A Step Up

Today, finding myself alone at home unexpectedly, I started over on the stool cover I showed you yesterday just using blue, cream and gray. I pretty much followed the pattern here. I like the long double crochets that skip down a row. I painted the stool using cream chalk paint.

Here’s one I did a couple of weeks ago with a pattern I made up myself. I love black and white!

Other than making the stool, I’ve done five loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and vacuumed the upstairs rooms. Oh – and I’ve watched five episodes of Once Upon a Time. A friend told me about this series a while back and I had been meaning to give it a try. Now I’m hooked!

So, it’s time to get my mind around beginning another week. Hope you have a lovely one, bloggy friends!

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Yarning

I’m working on a stool cover from this pattern…. Not too happy with it right now. I think I’ll start over with just the blue and white.... I think….. So excited to get an “extra” hour tonight!

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Happy Books

My daughter, three of her friends, and three of us moms are going through this book together. We meet about every other week and the mom’s have been alternating turns leading the discussion.

This week was my turn and the chapter was “A Girl Who Knows True Happiness.” The main point was  “true happiness is found not in your circumstance but in your thoughts.”  The chapter was long and full of lots of good things. Reading it, I envisioned each girl having a “Happy Book” she could turn to when feeling blue or angry or without hope to remind herself of the truth of God’s Word. So…. we made “Happy Books!”

Here’s the cover to my Happy Book. (The back says “Book.”)

And here are the girls hard at work:

 
The main gist of the “book”:

If you’re struggling with finding happiness, here are some things to consider -

• Tell yourself the Truth (found in God’s Word)
• Take every thought captive (get rid of those negative thoughts!)
• Agree with God (know what He loves, what He wants for your life)
• Forgive (yourself and others!)
• Trash your idols (those things that crowd out God in your life)
• Live a life of contentment (prioritize, simplify, help others, enjoy what you have)
• Find happiness on the other side of heartbreak (trust God’s plan for your life)

Here’s my page on “Take Every Thought Captive”. The girls put an illustration on each page with related verses to remind them of what they learned. You can see my whole “book” here. 

We spent a good bit of time talking about how these verses should be read in context and also that the expectation is not for us to have these happy, happy little lives. As Christians, we know there will be pain and suffering…. We will be sad and we will be hurt. But our faith in Christ gives us the ability to have a deep and abiding joy that is always flowing in and through our lives.

So, AEDM Day #2 was a fun and crafty time with some beautiful little girls I love very much. Thanks, Lovelies, for such a good evening!

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AEDM!

Leah over at Creative Every Day is again (I think for the 10th year running!) hosting the November Art Every Day of the Month Challenge! Click over there and see all the beautification going on in Blog Land! So much talent, inspiration, and nice people to meet!

I’d like to say I’ll be posting something everyday for this challenge, but I’m too old and wise to actually put that in writing. So, here’s to giving it a try without black-and-white commitment! I definitely could use some creativity flowing every day right now, how about you? These days with less and less sunlight are beginning to wear me down a bit… and we’ve so many more months of this to go! Bleh.

I’ll start off this month with a gift I made for a friend who just bought her first house. It’s 5x7, drawn with Micron pens and then colored in just a bit with Prisma Markers. I’m afraid I’m cheating (*maybe*) since I actually drew this on Sunday and framed it yesterday then passed it on to her dad to deliver this weekend. But, I did want to share this and I’m happy with how it turned out. I was also practicing for a similar gift I want to make for The Boy and The Girl’s upcoming 2nd anniversary. Hard to believe it’s already been that long! Here’s anniversary gift #1.

Here it is framed. Not super happy with the framing, but it’ll do.

So’s here’s wishing you a most creative first day of the month and a most glorious November! Grab all the sunshine you can today, bloggy friends!

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Two Kathleens

I have two book recommendations for you…. both by “Kathleens” and both first time novelists. Great books!

#1 - The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom (Audio)

Title: The Kitchen House
Publisher: Touchstone
Web: www.kathleengrissom.com
Date of Publication: February, 2010
ISBN-10: 1439153663
Readers: Orlagh Cassidy,  Bahni Turpin
Length: 12 hours, 55 minutes

Source: Hmmm…. I think a friend said it had been recommended to her… I think.
Rating: 5 of 5 STARS

Synopsis from Goodreads.com: When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.

