Counting Our Blessings - Linkup!

Hello friends! I feel so bad that I haven't been consistent with my weekly Counting Our Blessings Linkup. I have been so very busy working on things in my house. After 4 years of being in recovery mode from illness and surgeries made things get put on the back burner and now I'm working on getting everything back in order. It's a big job, let me tell you! I'm also still recovering from my last surgery and trying to get used to the strange feeling of the mesh over my hernia. I also still have days of pain so with all this, I have to just do what I can and rest when I need to.

Let's get started!

78.  I am so very thankful that I do have more energy and am able to work on my home again. Purging, organizing, moving stuff around. Because I can't lift more than 10 pounds, I am also very, very thankful for my husband and son who step up and help whenever I need it! I wouldn't get half of this done without them!

79.  I finished my Fall wreath! I am so pleased with it!

I have it above my stove. You can see the cute shelf my son made me and all my Pioneer Woman stuff. I'm a huge fan of hers and have so many of her things. My ceramic cactus is something I made years and years ago and I keep it lit all the time.

Here's a more closeup picture of the wreath. I'm so happy with it and it was great fun painting it!

80.  I am also trying to cross stitch more but I'm not stitching as much as I would like! I was hoping to have a lot more of my ornaments stitched up by Christmas so will need to get with it and do my nightly stitching again! I am almost done with my Gingerbread boy ornament and here he is.

I'm really just down to the back stitching and the beading. I love the beading part but not the back stitching part so much. I don't hate back stitching it's just not a favorite of mine. 😉 It has to be done, though!

81.  I also received the cutest gift from a book company that I work with. It's a t-shirt and a cute journal. I love what it says - Prose before Bros.

Many thanks to BookSpark for sending me this! I absolutely love it and it was such a fun surprise!

Now it's your turn to share your blessings!  Please share on the linkup below.


Blessings - Julie

Being Creative

I've been trying to keep busy doing things. It makes me happy and gives me a better lookout on life! I'm so fortunate that I can just take a few steps to my craft room and work when I'm able. I'm not sleeping well so it's such a blessing to be able to go to my craft room and create late at night when I can't sleep.

I love painting on little canvases and this is a little piece I'm working on right now. I've been working on this for probably 6 weeks but I only work on it when I feel inspired or I know exactly what the colors should be. I'm really happy with it so far and having so much fun with it!

I have the "Believe" penciled in and will do that last when I'm sure of it's placement.

I'm also working on my ceramics for Christmas. I've had this little tub of snowmen for awhile and wasn't sure what colors I wanted. I used to paint with colors I thought others would like. I've completely stopped that and paint to please myself. I'm really happy with my choice! They are happy colors!

When I first started painting, for some reason I thought they had coats on and painted them like they did. Then I realized that I was painting their snowy arms and backs! lol So, out came the white paint to repair what I flubbed. Thank goodness, mistakes like that are easily fixed. I'm having such fun with this piece!

I hope you're finding time to be creative, too, and spending time doing what you enjoy!

Blessings - Julie