My little holiday

Well, picture on the left is the second coat of my Irish dancing painting. My friend, Dana, said she'd love one of her and offered to pay for the canvas if I did one, so I started off doing a study of her face (pictured right). I had someone kindly take Catherine off my hands today, after tears at church coz I wasn't coping, and did the painting of Dana in a dancing costume today. I'll refrain from posting the "ugly undercoat" this time, and post it when it's done.

Day one - putting in a lock

I had a cool day today.... and this is partly what I did! Drilled the holes ok. Big DOH! when I realised I had placed the lock too close to the door handle, but decided to grind down the side of it... and it doesn't actually look as hideous as I thought.

Day 2 , tomorrow will be buying another grinding disk, and finishing the job :)

And then I'll definitely have to paint that door this summer... that's about 40 years wear I think.

The gospel gets on Oprah

You know, it seems God will use us to glorify himself whether we live right, or fail big time. On Oprah, whe interviewed this US pastor who pastered a big church - but had a homosexual affair. But in his own words - he's glad hes "off the pedistal now".
We are all only human -and God took this guy and used his (devastating) failure to get him on Oprah and give the truth.
To paraphrase him "Heterosexual marriage is the ideal we aim for, just like in an ideal world there would be no divorce. But there is. God takes us as we are, and changes us day by day to become better people". (Emphasis on the last sentence!)
And God took this guys sin - and because he offered it up - God used him to speak truth to a western society who seem to "gather around them teachers who tell them what their ears are itching to hear" (2 Tim 4:3).
Hmmm... maybe falling gives him the right to speak about it.

Stuff I've made

You'd think being artistic would make me a good sewer.. but it's not really to be. I could be myself and point out all the faults.. instead I'm just going to point out that its a pretty yellow.. isnt it? "It" is a bodrahn cover by the way (an irish drum). And the red thing is a scarf I crocheted for Dana's birthday. You can find the pattern here. http://littlesliceoflife.wordpress.com/free-patterns

Does this look real?

I spent an hour just adding lines and highlights...and I still don't think it looks real. He wants some real looking ones for some kind of brochure... and now I'm stressing about having 100 plumbers come up my driveway and finding me in my nightie. (I have to make 100 back panel sign for vans... and it turns out I may be applying some of them too).... I lost a client that way once... he knocked on my door at 9:00am and I answered the door in my dressing gown. I don't think tradesmen really appreciate that.

Welcome to the whanau Raphael

Welcome to the whanau Raphael! My new sponsored kid. God's been generous to me, so I thought I'd pass it on!

He from Kenya. He was born in 2003 (!) He had a sponsor, but they gave up the sponsorship... so now I'm his new sponsor. Looking forward to my first letters :)

A hat! and stuff....

I made a hat! from a free pattern off the internet. I wanna make some more.. well, there's alot of things I'd like to do if I had the time.
I'm just thinking about Christian service. I think that christians think were the only one's who ever serve others... but I think in the world of business... good service is "preached" too. I did a job for a company who hired part of a big church building.. and a comment my client made was "they act like they're doing us such a favour, but were paying full market rates for this place!"

Crochet slippers

Well,, I was trying to write down a pattern of these basic slippers, but I made them too small so I offered them to a close friend on our Friday fish n chip night. She just kinda went.. thanks.. but was not overjoyed or anything... so I thought I'd be really creative and ended up with these! I have dreams of being a crochet designer now... another phase I'm going through... I go through them regularly... automechanic... artist...organic gardner...car restorer.... web designer.... pattern drafter.... graphic designer... proffessional crafter... you name it...plus all my get-rich-quick schemes that last about a week then fizzle.

and another...

Mr Drip

Latest idea... I'm posting as I go to stop myself sending half finished work to my client in my enthusiam

ode to my dad

It makes a difference having a good Dad. This is a plaque Dad got at a christmas work-do once. They siad.. this goes to a man, who if he found 5 cents outside his office would put a sign on his door saying "found 5 cents, would the owner contact me". It says "halo Award - in recognition of his honesty and inteegrety". It hangs beside my bed.

He gave me the belief I could do anyting - so I learnt a trade - signwriting ! S ome of those guys were hard-core, and I remember at one place I had a female work-mate who said to me "I think the guys here are sexist. They wouldn't even let me in the workshop until you came along"! haha! That's one of those unintentional compliments you never forget. I didn't see them as sexist though. I was hired as a kind of office girl - but every chance I got I was out in the workshop learning as much as I could. I don't think I would have had the confidence to be around men if it wasn't for the huge respect I had for my dad. I miss Dad. He's in heaven and I look forward to seeing him again.

Logo draft

Yay for work during the recession. I think it may be an answer to prayer because I remember saying to God "I want money" and then this job came in. It was more of a confession than a request, but cool!

This is my first idea. Its for a Scargo... those funny bubble-like cars. This would be the door. He wants to paint it orange and have the whole thing look really over-the-top.

