so we're clear on that.

I spent last Saturday at a local animal shelter where I have been volunteering for the past year now and the kinds of people we encounter daily continue to amaze me.

I honestly think that one way to gauge the kind of person you're dealing with is how they deal with and/or react to animals. Not everyone likes animals, I know, but you don't have to like animals to treat them well as fellow creations of God.

Just typing that made me feel rather wishy-washy, I'll be honest. But I have seen people express concern over the situation of "poor animals on the street" and in the same breath go "why don't you do something about it?"

Comfort Food

I don't know why but for someone who actually knows how to cook and bake, I can't help but enjoy more the food that was made by someone else.

I mentioned before that I was having a really bad week which, looking back at the week, makes me laugh a bit because that was the same week I'd renamed my blog "My Happily Ever After." Well, no one said "happily ever after" would be perfect and there is a lot of happiness to be found in growing and learning.

Blog Maintenance #1: Widgets

Hmm. I may need to put at least one photo each for my posts for that little widget I finally managed to attach to the bottom/in between my posts. It would be so much prettier if it had thumbnails each. But now that I've done it, the previous posts still don't seem to register the thumbnails. I'm not sure if it was worth the effort to have looked for those photos.

I also need to figure out how to automatically insert a signature. Or maybe I have to do it manually, I don't know yet. But I really would like to have a "real" signature at the end of each post instead of that little automatic post signature.

I have some ideas for what I want out of this blog I just haven't managed to put everything together yet. But I'll get there eventually.

The day's events

It's the day after our return from the countryside. Nearly midnight and I'm sure my husband will be upset to find me awake still but one of my sisters needs me and I need to stay awake to hear her out.

We, my husband and I, spent yesterday morning on "field duties." That is, we went to visit and check on some rice fields and mango orchards belonging to our family.

Wow, that sounded fancier than it actually is!