Looking south towards the river.














Coming up to the river.














Rushing under the bridge.




























The cornfield across the road from the river to the north, about 1/4 mile from the river.

Our basement this morning. We woke up to strong winds and rain. We debated whether or not to go to church-hubby hadn't had a chance to do chores because of the torential rain, so we decided to stay home. Probably a good thing, the basement really started flooding about 9:30, halfway through our church service. If we hadn't of been home to get the sump pump going, it really would have been a mess.

The rivers are beginning to catch up to their 1993 records. It's been quite a year, weather-wise.

All day yesterday the weather folks kept warning us about the upcoming storms predicted for the night time hours. Well, I don't think it was quite a devastating as it could have been, it did wake us up at about 1:00 am to lots of lightening and some massive winds. We turned on the tv and watched the ongoing weather coverage. A small tornado hit a small town not far from here and did some damage. The winds certainly made a huge mess out of our yard and the sheep pen in the back yard, that's the big tree that came down. It did a bit of structural damage to our machine shed, but nothing that can't be fixed.

The storms made for a short night of sleep, so I ended up going back to bed for a couple of hours this morning. I'm actually enjoying an afternoon to myself. Hubby is trucking, J had to work, and S is babysitting for my best friend's kids--she's at the homeschool conference. The first one that I haven't been to in 12 years. On one hand, it's very freeing, on the other, just sad. I miss the fellowship of so many truly committed believers seeking to follow God's will in their lives and raise up godly children in a world that is so focused on itself.

So, I'm off to watch a movie and begin a special project for my niece. Pics to come later.

2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NIV)
¹ In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:
² Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.
³ For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
⁵ But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Titus 1:9-16 (NIV)
⁹ He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
¹⁰ For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group.
¹¹ They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
¹² Even one of their own prophets has said, "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."
¹³ This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith
¹⁴ and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.
¹⁵ To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
¹⁶ They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

The headache has finally broken. I slept away the entire afternoon and woke up feeling much better. We went out for a walk this evening to see the progress on the hog building and the sky was so pretty. It's an absolutely beautiful evening, but the storms are supposed to be rolling in later tonight. The whole week looks stormy.

I've been struggling with a feeling of discontentment. Not discontentment with my life, I love my life, but with what I see happening in the Christian community. There is such a dryness. People are living like the world or they are taking on spiritual disciplines that rely on themselves and feelings and experience rather than on the simplicity of Jesus Christ and His Word. It's saddening to me.

So, it's my third day fighting my hormonal headache. I want it to go away so badly. It's hard to concentrate and I have so much I want to read. I have so much I need to be knitting, but I can only do it for a short while. It gets quite tiring going through each month.

Today's sermon was quite good. Celebration, joy, victory! It is ours. What a precious God we have!

Hubby is trying to get the rest of the crops in before the rains come again this week. Since last November, we've had precipitation just about every 3 days. Some days, it just gets to be to much.

I miss my dear friend. I pray that she is alright. I pray that God is strengthening her and that her faith is growing. I often find it surprising how much love I feel for a woman that I was initially afraid of. It really is amazing how God can transform us into people who can love the unlovely if we just let Him.

My niece's new sweater. This one came out so pretty!

We've had a busy week here in Iowa. Tornadoes hit in a couple of small towns north of here early in the week and 7 people have died. Terribly tragic. It was deemed an EF5. We are looking at more storms tonight and tomorrow with more rain all next week.

1 Peter 1:3-5 (NIV)
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you,
⁵ who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Amen and Hallelujah!

My grandfather, Theodore G. Ott, Y1. He died on, approximately, July 30th, 1945, when the U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine after successfully delivering the parts of the atomic bomb to Tinian.

1,196 men were aboard the ship. Approximately 300 went down with the ship. 900 or so went into the shark-infested waters, 4 days later, only 316 were rescued. The others perished either by shark attack or by drowning/delirium from the salt water. http://www.ussindianapolis.org/

We don't know how many of the young men in these pictures survived.

May we all remember the sacrifices that so many have made so that we are free to worship, free to speak, and free from tyranny.