I like my font I created for the MR, even if I do say so myself. :)

Christian platitudes

Hi Mark. I don't know what to say to that. I could give a whole lot of christian platitudes, but they probably wouldn't help much. Here's 2 things that give me a bit of comfort:

1. God is just. He will set it all straight in the end
2. God heals the broken hearted.

That doesn't really answer (to me) why it has to happen in the first place though. The church would say that sin is in the world and we have free choice and we-are-not-robots so God lets us hurt each other, because without free choice we could never truely "love". That's the stock answer. I guess it's true but doesn't really comfort me that much. One thing I do believe is that it's a fallen world. This is not what God intended and 'the whole world groans in anticipation" of being set free from God's curse. And also life is short, and one day it will be better - '"good" - on and on into eternity. I hope.

GOD IS GOOD!

Luarna... on one of my blog posts you made a comment about God doesn't ever bring bad things into our lives. I just found another verse. It's in lamentations after the exile when the Israelites were finally being disciplined once and for all for centuries of unfaithfullness.
"Is it not from the mouth of the Most High, that good and bad come? Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?" - Lamentations 3:38
That's interesting, because maybe that means that God sends bad things - and he himself acknowledges that these things ARE bad - which can still be reconciled with a good God because "all things work together FOR good to those who are called according to his purpose" because although they are bad things, God will use them for good.

SUMMARY to self - Maybe God's not actually expecting us to see these terrible things as good, because He himself acknowledges they are bad - but God himself is good. Life may be bad (sometimes) but God is good.

Also "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11.
Soooo... bad from our perspective. Good from God's perspective... but God acknowledges its unpleasant for us. Cool. I dig my own answer because that's something I can live with.

MORE MONKEYS

Hey! more monkeys waithing to go to a good home... although I'm thinking of keeping the one on the left.. he's cute.

And I'm adding to my "Deliriously happy on $5 a day list":

• - Read a book
• - Draw a picture
• - Record a DVD off tv
• - Weed. compost. sow seeds. rake leaves and mulch
• - Quiet time - read bible
• -Excercise

pdf INSTRUCTIONS - how to apply decals

It's too late at night for me to figure out a better way to let you download pdfs from my blog... but here is one I put together for applying vinyl stickers. I think I just let go of my copyright rights by uploading it to this site I've made a link for. Oh well... you live you learn... good night :)

Decal Instructions 72

lists, lists, lists..

I love lists. Every night I write my list for the next day on this board... because if I didn't, I'd wake up and wander aimlessly around the house probably! I have a list on my notice board of things I want to buy... it's a good antidote for spending wrecklessly, because I know it's on the list (so I won't forget about it) and usually I end up leaving it long enough to not want it anymore.
And my favourite thing to do when stressed out or feeling aimless is to sit down and write some kind of list... my goals, my priorities, life-goals, things I want to do, learn, practice... everything!

GOD IS GOOD?

I've wondered in the past, what the relevance of calling God "good" is - if God's goodness is not something we as humans can understand.. well, something I as a human can understand anyway. I mean - what's the point when things we think are good are things God thinks are bad and vice versa. (Quick example, maybe, when God brings bad things into our lives to bring about godly character, and we think they're bad, but God is using them for good, but from our perspective... we just can't understand!!!). So I've been keeping an eye and an ear out lately for the "goodness of God", in terms that I CAN understand.
Well, I've found a few lately. One was on a cops show on tv - where they picked up a youth pastor. He was walking on the motorway. He was Canadian and didn't realise it was illegal. Now, either he was a fraudster and acting trustworthy for unknown dishonest motives (which is what Catherine's Dad would think), or I just saw the living God expressing himself through a human being... because he seemed so polite, considerate and genuinely "good"... ( that's good on the Janet-can-comprehend-it scale).
I also remember, while in the throws of schizophrenia, going on in my normal internal monologue of "how vile, evil, violent and marred the world is" monologue, looking down and breifly realising that I was actually sitting in the sun eating strawberries, and if I thought about it I'd have to admit that right at that moment my life was pretty good and most of my problems were all in my head... (a thought I quickly dismissed in a huff!).
Well... I'm keeping my eyes peeled now anyway. I want to know the goodness of God, in way I can understand and believe. See ya.

more hobbies!!

Speaking of hobbies... look what just arrived!! yes... they're text books on automechanics :) and they weren't cheap... how exciting! my little datsun is yearning to be fixed...

Enjoy it!

I guess saying I don't enjoy making decals is not the best promotional use of a blog for me promoting my decals... I guess it's just a case of enjoying your hobbies more... but I have to say - I AM enjoying making decals for this little vespa from an Etsy customer.... and I'm stoked!! I originally had postage at $54 NZ dollars to get to the US... who's gonna pay that??? once I looked into it a bit more I got it down to $11... now that's reasonable... phew!

State of it!!

Oh my goodness! can you believe it's the same place? This is what I spent yesterday doing... sorting out my mess! (I used to say when things got messy "reflection of the state of my mind"... hopefully the same thing applies now!!)

Now I feel like I can really get some of my projects going... not to mention I won't waste money buying more vinyl I don't need, coz I couldn't see what I already had. Phew. Time well spent I think. :)