Show and Tell Friday!

It's Show & Tell Friday and today I am going to share a cross stitch piece I made in time for Christmas. The design is from Daffy Cat, who generously shared her own design with me! I only had a small piece of fabric, so I only used the bird and border part of the design.  It turned out perfect and I absolutely love this design.  Thank you, Daffy Cat, for your beautiful cross stitch design!

The pattern was actually for an ornament, but I decided to make a small, decorative pillow out of it.  I added buttons and I'm thinking I might add a green ribbon around the red patterned fabric when I can get back out to my studio. In any case, I love it and I am planning on making one with the entire pattern.  You can see Daffy Cat's pattern HERE.  You'll need to email Daffy Cat and she will send you the pattern.  Don't you just love it?

Be sure and share your own Show & Tell at the bottom of this post on the linky.  I would love to see what you're up to in your crafting, decorating, cooking or whatever!

Blessings - Julie

Hair Coloring Nightmare

I usually don't talk about products on here unless it's a book review, however, I had an experience today that I had to share. 

I'm at that age where I color my hair to cover the gray.  Now, I've enjoyed coloring my hair for years, trying one color or the next until about a year ago when I settled on Dark Ash Brown.  Lovely color that really fits me perfectly. 

I decided, after seeing a commercial featuring "Angela" from The Office, to try a different product.  It looked intriguing - after all, who wouldn't want less mess by using a pump and the "tones and highlights" promised sounded wonderful.  So I bought this Clairol Nice n Easy Colorblend Foam.  I bought it in my standard color and had high hopes in how it would turn out. 

My high hopes were dashed.  First of all, the pump works by you squeezing the bottle.  The "foam" that comes out is simply bubbles and do you know how long it takes to color your hair with bubbles?  A long time, folks! I followed the directions and started at the gray areas, went on to the rest of the hair, then came back and re-applied to the gray areas again.  Then I waited 25 minutes, during which time I cleaned my sink, vanity and toilet.  It's a good time to clean up when you've got hair coloring in your hair.  When said 25 minutes were up, I rinsed my hair and the very first thing I noticed was that my hair felt like straw.  I knew this wasn't good.  After putting the creme rinse on, it got better, but my hair still feels damaged.  Now for the worst part - there are NO tones and highlights and the ash brown on the package is not what I got.  My hair is almost black!! The absolute worst part is the staining I had on my skin! It's really bad - so bad, I'm not sure how long it will end up being there. So much for wearing my hair pulled back!  You can even see the staining on my scalp! To make matters worse?  It didn't cover all the gray!! Bleah!!

I am actually  L'Oreal girl.  I use a lot of their products including make-up, hair products and always their hair coloring.  It is superb!! I have used both of these products and love them both!

They both give me the color I expect, I do get those tones and highlights, and my hair definitely doesn't feel like straw! My gray is always covered, too. I just love the L'Oreal products and I wish I had never strayed.  Believe me when I tell you that the couple of bucks you'll save using other products just isn't worth it!

I am horrified by my hair.  It looks like I dyed it! It has an over-all one color look and the very dark color is just not what I wanted or what the box promised.  I don't know how soon I will be able to fix this, but I'm going to wait awhile.  My hair feels damaged and I don't want to do more damage. 

When I do color my hair again?  Believe me - I'll be using my trusted and wonderful L'Oreal products!! They really are the best!

Blessings - Julie

Christmas Pictures & New Year Goals

This is Holly all dressed up for Christmas! Doesn't she look adorable?  She had a great day on Christmas - getting lots of attention - which she loves!

Here's a couple more pictures from the day.  My youngest son, with our pink, little tree in the background.  lol  Here he is with one of his favorite gifts - a Denver Bronco cup. 

Here's a picture of my guys after all the presents being opened.  The pug belongs to my oldest son and the poodle to my youngest son.  Everyone looks good here!

Here is my very special Christmas gift I got from my family.  It's a large picture and it has my favorite hymn on it - "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" and birds on it.  My other favorite.  I cried when I saw this! So beautiful!

We went to Christmas Eve services on Saturday and when we got home, I popped in some appetizers for us to nibble on.  We had homemade twice stuffed baked potatoes that I put together the day before, some quiche and shrimp nibbles from Costco.  It was so nice just to relax.  We opened one gift on Christmas Eve, which is our tradition.  Then we watched Christmas movies and just enjoyed our evening.  The service at our church was so wonderful and one of the best Christmas Eve services we've been to in a long time.  The focus was on the One that Christmas is all about and the music was amazing!  I saw so many of my friends and was just totally blessed!

