The Birthday, The Paint, The Whereabouts of PPP

Somehow or another, in between gingerbread house creations, Christmas ornaments, and too many toys that fell to their death on the floor where Spot found them and mutilated them into sad masses of torn material and drifting white fluff; somehow, the end of the year snuck up and disappeared into the dark, cold night.

I have not been on here much since then.  I celebrated a birthday this year that sent me into the decade everybody calls middle age; you know, the one that pretty much makes you think you've lived about half of your life...and I realized how quickly the first half went.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to say I've been drowning myself in tears using box after box of tissues.  Quite the contrary.  I don't feel much older than I did a decade or so ago.  In fact, I like this stage of my life.  I don't worry about so many of the superficial things I did when I was 20...no more hours spent on getting my hair perfectly curled and sprayed into submission.  I don't worry about what everybody thinks of me anymore...I figure they'll get it straight eventually, and if not, perhaps there's somethings more I can learn...or change...nobody's ever perfect and we all learn along the way; or just agree to disagree.  Life isn't such a drama...well, most of the time.  (I'm sure my Farmer wouldn't always agree with this summation of my so-far life, but if he knew me when I was 18...)

But one thing did especially trouble me.

I began praying pretty steadily, asking God what it was He wanted for me in the next stage of life.  He didn't answer me immediately, which is never very much to my liking.  I like to know things right away, so I can plan and pursue.  The heat of a new direction always spurs me on with the most momentum, and I wanted to utilize that enthusiasm.  But as the days passed, I still wasn't getting any peace in my tumultuous thoughts.  I wanted to do something productive and worthwhile, but something that would enhance my duties at home and with my kids.  That's a hard bill to fill.


Before Christmas, I was asked to make some wildlife ornaments for the cemetery where my husband works.  They were decorating a Christmas tree in honor of a celebration at the Orianda House, a beautiful old mansion in the Baltimore area. 

Baltimoreheritage.org: Image courtesy laura1119_photos/photobucket

I was a bit unsure about painting the ornaments which were to feature the wildlife seen in the cemetery as well as some of the trees there.

I started by base-coating the bulbs, because when I washed them with alcohol,

as is helpful to do before painting on glass,

the finish that was on the bulbs washed off.

I printed up some images from the internet.

(Thank you, kind people who posted pictures of these creatures on the internet!)

I then sketched with charcoal pencil in the shape of the images with a little bit of detail

to use as a guide when I applied paint.

I then etched in the fine detail with permanent calligraphy ink and my fine-tipped calligraphy pen.

I used Martha Stewart's all purpose paint for the color.



 

I realized as I was painting,

this is what I love.

It was challenging, but it was fun.

I asked God, "Is there a way you could use this somehow?
I have never felt like I am a fantastic artist, but I do love doing art
and using it in my home to fix things up."

I still felt as if I didn't know what God wanted for me,

I just knew that what I have been doing,

the different little things that seem to take me from my children,

were frustrating me and making me feel like I was missing out on them.

Creating small crafts for local Christmas craft sales was fun,
but the profit margin was so slim compared to how much time it was taking me away
from my kids, my house, my necessary work.

Not long after these thoughts were bumping around in my head,
I got an email from a friend asking me about possibly helping her daughter with her drawings,

maybe some tips to help her.

I have had several people tell me that their kids like to try out some of the crafts I have made

or the art lessons I give on my blog.

I used to teach a craft class for a few years at the camp where my father ministers,

and I taught art to a group of home-schoolers before I married and while my husband was in Iraq,

but since I had my children spread out in larger gaps of years

and have other responsibilities with my small plant nursery and craft sales,

the thought of throwing in the art classes was too much.

But I loved them when I did them.

I also helped teach a Bible study for kids
and enjoyed making the art pages for the kids to work on.

Memory verses are more fun to learn when there is a picture to color
or help one remember.

I got up from the computer and sat down at the table to give my daughter's schooling to her.

I opened her art book up and read through the lesson she was to be taught

and then the art project I had for her that we needed to finish...

and it hit me.