From B: This was a very captivating “listen.” I imagine the paper version is awesome, too. As always, I am so amazed at the ability of readers to sweep you up into a story. Kitchen House is set on a plantation in the 1780’s and is told in the alternating voices of Ladvinia and Belle. Ladvinia is a slave but also the daughter of the plantation owner. Belle is a young girl who comes to the plantation at the age of 7 as an indentured servant. Bottom line – it’s a story about how bad humans can treat each other. It’s about how good we can be to each other, too. I was sad to see this book end…. an indicator that the characters were strong, the story smooth, and the writing beautiful. I’m sure if I had been reading the paper version there would have been lots of dog-eared pages marking well crafted passages to go back and study. Highly recommend!

#2 – The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent

Title: The Heretic’s Daughter
Web: www.kathleenkent.com
Date of Publication: October 12, 2009
ISBN-10: 031602449X

Source: See below “From B”
Rating: 5 of 5 STARS

Synopsis from Goodreads.com: Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

From B: A few months back I watched this adaptation of  Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. I’m pretty sure I had never read the play. I watched it because of cast – Winona Ryder and Daniel Day-Lewis…. two of my favorites. The movie was great and got me interesting in knowing a little more about the Salem Witch Trials. That led me to looking for novels set in that time period… which led me to The Heretic’s Daughter. I found it a few weeks later in one of our local used bookstores. If you are at all interested in this time period, or in the trials, or in mother-daughter relationships, this is an awesome read. Kent is tenth generation descendant of Martha Carrier and the book shows her personal attachment to the story. She has crafted a wonderful first novel. Highly recommend!

Good Words:  
“And what finally of the tortures of a guilty soul? What concoction is there that can be chewed and swallowed and downed in the belly to force the poison of self-recrimination back through the pores in the skin? In what organ of the body does it reside? A seeping wound can be bound. Salve can be dabbed to a burn or a swelling bubo. Poison can be drawn with a leech, or a lance. But guilt is a ghost that takes the shape of the body it inhabits and consumes all that is tender within its shell: brain, bowels, and heart. I cannot pluck it out like a splinter of glass or treat it with herbal brews.”

“It was as if time for us within the cells had shortened against the time that lay outside the cold and seeping walls of the prison. And like a smaller cog within a larger one, we were outpacing the outer world in our rush towards our endless sleep.”

You can find more of my reviews at these links:

Titles A to E

Titles F to J

Titles K to O

Titles P to T

Titles U to Z

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A Tid & Some Bits

The Tid - Hello, bloggy friends! I love Mondays. Really, I do. Not kidding.

I love Mondays, I love the 1st of every month, and I especially love the New Year. It’s my favorite holiday. I just like new beginnings. It gives me hope. God is a God of do-overs, of second chances. And the good Lord knows, I definitely need a second chance. And third. And fourth. But, praise Him, His mercies are new every morning! (Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV)

So – may this be a reminder of the goodness of our God to you and may you find encouragement and refreshment in this new week.

Bit #1: I’m pretty excited that a buddy of mine gave me a dremel for my birthday. I wanted one because I took a class a couple of years ago on how to make journals with book boards and I needed a dremel to drill the holes. But now I’m wondering what else can I do with it….. And I found this tutorial! The peephole frame from Friends. I want to make one for E’s apartment. I think it’s so very cute, don’t you? I’ll let you know how it goes. (I’ve got it pinned here on my pinterest account’s “Tempting Tuts” board.) 

Bit #2: I’ve tried painting a couple of things with chalk paint, the most recent this old hope chest my mom gave me forever ago. Yet again, I forgot to take a before picture. But here’s what it looks like now. Let’s just say it looks A LOT better! The fabric isn’t attached yet…. that’s a job for later this week, but even with the fabric just tucked in I think it looks fabulous! This is in my bedroom and I’m going to make/buy some pillows (maybe crochet some like these)  and push the chest into the corner so I can use it for a reading nook. (I used cream paint and dark wax, by the way.)

Bit #3: I made this yummy and easy recipe for our monthly Neighborhood Dinner yesterday. Our theme was “Harvest” so a pumpkin dessert was perfect. Top with cool whip and prepare for the compliments! Next month’s theme: “Left Overs” – fun!

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A Dog, a Pen, and a Carpet

This is Annie. Cute, huh? Seems pretty innocent and sweet, doesn’t she? She’s my daughter E’s best friend. When E comes home, Annie comes home. She’s a great dog. Really. Very snuggly. Loads of personality. So glad E has her as a roomie for college.

But….

E came home Thursday to go to The Boy and The Girl’s going away party (that’s for another post). While we were enjoying a nice conversation in another room, Annie found a sharpie pen and decided to nibble on it a bit. (Read “completely destroy it.”) On my carpet. On my cream carpet. On my cream carpet in the middle of the living room. Egads!

