Thanksgiving

Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving? Ours was very nice! As usual we went to my mom and dad's house, and Mom fixed the ham, potatoes, and a few pies while Kelly, Faith, and I handled the rest of the food. Kelly made the turkey, which is always amazing. She gets it so juicy! She also brought a few other things, deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole, rolls, chocolate truffles, and the sweetest little turkey cookies for the kids. Faith made squash casserole, fried okra, shucked beans, rolls, and homemade honey and pumpkin butters. Yum! Nick made deviled eggs, and I made corn casserole, lemon blossoms, pumpkin trifle, and cranberry sauce. After lunch the guys went hunting while the rest of us just hung out and talked and watched the kids, and I even got to take a nap - decadence!

I got paid for the aprons I made for the church that day, and I also had the money come in on Paypal for a decal order, which was nice. Another neat thing that happened was that Nick got to bring home a HoneyBaked Ham from his job on Wednesday, and it is SO good! 

I mentioned last time I posted that I had found some great Christmas gifts at thrift stores. Well, one of those gifts that I found last week was a kid's die cutting machine called a Cuttlekids. These retail for about $45, and I found one new in the box with all the accessories for $3.99. I have a big die cutting machine myself that I love and use all the time, and Daisy always wants to use it, so I know she'll love this. The thing is, it only comes with a couple of dies, so when I went to a different thrift store this past Wednesday I had it in mind to try to find a few more dies for it. Now I didn't think it was particularly likely that I would find any, but it was just a thought. Would you believe that I found a whole pile of them still in their packages? They ranged from $.99 to $1.99, and the $1.99 ones had multiple dies in the pack. I scooped them right up! Then I went to Joann Fabric for their early Black Friday sale. They had flannel on sale for 70% off, so was able to buy enough for baby blankets for all the soon to be born babies I need to buy for for less than $2.50 a blanket. I'll be taking 5 of them to church tomorrow and making 3 for Kelly and Grant's baby. Joann's also had their remnants marked 75% off the current price, which made flannel remnants something like $0.52/yard, and I got a bunch of remnants which will go to make pillows and lovey blankets. 

We've been so blessed this year with Christmas gifts for the kids coming in from all different directions. A friend messaged me today asking me if I would like a pair of boots that belonged to her daughter and had only been worn twice. Yesterday  I got a call from my mom telling me that my cousin had decided to get rid of their air hockey table and my aunt wanted to get rid of her elliptical machine. They were both just going to take them to the thrift store, but they wanted to know if we wanted them instead. Um, yes please! The elliptical is going to go in our bedroom, and the air hockey table is going to be an awesome Christmas gift for the kids! This particular cousin has blessed us with timely hand-me-down in the past. In fact, she's pretty much made Christmas for our kids a time or two. Jack's birthday is 8 days after Christmas, which sometimes makes it a little tight, and last year she passed along her son's like-new Spiderman bike for us to give him as a gift from us.

Kelly, I think I mentioned, is having a baby (any day now), and she asked me if she could buy some htv (heat transfer vinyl) from me for a project. She wanted to make a milestone blanket for the baby, but she was afraid that if she ordered the vinyl online it wouldn't have time to get here before the baby came. I had some on hand, so she came out tonight and I cut out the numbers and words on my Cameo and we put it together. She owed me money for the vinyl (it took over 6 feet of it), but she forgot to bring it with her, so we worked it out that instead she's going to order some glitter htv for me when she places an order herself on Cyber Monday. This works out perfect for me, because glitter htv is one of the last few things I need to finish my Christmas gifts, and I didn't have money left to order from the sale myself. This way I get what I need and she's paying the flat shipping fee!

Friday Nick was off and we got to go do some running around together and have a wonderful lunch date at The Chop House using a birthday gift card I got last month. Anyway, I think that's about all that's been happening since I last posted. God is still showing up in a big way! We face more financial challenges in the days ahead, so please keep asking God to provide for us - obviously He's hearing all our prayers! Please specifically pray that He will keep sending in craft orders for me!

