I read this over at Families Against Feminism: The Great Debate this morning, and it was a real blessing to me. I love the reminder of how important it is to keep serving our King – even when things get tough and when others don’t understand.

A humble gardener was given the task of planting two rows of trees, on either side of the path leading to the king’s castle…they were to showcase the road, pointing the way to His Majesty. They were to grow to be stately, beautiful, and strong, representing all that was a part of the Kingdom.

The gardener took his shovel, and the little saplings, and began the long, difficult task of planting. The soil was hard, the sun was hot, and the days were long as he heaved the dirt, one hole at a time, where the little sapling would be placed.

Neighbors, on their way to various amusements, passed by and shook their heads at his outdated methods. “It takes too much time that way”, they said. “I planted some trees in my yard using the newest tool to dig holes–I got done in half the time and now I have time to do other things.” But the gardener just smiled, remembering this neighbor’s trees, how some grew crooked, and so he kept patiently digging by hand, ignoring the painful blisters that now appeared.

Another friend passed by and said, “I hired someone else to plant my trees…how much easier my life has been!” But the gardener just smiled, remembering this neighbor’s trees, how some were dwarfed, and feeble, and so he kept patiently planting, lugging the heavy saplings, and carefully placing them in their fresh holes.

Days later, another friend came by and saw the gardener watering, staking and carefully pruning the new trees. He looked tired, as he shuffled about in the scorching heat, gently tending to each new plant. But he pushed through his fatigue, wiped the sweat from his brow, and lovingly persevered. The friend stopped and asked, “Why so many trees? You could have saved half the time and work if you had only planted a few here and there…then you could have used the latest tools to plant them, hired workers to tend them, and you would have hardly had to do anything!”

Still, the gardener smiled, patiently continued his work, and looked up to see the sun finally setting, providing some relief for the hot day.

About that time, he heard the wheels of a carriage rolling up the path…squinting ahead in the distance, it looked like… could it really be…it was the king himself!

The gardener brushed some of the dirt off his shirt, straightened his old hat, and stood a bit taller, feeling the aches in his back from all his labor. The carriage rolled to a stop, and the king dismounted the carriage.

Walking up to the gardener, with a sparkle in his eye, he said, “I have ridden throughout the whole kingdom today. I have looked upon the garden of my subjects, and have found their trees to be quite lacking. Some are crooked, some are small, and some have blown over for the lack of deep roots. Some have brown leaves, from neglect. It was a sad sight, indeed.

But these trees….they are more stately than any I have ever seen. Even in their young life, they are straight, and green, and strong. I am proud of these trees…why are they so different?”

The gardener blushed, looked down, and then replied, “Sir, I carefully dug these holes by hand, though others thought me foolish. I carefully planted each tree, making sure it was in the right place to grow deep roots, although others urged me to hire someone else. Then, everyday, I carefully tended the trees, watered them, staked them, and nourished them the best I knew how, although others considered my work a waste.

And sir, I’ll admit, the days were long, and hard, and hot. There were times I wanted to quit. When I saw others passing by with their amusements, sometimes I wanted to drop my work and go with them.

But on those days, I would look up the long path, up towards the castle. And I would remember that these trees would represent your Majesty…and I did not want you to be ashamed of the job you had given me, and so I found renewed strength to continue my work. ”

The king, astounded by the gardener’s humility and character, ordered a feast, in all the kingdom, in the gardener’s honor.

But even more honoring than the feast, were the trees that the gardener had planted…they grew stronger and stronger, providing shade for the weary traveler, home for the birds, and most importantly of all, they pointed the way to the King, for thousands of years to come.

For my birthday, my mom decided that she wanted to buy me the fabric I needed to make the dress for my brother’s wedding. At that point, I had already found a pattern I liked and had purchased it (McCall’s pattern number 4398, which you can see here). We didn’t get a chance to go shopping while I was up there visiting, so she sent me a check.

