Sunday Prayers

Posted on January 27, 2008 by Donalyn

I am going to let James take over today:

James 2
1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Faith Without Works Is Dead 14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Posted in Sunday | 1 Comment

I love Daylilies part2

Posted on January 26, 2008 by Donalyn

Daylilies are popular for a lot reasons, but if they weren’t so pretty, none of the rest of the reasons would matter at all. I should mention that a couple of the online daylily data bases are using a few of my photographs with my permission, so you might run across some of these photos in other places. The other thing about daylilies is that if they weren’t so pretty, I would not have so many of them and we would have a lot more money laying around in old grocery sacks. They aren’t free, you know. Just ask Larry.

This is “Bama Maid”. It was hybridized in 1965, so it has been around awhile.
[in my own defense, I did get this one on eBay for $10 for 4 of them – almost free, really.]

This one is called “Hot Town”, hybridized in 1982.
[this one came from one of my favorite places to buy daylilies. they just love daylilies and have probably 300 kinds. if you stop by when they aren’t busy, they will walk around with you and show you every single one of them. and sell them to you so cheaply, it is almost criminal.]

This is probably my favorite, of all the ones I have. It is called “Bountiful Valley”, hybridized in 1979. It is a simple hybrid, but really stands out in the garden.
[from the same place as “Hot Town” and again, dirt cheap]

This one is called “Monster”, hbridized in 1975. I love the colors and the unsual shape – it is also very big at about 9 inches across.
[ditto]

There are two colors that have yet to be acheived in daylily culture – pure white and clear blue. This is “Gentle Shepherd”, hybridized in 1980 and the closest to white that I have. It is really a very light yellow. There are whiter cultivars of course, but I don’t own them. Yet.
[I can’t remember where I got this one, but I am sure it was very very cheap. I say this ’cause Larry reads my blog and we don’t like to upset him too much.]

This is “Spacecoast Starburst”, hybridized in 1998. It is my fanciest cultivar in terms of the substance of the bloom and the fancy edge. I am fortunate that it survives in my garden since it usually does not last long in zone 5 – I didn’t know that when I bought it.
[this one was not cheap. don’t tell Larry]

This is “Night Beacon”, hybridized in 1988. I have 6 or 7 of these spread around because they multiply pretty quickly and don’t bloom well in one spot for more than 4 years or so – means I have to dig them up and split them pretty often.[another eBay bargain. $20 for 10 I think. very economical of me wouldn’t you agree? Larry?]

This is “Sigudilla”, hybridized in 1972. Really lovely with a beautiful shape.
[here is something you may not know about me. I have tattoos. one of them is of this daylily. I got the daylily at the cheap-walk-around-and-show-you-all-the-daylilies place, so it was cheap. the tat was not cheap. don’t tell Larry]

I am not out of photos yet, not by a long shot, so we will be back here talking about Daylilies again. I have learned one very important lesson from this, though. If I am going to continue blogging about my gardens, I have to get a lot more weeding done.

Posted in garden | 11 Comments

What I should be when I "Grow Up"

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Donalyn

Well. According to blogthings.com I should be “In the Military”.
[with apologies to my kids who actually are or have been in the Military]
This is what I get for fooling around on the internet when I ought to be cleaning out the spare bedroom enough for the grandkids to fit in there. We just found out that Jason got the job here in NY, so instead of living 9 hours south, they will now live a mere 2 hours north. We could not be more thrilled, but in the course of moving, they will need to stay here a bit and I will be watching the grands for them which means this room must once and for all, be put to rights.

But instead of doing that, I followed a link from somewhere and ended up at a site that will analyse my future according to which image appeals to me the most. It may have looked like I was just wasting time, but not really because I have been wondering what to do with the rest of my life.

You Should Be in the Military[do what, now?]

< -----this is the image I liked that says "Military". To me it says 60's psychedelic, LSD induced high school art project. [not that I would know anything about that]

You are driven, focused, and an extremely hard worker. [yes, we know this by how clean my spare bedroom is.]
And while you can be ruthless in getting what you want, [especially if it is chocolate or Fritos] you also have a compassionate side. [I do love puppies and kitties]
You are able to balance your own desires with the needs of others. [so long as they do what I say]
You’ll do almost anything to get the job done, [except actually do the job of course] but you’re not willing to step on any one’s toes. [do not get your toes in my way to begin with and we will get along just fine]

You do best when you:
– Are working with others [I usually don’t even like “others” all that much, actually]
– Are in a fast paced environment [yup, fast paced, that’s me all right]

You would also be a good CEO [this I might like because it involves telling other people what to do and I do SO love telling other people what to do] or school principal. [this is like a joke, right?]

Go ahead – find out what you should be when you grow up and then come back and tell us about it, ok? I will be cleaning the spare bedroom sitting here, drinking coffee in a fast paced environment, focusing on cleaning the spare bedroom.

Posted in me | 19 Comments

You can’t get there from here

Posted on January 24, 2008 by Donalyn

Being the curious and inquisitive sort, I have a little widget on my blog that keeps track of how many visitors I get each day. In addition, it tells me how some people get here. If you see a comment that I have made on another blog, you might click on my link in the comment and end up here and then I can see where you came from. Friends and family I can often identify because of their location. Some people scroll through blogs on Blogger from the bar at the top of the page. But the most interesting way people get here is by looking for certain subjects on search engines.

A lot of people get here by looking for recipes. Turkey Meatloaf seems to be a biggie. As well as Squash Sausage Soup. Spicy Chicken Vegetable Soup is the absolute favorite recipe, followed closely by Cottage Cheese Dill Bread. A search on spare rooms brought someone here. My New Years Resolutions seemed interesting to some people.

But far and away,outstripping [you should pardon the expression] by leaps and bounds any other search are those who are looking for variations on “Old Lady Underwear”. Among the searches in this vein have been “women’s underwear with legs”, “older ladies in underwear”, “old women in thong underwear”. Holy Sha-moly!

Seriously now, wouldn’t knowing this make you want to take your blog and scrub it down with Comet and a wire brush? Spray around some of that anti-bacterial spray maybe? But, then again, a lot of these …… unusual visitors seem to stick around and read pages and pages of my blog sometimes, so perhaps I am performing a public service. People come here for nefarious reasons but instead stay around to look at pretty pictures of the sky and life-affirming stories about life out in the country. One can only hope…

Posted in me, too much information | 15 Comments

As if!

Posted on January 23, 2008 by Donalyn

A lot of people around the wonderful world of blogs do a thing called Wordless Wednesday. Me, wordless? I don’t think so. But I will do some pics today, in concert with the spirit of Wordless Wednesday, if not completely living up to the total concept.


We don’t exactly live in “big sky” country. We live in a narrow valley, nearly at the bottom, next to a creek. There is not much in the way of civilization around us, but we don’t have miles of open country in our view. The hill that shows up in so many of my photos is on the other side of our valley and I’ve been watching it change from one day to the next for the past 25 years. Larry has been watching it since he was 3, because we live just up the road from the house in which he grew up. Right up there just a bit:
This is my view with my morning coffee in the winter:
It is in the opposite direction and in the summer, when there are leaves on the trees, we can’t see toward that end of the valley at all.

I swear, I could look at the sky all day long.
But that would look stupid and I would get a crick in my neck from looking up for so long and the neighbors already think I am odd enough and I have a lot of stuff to do, so I guess I will have to confine my sky gazing to a little while each day.

Posted in photos, Wordless Wednesday | 17 Comments