Perhaps I should start a blog where I could teach some art tips,

make time to work on art goals that I have had my whole life,
create memory verse pages or coloring books for kids,
and share home projects I have done for the older readers as well.

I would be reaching for the things I see as important now

instead of putting them off til next year...

or next decade...

or when my kids are grown...

or when I'm retired.

 I love this blog, and all that I have been able to share here,

but sometimes I think my mind gets jumbled with what to do best with the time I have.

I don't want to let this blog go:

I love to write the bits and pieces of my life on this virtual diary.

I just think it is time to create a more specific place

to fill in a gap that may be needing some specific colors of paint.

I am not the most knowledgeable or masterful artist,

and sometimes I think that that is what holds us back from pursuing our best for God,

our own selves questioning our abilities, fearing the possibility of failure or inadequacy,

 like Moses did in Exodus 4: 10-12,

"And Moses said unto the LORD,

O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant:

but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth?

or who maketh the dumb,

or deaf,

or the seeing,

or the blind?

have not I the LORD?

Now therefore go,

and I will be with thy mouth,

and teach thee what thou shalt say."

So that is where I have been...
and I've been afraid to share it,
because commitment and change always scares me a little.


I haven't forgotten you and I cannot tell you how amazed I am that you come by
to hear my ramblings at this place.
Thank you.
It is amazing to me that so many friends are people I have never met.

I will still come here to write
although probably not as much as I had in the past.

(I need this place to type out the wordy versions of my life's lessons.)

That is where I have been,
heaping up mounds of art sketches and ideas,
sketching out pictures onto verse pages,
creating artwork around the house,
taking pictures,
trying to figure out exactly how and with what kind of schedule and plans I aim to go,
trying to get this half-painted bathroom from 6 months ago finally finished,
cleaning up after 3 kids, 2 dogs, and 1 cat stuck in a house all winter,
and praying that God will use the second half of my life,
if He blesses me with such,
with His guidance
and lots of colorful pails of paint.
 

At the Craft Shows...

An open house Christmas craft sale:

my friend does this every year.

She empties her house of her furniture
and sets up shelving and displays.
She creates things to sell and lets her friends sell from her home
(The above picture was of her friend's things to sell.  My friend paints a lot of the rustic furniture
and signs and things you see in the following pictures or at her BLOG.)
 




We've been friends since we were teenagers;
she is one of the few friends I have had through most of my life that I've stayed in touch with
since the day we met who has also kept the faith.
But it seems we've been crafting and painting for about as long as we've been friends.

She started a blog around when I did,
so we enjoy sharing in that experience,
emailng helpful ideas and encouragement.

It is a grand thing to have such a friend!

However, as I've worked on things to sell this fall,
I have questioned whether this is something I should let go of.

I am almost 40, and something about this birthday has made me look at myself...
what it is I want to accomplish in life,
what are my real goals,
praying for God to show me what He wants me to pursue and do with the next phase of my life.

Introspection seemed necessary;
life has varying stages, and I found this stage very hard for some reason.

Home-schooling has been much more demanding this year
and I don't want to feel so stressed with trying to be with me kids,
enjoy them,
and then work so hard on things to sell.
 

I enjoy making things to sell and feel good about contributing to the family purse.

But there comes a time when you have kids that are so needy of your attention and time
that the financial contributions seem to be teetering on the scale of what is most important.
I find that my kids need me more now at this school age,
much more so than they did when they were babies
because they need me as a person, somebody to talk to and interact with them;
they need to know I am really here for them with my heart,
and I don't want to miss that buried under a pile of pots of paint.

It is hard to let something you love go,
especially when you've put years into it.

The first week my friend was open,
things didn't go well this year.

Items weren't selling.
People weren't coming quite as much as usual.


I have to admit,
as much as I know I need to let this go,
it is hard when you've invested so many hours into something
and you wonder if you're going to make anything for the sacrifice you have made,
especially when the sacrifice has seemed so high this time around.

I had a goal this year,
as I do every year.

My husband gave me money for a new camera for my anniversary gift
because he knew how much I really wanted one.

It is a nice camera, one I never dreamed I'd ever own.

I hope to use it for a lot of things in the future.

