good news #2

what a week this has been! is it a full moon?

our other good news is that on sunday we got a good offer on the house we live in which has been up for sale in this slow, news-making market since the last week of july.

and on monday, we made an offer on a new house. we've lived in this neighborhood for 17 years, indeed we both grew up here but let's not count those years. so we are ready for a fresh start, a new chapter. after all, doesn't that go with empty nesting (this is a preemptive strike, our nest isn't empty yet), being over 50 and menopause? time for new horizons and all that jazz. the Word calls it enlarging our borders.

our realtors said it ain't over til the closings sing but all is proceeding per usual.

aaaaahhhhhh, i am thankful to the Lord that He's heard the desires of our hearts for change. usually i loathe change but in this case, i interceded for it long and hard and many of you were of one chorus with me in this request! praise Him!

He said that He was going to prepare a place for us in heaven, mansions above! in the meantime, He is gracious to provide this next cottage/mini-mansion here on earth. Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

John 14:2
"In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."

VIVA the DIVA, great news #1

this is the week for great news in our fam and we were ready for some.

i adopted a feline baby girl yesterday from an animal shelter! made arrangements for her on tuesday, picked her up after her spay surgery on wednesday.

i've been holding back as long as possible on fulfilling the desire to have another kitty. our beloved oxford boy kitty of 14 1/2 years died in april.

oxford was named by the kids reading billboards, in this case for oxford jewelers. when i came out of the animal shelter yesterday, the first sign i saw was for casa viva (a restaurant). i decided VIVA was perfect. we googled it and it has multiple meanings but some are hurrah! and life!

then my sweet but hard-of-hearing mama thot i said her name was DIVA. so now she's VIVA the DIVA, VIVA for short.

will post a pic soon, han's taken some, but they're not downloaded to the computer yet so can't do the cut and paste thing.

so now we are in the same household, at the moment anyway, 2 adults, 2 grown children, 2 dogs (each belonging our kids) and one VIVA the DIVA!

all creatues of our God and King!
lift up your voice and with us sing!
alleluia, alleluia!
thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O praise Him
O praise Him,
alleluia, alleluia, alleuluia.

loddy's pics

here's the only foto i could figger out how to upload so far from loddy's pics. 

this one was taken in the lewis and clark national forest in montana. i asked him how he got the cows to pose like this.

double click on the foto to enlarge! A-mazing.

the Lord declares His glory in animals and hills and dales like this and blessed run-away-from-home vacation trips like the one loddy took. praise Him!

for the beauty of the earth

for the beauty of the skies

for the love which from our birth

over and around us lies

Lord of all, to Thee we raise

this our hymn of grateful praise.

amen!

split reality

i was thinkin ahead about some things to write next, all pleasant things. post some of loddy's pics from his trip, tell how blessed i was by sandy and ellen last week.....but then there's the news all around i just can't ignore.  it's like i have to live in this split reality at all times. you, too? 

the beautiful, young tv news anchor died sat. pm after being brutally beaten in her home in one of the very nicest little rock neighborhoods. and her mother found her? my mind cannot conceive of that horror. i think that finding her bloodied, bludgeoned baby girl must've been worse than her death for the mama and she'll have to split off time and again to live with that in her head! okay, put that somewhere in my head, know it happened, pray sometimes when it comes to mind: help this family Lord, help 'em catch that evil blankety blank murderer asap. but then..... split off to something else and move on.  

great news! our house sold yesterday! well, it's not a done deal until the papers are signed at the closing but the realtor peri said "looks like a great offer."  all right, obsess (prayer is preferable) about that. will it fall thru like the last offer? will we have to move in with someone (we've had kind offers) if we're temporarily homeless because it does sell but we've not bought something to go to or there's some gap in the times of the two transactions? seems like some serious enuf concerns. will i have what it takes to pack and move? will all the money stuff work out?

 

seems i'm bracing myself at all times for the other shoe to drop. split again: no don't brace. live in the joy of the moment. be at peace. be still and know that He is God. take a deep breath. relax, it'll all b ok. trust God and get going (ji packer).

up this morning getting coffee: oh, look at the playful puppies in our backyard. aren't they cute? or, and the house sold? great news! then get ready to split...get ready....here it comes..... my own personal news anchor del says:, two dead, one injured at the uca campus. oh, grief, oh fear. do i know the victims? their families? i'm glad han's not on that campus. oh and her friend used to be there. and so-in-so was there. it coulda been them. it was some other mamas' children killed and injured. will they catch the bad guy or guys? 

now split that off and put it somewhere in this very full head of mine and deal with that on some level (where does this all go? is that why we're all sick so much, our bodies like shock absorbers?) while i go this morning to look at a coupla house we might wanna buy - how fun! i love shopping! - because if this cottage where we've lived for 12 years is really, really sold, then we must have a new cottage to make our nest in. i asked del last nite "now, why come we don't we just live in tents like the israelites used to do?"

