Catching up!

Still having internet issues and I haven't been online for a few days. It's already September 3rd?!?

I had a full weekend. Our little church put on a concert that we call Spirit Life, on Saturday. This is the sixth year they've done this, and my first. We had 4 young fellows who did separate sets. Three are local worship leaders and one was from Dallas. I liked them all. One reminded me a lot of my Jordan in singing, guitar playing styles and in appearance. I really liked the young man from Dallas. I've asked Jordan if he's familiar with him. His name is Chris August and he has a Stevie Wonder kind of sound. In fact, Stevie was his favorite musical influence as a youngster. (He seems way too young to know who Stevie Wonder is! LOL) I bought one of his CD's called Seasons. I haven't purchased any music in ages and need something to listen to in the car. :)

OH. I guess he was on American Idol and won a Dove award. I'm so out of it! How on earth could we afford him? He must be humble. ;)

On Sunday we had a group of 40 men from the Adult and Teen Challenge program. They were such a great group of guys. They sang and several gave their testimonies. All are in the long-term program for alcohol and drug abuse. They joined us for potluck afterwards. It was quite a crowd for our tiny church, but we sure enjoyed having them!  In the evening a group of us came back together for what we call The Gathering, which means we eat a little supper together (leftovers from the potluck!) then have a prayer gathering. There were about 15 of us, and it was such a good time together. I'm being blessed to be a part of this little family.

It's going to be a busy fall/winter/spring between church ministries, AWANA, and helping Micah with kids and the new baby. Hopefully, it won't be TOO long before I move out here (I'm typing this from her house) where I get better internet and I can keep up with online friends more easily.

Here are a few photos of current ATCs and some 4x4 "Chunky pages" I've made lately for trades.
These first two are for a Trick or Treat swap.

 The 4x4 pages were for a Woodland Creature swap.

Micah and her family are taking their annual Labor Day excursion to Itasca Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi, so I'm enjoying their quiet house and great internet, lol.
Micah took these two pictures a couple of days ago when the internet repair guy was here. She said Sully would hug the guys' legs every time he came back in the house. On his last trip inside he found the kids like this, and said, "The internet must be working!" (They had been running around like wild things before that.)

 A couple of seconds after posting the above photo on Facebook Micah took this photo. Note Sully. He's a sudden sleeper!

 I don't think I showed you this photo either. Micah was doing the dishes and looked down to see this.

He just runs and runs until he can't run any more! I suppose later he'll get sophisticated like the rest of us and realize he should sleep only in designated areas. Ha!

I think that's all of my new news for now. Now for laundry!
Love you guys! Thanks for dropping by!
Shalom to all!

Rainy day doings...

What do you do on a cool, drizzly day?

Not much left of my flowers.

I had the urge, early this morning, to reframe some pictures. I had a "vintage" owl print on my wall in a very flimsy little metal frame. I had found some sturdy old wood frames with just the right touch of rusticity (is that a word?) and decided to reframe my owl. When I removed the owl print from its old frame I found a second print behind it! What a treat! :)

This cool stuff was on the back of the owl print.

The "bonus" print!

I used this frame for the owl...

I like the fact that these two frames (another coming up) are rather beaten up. It adds to their lake cabin charm. ;)
Here's the frame I used for the flowers. See the holes on the top and bottom of the frame? I guess that's one way to hang a picture! Once again, charming to me!

The Pepsi sign and the mountain scene are still in the frames behind my prints. They were both glued to the backing, so I decided not to fight with them.

This frame has sort of a tree bark texture which I thought was cool.

 I was able to remove this hanger from the old owl frame and reuse it.

This was the "hanger" that was on the back of the mountain picture. Looks like something I'd come up with!

 In other "art" I've been making some inchies. I've just been making some with themes of my own choosing. Now don't faint, but I must confess to cutting up an old Dick and Jane reader. (Gasp!) Yes, it was difficult at first, but I thought this way someone else could enjoy the cute artwork which would otherwise languish on my shelves. I do have another one that I will keep intact. When I've used up all of the pictures I can also make the cover into a little journal.

I just wish someone hadn't written on the cover!

Aw. Aren't they cute? I love this perfect little family, lol.

I have fond memories of the Dick and Jane readers from my school years. Fortunately, we also learned phonics along with these "see and say" readers. The family may have seemed "too perfect", but I found them very sweet.

I'm currently reading another Julie Klassen novel. Next in line will be one of the other two books in this photo. Going through my shelves I see SO MANY books I want to get to. Some of them children's books. Such a nice feeling to have so many good things waiting on the shelves, right?

Well, I should make myself presentable. Micah will be coming by to pick me up. We've decided to go to town together so I can help wrangle kids at the grocery store. I only  have a couple of quick errands otherwise. My wifi has been working "tolerably well" for the last couple of days, so I won't have to spend a lot of time at the library like I thought I might. Yay! Hope it keeps working!