Honestly, when I saw it I wasn’t mad…. just astonished and without a clue as to how to clean this up. After 26 years of being a momma and cleaning up all kinds of disasters, this one had me in a quandary.

So, what did we do? Googled it! (What on earth did we do before Google? I guess I would have called my mom, maybe?)

Here’s the before picture. At this point we had used paper towels to blot up as much of the ink as we could. Then we grabbed a can of hairspray and started spraying the worst spots and blotting some more with paper towels until we ran out. I realized it was just the alcohol in the hairspray that was dissolving the ink, so E and Boyfriend ran to the store and got a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

(Sorry for the poor quality pictures. At this point, I was thinking, “Maybe I should take a picture to send to State Farm…..? Maybe this is covered under our homeowners?”)

We saturated a corner of a rag with alcohol and blotted, blotted, blotted! Then we poured the alcohol on the spots and blotted some more. (Everything said DON’T SCRUB!) The ink was coming up, …..but not totally.

So, our next step was for (brave) Boyfriend to dig around in the (scary) garage and find a can of WD-40. We sprayed the spots with that, let it soak for a few minutes, then blotted. And, yes, I couldn’t help it at that point, but I scrubbed a bit, too! (“Out, you @#%$ spot!”)

And guess what? It pretty much all came out! The two most saturated spots left a bit of bluish dime-sized spots, but they’re not terribly noticeable.

After steam cleaning, here’s what it looked like. The pinkish area is a shadow and not stain remnants. It really is pretty much gone.

I hope if you’ve come upon this post because you are panicking and trying to figure out how to get ink out of YOUR cream carpet, you’ll take a breath and see that with some alcohol and WD-40 and about 2 1/2 hours, you can most likely get most of it out.

So stay calm, get to work, and realize your carpet is just part of all that “stuff” you can’t take with you. So don’t get too upset.

Daughters and doggies are worth much, much more than carpets!

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Time to Make

This is a “B” I doodled in my hotel room during a recent trip to Baltimore for work. I brought a sketchbook and my trusty travel bag of pens and pencils because I promised myself I would find some time to doodle. Which I did. Yay for me!

Finding time for art (and creativity in general) has been a little difficult as of late. Juggling homeschooling Mary and working and trying to make progress with home improvements has pretty much been all-consuming. Not that I’d want to get rid of any of those things…. My job is a blessing in so many ways… I wouldn’t trade the special time I’m getting to spend with my girl right now for a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g!….. And, well, it’s just *TIME* to get some things done around The Brown House. 20 years and 3 kids can wear  a little house down without some intensive TLC.

So… how to fit in time for creativity?! Hmmm…. that’s the question of the day.

Here’s fuel for your creativity, bloggy friends - the video I used for making this “B”:

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Doing and Trusting

I woke early this morning – so early I think it would be classified as still night. After an hour or so of tossing and turning and generally disrupting the sleep of my poor husband, I finally gave myself over to the fact that I was – indeed -  awake for the day. 

During that hour, a verse hovered in my mind, watching as I tried to dive back into warm, silky dreamy depths, calling me back to wakefulness and saying, “Pay attention to me. I have something to show you!”

So here I am, nibbling around the edges of this verse, tasting its Good Words, feeding my soul on the only Food that fills.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” ~Matthew 11:29

From the NET Bible I am reminded that “yoke” means:

…a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals like oxen or horses so that they can pull a wagon, plow, etc. together.

And I am further reminded of studying this verse some time ago and realizing that to follow Jesus is to be “yoked” to someone…. to not be alone… to be joined with Christ through the Holy Spirit living in me, walking alongside me.

But I had forgotten the “and learn from me” part of this verse. This took me back to the study I’m working through with our women’s ministry at church on the book of James. Last week, our attention was brought to the fact that you often see God “teaching” instead of just “telling.”  See the case of Moses, as he argues with God that he cannot possibly be the man that God wants him to be. God answers him:

“Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”~Exodus 4:12

In my mind I can imagine God saying, “So get going now, Moses, and trust that I will teach you along the way.”

I see doing tied to trusting.

And, wouldn’t you know it, as I took a look at the word “yoke”, searching for all the places it is used in the Bible, I found it smack in the middle of a key verse of this book I’m studying – James!

“You see that his faith was working together with his works and his faith was perfected by works.” James 2:22

The “his” here refers to Abraham who is one of James’ prime examples that true faith, really-living-it-out faith, is “yoked” with works.

And again I see the doing of a thing tied to the trusting of the God who commands it.

Doing and trusting. Works and faith.

Me taking up a yoke and then learning what God has to teach me.

May you find rest for your souls today, bloggy friends.

