The Eclectic Blogger

Lunch With Friends

2011-03-11T21:29:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with my mother, daughter, and three friends, two actually because one had to leave before we ate, at Jester's on Castle Street. I love that place! They have the best food, and it is good for you. The desserts aren't so good for you, but they are wonderful, especially the brownie, which I passed on this time. Major miracle! The guy comes in and goes over all the desserts that they have, and it's the highlight of the lunch, lol. We had him take some pictures of us before we left, from left to right we have Beth, my mother, me, Lorie, and Cynthia in front.

I have absolutely no idea what we were looking at here, but it must have been good! We had such a good time that day; times like this make life wonderful.
Blessings,
Janis

Catching Up

2011-03-11T21:05:00.002-05:00

   I have been very had about posting, and I have pictures from as far back as Christmas that I haven't put on here, so here goes.
   First, I didn't do much stamping this year, but I did manage to make a few cards. Not that I sent any! I came down with something a few weeks before Christmas, so I didn't get much done this year.
   This is something that I started Christmas before last, and finally finished the next Christmas. I covered a piece of cardboard with foil and ran it through the Big Kick with an embossing folder. It worked really, really well. My glue pen wouldn't work so I had a time putting glitter on the snowflakes. I love the Martha Stewart icicle punch that I used at the bottom. Be sure to click on each picture to enlarge it.

I used a bag that I have been saving for a long time for the heart on this one.

I love the Martha Stewart gingerbread boy punch that I used here.

The first tag was made with a piece of corrugated cardboard. Pulling off some of the covering and exposing some of the inside is very popular now. It makes a nice tag. I wish I had some of Tanmy's to put on here. Hers were great! You can't really see the next tag because of the glare, but it was a Tim Holtz style plaid made with alcohol inks, I think. The last three were done with the Stampin' Up! ornament punch, which I call
"the turnip", LOL. The snowflakes came from the SU! snowflake die. Love that thing!

And lastly, this is our tree from 2010. I don't think I have ever seen gifts arranged more artistically. Beth did it, of course, and she did a great job.

I thought the washer and dryer in the background were a nice touch! Very festive!
Well, that's it for Christmas. Next blog will have pictures from lunch at Jester's with friends.
Blessings,
Janis

Another Lightbulb Moment

2010-10-07T08:41:00.000-04:00

I just realized that, even though I understood that I am connected to God with a connection that cannot be broken, I still let my unworthiness get between me and the Lord. Whenever I talk to Him, I still have this feeling of something between us; something hindering. I have always been taught that my sin separates me from Him, and that I have to constantly confess my sins to be able to "stay in fellowship" with Him. But the light just went on: I am forgiven, my sins, past, present, and future, were taken away at the cross, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing between us! There can never be anything between us! It isn't possible. Reality is that I am loved, sacrificed for, forgiven, cleansed, and created anew, and Jesus's spirit is one with my spirit. If I feel that there is anything between us, it is my imagination, fueled by Satan's lies. Thank you Jesus!

Let's Talk Books!

2010-10-05T22:48:00.001-04:00

   This is book week for one of my favorite bloggers, dottie angel, and she is talking about a book a day. I thought that sounded like fun, so I am going to talk about a category of books each day the rest of this week. My first category is the Love Inspired Christian romance novels. How I love these books! I get really mad at some of them because the authors make the characters do the stupidest things, but I still love these books. My favorite author in this genre is Jillian Hart. She has the most wonderful way with words, and her books are the most romantic of all. I just read one by her that was so very, very good, that I am going to keep it so I can read it over and over. It was His Holiday Bride, I think. I left it in SC, so I am going on memory here, and the memory isn't good these days! I read another of these books when I was in Ohio several years ago, Rainbow's End, which you can find just about anywhere these days. This book is everywhere! Just go in a thrift shop or Goodwill and you will find this book. It is so good! It is about a woman who lives a reclusive life on an island because her face is badly scarred. It involves a handsome stranger and a child who needs a home, how could it not be good?
   Then there are the Love Inspired series. There is one about the Hamilton Family, I think it is called the Hamilton Family Saga, and the Tiny Blessings series about an adoption agency. There is another series about a pararescue group in the army, and all of these are great! You can find these paperbacks in libraries, thrift shops, used book shops, flea markets, and yard sales.
   Oh, and they have a Love Inspired Suspense line also. They come out with 4 new books a month, and you can get them cheaper at Wal-Mart, but you have to be patient because they don't appear in the store at the first of the month. Sometimes it is late in the month before you find them. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that if you like romance novels and you are a Christian, you will love these books.
   I would love to hear from you as to what you like to read and your favorite book. Tomorrow I will talk about some Christian nonfiction that has meant a lot to me.
Blessings,
Janis

Good Food, Good Fun, Good Friends

2010-10-01T19:13:00.004-04:00

Before I left town in August, we met for breakfast one Sunday morning at Jim & Cynthia's. The conversation was great, as was the food. So many times Jesus met with people over food, and I love it when we do too. So here are some pictures that I took, or maybe Jim took them, I'm not sure now.

We should do this again, but do potluck so Cynthia won't have to do all the work. Of course, some people did bring something to share, but I forgot to bring what I had planned. No big surprise there! I haven't remembered anything 5 minutes for the last couple of months, but I think I am getting better. I was beginning to think I was coming down with Alzheimers (sp?) I really, really miss getting together with you guys on Sundays. I am so glad that we have some free believer friends here in SC.
Blessings,
Janis
PS. Obviously, Jim took these pictures!LOL

My Class with the Queen of Stamping: Wendy Vecchi

2010-10-01T18:51:00.000-04:00

When Andy first started working at the Savannah River site in SC last July, I found out that Wendy Vecchi was going to do a class August of this year at the stamp shop in West Columbia. I waited for over a year for this class, and it was wonderful! I feel so fortunate to be able to take a class with someone as big in the stamping world as Wendy Vecchi. Now if I could just get to a Tim Holtz class!

And here is the finished project. This is actually a lot brighter than it really is, but I have spent at least an hour trying to get it right and I JUST CAN'T!!!!

I haven't been able to publish this post either. The first two went on beautifully, but I have had nothing but problems with this one. Hopefully I will get it on here tonight. Needless to say, there is gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair!
Blessings,
Janis

Our New Camper

2010-10-01T14:36:00.003-04:00

Going from a 24 foot camper to a 33 footer with slide-outs is incredible! It is like being in a small apartment, and I am so thankful for it. It has a decent-sized bathroom on one end, and a bedroom on the other, with the kitchen all along one wall in the living area. This is the best camper I have ever seen, with the exception of the fifth wheel I saw in Michigan years ago. It had a washer and dryer combination in it. I think I like this camper better, though. I'm wondering if we could put a small shelter out back with a washer/dryer stack in it!

We had turned the sofa around to face the TV in this picture, but we have turned it back around so that it is against the window. We bought a small recliner to put next to it. It doesn't look great in here, but it is fine, and we had to have more seating. I love the table and chairs; it is so much nicer than a booth.

Look! Counter space! Whoo-hoo!

I love the rug.

I bought a few new dishes because what I had would definitely not go with this decor. Can you believe I am living with all this brown? I would never have bought any dishes like this ordinarily, but I am actually enjoying them. You can't get a really good idea of how they look from this picture, but I adjusted the color as best I could. They are more gold, with a browner burgundy than the picture shows.

With all this brown, fall colors fit right in , but decorating for spring might present a challenge. I have decided that gold will do nicely for Christmas.

This is the shelf in the bedroom. What a blessing it is! I tried to avoid taking a picture of the overflowing hampers underneath, but couldn't quite miss it. And we definitely need to update the picture in the frame at the left; that child is 8 years old now!

Next up: the pictures of my class with Wendy Vecchi.
Blessings,
Janis

A Budding Artist

2010-10-01T14:12:00.004-04:00

My granddaughter Cara, who just turned 8 in June, took a photography art class a few weeks ago, and at the end of the week they had a presentation for the families of the students. There were 4 girls in the class, and their work was impressive. The class was at Airlie, and they took pictures and then used various techniques to enhance the picture and make art of them. When I saw this first picture, I got excited about learning how to do this technique, but it turns out that no one knows how she took this picture. It was blurry, and then she outlined the various parts of the picture with a black pen. It looks like something an adult artist did, to me.