But my goal for the craft sales this Christmas
was to make the money we had used to buy the camera.

With home-schooling taking up so much of my time, this seemed like a pretty large goal;
but I wanted to use up a lot of the supplies I had waiting in the attic
since I knew that this might be the last year I would put this much into the craft sales,
at least for the years to come that I need to have my attention here, in my home.

I tried to not let it bother me.

"It's Yours, God," I prayed.
"I'm willing to let this go and do whatever it is You show me I need to do.
Just show me what that is.
If this is your way of showing me it more directly,
I admit it will be hard, but I'll deal with it."

On the last day of her open house,
my friend sent me an email in the evening.

"This was one amazing Day! We had over 100 people come through today--which is a high for us.We had a record high of sales for one day today. We made more today than we did the last 7 days!"

She told me my total earnings.

It was 4 times what she had told me 2 days before.
My sales at both her sale and the other open house I had crafts in
would make the goal of the money for the camera.

 I have heard people question the reality of God.

Certainly creation shouts his praise
and the Bible spells out His story.

But sometimes, in the little details of our lives,
the small trials we face, the questions that invade the little spaces of our moments
and pursuits,
when the face of God appears through the fog and you hear His whisper in
to the quiet recesses of the soul,
to those places that weigh heavy but very few people even know they are there,

it is these peculiar treasures that invite the realization of His intimate care.

The Grandest of fine artists feels the joy of creation, the mixture of the hues,
the satisfaction of feeling that the work done is a worthy effort,

and He cares.


Linking Up to:
Missmustardseed.com
Tatertotsandjello
FunkyjunkinteriorsHomespunhappenings
alittleknickknack.com
Gnowfglins

A Piece of Time

She made me angry.

She made me feel confused and uncertain.

And so I prayed that God would give me another job,

a way to escape.

Shortly after that prayer,

I met my future husband's family.

His sister needed a nanny/housekeeper to help with her triplet babies.

God gave me relief from my conflict,

and the avenue by which I would meet the next phase of my life

with my Farmer.

But God has a way for bringing about healing,

of mending wounded hearts and angry frustrations.

Time has a way, sometimes, of being a medicine of it's own.

As Christians, we both knew that forgiveness,

although sometimes a hard choice to make,

needs to be grasped at the foot of the cross

where the Master of forgiveness set the standard.

The person that she is,

she didn't take offense too personally to my stepping away from the friendship,

didn't hold to the words that had expressed my feelings.

Mending went out one day through a card in the mail,

and a returning one came that promptly responded.

Since I have moved back to the area,

she has helped me with things,

 as she is such a giving type of person.

She told me she'd found a piece of furniture at a yard sale

and didn't really have a place for it

or the time to refinish it.

She wondered if I'd want it.

I had the perfect place for it,

so I stripped the top through several layers of colored paints,

and painted the base first with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Arles.

What a happy color it is.


I wanted to stain the stripped wood with a dark color,
so I stained with dark walnut mixed with a bit of red oak.

The Arles was such a contrast with the stained top,
but I knew the Arles was just an undercoat:

 I wanted to tint it a green over it,
so I mixed some Arles with the Antibes green.

After a sand-paper rub down
and some Rugger Brown and Clear wax to the whole thing,
 

the piece was done.

She will be over to help me with a project in a few weeks.

She'll see the refinished piece

and know that I appreciated her thoughtfulness in letting me take a chance with it.

After all,

I suspect we're are all unfinished pieces in this life,

don't you think?

Linking up to:

Missmustardseed.com: Furniture-feature-Friday
Tatertotsandjello.com 
Funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot: Sat-nite-special
Under the Table and Dreaming: Sunday-showcase-party
Theprairiehomestead.com: Homestead-barn-hop

Betweennapsontheporch 

Tied Up Hearts.

(I randomly picked a name from the people who commented that they would like 

 the paper hearts decorations that I created for my Mantel

and the winner was #2: Rachel.

Please email me with your address at Pumpkinpiepainter1(at)gmail(dot)com)

 Pinterest.com: from Whatilivefor.net

 I saw these fun earrings on Pinterest and thought I'd make them for a friend

for her birthday.