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Cardboard Fortresses

This drawing is from Mary. She drew her little friend one day while listening to Latin class online. Yes, she is her mother’s daughter! I focus better with pen in hand and doodle paper at the ready. So – I can’t really fuss with her for drawing while listening to class. I loved this little fellow and scanned him in so we could make him just the perfect size to frame and put out on our porch.

I’m reading a book about the Jesus Prayer which is mainly encountered in the Eastern Church. I came across it a long time ago in some writing (can’t recall exactly where) but often have prayed it when awake in the middle of the night and no other words will come to soothe my soul. The verdict is still out on the book, so I’ll have to let you know. But here’s a passage in the first chapter that has got me thinking:

“So we ask for mercy because we are sick with sin, and will go on sinning. Even though we are confident as beloved children in our Father’s compassion, we grieve because we contribute more to the planet’s suffering every day……. 

God doesn’t need us to remind him to be merciful; he is merciful all the time, even when we don’t ask. But unless we make a habit of asking for mercy, we forget that we need it. Ego builds a cardboard fortress that humility must, every day, tear down….. 

The process of healing takes a long time. Even as we see reasons for hope, we simultaneously gain better understanding of how far down the roots of sin can go. It would be devastating to see the whole truth about ourselves all at once. Our compassionate Lord brings us along gently, allowing some blissful ignorance. Each layer of the onion is shed at the right time; we encounter the next truth about ourselves when and how we can bear it, as our loving Lord knows best.” (From The Jesus Prayer”)

I loved this image of our ego building a cardboard fortress. We live life and go along and nothing really bad is happening and we think, “Oh, I’ve got this life thing handled. Look at me, World, if you want to see how it’s done!” We so quickly forget we need mercy, or help, every moment of every day. And so we need that dose of humility to tear our flimsy fortress down.

The healing dose may come in that hurt look you get from a friend after a harsh word, from the bumbled-up conversation you tried to have with your child to correct their path but in which you only beat them down and made things worse, or from the realization of how easily that little white lie rolled off your tongue and now you find yourself building yet another lie to keep the first one protected.

And that’s just a few humility-builders I thought of in the seconds it took to type that paragraph. There are so many, many more. Thank God He is gracious and does indeed bring us along slowly, showing us our sinfulness layer by layer.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Amen and Amen.

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Audio Book Love

I’m sooooo far behind on writing book reviews. Like a year behind! But I’ve been pretty slack about reading lately so I think I can actually catch up if I give it a good try. I thought I’d start with a post on audio books. Over the past three or four years I’ve discovered a great love for audio books. Our public library has a great collection and I listened to books I think I would have never read otherwise. Most notable are Pillars of the Earth and its sequel World Without End.  Awesome books!

So, here’s a quick list of audio books I’ve listened to and their ratings:

Bel Canto (by Ann Patchett; read by Anna Fields):

Source: This has been on my TBR List for a long while. She wrote a book, Truth & Beauty, that I really loved about her relationship with her best friend Lucy Grealy. That led me to read Lucy Grealy’s book Autobiography of a Face. I highly recommend both of those…. in that order. Anyway, after reading Truth & Beauty, I wanted to read her fiction work. Rating: 4 of 5 STARS. Good solid story, great writing, the reader was amazing.

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Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (written and read by David Foster Wallace)

Source: I’ve picked this book up at least half a dozen times at book stores but never took the plunge. Finally, I was browsing Audible for a non-fiction book and thought I’d try it. Rating: 1 of 5 STARS. This was just not a good book. The essays were either boring or offensive. The only one that kept my attention was the one about the Main Lobster Fair. Highly DO NOT recommend.

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Peony (written by Pearl S. Buck; read by Kirsten Potter):

Source: The Good Earth is one of my favorite books. I read it well over 15 years ago but there are still some scenes that I can visualize in my mind. Great, powerful book. I thought I’d try something else by Pear S. Buck and found this on Audible. Rating: 5 of 5 STARS. Ms. Buck didn’t disappoint me. This is another great book…. Probably not as memorable as The Good Earth, but very, very good story. It’s about the life of a young bondmaid sold to a Jewish/Chinese family in the 1850’s in the province of Honan. Peony is a wonderful mixture of being informative, entertaining, and wonderful writing.

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The Namesake (written by Jhumpa Lahiri; read by Sarita Choudhury):

Source: I’ve read Lahiri’s two short story collections (Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth) and loved, loved, loved them. This is her only novel and it’s been on my TBR list for a good long while, too. Rating: 4 of 5 STARS. Lahiri definitely has a way of weaving the threads of her story into a beautiful tapestry. And her writing is just beautiful. I think I enjoyed her short stories more than her novel, but I’d recommend Namesake, too.

