Getting back

4:56 p.m. Today's project was to get back into some good habits and activities I had put on a back burner due to editing Walk Through the Word Series: Galatians, teaching the I Samuel Bible study and getting lessons out to the ladies during the summer, and leading the Heart to Home ministry. I have also, of course been organizing life here at home for Steve with his disability. Our organic garden has kept us busy as well, and then canning and pickling the produce accounted for extra hours of effort.

Ecclesiastes 5:12 commends the hard worker: "The sleep of a laboring (wo)man is sweet, whether (s)he eats little or much!" We work hard over here on Via Vista Drive, and enjoy our meals and desserts. (But I think Steve still sleeps more soundly than I do!)

Don't want to forget making wedding plans with Heidi, the Harvest Crusade, taking the grandkids to Disneyland and ourselves as often as possible, the August party, and visiting with my 83 year old dad here at home. Since Steve precipitously lost 16 pounds with no change in diet or exercise habits, Daddy has taken to bringing him a huge "deluxe" McDonald's breakfast weekly. We're waiting for lab test results, but those extra calories won't hurt the cause!

When we spread out our homemade compost, and topped it with commercial potting soil over the harvested garden plot, it was a relief, frankly! Steve and I are ready for the fall season. We'll let the soil rest a few months, and then plant carrots, onions and cilantro for the cooler season. "To every thing there is a season, Ecclesiastes 3:1 says. Verse 2b says, "a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted." We plucked and enjoyed it all!

God has His scheduled seasons, even in seemingly seasonless Southern California! The entertaining season opens up once the kids are all back in school and friends have returned from vacation. We truly enjoyed hosting the Stevenses and the Snyders last week. The Riverside Panhellenic Home Tour is another harbinger of the fall. Men's and women's Bible studies begin afresh at church, too. Now it's time to get back to baking--I love to start off the fall and winter season with chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and mini-loaves! Let me recommend King Arthur whole grain white flour for melt-in-your mouth texture...I'll give Pavel's family one of the loaves, and maybe give away a few more, but it's time to treat my family first and foremost, especially my carb lovers Steve and Heidi!

Heart to Home, our church's home arts ministry, is beginning its fall hospitality season with wonderful classes offered on Christmas budgeting, homemade gifts, holiday entertaining, hors d'oeuvre, and sewing a reversible Thanksgiving/Christmas table runner. Join us on Tuesday nights if you can!! I've asked all instructors to keep their costs as low as possible in these difficult times.

I also realized today, after reviewing our budget, that I needed to contact my 120+ Mary Kay customers and help them with the products in my inventory. I received a letter from one of the company marketing v.p.s challenging me to call 10 of my customers today, and I have only 3 to go, with 70% sales results! I am sitting on a beautiful gold mine! Like the grasshopper in the Aesop fable that danced around during the summer instead of working, I need to become a wise ant to survive 2010-11. "Go to the ant, you sluggard," Proverbs 6:6 says, "consider her ways and be wise."

With the cool, fresh breezes in the mornings and evenings, and even a spate of clouds and rain last week, fall feels good, welcome, and energizing. Steve and I just returned from walking the steep hill nearby. Like the seasons that preceded it and the seasons that will follow, fall is a great time to praise the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!