The rain came to an end and we now have the floor to the "pit". Looks like some strange, modern coliseum.

It seems like the last two weeks have just been non-stop. We got graduation out of the way and then construction started. Hubby woke up with a sore throat and exhausted this morning, so we skipped church and he slept. He seems to be feeling better now and I've been able to get a bit done on my niece's wedding stole. I've had to decide on a different pattern, the first one I chose was just getting the best of me!

S and I had quite an interesting conversation with a very interesting young man yesterday. He has been taking classes at a tiny Baptist college and much of his studies have been about counseling. One of the many things that has been disturbing to me over the course of the past year is the way that the church is missing the boat when it comes to really comes to reaching the people that need Jesus the most. There are so many people out there in the world who just do not fit into the typical middle class box that so many churches try to pigeon hole people into. These are people that have been deeply traumatized. They have been raised in a world without hope, and some people believe that it's better not to have hope. So, we have young people (and old) self-mutilating, either due to internal pain or a need to feel pain. Anyway, I was so pleased to hear what he'd been learning. It's definitely out of the box. His heart has been softened towards those that are different from himself and he is much less likely to make a quick judgment call based on some external.

It's pouring down rain outside right now! I'm still so thankful that the weather was practically perfect last weekend!

We've begun a new project, something many have qualms about, but we've done so much research that we feel quite comfortable getting back into the hog business.


Unfortunately, with the rain this morning, they are getting behind. They really want to get the cement poured.

Yesterday, I went to the funeral of a beautiful lady. She left behind a tremendous testimony and a huge family! The pastor that preached her sermon had actually been taught by her! She was a matter-of-fact kind of lady, very practical, very proper (so much so that I wasn't sure that I should wear slacks to the service). She certainly left her mark on me and how awesome it is to know that she is rejoicing, whole, and filled with an inexpressible joy in Heaven with her Jesus.

My darlin' boy got me a new camera for Mother's Day, a Kodak EasyShare C613. It's simple, but I LOVE IT!!! It takes amazing pictures!!

More details on our graduation weekend.

The weekend before had been cold and icky and I was getting nervous since we'd planned an outside party. As the week began, I just started saying a tiny prayer every time I watched the news and as the week wore on, they kept raising the temperature and taking out rain chances. The entire weekend turned out absolutely glorious!! They were the best couple of days we'd had since last fall.














We had an awesome turnout for the party, over 80 people. We still ended up with leftovers, but I would rather do that than run out of food. The kids had a great time making lego inventions and then "blowing them up" with firecrackers (all supervised by experienced folks!). What started at 6:00 pm didn't end until 11:00. It was so nice to see people that we hadn't seen in quite some time and some folks drove a couple of hours to get here, which really meant a lot!!

Graduation day finally arrived. Our party on Friday night was a lot of fun and we had a great turn-out. Several friends we haven't seen in quite some time were able to make it and that meant a lot!! It was so nice having the party on Friday night and getting it out of the way, we were able to clean up fairly quickly on Saturday morning and then get ready for the ceremony.















I suddenly realized at the ceremony that not only was my boy graduating, so was his best buddy. The times, they are achanging. It went well, all though one poor boy passed out while they were trying to get the group picture taken. There were 106 graduates and it just got to hot. The keynote speaker spoke at the graduation 10 years ago and there were 38 graduates. Pretty amazing to think that I was at that one, too, and now, here we are with our last one. I am very proud to be a part of the homeschooling movement!!





























These 3 little munchkins will graduate in a few short years (really, it seems to go by so fast!!

Saturday is quickly approaching. We're trying to get everything done for the party on Friday night. We still have cakes to decorate, macaroni salad to make, etc.. I'm worn out and it's not from party planning, life just seems to keep getting the best of me these days and there has definitely been more tears than laughter.

Spring seems to be hitting everyone I know a bit hard. I'm not sure what it is, maybe it was the long winter--we're all unsure how to procede with life that isn't hampered by freezing temperatures, ice, and snow! So, we all struggle to find motivation, to face new seasons in our lives, and on and on.