Christmas morning, I put in a ham, made cheesy potatoes and green bean casserole.  We opened our gifts then watched, "Christmas Vacation" together.  Such a lovely, low-keyed day! 

The only down-side to our Christmas was my stupidity in bending over and twisting, "because I'm feeling better and I can."  Can I get a big "DUH" here?  When will I learn to take care with myself?  I've been having the back pain again and called today to schedule another back injection.  I'm so mad at myself because I really had been having days of no pain at all and now I'm in serious pain again.  I am not going to allow it to get me down, though, and am focusing on other things.

One thing I'm working on are my New Year goals.  One of those goals is to write on my blog more consistently and bring you more information.  I also will be finishing up my book and starting on a new project I've been thinking about for quite some time.  I also am going to be working on eating healthier and taking better care of myself.  I get excited about setting goals - how about you?

I hope your Christmas was just as blessed as mine was! How amazing that the Lord would send his Son to be born here on earth so that He could be our Savior and die for our sins.  My heart can barely take this in because it's such an amazing thing!  We have such an amazing God!

God bless you - Julie 

Merry Christmas!!

 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.  Luke 2:8-14

Merry Christmas, dear ones!

God bless you - Julie

Book Review - The Christian Writers Market Guide 2012

The Christian Writer’s Market Guide 2012: Your Comprehensive Resource for Getting Published is a wonderful  resource! It has everything you could ever need to know about publishers - book and periodicals.  Being that it is written by Jerry Jenkins, of the Left Behind series, the information contained inside is concise, easy to read and just plain great! 

The thing I really appreciated are the beginning paragraphs of each chapter.He explains things so well and makes it easy to understand, even for the beginner. There is also a "How to Use This Book" area that helps you understand how to use the Writers Guide.  

This book will tell you which publishers handle which markets, how they want to be contacted, what they want you to send them and where to contact them, including mailing and email addresses.   It has a topical listing so that you can find your genre which makes it easy for you to find who you're looking for.  It also has information for Specialty Markets - like the gift industry. 

The book also lists Christian Writers Conferences and Workshops, fellowship /critique groups by state so you can find what you are looking for. Everything is easy to read, is loaded with information and will help the writer find where they can send their work.  I absolutely think this is a MUST HAVE for anyone that wants to be a Christian writer or already is.  I can't say enough good about this wonderful book!!

*This book was provided to me by Tyndale Publishing for my honest review.

The Books I'm Reading

I had never heard of this author until I read Cheri's blog and she shared some of the books she was reading.  This particular author really appealed to me because not only is she a doctor but she is a Christian.  Dr. Caroline Leaf has a degree and doctorate in Communication Pathology and has mainly focused her studies on the science of thought.  Her books focus on how our thoughts affect our health and I'm here to tell you, she is spot on!  The first book I read (and am re-reading right now again) is

Who Switched Off My Brain go into the affects of how our thinking affects our physical health.  It has really opened my eyes to what I'm thinking, how I'm thinking and how unforgiveness actually poisons us.  It is so imperative to change what we think about - those negative thoughts, focusing on our pain (physical or emotional), putting the past in the past and moving forward to the future.  All these negative and, what I term, sad thoughts, actually poison our physical bodies.  We have to be careful how we say things and write things.  If I say, "I am not in pain.", my brain cannot process the word   "not" in the middle of the sentence, so what I end up telling myself is "I am in pain." This forces me to say positive things and that's the whole point. Negative thoughts are, plain and simple, a toxin - a poison! Her books are so amazing because a lot of what she says is Bible based.

I checked this book our of the library and have renewed it countless times and then checked it out again last week to re-read.  What I really want is my own copy! Plus, Dr. Leaf has a study book and DVD for this series.  She has also recently come out with a new book called, "Who Switched off Your Brain"

This book gets more into the complicated area of the man/woman relationship and I'm sure it will be just as good as the other book.

Another book I'm reading is another Caroline Leaf book.







In this book, she discusses the unique gift that God gave you and this gift can change the world.  I have loved this book so far.  She has a test inside the book to help you discover what your unique gift is.  This book is uplifting and exciting because you know that you have a God given gift and you can discover what it is!  The book also encourages you to use your gift and, for people like me, I need that encouragement.  Again, I checked this book out of the library, but it's another book I would like to own.  There are certain books that need to be on our bookshelf and this is definitely one of them.

Another book I read was, "Healing Your Life A - Z" by Louise Hay. 






