Musings

Well, I've fallen under the weather the past week and a bit, and so haven't done a whole lot. Having a cold can really knock the wind out of your sails, but I'm so blessed to be feeling better. I'm looking forward to trimester two of the pregnancy and hoping the levelling out of the hormones will result in feeling much better all the time ie. energy, no headaches.

Anyways, there are lots of things I would like to do around the house here since I'm home all day everyday (just about). I'm still waiting for things to get into a routine with the company so that we have a regular paycheque coming in each month because I'd really like to spend sometime doing finishing work around the house. We still need to have shelves installed in all the closets, which I think will increase the organization factor around here a lot, and I want to get hardware on all the drawers, and tile for the backsplashes in the bathrooms and kitchen. And I would also LOVE some window treatments! I love the sun, but every once in a while you just really want darkness.. especially when you're trying to sleep at night with a street light shining in the window. But I guess we take all these things for granted, so it's a good lesson in knowing that we don't NEED them, but they are really nice to have.

I also want to start working on some art projects. I have a large canvas that I would like to paint to hang on the large wall above our entry way, I think it could be a great focal point. I would love to do something in shades of blue and maybe green and yellow, in acrylic, but with a watercolour effect. I think I need to solidify this idea a little more before I start or it may turn disastrous, or I guess could be even more fantastic than I hoped.. you just can't always tell with paintings. I also have this dream to do a cityscape using mixed media. I'm thinking a magazine collage on canvas with the sky painted, and splashes of colour added on top. I just get thinking about city life sometimes, and I kind of miss it, not that I don't love living in a small town, but every once in a while I feel nostalgic about the city and I feel like this would be a good way to have a piece of city life with me.

I would also like to start on some baby projects. I'm not sure exactly what yet, but something I can make for the baby to use after they are born, like a toque or blanket or something. I think I will knit a baby blanket for starters as I already have an idea for that. The rest is left to inspiration...

There's a Little Heartbeat in My Belly..

Well, it's been quite some time now since I last posted on here. 8 months! And a lot has happened. But first, as promised, I need to post some pictures from my PEI trip:

Wow, it was hard to choose.. I have so many pictures and it was so beautiful there. Everything is so cute and picturesque. I would love to take my husband someday! Speaking of which, I got married this past September, another reason the posts have not been so frequent. It was a beautiful fall day we were able to share with most of the wonderful people in our lives, we are truly so blessed. 

And... since then, we got a new puppy! He is truly the most adorable little guy, but definitely a puppy! I don't know where he gets the energy from. His name is Luke, and he tries my patience daily, but we love him.

And since Luke, even more news! My husband has recently started his own business! It's definitely been a learning curve and a lot of work, but we both feel like the Lord is leading us and will bless us in this endeavour. It has been a leap of faith! However, we are looking forward with great anticipation to all that 2011 holds! 

At the moment I am not working. My contract at RDC ended at the end of last June and in the summer I worked for Jason's dad doing reno's. After the wedding I worked at Michael's for the month of November, but decided it wasn't my dream job, and now I am hoping to learn the in's and out's of office management in order to help Jason out with his shop. I'm a little nervous about the prospect but I think it will be good for me to acquire new skills, meet some new people, and to have some more challenge in my daily life. I do enjoy learning, so this will definitely be a lot of new things to learn. 

And more great news! On Dec 15, 2010 we got some of the best news of our lives... a baby! This is where the title of this particular post came from. I had my first ultrasound today, determining that I am almost 10 weeks along already! And we saw our little baby "bear" (the baby looks like a teddy bear because of the large head and short little limbs.. so cute!) I could have watched the screen all day, it was so amazing. And so amazing to hear the heartbeat as well! I could have cried. We also saw the baby nod which was so surreal. Hard to believe that tiny thing in my belly can move! I will perhaps post the ultrasound photo at some point. I just feel like it's so personal so I didn't want to post it on facebook before I've told everyone the news. I know that this blog doesn't have a huge following, it's just a nice place for me to write down my thoughts. I thought about erasing it and starting a new one, but I think I will just change the focus. It started as a blog about business, but now it's just going to be about life in general as I haven't put too much energy into anything business-related as of late. But since I'm not working now it's nice to spend some time reflecting on all the blessings in my life. God I am so thankful for all you have given me! Forgive me for taking life for granted too often.

