Begin Again

 

This morning, I just needed to dig my brain in to something new and a little challenging.  I'm not sure why I thought I needed that as I've been learning to use a new app on my phone and it's been making my brain hurt already.  I suppose though that the time spent learning in Photoshop this morning will also help me learn that new app.  The negative space font was a free one on Creative Market and I just wanted to learn how to use it.  I did!  Now...if I'll remember how when I come back to it again, ha!  But, seriously.  I learn and forget.  Forget that I even learned in the first place sometimes.  Can anyone relate???

So I made this little digital art piece.  Just like the learning of the software and apps, if we don't keep working at our faith we will lose it or it will become stagnate.  Daily practice for art and creative work is touted everywhere and is so truly beneficial.  But first, please, daily practice of our faith.  Scripture reading, prayer, meditation, adoration, praise, good works...whatever and however your desires and God's promptings lead you.  That daily practice means more that any organized drawer, tv show, special dinner, new skills, etc. 

 My husband and I finished this book a few weeks ago.  So good! It was the first time we've read a book out loud together. We didn't really plan to read it that way, it just happened.  I think we will do it again.  Takes a while to get through, but a spiritual book is usually best in small bites with time to talk and think about what was read.  That's how this transpired too. I'd read, then we'd talk about it.  

The main message from the book to take away was to "begin again".  To nurture your faith and if you feel like you failed, let it go and begin again!  And again.  And again.  (You get the picture.)  Words to live by for sure. Continuing on with the garden metaphor;  When a plant doesn't do well in one location,  I change the watering/fertilizer practice:  Begin again if you will.  Still not doing well?  I move it.  Begin again. The book was full of encouragement, and very easy to read.

I'll leave you with a quote from the other book I'm just finishing, Anne of Green Gables:

"Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it...Yet." 

Begin Again

Foraged Wreath

I am enrolled in Kim Klassen's Inner Circle. One of the projects was to make a foraged wreath and then take a photo of it. Kim and her friend Aileen posted a video a couple of years ago about making wreaths from vines and I have been making them ever since. So, this wasn't new, but always fun to be inspired to do more so to speak. I had seen a beautiful wreath on the Terrain's website and decided to use it for specific inspiration to make one for this challenge. You can see it here. 

I am always foraging and this past Sunday we went out to the Native Prairie near here to do a little more. My husband sat in the front while our 15 year old worked on her driving skills. I enjoyed watching the ditches and taking pictures from the back while our 14 year old listened to music on her headphones. My husband very quickly honed his visual skills to help me spy different grasses and weeds with interesting seed pods or leaves. I posted a few pictures on Instagram.

So here is my "inspired by Terrain and Kim Klassen" wreath!

I could make wreaths for hours!  (and have...) The dried bits are certainly fragile, but they are also pretty forgiving when a piece does break off.  It's usually pretty easy to not fret about it whether I fix it or not.

So today is election day here in the US.  It's so sad to think that no matter the outcome, close to half of the people will be unhappy.  I really don't like that.  My eyes have been opened to the polarization of the world.  And I avoid it.  I won't listen to it and I try to not participate in it.  I'm trying to eliminate the us vs them mentality in my mind. It's hard.  I was in it deep in my young adulthood.  Loved the news.  Loved the politics.  Very much us vs them.  I've left that space years ago and am trying hard to "sing a new song" as God asks us to do so many times in the Psalms.

So wreaths may seem silly to some in the world right now, but it's more in tune to the song God has put on my heart.