Gathering the Moments | February 2025

🎔 In February, we gave our bedroom a little love.

First, we hung a clock that Kati had found when she went antiquing on her birthday in November. She had texted me a photo, saying that she thought of me when she saw it. She did the same with a sweet pumpkin pillow. I asked her to buy both items for me and I dubbed her my personal shopper! She mailed the pillow so I'd have it in autumn, but the clock she brought at Christmas. I hemmed and hawed about where to hang it and finally settled on this spot in our bedroom. 

Then we (re)hung this picture in our bedroom with its new grain painted frame. (You can read more ~ here ~.)

🎔 Ron continued working on our first big house project of the year: the conversion of our pink half bathroom into a main floor laundry closet. 

🎔 Are you surprised that my friend Barbara and I went to a coffee shop and then antiquing?  (You're probably not.) 

🎔 February brought more snow . . . and more. 

🎔 This seems like a very "February" thing to do! 

🎔 Soup was on the menu in February. 

🎔 I don't think I told you that I did a little chair switch-a-roo.

I put the recently upholstered mustard-colored chair in the living room (yes, even though I chose that fabric specifically to coordinate with the love seat fabric!), and I brought the red-checked chair back to its former place in the library. I love the red checks against the green trim, and now I love the rug too (the rug that I had doubts about with the mustard chair). 

You can see the mustard chair in the library in ~ this post ~.  Don't you think the red-checked chair looks better against the green? 

By the way, I made the switch months ago, but it was February when I took this photo with winter morning light shining into the room. 

On the other side of the library is a real life look at Bekah's study corner. She is working hard this spring semester of her junior year. 

🎔 Also in February . . . 

At Mom's house, she and Linda and I are sorting through old (and a few new) family photos. This one captured my attention recently: Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Daddy's house, circa 1984. But there is a mystery that no one has been able to solve. Who took the photo?! We don't remember! 

🎔 There were a few Valentine splurges in February: 

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Crème Frappuccinos. Yum! 

I cobbled together a new recipe for a Valentine luncheon at church. 

A new heart was a small non-caloric splurge. 

🎔 Late afternoon light on a February day. 

Do you see misty light and shadows? 

I feel this as representative of life. Oh, there is light . . . the light that is from The LIGHT OF THE WORLD! I know that light! But sometimes - in the dark, in the shadows - that light appears misty. Yes, life is full of shadows and misty light. There is much that looks shadowy and misty and unclear and mysterious. And yet, the Light is always there! 

And so, when I am troubled, I need not try to understand the darkness. I need only look to The Light and understand Who He is. One day, all that is mysterious will be clear. All that is shadowy will be illuminated. All the darkness will disappear in His glorious light!