travels

so excited!! on thursday my cousin amanda and i are embarking on an east-coast adventure. we are going to be spending 13 days in prince edward island at my oma's house. (my mom's mom) she is 88 years old and full of life. quite frankly, she's probably one of the most hilarious women i know. i can't wait to see her. she lives in a mother-in-law suite at my aunt's house so amanda and i will be sleeping in my oma's camping trailer out in the yard. oma's already had the trailer cleaned and the linens prepared for a month or two now. she's so sweet.

i haven't been back to pei for 13 years, so i'm wondering how much of it will be familiar. i'm looking forward to going back and rediscovering my roots. also i'm just really looking forward to having a holiday. i'm hoping for sunny, fresh-smelling spring days. i've been looking at tourist websites to see what there is to do, and it seems like it will be a quaint holiday. there's a lot of fishing, walks, gardening, folk craft-making, and other such delightful things to do. we were really hoping to go see the anne of green gables musical, but sadly that only plays during the summer months. but i'm hoping that going in june will allow us to still have some nice weather but to be able to avoid the tourist season.

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/images/photos/photo_lg_princeedwardisland.jpg

http://at-communication.com/upload/Image/Prince%20Edward%20Island%20DX%20News.jpg

http://photos.igougo.com/images/p340097-PEI_Canada-Lighthouse_on_Prince_Edward_Island.jpg

i'm hoping to do a lot of journaling while i'm there, so perhaps i'll post some entries from it later on so you can see what i've been up to :)

timelife

http://sarahlambersky.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/tea-cup-vase-735962.jpg

i wait in the crack, in the crevice of life

until the light comes and makes me move

i wait in the shadow, in the cave, in the dark

until the light pulls me through

where in this life can we go from time

i'll tell you.. it's in the light

and

there's a place called hope, called rest:

you can go there in a good book by the fire

or the riverside for a walk

for tea with an old friend

you can go there in your sleep, in your dreams

to a place far away with beaches and no clocks

what is time

how are we defined?

sunshine

I'm so thankful for the spring. Winter can be so long and dark, I feel like it will never end. But spring is so wonderful that you can't help but see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels so amazing to have the sun warm your skin, to smell nature emerging once again.

This blog was supposed to be about starting a new business venture but has sort of rabbit-trailed all over the place. So anyways, in business news.. I have sold probably 15 items, which isn't bad considering I sort of went hard for a week with making and posting items, and have been slacking ever since. I guess I'm not really banking on internet sales but am looking forward to Farmer's Market season. I think that would be a little more interesting anyways, you get to interact with your customers and get first hand experience on what people like and don't like. I guess both have their perks, because online you don't have to do much.. just post and wait, and you don't have to pay for a table. I really need to get back into painting and start posting some more photography. I'm hoping to get my job back here at the library this summer, but with a few less hours so that I will have time to do some of these things I've been meaning to do.

As for the rest of life, it's been busy, but wonderful.


picture: http://lydonthejar.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/spring.jpg

change

so it's been a while. and my fan base is beginning to become agitated with my lack of written brilliance as of late. i apologize. so i'm here to make it up to you.

life is full of changes. little changes and big ones. we can resist with all our might, but all around us life is still in a constant state of alteration. trees lose leaves. flowers bud. lightning strikes. the earth rumbles. man scurries as an ant or slumbers as a bear. all involves change. your state of consciousness, your state of mind. the path you choose to take. change can be terrifying, but mostly it is great. how else will you learn or grow or become what you are meant to be? who you are meant to be..

here are some definitions of change: (who knew there were so many?)

Change
*--To alter; to make different; to cause to pass from one state to another; as, to change the position, character, or appearance of a thing; to change the countenance.
*--To alter by substituting something else for, or by giving up for something else; as, to change the clothes; to change one's occupation; to change one's intention.
--To give and take reciprocally; to exchange; -- followed by with; as, to change place, or hats, or money, with another.
--Specifically: To give, or receive, smaller denominations of money (technically called change) for; as, to change a gold coin or a bank bill.
*--To be altered; to undergo variation; as, men sometimes change for the better.
*--To pass from one phase to another; as, the moon changes to-morrow night.
*--Any variation or alteration; a passing from one state or form to another; as, a change of countenance; a change of habits or principles.
*--A succesion or substitution of one thing in the place of another; a difference; novelty; variety; as, a change of seasons.
*--A passing from one phase to another; as, a change of the moon.
--Alteration in the order of a series; permutation.
--That which makes a variety, or may be substituted for another.
--Small money; the money by means of which the larger coins and bank bills are made available in small dealings; hence, the balance returned when payment is tendered by a coin or note exceeding the sum due.
--A place where merchants and others meet to transact business; a building appropriated for mercantile transactions.
--A public house; an alehouse
--Any order in which a number of bells are struck, other than that of the diatonic scale.

