Saturday ….Success!

It’s Saturday! The kids are napping, we have a birthday party this afternoon, the house is a disaster, but I wanted to take a few minutes to celebrate this week’s success!

Thankfully it is a gift and not a
commissioned work!
These photo banners are super fun,
 just don't ask me to paint a horse! 

1.   I painted a horse…I will never paint a horse again but I did and its not so bad as it could have been! 
2.  Cheesecake in a jar! It was delicious…I made it a little differently than the recipe here, but it turned out well. I made 2 patches – 8 jars total. I used fat free sweetened condensed milk and half the cream cheese was fat free. It wasn’t quite as solid as no-bake cheese cake but it was good.
3.  Which lead to cherry pie in a jar! YUM!
4.  I had two really bad/weak moments this week…no make that three, but my sweet little daughter’s response to each was heart warming and reassuring…I AM doing something right as a mom!
5.  I posted to the blog every day this week!
6.  I posted new listings to Etsy everyday this week…Check them out!

What were your successes this week? I would love to hear about them!

Cheesecake in a Jar!

Must have been good!

What’s in a Friday?

Friday Free- for-all

Free Advice Friday

Freely Friday

Girl Talk Date Line Friday

None of those seem to do justice to what I would like Fridays at the TIAMO blog to be about. I want Fridays to be a day we can share and learn from each other in a purposeful and respectful way….BECAUSE…too many times in the past few weeks and months I have been talking with girl friends about any number of things and it has come to this – we are or know people who feel alone in something, feel like they can’t share something, feel afraid or alone…and there is no good reason for that!

Girls we need to encourage and embrace each other. We need to support each other. We need to hold one another in prayer. We live in too connected of a world to isolate ourselves. We live in too social of a world to be alone. We have too loving of a God to not turn to him together in prayer.

Too many times the choices we make as women are used to divide us.  How we support our families, how we feed our babies, how we do everything we do…There are plenty of things in each these and millions of other topics to discuss and debate, but that need not divide.

We, as women, have the power to right so much of the wrong in this world, soften the hurts and build up the weak. God has given us tremendous gifts as women, as wives and mother, as aunts and sisters, as daughters and friends.  How can we help each other with these gifts? I believe the first step is to talk (not gossip) about our lives…

So on Fridays lets meet here…and talk.

I’d love to hear from you about what we can talk about. I am no expert (in anything!) but I know we all have something to bring to the table.

This Thursday

I have a plan for Thursdays but it is going to take me a few weeks to make it work, in the mean time, I think it would be a good time for you to get to know me…

I am a mom and a wife. I am also a student, again (yikes!) I am a crafter – it is really hard for me to call myself artistic or creative.  And in all these things I am trying to glorify God…trying.

Two years ago, my husband and I with baby girl in tow sold the house and moved to a new town so that my husband could go to law school. In the process we have all gotten an education! We now have a big girl and a baby boy, more student loan debt than we can shake a stick at and a whole different outlook on life.

How did we get there well it is kind of a funny story…no not really, but I’ll tell you anyway…

I was about oh 34 weeks pregnant when I quit my job – not on purpose, but sometimes things just can’t be salvaged, sometimes life just shouts YOU DON’T BELONG HERE! And that was hard. I was doing work that felt important, and good and right and purposeful and that is hard to leave. So I was now a full-time stay at home mom. And then the baby came…and then my husband’s company made changes.

We were blessed to have nearly 18 months notice to make a plan before his job would be gone.  He was working towards completing a degree and would rather serendipitously graduate at the same time his job ended – multiplying the possibilities in the decision making process. And then the economy tanked…

What to do, what to do…He was offered a job halfway across the country in the one town we had been to and swore we could never live in…and so he turned it down. We would find something closer to home and then we started talking about graduate degrees…my husband is one smart cookie!

So then where…I had done some volunteer work with a girl who was a law student at a new law school, why not try there? So we did…and so here we are…one year from a law degree, one year from more change, one more kid in tow…and all by the grace of God!

You know people say that, by the grace of God…but really truly. I cannot begin to explain to you how certain I am, how powerful a feeling it is to know that this is God’s plan. Not to say that it has all been roses, because it has been far from it.

I hear people say “Rely on God”, “Trust in God”…and I wonder what that looks like. I try to envision in each situation what that looks like. Most of the time I come up blank…but in retrospect I can see God at work in our lives, I can see where he answered prayers (maybe not the answer we thought we wanted, but answered none the less) and where he filled our lives with his goodness and light, the times when I could not have hoped to have the wisdom to ask for what he did or allowed to happen in our lives. 

So here  we are on the brink of what is next, feeling God’s hand in our lives, praying to find peace with what he brings into our lives or where he takes us…and just trying to get by in day to day and watch the big picture unfold.

