Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2011

Spring

A few pictures of spring from around campus...

forsythia in all its glory...

fresh growth on the rosebushes...

buds on the trees...

miniature blooms underfoot...

graceful green next to blossoms white...

breathtaking beauty...



pretty girls and tulip trees...

if God gave us such beauty on earth, imagine what the 
new heaven and new earth will be like! 


  LORD, our Lord,
      how majestic is your name 

             in all the earth!
          You have set your glory
              in the heavens.Ps 8:1

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Creative Moments

I've had a couple of creative moments recently...I haven't done much painting lately, so these were fun to do!

A couple of weeks ago I needed a gift bag for a friend and all I could find were several plain brown bags. I got to thinking about how to decorate it and realized the bag would be fairly easy to paint. I took my inspiration from these really cute Thank You cards a friend recently sent me (you know who you are! Thanks!) and although I didn't copy it exactly, the end result was very pretty.


The finished product...I used brown packing paper for the "gift wrap".

And then today, Miguel brought home some things from another family that's moving, including a frameless rectangular mirror. I got to thinking about what to do about the mirror and remembered that I had an old watercolor picture in a wooden frame that I thought about about the right size. It turned out that the mirror was just a tad bit too small and looked funny with spaces top and bottom. As with many of my projects, they evolve as I go along...I decided to use the matting from the picture in front of the mirror and it looked really good. Except it needed some color! That's when I decided to paint the matting...I love circles! Not sure why I love circles so much, but I had fun painting it while talking to my MIL who was in the kitchen making a cake...and I really like the way it turned out! (talking about the mirror, not the cake, although the cake was tasty...) With the lighting and my little camera, it was hard to get a good picture that truly represents the colors...this first one makes the reds look darker than they are.

Self-portrait...

Saturday, February 23, 2008

uninspired

I'm not feeling particularly inspired today. There are so many things that I've thought about to write, but haven't had much time to sit and get them down! But I have a good excuse...I am recovering from pnuemonia! Like I wrote last time, different ones of us have been sick off and on and the week after my Grandad's funeral (subject of another post), all of us except Miguel got the "bronchitis flu". It was terrible. The first symptom I noticed was fatigue, on Monday I was really dragging myself around and wondering what was wrong with me. I seemed to have a tickle in my throat that wouldn't go away. Then I had fever and chills Monday night that Ibuprofen quickly took care of. The next morning was Bible study, so I took some more Ibuprofen and off we went. I didn't know how sick I was going to be or else I wouldn't have gone. Later that day, the fever and chills came back with a vengeance and I knew I was going to be very sick. That day Gracia and Jojo started running fevers, too, so the three of us were out for the count.

On Wednesday afternoon, my fever got up to 104.3 under my arm and all I wanted was my Mom...I guess we all revert to childhood when we're sick! But at the same time, I didn't want her to get sick either, so there I was. The fever finally went down and on Thursday I was actually feeling better and was up for a while in the afternoon. But Friday morning I felt worse and I decided that I needed to see a doctor since I felt like I had severe bronchitis if not pnuemonia and didn't want to end up in the ER over the weekend. By the time I got in to see the doctor (a very LONG wait!), my fever was up to 102.2 and I must have looked pretty bad. And sure enough, the dr. could hear the tell-tale sounds of pnuemonia starting in the bottom of my right lung. I generally hate to go to the doctor, but this is one time that I'm thankful that I went. I got my prescriptions (we're still recovering from the price!!!) and I am very grateful to be well on my way to full recovery. I am also thankful that the kids did not get nearly as sick as I did and Miguel was able to avoid it as well (although he had some sort of strange stomach thing).

While I am getting much better, I am still very tired and have found myself battling irritability and impatience with the kids. They are so full of energy and we've all been stuck inside since the weather has been so cold. And I have not really had the emotional or physical energy to keep them busy and entertained, which means that I've gotten myself in trouble a few times as things have gotten out of hand. As in when their energy lacks direction, fights and squabbles ensue and I am pushed to my limits of what I can handle. :(

In the middle of all this, Baby Jkaile is crawling! And getting into everything! I'm so proud of his accomplishments, he's pretty young to be crawling, but I don't think I'm ready for this stage of life! He's already demolished a few magazines and sucked on my new book's cover, sigh. Fortunately, Micah is a great help at dragging him away from things he shouldn't be touching, but it's an extra thing to think about. Thank goodness for playpens!

Okay, well, I think the baby is ready for a nap and I'm ready for him to have his nap. :) So chao for now.