This book was full of great information, too, and I learned so much.  Another one that needs to be permanent on the book shelf.  She also talks about the correlation between our mind and body.

I can only tell you how much this all makes sense and how I'm already seeing the difference in my life.  I also know that I want my life to be defined by my unique gift from God.  This past year and a half has been difficult but it doesn't have to stay that way - I can move forward and, with God's help, I can be whole in mind, which will definitely help my body. 

Again, I'm so thankful to Cheri for being so honest on her blog and for taking the time to write me that email.  God is so good to bring people into our lives to help us along the way.  I am blessed!

God bless you - Julie

With God - ALL Things Are Possible!

I am going for a new attitude! Yes, I am! I have decided that I am going to be defined by who the Lord says I am, by my creativity, by my writing, by my sweet family.  I have decided to start thinking in a new way and the pain can have no power over me any longer.  I found a beautiful email that my friend, Cheri, sent me and it just totally sparked something in me.  She sent me this email several months ago and it meant so much to me, I printed it out.  What she said didn't really spark with me at that time, but now I'm ready! If you get a chance, go to Cheri's blog and read her amazing story!  I put this email in a sheet protector and I am making it a part of my daily reading.  I also am in the process of reading some other books that I will share with you tomorrow.  I'm so thankful to Cheri for taking the time to write me that email...it and she are such a blessing to me! Thank you, Cheri!!

On the Christmas front, we came to a great conclusion and I think we are all very happy with the decision.  We decided not to put up the huge tree this year.  My oldest son is still studying as he takes the state fire fighting test next week and is studying like crazy.  He got a 94% in his class and the instructors shook his hand and said he did great and that it was a very hard class to get an "A" in.  That meant so much to him.  My youngest son finished up all his finals yesterday and is just exhausted.  He got "A's" in all his classes, too! He's just so happy to have 3 weeks off before the next semester starts.  These things all helped us to decide to put up our little, pink tree. :)  It's only about 1 foot tall, but it's pre-lit, already in the house and will be perfect.  I have little ornaments that I've bought each year with all our names on them and I will put them on the tree.  I also have an adorable little tree that you put together.  I'm thinking it's from the 1930's or 40's and is so unique! Between the two little trees and all the special things from my corner cabinet I keep in the house for Christmas, we are going to have a beautiful Christmas.  I think we were all relieved that the big tree wouldn't go up this year.  It would only be up a short time and would require my hubby and oldest son to get everything out.  While they were happy to do so, it didn't make a lot of sense to do all that.  I'm just so pleased because I can do this! I can work a little at a time and get all my sweet little things put out for Christmas.  Yay!

I have goals that I am going to work toward.  My first goal is to get back to church, my prayer meetings and I would love to be at the Ladies Bible study!  Maybe I'll actually be back to being a leader again, too! I'm realizing that my thoughts really do affect how I feel and a part of that is being forgiving towards those who have wronged me.  Not living in the past but living for today is also key.  The more I have been telling myself I'm in pain, the more pain I've had.  When the pain is there, I'm learning to think about something else - work on something I enjoy.  Hey! I even went to my studio for the first time in 3 months and painted a tree for my porch!

I am noticing that I'm very weak from a year of sitting around! Oh, dear. I'm going to slowly start trying to do a little more each day so I can build my strength back up.  After going to my studio for a few hours, I was so tired, I just couldn't believe it! I had intended on going to church but fell asleep in my chair instead. lol  I will have to pace myself and plan things out better until my strength is back. 

I'm sharing all this with you so that I hold myself accountable about how I talk.  I want to change my life for the better and I would love to have you in my corner - praying for me and cheering me on! Many thanks to Cheri for the beautiful encouraging email and for helping me to see that with God, all things are possible and that I can make my life better!

God bless you - Julie

Reflections

 

I think one of the hardest things for me in dealing with this pain I'm in is the fact that I'm not able to do my decorating that I like to do.  It's December 6th and I still don't have a single Christmas thing out, and that includes my tree.  In the past, it wasn't unusual for me to put up my tree for my birthday (early November) and enjoy the decorations for two  months.  It grieves my heart that I have to give up so much.  My family would be more than happy to get things out for me, but both my sons are in the midst of finals and I wouldn't dream of bothering them.  My husband would be happy to help me but he can only do so much.  In reality, this shouldn't be a big deal for me, but it is and a reminder of how much my life has changed.  It makes me sad.  

