What I’m most thankful for:

In light of the holidays, I decided that instead of my usual “Friday Favorites” post I decided I’d share with you What I’m most thankful for: . . .

My totally awesome kids – they brighten my whole life, my li’l mama heart is bursting with love for them . . .

 

My Family . . .

 And my friends (I have far too many dear friends and photos of you all for me to post here, sorry.! I just found these few in a Facebook album) I love you all!  . . . .

Church family . . .

 Our little town – an valley oasis in the middle of the desert . . .

 

Holidays that bring everyone together and remind us of our many blessings in this life . . . .

I'm also especially thankful for all of my blog followers and readers, for your comments, your encouragement and your support. My heart is forever thankful for each precious one of you!  

From my thankful heart to yours,

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-J, xo

 

 

"Ninety-Nine Blog Posts Later" or "I Can't Believe I'm Still Writing ...."

source

Right from the very first blog post I ever wrote, I knew I'd fallen in love with it  - hard. I had finally found a creative little hub of my very own, a quiet little corner of cyberspace that I could stretch out in and give my "dreamer" side a chance to grow a little.  

That was back in November of 2010, a very hard month, year, time for me, and I found sharing my heart amidst my pain with the hope of reaching others who were hurting to encourage them would somehow help to heal not only other's pain but somehow my own as well. Time of course is necessary for healing but I felt truly blessed at the opportunity to encourage others with my words, and I felt the healing process already beginning. The dawn of a new day.

Well, 99 blog posts later I find myself staring at the screen in awe, wondering how on earth so much could have changed in only 2 years? It feels like a lifetime ago, and I think it's because my life now hardly even resembles anything close to what it looked like back then. So many big changes!

The first change was that I began an online course through the New York Institute of Photography, which was a promise I had made to myself and I finally made myself take the time to make this investment. As a single mama who already worked a full time job I had my reservations but I made myself step out and accept the challenge and I'm so glad that I did. While I am still slowly plugging away at it ( life always seems to get in the way, haha) I have to say that the course material and textbooks have proved to be invaluable tools and I have already learned a lot!
The second change being that I met my friends Kendall and Neil. Kendall got hired at my office to do the bookkeeping/accounting and we became friends quickly. When we discovered a shared passion for martial arts ( we both did taekwondo and she was already a 2nd degree black belt)  I offered to help her open her own martial arts school and therein became her business partner and co-owner of our town's very first Taekwondo gym, and corporation Outlast Taekwondo Ltd. (you can check out our  taekwondo blog HERE) . 

However I'm writing this post at 12:34 a.m. and I've nearly fallen asleep 98 times so based on my current narcoleptic progress rate  this blog is already taking too long.  

There have been a great many smaller changes as well, which have all added up and snowballed into these two "hum-dingers" as I like to call them, and all of these combined have made for a significant change in my life. As always, all credit goes to my Lord God and true Savior, without Whom I would be SERIOUSLY lost and undoubtedly headed down a very destructive path.  He saved me from myself, to be sure and brought me instead to a place of healing.
In only 2 short years, my life has radically changed so much. There have been so many ups and downs and twists and turns to get me to this place I'm at now and I thank God for every good thing in it ;)
Thank you for letting me share, thank you for letting me encourage you.  I hope this next year will allow me even more opportunities to encourage and inspire you all. I hope to fill each and every one of your hearts with words of love and plant a seed of hope that will grow strong
love, -J


P.S. Just to leave you with a smile on your face and a sweet dream in your heart ;)

 

Project #47 - Puppy Love!

