My Art

I have not posted in a while. I've been busy with trying to get this house finished being built and then we all got the flu. So, I've been busier than my usual busy.

I did hardly any painting in 2008, and I have done none in 2009. Life has just not lent itself to that. I have ideas in my head and I sketch them out and put them in my art ideas folder.

A month or so ago I ran into a girl that I don't visit with often. She said that she had seen my large mermaid painting hanging up in a friend of hers bathroom. It was a piece I donated to the local theater company's auction. So, I didn't know who had bid on it or who won it. So, I felt that was kind of a little reminder and blessing from God to hear that someone valued my art enough to have it hanging in her home. I'm looking forward to painting again soon. I would really love taking some lessons. I've never done that and I would love the opportunity to learn. Maybe that season of life will come around one day.

Some New Underwear Paintings

The rest of my life has consumed any time for painting. I had not painted in a long time, but I knew my sister-in-law was missing some paintings with this theme I had done for her a long time ago but that she doesn't have now. So, I painted these and framed them for her for Christmas. I added some gold accents to them and then framed them in gold, ornate frames. She is going to hang them in her bathroom.

The next project I'm figuring how to do it to paint some canvas pillows for a couple of new couches we bought. I want something bright and folkart ... maybe a rooster on a couple of pillows and some fruit on another couple. I would love to paint a rug, too ... but that might be a little overkill. :o) If I could figure out how to make it really durable I would LOVE to paint some seat covers for my dining room furniture. I have some flour sack dishcloths that I am going to try to sew to make some bright, casual seat covers for my formal dining room set that was my grandmothers. Something a little unexpected and a little funky on some cherished old furniture. :o)

Central Texas Snow in DECEMBER!

Leaf Angels

I went by my hairdresser's shop today to get an appointment. Probably my last expensive haircut for a while, so I'm going to enjoy it. My parents' 40th wedding anniversary party is coming up this weekend, and I needed to get my hair trimmed.

When we came out from getting the appointment, I started strapping the 2 year old in his carseat and noticed I didn't see the 4 year old anymore but heard leaves rustling. I walked to the front of the car, and he was laying on his back flailing his arms and legs in a large long pile of leaves that had swirled up on the sidewalk. I asked him what he was doing. Without stopping his arms and legs from flying and very seriously and proudly he said, "I'm making a leaf angel!" He hopped up. Inspected it and pointed to the angel shape he had left in the leaves. "See? A leaf angel!" Then he promptly went to the next pile and started again.

Only in Texas do we make leaf angels instead of snow angels. What a creative and fun boy I have!

Much To Be Thankful For!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for I could never list it all, but I thought I would share a few.



1. As I sat thinking about all of the people, things and situations I am thankful for, it occurred to me that the only thing I am thankful for that I can never loose is my relationship with Jesus Christ. It is through Him that all of the other blessings flow and come from. So, most of all I am thankful for my precious Savior. Without Him, none of the other blessings in my life would be possible. I know that none of the other blessings are guaranteed to go on forever like the blessing of knowing Jesus on a personal, real level.

2. My wonderful husband. What a tremendous blessing he is to me. I love him more and more each year. He loves me so good. :o) He takes good care of me and our boys, he is loving, I love seeing him smile at me and the twinkle in his eye, he is very manly but tender. I could go on an on here, but I'm very thankful for him.


3. Our boys. They are (most of the time) sweet, loving, fun, funny, constantly into things (which drives me crazy but I know they are learning, too). They are healthy and beautiful. I love watching them learn not just "book" things but life things. It is neat teaching them and see some of it stick.

4. Our extended family. We are so blessed on both sides of our families with wonderful in-laws. They are such treasures to us.

5. My husband's job. Even in this tough economy he got a raise and a bonus this year. His company is doing well ... something I try to remember to pray for ... that his company and its owners and bosses would be blessed so we can share in their blessings, too. Thank you, Lord, for my sweet husband's job.

Hope you are enjoying some of your sweet blessings this holiday weekend.

Christmas Tree BARGAIN & a House Update

I know I've been a terrible blogger. I've heard grumblings to my face and through the grapevine about it. I apologize. Life has been beyond crazy. I haven't read any blogs either, so forgive me for being a bad blogger in general. :o(

Today I just couldn't NOT blog about the great deal I got on a Christmas tree! We have 12 foot ceilings in our new living room (we are still building ... I'll update on that below). Anyway, my little 8 foot tree would be swallowed in the room. I'm planning to put it up in the study in the front of the house. Anyway, I've been trying to find 10 foot or 11 foot trees. Oh, I've been able to find them if I was willing to pay $300 to $600 and up! I'm cheap, so I've been waiting.