I have figured out how to do this without taking a picture. I think I can just create a picture using pastels, and then add the outlining. Maybe I will actually get around to trying that one day!
The rest of the pictures use various techniques, such as adding bits of paper to create texture. I can't remember all the techniques that they used now. I love them all!

In this next picture, the one with all the white in the center was really interesting. It was a picture of a lot of feather that had apparently been left by some swans. Click on the picture to see it better. The "eye" picture is of Cara's eyes, with a lot of bling added.

This is a picture of an angel statue, I think. She added some gold outlining, and maybe some color. I wish I could remember all this now. I am so proud of her!

Not to leave out Amelia, these are some pictures of her at her new dance class.

What a doll!

The next post will have pictures of our new camper, and the next one will be from the class I took at the end of August with a "stamping master".

Blessings,

Janis

Thoughts on Network Marketing

2010-08-19T01:04:00.004-04:00

Can I rant?
   I think it is a shame that so many people think that there is something wrong with a person having their own business. It seems that because there are some manipulative people in the network marketing world, everyone has been tarred with the same brush, and we are made to feel that we should be ashamed for trying to sell something to somebody. I heard someone say today that entrepreneurs should be very proud of what they do, because they are the backbone of the economy. They create wealth, help people with their products and services, and help people to have a better life. I am very, very proud of the products that I sell, in fact, I love them! And I am extremely proud of the business that I am in, Market America, because I have never seen a business like this one before, that delivers on the promise of residual income and does it in such a big way, and I have been in 3 other network marketing businesses.. Why is it that people don't mind Wal-Mart or Penney's trying to sell them something, but resent it when an individual tries to share something with them? I think it is really sad. There are a lot of good products out there that are green, healthful, good for people and the environment, and that will save you money, but they get no notice because they are not in a store.
Shop and get cash back:
   Having said that, I would like to tell you a little about a great program that can put money back in your pocket. Whenever you need to buy something, even everyday products like tissue or dental floss, if you go through my web portal to shop at our thousands of partner stores and sign up as a Preferred Customer, you can get anywhere from 2% to 35% cash back. If you refer other people, and they sign up also and shop, you will get 1/2% of everything they buy forever! If you refer multiple people, that can add up. We regularly offer one or two of our Market America products with increased cash back, usually 20%. It can save time, energy, and gas, and you can save money on a lot of items. I order everyday stuff once a month from Walgreen's and get free shipping because I order $25 or more of things that I ordinarily go to the store to get, such as hand soap, tissue, etc., and they deliver it to my door for free. I don't have to do anything but place an order online. I love it! When I need something, I search for it on my portal and it gives me a comparison of all sources of that product with the prices. It is a great way to shop, and they give me money back. And by the way, if you have a website or blog, if you put a widget on it for the cashback program, you will get the half percent on everything that people who click on it buy. I would like to encourage everyone to watch a short video about this program on my web portal. I wish I could link it here, but I haven't been able to make the link work, so go to MATV and click on the video titled Growing Your Business With Paid To Shop and Paid Online. It can be money in your pocket.
Stamping Tip:
   I did something really cool with the sponge pads that go on my inking tool (Tim Holtz). I put small velcro dots on a piece of printer paper, but cardstock would probably have been better, and I stuck the sponges on and put labels under them with the color names. All I have to do is pull off the sponge, use it, and stick it back. Couldn't be easier!
Book Giveaway:
   I am giving away a copy of Andrew Farley's book, The Naked Gospel, and all you have to do to be in the running for this book is leave a comment on this post about whether or not you believe that God gets disappointed in us. I have been in several discussions about this lately, and I will give you my thoughts on it in the post where I announce the winner, which will be randomly selected. I will take comments through Sunday and announce the winner on Monday. This is one of the best books I have ever read, and it is so full of wonderful truth about God. It is a great help in getting to know the one, true, real God. Please give me your thoughts on this, I can't wait to see what everyone thinks.

Blessings,

Janis

Final Post of the Day!

2010-06-25T17:44:00.000-04:00

Phew! This is my fourth and last post for the day, and it has taken me all afternoon to get all these pictures on. I wanted to put these last few on here; they are of my free believers group that I meet with on Sunday. Some are from our meeting at Hugh McCrae Park a few weeks ago, and some are from a get-together at the Bluewater Grill for Phillip's birthday.
But first, a couple of pictures that I think I took Mother's Day,

Gosh, I love my family!

Jim & Cynthia, Phillip and a friend (I can't remember names!).

Ooookaaaay, I'm going to put this on here, but I'm not happy about it!

A "gathering" at the park when it wasn't so hot. I joked that I didn't like to call it a gathering because it sounded like a horror movie. The GATHERING!

Yay! All the pictures are on here, all the posts are done.Coke float, here I come!
Blessings,
Janis

Anniversary Party

2010-06-25T16:55:00.002-04:00

Beth, Mom and I went to my cousins' (Shirley & Glenn Goodson) 60th anniversary party a week or so ago. In my last post I was with my mother's family; this is my father's family. I have not seen them in a long time, so it was great seeing everyone. As usual I just snapped away and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to posing anyone. I know, I have to stop doing that! Without further ado, here are the pics:
This first one is Shirley's sister Katharine, my mother (so pretty!), and Beth.

Left to right: Katharine's daughter Lisa, her husband Tim, and Glenn.The food was wonderful, especially the cheese spread that Trish, Glenn and Shirley's daughter-in-law, made. Of course it was, it involved cream cheese and a half cup of butter!

Shirley and Glenn on the right:

See what wonderful pictures I take?

Trish and Kathy. Wish I knew what they were saying, it must have been funny!

I really like this last picture. Didn't everything look nice? It was a great party and I really enjoyed seeing everyone. Hopefully we will see them sooner in the future. By the way, the cake looked really good (sigh).
Blessings,
Janis

My Aunt's 95th Birthday Party

2010-06-25T15:06:00.000-04:00

My Aunt's birthday is June 5th, and the family gathered in Fanning Springs, Fl., near the Suwanee River, to celebrate. The last time we did this was 5 years ago, so I haven't seen some of these people in 5 years. We had lunch at the nursing home, provided by Mike and Marcie (sp?) and Herbie and Nancy. Mike is Grace's son. It was a great lunch, especially the watermelon. The cake looked really good (sigh!). I didn't pose any pictures, I just snap away and hope something turns out, but I am going to try to do better in the future. People are going to kill me if I keep doing this!
This is Andy (ain't he handsome!) with my cousins David (l) and Mike (r).

Aunt Grace with Marcie (l) and Aunt Frances (r), Frances's daughter Diane is in the background.

From left to right: Herbie, looks like Lorraine next to him, my mother, Nancy, Diane, Marcie, and looks like Pam behind her. All eating cake! Darn it!

Aunt Grace is such a sweetie! I have the best family in the whole world. I am so blessed with these people! My Uncle Harry couldn't come (bummer) because he was preparing to move to Wilmington (Yay!).

My mother, cousin Pam, and daughter Beth at the restaurant Saturday night.

Nancy (great top!) and Lorraine, finally from the front and not the back of her head.

Andy and Herbie, whose name, believe it or not, is George Herbert Walker, Jr.. We're still scratching our heads over that one!

Next are pictures of the house we rented while we were there. I have to tell you that the trip down was awful; I looked at the map and picked the wrong route, let me tell you! It was long and miserable, and I left my pocketbook in a Hardee's in Chiefland, Fl., about an hour from where we were going. Fortunately my cousin was coming right through there the next day. What a break!

It was a really nice house, and we picked this one because it had a pool table. What we didn't know was that they had put it in the breezeway with, you guessed it, no air conditioning! Needless to say, we didn't shoot any pool. I loved the tin man in front of the door. Hopefully you can click on the picture and see it better.

