cut glass necklace

Take one old salt or pepper shaker and be inspired by Mich L. in L.A. She posted the coolest 'shabby chic' necklace using an old shaker.

On me it hangs about as far as it does shown on C. I pulled it down her back so you could see. (She is kind to model for me).

The girls both want me to put something in it like Michelle suggests.

The back of the necklace.

What do you think? I like it. I wore it today and it was fun to see the light reflect off it all around the car while I was driving.

I am sharing this at:

weekends

This past weekend, hubby and I attended a leadership training seminar for The Truth Project. The weekend before, I took my family to Chicago so that I could be the photographer for my cousin K's wedding and so the girls could see UP again.


The church was a tiny 130 year-old church down by Wrigley Field. The building and windows were beautiful.


I had thought during the reception that the wedding and reception reminded me of my own. Later that weekend, both my husband and my father said it was like our wedding too. I think the smallness, the simplicity, and the relaxed atmosphere is what made it feel so familiar.


I've been very busy working on photos from the wedding and I still have many to work on but these of their 'bicycle built for two' are far and away my favorites.

hello, again

It has been a busy summer. But, I hope I find myself back and blogging. However, I think I am busier now than I was during the summer.
At the moment, I am trying to get used to the new schedule. It is a busy one. Honestly, I don’t know how working Mom’s do it. They are more organized people than I, I do believe.
I am not sure what to say so I will let this be my return to blogging and I will write more later.




It has been a busy summer. But, I hope I find myself back and blogging. However, I think I am busier now than I was during the summer.
At the moment, I am trying to get used to the new schedule. It is a busy one. Honestly, I don’t know how working Mom’s do it. They are more organized people than I, I do believe.
I am not sure what to say so I will let this be my return to blogging and I will write more later.

ten minutes

I am giving myself ten minutes for this post.

This is a photo I took of my Mom at my cousin's wedding on May 30th. I really like it. I think Mom looks looks so relaxed, open and beautiful. I was hired to photograph the wedding for my cousin and her darling fiance (now husband). I took over twelve-hundred photos in ten hours and I am now working through them.

We are extremely busy. There is of course the end of the school year stuff. This week Friday we leave for ten days in Florida where we will visit some dear friends and spend a lot of time at that material black hole known as Walt Disney World.

When we get back I will resume working on wedding photos and spend the week photographing the activities for VBS. I will make a slide presentation for their closing ceremonies that Friday and leave afterwords to teach another photo seminar at the library where my sister works and take photos of her darling son Kyler - who thanks to the prayers of all the faithful is improving by leaps and bounds. I will share more after the photo session!!

I will be glad when July comes and my life slows down and I can finish working up the wedding photos, and work up the photos from DW, and the photos of Kyler.

I miss you all but I feel my time is better spent focused on my family and on what needs to be done in my life. My down time is spent reading. I can happily recommend The Confessions of St Augustine which I am reading right now. I enjoyed the Still Growing: An Autobiography by Kirk Cameron. It was fun - I am from that generation after all.

I am rereading Silence by Shusako Endo - and I find that it is still as powerful as it was the first three times I read it. I was also sent a new book for review called The Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji (yes I still write for Suite101) and while had some raw language and juvenile humor (the protagonist is a teen) in places I found it to be an excellent and enjoyable book.

rambling

I just finished Laura Ingalls Wilder: Farm Journalist. Some of it was fascinating and some of it was boring. It shed a lot of light on the character of the woman. These quotes are particularly insightful and very relevant today.

"Tho we do not have the advantages of travel, we stay-at-homes may acquire a culture of the heart which is almost impossible in the rush and roar of cities."(November 20, 1919)

"Why should we need extra time in which to enjoy ourselves? If we expect to enjoy our life we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not just at stated intervals, when we can get time or when we have nothing else to do." (January 5, 1920)

"To simplify our lives as much as possible, to overcome that feeling of haste by remembering that there are just as many hours in the day as ever, and that there is time enough for the things that matter if it is rightly used.

Then, having done the most we may here, when we reach the limit of time we will sail over the horizon rim to new beauties and greater understanding." (January 1, 1924).



Last weekend, one of Light's school friends had her birthday at Eveland Farms (the place we go for pumpkins every year). It was a pleasant day and me and the girls (siblings were welcome) had a nice time.




My apologies to my dear friends here in blogland. I am trying to focus on the essentials and as much as I love the world out here on the computer. Reality is more important.



It was very springish when we visited the farm. Everything that was male from pigs to donkeys and from horses to turkeys and even the peacock shared their glorious (or not so glorious) masculinity with the world.

wide-ranging and passionate

On Thursday morning, I had an email from B. They were going to attend a funeral, would be passing our way and could they stay Friday night. It was an enjoyable visit. B and J are friends from college and they are the kind of people that conversation always feels as if it resumes where it left off yesterday even though years pass between visits.

