I Wanna Know What LOVE is...

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a ~

Lately there have been some things in my life that have brought up what love actually is, the americanization of words can really "dumb" down a word, and at times when someone says something you don't know if they actually mean it or not.
Sometimes I get caught up in myself, my needs, my wants, what I think I need or want...then God places something in my life that I did not necessarily want, and I look at it and most of the time pitch a fit, but there are times that God places His hand on my shoulder and says you need to have true love for this person, no matter how they act or what they do to offend you or seemingly put you down. Love is not about having your needs met; it’s about meeting the needs of another.  It’s not about being served, but serving.  It’s not about keeping track; it’s about paying the price. It’s not about finally getting everything you ever wanted; it’s about forgiving another for who they cannot be.  Love is not a noun---something to have.  Love is a verb---something to do.
 The world's definition of love is to make sure you get affection in return, it's supposedly 50/50. But the Bible never gives us any indication that Love is 50/50, at least not REAL LOVE. Jesus gave His all and He is the ultimate example. I can never be live up to what Jesus was/is, because He was/is perfect...but we can always strive to be as much like Him as possible. He will give us the strength to Love when no one else loving in return. It is easy to love someone when they are giving love back, but to love when it is not returned is the greatest thing you can do.
As a Christian I know I don't deserve anyones love, least of all that of my Saviours. Therefore I must realize that if I do not deserve His love, though He gave His all for me, the least I can do is love without expecting anything in return. Believe me, this is very hard to do, especially if you are trying to do it in your own strength. Without Christ, you can never truly love anyone. I am still working on loving those whom I don't feel love me, but I must give 100%. Believe me I doubt I've reached the 50% mark yet, so don't think I am an example of this. I am preaching to the choir here.

Will you show the love of  Christ?

Family Picture Day!

My cousin Justin is getting married in June and his church had a shower for him and his fiance (Whitney). Afterward we went to my grandparents house for a family picture (which we haven't done in a good long while). My cuz took a few pics of us and then we sat out on the front porch a talked for a long time. I had a great time reminiscing and getting to know each other a lot better (one can never know his/her family member to well). I love my family so much and I am so glad that the LORD gave me such a great one, immediate and extended!!! And yes, I am going to cry at my cousins wedding :'(
Here are a few pics from the day:

Talking on the porch

The Robert Strickland Jr. Family



The Girls



Cousins
(we have a picture of all of us with Justin, but it wasn't on our camera)

The Robert Strickland Sr. Family

To Everything There is a Season

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. "

~Ecclesiastes 3:1&2~



 This past weekend and the beginning of this week I was able to finally get outside and get some work done. I got the rest of my herb garden tilled up, weeded and my garlic planted. I have widened my garden considerably and since the weather has been so warm, my herbs from last year are coming back with a vegence...here are just a few pics:

All of my plants from last year (all of these were on the edges of my old garden
so you can tell how much we've widened it just by looking at these plants.

This is my applemint and if you look at the picture above it you
can tell that is it sending out several more runners, so this plant
will be pretty big by summer (you can also see that it has sent
runners under the lavender, if you look closely).

My oregeno, it has actually grown a LOT since it started warming up
I hope it continues, I love grabbing a handful to chop up and put on
a homemade (or store bought) pizza.

Lambs Ear, I love this plant it is one of my favs. All I have to do
if I hurt myself is grab one of these leaves and wrap it around
whatever I have hurt and whalla, a natural band aid.

Wild Lavender...this is by far better than any hybrid lavender
I have found, the smell is so intense.
...see the little applemint creeping under it.

Although you can't see much green this is my Lemon Balm...
I love the smell and it will probably get a lot bigger once the sun
starts staying out longer ;)

Lemon Thyme, I love the smell of this plant...I could rub it all day.

Echinacea Leaves...hopefully they will bloom this year!!!
Being very hopeful!!!

My veregated oregeno...I may move this to my smaller garden
since it is so small and it really is in an inconvient spot.

Bee Balm, I thought it was dead...but apparently not.
It definately isn't as big as I would like, but I am just
glad it's alive!

