There Is Nothing.......

As many of you know, this year has been trying for my Husband and I. He has been through several layoffs, jobs simply ending and all the frustrations that go with this.

We have had joy, anger, sorrow, peace, and any other emotion that you can think of! There were days of tears (me for sure) being ticked off, laughter and simply throwing up our hands in surrender.

A very precious soul sent this to me at a point when I was pretty low and I would like to share with you this quote from Alan Redpath........

"There is nothing - no circumstance, no trouble, no testing that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circustance will cause me to fret - for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is - that is the rest of victory."

Now, I am not there yet, I still get a bit panicky, and allow it at times to disarm me. But I CAN say that because of this 8 month trial that we have been in, that I am much quicker to "lift my eyes upon Him and ACCEPT it for a greater purpose and blessing in my life"

Has that been easy, no. Has it been fun, no. Has it brought me closer to my Savior, YES. Do I feel His presence in all of this, YES. Am I all that I should be, no. Am I allowing Him to push me in that direction, Yes.

Life, is, as I said earlier this week, un-predictable at best, but My Lord and Savior is as predictable in His love, grace, mercy and molding as ever. Thank You Lord for all that you work on in my life that leads me closer to you!

My Mom

My Mom....she is fiesty, giving, frustrating (she is very hard headed.....runs in the family!!) and loves her family with all her being.

Mom has been through alot over the past few years....she lost my Dad 20 years ago, lost her 95 year old Mother 2 1/2 years ago (my Grandma was amazing!) and just lost her younger sister 2 months ago. Not to mention loosing the biggest majority of her site to Macular Degeneration about 4 years ago. But she has remainded strong, and determined through it all. She lives on her own, humbly allows us to take her where she needs to go and helps out as much as she can with all family activities.

My Maa.....a very loving title, as that is what we all called my Great Grandmother, so Maa is a title that is an honor, taught me much, like cooking, be involved, and so many other things, but by far the most amazing thing she taught was.....EVERY child should be loved, not matter what!!! There were days at our home when I was very young, where there would easily be around 15 children sitting at our table for lunch. All the neighbor kids would congregate at our house during the summer for day long baseball games, even though our yard suffered because of it, and during the winters, all were sledding on our river bank!

I don't think I ever saw my Maa not loving a child. She took in any child and loved them, no matter how they treated her or other adults.

This has lead to our opening our home to others....loving as if they came from my own body and WE are the blessed for it!

As you can tell, I love my Maa. And am proud to be her daughter.

In the pictures above, are My Ma loving on our little Natertot.....how cute is he!!! And her very first ever Binget! My husband and I took her to Mardi Gras this year and she had a blast! We kept it very clean, as our son and daughter in law know the right places to be in the midst of the ick that can be.

God is good, all the time. He blesses us in ways that we may not know are blessings until after the fact, and My Maa showing such love to others, has been a blessing and caused blessings in many, many ways.....Thank You Lord!

Crafting.....

Today I simply want to share with you a couple of things that I have been working on for our Thanksgiving table decore.
Now, NONE of the pumpkins are original ideas of mine, the ideas came from other DIY blogs, and I liked the ideas, so I went home and got to work!

The first pumpkins (bottom picture) are simply styrofoam pumpkins that I dug out to make way for the tealight candles....applied modge podge and sprinkled with glitter....I purposfully brushed off some of the glitter (out in the yard, thank you) to allow the orange to show through.

The second pumpkins (second from bottom) are dacopaged (I really have no idea how to spell that word!!) with clearance paper napkins from Target (thank you dear daughter!)

The third set of pumpkins (second from top) are small styrofoam mini pumpkins that I rubbed with gold paint to bring out the golds luster....I like these the best of the 3 kinds I tried!

I am also adding the kind of paint (top picture) that I used to put the glow on the 4 pretty little pumpkins!

I had a great, relaxing time sitting at my table, creating, making a mess and seeing the results. It has been quite some time since I have actually done crafting. I am loving it in small doses, and my next project will be a chalk board for the dining room......hopefully up before the big dinner!!

I just want to start this blog with you knowing that I am not in PAIN, but this is a look inside the life of a woman who loves the Lord with all my heart, loves my husband and children so much I cannot even describe it, and am blessed beyond what I deserve.

So, In Payne is just a look inside the life of me.

It is fall where I live, the trees are turning, the wind is blowing and life is un-predictable at best. My husband has been going through job woes, but we believe him to have finally settled into a job of challenges, joy and stability. Wheew...that last one has been a while in the works!!!

I have settled into the challenge of finishing up tasks around the house, that are time consuming, but will be amazing when completed.

I am sooooooooooooo looking forward to Thanksgiving, having family in, cooking, decorating, laughing....all these are a few of my favorite things!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I will end this post, a random act of thoughts, with this......life is good, God is amazing, and I am content.