Wow! How exciting!

My work has been highlighted in a Holiday Gift Guide on a highly acclaimed website, and I am so pleased. The author was so complimentary in her highly descriptive manner in which she described my work, and it pleases me greatly that she is appreciative of my art. Please take a peek.

That she is my daughter makes it even more pleasing to me. That she would take the time to do this when she is so busy with deadlines for articles and boocoos (sp) of other things is a statement of love, and I know that.

Studying humility lately has me thinking. I'm like a muscle in training. Before muscles can be built they have to be torn down so they can be rebuilt properly. Did you know that? I think that's why you get so sore when you first begin an exercise program. Which reminds me....I've not been on the elliptical machine in over a month. Gads!

All that tearing down and then building up and feeling so good about myself and now it's all to do over again because I'm not feeling so good about myself right now. I have overeaten and feel like a bloated pregnant toad! Picture that. So, it's only about 5 pounds, but picture a 5 pound jar of Crisco and that's not a pretty picture. This week is not a week to start anything. The only thing I'm concentrating on is Lisa's surgery on Thursday. But once that is behind us, and she is mending, I must get back to my daily exercise and healthy eating. I'm not going to whip myself over it.

Back to the humility thing. Does it please you to hear compliments on something that you have done? Does it inspire you to continue...perhaps even try harder to make whatever you are doing better than before? Does it help your self-esteem? Is that pride? And is it wrong? Hmmmmm....

Perhaps it's wrong if you grow smug about it...to be prideful. I could never be smug...too many self doubts for that. If you know from whence it came, and I certainly do.....I don't do what I do by myself. Sometimes I have to wait for guidance from above before I can finish something, and I think it's patience training. (I still have training wheels on.) Mary and Joseph began in my mind a year before I really even started on them.

Now, back to my analogy of the muscle, the tearing down, the building up....the continuing. I think true pride, the harmful kind, comes when you think you have reached the pinnacle and stop. When you think you are complete and you stop and become smug....and you think you will stay where you stopped. Doesn't work that way...you must keep working, learning, building because when you stop you immediately start going down hill. Think about the muscle. Hmmmm..........Gee. All of that is true in many aspects of life...huh?

Well, kind of fragmented. I started back to work today for my 6 week twice a year part time job. Maybe I feel a bit fragmented.

Since modest and lowly are synonyms for humble, I think I'm okay. I'm humble but I really do appreciate that great write up I got in the Holiday Gift Guide!!
Hugs and warm wishes to all of you!!

Stained Glass in Clay

Learning to make canes with the clay has been so much fun. I still have so much to learn and so many others I want to make. Here are a few items I just listed on Etsy. Thought you might enjoy seeing them.




I'm still working on the necklaces and earrings! Hope your day is cheery!!!

Tomorrow

Hi! Been crazy days around here just like it has been in your homes! I thought I would have time to do a post....sorry!! I'm working on a new black and white themed jewelry design, and just couldn't quit!! What else is new??? That's just me.

And tomorrow is the first day of my 6 week job. It'll be a short day though and I can get back in time to play catch up! And do a post!



I leave you with this shot of our motley crew!! What fun we all have when we get together! No time for cleaning it up....fresh out of the camera.


Have a wonderful day! Smiles and hugs to you!!

Holidays and Love

I do love them....holidays. But, sometimes they do make me sad. When I think about the families this year who do not have their loved ones they had last year, it makes me sad for them, and then I remember my sadness after losing loved ones.

My sister-in-law, Dorothy, is no longer with her family. I just read on Facebook that her daughter, my neice, who is 44 just baked her first turkey this year, "Because Mom always did it." My brother is having his first Thanksgiving without his bride that he has had practically all of his life. That saddens me.

My husband's children, my chosen children, are having their first Thanksgiving without their mother, Lillian, this year. That saddens me for them, for her grandchildren.

So, yes, as we celebrate and give thanks for all our blessings, our hearts are heavy with our losses and worries about family members, our armed forces around the world, their families and their great losses and sacrifices....our list grows long.

A great weight is seeing how God is slowly being eased out of our public lives....a great hope is that he is growing stronger in our hearts, strong enough to fight to have him back in our public lives.

I wish all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. If you are hurting, I wish you relief from the pain..if you are hungry, I wish you food for whatever you hunger. Life is not simple but the Golden Rule is.

As we prepare for this holiday season, let's all take less for ourselves and give more to people with less, to children with nothing, to families with hardly anything. The world won't change until we change and until we start raising our children and grandchildren with the word GIVE getting more weight than I WANT.

Warm thoughts coming your way!!!