Goodthoughts

A day of goodthoughts

 I had a wonderful birthday today...with my favorite garden buddy, sweetheart and best friend, Chuck! We had great food, lots of conversation and the sun was shining...yaaaay! I talked on the phone with our daughters and my mom....and had birthday wishes from lots of friends! All is well. Thank you, God!

Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father who created all the lights in the heavens.--James 1:17 Contemporary English Version

Visual storytelling

I love stories...don't you?  When it's all said and done...life is about stories.   Stories shape our lives...they form our identity.  Stories have the power to make us feel impoverished or empowered.  They tell us where we came from and where we're going.  They tell us who we are.  We all need a story...a story of hope...of dreams...of joy...of making a difference in our world each day.

Art has power to shape our stories in ways that inspire and give us courage to walk along our God given path with joy and purpose...unafraid of the obstacles along the way.  Why not tell those stories of our lives with pictures as well as words?  Instead of having photos and family momentos in the back of a drawer somewhere...wouldn't it be better to arrange them into a visual story told from your hearts point of view?  Which brings me to my collage...

I went back to Tennessee a few weeks ago to visit our daughter, Amy, son-in-law, Randy and grandson, Wesley.  Amy and Randy have a farm in the rolling hills south of Nashville.  They raise milk goats, chickens, ducks, cows and horses.  I took some pictures on the way to the goat barn one sunny fall morning. The old abandoned farmhouse behind their vegetable garden looked stunning against the bright morning sun.  The picture turned out so well, I wanted to use it as a centerpiece for a collage.

When Amy was about 6 years old, I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.  She said, "A singer by day and a farmer by night!"  Chuck and I thought that was so funny.  We said, "Wouldn't it be better to be a farmer by day and a singer by night?"  She stuck with her first choice. 

Today, Amy sings every morning to her goats, Nannette, Georgette, Maisy, Polly and the new Billy Goat, Jean Paul.   At dusk, she and Randy round up the chickens and put them in their coop.  Singer by day...farmer by night.  It seems to be working out! 

The collage is just one thread of Amy's story...told from the heart. 

Don't worry, Laurie, your story's next!!

My collage was inspired by a magazine I bought last week called Somerset Digital Studio. It had some great ideas for digital collage with understandable instructions.  My collage was created in Photoshop CS3 and is made up of over 34 layers. I made several other versions but liked the above one best.  But, one of the best things I learned was about a website...obsidiandawn.com which has tons of free brushes and patterns you can download to use with Photoshop or Elements.   I could not have made this collage without the cool brushes and patterns from Obsidian Dawn.  Thanks, Stephanie, for sharing your talent with the rest of us!   Note to artists:  If you work in Photoshop you owe it to yourself to check out Obsidian Dawn!!  Here's just a sampling of some of the brushes I downloaded free!

God's GPS

My husband, Chuck, got a BlackBerry for me after my old cell phone died.  He absolutely loves his and wanted to share the joy of being connected to the world every waking moment with me!  I'm learning to text and getting used to reading the news on my BlackBerry. 

But, one of the coolest things on my new Blackberry is the GPS.  I'm going to visit our daughter, Amy, later today.  She lives over 500 miles away.  I put in her address last night and each turn popped up on my screen...all the street names I couldn't remember...neatly spelled out for me.  I don't have to worry about getting lost!

God can do that, too, you know.  He doesn't need batteries.  He's never obsolete...and he doesn't require a monthly fee for his services.  But, he always knows where I am...and he always knows the best way to get to my destination...even when I don't.

There is one difference in God's version of GPS for you life.  You only get directions...one turn at a time.  And you do have to listen...and be willing to take the turn and keep walking until you come to the next fork in the road.

I was talking with my friend, Susan, yesterday.  We've been friends since we were 5 years old.  She said that she used to think that she could plan her life herself...sort of parallel to God's path.  Then... she would invite God to join her on her path.  But things never seemed to go right.  Then one day she realized that life would be a lot easier if she joined God on the path he offered instead.  Her life changed dramatically for the better after she did.

So, whether your life is stuck in traffic.  Or you're moving through life swiftly, but notice that you keep ending up in the same spot...ask God to show you his road.    God doesn't guarantee the road will always be smooth...but he does promise that he'll always be there to carry you over the bumpy places.  Try God's GPS...it's a custom planned journey just for you...because you're an original...and you've got something special to do!

The yellow road of weeds

I love it when it's sunny on my yellow road of dreams! 

When the flowers bloom cheerily...and the only bugs in the garden are beneficial insects...when it rains twice a week so I don't have to drag the water hose all over the yard...when the humidity is low and the mosquitoes are few...when I'm full of energy and enjoy bouncing outside every morning to pull weeds when they're tiny...to prune and tend God's beautiful garden...and share jelly jars of flowers to brighten someone's day...that's perfect...it's ideal...but what if it doesn't happen like that! 

