11 years ago tonight

from our wedding:

The Servant Song

Brother let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you,
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
till we've seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven
we shall find such harmony.
Born of all we've known together
of Christ's love and agony.

Bobby, (Yeah, I changed the words at this part)let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.

Happy Anniversary Babe!

pleasant surprises

Seeing as I had a trunk load of things to drop off at Garner Area Ministries' thrift store, I left for my hair appointment 15 minutes early. I still arrived 10 minutes early, and noticed this little store three doors down from the hair salon.

The name was slightly ringing a bell, so I went inside to look around. After looking at the third painting, I realized this was the shop owned by one of my former teachers at Wake Tech, Sherry Mitchell. God brought her into my life the year Bobby had cancer, and I'll never forget walking into class feeling overwhelmed one day, and her stopping to pray with me before other students arrived. Turns out the other student in the class who was sitting behind me was a pastor's son, and his Dad was dying from cancer. Definitely a day when I can assuredly say, "God directs our paths." One of her paintings I really liked and kept thinking how much two of my friends who both like green would like it. As I turned the corner into the next row of items, I saw a painting that reminded me of one of those friends. I couldn't help but think "Sara has paintings like this!" And then the next painting on the wall had a business card underneath it, and I realized it WAS one of Sara's paintings!!! How cool is that?

Then, I get home, and find out the reason behind all our re-arranging and cleaning of rooms may not come to be after all! That certainly eases the pressure off today's to-do list. Even so, I'm thankful to have 3/4 of everything sorted and in a different location. Three garbage bags, two trips to the thrift store, one item on CraigsList and two more to post soon...I definitely feel progress! My goal is to have everything totally completed by the end of next week, though one room will hopefully be finished tonight.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

the definition of insanity

As if my husband needed yet another reason to jokingly (or not so jokingly) question my sanity, I gave him another thing to add to my list yesterday afternoon. For the second time in eleven years, I am re-arranging the house. The first time was simply a matter of moving his desk (which really wasn't that simple) or turning the dining room table. This time I have returned to my roots and am totally switching out furniture in two rooms and moving the contents of three rooms. And the kicker is that I need to be totally finished by this Saturday. :)
Here's the before pictures.

the guest bedroom, which also has ALL my sewing stuff

the "toy" room

and the craft/art/junk room that was going to be my "office"...haha

I may not post any more until later in the week, and I almost scared to think as I do things. I've already thought of another planned project that I "should" do this week to help facilitate the moving process. I won't mention it yet as it's still a thought in my head (which is scary in itself). So when you don't hear from me this week, you'll know I'm either cleaning, moving furniture, or have become a flat Stanley.

bows

I like bows on things (not too much on clothes, but that's a different post entirely).
Packages, wreaths, hair barrettes, shoes, Christmas trees, wall decorations...they all have a little oomph when there's a nicely tied bow attached. And there's the rub. Nicely tied.
I think bows are an art form. Perhaps they can be taught, but my one five minute lesson didn't produce much results. (We won't discuss the fact that I got frustrated with future attempts and have not practiced the tedious art form.) My oldest cousin and my aunt can make bows without even so much as a bat of the eye, and can create unique and cool bow designs without much thought. I purse my lips, clinch my teeth, gnaw my lip, hold my breath...and my bow STILL looks like it was tied by a child. Perhaps that should be a ladies' activity at church - a bow making class.
Did I mention that I'm drawn to ribbon sales in the fabric store? I seldom buy it, but I look at it and dream of all the possibilities the roll could hold. But I already have several rolls of ribbon that I can't bring myself to ruin by attempting to make them into a bow. And I refuse to pay $25 for a not full barely fluffed bow at Michaels. I like fluffy, full bows (just not on my dresses Mom, in case you read this). Maybe I'll be a little adventurous in a few months and sit down with ribbon and pipe cleaners and Youtube and figure it all out this fall. Maybe.