Showers of Blessings

Guys, I just have to tell you, God just keeps blessing me! As of my last post before LOL Day, we were pretty down to the wire with money. Kelly and Grant's photo shoot was very close to our house thankfully, because I drove there on a very close to empty tank. The photo shoot went so well - both my niece and nephew and even the dog were so cooperative and well behaved, and I got some great shots of everybody. After we were done we walked back to our cars, and I was kind of hanging out talking to Grant while Kelly got the kids in the car. She walked over to tell me goodbye and handed me a check for $75.00! I honestly, really, truly had not expected them to pay me anything, and I wasn't even thinking about it standing there. They've sometimes paid me some in the past, but not always, and I was happy to do the shoot either way. I assured them that they didn't need to do that, but they insisted, and it was such an answer to prayer! I was able to put gas in the car and buy some groceries for dinner that night.

A little later my mom called to tell me she had found a couple of really cool robotic dinosaurs at a thrift store for me to give Jack for Christmas. Morgan was spending the night with her, so when I dropped her off Mom showed them to me, and they both work.  I looked them up online, and they retail for around $100 each, but she got them both for $12. They're going to make an awesome Christmas gift for him!

The next day we had lunch provided for us at the birthday party of one of our other nephews, which was nice. I was supposed to do his 3 year pictures that day after the party, but Faith wasn't feeling well, so we postponed it.

By Sunday the $75 has been almost completely spent on gas and groceries. I sat in church that morning thinking about the last $8 in my wallet, about how I had asked God to bless me, and how He had been doing so, and how that $8 was just about 10% of the $75 Grant and Kelly had given me. So when they passed the plate, I dropped it in, determined to keep having faith. Nick runs the sound board every service at church. After the service I made my way to the sound room to find him with a huge grin on his face and an envelope with his name on it in his hand. Inside was a Christmas thank you check from the church for $750. For the last couple of years they've done this for him because he not only runs the sound board, but he also maintains the supply stock in the room and fulfills the requests for our sermon CD and DVD ministry. We had both forgotten about it though, and it's not a guaranteed thing anyway. What a blessing! God took that little $8 I put in the plate and gave it back to us almost 100 fold! I thought He was blessing me with the $75 a couple days earlier, then He turned around and gave us 10x as much! And you want to know something funny? Remember that $8? Well a couple weeks prior a lady at church had asked me to make her a couple of decals for her and her husband, but they hadn't been back to church since. That morning her husband was there and told me his wife had told him he needed to give me some money. It was to get his decals that I had gone up to the sound room when Nick showed me the check. And it was with that happy news in my heart that I brought the decals back down to the man - and collected $8 from him.

Yesterday I had a deposit of $27 for an Etsy order that came in on Thursday. Today a lady that I was paired with in a craft exchange a couple of years ago messaged me and ordered 11 decals from me, which will be $33 when it comes in. Tonight Robert asked me to make a church logo decal for his car and asked me to price them out because he's going to offer them for sale to church members. And just a little while ago I finished up an order for 9 aprons for a church that our church supports. Our church bought all the materials and will be paying me $45 labor, plus I get to keep the heat transfer vinyl that was leftover.

I've also found some really good deals on Christmas gifts, including a couple at a thrift store, as well as some amazing deals online. God is just so, so good to us! I don't share any of this to brag (other than to brag on God), but I just want to maybe encourage someone who is struggling and needs to walk in faith. He will take our little bit and make it great! And it's so important for me to document for myself how He is daily taking care of us.

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving!