Another view of my garden...the wet spot is where I just planted
my garlic...hopefully I will have some sprouts to show you soon!

Juniper, I haven't planted it yet but I am hoping to get it in the
ground by tonight...we'll see what happens with that!
It will be my edging on one side ;)

Plantain...need I say more?

Yarrow...isn't it just purty ;)

My lil garden...the garden that got me interested in herbs.

Another oregeno plant that I planted from seed 2 or 3 years ago.

I thought that this wasn't going to do anything and that it would
certainly die through the rough winter since it was puny in the
first place...just goes to show you that weathering the storm makes
 you stronger....the leaves are three times as wide as they were last year.
I am really proud of my Chives!!!

I also decided to go ahead and try to mark off and plan what I wanted my garden to look like, instead of waiting 'til last minute and just throwing everything in there wherever it would go. So I drew out a plan and marked off a few things for those plans...now I am just waiting on April 9th when I go herb shopping with my Best Friend...I have bought a few seed packs and I took a few pics so here are those:

Ok, so there was more than just a few :P

The Garlic I planted today ;)



Plans for the 'lil herb garden



Plans for the big herb garden!

I hope you enjoyed all the pics, cause I certainly enjoy looking out my back door to see all of these medicinal herbs growing there. May God Bless!!!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so ba-a-a-a-a-d....
  Well Julie Andrew's / Maria Von Trapp's favorite things may be great for a song, but not all of them exactly fit into my favorite things, and I am not feeling bad, in fact quite on the contrary...but that might just be because I am remembering my favorite things, who knows.
 Now I don't have a song that I can make out of my favorite things, but writing them out can be just as therapeutic (I think anyway). So here we go...

1. Bible & Jesus/God

- I love reading my Bible, especially right before bedtime it helps me sleep deeper and I know God is there with me. I feel so protected by my heavenly Father. God also reveals His will only through His word, so how else would I know what He wants me to do in my life. Jesus is my life, my love, my all.



2. My Family

 - My family is the greatest, by watching us and just looking at us you might get the wrong idea, we love physical contact. But, instead of always hugging each other we like to pop each other on the shoulder or give a nudge in the side. Personally I like the hugging and such, but I also like the way my brother says "I love you" by calling me "woman" whenever he's kidding around. I also love the way my youngest sister tells jokes and laughs so much about what she is saying that you can hardly understand her, but you laugh anyway because she is so funny. I love the way my Daddy makes puns out of just about anything and everything you say. I love the way my older sister tickles me or pops me whenever she comes in the room (and then I chase her out trying to do the same to her...lol), I love the way my younger sister always follows me around, I  know one day she may not be able to, and I enjoy her company our talks and our tears together. I JUST LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!

3.Friends

- Friends are so wonderful, I don't know what I would do without them. God is good to bring me so many wonderful, Godly friends into my life. Thanks to all of you, you're all so wonderful to me!!!

4. Herbs (you knew it was coming)

- Herbs are probably the thing I love most besides the first few things. I don't have enough room in our yard to plant the herbs I want. You should see the seed packets I got at walmart the other day, I got nine pack of calendula, two pack of echinacea, and one of each of cilantro, dill, sweet basil, and parsley...I think people probably thought I was crazy, I am the crazy Herb lady...lol. I am what they call a self-taught herbalist and I am still learning, I have bought several books and I am so fascinated by the world of herbs, I thank God everyday for the beautiful things He gave us, for the herbs of the earth to heal with and for giving me an interest in them.


5. Gardening

- You would think that this would go along with herbs, but gardening is much more to me than herbs. One day I want to be a self-sustaining farmer. I am learning as much as possible about gardening with herbs as well as veggies and fruit. Although I am not the one in our family who does the vegetable garden planning, I still help out and I love seeing the fruits of our labor.


6. Mountains

- Oh the mountains, the very thought sends chills through my body. I always feel so much closer to God when I am in the midst of His beautiful majestic mountains. I could live there forever among the wild and beautiful heights of mountains.



