An inspirational thought for the day

shared on one of my faithbooking sites :-)

READ: Luke 2:8-20
Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. —Luke 2:9

Writer Anita Brechbill observed in God... Read More’s Revivalist magazine that “Most often the Word of the Lord comes to a soul in the ordinary duties of life.” She cites the examples of Zacharias performing his duties as a priest, and the shepherds watching their flocks. They were at work as usual with no idea that they were about to receive a message from God.
Luke describes the ordinary days when these men received their message from God: “While [Zacharias] was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him” (1:8,11). While the shepherds were “living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night . . . an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (2:8-9).
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest said: “Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits.”

On this ordinary day, the Lord may have a word of encouragement, guidance, or instruction for us, if we’re listening and ready to obey. — David C. McCasland

I wonder what I did for God today:... Read More
How many times did I once pause and pray?
But I must find and serve Him in these ways,
For life is made of ordinary days. —Macbeth

God speaks to those who are quiet before Him.

National Scrapbook Day is coming! :-)

On the first Saturday in May.

I still miss Carla's NSD crops. This year will be my second NSD crop. The ladies that came last year had a blast and so did I. I have the private dining room at Shari's booked from 3pm until we quit :-)

For those of you who have not attended here are some details. The crop fee is $25.00 (payable in advance to reserve your spot) and includes plenty of space for you to play in, free and unlimited drink refills with your purchase of dinner from Shari's restaurant, and a goodie bag with materials to complete the projects I have planned, as well as time to work on your own projects. I have prize drawings and challenges throughout the crop and will have my complete CTMH inventory on hand. You are welcome to use my stamps, inks and tools and will be able to purchase papers by the sheet and embellishments from my inventory. For each $25.00 ordered(and remember I will have the brand new summer idea book available) you will get an entry ticket into the prize drawing for the grand prize of the crop. Want to know what it is? You'll have to attend to find out :-)

Progress is a wonderful thing :-)

Randy's guy is making steady progress on the HUD list. The kids and I have been using this time to "declutter". Just a few more things and we will be ready for the final inspection :-)

I hate to admit it but I think I'm getting old :-(

My eye appointment did not go so well. Wait, I'd better clarify.....the appointment itself went well ........they always take good care of me :-) .......... but the news not so great. My eyes have been bad for as long as I can remember. I got my first pair of glasses at 5 and have always had really bad astigmatisms in both eyes. Then in high school I developed floaters in both eyes and these have gotten worse over the years.

My vision yesterday was significantly worse............ no big surprise there since I have not had the money to get new glasses for me for the last 5 years. He also decided to dilate them and take a look because he was not happy with how hard to was to get me a good, crisp image in the testing and found clouding that indicates the beginning of developing cataracts which run in my family :-(

HUD update

Randy was here! He is getting started on his repairs today. Our job is to get the yard, collapsed storage shed and clutter inside cleaned. We will make a pile for the dump and he will lend us a trailer when we are finished. Now I just need someone with a truck and some extra hands to load it and haul it to the dump when we are finished

ScrappyJo's online crop: Scrap N Go

This was the Scrap N Go challenge for the crop. This book corner was so fun and easy to do! I am sure I will do more of these :-)

ScrappyJo's online crop: Recipe Challenge

This was the recipe challenge for the crop. We had to use cardstock, flowers, buttons, alphabets and one of several techniques. I chose doodling and did the green swirls using a doodling template and sponged ink

ScrappyJo's March crop

This layout did double duty. There was a "Listening is in the Ears" challenge. We were to turn on the radio and use the title of the first song we heard on a layout. I had the oldies station tuned and the first song I heard was "Wild Thing" I remembered these pics from when Joshua got to bring the Wild Thing home over his birthday weekend in first grade. There was also a sketch challenge that I used as the blueprint for my page design. I used papers from the CTMH Stardust collection. I used my Cricut to cut the brackets that form the frame and also to cut the stars that I used in place of the flowers in the sketch.

HUD update

For those of you keeping track (and keeping us in prayer) I finally have a HUD update! As you know we qualified 3 years ago for HUD assistance and have been slowly working our way up the list since then. Well, we finally made it to the top! I attended the preliminary meeting and they came and did the first inspection on our rental house. My big job will be cleaning out the storage shed in the back yard that the roof caved in on. I have to weed through to see what is still good and find a way to haul the rest to the dump. There are a few small things that we were expecting the landlord would have to do............. not really any surprises there. The biggest thing sounds like the wiring in the back 2 storage rooms in the basement. A lot of it is not covered properly and there are some spots that need junction boxes. Nothing too major for Randy I think. My landlord is Randy Thomas and he has already expressed his commitment to work with me and to work with HUD to help us be able to stay here. Once everything is up to code and we pass a final inspection, HUD will begin covering a portion of our rent here with their payment going directly to Randy

My scrap studio

crop table 1 (looking toward entry door)

stamp station (to the left of crop table as you are looking toward door). this has changed a little. I have a TON more acrylic stamps and the CTMH inkpad and marker storage now

crop table 2 (looking in from entry door) and you can see part of the tool room behind


sizzix, cricut and coluzzle stations plus you can see a corner of my ctmh storage to the right. Also in the smaller room with my ctmh storage is a desk with my laptop and wide format printer

one entire wall is built in shelving and cabinets with a great counter. Here is my light table, etc.


punch storage (love these punch pals) and to the right of this is another smaller room with all my paper storage stored vertically in shelves along the wall

income tax splurge

Amanda has been wanting her own laptop for some time now. Recently I saw one the new ACER mini laptops. they are so cool..... about the size of a book and fully functioning except no CD?DVD drive. I decided to get her one as an early birthday present. We went to Tri cities and lucked into getting the most awesome salesguy helping us. We went home with a full sized ACER, fully functioning including the CD?DVD drive and a ton more RAM and memory for only $16.00 more than the mini one! I also picked her up a webcam so last night she got to really talk to her dad online...... they could see and hear eachother :-)

Looking forward to a fun online crop

Friday, March 20th from 7-11pm and you have until midnight Sunday to upload challenge entries. There will be a special "crop store" with great bargains and tons of fun stuff. ScrappyJo's is one of my most favorite sites. Anyone who has time (Since we will no longer be traveling to Idaho to meet Allen's family, I plan to kick off my spring break this way) should come

go to http://www.freepowe rboards.com/ shopscrapbooks/ index.php and check out the March 20th online crop thread. If you are new to the site and mention my name I get extra crop points :-)

loving connections

this facebook thing is so much fun. I spent a good hour last night chatting with an old friend (well actually an old boyfriend lol) from high school. It was great catching up with life and remembering "the good old days"

and hey Pat............... I still have the "me and my car pic" :-)