I have often thought to myself, “I am not in control of my life, REALLY not in control!”  As a wife and mother I am at the beck and call of many others, hence my list of plans for the day and week can often be altered in one phone-call.  

On Tuesday my friend Kari called and said that her strawberries were needing to be picked, could I come?  Scratch Tues. mornings plans.  I went at 6:30, had coffee in her beautiful gazebo and then headed to the patch and picked 20 quarts of strawberries.  YUM!  We came home and washed and hulled berries, made 4 batches of jam, froze some for smoothies in the future, ate plenty, and saved some for yogurt and a pie.  I could only accomplish this with my wonderful daughters who are such good helpers.  

I also received a call from my friend Denise who is up from Ill..  She wanted to get together for lunch and so after the strawberries were done Denise and I headed out to lunch together.  Denise is as dark as I am fair as you can see in the picture, but we have so much fun together.  She and I have been friends for over 20 years and she becomes dearer to me every year.  Denise is funny, when she asked about going strawberry picking with me I had to remind her that we tried that years ago and she did not like it….. to much work and to dirty!  We also have tried planting in the garden and canning, ALL of which she has not liked!  If there is ever a famine in the land, she will be on our doorstep, and she will be welcomed with open arms  🙂

We ate at the Shoreline where our daughter Jeni works and so she served us.  She is in the picture with Ally, who showed up Sat. night at our house and we love like a daughter.  What fun it was to see our daughter at work.

We also decided to throw a youth group activity at our home tonight.  We do not have a youth group at this time but it is natural to have the teens over here.  We bought a DVD that Jeni recommended by Lou Giglio called Indescribeable.  We will start tonight over in the park where the church family is having our Wed.  park night, and then after that the teens will come over to watch the DVD and discuss it.  

That means I have some major cleaning to do, reorganize the living room for seating as the number coming has grown from 8 to 14. 

We just found out that one of the girls is severely allergic to dairy so we are searching our cookbooks for a treat that does not include dairy for her to eat.

Melody has started the bread so I will go and start cleaning.

P.S.

Mandy had a great second day at work.  She got to re-line the cars on display out front, and move one sweet little ride into the showroom.  She also met a a man who works there who is a Christian.  Friends of ours stopped in for work as well as the women who is foster caring for the little boys we had this winter.   The sad note on them is that the whole family is being deported back to Mexico, good that the family is together, bad that there is not a very active child protective service in Mexico and so children are far more at risk there than here.    We will cover them in prayer and we hope to be able to see them before then.  I am thankful that I know my God is sovereign in all of this and at work drawing these little boys to Him,  He is not willing that any should perish.

Blessings,

Joyce