We went over to 95 and then back over to Jackson to go home, and saved at least an hour and a half on the trip. That's how we should have gone in the first place! It was a really nice weekend, though, I just wish it could have lasted longer. Of course, there was the little glitch with the rain filling the septic tank and the toilets not flushing and one of them leaking. Oh well! It WAS a nice house.
Blessings,
Janis

New Samples

2010-06-25T13:09:00.001-04:00

I finally got around to downloading pictures, and I am going to break this up into 2 or 3 posts, because I have a lot of pictures! In this post I am showing my new samples, not many to look at, but I finally got into my studio yesterday and did something after a long hiatus. It was quite a relief to do something creative for a change. Beth wanted some clothespins to put on her refrigerator so I worked on that. I made 3, and I'm not too crazy about the one with the heart. I should have done more with the clothespin, but, oh well. Too late now. Be sure to click on the pictures to get a much better look.

Here are the first clothespins I did, along with some tags that I did last year. Oh, the one with the red and black was done by Tammy several years ago for Valentine's.

That's all for the samples.You can see what I did with all my SU! boxes; now I can see what each set is without getting up close. It's a wonderful thing!
Blessings,
Janis

What God has done for us.

2010-05-20T12:29:00.002-04:00

I want to share with everyone what God has been doing in my life, and the truth that He has been showing me. I have been reading a book by Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel, that is the clearest, simplest presentation of truth that I think I have ever seen. God had been showing me the truths in this book for a long time, and He has used it to nail everything down.
On Tuesday of last week I saw a commercial for Oprah, and I knew that I had to see that program. I forgot about it and missed almost the whole show, but I did get to see the last 15 minutes, and as soon as it was over I called Barnes & Noble and reserved the book that they had discussed on the show. It was Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth, and I could see that I really, really needed this book. I finished reading Farley's book on Friday, and Saturday I got the Roth book. At the end of The Naked Gospel he says to just be yourself, and I wondered, who in the world is that? When I began reading Women, Food, and God He began showing me who I am. It took at least one-and-a-half hours to get through the Prologue and first 2 pages of the first chapter, because I was constantly stopping, thinking, talking to God, and writing, and I want to share the insights that God gave me.
Over the last few weeks, God has been nailing down the truth that the old man is dead and the new man, created perfect by God, is who I am now. As I read I realized that when we are born a bar is set for us by our parents, then teachers, and then the church. That bar is expectations, perfection, etc., and we spend our lives jumping, trying to reach that bar. Most of the pain I had experienced over the years, and there was a lot of pain, was from killing myself trying to reach that bar. Then I saw that it was like a dog in front of a refrigerator, and on top of that refrigerator is something that he desperately wants. So he jumps, and jumps, and jumps, and jumps, and will go on jumping for a long time to get it, but he can jump forever and never, ever reach it because it is impossinble for his little legs to propel him that far. He will never reach it, but he keeps jumping. Then I saw God reach out and take that thing off the refrigerator, come to me with it, and say,"Sit down. Rest. Stop jumping. I already did it for you. Here, take it, rest in what I have done. I made you whole, perfect. I did away with the bar. Quit jumping." What a wonderful, beautiful God we have! He does it all, and He wants us to rest in Him, not kill ourselves trying to do what He has already done. So now I can look you in the eye and say something that to most people is quite heretical: I am not broken. I am perfect. Walking in the Spirit is walking in truth, and this is the truth that I intend to walk in, leaving behind the guilt and shame of never being good enough, being broken and never able to fix myself. Give it up, people, God has already done it!
Blessings,
Janis
PS: If you read these books, please read The Naked Gospel first. Roth does not seem to be a Christian, and the truth in the Farley book is foundational to what she has to say.

My Suze Weinberg Wannabe Post

2010-05-07T22:46:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite blogs is Suze Weinberg's. She is an artist who lives in New Jersey, and she leads one of the most interesting lives I have ever seen. She is always going out with friends, riding with her motorcycle friends, going into New York City for shows, etc., and she takes tons of pictures. I would love to share everything with others the way she does, so I have started taking my camera with me everywhere. Sometimes I actually remember that I have it and take pictures! I ate lunch with Jim and Cynthia Stephens the last Sunday that I was in town, and I took a picture of them to make up for the day that I wanted to take a picture of everyone and the darn camera wouldn't work. (So who knew that the diagram for the batteries meant that the batteries should go in upside down from what it said? Stupid camera!) Anyway, here's their picture. I love these people!

Last weekend was the big Morris fishin' weekend. The men went somewhere near Brunswick, Ga. to fish, and the women had a big award dinner. It was the GOLL awards: Girls of Linnie's Legacy. Linnie Morris was my mother-in-law, and she had 7 children, 3 boys and 4 girls. Each woman and child received an award, and I wish we had a video of this because it was great fun, and really funny. I won't go through all the awards, but I received the "Married to a Morris the Longest" award, Beth's was a Spirit award, and Daphene's was "Best Use of Facebook". We dressed up in prom dresses, formals, and extra fancy dresses, did our makeup for hours, painted nails, did hair, etc., etc .. It reminded me of a commercial that was on years ago: a dog was making a sandwich and he had lettuce, tomatoes, bread, meat, and a lot of other stuff flying up in the air he was going at it so hard. I expected to see lipstick, powder, brushes, nail polish, etc. go flying any time. But we finally got all put together and went over to my sister-in-law, Janice's house for pictures, then on to the country club in Alma for the dinner. Ok, side note here: When I married Andy, we couldn't wait for Janice to get married so there would be some way to distinguish the two of us. Wouldn't you know, she married a Morris. So I am Janis Morris, and she is Janice Morris Morris.
Without further ado, here are the pictures of the GOLL Awards Dinner. I'm starting with the preparations that afternoon (before pictures). This is my sister-in-law Sue and her daughter Cathy.

Our newest member of the family, Tammy, who received her official Morris adoption papers at the dinner, is working with Sue's granddaughter Sammie, while Beth is looking on.

Remember Sue? This is the after. Ain't she purty? Love the earrings!

My beautiful daughter Beth and daughter-in-law Daphene. Beth has had this dress for years; it still had the tag on it, and she was thrilled to finally get to wear it. We had to show their gorgeous gams, as Andy would say.

Hey, that's worth a second look!

You know,when I look in the mirror, this old woman is NOT what I see! From looking at all these pictures, I think it is evident that I need to learn a whole lot more about makeup. Market America has a line of cosmetics called Motives, and they have just come out with a set of DVD's on applying makeup. That is a set of DVD's that I have to have! If I improve, I will post an after pic. Pray for me!

The eye makeup was pretty nice, but you can't see it in the picture. I even had silver glitter on my eyelids. There is a funny story about that ...I'll save that for another day.
Now we are at the dinner. Other people got much better pictures than these; as you know, I am a dismal photographer! I won't comment on the pictures except to say, look for the children as they choo-choo around the room in perfect stair-step order.

Well, I will comment on this one. The two girls on the left are my grandnieces Sarah and Ashleigh (sorry if I spelled your names wrong, girls!) These dresses were spectacular!
Remember the choo-choo?

Now the next two are a riot! Someone said to look at Amelia posing, and I turned around and saw Cara taking a picture of her. I couldn't get my camera fast enough! These are my two wonderful, amazing, never-a-dull-moment grandkids:

I think I'll call this "Miss May".

What beautiful grandnieces and grandkids! (Ok, so I said I wouldn't comment. So sue me!)

This one includes the token male!

Janice presided over the festivities. They played a song that was appropriate for each recipient, and Janice gave a speech about each one. It was so funny! I wish I could remember everything. Sue got the Fashionista award, and when Janice said that the award was going to someone with 35 pairs of slacks, I knew it was Sue. I was staying at her house, and I had just thought to myself the day before:"She has the most clothes of anyone I ever saw!" She has a whole room for a closet, and clothes in every other closet and the laundry room. What fun!

Aren't the grands grand?

This is the next day, with yesterday's hair and makeup. It is pretty strange to see someone with messy hair, casual clothes, day-old makeup, and glitter on her eyelids!

The men have returned from the big fishin' weekend! Too bad I don't have pictures of all of them.

Well, that wraps it up. When I got back to SC, I spent 2 days on the couch, but it was worth it. I had the best time! The Morris women are a wonderful bunch, and so much fun to be around. Can't wait to see what we do next year!

Oh, and on Sunday, Amelia threw the cat in the pool. What a riot!