 I didn't have paperclips

(my kids are thieves)

so I used some heavier wire I had.

 I found this trick helped save time:

After forming the heart shape using the wire,

 open the wire back up again,

tie the string on (dabbing the knot with some glue),

and wrap the string tight and close together.

 Once the string has been wrapped well,

 close the heart back up

and wrap where the heart meets.

(Adding glue along the way as needed is a helpful tip).

After completing the wrapping,

the string gets tied, glued, and cut off..

I used silver findings for the earring hook, beads, and eye pin.

 

Have a happy day!

 (To read the story of who these were made for

click >HERE<)

Linking up to:

Funkyjunkinteriors: Sat-nite-special
Chiconashoestringdecorating.blogspot
Frenchcountrycottage.blogspot 
Whipperberry.com
Wearethatfamily.com
Kammyskorner.blogspot: Trash-2-treasure-Tuesday 
Womenlivingwell.org
504main.com

The Gift of a Lifetime.

Moving several states away

when I was 12 years old

was probably one of the hardest things in my life.

I left a bunch of good friends at a school I loved

when we moved away,

and we didn't have communication like we do now:

phone calls were too expensive,

no facebook.

All that we had were letters,

and they swiftly became too tedious on both sides.

I worked at the Christian camp that my dad did,

helping in the kitchen or in a cabin of girls.

It was when I was fifteen,

staying in a cabin as an assistant,

that I met a girl who would change me.

I would have a friend.

Tammy became a great friend

and started coming to the camp on weekends to help out as well.

She was a tom-boy who lived in a nearby town with her single Mom and her older brother.

 I liked Tammy.

She was fun, a great listener, easy to talk to,

had a great sense of humor.

She was the friend I really needed.

 Working at a camp brought a life I loved:

 a group of us who all worked together,

and then did fun things together when the work was done.

 But of all the friends and people I have met,

Tammy has always stayed a real friend,

a faithful friend.

She is like family.

 Over the course of our teenage years,

I noticed that Tammy was getting prettier and prettier.

She seemed to lose that tom-boy look.

She grew a love for sewing and doing crafts,

which, of course, I did as well.
 

Ever since I had known her,

Tammy had confided that she had a crush on one of the guys we worked with at the camp.

 I always thought it funny because he was so much like a brother,

but she had her heart set on him.

 I'd ask him about her,

and he'd always say that he saw her as just the little girl he'd met
when she was twelve.

And then one day,

I guess he realized she wasn't a little girl anymore.

 He noticed how beautiful Tammy was,

inside and out.

I think it was one of the happiest days in my life

when Tammy told me she and Danny were going to get married.

 To see how she had grown,

not only in years,

but as she loved the Lord

and He had given the answer to her prayers,

the desire of her heart,

and now she was getting married...

 it was just perfect.

As I continued in my life,

finishing college,

Tammy began her life as a wife.

Visiting her in her home,

I knew she'd have a knack at this home-making thing:

her home was so cozy

and pretty

and always well kept.

  

Motherhood seemed to fit her very well, too.

 But throughout the years,

the things that meant so much to me

were the letters she wrote while I was away,

and

the times when we got together when I came home:

it was as if nothing had ever changed.

When I began nannying and fell in love with my boss's brother,

I kept it a secret from most of my friends until I knew it was going to be something;

but Tammy was always somebody I knew I could tell.

 I think she was as happy as I was when I got engaged.

 It isn't often in life when you find a friend you keep as close to you

throughout most of it;

a friend that you don't have to spend every spare moment with,

but when you do get time, it's as if it is dessert

and you want to soak every sweet morsel out of it.

It's not often you meet a friend who doesn't change in

their love toward God,

whose decisions don't drift,

whose focus on right doesn't waiver,

who loves you through all your travels in life,

who always wants the best for you:

a wise friend.

But when you do,

when you find and keep a friend as valuable as all that

but who also loves so many of the same things that you do:

crafting, home-schooling, the Bible, 

and now even >blogging<,

it's almost too good to be true.

It's a priceless gift.

I don't think that there is much of anything better.

Happy Birthday, Tammy!

Thank you for being my friend.