small town advantage

I didn't have a youth group growing up. For some reason they all decided to graduate from high school and move on with their lives instead of hanging around for another five-ten years waiting for me to get there.
Church activities meant helping Mom in the kitchen, playing with little kids, or listening to old people talk. It also meant I got to help with a lot of cool and fun things, such as craft preparations for the annual bazaar sale at the mall, VBS set up and clean-up, folding bulletins for Dad, bulletin board set-up, and the list goes on....
I think that's why it puzzles me when people say I'm crafty or talented. When I think of talented I think of Michelle Sappington who takes an empty piece of paper and makes it into a beautiful card with scissors and more paper. Her designs are snazzy and mine...well, they're just a bunch of lines.
I think of Dave Mincy, who can look at one note and a letter on a piece of paper and string all the right notes together in a beautiful way. Or else, he'll stop and say, "That's not the chord I want. Let's change it to this." My piano playing will forever sound "Bong, bomp, bomp. Bong, bomp, bomp." in the old fashioned octave-chord-chord method my teachers taught.
I was exposed/required/forced to do a lot of things growing up. I watched ladies who had money to buy whatever they wanted at the grocery store and never use coupons slowly scan the aisles of the Alabama Thrift Store in search of both clothes and knick-knacks to use in projects. A bag of buttons from the Arrow Shirt Factory for 25 cents? Done. That lacy angel given as a gift from someone in their travel group? A pattern. Our first job that ladies night? Wire buttons together to create an angel, a star, or wreath for ornaments to sell. I quickly learned some ladies have unique ideas and inspirations, and the rest of us can simply do by mimicking.
Being the preacher's kid meant staying until EVERYONE left church after every service. I watched old ladies arrange, clean and re-arrange flower arrangements at the front. I'll never have the knack for color they had, and my sense of style will not match everyone else's, but I did learn a few basics in between all my exasperated sighing and whining about being hungry and asking if we could go. Along the way I've also learned there's not much you can't read up on at the library, and now there's a whole world of virtual instruction on youtube. Not everything I attempt is going to turn out right, or pretty, or presentable. But if I don't try I'll never know.
Growing up in a small town with a bunch of old people who grew up during the depression taught me some of that...doing things isn't always a matter of talent. It's more often than not a matter of necessity and the stupidity/willingness to try.

project updates

Here's a reminder photo from this spring of a project in its beginning stages:
And here's what I've finally finished:

This is the only grapevine I actually completed by decorating. The vine is replacing a clock my grandmother gave me as a wedding present. I've left it up for several years, even though we quit replacing the batteries in it (it was taking two double A batteries every three weeks just for the time...the chime in it required one a week!). It's one of the few things she gave me that she actually bought and didn't give me her leftovers or something she made. So it's a treasure, even if it's not really working. The irony is that she would be the first person to tell me to get rid of it if she were here.

AND...our three day old biddie:No sounds from the other eggs yet. They have until Saturday to make a peep or hatch. I'm hoping our little fuzzball gets at least one playmate.

colors in creation

Sitting at the kitchen table paying bills, I observed the birds doing their bomb runs around the porch and ramp. (You know, when the birds take off, swoop toward another of their species, then double back.) One of the birds I had never noticed before. From the front it looked a little like the barn swallows that make such a mess on our back porch, but from the side its back was covered in little white dots, much like a fawn. I love it when I find repetition in God's creation. It's as if God is saying, "Yep, I really, REALLY like this pattern so I'll use it again." I know that's probably sacrilegious, but I do think we get our creative juices from God. It makes sense that we would repetitively use patterns we like if our Creator does the same thing. And flying in and out of the wind currents were two of the prettiest blue birds I think I've ever seen. From the green of the grass and the different hued trees, the pale white clouds, the light brown deer, the variations of birds and my dogs with dark spots, Creation has quite the color palette.
Which leads me to another crazy train of thought: is our desire to replicate the beautiful colors around us a desire to be as God (like Lucifer), or is it simply the sincerest form of praise like a child trying to emulate his parent? Personally, I lean toward the latter, as there's nothing more pleasant than seeing beauty, whether it be of God's direct touch or his indirect design via us.