Blessings,
Janis

Very Random Post

2010-04-23T12:43:00.001-04:00

Well, things have been pretty crazy lately, what with going to SC and back, a tooth extraction, and everything I try to do on the computer going absolutely haywire. I wanted to put some pictures on here a few weeks ago of my grandkids washing my car, but I never achieved that, so here they are:

Unfortunately, 15 minutes after they washed the car (with Brian's help!), it was golden again. The driveway is right under an oak tree. Oh well, it was clean for one brief, shining moment.
We went out to eat last Saturday with our friends in Graniteville, SC, Richard and Susan Showalter. We went back to their house and played Mad Gab, and laughed our heads off. What a fun game! I took some not very good pictures of them and their daughter, who is staying with them while her husband is in Afghanistan.

See, really bad photography! But Richard and Susan look great!

Oh, oh! I see someone really hamming it up!

I was going to stay until next Monday and then come home for a dentist appointment on Tuesday, but I had to come home Wednesday so I could have a tooth removed on Thursday. I may have another one pulled on Tuesday. Really looking forward to that! Not! Then I will be going back to SC on Wednesday so we can go to Hazlehurst Thursday night for the big fishing weekend. I have never been able to go to this, so I am looking forward to it. Not that I will be fishing! The men do that somewhere near Brunswick, Ga, while the women usually have a scavenger hunt, but this year we are going to have a GOLL awards dinner at a country club. I can't imagine what in the world I am going to wear; they are really dressing up for this. I will be blogging about the dinner afterward, hopefully with good pictures. Considering how crazy the scavenger hunt is, I can't imagine what the dinner will be like!

My friend Tammy has moved into an apartment with her husband in Chapel Hill. He has been released from the hospital, and they will have to stay there while he recovers from his bone marrow transplant. Please, pray for them. He was doing good the last I heard. Pray that he does not reject the transplant. Tammy and Orville, we love you and are praying!

Blessings,

Janis

Venting

2010-04-08T16:46:00.001-04:00

   I saw a clip last night from a movie or TV show that Vanessa Williams is making, and she was fighting with another woman. I thought to myself that we are going to see people acting up worse and worse because of all the sleazy behavior and brawling that is shown on TV and in the movies. And then today I saw a blog post (Kayla Aimee) about an incident in a post office:
"Rude Lady told the postmistress that her mailbox key wasn't working and she needed the mail from box 28. The postmistress brings it to her. Rude Lady says "You had better fix my key now." To which the postmistress politely asks her if she has another key they can try. Rude Lady responded by THROWING HER MAIL AT THE POSTMISTRESS." Then they discovered that she was trying to get into the WRONG BOX! I think we are going to see more and more of this kind of behavior because it is on TV all the time. Books, movies and TV used to protray the finest and best, now it's the sleaziest and worst.
   Another peeve: I am sick and tired of the way people in the entertainment media inundate us with sex, sex, sex, and then they criticize men like Tiger and Jessie unmercifully because they reacted the way you would expect someone to react who sees this stuff all the time. If they want people to behave, then stop pushing the sex on them.
   Hmmm, I need to forget this stuff and go stamp something!
Blessings,
Janis

2010-04-05T19:46:00.004-04:00

   What a great day! My stamping buddy, Tammy, and her friend Vicky came over and played this afternoon. I was working on lunch bags because The Stamper's Sampler has a bag challenge that is due by May 15th. I had made a couple back in January, but I used them for gifts, so I had to make some more. Tammy and
Vicky stayed up until three one night last week making shaving cream backgrounds. You never saw so many backgrounds in your life! So today they punched a lot of hearts, birds, etc. out of them. I made three bags and Tammy made one, because I throw them together and she is more careful, and hers look better too, of course! I took a picture of hers, but I will have to put mine on here later. I also took a picture of the two of them.
   Please pray for Tammy's husband, Orville, who had a bone marrow transplant last week. He is in the hospital at Chapel Hill, and Tammy is traveling back and forth to see him. When he gets out of the hospital, they will be living in an apartment for awhile while he recovers. He will have to stay there all the time and be very careful not to pick up any bugs or viruses. He is doing really well, and hopefully will be out of the hospital soon.
   So here are Tammy and Vicky (Tammy is standing):

We won't talk about how messy this room is; it does have a lot in it!

I just love this bag! Wish I could show the details; I still have it here so maybe I can get a picture that shows the buttons. She stacked the buttons and tied them together. It looks fabulous!

I will try to get my bags on here later tonight. I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday (Easter) . We met with our "church" group in the gazebo at the park, and then had dinner at my mother's. Three of our group were going to eat out, so we invited them to eat with us. We had so much fun! The grands were so pretty, and had a great time hunting eggs, eating candy, and playing with all the stuff their Aunt Beth got them at the dollar store. We had gotten their dresses Saturday at Belks, and it took four of us to do it! I said, 'How many people does it take to buy an Easter dress?" At one point I was chasing Amelia around the dressing room trying to tie her sash. She must have tried on 10 dresses. We picked out a coral one, and then realized that that was not going to look good in pictures with Cara's hot pink dress, so it was back to the drawing board. But it was fun!

Blessings,

Janis

Envelope Samples

2010-04-02T19:22:00.001-04:00

   Ok, I am making another attempt to put a post on. Hopefully this will not take several HOURS like the last post. ARGHHHHH! I have signed up for an online tutorial on blogging that I hope will teach me all the things I need to know to do a decent looking blog. It doesn't start until the middle of April; I can't wait!
    I made these envelopes a couple of weeks ago. I also made some altered envelopes using some that came with bills. The first 3 I made, and the last 2 are altered. I am enjoying using the altered ones for coupons and deposits.
   I cropped this and it is crooked. Don't know how to fix that!

The altered envelopes look kind of crummy, but they were meant to look this way, believe it or not. I distressed a piece of printer paper with the new distress ink colors, stuck them to the envelope, and stamped them. I crushed the paper before distressing to give it the veins. The stamps are from one of my favorite Stampin' Up! sets, Watercolor Garden. I have a lot of ideas for my new bird punch from SU! and paper bags, and I am planning to work on that next week, so stay tuned!
Blessings,
Janis

Easter Samples

2010-04-02T18:00:00.039-04:00

I made some little boxes for the kids, Beth and Daphene and my mother, and put a Cadbury Creme Egg in each one, and finally found my camera and took pictures of them today. They were more work than I thought they would be, but they turned out to be pretty cute. My mother loves Jordan Almonds so I made her a basket for those.

These are some hearts that I did recently.

I wanted to put some envelopes on also, but it has taken me hours to get this far. Everything I tried to do went wrong, so I'm quitting while I'm ahead. I also have some pictures of Cara and Amelia (my granddaughters) washing my car. Hopefully I will get them on tonight. Have a great holiday!

Blessings,

Janis

My Food Adventure: The Beginning

2010-03-24T15:35:00.000-04:00

I have been meaning to put these old blog posts on here, and today is the day that I am finally getting around to it. These are from over a year ago, when I first realized that I had to make some BIG changes.

My Food Adventure

OK. So the doctor wants to put me on insulin, and I don't want to do it, of course. So I am going to change the way I eat drastically, and that means I have to learn a whole new way of cooking. Just as this happened, I found out I could get 15 channels added to the basic cable service that we have for about $21 a month more. I wanted DIY and HGTV, and they were included in the package. But then I found out that the shows I wanted to see were no longer on these networks. As my granddaughter would say, Bummer! But God was in all this because now I was getting the Food Network. I discovered Rachael Ray and Paula Dean, and a few others. Now I could see people actually cooking, and I have learned so much. It is hard for me to try something new without seeing someone do it. Rachael Ray is my hero now, and I went out and bought a pepper mill, cutting board, fancy oil dispenser, and sharp knife. I finally got around to trying one of her recipes tonight, and what an adventure that was! First, even though I had spent a week trying to get the ingredients for the Black Bean Stoup together, (yes, it is "stoup"), I discovered that I still didn't have everything. But I improvised so it was still a go. I heated the pan on medium high heat as the recipe said, knowing that wasn't a good idea because my pots are different from hers, and when I threw in the garlic, it burned to a crisp immediately. So I had to dump it out and start over. That meant I didn't have enough garlic because my garlic bulb was going bad, so I made do with what I had left that was usable, put the pot on a different burner and started over. I noticed as I was chopping the vegetables that the ones in the pot weren't cooking, so I kept turning the burner up. As I was chopping the onions, the knife slipped and sliced my finger. I knew that was going to happen when I bought it! I ran in the bedroom and put a band aid on real tight, and started chopping vegetables again, but they still weren't cooking. I couldn't figure it out, and then I realized that I had turned on the wrong burner. So I finally got things going, but I had thrown in the bell pepper and it wasn't supposed to go in until the other veggies had cooked some first, so I started fishing them out. I finally got everything in it and cooking, and it was delicious, but I had a mess all over the stove and counter. I came in later to clean up and put the leftovers up, and dropped one of the containers when I was putting it in the refrigerator. Now I had a mess all over the floor too. Rachael Ray I ain't!


