Saturday Sucess for the week of 8/13

It is Saturday! Time to celebrate this week’s successes...

1) I cleaned up my ribbon stash!

2) Dance and Music Creations is now carrying TIAMO HairTutus!  This is a big success – as it is a relationship built AND I completed and delivered my biggest order in less than 12 hours (with the support of my husband)! Oh and I printed lables for them on ribbon! How cool is that!

3) I figured out how to set up a treasury on Etsy...check it out here!

4) The house is clean, really clean! Dusted, tidy, floors clean, fans dusted. Two big organizing projects left, but I might really get it all done before schools starts. That feels really, really good.

5) I wrote for the blog daily and posted to Etsy daily – even when it didn’t seem like it would happen.

6) I made two amazing photographers camera strap covers. I am pretty proud of this because I found a pattern, made myself an actual pattern and then modified it to fit the fabric I had.

What were your successes this week?

Free Advice Friday

Whew! Has it been a day here...a few good (but busy) things that I will share tomorrow in Saturday’s success...and a few not so good things. So...It is late and I am just getting this. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Friday...Supporting each other...

What does it mean to support someone?

Support –verb (used with object)
1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.
2. to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for.
3. to undergo or endure, especially with patience or submission; tolerate.

Reading this reminded me of our first weeks here in Law School Land, when my husband and I attended a breakfast for law students and spouses. The pastor who spoke that morning talked about how a submissive wife is a pillar holding up her husband rather than being held down. Being supportive is an active role that takes strength, determination and courage. Each of the definitions about ties back to this idea, as well.

I know, as a friend, this is not something I do well, but I am blessed to have friends who live and breathe this! My friend Chrissy is right there. She listens to every vent, she hears every complaint AND she builds me up, she encourages me. I see her do the same thing with her girls. She uses ever correction as a chance to build them up and teach them. She does freely for those around her. She gives from her heart, always.  When I see her succeed, it makes me want to try harder. When I watch her give (and not just to me – but to everyone) I want to give, too. When she shares hospitality, I want to offer hospitality to her and others. She is an encouragement and an example.

I am I like that? When I am “supportive” of others do I help them to become better or do I just try to make myself look good – or worse, do I just try to make myself look better than the person I am helping?  Is my first priority to make myself look good or is it to be helpful?  How can I better hold up a friend?  How can I be an encouragement?

 Okay that turned into some deep introspection...but really how can we support each other? How can we as women, mothers, and friends build foundations of support for each other? How can we bolster each other? How can we endure for each other?

We are all at different places in our lives and we all need different things, but there is certainly some universality amongst our needs – a friend to listen, a friend to build us up, a friend to encourage us.  As Friday quickly fades away into the weekend,  it is my goal to help others through encouragement. I want to notice my friend successes and celebrate them – whether they are two steps behind me or ten steps ahead.

There is so much to learn from you....my friends...

Word!

It is Thursday again…and my real plan for Thursdays is still in progress, so until then you stuck with me!

I was cleaning bathrooms this morning and thinking. Quite the combo there, right?  And this is what I was thinking about: A few weeks ago there was sermon at church about the tongue – how hard it is to tame and the trouble that it causes us.

While the whole sermon was enlightening the thing that has really stuck with me is the admonishment against minced oaths. There are so many that I use and I don’t think there is one of them that I mean what I am saying…I mean something though…but now I am not sure what. I am at a loss for words (imagine!). I don’t know what I mean, I don’t have the words – the right words, the words that are not taking the Lord’s name in vain, that are not swearing against God.

I keep going back to an episode of Disney’s Recess (one of my favorite cartoons – I just love the Ashleys!). The kids keep getting in trouble for using bad words, so the make up a word – WOMP – a word that is all theirs. They use it for everything. It’s a playground rebellion, until the grownups catch on and start cracking down on all the WOMPing. There is a trial and the kids defend their use of WOMP, saying that it is nonsense, it has no meaning and there for can’t be a bad word. But is it really meaningless?

What do I mean when I say “Oh my gosh!”?

The thing is I mean a lot of things, just like WOMP meant a lot of things to the kids on Recess. But how many of them do I mean to say? Not a one…

I would say that I have a vocabulary that is fairly rich, but I am not using it. I am not expressing myself truly when I use these minced oaths. I know that sometimes I say it because it is easier and quicker to come to mind. That is a lousy reason to swear or use the Lord’s name in vain, isn’t it (because I am lazy in my language)? 

Thanks for listening to what I found in the quietness of bathroom cleaning!

Don’t forget tomorrow is Friday! And it’s Girl Talk Dateline! Let’s talk!

Wrong Words Wednesday

I love music. I love the stories that songs tell. I love the emotions that you can feel in the rhythms. One of the few times I really get to enjoy music is when I drive alone in my car, which is rarely. When I do I get to really listen and mull the words over.  

And I am funny about songs, if the lyrics aren’t up to my high standards it is over… (because I am such a high brow music connoisseur!) There is a song that has a lyric “ Like a bird, I be.”  It makes me crazy…I turn the song off, click!

But other songs fill my heart…and that is what Wrong Words Wednesday is about.

