Five Fact Friday ~ Posted on Saturday

Well, Friday creeped up on me and so this is a little late...but it is



on Kim Klassen and Xanthe Berkeley's Refection of You blog from Behind The Scenes.

Here is my submission this week...my first attempt at making it a single composition.  The template is my personal creation, crediting paper, overlay and elements to Digital Scrapper.

 

So the five facts about me this week are:

1.  I LOVE my first cup of coffee in the morning.
2.  I relish the anticipation of the bursting open of the first sunflower of summer.
3.  I welcome birds at the feeders at my bedroom window.
4.  I get excited at the last weeks of summer and see the subtle transitions.
5.  I love photographing grunge!

All photos were taken in Akron, Ohio (3 at my home) with the exception of #5 which is at Valley Forge National Park in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

With gratitude,

 

Texture Tuesday and Painting with Light

Wow...thanks for all the comments on my journal journey series...some of you wrote about having lovely journals but not feeling comfortable writing in them...

Well...I want to share something with you that was retweeted by my friend, Tina Hunt...

The beautiful part of writing  is that you don't have to get it right the first time unlike, say, brain surgery.  Robert Cormier.

How freeing is that?????  You can follow these tweets at Quotes4Writers...

So today for now, let's make it light as I share two works from this weeks' Beyond Layers and Texture Tuesday.  Texture Tuesday's theme this week was "not necessarily textured Tuesday"...  Here's my submission...

 

This photo was taken at a bog metropark nearby on a very hot day...the recipe includes some layers using a black and white gradient map (normal, screen mode, and soft light) and then duplicating the background layer and adding a black and white gradient...toning down the yellow, selecting at about 20 px feathering, using a levels adjustment to make a highlighted frame.  It gives it this kind of dreamy feel...so I called it "Field of Dreams."

 

This is my first attempt with Kim's recipe for Day 58, Painting with Light, with Beyond Layers.  Did a selection with level adjustments and a  little cross processing...  A great quote by Anne Lamott~~

I do not understand the mystery of grace ~~ only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.

Five facts will be coming later today...so stay tuned.

It's a joy to have all of you a part of my life!

With gratitude,

Journaling Journeys ~ The Original Plan

As promised, here are some photo shoots of my favorite journals (this was the original plan)...I love them...I collect them...and each blank page has amazing potential and possibilities.  These are not all my journals, but these are the ones I chose to share with you today...

 

These wirebound journals are ones I got for a song!

 

Normally, I'd pay nearly $20 at Barnes & Noble for each of these, but found them for $3 at TJ Maxx.  Not bad, huh?

 

I also have a few journals that have vivid color, made with Moroccan leather, with decorative engraving in the leather.  NOT from TJ Maxx.

 

I love this teal one particularly with the butterfly on it.

 

And, of course, the ribbon placeholders are a must.

 

This is a journal that is just plain fun from Mary Engelbreit!  I've had it for a long time.  I was attracted to its whimsical feel.  The quality of the writing pages is astoundingly silky smooth!

 

And look at this black and white ribbon!  What's not to love?

 

These journals have more of a spiritual flavor to them with beautiful pages with subtle texture and pictures that elegantly resemble scrapbook paper.

 

This top one is the one where I keep my running list of gifts, as inspired in the book, One Thousand Gifts.

 

And this is just part of my list.

 

This journal I held onto for years...I love this little beading at the end of the ribbon.

 

I had hoped I could some day I could write about the courtship of me and the love of my life...if indeed, that would ever happen.

 

And it did!!!!

 

You cannot really see the top of this journal, but it is dainty and feminine, looking like Victorian wallpaper (and I'm not normally a Victorian girl) but it does have a vintage feel.

 

This simple guided journal is for inspirations and reflections of gratitude for all the magical moments given to us in a day.

 

And lastly, I got this journal with a magazine subscription...it's called a Discipleship Journal with Bible study content for reflection and to encourage spiritual growth.

So there you have it...will I fill them all?...who knows...but I always want to take time to reflect on the times of my life.  And in the words of Socrates...

The uncontemplated life is not worth living.

With gratitude,

 

Journaling Journeys ~ Another Detour

Again...back to this quick photo shoot of my journals...yeahrightsure...quick! <smile>



So I pulled out all the completed..."written-in" journals...the top one is my current journal.



But of course...there was no way I would be able to refrain from just a peek inside for a minute.  And these were ONLY from the past decade (my older ones are in boxes).



So much of this journal pictured above helped me get through a very challenging time in my life--the end of my marriage.  I'm talking about saving my very self from his verbal abuse that would eat me alive if I'd have stayed.  This was the year I endured and planned to get away.   Written on the top of the page is a wonderful quote I had found by an incredibly gifted neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, who also knew a childhood of disadvantage and a single parent household.

A victim walking through sand looks down and sees dirt; a victor sees the ingredients for building a castle.

This is a list of things that I could enjoy that would not cost me a cent.  I knew I was walking a way from a six-figure household income, but I knew, despite the sacrifice, if I could view what I was gaining, and not what I was losing, I could build that castle.



Yet,  what I was facing, shown in this December 2001 entry, was daunting...especially not having my mother, my closest friend, to walk through this with me as her Alzheimer's could no longer be ignored.



And yet, when I was overwhelmed or discouraged...God provided a personal gift, this one in a fortune cookie, that would change my perspective and I'd save it in my journal.