The Food Adventure, Day 2

I should have mentioned last night that when I bought the cutting board, etc., I saw some gloves that are reinforced with steel but I decided to buy them later. Wrong! I am really kicking myself for not getting them; I wouldn't have a cut finger now.
The "stoup" was really delicious today; even better than last night. I think I will try Paula Dean's Broccoli Casserole next, and throw some chicken in it.


My Food Adventure: Part 2

So I finally got together the ingredients for my next adventure with cooking, thanks to my daughter who ran all over Wal-Mart, God bless her, to get my groceries. I made Chick Pea/Fire Roasted Tomato Soup by Rachael Ray, and I didn't think I could top my last attempt to cook one of her recipes, but I did, unfortunately. First, it took me a long time to print out the recipe, which I think I had already printed out, but I didn't know where I put it. Then I couldn't find the manual for the food processor, so I finally figured out how to put it together. Everything was going okay, even though the garlic was browning a little too fast, until it was time to put the chicken stock in. I had the stock that comes in a carton, and I had frozen it. I had put it in some hot water and then the microwave, but when I needed to put it in, it was still frozen. So I microwaved it some more while I ran to the laundry room to turn the dryer on to air because I didn't have time to get my clothes out. When I came back to the kitchen, the microwave made a loud noise and it looked like lightening going off in it. I quickly took out the carton, opened it with a knife, which slipped and cut the edge of the counter, got the stock out, cut the top of the carton off and discovered that it was lined with foil. I put the stock in a bowl and put it back in the microwave, but it started making a noise again, and when I opened it, I discovered that something that looked like a cardboard label on the side was smoking. Obviously, I have ruined the microwave. I finally got everything in the pot and cooking, and it was good although weird because of the strange spices I used (Turmeric and Cardamom). In my last food adventure I made a mess; this time I ruined the counter and the microwave. Obviously I should not be in the kitchen at all, but since God hasn't dropped a fortune on me so I can hire a cook, I must persevere and soldier on. Next week I am going to try Chicken Provencale Stoup. Pray for me and my kitchen.

MY Food Adventure, continued

I forgot to mention in my last post: I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE!

New samples at last!

2010-03-10T11:42:00.002-05:00

Well, just one new sample and one in progress. Two weeks ago when my stamp group got together I started a card, and I just now finished it. Big sigh! Obviously, I won't be invited to be on anyone's design team anytime soon. Those girls turn out a card in an hour or two! We also finally found some marbles and were able to do some rolling marble backgrounds. After I did a few, I mopped up the ink in the bottom of the container with a piece of cardstock, and I punched a butterfly out of that and covered it with my favorite Stickles: Stardust. I think it will be a nice card; hopefully I will finish it a little sooner than the last one!
Actually, I think I really hate this first card! If you are looking at my blog for the first time, please scroll down to see some other samples. They are much better!

There are some problems with this card, but I am not going to worry about it. It is what it is! The picture really stinks! I used the new distress inks: bundled sage, spun sugar, and victorian velvet. I love these new colors!

I think this is a pretty cool background. The butterfly is just lying there; it isn't stuck down yet. Who knows, I might not even use it.
Well, that's it for today. Maybe I will get some more stamping done this afternoon, after my hair appointment.
Blessings,
Janis

What a week!

2010-03-08T01:01:00.000-05:00

My daughter Beth drug me to Avatar, the 3D version, and it was a good movie, but very violent. It was visually beautiful, and I am glad that I saw it before the Academy Awards. I can't believe they gave the Oscar to a stupid war movie, but in a way Avatar was a war movie too. Afterward we went to Panera Bread for the best soup in the world: their broccoli and cheddar. Then she wanted to go to New York and Co., and I thought I would be safe, or rather my pocketbook would be safe, but nooooooooo. I ended up buying a really nice top that actually fit.
   On Thursday I met some friends for lunch. I hadn't seen one of them, Judy Leiner, in a long time. I really enjoyed the lunch, and it was great catching up. Then the next day, I pulled into the driveway at 11:00 after eating breakfast at McDonald's (I know, my bad!), and realized that I was supposed to be at my mother's house in one hour for lunch with my Mom, Beth, Daphene and the kids. I had to shower, wash my hair, pick it into place, put on my makeup, and dress in 40 minutes. I grabbed the stuff to fix my hair later after it dried, threw everything in the car, and got there at 12:00 on the dot. We had a really nice lunch, well they did, I had just eaten, and then I went home, welcomed Andy home, and helped him rake the yard. The next day Andy, Beth and I went to IHOP, I ate like a pig, we visited my Mom, and then we came home to rake. At least, that was the plan, but we ended up on the sofa with the remote and the laptop, and we didn't do another thing the rest of the day. I was exhausted!
   Today we went to Jim and Cynthia Stephens house for church, and then we met Beth, Daphene and the girls, and old friends Brad and Adriane McKoy for lunch at the Olympia Restaurant. We were there most of the afternoon; I know the waitress was glad to get rid of us. We had such a great time!
   I guess I should have labeled this post "Ho Hum", because this probably isn't all that interesting to read, but if you think this is dull, wait until you read about this week. Dentist Tuesday, hair appointment Wednesday, need I say more? That reminds me of a preacher we had years ago who looked out at us in the middle of a message and said, "Need I say less?" He was such a hoot! I will have to share some of his stuff with you: he would say the funniest things and I would grab a pen and write them in the back of my Bible. He was preaching hot and heavy one Sunday, and he banged his fist down on the pulpit and said, "If I'm ringing your doorbell, honey, PICK UP THE PHONE!" I thought I was going to fall in the floor!
   Well, enough of this nonsense. I will try to find something more interesting to write about this week. Not that my friends are boring, I just don't think you want to read about all these lunches. Oh, one more. Someone told us about the funniest thing he had ever heard a preacher say: he was talking about a new expository book on the Bible that he had gotten, and he said that he had gotten one of those "suppository books"! Said it right from the pulpit! I WOULD have fallen in the floor on that one!
Blessings,
Janis

Stamp Club

2010-02-24T17:41:00.001-05:00

Three-fourths of my stamp club got together today (we missed you, Nancy!), and I would like to show you some things that were accomplished, but not by me! I didn't manage to finish the one thing that I worked on all afternoon. My friend Tammy and her daughter Jessie were here, and Jessie made some beautiful things with a heart stamp that Tammy carved herself. I don't know if some of the hearts I took pictures of were stamped by Tammy or not; I think maybe a couple of them were done by her, but most were stamped by Jessie. They used the new distress inks, and after the first stamping they misted the stamp with perfect pearls, moved it around with their fingers until the whole stamp was covered, and then stamped a second and third time. The results were really beautiful! The best one was the first one that Tammy did, but for some reason I didn't get any pictures of most of her work. I will have to go over tomorrow and take some pictures because she did some great things.So without further ado, here are the hearts and the 2 cards that Jessie made (she always gets a lot done when we get together; we talk a lot and she listens and stamps!):

Aren't they beautiful? Jessie is such an artist!
Next is the card I made for my granddaughter Amelia's birthday. I don't think she was too impressed with the front of the card, but she really liked the inside, which I didn't take a picture of, of course. It had a little mouse and hedgehog.