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I’ve put back up the tabs on my blog that takes you to a lot of different things, most notably (I think) is my “bookish things” – the index to all the book reviews I’ve done on this blog and my TBR lists.

Happy listening, bloggy friends!

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Daybook Entry

For a while a couple of years ago, I did a “daybook” entry once a week. It’s a good exercise…. makes you think about what you are doing, where your time and thoughts are going.

FOR TODAY -

Outside my window... is the morning darkness but I can just see the green leaves from the window boxes Mary and I planted this summer bumping against the glass.

I am thinking...of how much I love the change of seasons from summer to fall, of how the trees will soon be changing colors and shedding themselves of their leaves, of how I feel a little bit in that season, too…. It seems I’m in some kind of transition, some kind of changing… I feel that I’m letting loose of old, tired things and getting down to what’s underneath.

I am thankful... that The Boy has been offered a very promising job and will begin a new adventure with The Girl in Savannah soon.

In the kitchen... Mary and I plan to make cheddar cheese soup today as part of her learning how to prepare a five course meal.

I am wearing... my Frosty Frog Café t-shirt, long coveted and stolen from buddy M. The perfect and most comfy sleeping shirt!

I am creating... a cross-stitch sampler….. one of about four incomplete cross-stitch projects I found way back in the Dark Depths when cleaning out my closet this summer. It’s been ages since I’ve stitched and I’ve forgotten how I enjoy the monotony of it and how your mind becomes free to wander with your hands busy pushing the needle in and out, in and out.

I am going... to work this morning and then spend the day with Mary.

I am wondering... How hard it will be when The Boy moves…. another parenting milestone, I suppose – having a grown child move away from you, begin a life in a town in which you’ve never lived.

I am reading... Ah – as usual a smattering of things. A commentary on James to go along with the Beth Moore study I’ve started attending with the women at our church on Wednesday nights, a novel (A Parchment of Leaves), a short story collection (The House on Belle Isle), a non-fiction book on a subject I’ve long been interested in (The Jesus Prayer), and a poetry chapbook (Logophilia) I picked up this weekend at the NC Poetry Society meeting. I’ve just come to accept this is where I am in my reading life right now (see “I am thinking… above) – sporadic, incomplete, jerky, nibbly. Perhaps one day I will get my focus back.

I am listening to… The Kitchen House and oh-my-it-is-good.

I am hoping... to spend some time with an old and dear and wise friend at her lake house this weekend.

I am looking forward to... a friend coming by this afternoon for a nice long cup of coffee on the porch.

I am learning… how to do this home school thing with Mary – How not to plan more than a week ahead, how to be flexible, how to look for learning opportunities in less formal ways than I usually consider – How to be patient with her and myself, how to not crave perfection from either of us, how to live life together in a new way. God is working on me, I pray chiseling away more of me and revealing more of Him.

Around the house...we have begun work on updating our kitchen! (Not by our own will, but by that of the stopped up drain in the bathroom above.) Yes, folks the floral wallpaper and orange formica is on it’s way out. Current activity: Pulling off wallpaper – which I find oddly relaxing and an opportunity for prayer. Weird, huh? In true Furby form, I’m fully content to expect this to be at least a six month project!

I am pondering... how to fit some art-time/writing-time back into my life. It seems to have slipped away from me over the past months. (And this would include blog-writing time!) 

One of my favorite things... the gift of time that my 30 minute drive to and from work gives me: time to listen to books or sermons, time to catch up with my grown kids on the phone, time to pray, time to process the day, time to just ponder and think. 

A few plans for the rest of the week… just continuing to figure out this new rhythm of life that includes home schooling a middle-school child.

A peek into my day...  Some lovely flowers I picked up over a week ago from the grocery store (just 8 bucks!) and which are now in full bloom on the dining room table. I love having flowers in the house…. they offer me a tiny sip of simple joy each time I pass by.  

For more daybook entries visit The Simple Woman’s Daybook here. Blessings on your week, bloggy friend.

 

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Bald Head Island...

 

 Ahhh.......

 

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Guess What?

I'm in Chicago!! This is Andy Warhol's Mao painting at The Art Institute. LOVE CHICAGO!!

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I Wanna Make...

Here's some art inspiration for you out there, bloggy friends! I'd love to spend my days "junking" for items to upcycle into such beautiful pieces as this. I especially love Chris Griffin's jewelry. And her smile as she works. Make it to the end and you'll see a lovely "B" necklace!  Enjoy!

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