They recently have returned from England where they were part of a church plant in Culcheth. The church they planted there (Grace Fellowship) is now researching a plant in Warrington. B said they were very close to where Sarah lives - hi Sarah!! They were there for five years. Now they are home for good trying to figure out what God's will for the next phase of their life will be.

J, the kind of Mom I wish I were. Always calm and soft-spoken. Like Ma Ingalls.


M and I - cute or what?


Their oldest daughter, A. She is beautiful and brilliant.


B and I share many interests so conversations wide-ranging, intense, passionate, and enjoyable.


goofin' on St Paddy's Day




glass slippers and tiaras hurt!!



Look what I found at Goodwill! Copyright 1938.





Part of the book's introduction (don't your relish it?):

Everyone enjoys a holiday, and the way to make holidays exciting is to do something about them.

Why not make things for each holiday as it comes along, cards for friends, little gifts for people you like best? Or, when it’s a school holiday, why not work on something that makes you understand the holiday better?

If anyone ever tries to tell you that work can’t be fun, you needn’t believe him, because it isn’t true at all. You will be delighted when you discover the charming things your hands can learn to create.

For example, ready-made cards for holidays are printed so thousands are just alike. But when you make a card for somebody, you know that no one can ever make one exactly like it, not matter how hard he tries. The same applies to any gift you make. It is the only one of its kind that there can ever be.

Do your very best on every piece of work. Take your time. Never try to hurry any part of it. Work that has been hurried will not please you when it is finished.

Of course, you will make some mistakes – everybody does – that’s why pencils have erasers! So don’t be discouraged. The first time you construct an article, think of it as your “trial model.” Make it as well as you know how. When you make a mistake, don’t quit. Keep on with it, and finish the job. You know it is said that the boy or girl who won’t be beaten can’t be beaten!

My maternal grandfather passed away today. Please pray for us as we travel and pray especially for my Mom in her sorrow.

Hubby will stay home with the girls and I will probably ride with my sister and her husband (it is a thirteen hour drive and the girls did not know them so we think this would be best).

this-n-that

Before we moved to our current house, I had never seen a bluebird. Our street is Bluebird St which I was sure was a bad joke. I figured bluebirds didn't really exist - they were just something we were taught in school to make us happy. Lo and behold weeks after our move I saw a bluebird. Sometimes in the fall, when I walk in the creek, I see whole flocks as they prepare to migrate.

This past summer, a pair frequented our backyard - especially when the cherry tree was producing.

I rather felt the same way about icicle Christmas decorations as I did about bluebirds until we moved here. When we moved here, our house had three large spruce trees in the front yard. Now we have two - one blew down. One of the remaining trees leans significantly. But those issues have nothing to do with Christmas except that on these trees, I saw for the first time icicles that looked like the ones we used to hang on our Christmas tree when I was little. I honestly thought icicles were just someone's misguided and very imaginative idea of a cool winter decoration for the Christmas tree.



The sunlight streaming in the living room windows was beautiful this morning - just the right angle - a wonderful warm feel. Gorgeous. I had to take a couple of pictures.

we have a bit of snow

We have a bit of snow here. Yesterday I cleared the drive twice (by hand our snow-blower has been broke for as long as we have lived in this house - if I remember correctly we moved her in 98) for a total of over ten inches.

I have more to clear this morning.

my parent's visited this weekend

to open Christmas gifts - yes a bit belated.


me with K a photo taken by my husband when we went to a local tourist attraction when my MIL was here - for reference/comparison with my Mom's pics below. :)


my Mom




I made this over the weekend. And I love it, which is saying something as I hate - school pictures. If I had my druthers, we wouldn't have them done. Why, may you ask do I hate them? Because they are meaningless images of what a person looks like but say nothing about who the person is. Once upon a time before cameras - painters would paint likenesses -- I understand why people did it. To know and remember what a person looked like when an image was nearly impossible to create and keep and expensive too - a good likeness was valuable. Even in the early era of photography when few people owned cameras and most images were taken by 'professionals' and the act of photography was time-consuming and strenuous makes the idea of a likeness valuable. But now nearly everyone has a camera - the records of one's life are immense. Why wast time on what one looks like? We know well what the people in our lives look like and there will be plenty of incidental images to remind us. Lets get down to who they are - but that is harder.

Sorry for the minor rant.



It seems the thing to do lately, come to M's house and learn a new craft. My Mom made these from some napkins she picked up for this purpose when she was here in December.


So I made this one for my niece H - I think my Mom will keep it at her house and light it when H comes over. H is a bona fide horse nut.



I decided to experiment on an old jar. I think I might try this again - the result is a bit uneven but lovely.