Sunday, August 25, 2013

Homemaking (An Index to My Blogs)

Dear friends,

I have a whole bunch of posts about homemaking on two of my blogs.  I've finally compiled an index of most of them below in several categories, and I have also created a page for them with a link at the top of this blog which I will try to keep updated with future posts.  There may be other homemaking posts currently on my blogs that I have not added to this index yet.  You can probably find them in these category tags: Homemaking at Virginia's Life and Homemaking at Come Weary Moms.

You might also like my newest post on my main blog: Twenty Years, Ten Kids, One House.

Homemaking Inspiration:

 

Room-by-Room in our Home: 


 

Season-by-Season in our Home: 


  

Home Organization Tips: 




Laundry: 



Food:

I have a whole page of links about food and grocery shopping!    It's not always completely current, but you can find it here: Food.  You can also see entire blog posts with the tag of Food at Food Glorious Food at Virginia's Life and Food at Come Weary Moms.

  

Click away, my friends, and welcome to my home!

Virginia Knowles


Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Sanctuary (Big Words)


"The circumstances of my life can be so troubling.  

The outward look is not always promising.

What counts is the inward reality, 

the inner focus and perspective and gaze.

It will not happen if I do not purposefully cultivate it --

tend to it, water it, nurture it.

Here the joy, pleasure and delight are revealed.

Here is the sanctuary.

This is not necessarily a place, 

but a space I carve out 

for myself to be in God's presence.

It's a space in my heart and in my time ~ ~ 

a pause, an embrace, a calm rest.

I can carry it with me back into the fray.

Sanctuary is awareness of God's presence...

   sacred
    set apart
      serene
        sacramental
          simple
            shalom
              shield
                salvation
                  safety.




One of my daughters gave me this Psalms journal for my birthday two years ago.  It has short passages from Psalms with room on the facing page to write my own reflections.  I started using it during a particularly frazzled season of life.  Then I stopped.  I picked it up the other day and was struck by a verse with the word sanctuary in the day's passages:  

"Lift up your hands 
in the sanctuary 
and bless the Lord." 
Psalm 134:2

Sanctuary is what I wrote about, and that's what you see in this blog post.   It's another frazzled season of life with the kids starting school and me starting a new teaching job, and lots of other stuff going on, not all of it pleasant.  (Like grieving the loss of my mother.) I need sanctuary.  And that means investing the time that I don't think I have, with the God who turns a meager pile loaves and fishes into an abundant feast.  I come weary and leave refreshed. I think I'll go back and read something I wrote a while back:  Busy, Dizzy and In a Tizzy: Christian Contemplation for Moms and Other Frazzled Folks

You may also like the more recent entries in my Strength in Hymn series:
This is the first post in my new Big Words series!  More on that later...

Grace and peace,
Virginia Knowles
www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com