Love Our Lurkers 11

Well I'm getting a bit of a late start, but I wanted to post for Love Our Lurkers Day! I can't believe this is the 11th one! I'm afraid I'm almost completely a lurker these days, just because of time constraints, but I know from experience that we bloggers love to hear from our normally silent readers! Maybe you're just exploring the world of DD, or maybe you're like me and have read for years but don't have a lot of time to comment. I'll confess, a lot of the reason I don't comment very much is because I'm generally logged into the Google ID I use to interact with people in rl, and leaving a comment means logging out of the Google profile attached to the rss reader that I'm reading your post on (along with all the crafting/vanilla blogs I follow, also attached to the gmail address I use to email my parents, and the blogs for my photography and crafting businesses), logging into my AngelBrat user ID, finding your post outside of my reader, commenting, then logging out and back into my vanilla ID so my 15 year old doesn't borrow my iPad and find something personal in the history. It seems like a lot of steps to leave a comment that is basically just saying hi. It was a lot easier when the kids didn't get online! That said, I do sometimes do that if I feel like I have something worthwhile to add to a post. Anyway, if you're lurking, I hope it's because of some convoluted reason like I have and not because you're nervous or scared or weirded out. If it's one of those reasons, get over it and say hello, ya big goofball! Welcome!

Answered prayers

Yesterday my mom bought me and Morgan lunch, which was really nice. Today she fixed me breakfast while I was at her house. Jack's preschool is about 5 minutes from her house, but about 25 minutes from mine, so to keep from making the drive twice in one day, I hang out with her and my dad for the three hours he's in school twice a week. It's been really nice to spend some time with them. Today I asked her to be intentional about praying specifically that God would send me just an abundance of craft orders over the next few weeks to cover Christmas this year. (I would love it if you would do the same if you think of it). Not even an hour later a lady who ordered some felt Christmas tree sets from me a few weeks ago messaged me to order two more plus a felt Thanksgiving play set. She won't be picking them up and paying for a couple of weeks, but it was really neat to see such a quick answer. 

Speaking of God's blessings, yesterday I was kind of freaking out. I opened up my laptop to burn an image DVD for a photography client, and I got a message that my cooling fan was not working and my computer would be shutting down in 15 seconds to prevent loss of data or damage to the computer. Whaaaaat?? Guys, I NEED my laptop. Without it I can't do photography, blogging, a great deal of my crafting, etc, etc.You'd better believe I started praying! I started it back up, hoping to just keep it running long enough to burn the DVD since I was due to meet my client in about 30 minutes. No joy. After about 30 seconds it got scary hot, so I shut it back down. I decided to try to take the back off and see if there was some obvious obstruction to the fan, maybe dust buildup or something. But I couldn't figure out how to get the back off. I replaced all the tiny screws, popped back in the battery, flipped it over and opened it up, then said one more fervent prayer and turned it back on. The fan fired right up, and it's been running well since!

Tomorrow I've got a photo shoot for Kelly, who's 37 weeks pregnant and ready to pop. I don't think it will be a paid shoot, since it's family, but I've done all of her maternity pics, and I'm excited to be part of pregnancy #3 for her. The next day is my nephew's 3rd birthday party, and I'm doing his three year shoot that afternoon. It's going to be a busy weekend, but full of family, fun, and love!

Starting Christmas

It's been a good weekend. We're low on money at this point, but we were able to pay the bills, put gas in the cars, fill Morgan's lunch account, and buy a few groceries, although we need a few more of those. But dinner tonight was delicious, and I know what I'm making tomorrow. We have season passes to a local amusement park, and we took the kids for a few hours last night to see the Christmas lights, which was a lot of fun.

I was also able to knock out six major Christmas gifts using a huge coupon, which was a big relief. Every year I make photo calendars for the dads and brothers in my life using an annual buy-one-get-two-free coupon, and they are always a huge hit. Putting them together is probably the most stressful and time consuming part of the Christmas season for me, but I'm thrilled to have something that works well and is affordable for people who are otherwise hard to buy/make for. 

This starts the busy season for me, the time when I start making all of our Christmas gifts for everyone. The heat press my parents bought me for my birthday/Christmas is going to be a huge help with that this year. I'm so grateful to have the tools and materials I need to help make instead of buy gifts, as well as to bring in a little money here and there with orders. 