Today, I went to the Walmart to get somethings for the concrete staining project I'm going to do in our new house. The boys asked me if we could go to the Christmas section to look at all of the pretty things. I promised them I would after I finished getting the things I needed. At the end of our trip, we headed to the Christmas section. I noticed a huge box that was new to that section, and it wasn't labeled for sale but as the large trees that are in the front of every Walmart you go in ... at least in our town. It was labeled with directions to the store for when to put it up, how to display it, etc. So, I asked if it was like the 12 foot thin tree with the red and green balls at the front of the store. I know some people like fat trees, but we've always liked the thin trees (which works out well that both my hubby and I like the thin trees. They said yes, it was just like the tree at the entrance. They had been sent 2 but only had one entrance, so they boxed it back up, duct taped it and offered it for sale. Get this ... $198 for a 12 foot prelit tree! My hubby said he could probably saw down the end of the tree and put in in the base so that it doesn't scrape our 12 foot living room ceilings ... although later talking to my mom she reminded me that usually there is a really tall piece the sticks up but that can be folded down. I was thinking I could just put a huge bow up top and let the ribbons flow down the sides since there probably won't be room for a star or an angel. Anyway, had to share such a great deal!

To update our house: We have brick. We weren't sure we liked it at all sitting on the palate, and then we decided we HATED it after they put it up. But, once the mortar dried and rain washed it off, we LOVE it! Which is good because we are going to have a 12 foot tall fireplace made with it and under our kitchen island will be bricked with it, too. I was sweating it out there for a little bit telling myself I was going to have to learn to love it. Glad I just loved it and didn't have to learn to. :o) We hadn't seen it up on anything when we picked it out, but we did like the little swatch they had.

All of the wiring is done. We are ready to insulate and sheetrock, but they had to tear out the back door because it was warped and wouldn't shut all of the way. So, we are waiting on the door frame so the security system can be rewired and THEN we can insulate and sheetrock. The insulated carriage garage door is in ... and they are anxious to install it, but we have to wait for the sheetrock to get done to install that. It is such a crazy game of waiting and scheduling and deciding. Oh, we also have the drawings done for our cabinets. They will be custom made but in a place close by rather than in the actual house so it won't hold up scheduling anything ... they'll just come install them when they are done. Hopefully the bid will come back within our budget, so we can do all of the cabinets I want to. Anyway, that's an update. Here's some pictures of the house with the brick and then a close up of the brick. I'll try to do better in keeping up the blogging. I have a recipe to update my recipe blog, too. I'll try to get to that today, but no promises. I will also try to post more than once a month. That's embarassing! :o(

Way Behind on Posting!

Okay, I know I am beyond behind on posting. So, if any of you are still reading, please forgive me. I have a lot to catch you up on ... more than I want post on one post. So, I'll just do today and give more detailed updates as I find the time. And, I've just about given up trying to paint anything ... though I still have ideas, sketch them out and keep them in a folder for January when hopefully I'll have more time.

I'm working on two separate HUGE Christmastime ministries with our church and volunteering at the 6 year old's school (yes, we had a birthday I haven't blogged) along with building a house and raising three little boys pretty much by myself lately, because my super talented hubby is doing the wiring on our country house (and uncharacteristically is SUPER swamped with work ... which is putting him behind with the wiring ... but we want to keep work happy! ... and all of it keeps us apart which we hate but appreciate each other all the more and the fact that we normally get to spend lots of time together). Pray he gets the wiring finished this weekend. The house survived Ike well (we didn't get too much from it), the roof is on, the brick will start on Monday, and HOPEFULLY my hubby will be finished this weekend with the rough-in part.