and just what is next in this horrible-good world will live in? and how many, many splits are in my future (and yours?)? and just when is the Lord coming back to put an end to all this? come Lord Jesus, maranatha, come! 

loddy's adventure

just received some great pics yesterday from uncle paul in california. here's 4 of them: two are loddy and puppy in aunt donna and uncle paul's pool in fresno CA. him and beautiful auntie donna, then him and del's 98 1/2 y/o believing, mighty prayer warrior grandma. she has been praying for del since his birth! (future blog idea on praying grandmothers. i had one too and wanna be one, not too soon tho.)

the back story is this:  our son finished his degree from u of a, fayetteville, (praise the Lord and start makin' those loan pymts) and then set out on a lifetime adventure in august! his goal was to travel and settle in the great west, destination eugene, oregon (as far away from his mama as he could get without leaving the country! was it something i said?). 

as it turns out, he discovered west was not best and after 8 weeks on the road, he's now back in little rock settling in to life post-college, (pre-grad school is what we tell him), working at children's hospital where his dad and sister both work. he's in a former job on the STAT team but applying for degree related positions.

he and faithful puppy chance traveled something like 9,500 miles and within a day or two of his return, he had all this data on a spread sheet (he was a business major after all) with miles per gallon, names of places he filled up etc.  he stayed with fam in tulsa OK, great falls MT, eureka CA and fresno CA. the rest of the time he was camping in national forests and occasionally in a wal-mart parking lot where they welcome campers.

loddy only took about 500+ pics so i'll ask to share some of those with you soon. A-mazing ones you will not believe. they look fake, they're so good.

then there's sue, bev and andree seu

these girls have blogs, too. i found sue's link on ellen's blog. i found bev's blog  on sue's blog.  i found andree seu thru world magazine and a year ago in november world hired her to do daily (m-f) blogs (i think of her as my personal friend now, doncha know)....their blogs also inspired me to start catching some z's - writing the blog, not taking another blessed nap.

one time i was reading sue's blog and she had written about her kitty who had just died (not literal kitty, i just call'em all kitties and puppies no matter the age) and mine had just died too (been "put to sleep" like hers, a unique experience) and her pain was right there on her blog for me to read but i wouldna known had i not gone to her blog.....

one of the reasons i want to write is because of what the Word says about there being nothing new under the sun (ecclesiastes 1:9).  whatever i'm going through, i'm not alone.  someone's going thru it now, has been thru it before me or will go thru it after me.  that is so comforting.

and comfort reminds me of one of my fav passages from the Word, 2 corinthians 1:3-7 where paul says blessed be the God of all comfort and how we comfort others with the comfort by which we've been comforted.  sue's blog was just the comfort i needed. 

ps: i have no earthly idea how to do all these fancy hyperlinks, etc. my editor/husband is doing it for me til and if i learn.

why catching some z's?

i wanted to use z in the name of my blog....my handsome journalism-degreed husband of 25 years, thank you God, helped me come up with the name of my blog this morning as we sat and took the plunge in setting this up!

why z?  my name is hazel rose, named after my jewish maternal grandmother (she died before i was born, but that's another story.)  i've been called a lot of variations on the theme (i'll just tell you the polite ones) like hazy, haze, zel, zrose (given to me by kay), hazel razel (by cindi), hazella rozella (by ann) and in last few years i've just shortened it all to z. 

anywho, that's the story of z. 

another time i'll tell you (it feels very presumptuous to write and then expect you to read anything about me which is why i've prolonged the decision until today!) how much i love catching a lot of zzzzzzzz's. it's one of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world.

 

uncle!

uncle! my friend ellen has been saying "or you could put that in your blog!" for many months now (or has it been years?). okay, miss ellen. hat tip to you (i think that means something in blog speak) for your sweet, patient encouragement to do this....

i guess i have to be pushed into things (lots of stories along those lines, i could blog forever on that). here's a coupla recent pushes i've received about blogging.

my two dear friends ellen and sandy ministered to me in a precious way last week and i said "i want to write about that in my book!"  (i write a lot of imaginary books) and miss ellen said "you could put that in your blog!"

yesterday i sent a link to a friend who didn't know our kitty oxford died. i wrote about oxford's death in april 2008 as a guest blogger to ellen's blogsite (bubbles and money). my friend actually went there and read it and then emailed to let me know....and ellen knew from whatever inside scoop the blog owner (?) has that some random person read my writing from her april archives....it sorta blows my mind, this whole ripple effect of blogging....the massive connectivity of it all.

and yet another push early this am. friend abbie in georgia (see her blog at www.abbiegrace.typepad.com) sent an email saying she'd read a comment i posted last nite on ellen's blog (go ellen, she's my friend, if she can't do it, nobody can!).

okay, here 'tis. saturday morning coffee date with del on the red sofa.  since he agreed to set it up with me (imma big chicken), here we go!!