Random Thoughts Wednesday

Sometimes I like to put my random thoughts out into the universe and watch them circle the bowl. :)  So, here goes...

1.  I decided I needed new stronger bifocals because I'm embracing my inner old lady and she's legally blind.  I ordered frames in "eggplant" because that's the color glasses an "artist" would wear. 

photo cred sortacrunchy.net

2.  Speaking of eyes, I'm having this crazy eye thing.  When I look in the mirror, my eyes look normal.  But they feel like they look like this:

It's starting to freak me out.

3.  I have a teenager in the house.  It's always been my theory that God designed it so that expectant mothers can't sleep in the last trimester because He knew they wouldn't be able to have another decent night's sleep in....well...ever, so they might as well get used to it.  I think a similar sort of thing happens with teenagers.  The last two years are stressful and sometimes bordering on miserable so that we aren't hanging onto their legs and wailing when it's time for them to move out.

50sretrosign.com

4.  I need to keep paper and a pen in the car so that I can take note of my brilliant but ever more fleeting thoughts..  I had a list of things I wanted to put in this blog post.  I wrote it on a slip of paper in the car with a pen that didn't really work.  Now I can't find the list, and I can't remember what was on it.  I'm sure the fourth item was going to be hilariously funny and/or deeply moving.  You'll just have to trust me.

I'm working on some new art to share soon.  In the meantime, may the Lord bless you today with either 20/20 vision or stylish eyewear and either obedient children or short term memory loss.

<3 Lori

I'll Take Joy

Ann Voskamp wrote my new favorite book.  In One Thousand Gifts she talks about how beauty and blessings are all around us every day.  It's not that they are not there.  It's that we don't take the time to notice them.  She begins to make a concerted effort to recognize and acknowledge all the gifts that she encounters everyday, cataloging them in her journal.

It's not easy for her all the time.  She and her husband and gaggle of children (can't remember how many, but a bunch) live on a pig farm in Canada.  They milk cows and tend to sick pigs and harvest corn.  She homeschools and makes homemade bread and cleans and does piles of laundry.  And in the midst of all that, she documents sparkling laugther, freckled noses, full moons, glistening soap suds, healthy children and the presence of a loving God when children are not healthy. 

It's really an amazing book.  I haven't finished it.  To tell you the truth, I can't read more than a few pages at a time without bursting into tears.  I see myself in her weak moments.  I'm frustrated by the dishes in the sink, but all I really have to do is change my perspective.  How blessed am I that I have my family here to use those dishes! How blessed am I that we have food for the plates! And when bad things happen, how blessed am I to know there's a loving God there to lean on. 

She says, "The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience.  The joy wonder could be here!  Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be--unbelievably--possible!"  Joy is right where you are right now. All around you.  Just look for it.  The line that hit me like a ton of bricks in this book is, "The remedy is in the retina."

Habakkuk 3:18 (ESV) reads, "I will take joy."  I needed this message so much recently that I made myself  a little canvas to hang above my workspace upstairs.  I love it.  It brings me joy and reminds me where to look to find it.  And now I made one as a little thank you note for one of my Facebook friends.

Thanks so much for being on this journey with me!

May the Lord bless you with 1000 gifts every day.

<3 Lori

Butterflies and Cheese Curds

We had a lovely time in Wisconsin last week.  It was a little bit of culture shock for us and many of the people we encountered there.  There were a couple of times when I thought maybe I really wasn't speaking English because people didn't seem to understand me. By the end of the week, I had a acquired a pretty good Wisconsin accent, though, and could order a cheese curds like a native. :)  Yum!

Because we were gone all week, and I've been playing catch up at work and at home, I haven't had time for any art. :::boo!:::  However, I was inspired by some beautiful butterflies we saw at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.  The story of Dan Capps' collection on display there is remarkable.  I can't wait to paint some of these beauties.

Butterfly Haiku

Butterfly gliding

Filmy fringe, flights of fancy.

Speaking winged whispers.

May the Lord bless you today with beautiful butterflies and crispy cheese curds.

<3 Lori