http://www.katherinecenter.com/

Check out her blog, it is crammed full of really great -o stuff.

I wonder if I could be thankful for 100 things?
I am thankful for my husband and what a huge fan he is of the grandkids.
I am thankful that my grandkids have him for a grand dad. That word really suits him.
hmm. 3. So thankful for the big soap sale I just had. we are so short of denero, and I do love to shop. It comes in, it goes out.
4. Super thankful of the contest I won in the blog hop, I just got my prize in the mail today. What a beautiful assortment of papers and the most adorable stamp. You will see tomorrow or so. Will be blogging about it to give Tereza some love.
5. the sunflower seeds are up with their first set of leaves.
ooo. I made it to 5. yay. I'll be back, got to run for now.
6. Thankful that I can run. hehe.
7. Thankful for blogs. There is so much information out there.
8. Thankful for Ning, here's a reason why http://artistbooks.ning.com/

But as I was pondering this question, 'what am I thankful for' it all just seems almost trivial with everything that is going on in the world now.

I am thankful because I live the charmed existance of the middle class in the US. So many people have nothing. They are sucker punched and reeling. The news has hit hard lately, and the fact that I feel like I need to share in the misery of the Oceans, and the unbearable heartache of a lost Portland child, and just wonder at the parents who let their daughter sail in open seas, overshadows the joy I would usually get from counting my blessings.

I am grateful, and I do have 100's of blessings to count, big and small. And I count it all Joy, because of the Lord, He alone can turn my lemons to lemonade as the saying goes and to Him first I am thankful.

So for now, I am going to play the video one more time, because her thankfulness is my own too... and then spend some time in prayer for what lays heavy on my heart.

Oh yes, just one more thing, and the birdies in the trees. I am so very thankful for the chorus.

The Home Arts

I love the home arts, things that one does personally to lovingly make a cozy nest, to make a house into a home. I was raised by a creative pair, my mother did a bunch of the home arts, she was raised on a farm back in the day, and the home 'arts' were the home necessities.

She didn't think of sewing or canning as an art form, she and her 7 siblings ate one too many meals of potatoes and not much else back in the 1930's... and  I have vivid memories of visiting 'the farm' when I was a kid. The farm was in Arkansas and we lived in California. It was a trip by (pre-airconditioning) car in the summertime.

The drive was hot. My inventive dad drove with a block of ice sitting on the seat to try to keep the car cool somehow. We would drive across the country -Arizona-Nevada-Texas in 100 degree weather, he would take the desert at night because it was just too hot in the daytime.

I remember the farm house that my mom grew up in, there was a huge porch with rocking chairs. We would sit out there at night for some relief from the heat, and watch the fireflies. The moths would attack the porch light bulb...

Well I learned a lot from my mom and her mom and sisters about the home arts and I spent the whole day yesterday practicing some of those home arts...I made grape jelly!

haha. I was lucky enough to get a whole flat of grapes piled high and just starting to get overripe. So I sorted and plucked and washed and got 2 big spaghetti pots full, I made 9 quarts!

Grapes are really a beautiful fruit in all their round purple splendor. I was immersed in a pile of beautiful fruit and rewarded with glistening purple bounty, right down to the shiny paraffin sealing the top.

But the best part of the home arts, enjoying your craft! Hope your day is filled with the best kind of jams.

(All images are courtesy of Google Image except the finished jam jars.)

Spiritual Sunday

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live.

You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.

We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat.

It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with thewhole lot of us.

 Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ.

He did all this on his own, with no help from us!

Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

 Ephesians 2: 1-6

The Message

( Scripture from the Message bible; paired with amazing vintage signs found ..here )