Arise, my love, my lovely one come,

the winter is past and the rains are gone.

The flowers appear, it's the season of song,

My beautiful one,

arise and come with me.

Set me like a seal on your heart,

for love is unyielding as the grave

the flash of it is a jealous fire,

no flood can quench,

for love is as strong as death.

Arise my love and come with me

before the dawn breaks and the shadows flee.

You ravished my heart with just one glance

my beautiful one, arise and come with me.

I am my love's, my beloved is mine.

Arise and come with me.

This is one of my favorite songs by Michael Card.

It's words come from the "Song of Solomon" in the Old Testament.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day and there were many references to the "Song of Songs." I was inspired and reminded just how deep the Fathers love is toward us. Just how far He will go to find us if we've gone astray, how He longs to romance us into a relationship with Him.

He is gracious, merciful, longsuffering, and wishes that none suffer.

He is also a God who is jealous for our attention and devotion.

I am thankful to worship a Living God and not one made of wood or stone.

The Island that Jim built

My Husband and I like to design and build (I design and he builds) furniture. Anything you can make with wood. This is one of my favorite pieces! It took about 8 months to complete because I designed it as he built it.
I 've always wanted to draw, but have never been able to until I started working with auto-cad. Perfect lines every time...I love computers! Anyway, my husband kept asking me for drawings with dimensions so I got on my little cad program and started drawing away. When I would present him with my beautiful plans he would just look perplexed and say, "what's that? It just looks like a bunch of lines." Well, they were lines. Beautiful lines that I had drawn with my beloved cad program. No matter how I tried to explain to him what they represented, he still didn't get it. So in the end I decided to just walk him through my design concept that was rattling around in my head. Not bad for having no drawings to work with, what do you think?
Pink and green are my favorite colour combinations (plus brown. You can't go wrong when you add brown) so I decided to be brave and paint the inside pink. It looks great and you can actually see all my tea cups now.
Oh! Look at that hideous flooring! Maybe one day it'll be replaced along with the 55 year old counter tops and the 55 year old cupboard doors and that lovely oven that heats up the entire room.

I used to have a Beautiful Garden

I used to have a beautiful garden filled with 39 rose bushes, a gorgeous wisteria vine, and several lavender bushes, amongst other blooming things.
I would spend hours tending to my roses and daydreaming about how beautiful my garden would be once it was complete. There would be a potting shed in that corner while a bird bath was in other and a little stream that would meander its way around the whole garden. My bunnies would dance and play among the foliage and occasionally sneak up on the Blue Jays that frequented my yard. There were giant yellow & black Bumble Bees and kamikaze "hummers" that seemed to take great delight in buzzing my head whenever it was down. Many happy hours were spent in my garden until something dreadful happened...I went back to school, which led to a job.
My garden whispers to me now like a voice from the past, beckoning me to set aside an afternoon or an hour just to spent time with it but, I never seem to find the time.
The bunnies are gone and the blue jays have moved on to someone else's yard. If only time would stand still for a short while, maybe then my garden would be what it once was...a place where my heart longs to be.

Many of the old myths about chocolate and health are crumbling under the weight of scientific fact. The once-prevalent belief that something that tastes so good just can't be good for you has given way to a more balanced picture of chocolate and cocoa products and their relation to health and nutrition. Here are brief reviews of recent findings that correct common misperceptions of the effects of chocolate on health.

Myth: Confectionery is a major cause of tooth decay.
Truth: Tooth decay is primarily the result of poor oral hygiene. Dental caries (another word for cavities) are caused by any foods containing fermentable carbohydrates that are left on the teeth for too long. In fact, there are ingredients found in chocolate products that may retard the tooth decaying process.

Myth: Chocolate is high in caffeine.
Truth: The amount of caffeine in a piece of chocolate candy is significantly lower than that in coffee, tea or cola drinks. For instance, a 5 oz cup of instant coffee has between 40 and 108 mg of caffeine, while a one oz milk chocolate bar contains only 6 mg and many confectionery items have no caffeine at all.

Myth: Confectionery has a high fat content and will lead to weight gain.
Truth: "Candy, in moderation, can be part of low-fat eating. In fact, an occasional sweet treat helps you stick to a healthy eating plan." - Annette B. Natow, Ph.D., R.D., author of The Fat Counter and The Fat Attack Plan.
For more fun facts about chocolate explore the following website. You'll be amazed!
www.creativechocolates.com

FAREWELL MY FRIEND

It almost sounds as if someone died and thankfully no one has. It's just that my sweet friend Janet has left us at work and gone off on a new adventure. Don't get me wrong because I am happy for her, but I miss seeing her adorable face every day. She's only been gone a week, but it seems like an eternity.

We used to share an office space together in the back of our building and I used to feel like part of my job was to keep her entertained (and stocked with chocolate) so I would chatter about nothing and everything. Other times we would just sit silently and work for hours. She on her computer and me on mine, but it was ok because I new that if at any time I needed to say anything, she would stop and listen. She's the kind of person that you wish you could be more like. So my friend Miss M, I love you and miss you.