Friday Five

Appetizer
Create a new candle scent.

Spice.
Oh, you just have to see my newest candle! And I am not a candle person! This pound cake is really a spice-scented candle and it sits on the butler's tray in my dining room. It makes me feel as if I am ready for company at any minute :)


Soup
Name one way you show affection to others.

I cook/bake for them.

Salad
What is your favorite writing instrument?

Black roller-ball writer


Main Course
If you were given $25 to spend anywhere online, from which site would you buy?

I would head over to some audio site and use the gift to learn how to download books/music like Cindy Rollins.

Dessert
Are you dressing up for Halloween?
No, I am not dressing up for Halloween this year. The last time I did was for a party in college. I had my first date with my now DH. I was a Southern Belle and he was a slave!! Wouldn’t you like to see a picture of that??!! That would have been 1976.

Finally my answers! Better late than never? Perhaps I am just humoring myself. Donna over at Quiet Life has been inviting blogger-friends to get to know one another by answering five questions each week. I find it fun, entertaining, and thought-provoking. I kind of wish I had been saving my answers.

Birthday Girl
Holding her birthday pillow highlighting special places in her *Atlanta*







We celebrated over margharitas at a favorite Mexican restaurant with her DH (my father), my DD#1 and Cousin Becky.

On Saturday we will travel to her parents'(see pic 10/16) hometown in middle GA for a Smith Family celebration on property that has been in the family since the early 1800s.

Sienna Brown
I picked up these mules at the local Target because I thought they would match a ten-year-old skirt. And they did! Now I have a new outfit just by updating an accessory. With this long, front-buttoned skirt, I wore a cream-colored, sleeveless ribbed turtleneck, and my bluejean jacket. Some small plain earrings (silver), and a wooden necklace dressed me up a little more.

Care to share about an addition to your Fall wardrobe?

Valley of Vision

First Day Morning

O Lord,
I commune with thee every day, but week days are worldly days, and secular concerns reduce heavenly impressions.

I bless thee therefore for the day sacred to my soul when I can wait upon thee and be refreshed;

I thank thee for the institutions of religion by use of which I draw near to thee and thou to me;

I rejoice in another Lord's Day when I call off my mind from the cares of the world and attend upon thee without distraction;

Let my retirement be devout, my conversation edifying, my reading pious, my hearing profitable, that my soul may be quickened and elevated.

I am going to the house of prayer, pour upon me the spirit of grace and supplication. I am going to the house of praise, awaken in me every grateful and cheerful emotion, I am going to the house of instruction, give testimony to the Word preached, and glorify it in the hearts of all who hear; may it enlighten the ignorant, awaken the careless, reclaim the wandering, establish the weak, comfort the feeble-minded, and make ready a people for their Lord.

Be a sanctuary to all who cannot come. Forget not those who never come, And do thou bestow upon me benevolence towards my dependents, forgiveness towards my enemies, peaceableness towards my neighbors, openness towards my fellow-Christians.

Amen.

Ted Baehr

In conjunction with Vision Forum's Christian Filmmaker's Academy, I just wanted to add my two cents to the pot when it comes to evaluating the entertainment industry. We have supported MovieGuide for almost twenty years. In Oct 1993, we hosted a table at their annual fundraiser in Atlanta GA. Since then Baehr and his lovely wife, Lili, moved to California, to be more involved in witnessing to Hollywood.

On whose reviews do you rely when evaluating movies/films?

October 16, 1926
Eighty years ago, October 16th fell on a Saturday and my maternal grandparents *tied the knot* in Lafayette, AL. He was almost 25, she was 24 years old. So even though they married in secret, the event was not sinister. He was an intern residing at Grady Hospital and not *allowed* to be married. Those are all the circumstances I know right now and how I wish I had inquired about the details. Seven years later arrived my mother, their only child.

Eighty years later, we are in the midst of planning a wedding and I wonder about their reception, if they even had one. Was it in a home, the way so many were in the twenties, when Mrs Post first published her volume?

Psalm 24

Read it. It's one of my favorites. So majestic!

Today's worship service was opened with the words of this regal psalm. I think it's special to me because I was called to read it aloud at the opening of a chapel service in elementary school. I was 10 years old. I took my part seriously, pondering the meaning of the words. They have stuck with me.

