Beauty For Ashes

I think I’m done trying to find clever titles for my blog entries and so I’ll just throw one up there that has some validity to what I might happen to say on this given day.  Hmmm.

My children are well, mostly.  We went to the doc this morning and he declared that they looked much better.  The one little hitch for my sweet and courageous girl is that she has a nasty thrush infection in her mouth from the adult doses of antibiotics she has been on for the last week and a half. I have been pushing the yogurt but she, like me really doesn’t like yogurt so getting her to consume it always seems to involve funny faces and sometimes tears.  I’m tired of tears. 

Anyway,  back to my title.  Well,  M, my sweet daughter has a competitive streak.  She likes sports and games and she is good at them all.  Last year my Dad taught her how to play cribbage.  This year for Christmas, my husband and M got a cribbage board.  I have never seen a nine year old play like she does.  I think I already mentioned at the top of the paragraph that M is very competitive right?  Well,  she gets down and dirty with her daddy, smack talking and everything.  Not only that, apparently she has the moves to back up her talk.  She regularly kicks her daddy’s butt.  Well, a couple of days ago, her grandpa challenged her to a game.  I guess she kicked his butt too.  When we went to pick her up from his house, he made sure to let us know, with pride in his voice, that his granddaughter is a cribbage genius.  He also told us, with pride in his voice, that she is a stinker when she plays. 

We laughed. 

I think I’ve had enough of cartoons to last me for the next 10 years.  Sponge Bob is not a favorite, in fact, I cannot stand to be in the same room as him when he is on TV.  Kim Possible is great fun but, alas, she is not on the tele as often as I would like. 

Why am I ranting about cartoons you ask?  Well,  even though the sky is blue, blue, blue and we have snow on the ground, the sledding hill is calling our names and the crisp air is beckoning to me, I’m on Mommy duty.  My children are sick.  One has pneumonia and the other is quickly heading that direction.  Because they feel yucky, my duty as a Mommy is to indulge them which means…all the cartoons you can stomache.  In exchange, I get to sit and snuggle with them while they watch.  I think I’m the richest Mommy in the world.  Snuggles are better than chocolate and because my children are growing up, they come fewer and fare between.  Don’t get me wrong, I would exchange all the snuggles in the world if they were never sick again.  Since it appears that that exchange is not going to happen, I’ll enjoy the snuggles and the fact that they just want Mommy….and cartoons.

:0)

I am so excited.  I just got my first client.  He has asked me to make a piece of jewelry for his wife.  I am just so stunned and excited.   We are working on the design now.  He has some thoughts as to what he wants and will be getting me his schematics to start.  Did I alread say that I am just so excited?!?

On a little bit different topic, someone asked where you can get a jewelers saw in Bend.  My answer is that I don’t know.  I ordered mine from www.riogrande.com as well as a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t find here.  I am loving Harbor Freight though.  They have great prices on different tools and they even carry cutting compounds now.  I think you will really have to dig to find jewelers supplies here. 

Yesterday was my first day back to school.  I am taking the second in the series of metal craft courses at our local college.  It was so great to walk into that room and see the faces of my classmates. 

It was also funny to me to see the differences in attitude between the younger students and the older students.  There is a dycotomy of perspective.  The difference, I believe is desire.  The older crowd was so excited to be in class, ready to learn and happy to jump in with both feet while the younger crowd whined a lot which in fact is due to them just tryingto get through another boring class.  In fact one girl stood to my right leaning over my work station whining about how she didn’t have enough to do and still had 45 minutes left in class.  She took a break from her diatribe for a few minutes to walk over to one of my classmates, who is a brilliant photographer and has done it professionally for many years (he is part of the older crowd) and give him a lecture on what negative space looks like.  I nearly snorted  and then I realized that I’ve done that very thing plenty.  Oh, I felt embarassed for her and then I felt embarassed for me and my own arrogance at times.  Eeek.

Anyway, it was so terrific to be given design assignments and get a glimpse at what we are going to learn to do this term.  I can’t wait to get my hammer out and start banging away.  I’ll try to get more pictures on here as I go but my darn camera is broke again.  Grrrr!  I am very frustrated by this!

Wow!  It is snowing.  Not much has accumulated yet but it seems that the pretty white stuff is wreaking havoc on our town.  I got up at 6:30 this morning to get ready for my first class of the quarter.  Looked on the internet to find out my children have a two hour delay for classes so my dear friend who takes them to class in the morning is now babysitting for 2 hours.  She is so sweet to do that. 

