Sunday's Hymn: Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev'n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
Whose boundless mercy hath for me—
For me a full atonement made,
An everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
Now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.

Nikolaus L. von Zinzendorf, 1739
Translated by John Wesley, 1740
Tune: Germany, from William Gardiner's Sacred Melodies, 1815

Visiting Family

I'm leaving tomorrow to visit my family in Portland, Oregon! Its just a short visit and its only me going. Andy and Charlie will keep the home fires burning...and I will surely miss them! But there is fun planned in Oregon. Even besides the fun of seeing everyone!

So posting here will only be an automatic one for my Sunday hymn. Have a wonderful time while I'm gone, everyone! See you when I get back.

Quotes From the Cottage

...conscious guilt unfits a man for acceptably serving God. The essence of the service which God requires of His intelligent creatures is love. The man whose conscience is polluted with unpardoned guilt cannot love. He knows he has offended God; he knows he deserves punishment; he does not, he cannot, love the Being whom he regards as his enemy; he cannot seek his enjoyment in communion and fellowship with Him. Nothing can fit man for the service of God but what purifies the conscience from the pollution produced by these "dead works;" and nothing can do this but the blood of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
John Brown in Hebrews, p. 403

Its My Anniversary!

Yes, today is the one year anniversary of my blog! I'm not sure what to say about that. I guess I am thinking of the ways blogging has changed my life. I am definitely more attentive to details. I am certainly a better photographer and look at things in my everyday life with an eye to what comprises a good picture, something I never really did before. But even as far as a word picture, I look at things differently. Blogging has made me more aware of communicating the little things that make up my life to others. Whether they want to know about them or not!

And that is another aspect of my life that has changed over the last year. At first, and for a big part of this past year, my blogging was more for other people than me. I had sort of a crisis about that a couple of months ago and came to realize that this blog has to be mostly for me. Now don't misunderstand. I am thankful for each of the new friends I've made through blogging over the past year. And there are quite a few! But doing this blog for anyone other than myself over the long haul just won't make it. Its like trying to change who you are in order to make friends...or keep them. I can't keep it up for very long. So when I am writing about what I think or feel, or even the little everyday aspects of my life, ultimately, its for my own benefit. But benefit, I do! I have to think more clearly and logically and I fit the picture together for my own clarity. And the details of it do matter! In the process of writing things about my life, I learn about myself and my place in relation to my world...my family, my community, and most importantly, my God.

During that above-mentioned crisis, I did question why I blog and I was tempted to give it up. But I won't. Now that I've reassessed its rightful place in my life, I can see more clearly that it does have a right place in my life! A place that I'm not sure anything else could fill. So Happy Anniversary, Field Stone Cottage! I'm thankful for this past year of growing with you!

Sunday's Hymn: Rejoice, The Lord is King

Rejoice, the Lord is King:
Your Lord and King adore;
Rejoice, give thanks and sing,
And triumph evermore:

Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.

Jesus, the Saviour reigns,
The God of truth and love;
When he had purged our stains
He took his seat above:

His kingdom cannot fail,
He rules o'er earth and heav'n;
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus giv'n:

He sits at God's right hand
Till all his foes submit,
And bow to his command
And fall beneath his feet:

Charles Wesley, 1746
Tune: Arthur's Seat, Arr. from Sir John Goss by Uzziah C. Burnap, 1874

Baked Apple Pancake

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here's what I fixed for my valentine, Andy, tonight for supper. Maybe there's a sweetheart at your house who'd like it too so I'm sharing the recipe.



2 cups apple matchsticks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut apple into matchstick type pieces and mix with the sugar and cinnamon to coat it.

Use heavy cast iron skillet (my choice) or glass baking dish. Heat the butter in the skillet until is sizzles. Meanwhile, blend the flour, milk and eggs. When butter is extremely hot, pour batter into skillet. Let heat for a few minutes while you sprinkle top with apple mixture. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until light brown around the edges. Pancake should rise like a souffle. The secret is heating the butter until it sizzles. Enjoy!

15 Words or Less Poem

The barren rink awaits;
Even the Maple Leaves play indoors these days.



Laura Purdie Salas hosts 15 Words or Less Poems each Thursday. Visit her to read more poems or play along.