What if my yellow road of dreams is full of weeds?  Life is never perfect.  But sometimes it seems that the yellow road has a lot more weeds than dreams!  Our summer has been like that...distractions from our routine...viruses in early summer for Chuck and me...the death of Chuck's brother and the sadness that followed...people in our church family with serious illness, bronchitis that I'm just now getting over.  I look around and see all the things that I usually do that haven't been done.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed...when life slows me down...and the weeds keep growing.  What's the best way to deal with it?

Count your blessings even if you're standing in a weed patch!  I was actually standing in a weed patch when I took this picture!!  Unfortunately,  the weeds are growing all over our beautiful labyrinth in our backyard.  The rock paths are hardly visible from under the weeds.

Life is like that.  Difficulties and disappointment that come to all of us.  Even when it's hard to see the path for the weeds...remember it's still there...and you're not alone on your journey.  God is with each and every one of us, in spite of our circumstances. 

A thankful heart is the secret.  When we focus on being thankful for all the good things in our lives...our thinking shifts.  We see things from God's perspective...a perspective of hope!  

Imagine your dream...orderly and complete...then...calmly start pulling weeds!!  Take your time...your on a journey...setting things right can be an enjoyable process if you focus on the solution instead of the problem.  And you know what?  Whether my weeds are on the labyrinth or in my head... it doesn't take nearly as much time to make things beautiful again as I thought it would.  Keep your hopes alive...and you'll soon discover your dream again...right where it was all along!

The Lord says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you."-- Psalm 32:8 NLT

Creative play

Today was a great day!  I've been dragging all week with a tired, fever, headache, coughing sort of virus.  I perked up enough today to feel like doing something again, so I thought I'd work on an unfinished watercolor painting.  I decided to just play and see what happened.

This painting is about the ukulele band I want to start at our church...it's a little obsession of mine...a longtime dream I can't get out of my head!  I can see it all happening as plain as day...a group of all ages...all musical abilities...talented...mediocre...and no sense of rhythm whatsoever (I fall in the last group) getting together to learn to play the ukulele.  We'll play old silly songs that we sang as kids and old gospel tunes and whatever else we want to.  I'm getting excited just thinking about it!!!  More about that later...back to painting!

I'm painting in watercolors on a stretched canvas...mainly because I didn't have any watercolor paper and I wanted to see how the canvas accepted the watercolor pigment.  It seems to work just fine.  But I had quit before I finished and it's just been sitting around in my studio gathering dust.  The neat thing about watercolors is that they come back alive and workable again with just a little water.

Here's how it looks so far.  This is more suggestive and loose than most of my bluebird paintings.  I added the girl with the ukulele looking up at the bird and the big triangle above it.

The triangles are symbols of the ways God guides us and intervenes in our lives.  I love the way watercolor puddles and gets darker in certain spots. I raise the canvas up and let the puddles drip down the canvas all the way to the bottom.  I like the way it looks.  When all 4 triangles were done...they reminded me of giant flowers  reaching for the sunshine.

The top triangle looks like it has a sideways heart in the center.  I didn't try to paint that.  I was painting a red triangle inside the yellow one and the watercolor was really wet and just sort of rolled around into that shape...so I left it.

I gave all the 3 ukulele players' shoes an ever so faint touch of red for their journey...you've just gotta have the red shoes!

Maybe it's finished...maybe not...we'll see how it feels after a few days.  But just squeezing out the paint...playing and watching the colorful drips made me feel so much better...now... if we could just get our band organized... :-)

  

The yellow moth takes a ride

  One day last month when granddaughters Vivian and Maggie were visiting,  we walked uptown to our new restaurant/ice cream shop called Chathamoocha.

It was a hot July day and Maggie, 5,  walked proudly in the shade of her new pink Princess umbrella she had just chosen at the dollar store.  Vivian, almost 9, being older and wiser decided to leave her giant bubble wand on our front porch.

Right before we got there...Vivian who loves all creatures great and small...saw a giant yellow moth lying on the pavement behind a parked car.  She bent down and gently picked it up...the moth was really beautiful but obviously in some physical distress.  We decided maybe he ran into the car as it was parking.

Vivian and Maggie naturally wanted to take him with us and nurse him back to health!  But since the taste of ice cream was dancing in their future...we put him back down where no one would be likely to hurt him while we ate.  They loved the strawberry and birthday cake ice cream as much as their cousin, Wesley, had the week before! 

