Ready for Christmas!

Having our Thanksgiving a day early allowed us to get a head start on decorating for Christmas. That’s good, because we like to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere in our house as long as possible!

And here are the next two paintings in my series of eight from Maria Raczynska’s 12 Days of Christmas (the first two appeared in yesterday’s blog post; I didn’t complete all 12).

#Christmaswatercolor #watercolornutcracker #decoratingforChristmas #Christmastree

“Thankful For” Time

One of our family traditions (not unlike many families, I’m sure) is our time around the Thanksgiving Dinner table when we share what we are especially thankful for this year.

We usually have this special time somewhere between the meal and the pie (Autumn Gold Pumpkin and/or Pecan), over coffee, of course.

This year’s Thanksgiving was celebrated in our Washington home, which is now our only home, and that was one of my “thankful-fors,” that we were able to sell the big house/property in Missouri and move “all the way” out here to Washington state, where we have 6 of our immediate family (7 when Tory is Stateside, usually in Mexico). 

We really miss our family that is not out here (daughter and her family and our siblings/spouses). But we are thankful to be “unburdened” with the whole two-home thing (which we did for seven years) and to be able to spend a lot of quality time with our son and wife (Mark and Kristy) and our grandson and wife (Conner and Caroline) and their two little ones, Leeland (3 1/2), and Lily (8 months). It is an extra blessing to be able to be in the church that Mark planted here in our town three years ago, where Conner is the Worship Pastor, and Kristy and Caroline are also involved in ministry leadership. Huge thankful-for right there!

Also making my shared list this year is “my family,” and that is more than just “I’m thankful for my family.” For me, I am so thankful for the blessing of family members following God and raising their families to follow Him. Such a rarity these days, it seems to me, and I do not want to take that blessing for granted. God is so good to my family.

I’m just going to say this: My children and their children and their children (whether in Washington or Missouri) are just beautiful people, in every way. I know they’re mine, but they just are, and I recognize this as just one of the ways God has chosen to bless me, the Mom and Mamo to 12 (so far)! Thank you, Lord.

I also shared this year about how thankful I am for my husband—always, of course, for the way he loves me, takes care of me (spoils me), provides for me, and on and on. But this year I’m especially thankful that, as the mirror is less and less kind to me, his rose-colored glasses just get “rosier,” and he just tells me how beautiful I am all the time. I’ve always loved that he does that, but it seems like especially recently, I’ve NEEDED for him to do that (how does he know?)!! So I’m thankful for him and his rose-colored glasses (may he never lose them!).

Not mentioned in our family sharing time, I am also thankful for my art hobby. It truly is a personal blessing that I have found and am developing a hobby that is challenging but also enjoyable and relaxing. I created a few Christmas-themed pieces around mid-November (mainly while my three guys were hunting). Now that Thanksgiving is over, I will share a few of them here, a couple of them at a time.

To all my readers, thank you for following me, and to those who send me notes or leave comments, thank you for your encouragement. I’m thankful for all of you, too!

#thankfulfortime #Thanksgiving #Christmaswatercolor #ThanksgivingDinner #ThanksgivingTurkey #Family #watercolor

Always Busy (and some Watercolor)

There is an old saying, “Well, that says a lot about you.” That’s rather nebulous, and I wonder if using that “inclusive statement” might sometimes be jumping to conclusions, and maybe while a statement might say “SOMETHING about you,” it may not necessarily say A LOT about you? Just rambling here, no answer.

But an example of the above would be this: I am always busy. Does that say a lot about me? If it does, I hope it’s good, because it’s true.

Sometimes my “busy” is more a worthwhile use of my time than at other times. 

Sometimes my “busy” is doing fun things, sometimes it is doing serious things.

Sometimes it is doing helpful things, sometimes it is doing self-centered things.

Sometimes it is serving others, sometimes it is not. 

And so on.

But I am always busy.

At this point, I have several projects in progress. Well, I should say, I ALWAYS have several projects in progress. I’m always busy.

But right now, I am

-preparing for Thanksgiving at my house (menu plans, grocery lists, timetable for preparations, etc.).

-preparing for Christmas (shopping, wrapping, addressing cards, formulating Christmas letter, doing Christmas watercolor art, planning menus, working on lists for when to do what (decorating, etc.).

-planning trip to Missouri to see daughter and family and siblings during the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

-planning/preparing Sunday dinners for my family at my house.

-keeping up with church activities.

-keeping up with Bible study/devotionals (about to start an Advent study).

-keeping up with some watercolor art (some seasonal, some not).

-keeping up with my fitness/health goals.

I will soon be posting some Christmas watercolor art pieces I completed a couple of weeks ago.

This week, I painted a couple of watercolor birds, following a teacher I enjoy, Louise De Masi (from Australia). 

Kingfisher

Fairy Wren (Australia)

My Bible passage for today:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Matthew 6:25-26

#birdsdonotworry #Idonotneedtoworry #projects #alwaysbusy #thatsaysalotaboutme #hopeitisgood #planning #watercolor #kingfisher #fairywren #Australia #LouiseDeMasi #busylife