Patriarchal Blessings

Jews have the bar mitzvah.
Catholics have the confirmation.
But Protestants? We lack a rite of passage ceremony for the 12-13 year old male.

So, in lieu of a church-wide acknowledgment and blessing, I invited my dad, my husband, and my two grown sons--all of whom are loyal followers of Jesus Christ--to bring a blessing to Joel's birthday party.

Just after eating cake and ice cream,my 80-year-old dad read these words that he had written:

To my grandson... this is my blessing;

May you continue to be true to your commitment to Jesus,  and faithful in keeping God's commandments.

May you always be:
         Eager to learn
         Wise in your decisions
         Pure in your thought life
         Fair in your judgments
         Clean and well kept in your grooming
         And honorable in your dealings with others.

Let others judge you not so much for your accomplishments as for your character.

Don't be envious of evil people,  and don't desire to be with them.
For their minds are occupied with violence, and they speak of making trouble. (Prov. 24:1)

I commend to you the Apostle Paul's words to Timothy:

     Here is a statement you can trust:
           If we have died with Him [Jesus]
                we will also live with Him;
           If we persevere,
                 we will also rule with Him.

          If we disown Him
          He will also disown us .
          If we are faithful,
          He remains faithful
          For He cannot disown Himself.  (II Tim 2:11-13)

Always know that I am proud of you and hold in high esteem.

This is my blessing to you on this 17th day of March, 2105.

Lyle. L. Dauber
Grandfather





--to be continued with other blessings from family members--

50th WAP: Making Picture Boards

If memory serves me, my wisdom took a flying leap out of a high tower the day I agreed to take on the visual display portion of the party.








My sister Rachel actually did the lion's (lioness's?) share of making collages from pictures the other three girls sent her. She took advantage of Walgreen's online photo software and did a great job. (Those shots later.) Meanwhile I said, "Sure, I can handle making the background boards for them. A little spray paint and something to connect the things and a way to make them remain in an upright and locked position -- that should all be fairly simple."

The operative word there? "Should." Who are we kidding? And the word "fairly" is being used loosely in this context. Very loosely.

Actually it would have been easy had I stuck with Plan A to spray paint the boards. But I wasn't happy with the color I chose after all--thought it would look blah to have just a solid backdrop. My motto: Why be simple when you can be complicated? Put another way, Why stay sane when you can go lulu instead? Life is too short not to live on edge, right? It's the way I roll, which explains a lot. It's why they invented Zoloft, for when "Zo's a little off."

Anyway, I decided I really wanted to use the Faith paper collection from Hobby Lobby since we'd already bought it a ton of it. Like 160 pages of it! I figured I'd make a patchwork quilt of sorts for each board.

Choosing the paper arrangements was easy. Gluing them in place was easy.
But getting the edges cut clean with a razor knife ? Not so much.

The time consuming part is always the fussing. It seems I double my time on task when I start the fussing part.


Every job needs a supervisor. My dog volunteered. It was the least he could do. And the most. Part of his job description (which I did not write) was "keep thwacking your tail into those lightweight foam boards all afternoon, but stop just short of getting hauled back to the humane society. And charm her with your good looks when you're on the brink of impoundment."

As you can see, the tools of my trade include a "Mod"est amount of ModPodge. I love that stuff. It seals and glues and shines in one swell foop! And at times, it gave me the lift I was needing when boredom set in. Just kidding.


Thirteen and a half hours later (the boards are two-sided, if I failed to mention that little factoid) I came to the stopping point. The more time wore on, the more I wore out.

Yet I enjoyed the fussing and dreaming of how they'd turn out when all was said and done.

Finished product will be shown later. I promise.