Yesterday I was finally able to go shopping. I headed up to Mary Jo’s, and spent probably a good 45 minutes in there looking for just the right fabric. That store is huge! I finally settled on a lovely turquoise vine and leaf print. The fun part about it was that I still had a little bit of money left over.

I had to stop at Hobby Lobby for a few jewelry supplies, so while I was there, I checked out their fabric department. I found a pretty brown and cream print on clearance that I bought to make a new skirt with.

There was still some cash left over, so on my way to meet a friend for lunch, I stopped at some thrift stores. The lady at one store told me that I was welcome to look at their maternity section, but that they didn’t have much. Well, she was right, but I still found two beautiful Sunday blouses there for a whopping $3 apiece.

I also got a new-to-us coffeemaker for $4. It looked like it had hardly ever been used! That was a great find because our programmable coffeemaker has been throwing temper tantrums lately – burning our coffee, evaporating half the liquid out of it before we can drink it, and taking up to 30 minutes to brew two mugs of coffee! I tried out our “new” coffeemaker this morning and I had delicious – NOT burnt – coffee in less than 10 minutes. I was thrilled!

Then on my way home I stopped at another thrift store, and found another blouse and a beautiful salmon-colored cardigan there for $2 each.

I had to laugh – my mom sent me just enough money to buy fabric for one dress, but with some careful shopping, I was able to get fabric for a dress, a skirt, and four new tops.

Our preacher mentioned the other day that sometimes when God blesses us, it’s not always with a check in the mail. He was telling us that sometimes God blesses us by letting us find things on sale – well, God most certainly did that this time!

In six weeks, my brother is getting married. He and his fiancee’ asked if S could be their ringbearer, and they also asked if I would play for the wedding. Of course I said, “Yes!”

Little Man S’s suit arrived in the mail today, so I immediately put it on him. If it didn’t fit – we only had 3 days to exchange it so I wanted to make sure it fit him well. It’s a hair too big for him, but that’s fine with me – I’m glad that he’ll be able to wear it for more than one occasion.

I was able to find a dress pattern for me (on sale for $1.99, even! I’m definitely thankful for that!), but haven’t found the fabric to make it yet. One of these days I’ll actually make it out to Mary Jo’s Fabric Store to look, but I haven’t had a chance to. Hopefully sometime in the next week – I don’t want to wait too much longer.

This morning I made some bread, since both my husband and son were asking for some. It’s been probably two weeks since I’ve made any – we really do not eat a lot of bread anymore.

Since we haven’t been eating a lot of bread lately, I haven’t been buying bread flour – I’ve just been using whatever all-purpose flour is in the house, combined with whatever wheat flour I have (or have gotten Stephen to grind for me, lol!).

This morning’s bread was basic white. I didn’t have the energy or the time to grind the wheat this morning with my hand grinder (a 45 minute chore to do it properly), so I just used the all purpose flour that I had.

The bread tastes fine, but I won’t be using that brand of flour again for bread! The texture was weird and the bread just didn’t come out right.

I usually buy the Aldi brand of flour, but I was shopping at Walmart this time (it worked out better to go to Walmart since I had driven Stephen to work – Walmart was about 5 minutes away and Aldi was about 45 from his job) so I got the Great Value brand. The flour itself is rather clumpy and just seems to have a much lower quality than even the basic Aldi flour.

I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of flours for a while, wondering how much effect certain flours have on a finished loaf of bread. . .now I know. Even my sourdough was turning out with a different texture than I was used to, until I realized that I was now using the all-purpose instead of the bread flour I always used to use.

Interesting observations. . .all from making a couple loaves of bread this morning. . .

It always amazes me to watch how God chooses to provide for us. This week I have been busier than usual with bracelet orders. What an amazing blessing!

It all started with an international order. Just recently, I went through and reconfigured shipping options to make them more accurate. Unfortunately, when I did it, I forgot to take my international customers into consideration, and I ended up undercharging for the international shipping.

So, I went to the ladies of Hannah’s Prayer to get their opinion because there are so many ladies there who are overseas. I adjusted my international shipping and then forgot about it.