All of you have a jolly good day and a wonderful weekend!
Shalom and love!

CAUTION!

Saw this on my walk the other day.

I didn't catch a glimpse of him. Shucks.
Sorry, my news is kind of old. Couldn't get online the last couple of days and didn't blog last time I got on. :)

Well, since I'm surrounded by grands over at Micah's house I won't try to blog anything too complicated. I've been busy helping with a free rummage sale at church the last two days. I think I need a nap! I just wanted to check in and say hello. :)

God bless and shalom!

Oh, Sully...

Micah's recent Facebook post contained these two photos and this bit of text:

"If you’ve never fallen asleep while crawling up your deck stairs, are you even “life-ing” right? 😂😂 This poor boy has been falling asleep in the strangest and most uncomfortable places lately, but I guess...he is a man after all. 😂 I even managed to pick him up from here, change his diaper and clothes and get him in the car to run some errands without a peep.😅 This last month of being one is tough! But he’s a keeper!"😍

 He doesn't give up until he's plum tuckered out!

How do you like my iPad holder? :) I've downloaded a few podcasts to listen to.

See the sun between those bare branches? This was Saturday. The smoke from the Canadian wildfires was really bad. Much better today. I hope things are going better in Canada as well! 

Well, that's a short update from the library. I hope you're all doing well! Thanks for stopping by and SHALOM to everyone!

Short and sweet...

Micah said, "Mrs. Doubtfire came by to clean the house..." Ha ha haaaaa! :) If Sully doesn't make you smile...well, I don't know what to say.

I gathered a few items on my walk the other day. Fruitful fall is on the way?

That's just a single butterfly wing that was laying on the ground. Collage material!

I've dried the flowers and they turned out very pretty. I pressed the leaves on the right also, but I'm not sure if they'll retain their color. Probably not?

These are little "inchies". They have Japanese text as a base. Layered over that I have mulberry paper, and then I glued on the dried flowers. Then another layer of varnish. I think they're cute. I'm sure I'll make more. These are up for grabs at the ATC site.

I have a birthday party tomorrow for a church acquaintance (featuring karaoke!) and then our monthly church potluck on Sunday. I'll be doing some cookie baking and prep work today for those two events. Other than that, reading and resting.

 God bless you all and have a shalom-full weekend!

A quick one from the library...

Feeling a little groggy this morning. The RV park I live in was overrun by pickups (about 15 of them), RVs and ATVs yesterday. (This is a TINY RV park.) They kept me up til about 3 a.m. with their boom boxes (at least boom-boom-boom was all I could hear) which were positioned about 50 feet from my bedroom wall. They turned it down SLIGHTLY at about 1:30, but it still kept me awake. I'm not sure if they're staying tonight. I'll mention it to my landlady, but she and her hubby aren't very brave about talking to customers. They look like a nice bunch of folks ranging in age from little kids to old folks, but they are surely thoughtless creatures. We had worship practice this morning, and it seems that I sing better after a sleepless night! Who knew?!?

Thanks to my niece, Hannah, for alerting me to the spammer in my comments who, apparently,thinks White Women are Scum. Hahahaha! I have duly deleted that comment. Hannah is a police officer in Kansas City. Glad she has my back! :)

I don't have a lot of new news; just a few ATCs I just mailed out. So, here ya go!
This was a Pick-a-Theme, so each card had been specifically requested as far as theme.

cactus terrarium

kitten with a ball of yarn

girl with doll

wolpertinger

Have a great day, everyone! I have high hopes of getting in a nap! :)
Shalom and love!

1984 was a very good year...

Happy birthday, dear Josh! Josh and Jess took a little road trip to Tennessee in honor of his birthday. Here are a couple of pics.

I don't care what George Orwell says, 1984 was a wonderful year! Josh is a real blessing to the world! :) The shirt, mug and book are Jess's gifts to Josh. I want to read that book again, too!

Had to get a good video shot. They took a walk in the mountains of Tennessee.

And here's little Sully/Bubba napping, after Micah sat by his bed for 20 minutes, lol. He's the Everready Bunny.

My wifi is still not working, so I'm at the library. Please forgive me if I fall behind on viewing blogs for a bit. Once I move out to Micah's I hope it will work better, but for now I'm getting weaned from the computer world a bit. Maybe a good thing. But I'm not gone!

I'm finally having a slow week after so much busyness at church.  Singing practice resumes on Saturday. This is one of the songs we're doing.


I just finished reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. I think it's one of my favorite books of all time. This is the third time I've read it, and I chose the happy ending. You'll know what that means if you've read it, lol.

I've just begun Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell because my son Jordan is reading it. It has to do with success. He's reading it as inspiration for being self-employed eventually. I saw Malcolm on one of those ads for Master Classes you see at the beginning of YouTube videos. ("I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and this is my Masterclass.") I liked his style in the ad, so I'm trying one of his books, lol.)

Thanks for stopping by!
God bless all and shalom!