i starred* my favourites.
so, happy change to you.
 

http://www.sawse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/14.jpg

easter

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3037/2692760549_5068951785.jpg

http://inspirekrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/three-crosses.jpg

http://www.catholicbishops.ie/special_features/easter2007/easter2007.jpg

And when they came to the place which is called The Skull [Latin: Calvary; Hebrew: Golgotha], there they crucified Him, and [along with] the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they divided His garments and distributed them by casting lots for them...


But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had made ready. And they found the stone rolled back from the tomb, but when they went inside, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus... He is not here, but has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee. ~ Luke 23:33-34; Luke 24:1-3, 6(AMP)


Lead Me to Calvary



King of my life I crown You now;
Yours shall the glory be.
Lest I forget Your thorncrowned brow,
Lead me to Calvary.

Refrain:

Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Your agony,
Lest I forget Your love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.

High on the cross I see You there,
Anguish across Your face.
How great the pain and grief You bear!
How great the price of grace!

Jesus, I bow and take the cross
Gladly You bore for me.
Daily, my Lord, in gain or loss,
Lead me to Calvary.

Words by Jenny E. Hussey and Ken Bible
Music by William J. Kirkpatrick

Happy Easter everyone! I decided I needed to have an Easter spotlight on my blog, because I feel like it just came and went this year and I didn't even give it a lot of consideration, yet it's one of the most important holidays. It's funny how we make such a big deal out of Christmas, and yet Easter can go by without a passing glance. I think this must be the result of consumerism and its effects on religious holidays. This isn't new information, but the fact that I could have easily missed Easter makes me realize the importance of having one's own traditions or traditions within your family that can become symbolic and help you to refocus during busy holiday times. I think we should even do more within our churches to commemorate, for this day is the foundation of what the church is built on. We also need to teach our children how to celebrate the important things in our lives.

God and the Arts

by: Bernard Bell
Within the evangelical world we are frequently told that we must be busily about God’s service. There are so many needs in the world and we must give God a helping hand to ensure that these needs are met. “If you don’t respond,” we are told, “who will?” Thus we are driven either by guilt or by genuine enthusiasm to a lifestyle of ceaseless activity in the service of God, spurred on by regular motivational speeches and books, and by assurances that God is using us mightily. Our God, it seems, is a utilitarian God—one who needs us, one who has redeemed us in order to help him, one who can’t get by without us.

But if we turn to God’s self-revelation in Creation, we find a remarkably non-utilitarian God. He places flowers on a thousand hills where no human will ever see them. He oversees the life cycle of myriad stunningly beautiful insects, unobserved by any human eye. He has placed millions of galaxies far beyond the limit of human eyesight, beyond even the range of the Hubble Telescope. A look at the Bird of Paradise flower or at the peacock should suggest to us that God is extravagant in his creation of beauty and wonder. What good do such birds and flowers play in the grand scheme of things, in the urgent task of evangelism and mission?

Turning to the Scriptures we find a similar delight in beauty on the part of God. Those urgent about the task of evangelism and mission would prefer a clear outline of the four spiritual laws or of the plan of salvation. The nearest we get in Paul’s “Repent and be baptized.” Instead, we find a great number of stories, which modern literary critics acknowledge are marvelous models of literary creation. Such stories cannot be quickly read and put into practice. They must be read slowly, audibly, preferably in community. They must be chewed over, reflected upon, tossed around and around in the inner recesses of the brain. They are distinctly unpractical, though we are ever ready to force the process in our search for quick application. But if we mull over these stories long enough we will find them to be immensely practical, not because they will make us go out and do things, but because they will transform us. All good stories, and the biblical narratives are no exception, have the capacity to be subversive. If they work long enough in our mind, they will perform a radical work on us, changing us. This is the transforming power of art of which Dorothy Sayers wrote.

