Thankful Sunday

I am thankful for more spring blossoms.

Crocus

Crocus

Crocus

Quince

Phlox

Forsythia

Daffodil

Daffodil

Ornamental Plum

Look What I Found

 

The daffodils and crocuses are blooming! With spring officially just around the corner, I'd like to say the weather is great. But you know spring - can't make up its mind. Lately, it's been cold, snowy, and rainy, or what I like to call yucky. Anyway, flowers are here, with more coming. Yay!

In other news, I've been absent here for a while for no good reason other than I've been working on other things. I have mentioned several times my year-long project of writing some of my life stories for Storyworth. Well, yesterday, I declared it done and ordered my book. And not a minute too soon. I am ready to move on to something else. However, I'm kind of proud that I stuck with it. I ended up with 59 stories and almost 300 pages. Granted, there's a lot of white space in the book, but still...

Hopefully, I'll be back here more regularly, but now it's off to see if I can do something about this headache before I'm off to work.

Until next time...

At Last

I finally saw the first spring flowers in my yard when I found a snowdrop blooming this week. Other yards have crocus and daffodils already blooming as a result of the mild winter, but none of those are here yet. I think the wait will make me appreciate them that much more.

Besides the snowdrop, I also found a few yellow blossoms emerging on the forsythia. I'm not sure they will survive the next freeze, but they are a nice break among the brown and gray branches for now.

Until next time...

Not So Simple

We were mostly on back roads but did drive on the interstate from time to time, where we enjoyed the view of the mountains.

Over the weekend, Ward and I took a trip to Virginia. We enjoyed the mountain scenery as we drove from place to place, visiting friends and searching for landmarks. On one of the winding roads, we came upon a sign for a Regular Baptist Church.

The word, Regular, intrigued me. What was a regular church? If there were regular churches, then were there irregular churches? Was this a local thing? Was the area named Regular? Unfortunately, I had no cell phone reception, so I couldn't google for an answer. So we went along about our business, focusing on other things until we saw this sign the next day.

So Regular Baptist churches were a thing. The other sign was not just unique to that one church. My curiosity was piqued again. I grew up in a Baptist church until high school, when we began attending a Presbyterian church. My church was an American Baptist. The only other Baptist denomination I knew about was Southern Baptists. The Southern Baptists were a bit more conservative in their worship practices and behavior restrictions, but not a lot different - not in my area, anyway. So what was a Regular Baptist? 

When we got home and did the mandatory unloading of the car and petting the cats, I did some research about Regular Baptist churches. And then I got confused.

Origins of the Regular Baptist church has its roots in England during the late 1600s and was part of a movement to bring atonement to all people because rich people had more access to churches than poor people. Names changed with the times, and General, Old Regular, Partic, Orthodox, and Free Baptist have been somewhat synonymous with Regular Baptist from time to time. In the U.S. in 1790, most Baptists were Regular Baptists.

There was no set doctrine I could find for the Regular Baptists, but generally, they are a more conservative group who believe that you should be baptized before taking communion. And some of them practice foot washing. Regular Baptists are more prevalent in the South.

My little bit of research was not clearing much up for me, so I decided to find a list of Baptist denominations. Maybe a list would help put everything in context and make things clearer. Well, here's the list I found on Wikipedia.

List of Baptist denominations

United States[edit]

National bodies[edit]

• Alliance of Baptists
• American Baptist Association
• American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.
• Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America
• Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists
• Baptist Bible Fellowship International
• Baptist Missionary Association of America
• Central Baptist Association
• Christian Unity Baptist Association
• Conservative Baptist Association of America
• Continental Baptist Churches
• Converge (formerly Baptist General Conference)
• Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
• Enterprise Association of Regular Baptists
• Free Will Baptist
• Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship
• Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association
• Fundamental Baptist Fellowship of America
• General Association of Baptists
• General Association of General Baptists
• General Association of Regular Baptist Churches
• General Conference of the Evangelical Baptist Church, Inc.
• General Six-Principle Baptists
• Independent Baptist Church of America
• Independent Baptist Fellowship International
• Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America
• Institutional Missionary Baptist Conference of America
• Interstate & Foreign Landmark Missionary Baptist Association
• Landmark Baptists
• Liberty Baptist Fellowship
• National Association of Free Will Baptists
• National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
• National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A.
• North American Baptist Conference
• Old Regular Baptist
• Old Time Missionary Baptist
• Original Free Will Baptist Convention
• Primitive Baptist Universalists
• Primitive Baptists
• Progressive National Baptist Convention
• Reformed Baptist
• Regular Baptist
• Separate Baptist
• Separate Baptists in Christ
• Seventh Day Baptist General Conference
• Southern Baptist Convention
• Southwide Baptist Fellowship
• Sovereign Grace Baptists
• Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists
• United American Free Will Baptist Church
• United American Free Will Baptist Conference
• United Baptist
• World Baptist Fellowship

 Nope, not clearer. But I have learned a little. I learned it's not so simple. 

Note: My sincere apologies to anyone who is a Regular Baptist for anything I got mixed up or just plain wrong. No harm intended. 

Until next time...

Celebrations

We are not big on celebrations here. However, we try to do a bit from time to time to break up our everyday routine, and recently, we did our bits. 

First up was the Super Bowl. Neither Ward nor I are big football fans, but what better excuse for snacky food than the Super Bowl. For the game, we made guacamole and pizza sliders using up several leftovers we had - except for the avocados for the guacamole, which are always on sale this time of year. The pizza sliders were made from leftover rolls from the freezer which we had at Christmas. They were topped with tomato sauce and various toppings from the fridge. They were delicious. Theo made chips for the dip with corn tortillas that we've been meaning to use up. 

Then with our snacks in hand, we set up a puzzle and turned on the game. Well, actually, we watched other things and occasionally turned back to the game to get the score and watch a few commercials. BTW, maybe it's just nostalgia talking, but I think the commercials used to be better than they are these days. 

Pizza sliders. Toppings included pepperoni, yellow peppers, ham, tomatoes, and smoked turkey (leftover from Thanksgiving).

Ward finished the 1000-piece puzzle a couple of days later. It was a Christmas gift from Aunt Martha.

And just a couple of short days later, it was Valentine's Day. We have done all the traditional things over the years - cards, poems, flowers, chocolates, dinner out, etc. However, we decided to try something different this year - couples yoga. Yep, you read that right. We celebrated Valentine's Day by doing yoga. Neither of us has ever taken more than a few yoga classes, so we weren't sure what to expect. The room was full of couples, most of who had a wife/girlfriend who was a yoga enthusiast who drug brought along their partner. The hour was spent doing poses and stretches together while connecting physically. There was a lot of good-natured laughter, including Ward and me, as we tried to get into the various poses. We both enjoyed it more than we had anticipated. Afterward, they had a huge cookie and chocolates for each couple. I'd say that the class was a success and a fun way to celebrate. I don't have any pictures. I'm not sure that Ward and I contorting ourselves into various positions is something you'd want to see, anyway.

Until next time...