In Courage

A while ago I ran across this blog.  In Courage. I can’t tell you how much I have come to love the posts from these women. I have had more tears come, I have felt hope in God and his abilities to help is our adversities and insecurities and I’ve felt like my eyes have been opened up to other women’s struggles, heartaches and joys.  Take some time yourself to kick your feet back and listen to another’s story. Take hope to heart.

Loving These Tiny Pieces of Art

I have fallen in love with these tiny pieces of art and Kal Barteski's whole reason for doing them these last couple of days. They are fast, they are done on any found object she picks up, and she's doing it in those few creative moments you have when your a mother. She was nice enough to let me post some of them here, but you really have to go check them out at her tiny art site.
I just love the quick illustration feel they have, her use of colors, writing, lines... ok basically her whole style! She has 12 done as of right now but seems to be uploading one or two more a day. She's selling the origionals for $100 or you can get a reproduction for $30. I love this little duck... maybe it's just because I love yellow, but he's just got so much personality too. So thanks Kal for inspiring me lately.

Inspiring Day

Today was one of those inspiring days in so many ways. I had the chance to spend 2 hours in a conference listening to council from our General church leaders on raising families. I learned so much, and had a lot of those aha moments that hit me based on my own circumstances or trials I've been going through. Words of encouragement and things I need to do better at. It was wonderful. Pages and pages of notes of things I can't wait to share over time and start working on in my life.

The afternoon was spent just relaxing with each other. With Beau gone so much at night for meetings and all day Sunday... Saturdays are those rare wonderful days when he is home. Sometimes, as he says, we just want to sit around and hang out with each other. Enjoy the fact that everyone is home. The kids just love to sit there on dad's lap and cuddle with him during times like today.

We also went to the library where I picked up some books to hopefully help me on some of these art goals I shared. I'm excited about them. I always have to tell myself not to go over board. I sometimes pull everything off the shelf with intentions of learning from all of them, but I never have the time to go through that many books, and so I never really learn and glean the information that I need to. So I tried to hold myself back and pick up a couple of good ones that can help me start working on increasing my skills. So I've been dying to sit down to play and read!

Then tonight we had another church meeting for Stake Conference which happens every 6 months. It was great to actually be able to sit with Beau, rather than myself. It was inspiring and lots of great things were shared on how to become better disciples of Christ. I need this day. It gave me some direction and something to work on in the spiritual aspect of my life as well as with my family and art. I love days like this.