I really like the polka dot tennis shoes!
I will try to get pictures of Tammy's work on here tomorrow.
On another note, if you did not see the Canadian ice dancers skate, please look it up on You Tube and watch it, because it is the most sublimely beautiful thing I think I have ever seen. You should watch the US couple too; they skated to Phantom of the Opera, and it was wonderful! I don't know when I have ever seen an Olympics where I have enjoyed the skating more, and the reason is that this is the first time that the judging has been fair. Can you believe that the men's figure skating gold was won by the USA skater? And the silver in ice dancing was won by the USA? Wow! This has been great!
Blessings,
Janis

Heroes and Husbands

2010-02-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

I read a lot of Inspirational Romance books, and I am getting really tired of the wimpy, angst-ridden men in these books. I keep saying, "Can't they write something about a hero who is not afraid to step up and do the right thing without all the reluctance to love and risk?" That made me want to write something on here about my husband, Andy, who is a true hero.
Early in our marriage, Andy worked at the fire department in Wilmington (eight years). and he was gone 24 hours at a time. then he worked a few months as an insurance salesman, and was gone all the time. Next he went to work for CP&L at the Sutton Plant, and for a few years he worked a decent schedule most of the time. Of course when they had outages, he worked 12 hour days. Then he transferred to their traveling crew, and he was gone weeks at a time, working 6 or 7 12's a week. He did this for years, and it was very hard for all of us, but we, the kids and I, still had our lives; Andy just worked. He did not have a problem doing what needed to be done to provide for his family. I am afraid that a lot of men today would not work like that; I have seen too many who left rather than work that hard. When he transferred to the nuclear plant in Southport, he worked a lot of 60 to 72 hour weeks; I can remember one three or four month period when he only had one day off, and he worked 12 hours every day. He missed most of the special times that we had with the kids and family, but he didn't complain. As he would say, he did what needed to be done to get the coon. I am so glad that in the last 15 years he has had time to relax and do some things that he wanted to do, rather than work all the time. I believe that Andy is a true hero, and I love and appreciate him with all my heart.
Blessings,
Janis

Snow and Stamp Convention

2010-02-20T13:17:00.001-05:00

Ok, let's start with the snow pictures. First up is the view behind our camper in Jackson, SC. It was beautiful, but I would have enjoyed it more if the transformers hadn't blown.

Doesn't that look cold? Believe me, it was! I wish the picture had come out better, and if I had photshop I could make it look better, but, oh well.....

It looked a lot whiter in person!

I don't remember that the ground wasn't covered any more than that. Oh well.......
This was across the street from the campground:

Now this is more like it! The other views were as pretty as this, but the pictures sure don't show it!
Next are some pictures that I took at the stamp convention, and they are all from the Stamper's Anonymous booth. If you click on the pictures you can see them better.

Oops! Actually, this picture is from another booth. I had forgotten about these. I don't remember the name of this booth; I will have to go look it up. Here's more from this one:

NOW we are in the Stamper's Anonymous booth. Love that Wendy Vecchi:

Well, that's it. I just made a card for Amelia's birthday that I will try to get on here later today. I also altered an envelope, one of those you get in bills. I think everyone would fall over laughing if I put it on here, so I won't. I like it, but I don't think many people would "get it". I might put it on here anyway so you can see how crazy I am.
Blessings,
Janis

Fun Weekend!

2010-02-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

   What a great time I had last weekend, in spite of the weather. I went to stay with Andy so I could go to a stamp convention in Columbia, and of course it snowed Friday, transformers blew all over the place, had no electricity, had to heat the camper with a burner on the gas stove. It wasn't the best thing to do, but it beat freezing. Somehow I managed to fix my face and hair the next morning and go to the convention. It was so wonderful to be in a room with all those stamps and other supplies! I didn't buy much until I hit the Stamper's Anonymous booth. They have the stuff that Tammy and I have been wanting for so long and can't get anywhere. We bought Tim Holtz stamps and Ideaology embellishments like there was no tomorrow! Now that I am home, I remember things that I saw there that I should have bought, and now I can't find them online. Oh well, I'll know better next time. Buy everything! You might need it! If anyone knows where to get Sugar Dust, please let me know. This is a great product for vintage style stuff. And how I wish I could have gotten some of the stamps and punches that went together. I have a problem with cutting, and being able to stamp something and then just punch it out is a great thing.
   Andy and I went to an antique mall in Columbia while we were there, and I found the greatest thing! It was a box of old candy tins in different shapes, and it was only $4.00! I couldn't believe my eyes; I never find stuff like this! I am hoping to make some things with them that I can sell on Etsy. Hopefully I will get my Etsy shop off the ground in another month or two.
   I took some pictures of the snow, and hope to get them on here later today. Check back tomorrow and maybe I will have a lot to look at.
Blessings,
Janis

2010-02-05T15:40:00.002-05:00

An update: The man with diabetes told my husband that he had gone jogging this morning! What a miracle! This man was in very, very bad shape when we met him, and now he's jogging. Praise God!

2010-02-04T22:26:00.000-05:00

   It just occurred to me that I hadn't looked for comments on this blog. I am sorry that I didn't see your comments until now, and thanks to everyone who posted one; I will check more often from now on.
   Here's an update on the microwave steamer that I bought on QVC: it works really well for potatoes, which is the main thing I wanted it for. That is the only thing I have cooked in it, and I had trouble with it only one time. I checked the potatoes with a fork, and they were hard, so I cooked them longer, but I think they were hard because they were already overcooked, and I just made them worse. Most of them were ok, but some of them were too overcooked to eat, so I won't cook them so long next time. I am going to try some other vegetables in it next week with some herbs and garlic. Hopefully it will infuse the flavor into the vegetables. I will let you know how it works.
Blessings,
Janis

2010-02-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

   I am so, so excited to tell you about a wonderful testimony. A few months ago, Andy and I went to Norfolk to attend the reunion of the ship he was on in the 60's, the USS Henley. We hung around with a group of guys who were on the ship with him, and one of them was diabetic, so we talked a lot about that over the weekend. He had neuropathy in his fingers and toes, and his toes were turning black and would eventually have to be amputated. I told him about Market America's #1 product, OPC-3, and how it aided in circulation. He has been taking it for 6 weeks now, and he has blood going to his fingers and toes again, and his toes are turning pink. Praise God! This is what I live for!

   Hopefully I will have some more samples on here in a few days. I have just gotten home from SC and am up to my eyeballs in paperwork. I did stamp some yesterday with my friend Tammy, but didn't do anything that I could put on here.

   We visited our free believer friends, Susan and Richard, last Sunday. What a great visit, and great day! It was loads of fun, and great to be talking about God with someone after missing three Sundays at home. I am really looking forward to getting together with everyone this Sunday.

   I just found a note that I wrote on an index card years ago. It says: It all boils down to this: Jesus has to be enough. I had just read an email devotional from Chip Brogden about how Jesus isn't enough when we are unhappy, anxious, etc.. There's a lot of food for thought there!

Blessings,
Janis

2010-01-20T18:56:00.000-05:00

   I'm sitting in Atlanta Bread Co. in Aiken, SC catching up with Facebook, email, and my blogs that I follow through Google Reader. I will be here for a few weeks, WITHOUT any stamps, etc.! I will probably be here until the stamp convention in Columbia in February is over, and then I intend to go home and stamp my little heart out! I have been sitting here for hours on the internet, and I hope my feet don't lose circulation. Not to mention that I am dying to go...Oh well, we won't go into that.
   Andy's transmission blew up on the way back here a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like we are going to get a lawyer and sue the dealership who worked on it because they are responsible for this. He had to get a motel, have the truck towed from Columbia to Aiken, rent a car, and have a rebuilt transmission put in. Oh, and he lost a day's work. They owe us big time!!! And this is the second Dodge truck that this problem has happened to. Fortunately the transmission didn't blow up in the other one.
   Wish I could put a sample on. I will try to transfer some pictures from my camera later this week and post them. One bright spot: we hooked up the converter box last night and we can get 4 channels! Yay! Well, it beats nothing now, doesn't it? And one of them is a retro channel; last night we watched Knight Rider and The A-Team (old favorites), and Airwolf came on this morning! Wow! Haven't seen THAT in a long time!
   Isn't the warm air wonderful? Hope to post again this week.
Blessings,
Janis

2010-01-08T03:29:00.001-05:00

ONGOING FOOD ADVENTURE:

Now that things have settled down, I am back to eating better and exercising consistently, and the results are good! I have lost a pound this week, and I intend to lose another one before another week has gone by. After months of trying to find time and energy to make soup, I made a pot of Rachael Ray's Chickpea and Fire Roasted Tomato soup. It looks disgusting, but it is pretty good. It is seasoned with garlic, coriander, cumin, and turmeric, so it's really good for you. I have been eating it with salad, and that's another story. I have always thought it would be disgusting to eat a salad with just oil and vinegar on it; I'm a Ranch dressing kind of girl, the more the better. In fact, I like salad with my ranch dressing. But I have some heart healthy dressing from the Olympia Restaurant that is olive oil based, and I put a little of that and two teaspoons of safflower oil on my salad Tuesday, and I realized about halfway through that I really couldn't taste anything but the vegetables, and it was good! I used safflower oil because the latest finding is that 2 teaspoons a day will melt belly fat. They said that without changes in diet or exercise it would melt the most stubborn belly fat: the fat in postmenopausal diabetic women. Yay! That's me! Lord, please let this work!

