{"id":3963,"date":"2015-12-27T15:14:25","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/?p=3963"},"modified":"2016-02-24T06:30:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T11:30:45","slug":"three-christmas-miracles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/three-christmas-miracles\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Christmas Miracles"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has been my Christmas of miracles. Three happenings that make me feel so warm and loved!\"With<\/a><\/p>\n

Setting the stage:<\/span>
\nAt the beginning of this month I got a letter from the property management company of my condo corporation stating that the Board of Directors has hired a night-time security person for the building and the additional cost to me would be $58\/mo beginning January 1\/16. This is on top of the $17\/mo increase we had on November 1\/15. For me, an extra $75\/mo in living expenses is very significant! How could I ever pay that and still save money for my twice yearly trips to California? And I would really like to get my sewing machine fixed. And I’d hoped to sometime save enough money to buy a new camera. I deliberately chose to work about 25\/wk for pay. I try very hard to live within my means. I am extremely careful about making purchases. But how could I manage this?<\/p>\n

Miracle #1<\/span>
\nWednesday morning at work, Nancy (pastor) and Kathy (treasurer) informed me that the Leadership Team at FMC had decided to increase both my and Tracy’s (custodian) salary to $20\/hr because we are worth it! For me a more than 10% increase. Thank you, First Mennonite Church!<\/p>\n

Miracle #2<\/span>
\nI prefer to give my daughter money for Christmas, to buy a membership at the Children’s Discovery Museum instead of giving my grandchildren more toys. But this year, with the Canadian dollar so devalued against the American dollar, my $150 would barely break $100 USD.
\nOn Christmas Eve, at our Burkard family gathering, my brother-in-law, Peter, handed me five twenty dollar US bills! He had been going some of through Vati’s papers (my father-in-law died ten years ago) and found $300 USD. He kept one hundred, gave his brother and me each $100. So I was able to give Trina $100 USD and $50 CAD for the kids’ Christmas gift.<\/p>\n

Miracle #3<\/span>
\nBack in July, when I spent a weekend with friends in Southampton, while walking on the beach I put a rock into my camera bag, carefully covered it with the microfibre cloth I carry to clean the lens. My intent was to crochet a cover for it. All would have been well if I’d removed the stone when I returned from my walk. I didn’t. The next morning, again walking on the beach, taking photos, I continually put my camera, lens first into the camera bag without the lens cover. By the time I’d covered two kilometers the lens had a couple of terrific scratches. Depending on how the light hit the lens it could totally ruin the picture. But unable to buy a new camera I continued to use my Fuji.
\nOn Christmas morning my children surprised me with a new Canon EOS Rebel 5T, with two lenses – 18-55mm and 75-300 mm, and a camera bag big enough to keep the stones separate from the lenses! Thank you, Simon and Christine, Trina and Gary! You are the best kids a mother could have!<\/p>\n

I am deeply grateful to God for this season of miracles!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This has been my Christmas of miracles. Three happenings that make me feel so warm and loved! Setting the stage: At the beginning of this month I got a letter from the property management company of my condo corporation stating that the Board of Directors has hired a night-time security person for the building and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Three Christmas Miracles”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,14],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-3963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-family","tag-christmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3963"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3967,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions\/3967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baburkard.com\/crochet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}