Sunday's Hymn: How Sweet and Awful is the Place

How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
"Lord, why was I a guest?

"Why was I made to hear thy voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"

'Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

We long to see thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing thy redeeming grace.

Isaac Watts, 1707
Tune: St Columba, Old Irish hymn melody

Update: As AuntE pointed out in her comment, the word "awful" did not mean what it means to us when Isaac Watts used it in this hymn over 200 years ago. I know that some newer hymnals substitute the word "awesome" in its place. "Awesome" or "full of awe" is what the word "awful" meant in Isaac's time. But we sang the hymn in its original form this morning in church so that is how I posted it.

Snow Drops!!

Look, look!! Those little green shoots are the snow drops coming up! Its February 7th and the snow drops are starting to come up!

Now, I do know that spring really isn't here yet and that they'll probably get snowed on quite a bit more before they actually do sprout up enough to have flowers on them but for today...I am so happy to see them! Its been quite a spring-y day!!

Equal Exposure

Andy was complaining that Charlie gets many more pictures on my blog than he does and I suppose its true. So here they both are. And if you look closely, there are some mud spatters on Andy's jeans and boots too. Mostly from Charlie kicking up his back legs at him. But aren't they a handsome pair?!

Mud Season!

Its sunny and 55 degrees today! Yesterday was sunny and 41 degrees Fahrenheit! Our plentiful snow is melting fast and it feels so warm and spring-ish! All of us, Andy, Charlie and myself, just want to be out there! So we took a nice, long walk. The problem is that there is muddy snow melt everywhere. At first, Charlie was trying to walk out around the puddles. He's really not a water lover. But pretty soon, even he realized it was hopeless and just waded through. Here's the result. Mud and white dog are not a great combination.

15 Words or Less Poem

Atomic clock?
I think not.
Digital face?
Not my taste.
Character is what its got!

More 15 Words or Less Poems at Laura Purdie Salas's place. Why not try your hand?

Big Brown Eyes

Have you seen the photo of her dog, Eve, that Kim is submitting to iheartfaces for both the eyes category and the pets category? I saw it yesterday and that lovely photo of Eve's warm eyes inspired me to enter one of my own sweet Charlie in the same categories. Thanks, Kim!

This photo was taken several years ago right after a bath. Charlie always runs around like crazy rubbing his face wherever he can after a bath! Even now at 13 years old! In this photo, I caught him running around (literally) in Emily's comforter. That's why some of his hair is sticking up like it is. Talk about a bad hair day! But its the look in those big, brown eyes that got to me.


Why not submit a photo of yours to one of this week's contests over at iheartfaces? The guidelines are listed here and I'd love to see the beautiful eyes, pet or people, that are a part of your life.

A Destination Walk

We're having our third day of mostly sunny and decidedly warmer weather today and Charlie and I have gotten in TWO walks! Now let's keep things in perspective here. That would be warmer than single digit, both positive and negative, degrees Fahrenheit. This afternoon, it is 26 degrees out there and yesterday was 34. I think Saturday made it all the way to 37 degrees! Still, relative warmth and sun...that's a good thing! The blue skies and the white snow are making it quite lovely...if you don't look at the melty, muddy patches underfoot.


I snapped this picture of what is now known as the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park over the weekend. The cottage is located just a block behind this historic complex which consists of Dole Mansion, the Victorian mansion on the left of the picture, and Lakeside Center, the obviously "newer" addition which was added to acommodate an early transformation of the property into Crystal Lake's first country club. There have been several owners and uses of the building throughout the years including a stint as a prepratory seminary for the Fransciscan Order. Now the vision for this building is as a home for various arts education programs. We do enjoy its presence in our back yard and walking around "the Dole" is a great short walk for Charlie!

Sunday's Hymn: O Worship the King

O worship the king all glorious above,
O gratefully sing his power and his love;
Our shield and defender, the ancient of days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

O tell of his might, O sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, thy pow'r hath founded of old;
Hath stablished it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.

Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills; it descends to the plain;
And sweetly distils in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

O measureless might! ineffable love!
While angels delight to hymn thee above,
The humbler creation, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall lisp to thy praise.

Sir Robert Grant, 1833
Tune: Lyons, Arr. from J. Michael Haydn, 1737-1806