Longing

"For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry heart with goodness." Psalm 107:9

Life leaves us longing, doesn't it? Everyone longs for something. We're longing for peace, longing for contentment. Longing for acceptance, love. We have a longing for purpose, a longing to matter.

And so we live life always searching. Searching for that something or someone to satisfy us. That search ends in heartache, we never seem to find what we're looking for.

Life was never meant to fulfill us, it's meant to leave us hungering for something more. Longing is designed to make us want something more than this life can offer.

Longing leads us to Jesus. He is the solution to longing. In Him the heartache ends. In Him, our hungry hearts are filled. He is satisfaction.

Nick Names

Fuzzy and Buddy. Guess which is which.

Graffiti

I found this bit of graffiti on a wall in an urban area. The words say: Live as if u would die tomorrow. Die as if u would live forever. The words struck me. I'm not sure what they meant to the person who scrawled them on the wall, but I know what they mean to me.

I might die tomorrow.

"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." Matthew 25:13

I will live forever.

"And this is the promise that He has promised us--eternal life." 1 John 2:25

I'm going to live accordingly.

"And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." 1 John 2:28

Randomography

Random + Photography = Randomography

These are some of the last pictures I took with our old camera. It died over a week ago. We bought a Rebel XSi that just came today. I'm looking forward to learning with this new one. We have bad luck with cameras, they're always dying even though we take good care of them. It's almost always the same problem, we turn the camera off, put it away in it's case, and then when we pull it out a few days later, it won't turn on. It's happened several times, but with this new camera we bought an extended warranty.

I must admit that I feel lost without a camera. I'm forever seeing something that I want to snap a picture of and not having one for a week drove me nuts. Matt and I take a lot of pictures, I don't post even a quarter of what we take. So anyway, pictures from a couple weeks ago,

Lemons

Today I made a lemon meringue pie out of these lemons. It was a pretty involved process and required more than my usual improv style of cooking. With this pie you have to follow the directions closely or it won't turn out like it's supposed to. It took the better part of three hours, so for all that effort I hope it turned out well!

I suppose I could have cut corners and it wouldn't have taken so long, but I don't like frozen pie crust, it's so much better if you make it from scratch. Besides, I really enjoy cooking.

As I was squeezing the lemons the scent of them brought back memories from childhood. My great grandma had a lemon tree that produced the kind of lemons I used today. They're not the regular kind from the grocery store. These are smaller, sweeter, and have a very thin skin. I think they're Myer lemons, but I'm not sure.

My siblings, cousins, and I would pick lemons from Grandma's tree and squeeze the juice into
buckets to make "lemonade" for lemonade stands that never materialized. I remember the juice stinging little scrapes and cuts on my fingers, but not minding because afterwards, even after washing my hands, they smelled like Grandma's lemons. I wish I could bottle that scent. More realistically, maybe I should just plant a tree!

Girly Frames

I've been meaning to post this project for a couple of weeks now. I made a series of framed art for Gemma's room. It was a spur of the moment thing and I was really pleased with it. It turned out even better than what I envisioned in my mind, which doesn't always happen.



I thought I would put up a little tutorial for this project, though I don't have pictures of any of the steps. As I said, it was a spur of the moment thing and I didn't even think about grabbing my camera. However I do have pictures of the individual frames so you can see the details better. I'll post my instructions in between them . Okay, here we go!

Supply List:

• 5 4x6 inch untreated wood picture frames. I always have these on hand. You can by them at Ikea and they're cheap, $1.99 for a three pack. I grab a few packages of these every time I'm there.
• craft paint in contrasting colors
• scrapbook paper
• paper dolls printed from here. I printed mine on regular paper.
• ribbons, flowers, various embellishments. I just used what I had on hand, but admittedly, I have a lot to choose from.
• scissors, glue stick, glue gun, paintbrush, foam stamps (if you have any)

Step One: Paint the frames, two of one color, and three of the other. Once they are dry, you can embellish them with paint in the contrasting color. It's best to keep your designs simple and repetitive. I used the end of a paintbrush dipped in paint to create the dots and a chunky foam stamp from a set I bought years ago. I think it was from Making Memories, but it's been so long that I'm not sure.

Step Two: While the paint is drying, cut out of the patterned paper five rectangles big enough to fit inside the frames. I purposely choose five papers that were complimentary to but not matching the dolls I planned to use so that the girls would stand out. Cut out the paper dolls and outfits you want to use. With the glue stick, glue the paper dolls to the center of the rectangles, and then glue the dresses on top of the girls.

Step Three: Now it's time to embellish the frames. Use a glue gun to adhere ribbon, flowers, and whatever else you want. Once again, simple and repetitive is best. I used a theme of flowers, butterflies, and skulls, so that even though they're not entirely matchy-matchy, it's obvious they belong together.

Step Four: Put the girls in their frames, hang them on a wall, and admire your artwork!