Speaking of orders, my mom has ordered several custom aprons, and I'm working on an order for a memory blanket made from special clothes for a friend's daughter. I've also got a couple of decal orders waiting for pickup. None of these are super lucrative, but they do add up, and I'm grateful!

Another answer

This morning my photography client messaged me and told me that she has decided to buy the full session disc of her photo shoot, which is great news, but she won't be able to do it until Friday, which was not so great news as it didn't do much to help me come up with dinner for tonight. or to cover what I needed in the bank. When my mom called me later to talk about the election, I asked her to pray that God would cover our needs, specifically that the insurance check might come in today after all, even though our agent said it would likely be tomorrow at the earliest. A few hours later I called the claims office, and the lady who answered said that my agent should call me when it came across his desk. I asked if she would care to just check anyway for me, and she came back with the good news that she had the check in hand! I drove down and got it and deposited it before picking Daisy up from school. I'll go get a few groceries here in a bit when Morgan gets home. Again, God is always on time!

Grace for the day

Today I am thankful for the grace I see among many of the people on my Facebook feed. There are a few who are openly bitter too, but for the most part, the comments of voters on both sides reflect the desires of President-Elect Trump's victory speech early this morning - to work together, to move forward, and to remember that we are all Americans. Here in my own house, I am depending again on God to provide for us today. Once again, I don't know where the food for dinner or the money to cover our needs in the bank will come from, but I'm trusting that He will provide. 

Dinner Update

Nick's cousin messaged me to meet to get the shirt she ordered from me. I met her, got paid, swung by the grocery store with the money, and we're all sitting here with bellies full of yummy cheesy chicken enchiladas. God is so good, and He's always right on time!

His provisions

Hi guys. I don't know that there's anyone around anymore, but I thought I'd pop in and post. Once upon a time I used the blog to regularly talk about life and the way God was blessing me. Then life got in the way, and although He's definitely still blessing me, I haven't posted in a long time. So I thought I would try to get back into that habit. A few quick updates first: we've been in the new house for about 6 1/2 months now, and we still love it. Jack is in preschool, Daisy is in 1st grade, and Morgan is a sophomore in high school. Domestic discipline has been more or less non existent for the better part of a year. There was a quick stress relief spanking back at the beginning of August, but it's not something we ever talk about, although I miss it.

It's been a really rough few months financially. Nick's paycheck has taken a hit numerous times from factors outside his control. But God has been good as always. When the tires on my car got too worn for safety, God provided a buyer for one of Nick's bikes. And He gave him the grace to let it go. My parents bought me a heat press for my birthday/Christmas, and I've been able to pick up a few orders for custom shirts/onesies. They've also slipped us a twenty a time or two, and even $100 once.

I've also gotten to sell a few felt play sets, which provided some much needed gas/grocery money.

Nick took a vacation in mid-October, for which we had been planning for months to take the kids camping. When the week arrived though, there was no money whatsoever in the bank, and no way to buy supplies or rent a spot. Enter my mom and dad: they live on 21 acres, 12 of which are wooded. They invited us to come up and camp there, so that's what we did. I admit, at first we thought it would be kind of a lame substitute for the week we had planned, but it turned out to be awesome. Nick built a great fire pit with a cinder block oven over it, and we had amazing campfire dinner packs put together by my mom. We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs and made hot cocoa, and my brother and sister-in-law brought my two year old nephew to have dinner with us and my parents. This was Jack and Daisy's first time camping, so it was nice to be relatively close to civilization, and it didn't cost us a thing. In fact, it went so well that my parents have decided to create a permanent camping area back there. And on the last night all three kids decided to sleep in my parents' house, so Nick and I got to have a very rare night all alone! Believe me, we didn't waste the opportunity!