I have a friend who goes to a church in Richmond and she just loves the music. She had never heard Bonnie Raitt’s* “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About” before and they played it once and she could not stop signing it and had NO IDEA it was not a praise song!  Of course some of the words had been changed. 

How many other songs are like this? How many songs did the recording artist intend one thing and yet we hear another? (Or I am I the only person who does this?)

Maybe I should call it Right Words Wednesday…because to me these songs are so much more when I think of them as songs to praise God!

Just one of my many
 blessing that I praise God for!

This week the song I want to share is a Diamond Rio song – Love a Little Deeper.

The words that resonate with me are:

Love a little stronger
Dig a little deeper,
Go a little farther
Anything to please you girl,
Tonight I'm gonna start all over
Show you girl what's in my heart,
Ooooooh gonna love a little stronger

That is how I feel about God…That is what I want to sing to Him!

Love a little stronger

Dig a little deeper,

Go a little further

Anything to please you Lord!

Tonight I’m gonna start all over

Show you God, what’s in my heart

Ooooooh gonna love a little stronger!

I shared this with my husband and we talked about it…and it brought to mind a song from Godspell, Day by Day.

Day by day
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day 

This is what I want…How simple does it sound, but how hard it is to attain? This is where I am today…

What songs inspire you? What songs have wrong words? What do you sing in your heart? I would love to hear about it….

* By the way I learned that this song was actually first recorded by Anne Murray!

Tuesday Treasures!

Last week’s beautiful junk post and plastic bags yielded some Gymboree bags – Perfect! Each has lots of colorful polka dots!

 

This week – Ribbon.

Ribbon is one of my favorite treasures and often remnants can be found in our beautiful junk box.  I love to buy ribbon because often for less than a dollar you can get a yard or two of something beautifuI that has so much potential. You can put fancy ribbon on something plain and it is suddenly fancy. You can put simple ribbon on something over the top and it is suddenly just right. It can blend two seemingly unrelated things together. Ribbon can be functional – tying things together, holding something closed, or it can just be pretty.

 I was inspired this week to clean out my stash of ribbon – and my husband was kind enough to help. (I love shared projects!) I really should post a before picture, but that would be embarrassing, so I will post the after picture. In the process I picked two (more) projects.  I also put together two listings of ribbon for Etsy. If you have a need for some great ribbon check them out.

Oh and as a special treat, I put together an Etsy treasury of items featuring ribbon. Hope you find something there that inspires you.

See you tomorrow.

P.S.  Thank you so much to the incredible response to yesterday’s post about need. I am truly blessed to  be surrounded by such caring and supportive women !

Made of Monday...

Needs...

I was reading a blog post from one of my favorite Etsy shops – I love window shopping there! She wrote about needing help and that she had never thought to ask for help, that it didn’t occur to her to ask or that anyone would help her. She went on to talk about the help she did have, that came unsolicited and had been beyond value to her. It struck me then that needing is hard and asking for help is even harder, and not just for me… I have been tossing this around in my head for awhile, not ready to commit it to paper or words, but I after the weekend I had, I feel compelled…now is the time.

Yes, I am needy sometimes…but to be honest we all have needs – not wants but needs, things that for whatever reason we can’t do for ourselves. That right there is what makes needing hard (for me anyway)…relying on others…needing them, giving them some of our control (real or perceived), being vulnerable and opening ourselves up to others’ judgments.

My family has been in the position of needing help –in many ways, but recently financially has been the greatest need. For me, it is hard to ask for help and hard to accept help, even when it is given unsolicited. I don’t want others to carry our burden. I don’t want others to feel obligated. I don’t want others to judge my – or our family’s – decisions.

We get tremendous help from my family…whether it is a box of groceries, clothes for the kids, a gift card to Target, or help securing school funding. We are truly blessed. Taking that help – even though we NEED it - has been heartbreaking. It is uncomfortable to be over 30 and still feel that child like dependence on others.

It is hard needing when we have so much. Truly, we are blessed, we aren’t going to starve – they might turn the lights off, but not this month…but before this time of need we did okay. We have a nice SUV and we have nice electronics – nothing over the top, but nice things we purchased when we had the means. I have some nice clothes from back in those days. It is hard to say we NEED, when it doesn’t always look like we do…but appearances can be deceiving.

We have been receiving help while my husband is in school and our income is less than minimal. I can tell you first hand the system of government assistance is humiliating and degrading. We have sought out and accepted help only for the children. I don’t know why anyone would want to live their entire life this way.  The change in the demeanor of the cashier at the store or the doctor in the ER, or nurse at the hospital when they see how we are paying is visible. Despite the fact we are both educated and my husband is pursuing a graduate degree, we are suddenly half human. Despite the fact that my children are clean and neatly dressed, I am suddenly less of a mother. I come home humiliated, broken and mentally and physically exhausted. 

I can only imagine what a lifetime of that feels like. I know that in a year or so we will be back on our feet. I know that we will return to earning and contributing. Knowing that doesn’t make the NEED now any easier.  I am working hard to understand what relying on God looks like and doing just that. Being responsible for a family makes that a true test of faith (a leap of faith most days…for me anyway).

So as this week starts, I ask this next time you interact with someone in need be generous of spirit - be kind. In a time of NEED simple kindness and compassion goes a long way.