Tonight for dinner, I let the two older boys make up recipes for dinner. I put out cans of what we had and let them pick what they wanted to mix in. My 4 year old did the main dish ... Mexican Skillet Ala 4 year old. It had canned chicken, green chilies, pepper jack soup, torn up tortillas, garlic powder, cumin, fajita seasoning, chopped frozen bell pepper/onion/celery mix, diced tomatoes and corn. It was VERY tasty. The 6 year old made Refried Beans Ala 6 Year old. He added the rest of the 1/2 can of tomatoes the 4 year old had left over, green chilies, fajita seasoning, garlic powder and cumin. Also, very tasty. They had SOOO much fun cooking dinner and getting to choose what to put in the dish ... for the most part. The 4 year old wanted to add broccoli to his, but I told him I wasn't sure that would taste so great. Then he asked for carrots in it. I told him carrots was a good idea but that I didn't have it handy and that the next time we made his dish, we would add some carrots.

It was a little messy, but loads of fun. I told them I would be their sous chef like in Ratatouille ... they kept calling me their "soup" chef. :o) I've been called worse. :o)

Prepared for Ike

By God's grace and lots of help from family and neighbors, we got ALL of the construction trash picked up and hauled off, burned or put inside the new house. I don't know how we got so much done except that God multiplied our time. We started at 8:30 and by 1 PM we were lighting the three piles in the back. We made two hauls to the dump but knew we wouldn't have time before we would start to feel the effects of Ike to take anymore, because the lines were so long at the dump. So, we made 3 burn piles on the back of the acre lot, we used the box blade on the tractor to trim down the grass, used the hose to wet the area and lit them up. We didn't have any of the fire jump to anything else even with the winds that had picked up. I'm quite sure Al Gore was somewhere flinching, and I hated doing it that way, but we had no choice. We couldn't let all of the left over boards with nails and hardie and steal be such a dangerous hazzard to our house or to our neighbhors' lives and property around us. The brick people came and moved the brick they had delivered from the ditch. That was God's doing, too. The truck they needed to move the brick had been in the shop, and they couldn't find their driver (or there was some issue with the driver's liscense or something). Anyway, the truck got fixed and they were able to move the brick and keep it from blocking up the ditch and cause flooding.

I'm so thankful to my brother-in-law and his wife who have helped us in so many ways throughout our house building and today with hauling and burning and making arrangements for dump trailors, my husband's parents who watched the kids, my sister, my father-in-law who took the two loads to the dump so we could keep working, my mother who baked cookies and sent them with lemonade, our neighbor across the street who brought two wheel barrows and gloves and helped us haul SO much, and our next door neighbor who came and helped haul, too. We were so blessed today in so many ways. I'm praying for continued blessings for our community and the rest of the great state of Texas. I'm so glad we have a God who could calm that storm in an instant and Who is with us right here through the storm. Pray for God's glory, mercy, protection and peace for the our state. I know that no matter what, everything is going to be alright.

Another House Update

Here's a picture of our house from today. You can see the brick in front of it. My hubby is super excited about the brick. I think it looks good but there aren't as many red brick (showing on the top of the brick piles anyway) as I was anticipating. It is cool looking in that it looks like old reclaimed brick ... which we like. Anyway, you can see we have windows and all of the Hardie planks done. We also have bathtubs inside.

We are going to be working ALL day Friday trying to get the leftover wood and trash picked up and either carried away or burned. We have to get it picked up with Hurricane Ike maybe heading our way. The 5 year old, the 4 year old and I picked up 3 TONS of trash a couple of weeks ago. They LOVED helping and working with me and their dad (who was doing the electrical rough-ins inside the house), and I was amazed at HOW MUCH they REALLY did help. We've got a lot more to get cleaned up before any strong winds come our way. I hate that we are going to get lots of rain (probably) and the shingles aren't on the roof and the brick isn't on, yet. And, we don't have a garage door, yet. I'm praying for protection for our property (and for everyone else's, too) and trusting in the Maker of Storms who is also the Calmer of Storms, too. :o)

We Have Windows!

Not in this picture, but we went out yesterday afternoon, and they have most of the windows in the house and are working on getting the staircase up. It is a neat process for the boys to see. Wow, in this picture the roof isn't completely on ... well the plywood and tar paper stuff that's on it now. I need to take some more pictures. Anyway, this gives you an idea.

We are getting used to our new family routine ... up at 6 AM for the whole family. QUITE the change. It is kind of nice though. Over breakfast I read the boys a Bible story from their picture Bible, and we do prayer requests (from the whole family ... though I'm not sure they understand the idea of a "prayer request" just yet) and pray together. Such a special time. I want to always do that before they start off to school.