I trade cars with my sweet hubby and now am driving his rather large 4 wheel drive pickup so I can make it up the hill to our local college (which by the way, is notorious for being a skating rink), park and walk up the hill to class.  I am so excited to be going back to class I can’t even stand it! 

Anyway, I get out onto the main road up to the college and it has turned into a parking lot.  No one was moving.  My plans to be early to class have been squashed.  I remained hopeful anyway and sat in the traffic line for about 35-40 minutes.  As I am sitting, I decided to call my husband and find out if he has heard anything about the traffic or school closures.  He told me that they have closed the roads to the school, someone fell in the parking lot and broke their leg and even the ambulance is stuck.  I feel terrible for the poor person who fell.  Yuck!  So I figure out how to get my rather large truck, with a turning radius of 3 states turned around and head home and see if I can get any more info on school.  I get on the net and look!  there it is!  School is closed for the day.  So now, here I sit, blogging and trying to think about what I need to get done today and what I can live without doing. 

I am enjoying our snow.  It is pretty and secretly I’m hoping for 3 feet so we can go sledding and drink lots of hot chocolate.  Some of my favorite memories of growing up here in Central Oregon are the snow days and the neighbors coming out to sled with us.  We had an awesome sledding hill out in our pasture.  We would gather all our sleds, get our long johns on and our jeans(didn’t have snow pants and wouldn’t have worn them even if I had), snow boots, hats, mittens, smiles and head out to the pasture for a day of sledding.  I always thought it was such a treat but the treat turned into paradise when at about 9:00 at night we would look outside and realize that the snow had slowed down, the clouds were fairly low in the sky and the light was bouncing off the clouds to make it very light outside.  We would call the neighbors, grab our sleds and head out to the hill and sled until midnight if our mother’s would let us.  It was wonderful!  I hope, I hope, I hope we get lots and lots of snow.  It so happens we have a terrific sledding hill in our front yard and I’ll be the first one out!

I have probably shared some of this before but just in case, I wanted to get it down on paper, or the computer rather.

So I have been thinking a lot about those things that bring peace and have been pondering on the act of sitting at the feet of Jesus.  I think one of the most valuable things I have learned in my Christian walk is that Jesus does not need me to do anything in order to accomplish what he wants accomplished.  More than anything he wants me to come sit at his feet and just BE.  He wants me to BE in such a way that I am not bringing my agenda or my must does or haves with me.  He speaks to me best and moves my heart in amazing ways when I come even with my broken humaness just to be in his presence.  I am finding that it is an incredible thing to have him pour out his loving mercy and grace over me and doing so he mends my broken places in such a way that I can sing his praises and adoration to the world.  What that means to me is that he refills my overwhelmed heart in such a way that those things that normally send me over the edge of anxiety are now things that can be tackled and managed because of my knowlege of whose strength I am filled with.  When I go to him and sit at his feet on a regular basis he fills me up to the top with grace to deal with things I would never be able to handle, mercy to give to people who normally would tick me off and wisdom and insight into situations that I would usually be very narrow minded about.

I haven’t been sitting at his feet much over the last several months and I am hungering deeply to do so.  I am just a week away from Christmas and the celebration of the birth of my Savior and I want to dance and sing his praises more than anything this year. 

The other thing that dawned on my while walking the butte with my friend is that a spiritual desert is a very special place to be.  I have always abhored going through a spiritually dry time.  I have found it depressing and scary to be honest.  Well, my outlook on it has been changed.  Here’s what I think.  The desert is talked a lot about in the Bible.  It has been a huge instrument of challenge and change from the beginning.  I think of the Israelites wandering in the desert with Moses.  Is it Elija or Elisha  that ran into the desert when a queen wanted to kill him?  John the Baptist lived in the desert and finally there is Jesus who went into the desert to be tested for 40 days.  I think that God uses the desert in our spiritual lives to meet us.  He uses it to minister to us and to help us heal and move forward.  He uses it to expand our faith and help us understand that knowing him is more than just feelings and emotions. 

When I go through deserts in my spiritual life, I have found that God meets me when I am desperate in ways that are so intimate and tender.  He feeds my soul and quenches my thirst in some of the most unexpected ways. 

If you think of it, go and read about how God met the needs of the Israelites as they wandered through the desert.  Be sure and look at how much and what he gave them to keep them alive.  Ask yourself what he was doing when he didn’t give them more.  After that, go look up what God said to Elija/Elish(sorry can never keep them straight) and what God did to keep him alive.  What was God’s point?  Finally, look at Jesus when wandered in the desert.  What happened to him there?  What did he accomplish and who met him there?  At the end of his wandering what happened to him and how do you think it might have grown his faith and love for his Father?

I would love to hear your thoughts. 

