hip hip hooray for Friday...
Simply - It is Friday...the kids come home from camp today....
complicated..it NEVER rains in California ( I think we got 2 whopping inches last year) and today...it is raining...well, a VERY HEAVY sprinkle...
and Lord knows we need the rain...but today...the day the buses have to drive on the slick roads??? Mixed Blessings...maybe the kids will see a little snow before they leave...that would be AWESOME!
So yesterday, I was absent from my blog....I could not get my thoughts in order. I got a real bummer call from my mom early yesterday morning about a dear dear family friend. Let me
introduce you to Sara Jane ( say that with a North Carolina Accent)...one of our families longest & best friends....not to mention my #1 fan
(besides my mom) my life manager...the one that is always positive of my creative journey...she even arranged a trip to California right around the Homegrown Hospitality Party in August ....when I got out of the car, she was the first one I saw....
The call I got yesterday is that she has cancer. It just totally bummed me out and dragged my heart through mud....mixed blessings come in, as the Dr's think that they got it all....so we are thankful for that..but I think of her husband, and her kids, and her grandkids...and it is like someone told me that my mom was sick...that's how close they are to us...and so all I can do, all we can do is be sad for a moment...and then pray...pray hard, pray feverishly...pray for recovery & healing & peace...still makes me grit my teeth a little...not at GOD, just at the facts.. and let me tell you, she would have a fit right know if she new I was squawking about her...but that is because we, I, love her too much to not shout out a little prayer request for her...and her family...
and all of this takes me back to the book I am reading...I am almost finished, but it is so raw, explicit and AWFUL in some chapters that you almost can only take little bits at a time...but it is speaking to me...almost in ways that I am not so sure that I want it to....and it is too hard at this point to explain it...I only suggest that you read it, to dive deeper into your faith and explore the guts of yourself, of Kay Warren and what may be on mine & many's horizon of things that need to be done...we can't change the world, but I am beginning to think that GOD wants us to try....one step at a time.
on a lighter note, I am going to dig up an old doodle from August...I still want to reach all across AMERICA and I have lots of states that need to be touched...so can you help me out???
and I found another file full of doodles...I am sorry that I did not get these all out sooner...it was when I packed everything up back in March to move Ben into his own room, stuff went into boxes & files, out to the garage and then back over to the Shed-Teau, it all just got put on the back burner...
and speaking of another Mixed Blessing...the Shed-Teau is an ABSOLUTE DISASTER right now...Mixed in the fact that I have tons of work to do, deadlines to meet & lots of product to use, but I have no space to do it because me and my "tigger-itis"...I just pounce back and forth from project to project... leaving piles here piles there....ahhh me and my Simply Complicatedness....
in fact, I am going to stop right now....go take a picture...and come back and post it...hold on...okay, I am back and I realized that because the shed-teau is such a mess that I some how migrated to the kitchen, so here are pictures of both...maybe this will motivate me to completed, clean up & start over...
oh...good example....in the middle of working...I got a delivery from UPS...the upcoming KOTM stamp set...so I stopped what I was doing, and started playing around with stamps.....and there are LOTS....and back in July when I went to Utah, we were all ew-ing and ahhhing about these, and Ali took some home to play with...this kit totally reminds me of that trip...here is a shot of all of us....
I am a lucky girl..one who has been blessed to be able to work with such a super group...Mixed because I am two states away from most of them...Blessed because I get to do what I love for a living and share it with you...
Have a Mixed Blessings day...Take the good with the not so good...It all fits together in the big picture...
p.s. the ground is not even wet anymore...






























































