And.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I plan to stay home; safe and warm.
Hope you have a safe and wonderful New Year!
Shalom!

Two birds finished...

I finished painting these two for the Bird swap...

 

 ...and made a greeting card for Jody in Montana.

It's babysittin' day! So, I'm packing my bag and getting prepared.

Shalom and stay warm!

Beautiful kiddos...

I just came across this photo on Facebook. It's my granddaughter, Tori, and her little boy Ollie. They live in Oklahoma. Her caption made me smile...

"After our first attempt at seeing Santa failed, we acquired a minion to help us through this tough time." 

Merry Christmas!

Shalom on earth; goodwill to all men!

A Pause in Advent #4

My first Christmas in 33 years without Bob. It's only been a month since he graduated to heaven, but with our new family configuration it's necessary to make new traditions. We had Christmas early (yesterday) because of conflicting schedules on Christmas day.

My dear daughter, Micah, wanted to play hostess this year, so I packed up my car with presents and some baked goods and drove over to their house!

I made the pumpkin pie...

 

...and kringla (shown here in three stages)! M.K. asked what kringla is. Well, it's a sweet pastry that my Norwegian relatives make at holiday time. When researching the term I found more than one definition. So, it's kind of mysterious! :)

 

 Unfortunately, we're all fighting off colds, but it was still fun to watch the girls open their presents!

 

Christmas pj's!

 

Test drive!

 

Unspillable bowls for everyone, yay!

This is a fun little Bingo game. (Glad I bought it for her!)



 

 

 They both liked Hazel's bead rollercoaster thingy.

I got slippers and a ceramic coffee cup/thermos with a hand crocheted (by Micah) wrap. Both things I really needed! I also bought myself a few gifts. This fat, pink 400 page journal was my favorite thing. (I started writing in it at 4:30 this morning!) I also got a selection of colored Sharpies and pens and a 3-pack of 11"x14" canvas panels which I plan to do some acrylic painting on.  Woo hoo!

 

Today has been a lazy day of napping, reading books, and reading blogs. I went to the clinic yesterday morning because of this cold that's hanging on. My lungs felt so congested. She did prescribe an antibiotic to fend off the possibility of pneumonia. So, hopefully things will clear up soon!

God bless all of you as you celebrate God coming to earth to provide salvation for us all! Thank you, Lord!

Shalom!

Working on those swaps.

I've completed my Big Bad Bugs cards and one of my bird cards, so I thought I'd post what I have so far. Seems like it's been a while since I've posted any art!

I'm a pretty unimaginative collage-r...

 

Blue jay on a snowy branch...

 

A Hoopoe! (The national bird of Israel, I hear.)

 

One of my favorite backwoods birds-the Pileated Woodpecker.

 

A pic of Hazel last time I babysat. I especially wanted to capture her little feet!

 

Here she is without the pizza sauce. She cleans up pretty well, don't you think?

And I'm off! Shalom everyone!

This Is Christmas!

A Pause in Advent #3...

"If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbor bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.
"When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing." ~ Oswald Chambers ~

I was very challenged by this quote I found on Thistle Cove Farm's blog this morning! Turn off the distractions (TV, etc.) and tune into God. Being alone, I do have plenty of time to sit and contemplate, but it's still difficult to turn everything off and spend time in the Word and listening to God. It gets a little too quiet around here sometimes and TV seems like company. Human voices. That's why my Bob had it turned on all the time. So he wouldn't feel alone when I wasn't home. But that's an excuse, not a good reason. To be truthful, it's easier to fill our days with activity and noise than to listen and perhaps even hear God tell us to do something we're uncomfortable doing. Lord make my heart willing! In Jesus' name.

Shalom, friends!