I've been having really horrible pain again and having a hard time even getting comfortable.  It really just stinks and, while I don't want to use my blog to complain, it is a fact of my life right now and something I need to express.  On the up side, I have finally been getting my knee shots and have had two so far with another one to three to go, depending on what I need.  I have a new doctor doing the shots and it's like night and day compared to my other doctor.  My pain doctor is doing my shots now and his compassion and gentleness is just such a huge contrast to my former doctor.  These shots are going much better.  

It snowed like crazy here over the weekend and there were some times during the day that you couldn't see past two or three feet out the window.  It was like a blizzard out there.  It also stayed cold enough that the snow was on the ground for several days instead of just melting off in a day.  I am happy to report that today it did melt a lot and got a lot warmer out.  I'm glad I didn't have to get out in that horrible snow storm!

We looked out the window the other day to see a huge, huge red-tailed hawk.  It was so large that I've been keeping a close eye on my little Yorkie when she goes out.  She's about the size of a small rabbit so it would be nothing for that hawk to carry her off.  It just gives me chills to even think about this and you can bet we are all keeping an eye on her!

Many blessings - Julie

Book Review - Stuck DVD Bible Study

Stuck by Jennie Allen

This Bible study includes the DVD, leader book, workbook, and conversation cards.  I really liked the short, but thought provoking, videos that Jennie had for each weeks study.  Her thoughtful words really got to the heart and helped me to focus on the Lord and his love for me.

This study is for anyone who feels disconnected (and don't we all sometimes?) and like we're not "good enough".  She helps us to find those areas of our lives where we feel disconnected or stuck and to help us feel better about ourselves through our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

I love the conversation cards.  As a Bible study leader, these are wonderful to help start the conversation and to help get every woman at the study involved.  The cards have questions like, "How has truth set you free?" and "Where do you try to find comfort when you feel down?"  I love these questions because they help us really think about things and how we relate to our lives. 

The entire Bible study points to the fact that the Lord is our provider and helps us to really personalize our relationship with our Lord.

I love this Bible study and would highly recommend it.  This is one of those studies that could be done over and over through the years to help us get un-stuck in our lives and grow closer to Jesus.

*********************

This Bible study was provided to me for my honest review by the Book Sneeze program of Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Blessings - Julie

Show and Tell Friday...on Saturday!

My goodness...I completely missed the show and tell yesterday! I think between the holidays and my pain, I'm kind of unorganized and out of it.  Please forgive me, dear readers.  I hope you'll enjoy my show and tell a day late. :)

This week I'm going to show you how I coffee dye my cross stitch fabric. 

First gather your supplies - a clean bowl, cold coffee and your fabic.

Pour the coffee in your bowl

Next I like to bunch my fabric up

Then I push it into the bowl

Here it is under the coffee

Your fabric will get darker as it sits.  I let this batch sit in the bowl for about an hour which didn't make it extremely dark, but gave it a nice antique look.  I also like to move the fabric around every now and then while it's in the coffee bath so that all the areas get dyed but I also get some darker areas here and there.

Then I rinse the fabric with cool, clear water

Then I spread the fabric out to prepare it for pressing while it's damp

Then I press it until it's completely dry and wrinkle free.

Then I re-roll it and put it in the plastic case it came it.  I make sure I label the package that the fabric is coffee dyed. 

You can also use tea in the same way to dye your fabric.  I use this method to dye my quilting fabric, too.  You can change your fabric to look antiqued and give your projects a whole new look.  I hope you enjoyed seeing how I do this.

Link up with your own show and tell below!

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving!  It took me three days to prepare as I went pretty slow, but it all was wonderful and one of our best Thanksgivings ever.  I made all my family's favorite foods and they truly enjoyed every morsel. Here's a few pictures of our Thanksgiving.

This is my turkey and the pretty plates we used.  I've had these dishes for years and have added to them as I find them.  They are Blue Ridge Pottery dishes and this pattern is called Fox Grape.  I love them! All my food is not on the table as there was so much, we just dished up at the counter and had the turkey, potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce on the table.  Notice my cranberry sauce keeps the shape of the can - as it should! LOL 

Here's hubby enjoying his meal.  I really do need to get rid of that huge plastic bag of plastic bags behind my husband's head! I know there's a local thrift store that would love to have them.

Here's my oldest son.  Look at those huge, blue eyes!! Isn't he just so handsome?

Here's my other very handsome son! Isn't he adorable?  Can you tell I love my two boys? =D

I'm also sharing some pictures of my decorations on my cabinet in my kitchen.  Hope you enjoy seeing them.

 I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful, too!

God bless you - Julie