This cutie here, is Mack ... ( aka "Mackaroo")

And this is Mercedes (aka "Sadie", aka "Giant Ball of Fur") hahaha

 Let me tell you, they LOOK like quiet little angels in the photos here, but photographing pets of any kind can be a challenge, and at times a royal nightmare, which thankfully was not the case this time.  These two adorable "babies" belong to friends of mine, whose family portaits I was honored to take recently, the first weekend it snowed.
Mack is a boxer, and Sadie is a miniature American Eskimo. These are two of the sweetest, most gentle puppies ever. My kids LOVE these dogs! 
I get a kick out of the fact that Mack is nearly 3 times the size of Sadie, yet he thinks he's her size!  He's younger than her and wants to do everything Sadie does, including curling up on my lap, haha.
We had a great family session, although it was so cold the only ones who didnt mind being outside were the dogs. They played and chased each other, and Mack ignored me when I called to him to look at the camera - he was too busy watching the ducks!
Here they are running together...  I love the sense of motion in this one! 

Here they all are, with Mack staring at the ducks haha

We had a fantastic morning, and celebrating it by warming up in a restaurant over a yummy sunday brunch =)

Puppy Love and Sunday Brunches,

-J

Project #4 - Broken Glass

 I arrived at Project #4 quite by accident today, as a matter of fact. My original intent for Project #4 was actually stained glass. I took a friend of mine (and her two little sidekicks, haha) along for the ride,  After having no luck with the stained glass (every church we came across was locked up and empty. And it's a Sunday today, so what's up with that? haha) we decided to head into town to do a bit of shopping, That's when I came across this BEAUTIFUL glass mosaic bowl.
I love mosaics. They are so artistic, so creative and resourceful.  Who knew broken glass could be made into something so eye-catching and beautiful?  It sparkles from every angle.  The thing is, all those bits of glass have to be broken in order to create this masterpeice of art.
Life isn't perfect,  Our lives (and our hearts) can sometimes feel like they've been broken apart and we don't know how or why certain situations turned out the way they did, like tiny pieces of shattered glass, instead of in one peice like we think it should be. But you know what? YOU are a masterpeice in the making,  You may not see how all the pieces fit together just yet. But one day you will be able to look back and see the masterpeice that those broken peices created. Each piece exactly where it should be, made perfect by a creator, the Master Artist, if you will, But these things take time, they don't all get carelessly thrown together at once. It takes patience and time to put each peice exactly where it needs to be.  But when it's finished, that glass shines brighter than before, each broken piece reflecting more light, adding more depth, more dimension and beauty.
So no matter how undone, how broken your life may feel at times, remind yourself that you are EXACTLY where you are supposed to be right now! You can shine in the midst of your brokeness and pain, knowing that one day, these broken times will shine bright as a single pieces of a  much larger masterpeice of your life. My favorite quote from Marilyn Monroe is this "... And sometimes good things fall apart, so that greater things can fall together"  Maybe she had things figured out a little more than people gave her credit for.

Some of the other mosiac peices that caught my eye today . . .

We had originally driven around looking for stained glass windows today but the locked church doors were

as close as we got!  hee hee

And no, I can't take a normal picture ever, even when I'm supposed to be driving!  =)

The kids started to fall asleep .  .  awww =)

 Wakey, wakey, Sunshine!

We had to wait for my friend to change her son's diaper, so me and the missy here waited in style. She looks pretty sharp wearing my sunglasses hey? haha. (and you gotta love the zebra print chair!)

AND NOW FOR THE INCREDIBLY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE SCENE......

(viewer discretion is advised )

Yes this REALLY IS what I think of valentines day, hahaha!  And yes I AM attemptng to strangle an innocent stuffed Love Monkey plush toy.  Ahem. Back to the rest of my photo adventure....

After a long day of hunting for stained glasss windows, driving, shopping and photo taking, and about 641 bathroom breaks ( hee hee)  we finally made it back to my friend's house for pizza. 

 This pic here was taken by her 4 year old daughter ( well I cropped it a bit, haha) Not bad hey? A budding future photographer one day? My eventual successor perhaps?   I guess we"ll just have to wait and see!

That was my lil' "photo adventure" day in trying to find project #4 for you. It didn't turn out the way I'd expected, but I think it worked out pretty well =)

Mosaics and (stuffed) Monkeys,

-J