I got an email from a lady who wanted to place an order, which she did. Then she wanted to know if it was fine with me if she posted a link to my store on another message board. I told her to go ahead. What I didn’t anticipate was all the orders that that would generate! I stuck an extra gift into her order as a thank you. I’ve never gotten so many additional orders from a referral before!

I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a referral program, so I’m thinking that maybe I really should go ahead and add it. Until lately, I haven’t added it because of all the work involved in setting it up. After this week though, I’m thinking that maybe the work will be worth it after all.

It has been so interesting to watch as the orders have come in. I love making the jewelry, but more than that, it is a blessing to me to know that the bracelets are going to be an encouragement to the ladies that have ordered them.

Yesterday was great for freebies!

First, Hardees was introducing their new french fries, so they were giving away free small fries to every customer that came in. Stephen had to go down to the school to work, so S and I went along to run errands while he worked. On our way, we stopped and got fries.

After that, S and I went to the farmer’s market for some produce. This market also has an ice cream stand, and while we were there, we discovered that it was Kids’ Happy Hour where all kids get a free bowl of ice cream! So S got his own bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He had to choose that kind because it was green – of course – his favorite color. Also because it matched the John Deere shirt he was wearing. Silly boy!

Then we went on to Walmart to get some groceries. There was a lady there handing out samples of yogurt and smoothies. Since she was about to leave, she gave us the rest of the samples she had sitting out. Just then, another customer walked up who wanted to try the smoothies. So, the sample lady opened a whole new bottle for her, poured out a tiny bit into the sample cup, and handed it to her. After she walked away, the sample lady turned and handed the practically full bottle of yogurt smoothie to me. “I had to open a whole new bottle – would you like to finish this?” Of course we would! We enjoyed it.

Even though running errands was necessary, we still enjoyed it. It was nice to get so many things for free!

There’s chirping coming from the corner of my living room where we have our incubator set up. We had a chick hatch this morning, and another is supposed to hatch today too.

It’s such a sweet sound!

What a week! I can honestly say that for the most part, everything went by at whirlwind speed. Oh wait – when we went camping time went a little slower. But anyways. . .

We’re home. Both the guys are sleeping; I’m too keyed up after flying to sleep just now. So I’m on the computer procrastinating unpacking.

We have a busy week ahead of us – I have an OB visit tomorrow, and we’ll schedule my big ultrasound then while we’re there. Yay! Then lessons with some new piano students. . .

Funny how you can be gone for a week and things just pick right up where you left off, but that’s ok. Life would be boring otherwise, right?

Well, we made it safely, and surprisingly, completely on time. We did have some adventures, but the trip went well. I did learn a few things though.

Getting a three-year-old boy out of bed at 3:30 a.m. is made much easier when you tell him he’s going to go visit his grandpa and grandma. It’s even better when you tell him he can wear his John Deere t-shirt to go see them.

Fitting said three-year-old, a four-months-pregnant mama, and two backpacks in an airplane lavatory is a challenge, but can be done.

75 gates between connecting flights at Detroit Metro Airport can be travelled a lot easier when you discover there is a tram that will take you the entire way.

A three-year-old will eat as many chicken nuggets as you want him to if you tell him he can’t leave Wendy’s for Grandpa’s house until he eats them. He will, in fact, inhale them.

Like I said, it was a good trip. Now we’re enjoying time with family. Tonight is my future sister-in-law’s bridal shower. I discovered a recipe in her book I made that had to be retyped though, so I figured I’d hop on here and post a little update while I was at it. Probably should go take a nap though. . .

Well, our bags are almost packed and we’re just about ready to leave. We’ll need to leave our house by 3am tomorrow to be able to catch our flight, so hopefully we’ll be able to get in bed early tonight. We’ll see how that really goes, though.

I’ll sure miss Stephen though – he’s not going with us. I am SO excited about getting together with my family again though – it has been a long time!