Blessings

I've noticed that sometimes I get so busy writing about other stuff that I forget to be a real person and share about our lives as well! 🙂 We've had some wonderful blessings this past week and I thought I would take a few moments to share them with you…

My kefir grains arrived! A very sweet blog reader, Shirley, was kind enough to send me a package of kefir grains, something I had been wanting to get for a long time. I used to have some, a couple of years back, but I did something wrong and they stopped working, and I just haven't been able to find any since (I can get the powdered packets, but I really wanted the live grains).

Well, they arrived and I had my first batch of kefir this morning, which I promptly made into a delicious blueberry kefir smoothie!

Here is Abbie thoroughly enjoying hers.

You'll also notice a flat of eggs in the picture, sitting on the counter. That's another blessing, and it came along with an even bigger blessing! About a week and a half ago new tenants moved into the downstairs suite, replacing a very difficult tenant who we had to ask to have removed. This is a young couple from our church with their first baby, and we are really enjoying getting to know them! Her parents also happen to own an organic egg farm in a nearby town, and so she has offered to bring me free organic eggs (they're the ones that weren't quite perfect enough to be sold, but they're absolutely perfect in my mind)!

Here are a couple pictures from a fun event on Saturday, taking family pictures with my visiting family (my Mom and Step-Dad from up North, and my brother and sister-in-law from out East). These are pictures that I took, but I'll post up some of the really nice ones when I get them from the photographer.

Yet another blessing… as I type this, a new-to-us set of large oak wall units will be arriving, a very thoughtful hand-me-down from a family at church. The husband is a very talented builder, and made these himself over 20 years ago, but they still look fantastic and are exactly what we needed.

On Mother's Day, we were actually out shopping around for a shelving unit to house our kids toys and such, as the family/school room is just being overrun with clutter and driving me insane. We just didn't feel 100% right about buying the ones that we liked while we were there, and when I went to check out these units that were being offered to us the very next day, I knew exactly why we didn't have peace about the other shelves. These units are exactly what we needed!

Here they are! Aren't they gorgeous?

And a final blessing, that came about shortly after I posted last week on resting in the deep love of Jesus. When I wrote that post, my husband was about to meet with his boss, for what I (and he) thought might be a meeting that would bring difficult news. The company he works for is having some struggles, and while not nearly as bad as in the US, our economy has some challenges of it's own.

When he called me back a little while later, he told me that I should sit down and I prepared my heart for the worst. Turns out, the company was indeed letting several people go… and he was not among them. In fact, he was being offered a very exciting promotion, and a raise! What?!?!?!

We spent most of the weekend saying, "Can you believe it?" and "It doesn't feel real, does it?". For reasons I can't get in to on my blog, this promotion was a very real answer to prayer and a most surprising and unexpected way for God to meet our needs. How kind of God to so graciously answer our prayers and in such an unbelievably timely way!

Very. blessed. indeed.