Chilly days for everyone - so let's stay inside and play!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Howdy!  It looks like everyone is having snow and/or really chilly days around the entire country.  It may even snow here in my neck of the woods - south Texas! A good time to stay indoors and read your favorite book or stay busy in your creative space. Unfortunately in our area, we have had rolling blackouts and you never know if you are going to have electricity for your reading, cooking, computer or  OMG showering!  It does remind one of how fortunate and blessed we are.

First of all I thought I would share a few pics of the stitching retreat I was on last week.  My little Bee group rented a house at Surfside Beach, TX and as usual we had so much fun.  Here is a snap of our group - all smiles!  I am second in from the right.




Here is the view from our balcony.  We could go out and feed the gulls and other birds and just drink in the beauty. 










Often we stitched until late into the night and stayed in our jammies during the day - just pure relaxation - how wonderful.







This snapshot shows us up at dawn all waiting to see the sunrise and we were not disappointed - the sunrises were spectacular to behold as the following shots prove.

I definitely recommend putting together a retreat of friends to do something like this.  It is pure comfort for the soul.  We just googled our area to see what was available as far as retreat houses or rentals and came up with this 5 bedroom beach house that when shared was quite reasonable.  I dare not show you the picture of the kitchen with all the food we brought!  We always tend to have too much.  We had such goodies as venison chili, taco soup, mexican cornbread, baked sweet potataoes, honey-baked ham and potato salad and one "what I consider deranged person, because I don't like to cook" got up and made fresh homemade bisquits every morning!

How can anyone look at this sight and not see the majesty of Our Heavenly Father!

Now - I need to show you that I have done some stitching.  A dear friend is doing a Block of the Month for us and I have finished (I think) the January block.  I can't show you the entire block because it is her design and I am not sure what her plans are for the future for the BOM she is creating.  What is extremely wonderful is that she is doing all the hard work for us by giving us a design - a jumping off place.  We can follow it to the "T" or we can experient and add touches our creative spirit leads us to do.  I just wanted to share with you the tree I did.  Many of the group did more full fiber trees, some did ribbon work trees; mine is done with dyed cheesecloth.  Since it is January it has a pretty bleek look with a few berries and ice crystals spaced around.  There are a few leaves (small) which I did by burning some hand-dyed silk and stiching down with metallic thread.  I really enjoyed playing with the cheesecloth - it was pretty easy to form - just took a while to stitch down into those small branches.

I have been taking an online (video) class through Shabby Cottage Studios with Nellie Wortman on a fabric book.  I have gone through the video class and taken notes watching it intently - her work is just fascinating.  So now it is time for me to actually get started with my book and creating my signatures.  I will be posting my journey and hope it will inspire you to give it a try.

Off this weekend to another retreat - yes, I know, I have confessed before that I love classes and retreats!
This retreat is a Women's Church Retreat at a local Lodge and it will be so spiritually uplifting :-)

A couple more things I like that I wanted to share:  first is this wonderful "green" fruit smoothie.  I am trying to get myself as healthy as possible and one of the things I am doing is drinking smoothies.  This one has grapes, orange, apple, banana, pineapple, carrots, and spinach....and when combined is actually quite good, really (I saw you scrunch your nose up and go ewewew) - who knew healthy could actually taste good?

The other is this book, DVD and workbook by Lysa Terkeurst called Made to Crave.  It is designed to help us learn to satify our deepest desires with God, not food.  I don't know about you, but I crave different kinds of food all the time, especially chocolate, and I want to learn to release myself from that.  I have just begun the book and am really enjoying it and the scriptures she is citing.   There is also an online Bible Study on prayer called Cultivating a Heart of Prayer starting Monday, the 7th which I am going to do - come on along with me!


Now for a funny (although not at the time).  My iphone (which is one of my BFF's) must have fallen out of my purse one evening and I couldn't find it when I went to put it on charge before bed as I always do.  So...my DH called the phone and we heard it ringing at the car - I thought it must be in the front seat.  Well, much to my dismay, it was actually under the car and had been run over!  Oh no!  What I find amazing is that despite the shattered glass there is not a scratch on it and it still works.  In comparing costs to fix my original phone or upgrade, it was more feasible to upgrade, but I remain impressed with the quality and durability of my sweet  BFF iphone original.

May God richly bless you - till next time!
Jules