If I don’t get to blog before Christmas, may you be blessed beyond measure by His grace, mercy and love.  May you find deep peace in the presence of the Savior.

For you, it’s all about the mix.  Any style is welcome in your world as long as it compliments something else.  You’re drawn to funky interiors and eye-catching color combinations (thing red and blue, orange and turquoise, purple and gold).  You like contrasting patterns and unconventional architecture.  you enjoy furnishings that remind you of yoru travels mixed with modern pieces and offbeat antiques.

Hmmmm.  HGTV does it again.  I think that about discribes my decorating “sense” to a tee.

What about you?  Find out your decorating style with a fun quiz…

Oh, it’s a good day.

I am so excited because I got my order in for some metal art supplies.  It makes me feel all gooshie inside.  Yahoo!

Rawhide mallet, jewelers saw, copper tongs, pickle, and other stuff that makes my heart beat faster.

Just thought I’d share it with you.

Have a fun filled day.

How many times have I talked about depression?  Well, plenty really.  I feel like it is a subject that I will never fully understand and thus, I must talk about it now and again.

I haven’t been having to much trouble with the blues or worse but I have begun to notice certain “shifts” if you will, of moods when things happen.  For example, the weather is very cold, not very pretty and I am cooped up inside more than I would like because of it.  Thus, I experience depressive mood swings more.  I’ve know this for awhile but the cool thing is, I am able to pinpoint what exactly is going on and make some adjustments to keep on top of it a little better.  For example:  in the past I would feel depressed and I would sit and worry about why and how this is going down.  Today is different.  I am able to see that there is nothing major going on in my heart that should lead me into a cycle of depression and me bashing.  It is simply due to the cold weather and being sick. 

The solution is simple really.  I take extra care of myself and pay special attention to where I am at spiritually(I have a good quite time, journal, read my Bible or life verses), emotionally(I take a personal inventory of what is going on in my heart and do my best to chuck the junk with God’s help, find some things to be thankful for, email a friend, go hang with my husband, play with my kids, or take a time out), and physically(how much sugar have I eaten lately?  When was the last time I took a walk? Am I doing my best to eat whole foods and stay away from refined carbs?)

I don’t say “the solution is simple” lightly.  What I mean is that I have some personal check lists that I am learning to evaluate before I panic, throw my hands in the air, crawl into bed and cry.  That is a change for me.  Winter time is one of the times of year that I am becoming very aware of how I can slide down the path of deep, ugly, pit type depression.  It is a hard time for me.  The holidays conjure up quite a lot of personal pain and loss so I am always a little anxious to get through.  Each year seems to be a bit better. 

Why do I share this stuff with you?  Well, I know there are some out there lurking and reading who may struggle with the same tendancy toward depression that I do.  My purpose is simply to continue dialoging about it and what I do with it in the hopes that, if per chance, someone in the middle of the dark part of depression reads this, they know they aren’t alone and that another person in the world battles the dark pit and is living through and above it depending on the day.

I never take for granted anymore that I won’t slip back down into that mire but at the same time, I see that there is positively hope that I don’t have to stay there.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope your Thanksgiving is very special.

We have had a nice week.  M and C are out of school so they have been very thankful.  Unfortunately, C came down a nasty little virus and has a fever for the last day or so.  I thought maybe it was strep so I took him in and sure enough, it wasn’t…just a virus that is morphing.  He is on his 2-3 week cycle of illness now…frown.

Anyway, something we did learn about him and why he is eating like a hungry chicken rather than just a little bird is that he is growing.  I had him in to see the doc for the very same reason at the beginning of October and since that visit he has gained 2 1/2 pounds and grown 1/2 inch.  Wow!  No wonder his pants are climbing half way up his shins.  Now if I could just get some girth on him so his pants aren’t falling down all the time.

Also, I got my ring back from school and guess what…I got 100% on it.  I was so pleased and feel excited and full of inspiration.  Honestly, I was not expecting a terrific grade and was trying to figure out a redesign so I could bring that grade up because, you know, I am no annal retentive and OCD about getting an A in this class. 

My Dad and I were laughing yesterday because this is the first time that I have been in college that I have done well.  I am not a brilliant scholar much to the surpise of many (just kidding) and grades were always a huge issue in college.  I was always one step away from being booted from school because of my grades.  Thank goodness I married a brilliant man.  He has brilliance I have common sense(usually). 

Here is a picture of my first ring.  It is made of Sterling and Fine Silver, darkened with Liver of Sulfer and the high spots brought up to a high polish.  I was inspired by the sand dollars we get at the coast and that is what my design was derived from. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!