Our yellow moth friend was still waiting for us when we started back home.  To our surprise,  he crawled from Vivian's hands to her t-shirt and hung on for the ride to Nana's front yard!  About  that time...Maggie realized there was only one moth and her pink princess  umbrella seemed to lose its charm!  So, with some compromises and a few shed tears we finally all arrive back home...safe...and smiling! 

  The moth seemed very happy to sit on their hands and shirts...I guess he knew he was among friends!  After a few minutes of picture taking,  we knew it was time to let him rest in the shady flower garden under the dogwood tree.

Vivian was gracious enough to give Maggie the privilege of setting the yellow moth in his new home!  We watched as Maggie gingerly placed him on a short pink zinnia...he seemed content.

We checked on him everynow and then until we had to leave the next day to take the girls back home.  He may have recovered from his injuries...I hope so. 

But, I'm wondering if he's the one who ate all the petals off

the yellow heliopsis in my front fence garden a few days later! 

But no matter...even if he did.  I'll happily trade the heliopsis petals for a chance to see... two tender-hearted  girls come to the rescue...of a big, yellow moth...who needed a little help from his friends!

Sweet Frankie's Cabin of Dreams

Hold on to your dreams...because they just might come true!  My friend Charlotte knows that from first hand experience. 

Charlotte is a kind, gentle person who loves her family and the simple things of life.  She's a lot like her mother...Sweet Frankie...who grew up on the farm in a little cabin...very rich in love.

Charlotte's dream has been to someday have a little log cabin of her own to relax and enjoy the quietness of the country.  Her husband, Jerry built a small room onto the back of their house and put in some ceiling beams and a woodstove to give it the feeling of a log cabin.  But Charlotte still dreamed of her cabin in the country to remind her of Sweet Frankie.

Last week Charlotte called and said, "I have my little cabin!"  I was so happy for her!  Her daughter, Cheryl had recently married and moved to a beautiful old home in the country with her husband.  The farm has several outbuildings and it turned out that one of them was a little log cabin that had been covered in wood siding many years ago.  They asked Charlotte if she would like to have the little cabin as her getaway from the world place....and that's how Charlotte saw her dream come true!

Since then, Charlotte and Jerry have been painting, washing windows, and turning an old vacant log cabin into Sweet Frankie's cabin of dreams.  Charlotte loves antiques and brought some of her collection to the cabin.  It's all finished now except for planting flowers outside.  

Yesterday, she invited me to go on a picnic at the cabin.  It was like being transported to another century.  It was a hot, humid day at my house in town so I dressed to stay cool but wondered if we might spend the day sweating and swatting mosquitoes.  I wasn't prepared for the wonders of the entire day!

The first thing I noticed when we got to the farm, which is way out in the country, was the temperature under the tall, tall walnut trees was at least 10 degrees cooler than it was at my house.  There was a breeze blowing...no humidity that I could feel...and no mosquitoes!!  But the best part was inside...

It was like stepping back to a simpler, quieter century!  Charlotte and Jerry had painted the old beadboard walls a sparkling white and decorated the cabin with treasures from the past.  The well insulated log and wood walls kept it cool inside.  The  large windows with their original wavy glass stood wide open letting in the breeze and the sound of the jar flies singing in the walnut trees.  Only 1 car drove down the gravel road the whole time we were there.  You couldn't help but relax and be thankful!

Charlotte had prepared lunch...delicious hoagie sandwiches and chips in little tin buckets that she had painted and decoupaged for her 3 girls when they were young.  Her ice cold homemade lemonade was already there waiting for us.  I must have had 6 glasses...it was so good!!  Dessert was chocolate brownies with rich chocolate fudge icing.  Yum!  But the best thing was the care and love that goes into everything Charlotte touches!

Charlotte's also an excellent writer.  She has a notebook filled with wonderful stories about her mom, Sweet Frankie, growing up on the farm.  Her writing reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her "Little House" books.  After lunch, Charlotte sat in her rocking chair and read several stories aloud to her youngest daughter, Jeri Leigh and me.  They were stories she wrote for her grandson, Mark, when he was younger about the nighttime antics of the scarecrow in their backyard garden.  With the help of a friendly fairy, the scarecrow was able to hop down from his pole and run around all over the neighborhood after everybody else had gone to bed!  It was a treat to be read to...like listening to ocean waves...relaxing and soothing.

This picture of Charlotte and her mom, Sweet Frankie, now sits on the mantle in the cabin.  It's a dear, tender picture of a young mother with her baby close to her face.  A rich legacy of love...passed from mother to child.  Charlotte continues to generously share her legacy of love and simplicity with everyone who's fortunate enough to know her.

Thank you, Charlotte, for the loving memories of yesterday at Sweet Frankie's Cabin of Dreams!

