Growing to fast

Just have to say... He is growing to fast.

6 months old

A Note About the Quilt

I finished the quilt and Leslie picked it up on Friday.  She was so excited to get it to the hospital to show her dad.  On Saturday evening Leslie's dad, Steve, passed away.  I am so glad that I got the quilt done before he went to meet the Lord.  Thank you Steve for letting me be a glimpse of your life.

St Patty's Day Celebration

     For St Patty's Day I decided to make a "traditional Irish dinner" and invite some friends over. 

    I have always wanted to entertain like my parents did.  Mom sure could cook. 

     I bought green plates and made napkins from some scraps to decorate the table.  I got out my grandmother Shiff's salad bowls.

    Then I looked though Pinterest and found some recipes "Irished" enchiladas and chocolate chip cookie cake. I also served a green salad and Toni brought Waldorf salad.  The enchilada recipe I modified to be more like Pam Worley's recipe.  I added cream to the recipe.  Then I got the spinach shells and cut them like a three leaf clover.  The cake was amazing.

I invited two couples over for the dinner Liz & Michael and Toni & Dean.  We sat at the table and laughed and talked for hours and had a bunch of fun.  We need to do that again.

The Quilt Project

 I saw one day in late December on facebook that Leslie was looking for someone to fix a quilt of her dads. I posted that I would fix it for her. A few weeks later she brought the quilt in. It was in bad shape. I thought to myself this is beyond repair. After thinking about it for several days I decided to applique stars over the worst ones. I have had the quilt since January. Today I finished it!




Cutting the strips



the stars sewn togehter




applying the stars





applying more stars



almost done



Finished



5 Generations

Top: Marvin Twamley Middle: Darrin Dahlenburg, Joshua Barrett Leskowsky, Fred Dahlenburg  Bottom: David Sargent

Sunday we had everybody here from Nashville.  Darrin's Grandpa and Grandma Twamley from Montaina, Darrin's parents Fred and Camille Dahlenburg from Nashville, David and Bobby Sue and David brought his son JBear.  That made 5 generations of men.

A Plate Full

As you know I am a bit of a control freak. Ok so that might be a little mild. I have to feel as if I am in control. This carries through everything I do: mother, wife, boss, employee, and friend - everything. God has been changing things about me slowly and I appreciate that. I still get to feel in control.


Everything about my Job was in my mind out of control and everything in my personal life was out of control. Who ever said that God doesn’t put more on your plate than you can handle is crazy. God loads our plate until we realize we can’t handle it and we need Him.
(2 Corinthians 1:8b We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.)
Not trusting God with any of the details I went into overload. For months I knew I was “losing my job” and someone else was going to be telling me how to do things. Not knowing what that was going to look like I lived in fear of ALL the worst case scenarios ie. I would lose my job, become a copy girl, be not important, and so on and so on.
(I Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.)

Then with cancer running in the family and my sister just facing breast cancer that is a fear for me. Trish had told me that the way she found hers is because of an inverted nipple. I woke up in January with the same problem. I scheduled a mammogram and they called me back for a second one and a sonogram. Three days later I am informed I need to have a MRI.
(the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Trying to handle all this by myself (because I am a control freak) I lived in fear and that fear transformed into a person that treated others terrible to try to feel better about myself. Not even realizing I had began to really mistreat my assistant. Just like all other sins you do not choose to be in the middle of it on purpose. I slowly crossed line after line until I had reached the very middle of where I was.

As all good Christian should do she confronted me. I did not like it at all. I had to apologize and then look at myself and the ugly person I had become. Then the amazing grace of God steps in. I looked at who I was and who I wanted to be. I looked at why I was acting the way I was acting. I did not like that I was using the cutting words that my mother would use. Those words had hurt me so many times growing up.
(1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you)

I could no longer control anything! Life was in such disarray at least in my brain. To many I don’t knows!
I had to let God be in control at this point. I had to surrender all to Him. I had no choice but to believe what He had told me. I had to believe in my heart and trust on faith that God was going to keep His word.
(Since He did not spare even His own Son for us but gave Him up for us all, won't He also surely give us everything else? Romans 8:32 )

I have been set free from the need to control. I am set free in my Savior.

Just as God had promised…. He came through. I am a different person than I was . I am cancer free. I have a new “boss” (really just someone with input to what I do, more like a design team)

I know I will have moments that will challenge me not to take control again. But I now have history to fall back on to help me to let go.

A New Name

    I have been called a lot of names in my life.  I was born with the name Charlotte Ann.  My dad called me Charlie Brown.  Char, Charletto, Sharlie, Lottie are some more names I have been called.  As a child in school I was called some not so nice names, with the last name Shiff you can just imagine. 

    Last night we had Wednesday Night Super at church and I normally get mine to go.  I tease Darrin that it is his only home cooked meal he will get during the week.  There is a sticky note attached to the to go boxes each week with your name on it.  This is the sticky note...

I have a new name.

     While reading my Bible this morning I looked over and saw the tag on my desk.  It came to my mind that Christ has made me a new creature.  "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17.  As I go through this week and look at the sticky note I will ponder and reflect on this verse.