Looking For Spring In February

 Feeling In The Pink

Hi friends! I'm just popping in with a short post to wish all of you a very Happy Valentine's Day! I celebrated a bit early today with lunch out with The Mr. I'm wearing a new pink sweater with a multi-color necklace that just puts me in the mood for Spring.

I noticed this evening that it didn't get dark until well after 6 p.m. The clocks "spring forward" on March 10th which means that evenings will stay light even longer. I can't wait for that as I really dislike it getting dark so early in the evenings in the winter. Outside our church this past week, I have noticed the green stems of hyacinths starting to poke their way through the earth. All of these signs are hopeful to me that Spring isn't far away!

Pink is such a cheerful color and I enjoy wearing it a lot. It's also a Spring color in my opinion. Since Easter is early this year, on Sunday March 31st, I plan to start decorating soon for that holiday. So look for some pinks to be appearing in those decorations!

Enjoy a wonderful day and remember to love a little on yourself today! 

Until Next Time,

Debbie

Faithful Friday Devotion The Greatest of These Is Love

 I Corinthians 13: Love

And now these three remain : faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

Good morning friends! I hope your week has gone well and you are enjoying these first hours of your Friday morning. Since we are so close to Valentine's Day, I thought an appropriate devotional for this morning would be the verse from I Corinthians about Love.

Love is such a used word in our language isn't it? In terms of Valentine's Day, it typically refers to romantic love although the card sellers have cards for every relationship from friends to school classmates to our pets! It has become more of a "fun" day to celebrate. As a teacher, I always enjoyed this fun aspect and the children decorating their Valentine boxes. And of course the actual day was filled with all sorts of excitement and a party with cookies and punch with everything red! It was fun but exhausting!

During Biblical times there was no such thing as Valentine's Day, of course, and if you read the full Chapter 13 you will see that Paul was focused on relationships in terms of love. Here is what Paul says in verses 3-7:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I think of our world today and how, in so many ways, we seem to have gotten away from these Biblical thoughts about love. We don't always have to agree with one another. But we can still be civil and kind. 

Love takes work. And that work is not always easy. But a great place to start that work is through focusing on our relationship with God. Through prayer and reading God's word and building our own personal relationship with Jesus we can get there.

Blessings and Peace,

Debbie

❤❤❤

Valentine Tree and Valentine Tiered Tray

 My Changeover to Valentine Decor

Hello friends and welcome to February! I've only managed to do one post this week and so, before we get too far into February and all things Valentine, I thought I would share my changeover to Valentine Decor. Sorry that there will be no Faithful Friday post this week. I'll try to do better for next week.

I don't have lots and lots of Valentine decorations so there is still some winter decorations mixed in as you can see. I was ready to de-emphasize snowmen on the white light tree in the living room so I removed the snowmen and kept the white wreaths. I added the pink heart wreath and a couple of red and white wreaths with the red heart picks tucked in near the bottom of the tree. My stuffed red hearts under the tree are pieces I have enjoyed for over 25 years and the little squeezable snowman with red hearts is a new piece this year. It's nice to have a bit of a change on the living room tree.

Here is the tree all lit up at night. I'm so glad to have this little tree up for the winter months. It really makes me feel better on these dreary winter days when it gets dark so very early. I enjoy looking at it all through the evening! 

I decided this year to put the tiered tray on the radio/bookcase cabinet in my music room rather than on the little foyer table. I think it really looks lovely in this spot. If you follow my blog from previous years you will most likely recognize some of the little pieces on the trays. The little bear with the broom candle on the top tier and the little wooden snowman holding a star on the bottom tier are new-to-me pieces that I recently thrifted. The red heart wreath to the left and the LOVE sign to the right pair well with the tiered tray. If you have ever visited Debbie Barna's Debbie Dabble blog you will see that she takes many items like the LOVE sign from the Dollar Tree and adds to them to make them really beautiful. I didn't do that as you can see. Do visit Debbie's blog, though, to see her amazing Valentine decor! She decorates trees all year long in her home. 

And finally, I wanted to share these beautiful flowers that were on the altar at church on Sunday. A sweet couple who attend our church placed them there to honor myself, our music director and pianist and the chancel and handbell choir members as a thank you for our music program and in their words,"the joy we bring each week." I thought that was so lovely and the music director and pianist voted for me to bring the flowers home. So now I have this gorgeous arrangement to enjoy as part of my Valentine decor!

 And one more thing to share before I finish up this post. My friend, Sharon, shared with me that there is a new line of fabric out called, "Deborah's Garden." I asked her to send me the link so I could see a fabric named after me! I love the fact that the fabric has colors on it that I love, especially the blues, and even butterflies! If I were a better sewer I would definitely be thinking of all sorts of things I could create from this pretty fabric. But alas......maybe some pillow cases??!!

I hope your week is going well and that you enjoyed this post and, perhaps, got some ideas for your own home decor. Or some inspiration...or just enjoyed looking at the pictures. I'll be back next week with more.

Until next time,

Debbie