Product Design Love {The Lettermate}

Everyone knows that the hand-written card is making a huge comeback.  (Check out this video clip and article in USA Today.)

In a world where automation is the rule - no longer the exception - we all crave "the human touch".

One area where the human touch has really never gone out of style is the area of personal correspondence.  I'm not talking business correspondence, or mass mail outs - those have their place, to be sure.  I am talking about the sentiment we want to communicate to that one friend (or two), or the shower invitation that goes out to a baker's dozen girlfriends, or even the wedding invitation.

Hand written is the new couture - it just looks so personalized, and it so speaks of great taste.

I have found a product I love so much, I have to share it with you.  It's called the "Lettermate".

First and foremost, how can you not swoon when your order arrives like this:

Where Does YOUR Internet Take You? {...it's time to limit the number of "teachers" we have...}

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions..." (II Tim. 4:3)

It isn't "the" internet, anymore.  It is your internet.  Your internet is what you create it to be.  Your internet takes you where you want to go.  Your internet is a direct reflection of your passions, your anxieties, your goals, your worship.

Cooking for Two - Another Delicious Recipe {...from the cookbook "One Pan, Two Plates"...}

The Preacher and I are happy empty nesters.  However, I do confess that going from cooking (pretty much) every night for anywhere between 6 and 12 people, to cooking for only TWO people...

...well let's just say there were lots of leftovers.  For a long time.

Then, I mastered the art of cooking for two.  I don't cook every night, like I used to when the kids were all living at home, but when I do cook - I often use the cookbook One Pan, Two Plates.

The Unstyled Lifestyle {...a house tour for no real reason...}

So, I've never been invited to participate in one of those "Holiday House Tours" at Christmas.  I want to say that "that chaps my hide", just because it's hilarious to say "that chaps my hide".

The Three Inescapable Laws of Art-Making {...any art, of any kind...but only if you want to be truly original...}

{The image of the dandelion has huge significance to me, in terms of the creative process!}

One of my great passions is The Creative Process.  I have the same reverence for the creative process, that I have for the finished product....the "masterpiece", whether that masterpiece be an amazing twist on roasting chicken, or a book about string theory, or a mixed-media painting,  or a Taylor Swift song.  The nuts and bolts of creativity are sacred rudiments.  Even the mechanics are holy.

The Past Couple of Weeks {...in pictures...}

So, here I sit, still fighting the tail-end of what I can only guess was a flu...which progressed into a bacterial sinus thing...complete with pink-eye...in both eyes {cured by the Magic Prescription Drops}...

...but my ears are still completely plugged...

...yet I am determined to go preach at a ladies conference held in North Carolina this weekend.  Those of you who are praying people, I am officially begging   requesting prayer.  Because...minor detail...I still don't have my full voice back.

But all is well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

I wanted to share the last couple of weeks of life here at the cottage with you - in pictures.

I live the life of nine cats, with nine lives per cat, every single month.  According to my math, that comes to a ration of 81 fresh, new lives dispensed at the beginning of each calendar month.  (It makes sense to me...get on my level.)

I live every. single. dang. one of them.  All 81.  In full.

So this is my Preacher and I, a couple of weeks ago, on the beach after our youngest son's graduation from Marine boot camp.  {We had to leave for SC the day after our fourth grandchild - a baby girl -  was born.}

Our baby, The Marine, and his One Tough Mother.  (Um, if you are a confused new reader, that would be yours truly...I'm One Tough Mother.  ::cough::)

My Preacher - pretending to be as tall and as thin as his youngest son.

All that was going on at the same time there was the launch of the online class, "Becoming | The Unfolding of You"...where I am so honored to be one of the presenters.  This class is now headed towards being a gathering of almost 6,000 students from all over the world.  {Pssst...it is never too late to join.}

Yeah.  It was a busy January.

This past Sunday was Susanna Joy's first Sunday back at church.  I was teary-eyed because I was too sick to be there for it.  Does this picture not just slay you?

Deal with the cuteness.  Just deal with it.  I have to deal with it every day, you can deal with it for five minutes.

Yesterday morning, at about 5 AM, our Marine's leave was officially over, and we had to put him on a bus to his next phase of training...

Where will these boots take him?  The Lord knows...and only He knows.

As to be expected, I was a little on the emotional side.  For a lot of reasons I won't even go into here.  But this arrived in the mail, later yesterday morning, and it cheered me up just a little:

My "Mimi's Nest" ring from Melody Joy Designs arrived in the nick of time!  I needed to smile.  I have the hands of a kindergartener, but pay no mind to that.  I can still rock the giant bird's nest.  Each little pearl "egg" represents a grandchild - four here with me on earth, two in heaven {lost to miscarriage}.  I adore this ring.  It garnered several compliments from strangers yesterday, since...

...I GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE!  {That may be the only sentence typed in all caps in the whole history of this blog, which would be since 2008.}  Despite my still being under the weather, my Preacher launched Operation Cheer Up The Wife.

