Sunday, August 26, 2007

Sunday Hymn - Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose Word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See! the streams of living waters,
Springing from eternal love;
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove:
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the Giver,
Never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hovering,
See the cloud and fire appear!
For a glory and a cov’ring
Showing that the Lord is near.
Thus deriving from our banner
Light by night and shade by day;
Safe they feed upon the manna
Which He gives them when they pray.

Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
’Tis His love His people raises,
Over self to reign as kings,
And as priests, His solemn praises
Each for a thank offering brings.

Savior, if of Zion’s city,
I through grace a member am,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Thy Name.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.

Friday, August 24, 2007

She's Alive!

Yes, indeed, I am still alive. The summer has gone by quickly and we are ramping up to fall here. The weather has been behaving like it really is fall but I'm trying to ignore that. Of course, the fact that I've worn shorts once since we got home from holidays 3 weeks ago doesn't really help.

So what did I do this summer? Worked at camp, worked at VBS, went to BC for two weeks of gloriously warm holidays, planned for school, ignored my garden (except to pull out the incredible weeds that shot up during the two weeks we were gone), planned for school some more, practiced cello, cooked, processed in various ways about 80 lbs of peaches, organized the church library with my kids, enjoyed visiting with friends, welomed our son home from camp (and had a panicked 30 minutes when he didn't show up on the bus we thought he was on), celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary (we went for coffee and a walk) and watched swimming lessons every day for an hour for two weeks. And read a fair number of books, although never as many as I would like.

All in all, a pretty good summer. I think we're all starting to get to the point of looking forward to the structure of fall, although I'm trying not to think about how busy it's going to be. One more week left. We're heading to the city for today and tomorrow and I think we'll take a day away in Jasper next week and then *boom* - fall will start!

My tip of the day regarding computer use:


When I sit down to the computer, I try to remember to check the time. Then I decide right then how long I will be on the computer and keep an eye on the time. Sometimes I go over but it's helpful to get me off, especially if I'm just being lazy and surfing and not doing anything worthwhile. I'm 5 minutes overdue right now but that's because I decided to blog about 7 minutes ago! I just find that little check to be helpful to remind myself to get up and get going on other pursuits.


A photo for your enjoyment (I would post an old picture of ourselves but I don't have any scanned - you'll have to make do with a flower):