Tomatoes and God's Extravagance

Last week while we were at the beach...our tomatoes in our vegetable garden started multiplying!  We knew it was going to happen and left word with our friends to come pick all they wanted.  Even with all that picking...we still have tons of beautiful red tomatoes!  I picked all these this afternoon.   The biggest basket was so heavy I had to ask Chuck to carry it inside for me!  We have tomatoes everywhere!!

The leaves have fallen off some of the plants and when you walk into the garden... the tomatoes appear to be happily floating in the air!  

An old wooden chair I turned into a trellis has fallen over with the weight of its bounty.

Every time I look at all these beautiful, juicy...absolutely yummy tomatoes, I am reminded of the generous extravagance of God. 

All I did was plant one tiny seed per plant...a little watering and weed pulling on our part...a little staking and tying...and God somehow turned that seed into more tomatoes than Chuck and I can possibly eat! 

God's extravagance doesn't end with tomatoes...it's in the beauty of the flowers...the birds song...the gentle breeze...the warm sun...the ocean waves...laughter...hugs from someone you love. 

Maybe God is extravagant with us...so we'll be like that with each other.   The more tomatoes we pick...the more we have.  The more tomatoes we give away...the happier it makes us! 

There is no shortage of anything in God's extravagant economy...not tomatoes...not smiles...not love.  Our job in life is to remember to be thankful for all God gives us...and pass it on with a smile!

Simply making memories

Amy, our youngest daughter, and grandson, Wesley, came for a visit this week.  We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving...so we had some lost time to make up for!  

We decided to take the simple approach...playing games, dining at Chathamoocha, painting, moving furniture around, sitting on the porch,  laughing... lots of laughing...and creating some fresh memories to go with all those from years gone by.

Wesley worked on his painting for a few hours for 3 days.  He's always been a good artist...everything he draws is very energetic and happy.  This year he was painting characters from Yugio...very intent on his work! 

We found a vintage croquet set at Goodwill...just the thing to entertain grandkids!  Chuck and Wesley read the instructions on the internet and then went out to the backyard to put the wickets up.  After they practiced playing a few rounds...the guys challenged Amy and me to a game.  I hadn't played since I was a little girl visiting my grandparents!  It took us girls a while to develop our technique but we finally got the hang of it.  Grandaddy beat the rest of us!

 Here we are at Chathamoocha our cute little eatery in town.  We had a tasty lunch and then watched Wesley eat "birthday cake" ice cream.  He gave it 2 thumbs up!    Last night we played Uno and Scrabble till we were ready for bed.   Amy kept score in Scrabble and challenged our words...we had dictionary.com on Chuck's laptop to settle any disputes.  We all had a great time!

Amy and Wesley left this morning and are back in Tennessee.  I'm sure our son-in-law, Randy, was thrilled to see them.  He had been milking Amy's goats for her while she was gone! 

It was a simple week.  Amy called when they got home and said she asked Wesley what his favorite part of the week had been.  His answer was, "Everything!"  I think we all feel the same way.

Praying for a mantis

One day while watching tiny squash bugs crawling all over a squash leaf in our organic vegetable garden I thought how nice it would be to have a little army of praying mantises gobbling up all those nasty little bugs!  Every time I saw a suspicious looking bug getting up close and personal with one of my veggies...a praying mantis came to mind...really more of a wish than a prayer.

A few days later while dragging the water hose past the vegetable garden to a backyard flower bed...a praying mantis jumped on my shoulder.  It startled me so...I swatted it to the ground.  As he fell to the grass I realized that I had just tried to get rid of the very thing I desperately wanted...a praying mantis!

I bent down and looked at the grass and there he was...a baby mantis.  I picked him up gently and carried him to the garden and sat him on a squash plant and told him he could eat all the bugs he could find.  

The next afternoon while weeding the labyrinth...I raised my head and found myself face to face with another praying mantis...this one bigger and more mature than the first one.  I cupped my hands around him and gave him a free ride to one of the tomato plants.

A few days ago, Chuck notice a praying mantis sitting near a lavender plant by the driveway.  He was the biggest one yet!  I picked him up with my hands together.  He stuck his head out to look at me but didn't make any attempt to get away. 

When I got to the garden,  I put him on the trionfo violetto beans growing up a big teepee.  He sat there a few seconds just looking at me...sort of that "look of love" Pretty Kitty gives me.  Then he jumped back toward me and I caught him in mid air on my hand.  He turned his face up toward mine and just looked me in the eyes...I had the strange feeling that he liked me.  And I knew I liked him! 

We did the routine two more times...me putting him on the beans and him jumping on my hand...and then on my shoulder...each time making eye contact.  Finally, I carried him to the cucumber vines and sat him down on the ground.  He stayed this time, but he seem to watch as I walked away.  I sure hope he enjoyed a delicious bug buffet!