Such A Big Miracle In Such A Little Boy

I am excited that I can finally show you all my latest piece.

I made this for Matty. It is a watercolor rainbow with an ink inscription. When I first saw this quote, I knew immediately that I had to use it for Matty.

He is our monkey. He is our miracle. We are so lucky to still have him with us and to get to see this smile.

A (Not) Starving "Artist"?

I'm not going to claim that I am an artist. I am still very far away from that. Maybe if I put that word in quotes, "artist", I can say it with a straight face.

On my Life List, there is a bullet point that says "Create art, even if it sucks." I've started actually doing that, spending part of my day most days sketching or painting. Here are two of the pieces I've done.

This is hanging in our bedroom. Frank and Lola was the first song J and I picked together as "our" song.

This will soon be hanging in an adorable little girl's room. Her grandfather is a true artist and has painted a large mural on her wall. This pales in comparison to his work, but I'm hoping it will compliment it.

I want to make the Move Mountains piece for another friend who was blessed with a little girl earlier this year. And I want to work on a piece for Matty's room, too. I'm thinking I might put something together tomorrow to send down this week, so they can hang it in his room at the hospital.

This isn't something that I expect to ever make money doing, but J pointed something out - he thinks it is therapeutic for me. His reasoning? "Because you worked on that piece from start to finish without a break." I think he might be right.

Knitting Needles Go Click, Click, Click

I am knitting. And praying while I knit, which sometimes leads to dropping stitches and having to pull out two or three rows of this scarf that has been an unfinished project for at least 3 years.

I remember when I bought this yarn. I remember the inspiration scarf I saw online. The inspiration scarf came with a hefty price tag and even though I had only finished one scarf in my extensive knitting history, I decided to go to Michael's and buy the yarn. And some new knitting needles, because new needles were obviously the key to finishing another scarf.

About a month ago, my friend Brandi started talking about learning how to knit. I sent her a link to the video I watched when I first learned to cast on and knit a row or two. And her learning to knit inspired me to pull out the scarf I started so many years ago and never finished.

I have been working on it off and on, adding at least a few rows each day. I am halfway through. And I have found that while I knit, I am able to focus on talking to God.

So tonight, when I got word that Brandi's son, my godson, Matty was in the ICU and was not doing well, I picked up the scarf and started knitting. And talking to God.

I'm trying to make sense of this whole situation. I know God is in control, I know that He has this plan, but I cannot wrap my mind around how this benefits anyone. I'm just going to keep praying for healing, whole, true healing, for Matty; for strength, and peace for his mom, who is the strongest person I know, but will need so much more strength to get through this; and for wisdom for the doctors, who with God's help, can turn the situation around.

It is going to be a long night. And who knows, I might have a finished scarf by morning.

Just a Nice Saturday

Things that did not go according to plan on this, the last Saturday of June:

• We did not make it to the Watermelon Festival, since there was a crazy thunder and lightning storm going on this morning.
• I did not get to sleep in, not even a little bit, since Nubbins has decided that she absolutely must knead my head and hair by 5:00 am each morning. Thanks, Nubbins.
• I broke our Sun Tea jar, because sometimes, I don't think before I act. A little tip for you: If you have a jar full of hot water and tea bags in the sink, don't pour a pan full of room temperature water into that sink. The result: a sad, sad cracking noise and the need for a new tea jar.
• The living room didn't get cleaned, even though we have company coming tomorrow and they will be sleeping on the pull out couch. Not sure when that's going to happen, since I'm going to church tomorrow morning for the first time in a really long time AND we're heading to Mom's house to help clean out the garage in the afternoon. We might need to get the air mattress out, just in case we don't get around to cleaning.

In spite of everything above, today was a really good day. We went to the Dollar General and attempted to "super coupon" our way through the store. We succeeded in getting a really good deal on shampoo and conditioner (with 2 free samples of moisturizer/styling cream as a bonus) and on cat food, but not much else. I am proud of myself, though, because the girl ringing us up had trouble get the coupons to scan. There were people in line behind me, and in the past, I would have just said "Nevermind, don't bother with the coupons" because I wouldn't want to keep anyone waiting or annoy the cashier or the people behind me. The thing is, we are really trying to live on less right now, and I'm not going to let a little register issue be the cause of more stress for me.

This doesn't seem like much of a revelation if you don't know me, but I am generally a people pleaser and hate to inconvenience anyone. And to a point, I still am - but for something that normally would have sent me into a shame spiral (I can't believe I am waiting in line and making a big deal over a $1 off coupon!), I think I handled the situation very well.

After our shopping trip, we had our Cowboy Shooting friends Hollifer A. Dollar and Kay Sadeeya over for lunch and a Crafty Girls' Day/Wii Shooting Games Guys' Day. This afternoon was planned because Kay liked a picture on Facebook of these fancy-schmancy high heels that were super sparkly and covered with rhinestones. They looked something like this:



I said, "Those look easy! Let's make some!!" So, we did. Here's what mine look like:



A bit more understated than the ones that inspired our craft day, but I love them. I guess it's time to finally learn to walk in high heels, huh?

Pinterest Win: Cupcake Stand, Re-Purposed

Just like practically every other 30-something year old woman in America, I am an avid Pinterester. Yes, I have a wedding board, but in my defense, I created it for my brother's wedding, to keep track of photobooth props and ideas. I mainly like to pin recipes and crafty things and decorating ideas.

One of the crafts I kept seeing pop up was a cupcake stand made from terracotta pots and saucers. You've probably seen this, but in case you haven't, here's one example:

This is from www.youngandcrafty.com. She used them for a baby shower.

As much as I love cupcakes, I don't really have a need for a cupcake stand right now. But I have been wanting to clean up my kitchen and declutter a bit. Having soap bottles and scrubbies all over the back of the sink drives me crazy. I decided to adapt the idea above into a shelf for kitchen supplies. Here's how mine turned out:

Not too shabby, in my opinion. I used silver and dark blue because those were the colors of paint I had available. And since our kitchen has all stainless appliances and dark counters, I thought it would blend right in. This took a few hours to put together, but most of that time was waiting for the paint to dry.

I already feel better about my kitchen sink AND I can cross another Pinterest project off my list.

If you want to make this yourself, here's what you need:

• 1 terracotta pot and 1 terracotta saucer. (You want the saucer to be bigger than the pot, obviously.)
• Acrylic paints and paintbrushes.
• A hot glue gun and glue.

Basically, you're just going to paint the pot and the saucer and then glue them together. Ta-da! This is a fun little project for a rainy afternoon. I watched an episode or two of The West Wing while I worked on this, but that part is optional. :-)