Happy Wednesday!

Wednesdays are indeed happy days around here.  Halfway through the week, music lessons in the afternoon (followed by some sort of shopping or treat), and the kids are occupied with Faithbuilders (a mid-week kids' club at church) and Jr. High Youth (yes, I have two of these in my household!).  Wednesday evenings Gary and I often linger at the table over coffee enjoying a quieter house while the kids are out and then we usually pursue some sort of project interrupted only by needing to go and drive the family taxi for pick up.  The sun is shining today and I feel a certain delight when this happens at the same time as my kitchen counter is cleared off and wiped.  Plus I'm wearing my favourite socks.  Simple things make me happy.

This is a layout I completed in the first few days of January.  I am finally starting to dive into my precious stack of Scenic Route papers, I also used some Thickers, a circle punch, and a border punch on this page.  I used a sketch but, for the life of me, can't remember which one as my worktable has been piled high with sketches as I've tried to organize my space.

Have a great Wednesday!

Out of Control

I know I'm not the world's most consistent blogger but I'm hoping to get back into it a bit in 2011.  After a busy Christmas hosting my husband's family (29 of us on Christmas Day and the turkey that made all the other cry) and a realization that this winter thing is going on for a while, I've enjoyed retreating to my scrapbook studio and working on layouts and cards.  I plan to share many of them in the days to come but today is all about the mail.

Two Peas in a Bucket is among the best scrapbook message boards and resources out there and I started hanging out around there in the fall when I started to feel my urge to scrapbook return after a long hiatus.  I enjoyed being on a design team for about a year and a half but really lost my desire to create after I resigned.  Something about working with deadlines really didn't appeal to me.  We were in the middle of a big renovation of our basement and I didn't feel like hauling stuff out and putting it away again so I was mostly creating the odd card out of necessity and otherwise not spending any time at home scrapbooking.  I needed to rediscover the fun of it, what drew me to the craft to begin with.

One of my new favourite things to do is to look at the daily blog links posted on Two Peas.  I have especially enjoyed this lady's blog:  Hilde's blog.  Love her style and projects, just consistently great stuff.  A few weeks into posting she was doing a giveaway on her site.  I was in the habit of posting anyway, made a comment on her project, and didn't think much about it until she contacted me to say that I had won.  I was thrilled but that pales in comparison to how I felt after I received this package yesterday.

Can you believe how generous she is?  She designs for all these companies and I am so excited to play with this new stash!  The second photo is the stack of patterned paper alone.  And you do know I love me some paper!  She is seriously out of control but I am very grateful to be the recipient.

I've been working hard at another project as well.  I'm going to be the speaker at our upcoming church women's retreat.  I have a good amount of holy fear, I'd say.  There are going to be close to 150 women there!  I am writing and editing and writing some more and it has been a neat process with very specific answers to prayer along the way. 

Have a great day!

thirteen

Top 13 Reasons I Love Parenting this 13-year-old Boy

1.  I had no idea what being a mom would be like until you were born thirteen years ago today.
2. You are so different from me and you challenge me to think about things in a different way.
3. You love Jesus and it shows.
4. You are enthusiastic about food which makes it more rewarding to cook.
5. You are a real help around the house and I appreciate your expertise in vacuuming, trash removal, and killing bugs.
6. You are funny.  Not always as funny as you think you are, but you are truly funny.
7. You are great with kids.  Seeing you work with the kids at Thursday morning playschool was a joy.
8. You are a hard worker.  I am really proud of the help you've given others in special projects and for the help you've been with the yard work this year.
9. You are a great conversationalist.  You are so much like your dad in the interest you take in other people.
10. It delights me more than you will ever know to see you read your Bible faithfully.  I was so proud of you on Sunday when you were baptized and thankful for what God is doing in your life.
11. You like ice cream, probably as much as I do.
12. You are eager to try new things like the firearm safety course, fishing, football.
13. You bring a lot of laughter and joy to our home.

People have warned us about having a house full of teenagers.  You are our first and I can honestly say that I look forward to your teen years with delight and excitement.  If they are anything like the past thirteen years, we will continue to be blessed by having you in our family.

Happy Birthday Dear Noah!

The Second Annual Post

Blogging isn't my strength. I had some issues earlier this year with some spam commenting and I considered moving to a different blog site to start up with a fresh blog. After coming to the conclusion that it would likely be more trouble than it's worth, I've decided to continue on with my weak little site right here. I'm not sure that I've been consistent enough to know what I want this whole blogging thing to accomplish. Is it an online journal? A blog about scrapbooking? A parenting site? A Bible teacher blog? The reality is I don't really know and, for now, I'm totally okay with that.

Am I concerned with response and comments and all that stuff? Nah, I'm really not. This is really just an outlet and an experiment in writing. I'm enjoying photography and crafting and parenting and learning and reading and all that good stuff. This is just going to be a hodge-podge blog.