At the end of that week our church took a trip to the Ark Encounter Museum in Kentucky, and we didn't have the money to go, so (without us asking) they paid for both the hotel room and the tickets.

On the way out of town to go on that trip we got rear ended in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot. No one was hurt, and the kid who hit us had only been insured for 4 days. He'd been driving for longer, but his mom thought his dad had added him to his insurance, and he thought she'd added him to hers. The damage was superficial, and we own the car outright, so we were able to just cash out on the accident. That paid for tires for Nick's truck, which by that point had gotten so bad that he'd had to replace one with his spare.

Believe it or not, a little over two weeks later we got hit again. It was just me and the kids this time, and again, no one was hurt, although this was a much scarier wreck. A drunk driver hit a car beside us hard. That car then bounced off a car to their left, and then back into us, on their right. The drunk driver went to jail, and we got to drive away yet again. The driver didn't have insurance (or a valid license for that matter), but fortunately we have uninsured motorist coverage on our policy, so now we are waiting on another check.

Today - well today we are waiting for God to show up again. That insurance check was actually supposed to come in today, but I called the agent to find out when I could pick it up, and he told me that it looks like it will be another couple of days. So right this minute I don't know what we're doing for dinner. But I have a photography order that has been uploaded to the clients for them to decide how large of a disc they want to order, and I'm in the process of making a custom shirt order for one of Nick's cousins, so either one of those things may come through before the day is up. Or someone may show up with dinner. Or we may get something unexpected in the mail. Or any number of things could happen, but I know God already has things covered. I'll keep you posted!

God has been so good to us in other ways too. As I mentioned, Jack is in preschool now. It's actually a setup where a teacher who retired from the Christian school I went to (and Morgan went to through fourth grade) teaches in her home a couple of days a week. Daisy went to her the year before she started kindergarten, and she was reading by the time the preschool year was up. We really wanted Jack to get to go too, but she had changed her format from one day a week (which is what Daisy did) to two days a week and taken on a few more students, and we couldn't afford it. My parents had actually covered Daisy's costs, but they didn't have the money to pay for the two day a week curriculum she is currently offering. Right before the year was to start, the teacher contacted my mom and told her she wanted to teach Jack at no charge! There were a number of reasons for her decision, but God has blessed her generosity - her class has since grown from two (with Jack) to five now. Jack is learning so much, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he's reading by the end of the year too.

Nick was able to get his hunting license a few weeks ago, which he didn't think he was going to be able to do, so he's going to get to do some much anticipated duck hunting with Grant this year.

A few months ago we found an ad on Craigslist for some free office furniture. Okay, let me back up a little. About 6 years ago Kelly and Grant gave us an old tanker desk that was in their basement when they bought their house. It sat in our garage until we put our house on the market, at which point we put it in storage. Nick told me that if and when I ever got a craft room I could have it for a craft desk. A month or so after we moved in, Nick painted it the most gorgeous shade of light turquoise, and it's now the crowning jewel of my craft room. Every time Kelly came over she gave it long, wistful looks. It was in good shape when they had it, but it was pretty ugly, and she couldn't believe how amazing it had turned out. So when we found the ad on Craigslist and came home with FOUR free vintage tanker desks, a giant wooden desk, and a big kitchen table, I knew I wanted to return the favor to her. So we refinished one of the tanker desks and painted it her favorite shade of coral and gave it to her for her birthday. She was thrilled!

One of the remaining tanker desks will stay in the garage as it is for Nick to use, The other two will eventually be painted and moved into the craft room to replace the rather rickety wooden ones currently holding my sewing machine and serger. The giant wooden one is in the process of being turned into a cutting table, complete with an inset yardstick and a metal channel for my scissors to run along. The kitchen table will eventually sit in our dining room, once we build a replacement for the leaf that's missing and do some refinishing on it. I've also got an awesome metal shelving set that my mom bought me that will eventually be painted and hold tons of stuff in the craft room.

So anyway, those are some of the awesome blessings God has been showering down on us!