Why does God delight so much in placing his artwork in Creation and in the Scriptures? I can think of several reasons. Firstly, God delights in making things that are good and beautiful. Beauty is an integral part of his created order. Secondly, God does not need our help. Just as man is gratuitous in his activity, so is God gratuitous in all his activity. He makes flowers bloom on a thousand hills not because he needs to but because he wants to. He surely made the peacock with a smile on his face. One can sense this delight on God’s part as he brought the animals to Adam to name. God does not need us: he was perfectly fulfilled within the Trinity but freely chose to bring mankind into being. He does not need to save us, but freely chooses to do so. He does not even need us for the work of mission and evangelism. The world is full of needs, the sum total of which is beyond the capacity of humans to meet. If we are driven by a sense of need, we will burn ourselves out, for this is not the way God has designed.

God even uses artistic imagery in describing our participation in his work. We are to be a fragrant aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ wherever we go, mediating his beauty to all around us. We have the perfect model in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was constantly surrounded by people in need, yet frequently turned his back on them and sought out solitary places. He drew people’s attention to his Father’s artistic beauty in creation, reminding them of the lilies of the field and of the sparrow. Through the way in which he lived he was a fragrant aroma of life to some, and an aroma of death to others. Yes, he was about his father’s business, but that business included much that we would define as distractions from the urgent task at hand. He told stories of great artistic merit, which defied translation into immediate action, for their meaning was deliberately concealed. If God chose to so act through his Son, should we not hesitate in our haste to rush into action?

Perhaps the greatest argument for the arts is that put forward by God himself in his questioning of Job (Job 37-41). From a utilitarian perspective, God’s answer was useless: he answered none of Job’s questions. But it was deeply subversive, for it subverted Job’s whole being. In a dazzling round of questions, God showed that he is completely non-contingent, that he delights in the bizarre things he has made. Is not this also the sense of Lady Wisdom skipping as a child at Creation (Proverbs 8)?

In fine, God is an artist who delights to make things for sheer pleasure. He does remarkably little to address the immediate task at hand, but through his constant subversive artistic activity he is bringing about an entirely new creation. Should we not follow suit in delighting in the glorious impractical activity of artistic creation, of telling our stories, of smelling God’s flowers, of mulling over Biblical narrative, and so find ourselves profoundly subverted, and find also that we are a fragrant aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm interested in the intention of creation as an act unto itself. I feel that we are inspired, even compelled to create, because God is a creative being and He designed our beings after Himself. I find it almost magical, then, to put into action something that was birthed in me by the Master Himself. Of course not everything made by human hands is beautiful and/or reflects their original intent, but the simple act of pouring your heart into something that is a part of you but exists on its own brings a kind of satisfaction that nothing else does. I think there is almost more value in the act of creation than in the final product itself. That is why art is often more about the process. I think one of the best challenges we can give ourselves as artists is the one-a-day concept. I know that I'm not diligent at this at all, but I would love to one day be. To just pick something, and make one of them every single day for a set period of time. You would learn so much about process, time, ability, art as a changing phenomenon and even human nature. I think the longer you do this, the more you will begin to see yourself both in the artworks themselves, and as part of a Created network.

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/upload/images/articleart_large/tam_aug08_pas1.jpg


We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each springimpassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerveless germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some freshblossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedalfashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature's heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?

Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!.



Oscar Wilde

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn1etm-oIytCpLIcaPZWvdb3rqN_Kb-emrxTL-g88KCEWJR3Pnfpecn4erDkgRgi5wSA3OlJhKf0L3bTx-o7p3MwN-N7YX5E2uQdYVbXOa2g6qdnjMrc3NkLZf4RR8hX9oF9BS16_2h2Q/s640/7221birch_forest.jpg

food for thought.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.

::: Bono :::


Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

::: Rumi :::


The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

::: Michelangelo :::


Man can't do without God. Just like you're thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can't go without God.

::: Bob Marley :::


It seems that all of the good things in life are connected. And connected to God. I can't imagine life without the urge to create; this blessing coming from the heart of the Creator Himself.

Mark Rothko, Ochre and Red on Red

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

[from i carry your heart with me, by E.E. Cummings]