Even then I knew this King of Glory :)

Do you have a favorite psalm?

Homecoming at Hillsdale College


A good time was had by all even if we didn't attend the tent part where the music was too loud to keep one from hearing any conversation.



Nope, instead we took this motley group to dinner at the Saucy Dog, where they do BBQ well. And they're not even from the South!!















The weather was gorgeous, giving us a glimpse of the beautiful leaves to come (here in about two weeks). The Chargers triumphed over their opponents in the last minute of the game. And, last but not least, we were able to spend lots of time with DD#3 who was eager for a dose of home.

What did you do this past weekend?

Museum Hopping

Or Fine Art Friday entry a day early

It's nice to be thought of. Tulip Girl left a comment wanting to know which museum I visited on the free day. See my blog entry dated September 23, 2006. And I'll post about it when I try your recommendation of Avalanche Rooibos. Thanks for the suggestion. :)

Truth be known....wedding errands took priority over pleasurable ones, and so, I didnt make it, although I plan to :) Based on the posted list of museums, I have determined to visit each over the coming year...or so.

The High has a cool three-year-long collaboration with the Louvre and I WILL go to those exhibits...most likely on days when I hope the attendance is *light* because, as Donna pointed out....the crowds. The last time I visited the High was for Andrew Wyeth, an all-time favorite.

Several of the museums on the list of ten are really close by and I have been before but not recently, i.e. Fernbank and Weinman. I'd love to take a trip to Savannah and visit the Telfair. I recently gave my mother a biography of Mary Telfair, which she has enjoyed, loaned to a friend, and *returned* to me. Do you have friends who give gifts back? Tee hee.

Macon is closer to me than Savannah, and so, I might visit their museum sooner than later because of my interest in Sterling Everett.

Finally, DD#4 enjoys all things Egyptian and I am contemplating a trip to Philadelphia to see King Tut in 2007.

But this Friday I will be viewing the art at Hillsdale College.

Which museum did you visit most recently?

Holy Days or Holidays

Once upon a time someone asked me to share how we handle Halloween and Christmas in our family. So, true to my slow, methodical pace, I will post several entries about this topic.

First, allow me to commend to your attention, Carmon's excellent essay at Buried Treasure. Then for some in depth research, consider reading the following five points in an effort to solidify in your mind that there is no more important day each week than the Sabbath and that the worship service of the living God is not to be mixed (syncretized) with any man-made celebrations.

1) The Westminster Assembly's Directory of Public Worship (1640s) excerpt:

There is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the Gospel but the Lord's Day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued.

2) Lectures in Theology by Rev. John Dick (1836):

this (Sunday) is the only day which God claims as His own in a peculiar sense; He has given us the other six days to pursue our secular employments. It follows, that men have no right to institute holidays, which return as regularly at certain intervals as the Sabbath does at the beginning of the week. This is an assumption of authority which God has not delegated to them. Holidays are an encroachment upon the time of which He has made a free gift to men for their worldly affairs; and although enforced by civil and ecclesiastical laws, they are not binding upon conscience. No man sins in not observing them; but he does sin, if he observes them from an opinion of their holiness. Men may set apart particular days for fasting and thanksgiving; but those are only occasionally, and not the days, but the services, are holy.

3) The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1899):

There is no warrant in Scripture for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, rather the contrary (see Gal 4:9-11; Col 2:16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed Faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

4) How is the Gold Become Dim by Dr. Morton Smith (1973):

It is just this attitude of indifference to the Constitution (Westminster Standards) that has brought us to the state we are in in the PCUS. Whereas, earlier, as is reflected in the 1899 deliverance about Christmas and Easter, there was meticulous concern for staying with the standards, and the strict interpretation of Scripture on even such a matter as these two days. Now there is a complete reversal to the point of adopting the liturgical calendar of past tradition, without any Biblical basis.

5) These statements, which represent the consensus of historical Presbyterianism, are rooted in the 2nd and 4th commandments and the regulative principle of worship (Deut 12:32). They are also rooted in the Westminster Standards, e.g. Larger Catechism questions 108 and 109.

Copied from a handout by my church.