He took me out to a late breakfast, and then once around Cades Cove, in our beloved Smoky Mountains.  This never, ever fails to cheer me up, body and soul.

His photography skills are becoming crazy-good.  We are working on a dream of a joint-venture, where we use his photography and my art on a collaborative project for my art shows and my shop.

He climbed up into the bed of his pickup with his camera, to enjoy the scenery his way...and I enjoyed the scenery my way.  That man.  That manly man.  A man with the heart of a lion, and a grasp on the doctrines of grace and an ability to preach the gospel of the finished work of Christ that makes me love him more every single day.

And this might just be my favorite picture of him, in the whole history of ever.  Snapped just yesterday.

There was snow on the ground, and snow falling, and in spite of being deaf, with two stopped-up ears, and no voice...

...it was magical.  Just a magical few hours.

One final Sanctified Selfie, and I will let you go.

I look forward to sharing with you the good report of all God plans to do, and will do, in the hearts of the women in Franklin NC this weekend.

I really do covet your prayers.

Ramblings on Grace {in-the-moment musings of a Mother and Grandmother}

(May I introduce you to the latest addition to my nest?  My grand daughter Susanna Joy - my daughter Sarah and her artist-husband Jonathan Howe had their second daughter two weeks ago!

And, if you can stand your cute-ometer pegging all the WAY, deep in the red zone, you can click here)

Can I just tell you?  God is so good, I can't even stand it.  Right now, today, as it looks from behind my eyes, I have two sons who are building their testimonies - I have two daughters who are building their lives.  We homeschooled all our grown kids from birth to graduation, we are in full time ministry - yet two of our children have not, up to this point, walked with God.

In the home education community, that just might make us big fat failures.  It at least makes us slightly unfit failures.  We certainly aren't skinny achievers of the Homeschool Dream.  In grade-speak, if you split the difference, we come away with a C- or a D+.

Our sons never were "Opie Taylor in Mayberry".  They were more like Buckwheat or Butch, from Little Rascals, with a pack of cigarettes in their shirt sleeve, a can of skoal in their back pocket, a blunt hidden away somewhere else....an attitude and a mean streak.

Oh dear.

And I'm glad.  In a way.  Please hear me out.

I say it with fear and trembling.  I.  Am.  Glad.  I tremble, because the reality of what I am telling you has  broken my heart.  It has broken the very heart of my heart.  You know...that place where idols tend to be hidden away.  "Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you!"  and "Before I was afflicted, I went astray..."

I can be glad in the Gospel.  I can be glad because, last time I checked, the Prodigal Son was called the Prodigal SON, not the Prodigal Monster, or the Prodigal Embarrassment, or the Prodigal Foster Child.  And a son is a son is a son.  A daughter is a daughter is a daughter.  I will not hang my head in shame, because Christ is the friend of sinners, and gave His life to bring children into glory.  Like Peter of New Covenant fame, I will not call unclean that which God calls clean.   God said He is married to the backslider.  Doesn't that just mess with you? 

Be glad.  Like me.

The Lord has set me up high, way up high - and given me the panoramic view of Grace, and I can see my sons returning by faith when they are yet a long way off.  Maybe even a really long way off.  Regardless, my heart is free to run towards them, not away.     

Will they be miserable until they surrender wholeheartedly?  Here's the thing:  not at first.  But eventually - the misery will become palpable.

It was palpable for me.  It is palpable for me.  I still find unsurrendered pieces of my heart now and then - and a lack of peace is the barometer.  Anxiety, and being consumed with my own pain is the barometer - and I am glad of it.  I can know when and exactly where I have unsurrendered inner territory.

Oh, I am glad, I am glad, I am glad!  He has made me glad, and filled my heart with joy.  I declare it yet again/again/again, before the outcome can be seen, that grace will accomplish what the law could never do.  Oh, my boast is so in the Lord on this one!

I completely trust in the power of the blood to save.  And sanctify.

Ya'll, I am a jacked up Jesus Freak.  I read the curses of the law one time, as listed in Exodus....that long, long list of scary stuff.  I got so happy in God, I could have shouted and chased traffic, for the sheer joy of the revelation of grace.  None of it can touch me.  On my worst day,  none of it can touch me.  In fact, I receive the opposite blessing.

Here is why:  He (Christ) became sin for me.  His obedience and righteousness are credited to me, and the curse of the law is broken over my life.  It is broken, because I do not in any measure depend on my own obedience to the law.  Cursed is everyone....oh, hear me!...everyone who does not fully obey the law and everything contained in it. (Deut. 27:26)

If you depend, even in the smallest way, on keeping the law in order to be blessed, I have bad news:  you haven't kept the law in the past, and you won't keep it next week.  The only way to get out from under the curse is to be in Christ Jesus.  Crucified with Him, buried with Him in baptism, raised with Him as a new creature.

I'm glad.  I'm simply glad.  God is so good, I can't even stand it.  And I don't need perfect children or a certain timing or a certain outcome to know, down to the marrow of my bones, that I am blessed and highly favored.