Flowers of Love

So today has been a wonderful day...ummm wait no that definitely wasn't today!  Excuse me for a minute but I am just going to let you know exactly what kind of day it has been for me and why.  First I woke up sick this morning. Since I am one of those people that sickness forces me to hibernate, I literally could NOT keep my eyes open for a large chunk of the day.  Until finally this afternoon while sitting on my couch listening to my children bicker, fuss, laugh, have fun and generally enjoy a beautiful day play outside through the open windows and screened doors my eyes drifted shut once again. For some reason that nap did the trick.  I finally woke up without the headache, weakness, stomach cramps, and nausea I had experienced all day long. Next I went to find something in the pantry and in disgust with the disorganization started cleaning it out.  This meant that my kitchen was full of pantry stuff.  Then my husband decided to go ahead and take a look at the dryer that quit working over the weekend.  this meant that the entire laundry closet had to be emptied for him to feel sufficiently comfortable enough to pull the dryer into the middle of the kitchen.  Oh didn't I mention that this laundry closet is located at the side of my kitchen??  It is also the place where I store all my un-used quilts, blankets, and comforters, basically all my big bulky bedding items.  they reside folded and stacked in a large laundry hamper, but due to the amount I have of them and the bulk of fabric the stack reaches quite high.  Well my husband decided that he might need to check a junction box he thought was located directly behind this stack...uggghhhh!!  So now all those blankets and quilts are out in my den and kitchen.  Not to mention a few crafty items I had just stashed on top of my dryer to get out of the way, but I wasn't done using so I didn't want to put them away completely, or the mail basket that runneth over with junk mail and school papers the girls have brought home over the last little while that ALL had to be relocated for the dryer repair process.  So right now my den, kitchen, and breakfast nook look like a tornado has hit it and its driving me CRAZY!!!  Finally I think I forgot to mention that my washer started leaking...a LOT and I'm pretty sure that's what messed up the switch thingie on the dryer that now has to be replaced.  The dryer is a cheap fix the washer? Not as cheap, but not as expensive as buying a completely new washer either so yay home repair!!! So to get to the best and most wonderful part of my day today?  It will be easier to show you first

Aren't they beautiful?  All three of my babies picked me great gobs of wild flowers that bloom around the trees in our backyard.  Yes they are weeds wild flowers, but I absolutely adore live flowers of any variety.  I love that my kids know this and try to pick them for me whenever they can.  My kids ROCK!!!  So now they sit in a pretty pink pail on my desk blessing me with their love every time I look at them.  And I do look Reeeeaaalll close at them ever so often just to make sure no little critters came in with them. 

So far no unwanted guests!  Yay!!

Another plus to my day is that I now have an additional shelf in my pantry where there was once just a big empty useless space ( My Hubby is AWESOME!), and I know whats wrong with my dryer and the part is on its way as well as the washer part to fix the leak!!  woo hoo!!!  

So what started out as a rotten day has ended quite nicely, if still very messily (I can NOT wait to reclaim my kitchen from the laundry room stuff and dryer), but that's a job for tomorrow!  I'm too tired to worry with it now!

I hope you had a wonderful Monday and have a great week!

Have a great day and God Bless!!!

Touches of Spring

I love Springtime and since warmth has started creeping into the day with the sun shining bright and flowers blooming prettily I have been trying to bring it indoors with me. So I thought I would share some touches of spring that have sprung up in my den over the past couple of weeks.

First is a funky little vignette I set up on one side of my Mantle (or shelf over my Wood stove... yah whatever! I'm going to pretend its a mantle since its there is some semblance of a fire under it when it gets cold out)

I clipped a few flowering branches from a shrub in my side yard, placed them in a small canning jar, and then placed a painted wooden frame around the whole thing.  then,just to set off the yellow and white, I added that sweet little turquoise-ish blue bird.  I adore it!

Here is the rest of my Mantle just to show it to you in its entirety.

I know the Mantle clock front and center and isn't really spring-ish, but it was my grandmother and grandfathers and I absolutely adore it.  So whatever the season it will remain on my mantle (or until my mother gets completely moved into her house and decides it will once again look fabulous on her mantle).

I hope you enjoyed this small touch of spring and I have a few more touches to share in a post later this week.

I would love to hear how you have been bringing spring and sunshine into your home, so leave me a comment telling me all about it.

Have a great day and God bless!

Weekly Inspiration : Be True to You

**for the Free Printable please scroll all the way at the bottom**

I am starting back blogging by changing up something that I started at the beginning of the year. My Inspiration posts. Originally they were "Inspiration Wednesday", but I have discovered that inspiration is fickle and may strike on a Monday or Thursday or even a Saturday.  So rather than try to pin down my inspiration to just one day I am going to make it something that may pop in anytime during the week.
With that being said, for this weeks Inspiration I want to talk about being inspired to be you and to be true to what that means.  To me it means being able to sit in a room with nothing on and just be content with your own thoughts.  When was the last time you turned off the radio when you were alone in the car and just let the world be silent and calm?  What about the last time you turned off the TV or radio at home and just had a time of silence to think about life, your blessings, your joys, your memories, your friends.  Just took the time to think about who you are and to be happy about that.  Its not as easy as it sounds!  The more children and duties you have the harder it gets.  Its easy to sit and fold clothes while listening to your kids playing in the other room and listening to the radio too, but consciously take some time where there is absolute silence to just sit and soak it up.  Usually for me that is after they have all went to bed and the house is still.
If you will just try this for 10 min you will learn a lot about yourself I promise.  I found out a long time ago that my friends who couldn't just sit and be still with no distractions or stimulus were also the one who had a more difficult time dealing with the pressures and problems of life.  There is just something that comes in that silence, a recognition of who you are, what you think, what you believe, and where you want to go that gives you a strength that isn't found elsewhere.  If you find that you cant handle the silence, the introspection, may I suggest that you add prayer to that quiet time.  There is no better avenue to finding yourself than by first finding God and the Peace that is in His arms.  A couple of my favorite scriptures are found in Psalms and deal with being still in God:

 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah Psalms 4:4


Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth Psalms 46:10

So take some time this week to just Be Still and learn who you are by spending some time with yourself.  Just take some time in silence to think about your life.  We are all human (I hope lol) and have our ups and downs of life.  Take this quiet time to just contemplate them, to decide where YOU stand on issues that are affecting your life rather than just where someone else thinks you should stand on them.  Reason the things affecting your life out for yourself and in prayer and the Word of God.  I promise you will begin to crave these times of stillness and peace.  When you lose who YOU are in the midst of being Mommy, Wife, Employee, Friend, Leader, Fellow congregation member take some time to come back to center by being still.

I found some pins on Pinterest that I felt helped summarize this all up and were just great so I am sharing them.  If you would like to see their origins feel free to check out my Pin Board "Who said that? Well its worth repeating"

This is a free printable for those who want a reminder to frame or just put up somewhere where you can always see it. It was saved in 8x10 but feel free to print it in whatever size you like

I'm reconnecting with me

At the beginning of the year I was feeling very overwhelmed with all that I had on my plate.  I absolutely loved everything I was involved in, but I just felt like I was trying to swim while 50lb weights hung on each shoulders.  So no matter how much I swam or tried to just keep my head above water I just went no where and was sinking.  I thought setting my blog aside would help relieve the stress, but surprisingly it didn't.  I still created and decorated my home, but I wasn't getting the joy of sharing with all my friends and bloggie buddies.  Its fun to create for friends and family and to have a lovely home that is a joy to be in, but its also fun to share with others.  It got to where I couldn't read blogs anymore because I felt so stifled within myself.  I didn't even want to be on Pinterest!!!  That's HUGE for me!!!
So what has been keeping me busy you ask? Mostly I have spent time, working, raising my three babies, keeping house,being a helpmate to my husband, and being involved in the Ministry and Church.
To start with my work hours doubled in January and February and I have felt a lot of pressure to keep up now with my hours as I did then.  But I just figured out that even though the extra money has REALLY come in handy the time I have been giving to work and my computer has been sucking the life out of me, my family, and worst of all my relationship with God.  These past two weeks the amount of work available for me has been reduced and all of a sudden I started creating and living again. It felt wonderful!!!  Then this weekend was our Alabama District Ladies Conference.  It was the first one I have been able to attend for seven loooonggg years due to the fact that Children are not allowed.  Typically I would tap my husband to be full time parent for the three days, but he is the district sound man and attends every function held at the District Facilities.  This year my wonderful mother, who now lives next door, and my aunt (who had to work this year and was unable to attend the conference) agreed to watch my children so that I could go.  It was wonderful!!  The messages imparted under the anointing of the Holy Spirit touched me and revealed things within my self that I had tried to ignore.  I was moved to tears of release and understanding of what I was going through as the speakers ministered.  I am now free to say that I have been going through a dark valley the past few moths that I just haven't been able to comprehend.  I haven't been depressed or experiencing depression (I have first hand experience and deliverance from that spirit and affliction so I know that one...trust me!), but I haven't been really all that happy.  There haven't been any problems in the church or in my ministry that were overwhelming me, in fact that has been a wonderful place of joy and restoration lately.  I haven't had any trials or troubles out of the normal everyday fussing and squabbles among my children, and my husband and I have a strong, loving, mutual respectful relationship.
So what you may ask has been the problem?  Well to be quite honest its just been me.  I have just been keeping my head down, my fingers busy, and doing the everyday things every day.  What I haven't been doing is looking for what God has for me outside of my comfort zone.  I have been feeling restless and trying to do more of what I have always done, when now I realize God has been trying to lead me into a new season of my life.   I can't enter a new season if I am clinging to what I have always been and what I have always done.  It is now time for me to grow.  With this revelation I am full of excitement and joy and I realize that the spiritual battle I have been fighting, the listlessness, the uninterest in doing things for myself, the utter guilt if I did anything for me, and the frustration I have had is now at an end.  I am ready to step into what God has for me and I cant wait to see where He is taking me.  I know this has been a lot of rambling, but I felt like I needed to explain my absence from your blogging life. Also this is to announce that I feel a release to blog again.  I will continue to share my projects, crafts, home remodels (we hit a road block in that area that I will be sharing on another post...issues with the house that we are having the insurance people come and look at), sewing, blessings, family and inspirations.  I also plan to share where god is taking me as it begins to take shape.  I have some ideas of what He has in store for me.  Some are simple relationship minded areas and a another avenue is a pretty public endeavor that i cant wait to share when I get some of the details ironed out.  So be looking for that.

Again please forgive my rambling on while trying to communicate my heart and the dark place I feel I have come out of.  I know you are probably completely confused at this point, but I just appreciate you reading and loving me!  THANK YOU!

I appreciate all of you that have prayed for me and ask that you continue to do so.  I covet any and all prayers!

Have a great day and God Bless!!