Faith

It's 4:30 am and I should be sleeping!
I want (!) to be sleeping! but allergies (runny nose) and a million things circling in my head have me awake, so it's better to just get on up and do something productive until I feel sleepy again.

Do you ever have those kind of nights?

One part of my brain is wondering if I got everything to Konda that she needed...
She's hosting the Fat Quarter Stars Quilt-Along at Moose on the Porch and I designed a block that goes on today.  It's called Friendly Winds.  It's over there, so that must have worked out OK!

Another part of my brain is wondering about the Cathedral Stars blocks I made.

I started this quilt back in March when Bonnie Hunter was gonna be at Pigeon Forge.  Jeff came home from Afghanistan (he's always disrupting my quilting plans! LOL), so I didn't get to go to Bonnie's class.  I'd mocked up the quilt in EQ in different colorways than Bonnie's:

It looks good on paper, but I'm not so sure about it on the design wall.

I'm up anyway, might as well try something else.

So I've made a block with yellow star points and one with blue -- closer to Bonnie's original:

I'm liking the blue the best.

Isn't it funny how things always look better on paper than they do in real life?

A budget.
A schedule.
A plan.

If there is anything I've learned this year it's that things don't always work out as we plan.  We'd planned Sam's senior year and college visits.  Things we  wanted to get accomplished before the winter set in.  I have no less than a dozen quilts I wanted to finish by year's end.  Not much of what we planned is gonna come about.  I wonder how this difficult year will end.

At our church over the last several weeks, we've been hearing a series of messages called "Champions" on Faith from Hebrews 11. (You can check them out here.)  Hebrews 11:1 tell us "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  Faith is resting in all Christ is and all Christ has done.  Faith is having confidence in what God has said.  Faith cultivates a life that is in agreement with God.  Faith lives in light of future anticipation....

That the best is yet to come.
That the present reality is not an indication of the future and what it holds for we who believe!!

One of my favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption.  Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, tell his friend, "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

At the end of the movie, Red, played by Morgan Freeman, says, "I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."

Proverbs -- always full of practical wisdom! -- tells us "There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD." (Proverbs 21:30)  There is so much to hope for, so much to believe!

I hope my quilt turns out as pretty as Bonnie's.
I hope I can get everything done today that needs to be done.
I hope I can go back to sleep!

Blessings,

Junk in the Trunk

We were driving through Lexington the other day and I saw an amazing and comical sight.  Now, understand that I'm a little old-fashioned, and my daughter is quick to inform me that fashionista! I am not!! LOL 

A young man was standing alongside the road, with pants slung so low they were about to fall off...hanging only by a, well... small protrusion up front!!

All I could think was, "That poor kid has no butt!!"

Granted, you'd think I'd have more to dwell on these days, what with school and quilts and working out and my Mary Kay business and what not...But today, as we are doing reverse curls in aerobics...

(And just by the way, WHO decided that lifting your rump off the floor was a good way to build abdominal muscles!?!  Don't they know it's made for sitting on!? Don't they know the force of gravity is stronger than our ability to rock the thing all the way off the floor multiple times when lying on our back!?!)

And I'm thinking, "At least I've got some butt to lift!"
You know that there are foundation garments out there (remember I was shopping for foundation garments a couple of weeks ago!) that actually build up a woman's posterier end?

But I've never, no never! seen such a product for a man.
Shouldn't he have a little something back there as well!?!  I mean, seriously! Wasn't Glutimus Maximus the name of Russell Crowe's character in The Gladiator!!?!!  He doesn't need a thing to improve the view!

I can remember some of the older generation talking about "Coal Miner Pants."  When I inquired, I learned it meant he had "slack" in his drawers.  No rear. No caboose.

Back in the olden days, when I was about 19 years old, I got down to 125 lbs -- skin and bone for this 5'6" girl.  My collar bones stuck out weirdly, my arms looked all twiggy, and I can remember my momma telling me I was too skinny and had no butt.  I soon got over the boy who made me sad and I retrieved my backside glory!!

My family has always been blessed with full posterior ends. Male and female -- no flat rears, no saggy britches, no pockets without something to fill them.  They've always told me I look good from the backside...but that might mean I look better going than coming.   Hmmmmm....

I'm pretty sure God has no preference for flat or rounds ones, since He made them all.  Proof positive, however, that He has a sense of humor, with all the variety in shapes and sizes.  I'm pretty sure, though, He wouldn't mind if the saggy britches were pulled up a bit.  I don't need to see the hook those pants are hanging on.  Just sayin'....

And He would have this to say, from Isaiah 52:12 (NIV):
"But you will not leave in haste
or go in flight;
for the LORD will go before you,
the God of Israel will be your rear guard."

:-D
Think I better get off my rear and get some work done.  Or maybe get ON my rear and get some quilting done.  That sampler isn't gonna quilt itself, now is it!?

Blessings,