7. Farm Animals

- I love to see cows on the side of a hill grazing, and one day I hope to have cows, pigs, chickens, goats, horses, donkeys and much much more. Who knew Old Macdonald could have such an impact on a child :P



8. War Between the CS & US Re-enactments

- These are so fun, plus they are very educational. I have always loved dressing up, especially in the 1800's style. Plus the cause of the CS is something that I consider very close to my heart, I love studying and finding out different things about the history of that era...one thing it has taught me? History is written by the conqueror, therefore it is prejudice.





9. Hiking

- What a wonderful way to spend time with family and friends, plus build your strength and immune system. I love the fresh air and I love being out in it hiking in God's beautiful Creation!!!!





10. Writing/Blogging

- Writing has been a passion ever since I learned to spell my name. My expression comes through my writing, in fact if I didn't know how to write I don't know I would really express myself.
I can talk a lot and not say anything, I can write a little and express my very heart.

And these are just a few of my favorite things.

 What are your favorite things?

Our Own Thanksgiving

The Dinner Table

Well all, I did it...well, we did it. We had Thanksgiving at our house and I realized that I REALLY am like my Grandmother (on my Dad's side). We have never really had Thanksgiving dinner at our house, we have always just gone over to my Grandmother's house and I would fix macaroni and cheese and maybe the ham if asked...but the ham is always a pre-cooked ham that has a pour on glaze... and Noel always makes sweet potato pies. Soooo this year my cousins fiance's parents asked my Grandparents to come to their house for Thanksgiving, so we were going to have her Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Daddy still wanted us to do a dinner for Thanksgiving. Well we had just about everything we needed except the turkey and ham (our Thanksgiving dinner has to have a ham) and the supplies for the sweet potato pies (hey, I ryhmed) =) So we headed out to the stores to get the turkey and ham other stuff on wednesday, I even got a table clothe on sale to put on our table, I was so excited that I got to do a Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. I started the Macaroni & cheese, ham, turnip greens, green beans and soaked the black eyed peas that evening. We knew Brooke was going to have to work until 7pm so of course it was going to be for supper, but we started about mid morning preparing the turkey, finishing the macaroni & cheese etc. everything was ready by 8:30pm, but Thanksgiving day is a very busy day for Cracker Barrel do Brooke had to stay a little later (not her fault of course) she got to our house about 9:30 and we had supper. I am so thankful for my family and the fact that we can be flexible!!!! We had a wonderful evening talking and laughing and eating good food ;) Daddy wanted to watch the movie called The Christmas Card so Brooke brought it over and we watched it...ahhhh what a wonderful evening with the family. Here are some pics:

The Table Settings

Food & Preperation

The Dinner

The LORD really blessed us ;) We had such a wonderful time and I was so relieved that everything turned out perfectly!!! I was just going to expound on the pictures a little bit so here tis:

Table Settings

I used Hymn books to put the small candles on it matched perfectly and thought it help make a good center piece and a good way to have them on hand if we wanted to sing and worship the LORD. The Pumpkin in the middle I have had for a long time, I won it at fall festival drawing. The leaves...well God made those and I just went outside and picked the most colorful ones ;) The chargers were on sale at Walmart as well as the table cloth, which is really the only reason I made the whole table look so nice anyway...otherwise it would have just a been a plain ole table with no decorations ;)

Food & Preperation

It took us probably a whole day with all the hours we put into making all this stuff, but it was exciting for all three of us girls to get to do a Thanksgiving dinner ;) and it was great bonding time =)

The Dinner

 Well it was wonderful, God has blessed me so much with such a wonderful family. The dinner would have been wonderful even if I'd burnt the Turkey or if we had no turkey at all. God is SOOOO VERY Good to this daughter of his.

And for those wanting to know the bottled drink is not wine, it's organic Sparkling Berry Cider, it is oooohhhh so good too!!! and the stuff with the foam on the top is ginger ale mixed with sherbert ...thats YUMMY too!!!!

How did your Thanksgiving go?