And God brought others in my life who could help me with my codependency and issues that clouded my eyes to the abuse and allow it to happen.  One dear friend was Debbie, living in California, who introduced me to some of the work by Melody Beattie,  Lundy Bancroft,  Dr. Irene, and Patricia Evans.  And I had saved treasures in my journal that I uncovered while doing this work.



And finding contentment and peace as a single person for almost 9 years, the Lord surprised me with the love of my life, my best friend forever.  But God, in His wisdom, knew I would never be ready for such a gift, until I allowed Him to do the healing and work in me, by my surrender to the process.  And as I sprinted through these journals remembering...these records of God's faithfulness to me...I was humbled and wondered how could I have ever question His goodness ever again.

With gratitude,

 

Journaling Journeys ~ Truth Will Always Be Truth

I had planned to do a photo shoot and post about my love for journals and the favorites of my collection.  Oh, but as God often does...a detour!  A change in plans...

Last week I felt it was responsible and ethical for me to call attention to some issues at work, although I knew it would cause some difficulty and struggle for someone I care about.

Since then, the Lord reminded me of a message He gave me seven years ago sitting in a waiting room to talk to a counselor about the news of my unmarried 19-year-old daughter's unplanned pregnancy.  (It was in a daily devotional periodical sitting on an end table and I picked it up and read that day's entry as I waited.)

How did God remind me of this?  I had cut it out and glue-sticked into a journal...one of many I was going to photograph Thursday night...  Coincidence?  I think not.

 

Take a good look at this photograph...really look at it!  Then read part of the cut-out page in my journal that follows:

I was reminded of the story of a man who took home a cocoon so he could watch the emperor moth emerge.  As the moth struggled to get through the tiny opening, the man enlarged it with a snip of his scissors.  The moth emerged easily -- but its wings were shriveled.  The struggle through the narrow opening is God's way to force fluid from its body into its wings to support them.  The "merciful" snip, in reality, was cruel.  Without the struggle, the moth would never be able to fly.

Go back and look at that photograph again...you can see where the tubes of fluid are what provides the structure for the wings function.

 

God not only used revisiting that in an old journal, but I had this fascinating opportunity on Saturday to photograph this gorgeous creäture on our butterfly bush in the front yard.

 

In April 2005, God knew I would want to rescue my daughter from the struggle that the coming days would bring.  This week God knew I would want to beat myself up because I did not rescue a young co-worker from the struggle that comes with failure in the early years of a young career.  And He brought this illustration back across my pathway.

 

In all honesty, I do not believe growth is possible without struggle, resistance, adversity, and correction.  I have never been able to get around it.  Just as the struggle of a butterfly creates the strength of its wings, just as the ripping of muscle fibers in the human body creates strength as the muscle heals...so does struggle and adversity in our lives strengthen the muscles of our faith.

 

When I look back on the most precious moments of my life, they always entail struggle and disappointment and failure.  For it has been those times that God's presence has been the sweetest and through the process, He has made me learn and become that which could never occur any other way.

Jesus, may I always see Your gift of  Your strength in the strain  of my struggle.

With gratitude,

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and Homework

One of the gifts we enjoy daily, while directly from God, the Creator, can also be attributed to the work of Rachel Carson.  It was her work and authorship of her book, Silent Spring, that addressed the peril of our natural world from the misuse of pesticides after World War II.  Multiple species of disappearing birds have returned making our Spring full of song, once again.  So I thought I would use one of her quotes in doing my work for Kim's Texture Tuesday and her Beyond Layers class.  In our Beyond class we learned some new tricks with type text.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. -- Rachel Carson

I added the words "take the time...to look...and really see" as I contemplated how we miss so much in our daily lives that God gives to us to enjoy...His gifts, His mercies.  And I recall another quote.

Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. Climb slowly, steadily, enjoying each passing moment;  and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax for the journey. -- Harold V. Melchert

So continue whatevery journey God is guiding you on, but don't miss His wonderful gifts along the way.

With gratitude,

Five Facts Friday~~~

It has been a week...my projected upcoming blog posts I had planned took me on an unexpected journey.  Stay tuned...that post will be coming up this weekend...

Soooooooooooooo...for today, I'm going to post an easy peasy ~~ five facts for Friday post ~~ as instigated (yes, instigated) by Xanthe and Kim.



1.  I have an aversion to fruit. (aversion - a strong feeling of dislike, opposition, repugnance, or antipathy)...Ever since I was a child, it has been like a texture thing...mushy, gushy, oh  no ~~ seeds...or you hit a bruised, soft spot on something that should be crisp.  Okay...I confess I did like to eat canned pear halves until 5th grade.  You remember the movie they showed in school...the boys go down to the gym...and the girls see the movie about getting their period.  Well...guess what...all those diagrams of a uterus looked like canned pear halves...and it was over for me!




And that includes things made with fruit...

 

2.  I take too many photos of old country barns...

 

but honestly can anyone really have too many barn photographs?


3.  I won the Saved by the Belt award in 1995!!!  The saved by the belt program recognizes persons whose lives were saved, or who were spared serious injury, due to their good judgment in wearing seat belts.  Ohio  Highway Patrol Troopers investigating traffic crashes recommend candidates for the award.

4.  I LOVE American history...I mean REALLY LOVE American history...

 

5.  If cake is available...stick a fork in me...I'm done!  I'm crazy about cake (unless it has fruit in it...obviously).



Not sure if you learned anything new here about me, or if you did, it was anything you wanted to know...but thanks for indulging me!  More to come in the days ahead...

With gratitude,