So thrilled to be on summer vacation from teaching music lessons and homeschooling. I've had ups and downs this year but mostly I just really like my life. We just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. I'll be the mother of a teenager in just a few short days. I am working hard at focusing my energies at home instead of looking for more things to keep me busy. I want to freeze my children at this exact stage of parenting. I really like my life.

Happy New Year 2010!!!

I am finding that the years come and go much faster than they used to. Growing up, I was often the youngest. I started school when I was just 4.5 years of age so was usually the youngest in my class. I was engaged shortly before my 22nd birthday and married four months later, much earlier in life than I had thought. DH and I were the first of our circle to begin our family and I found myself with four children before I turned 30. I now realize that, not only does time fly, but time is, indeed, the great equalizer.

You and I have the same months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds before us in this new year of 2010. I have been contemplating, but not "resolving", to spend this year well. What does that look like? What changes need to be made? What relationships need more/less time and priority? How will our family be enriched/endure suffering in this year before us?

I am confident in the Sovereign God who holds all these things in His hand and in the reality that He has a plan for me in 2010. I've ramped up my Scripture reading over the past couple of weeks and hope to read through the Bible by the summer. I determine to spend time seeking Him, in prayer, in worship, in His word. I pray that I will be obedient to what He asks of me and quick to repent when I fall short of the mark.

You see, 2009 was less than stellar. It was a plodding through kind of year with twists and turns that I had not anticipated in any way, shape, or form. It held moments of significant pain as well as moments of recognizing the Giver. My marriage is stronger than ever. My children continue to amaze and challenge me. True friends showed their faces as I walked through some dark times. I saw weaknesses in my life that I hadn't seen before, at least not as clearly as I do now.

Lord, help me to to recognize the difference between the urgent and the truly important in this year ahead.

Blessings on you as you start a new year with purpose, determination, and a teachable heart.

Sometimes I Crack Me Up...

My sweetie and I are intentional about the way we parent. In fact, we call it "intentional parenting." What does this mean? So glad you asked. It means that we choose what we say, the activities we participate in, the books we read, what we watch, etc. with the goal in mind of equipping our children well for their lives. It also means that we find ways to weave truth into conversations about everyday things and try not to miss opportunities to connect with the little stinkers.

Take, for example, our dinner conversation tonight. I made waffles and bacon. Who doesn't like to come home at the end of the day and, instead of finding a nice casserole or a hearty stew, finding the table set for breakfast? Back to the conversation. Since there is an excessive, and I do mean excessive, amount of candy in our home at the moment, somehow the topic of taking care of your body and putting good things into it came up (which, of course, is why I chose to reinforce the point with waffles and syrup because everyone knows that syrup isn't your regular kind of sugar, it's breakfast sugar which is altogether different...). Back to the conversation. The kids started to ask why people don't always take care of their bodies, take pride in their appearance, etc. My sweetie told them that if someone doesn't feel good about themselves, they might give up on some of the external stuff and then feel bad about that, which leads to a vicious cycle of self-deprecating thoughts and a twisted view of being made in God's image and all this perfectly lovely stuff that you should say when you are intentional about your parenting. Never missing an opportunity to make a point, I piped in with this knee-slapper:

...and if you ever look in the mirror and not find anything you like about yourself, that's the time to look yourself square in the face and say this out loud: "Hey, at least I've got really great parents."

Okay, it was a good one. Even Miss O had a chuckle and that is a rarity when it's a response to her own mother's ramblings.

Here's the thing...

I've thought about this blog thing for a long time. I enjoy reading what others write and I enjoy writing as well. There are some excellent blogs out there. There are also some that are a bit...much. Where is that line between an appropriate level of sharing and putting it all out there for the world to see. I was at a workshop this summer talking about connecting with the uninvolved in women's ministry. The speaker made the comment that the reason that so many (and she was talking specifically about young single women) put all their information on facebook or their own websites is that they just want to be known. I've thought about that for a good while. Sad to me.

I am known. My husband knows me. Too well at times for his liking, I suspect. My children spend every day with me and see the good, the bad, and definitely the ugly. I have a few close friends who I share my heart with. Most of all, I serve a God who knows my innermost thoughts. The One who has known me since I was formed in the womb. Can you ask for more than that? What, then, is the purpose of blogging? There is no void in my life that this exercise can fill.

Maybe, perhaps, it's not just about me. Maybe there is a wee possibility that I can encourage one person. That in sharing my own triumphs and struggles one reader will see a reflection of their own life, examine it, and make a change for the better. Maybe it's just a creative expression because that's how God wired me. Maybe not everything needs to have a grand purpose but can still be profitable in the long haul.

Maybe I'm back. I have a lot of photos worth sharing over the last (almost) year since my last post. I've been growing and learning and trudging along as I seek to follow Jesus in my life. I've acquired a few battle scars along the way and there are more to come. There's joy too. And it's worth every hit.

Blessings on your day if there is anyone out there. *wink*