But I guess that was more about the family, than me…so about me…ha! I am a 30-something mom to two beautiful kids, wife to a smarty pants law student, and crafter trying to make ends meet in a budget that is non-existent…nice to meet you, check out the shop and help a girl out and get something pretty for someone you love (yourself included!)

Bumper to Bumper

So it is Wednesday….

I was going to write about songs that make me think of God…like songs that aren’t about God but should be, but then I took my little girl to her fun Wednesday adventure and on the way I had two experiences with other drivers that I have to share …

First, I followed this orange X Terra with a dozen stickers on the backend. I am sure they all said insightful, poignant things – BUT – I could not read a single one of them. NOT ONE!  So let me offer a little advice: before you put a sticker on your car stick it on the fridge or the wall and then back up at least as far as you hope other drivers will be from the rear end of your car and see if you can read it! If you can’t don’t put it on your car, you will only aggravate other drivers on the interstate!!!

Secondly, I followed a Hyundai Santa Fe with a political campaign sticker, well I followed her until I could get around her – because she was driving s   l    o   w    l   y on the interstate – and not just only the speed limit slow. Try 5 under!  Talking on her cell…My advice on this one is twofold. First, if you want to continue to talk on your phone while you drive don’t drive stupid. It only gives groups against distracted driving fodder. Granted, maybe you were a bad driver before you picked up the phone, but a little effort goes a long way…and the Second piece of advice is this…Once you put that sticker for that candidate on your car you are representing that candidate so drive to make them proud, be polite to other drivers, follow the rules of the road, keep your car clean and in good repair. Think about how your represent them, think about what others will think of you and in turn them based on your driving and conduct on the roadways. Maybe this the marketer in me over reacting, but I know if I ever run for office bumper stickers will not be on my campaign trail!

So now share this with all your friends and the roads might be a little safer and more enjoyable to travel. Oh, and check back next week to see what Wednesdays are really all about here at The Things I am Made of.

DKJ

Tuesday Treasures

It’s time for Tuesday Treasures….oh the possibilities for a statement like that! 

But for today is about Beautiful Junk -  the things you find, keep, come across that are just too beautiful, too useful to let go. (Wow, that sounds like the beginning of a hoarder support group!)

My mom has always had a beautiful junk box that had little bits of fabric and lace, buttons, fun things clipped from magazines, wrapping paper, anything found that would send a young crafter's heart a flutter.  I am hoping that Tuesday can be a day all about things found or sought…

And you wonder why I have a never ending
stash of  fabric and vintage buttons...

Today I would like to tell you about something I am looking for…and maybe you can help me find it!

I have come across several projects that I would like to undertake (that is a choice word!) that call for plastic bags –like plastic shopping bags. The more colors I can find the better, but so far I have found the standards Target, Macy’s, Kroger – so I have red with white and brown with blue. I think boutique and small shops are going to be the ticket to finding really great colors, but the one place I do that sort of shopping has passed a law prohibiting plastic bags- it is all paper now, which I commend, but what about my project!?!?

Any suggestions on where to find great colors of plastic bags – I only need a handful or so? Any one have any they would like to share? I am sure I have some sort of beautiful junk I could send your way, too.

Have a great Tuesday. I hope you find something treasured today.

Made of Monday....

Made of Monday

Faith:

Photo taken by FA-tography by Faith and Aubrianah

I am blessed to have been raised in a faith-filled family.  It is only in the past year or so that it has really sunk in that not everyone has that.  My family is Catholic and I am thankful for my private, Catholic education. I was surrounded by families who made raising their children in the way of Christ a priority. We worshiped and celebrated with an extended family of friends and relations. I went on to public high school where I met other kids – amazingly they were mainly Christian and those who were not were Jewish. Then we moved and I was part of an ecumenical (Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian and Presbyterian) youth group that traveled sharing the Gospel through musical and theatrical performance. Even in college, I found myself amongst a group of friends who all attended church together. Granted none were perfect and my faith has not always been as deep or as hungry as it is today, but it never really occurred to me that there were people who did not believe in God or his son Jesus…or the Gospel.  I know this is the case, I have seen it, but it never really sunk in until we started at
a
new church in January and I was getting to know one of the ladies while hanging out with my baby in the nursery…we were talking about family and I said that there was such darkness in one part of the family and she asked if they were believers and it struck me like lightening…NO! No – that person did not believe! ( I have a theory on this, but that is for another day…)

I guess all of this is to say that the experience of being raised to believe, to have faith and to worship and give praise to God is a blessing and something that makes me who I am. I have recently met a wonderful group of believers that have an amazing way of speaking about their faith. That is something I don’t have…I feel like I have learned a little Spanish from the Mexican restaurant menu and I have found myself in room of people who are bilingual. I feel it, but I don’t always know how to say it. I look forward to learning the language better…until then it is in my heart and hopefully my work.

-