Tag: singing

Behind the Picture: Thea and the Apple

Behind the Picture: Thea and the Apple – Becky and her photography & funny snippets.

February 25, 2019

Behind the Picture! Thea and the Apple

Becky likes photography.

Becky has an interesting sense of humor.  When she takes pictures on the play phone and sends it to me, I get this: (Thea is about an hour old)

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Kimberly and Christina changed Thea, bundled her up, and as Kimberly is bringing her to me, I hear a singing voice: “We’re taking the baby to Isengard!”  (I have no clue how I have the honor of being “Isengard,” but this was the look I got: )

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In the first picture, Becky was trying to get good pictures of newborn Thea.  Becky was making faces to get her attention, Lucas ran up with an apple in hand to “help,” and Becky ended up with a picture that had just the “wrong” angle – but it made a funny meme picture.

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The girls are totally enjoying having a new baby sister – and Lucas loves being her “protector.”  He told Louis he was “protecting Baby Thea from dog kisses, bad dinosaurs, and big sisters when they don’t listen.”  (The last was likely because Jillian kept touching Thea’s head when we said not to touch her soft spot.)

I’m so blessed by their joy and love towards their new sister!  Christina, who was worried about being “too much older” than the baby, can’t get enough time holding her!  I am twelve years and eleven months older than my baby sister (she was also my parents’ seventh) – so I told Christina and Becky they both were older “big sisters” than I was.  (15 yrs 4 mos & 13 yrs 4 mos, respectively)  At this, Becky sends me a “wow” emoji though we are sitting at the same table!  (She was supposed to be using the phone as a calculator.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Electric Season

Energy resonates in the clear skies of the seasons changing to autumn.

October 31, 2018

Electric Season

It’s officially autumn.

To me, it never seems like autumn until the sky goes that gorgeous “sky blue,” gentle cooler breezes tousle our hair, and there is a crisp energizing feel in the air.

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During these days, I remember the exhilaration I felt as a child when they first approached.

Our first “autumn” day we’d race outside, full of a new form of energy that totally required an outdoor escape.  If there was a swingset in the yard, (sometimes just a rope with a stick at the bottom) we were trying to touch the sky with our feet!  On our bikes, (we called them horses, since we loved horses but never had a real one) we would ride round and round the house, singing Sunday School songs at the top of our lungs.  If I ever had to describe the feeling in one word, it would be “freedom.”

Today the gorgeous electric blue sky makes me think about how God arranges things in seasons in our lives.  Sometimes, when a new season comes, it brings the exhilaration of freedom.  I’ve felt it before and not understood why.

Life seems to say, “you are trapped more than before, why are you happy?”

But my heart answers with a song called “Happy” because one verse basically says: bring it on, I’m happy and nothing can change that!

I imagine myself telling life that sometimes.

Because I have my root of happiness in Jesus, His joy is my strength, and even if life wants to throw stuff at me and claim I’m worse off in this new season than I was before (usually it’s that I can’t see the positive just yet), I know God has me in His hands – and I choose to be filled with that freedom exhilaration that comes with this new season!

Whatever God has for us, I sense the excitement, and I choose to focus on joy!  Let this next season begin!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Relax and Rest

June 13, 2018

Relax and Rest

Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed with thoughts.  I feel like my mind is going to blow a fuse (or already has blown through a few and I’m on the last one, staring at an empty box and praying this one holds).

I’ve taught myself that when I start to feel concerned for the future, I stop, hand it to God, and refocus on the present.  Usually that involves song.  Sometimes, it just involves quiet.

In nature is my quiet place.  At a beach, at a park, walking through a forest, or just sitting in my backyard watching the dragonflies dance around in their pursuit of mosquitoes while birdsongs, crickets, chicken noises, and guinea pig squeals form a nature symphony.  (Okay, maybe more like a rock concert or a three-year-old on the kazoo, but still, it’s relaxing to me.)

I think that’s why God tells us to rest in Him and cast your cares (aka worries) on Him.

He knows we have to recharge (relax) our minds in order to have good mental health.  (Interesting, isn’t it, how God mentions lots of things in the Bible about health that science later proves is true?)

When I observe nature, I can’t help but notice how perfectly God made everything to work together cohesively in its environment.  We are made with a unique purpose in our environment.  We can’t be our best in our purpose if we are super stressed and worried.

Relaxing can be different for each person and each time.  I can relax laughing with Becky while playing a video game, writing a blog in the backyard, reading my Bible on the front porch, singing along to music, baby-surfing with Lucas, or walking through a Florida trail trying to spy different wildlife.  Just reminding myself that the problems of the future are in God’s hands and if I can’t fix it now, I just need to rest from worry and trust Him: that is relaxing.

God understands my mind, my heart, and my desires.  He knows what relaxes me, what stresses me, and why my triggers get set off.  He is the quiet voice reminding me that I need to lay a train track with Lucas, help Becky name the new hens, watch lizards with Jillian, or just sit on the ground and look up.  I constantly remind myself that I need to live in the present – pay attention to today because I won’t get another one.  Once the day is gone, it is yesterday; while it is here, it is a present God has given us to enjoy.

Enjoy your present and rest in God’s love.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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