A Collection: Sabbath Rest, In the Kitchen, and July 4th Memories

One of my favorites ... a little collection, a quick glimpse of a few of the many things that have given me joy recently. Life goes by quickly, and it is good to pause and to thank Him for His gifts to us ... 

The books pictured above have been capturing my mind lately, the bottom two I read in May and June, and currently I'm reading The Rest of God. It's quite evident that I am drawn to books on rest, on Sabbath Rest,  and on cultivating a Sabbath heart these past few months. So much to learn, and I am thankful. My husband and I are continuing to intentionally set aside a day or two each week, and pockets of time within the rest of the days of the week, for life-giving rest and soul-feeding. This is needed even in our retirement years, as we continually have a lot on our minds! 

A few great quotes from The Rest of God:

Without rest, we miss the rest of God: 

the rest He invites us to enter more fully 

so that we might know Him more deeply. 

 Be still and know that I am God. 

Psalm 46:10

Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness.

It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. 

Click here for more thoughts on rest in a recent post.

My kitchen has been filled with more baked goods than usual this past week as we are preparing for some special family days coming up soon! Pictured above are delicious Sourdough Blueberry Muffins. 

Also, I made two kinds of bar cookies, my favorite ones to make during  summertime. I probably have been baking these at least once each summer for quite a few years now. We love these Blueberry Bars, and S'mores Bars.

It's always a joy to use my sourdough starter each week for bread, and this Classic Sourdough Bread is my favorite. I make it most every week, and here's my most recent one! My preferred way to bake it is in my oval-shaped dutch oven. So delicious ...

And this digital scrapbook page that I completed this past week captures some of the joys from our first full week of July ... our beautiful growing veggie garden, the first grilled meal on our new grill on July 4th, some time with our granddaughter Ali on her 17th birthday, and time with daughters three days in a row at grandson Cruz's baseball tournament over 4th of July weekend!

Much to thank God for, and most of all, for His faithful love and presence through all the things of life, the good and the hard. Our greatest gift: His presence with us, each day all the year through!

Digital Scrapbooking: Memories from May and June

May and June held some significant events for us, and what better way to preserve them, and also share them, than through digital scrapbooking! And such a treat for me to scrapbook a few pages again, after a much longer break than I had thought. I started up again after about a six-month break, with these memories ...

We traveled to our daughter Cristy & Mark's home near Dallas the very end of April to see granddaughter Brianna in a school play (she did amazing!), and then again the end of May we made a quick three-day trip to TX again! This time it was because our oldest granddaughter Abigail & her husband were there with their sweet 16 month-old daughter (our great-grandbaby)!! And because they live in Japan and were just back very briefly for a wedding, how could we resist seeing them?! We had to squeeze the trip in between several severe thunderstorms with tornado warnings, and were so very grateful that God blessed us with this trip to spend time with family.

Back home we enjoyed a relaxing, fun month of June, caring for our yard and gardens, and also celebrating Father's Day together.

And a most significant event took place on June 23rd ... my dear hubby turned 80!! How can it be that that number belongs to us now? Together with my birthday coming up in Sept. when I turn 75, we call this calendar year our 75/80 year! We have much to be thankful for, and look forward to celebrating our birthdays together with our family in July!

Note for those who ask how I create these pages: About twelve years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking to digital scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is probably a quicker way to learn than the site that I used eleven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.