STAMPING:
My stamp club had it's Christmas get-together today. Better late than never! The gifts were great, and the fellowship was wonderful. We exchanged gifts, went to Charlie Magrooder's for lunch, came back and talked some more and did show and tell. Did we put a stamp to paper? Of course not! Next week hopefully we can get together and actually do something. We have a tendency to do a lot of talking and very little of anything else when we get together, but we do have fun! And we have produced some really nice projects, such as the antique optical lens necklaces we made some time ago. Oh, that reminds me, I took a picture of the faux porcelain flowers that Tammy made last week.

She die cut flowers from cardstock, formed the flowers from Wendy Vecchi's instructions which you can find on Tim Holtz's website, and then dipped each round of petals in Ultra Thick Embossing Power (UTEE). The results are spectacular! Tammy is my BFF and stamping buddy, Tammy Harper. I am going to be putting more of her stuff on when I can get some pictures. She's good!

SPIRITUAL JOURNEY:
I am still reading The Misunderstood God, and I read the most tremendous chapter this week. I had been questioning whether God kept His hands off of things completely and let nature take its course in order to honor free will, or if He helped us when we are in trouble. I understand why bad things happen up to a point, but then I get stuck on the question of why some people are helped and others aren't. Then I picked up the book a few days ago and read a chapter that addressed the very things I was wondering about. I can't explain what he said, but it was very helpful. At one point he said that when bad things happen to us that is the proof that God loves us and is protecting us. I was like "WHAAAAAAAAT?" But the more I read , the more it made sense. I am going to read it again, and if I can explain it, I will in a later post.

QUIRKS OF MY LIFE:
I flipped the channel to QVC last night, and saw a blank screen which said at the bottom: Kitchen Ideas. I said, Ok, Janis, you can watch this but you CANNOT BUY ANYTHING! I already have a kitchen full of gadgets to make cooking easier. No sooner had I started watching it when they showed a silicone thing that you can put stuff in the bottom of, like garlic and herbs with a little water, then put a colander on top of that with a vegetable like potatoes, a rack and then another vegetable on top, then a lid.You then put this IN THE MICROWAVE and cook it for a FEW MINUTES! I'm there! Then I got on the computer to order it, and discovered a little option that I hadn't noticed before: Speed Buy. I clicked twice, and it was mine! I really didn't need to know about that little feature; it's too easy. If this thing works like they say it will, it will be worth its weight in gold to me. Especially when I 'm staying in the camper with Andy. It is supposed to steam the vegetables and infuse the flavor of whatever herbs you put in the bottom into the veggies. Man I hope it works well. It will be healthy too, if nuking the food doesn't hurt us.

The Madness Continues

2010-01-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

Man, I've got to get a grip! Friday we went to K&W for supper, and I was SO hungry. Did I want grilled chicken and salad? Of course not! I wanted country style steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and black-eyed peas. Did you see a mention of a green vegetable in that? Of course not! I usually don't eat that much food, but this time I ate the whole thing, and then topped it off with sugar free blueberry pie. As if that wasn't enough, Andy and I went to Waffle House this morning for breakfast. I won't even go into that. AND I missed doing my exercise routine yesterday. Was going to do it today, but did I? OF COURSE NOT!

Stop the Madness!

2010-01-01T14:50:00.000-05:00

Good grief! The madness continues. We went to a New Year's get-together last night, and I ate a lot of stuff that should never have passed these lips. Jim and Cynthia brought his hot crab dip, and boy, was it ever good! I ate it on crackers at first, and then later, when I should have been through eating, I discovered that someone had brought a small loaf of bread, cut perfectly for dip. There is nothing better than crab dip with bread. Nothing! So the eating continued. Today, I absolutely must get back to saying NO to desserts. I do so good until the holidays; I am obviously going to have to figure out how to make more stuff with stevia. I thank God for that product every day! I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but Brown Cow plain yogurt with the cream on top is wonderful sweetened with stevia. I am thinking about how to make something with stevia and cream cheese. Any ideas?
Blessings,
Janis

Warm Winter Wishes

2010-01-01T11:49:00.013-05:00

I have been following a lot of stamping blogs for several months now, and I have learned a lot and ramped up my stamping. I eventually want to sell some of my stuff on Etsy, but the problem is that, while it takes very little time for the people I am following to turn out a card, it can take me a week to do one. So I realized that if I were going to sell anything, I had to learn to do a card in much less time. I also needed to make some "flat" cards that I could send through the mail without extra postage. So I actually sat down yesterday and turned out 2 cards in 1 day! And one of them is flat. The other one would be if I hadn't stuck a bow on it; I just can't stand to make a card without a bow. Here is the flat card: (I did make a few mistakes, darn it!)

I thought that if I made a flat card, it wouldn't be very pretty, but I have a new embossing folder from Cuttlebug, the snowflake one, and when you use an embossing folder it's going to be stinking beautiful no matter what you do! I wish you could see the glitter; when I put the Stardust Stickles on the blue snowflakes, I gasped because it was so beautiful! I think if you click on the sample, you can see the glitter. I also used Spellbinders small classic oval and small classic scalloped oval dies, and a Martha Stewart border punch.The stamp is from Stampin' Up!, and is discontinued.
The next one is very simple, but so beautiful because of the Textile embossing folder, again from Cuttlebug. I used the Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies and a stamp from Stampendous.

I hope that everyone has the best year of their life in this new year. I am looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us!

Blessings,

Janis

2009-12-28T17:06:00.003-05:00

I am writing this with a very, very heavy heart. There is a woman that we knew in the church that we attended for many years whose granddaughter was murdered yesterday morning. What a horrible, horrible thing. Everywhere we saw the grandmother, we saw the granddaughter as she was growing up. They were very close, and my heart just hurts for her so much. I have been doing a lot of thinking today, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
God is our father, Jesus is our betrothed, and they love us so incredibly much! So the conclusion that I have come to is this: God IS love, and He loves us beyond our understanding, and if we are saved, we are connected to Him with a connection that CANNOT be broken. The Bible says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places. That is possible because He is part of us and we are part of Him; we are connected, and as surely as we are here He is here with us, and as surely as He is there we are there with Him. Bad things happen because He has given us free will; we have a choice. He doesn't force us to do anything. Free will is a very good thing, but bad things happen because mankind has free will, Satan is working through people's choices, and we are born sinners.I know that God doesn't make bad things happen, people and Satan make bad things happen. I know that He loves us, and we have the promise that He will work all things together for good. I don't understand how good can come out of this situation, and I don't know that we will ever see the good or recognize it, but I do KNOW that good will come out of it, because He has told us this. We have a choice: we can trust Him and love Him, or we can blame Him and turn away from Him. I choose Him!
Thanks for reading this; I hope it has been of some help to someone.

Christmas Decorations

2009-12-21T00:57:00.001-05:00

After procrastinating since Thanksgiving because I had so much other stuff to do and I HATE decorating, I finally put the ornaments on the tree Saturday, and my wonderful daughter Beth came over and did most of the decorating. At least 2/3 of the ornaments on the tree are either antiques that belonged to my mother and grandmother or handmade by me or friends.
The next picture is of a sled that I bought at an antique shop at Hampstead, NC. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it, but when Beth found a tree in one of the boxes of decorations, she knew just what to do. I think it looks great!

This is another picture of it including the rocker. The snowman is one that I bought years ago and then lost. I knew it was here, but I just could not find it. When I cleaned out a closet in the laundry room last month, there was the box with the snowman and my frog that croaks Jingle Bells. I am so thrilled to be able to enjoy them again..