Life just keeps rolling along. People are dying, friends are hurting, lives are changing, God is good!! I honestly don't know how people survive this life without Jesus. He is my hope! He is what I cling to!! There is forgiveness for my sin, there is comfort for my spirit, there is strength for the journey and there is relief from my burdens.

J is graduating this week. I've been such a procrastinator! I finally ordered the meat and buns today. S is working on mints. We've got a house to clean, macaroni salad to make, cakes to bake and decorate. Tomorrow, I'm doing a bit of primping that I don't normally do and getting my nails done. Don't know how long it will last, hopefully through Saturday.

Does anyone else feel melancholy in the spring?

The lambs are at a really cute stage now! We were out taking some of J's senior pictures and I thought I'd get a few of the lambs.

This one likes to "headbutt" with J. It's so cute to watch them put their heads down and butt into J's fist. They're real tough!











I'm feeling somewhat better, at least the antibiotic has kicked in. My back has been hurting pretty badly, though, and I'm not sure what I've done there.

I decided to change the name of my blog, the address is the same, though. My deknitter persona was quite a long time ago on a distant and uncomfortable website for me now. Daybreak fits.

Psalms 37:6 (NIV)
⁶ He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

This has become a prayer for me. I want my (HIS!!) righteousness to shine like the dawn in my life. I want it to break through the darkness and bondage for others, revealing to them the beauty and light that can only come from a relationship with Jesus Christ!! I want the justice of my cause (hopefully, only those things that matter in eternity) to shine brightly, like the noonday sun! I want people to see God's justice and righteousness portrayed in my life.

I would highly recommend looking up the meaning of your name and then find a verse that goes with that meaning, you might be quite surprised by what you find!!

We didn't make it to church this morning. We've never missed so much church as we have this winter. It's either been health or weather! Today, it's health. I finally gave in and went to the doctor yesterday morning. I've got the good beginnings of a sinus infection, tons of fluid-everywhere, as the doctor put it, a nasty cough, and now I'm beginning to think it's laryngitis, as I have very little voice. Makes the family happy, though, Mom can't yell :)

Hubby pulled a tendon/muscle on Friday night and his leg is in pretty bad shape. No bruising, though, so we're speculating that it's not torn from the tendon, just twisted and very sore.

Sometimes I forget just how offensive the idea of "sin" can be to people. I use to be the exact same way!! I was always saying "don't tell me that I'm a sinner, I've made my peace with God, I'm good enough to go to Heaven". Until the day that God finally spoke so clearly to me that I totally understood that I was not good enough to get to Heaven, nobody is!! That's why Jesus came! Sin is an ugly thing, but our pride and the enemy have a fairly easy time of changing that in our minds. We begin to think that it's not hurting anyone or that society is accepting it, so it must be okay. We begin to give ourselves over to it a little at a time and before we know it, we've forsaken the truth.

I've been reading in Proverbs lately and I had forgotten how many warnings we are given to hang tight to wisdom, to the knowledge of the Lord, to not lean on our own understanding, to quit trying to reason things out sometimes, and just let God give us the understanding that we need to face this wicked and depraved world. Revelation tells us many times over that in the end, during the tribulation, despite horrific pain and circumstances, people will still refuse to repent and the will openly curse God. Spending time on parts of Ravelry have proven that over and over to me. I use to wonder how people could do that, I don't anymore.

I'm not sure what to do about those that are openly spreading lies and misrepresenting Christianity. I'm praying about it.

I've been getting a bit of knitting done, I'm hoping to finish Baby I's today and get that one out of the way. I really need to give some attention to my niece's stole and start her blessing bag.

Look who came to town!! My dad!! His uncle passed away and Dad made it into town just in time for the funeral. He only got to stay one day and this morning, he's heading back to Denver. It was awesome to spend some time and get a couple of great hugs!!

Rav has been interesting lately and several topics have really had me thinking, not in a way that my positions and beliefs will change, but, instead, how to support my beliefs from Scripture. It's amazing to me to sit back and watch prophecy fulfilled on a knitting website, but God's truth is shown there time and time again.