When I told Beth that I wanted the nativity on the hutch with the snowmen mugs, she thought I was crazy. She doesn't think that particularly goes together, but I like it! My mother, brother, and I made the figures in the nativity with plaster of paris when I was a child, at the church I grew up in, Immanuel Presbyterian.

Lastly, I love the placemats that Daphene gave me last Christmas.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my decorations. Now that they are up, I am happy, but I sure didn't want to bother with it. I'd rather be stamping!
Blessings,
Janis

More Samples!

2009-12-21T00:31:00.001-05:00

Here are the rest of the samples that I photographed today:

I used an old SU image and embossed everything in gold. Had a GREAT time tying the little bows on the stars (not!). I used a bowmaker, but it wasn't easy.

I used a Sizzix large snowflake die from SU and a SU image. Click to see the glitter.

This is my favorite card this year. I just love the color and glitz and everything about it! The ribbon, images, ink and paper are all SU. If I am becoming a broken record about SU products, it's because I was a demonstrator for them for eight years. I still buy a lot of products from them.
This next one is my "other" favorite. I couldn't decide which photo to use, so I am putting them both on here.

I used Nestibilities Labels 1 and an old SU set.

This one has the MS lace edge punch, which I dearly love. I saw this used in several samples in a magazine earlier this year, and couldn't find one anywhere. Apparently a LOT of people fell in love with it as I did. And I LOVE the MS leaf punch.

I have a bunch of these red tags, and I grabbed one one day and started trying stuff out on it. I tried stamping with the frost white paint that is in SU's mini-catalog. That didn't work too well because of my method of applying the paint to the stamp, but I have come up with a better way to do it since then: I use a foam dauber to apply the paint. After a few days of trying out ideas on the tag, I decided that I might actually be able to use it so I stuck the angel image and snowflake on it. The other tag didn't show up as well in the picture, but it has a distress ink bg, SU images, and the small fleur de lis pendant diecut from Spellbinders.

This is my version of Tim's first Christmas tag. I'm not real crazy about it, but shared it anyway. Hopefully if you click on it you will be able to see the rock candy stickles on the snowman.

This was made with the fleur de lis pendant die and MS lace punch.
Well, that is pretty much it. I have a few more, but have to get better pictures of them. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my samples, and that you will join me for a few pics of my Christmas decorations in the next post.
Blessings,
Janis

Finally! Samples!

2009-12-20T11:03:00.004-05:00

Well, I finally was able to take some halfway decent pictures and upload them. And fast, too! They aren't the quality that I would like, but this is the best I can do right now. Hope you enjoy them!

I made the star from instructions that I got from another blog. I will find the link and post it sometime in the next few days. It is made using the SU tag punches. If you click on the picture you can see the glitter better.

I wish you could see how beautiful this is; the gold paper is so pretty, and the gold stars. I used a SU image.

I used distress inks on this one, and some rock candy stickles (I have decided to forego using capitals ala Tim Holtz).

Another SU image, and their Top Note die.

I think this was made with a current SU set, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it is SU.

I bought the gingerbread boy stamp at a craft store. The holly punch is Martha Stewart. I am loving this punch! The greeting is from a clear stamp set that I also love, and the card was cut with a Sizzix die that I got from SU.
I have to run, will put more on later today.
Blessings,
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Good Grief!

2009-12-19T20:14:00.000-05:00

Well, it has taken me several hours, but I have finally downloaded a picture from my camera into a computer! I thought at one point that I had crashed my laptop, but my daughter got it going again. And I don't even particularly like the picture of my tag, but it will have to do. It looks better in person. Here it is:(Drumroll)

When I colored this tag with distress inks, I was going to use it to do Tim's first tag of christmas, but it was so pretty that I decided that I wanted to do something else with it, so I put it aside. I like this one way better than the one I came up with that was like Tim's. I just wish it showed up better; the snowflakes are really pretty. I layered a white flake over a blue one.Actually, I punched the blue ones out of paper that I had stamped with a clear stamp with blue on white, but it didn't stamp well, so I decided to punch snowflakes out of it. It looks great; too bad you can't really see it. The buttons were in a bag of buttons that I found at a yard sale, It was a huge bag, and I will not need any buttons for a long while. I have found some really great buys at yard sales and flea markets lately. My daughter and I went out a few Saturdays ago, and I told God that I really, really needed a white desk for around $25.00. We went to a local flea market and one of the first booths had a white desk for $25.00! It is new, but has a few dings, which aren't very noticeable. I love it! I had been using a dresser that I got years ago at a yard sale for my desk, and when my daughter moved back in with us in September, I had to move my stuff out of the office and put it in my stamp room. I put my Big Kick on the desk and a basket of dies, and I had a nice die cutting station. Then when she moved out, I didn't want to give up the desk and move it back into the office, so I had to buy another one. Cheap! I am thrilled with my desk!
I am going to try to take some more pictures tonight, so maybe tomorrow I will have more samples to show. I have done right much for Christmas, so at some point there will be a lot to look at.
Blessings,
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Samples coming soon!

2009-12-19T12:34:00.000-05:00

Stay tuned! I think I am really close to putting my Christmas samples on here. Maybe tonight!
The house has been a disaster for so long, but I have slowly but surely reclaimed it, room by room, over the last few weeks, and today I am in the last room, the den. I have to decorate the Christmas tree, which has been sitting here with nothing but lights and a little garland since Thanksgiving, and put out a few other decorations, and then go through the boxes and eliminate everything that I can. THEN I have to clean the room and the house will be clean! What a relief that will be! I wish I could clean it and then leave so I won't mess it up before Christmas.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Quest for Health, Part III and Other Things

2009-12-17T01:19:00.001-05:00

   I am reading a really wonderful book, The Misunderstood God, by Darin Hufford. The lies that I have believed about God are amazing! I am so thankful that He is showing me the truth, and I am shedding tons of garbage that I have been taught. God is so sweet, and kind, and loving, and He loves us unconditionally, as we are.
   I said that in this post I would talk about how I kind of messed up this year with my diet and put on a few extra pounds. When I first started my health regimen, I was here by myself because Andy spent 4 months working in Alabama, and I stayed here so I could concentrate on food and exercise. When we got back together, I started eating more food, and eating in restaurants more. I wasn't eating as much vegetables and fruit, and so I was getting more calories per meal. I have put on about 5 pounds, and I am hoping that at least half of that is water because I am getting way too much salt. I never stopped exercising, but you have to eat well because exercise alone won't keep you thin. My goal is to be back to where I was a year ago by the end of January. I didn't start this just to lose weight, and it is not all about that. I have to lose weight in order to control the diabetes.
   Something that I didn't mention about all this is the supplements that I take. I couldn't have done anything that I am doing if I didn't take the vitamins and antioxidants that I get from my business, Living Free. I am a Market America independent distributor, and I am so very thankful for the wonderful supplements that we have. I have taken a lot of vitamins for years, but I got to the point where I could hardly swallow all those pills and capsules. Most of what I take now is in our Isotonix line, which are supplements that you mix with water and drink. What a blessing! When you mix the right amount of powder with the right amount of water, it forms an isotonic solution which you drink on an empty stomach. The solution is the same ph as your body fluids, so the stomach opens the valve to the small intestine immediately, and the mixture gets into your bloodstream quickly so that you get maximum benefit from the vitamins because they don't have to be digested. Our number one product is OPC-3, which is a blend of powerful antioxidants. This product does a lot of different things for a lot of people; I have heard many amazing testimonies, like the girl who had MS and was in a wheelchair until she started taking OPC-3. When we met her a couple of years after that, you could not tell that she had any problems. I will be sharing testimonies from time to time about this and other products, because I just have to share what these products can do for you. I know firsthand what they can do, and I want health for everyone; always have. I don't make a huge profit on these products; I just want you to be healthy, have energy, feel good, etc.. I will be putting a link to my website on here when I figure out how to do that. In the meantime, I will sign each post with the address.
   I don't have any more pictures of my samples to put on here; I will try to do that tomorrow.
Blessings,
Janis
livingfree

My Quest for Health, Part II

2009-12-09T23:57:00.001-05:00

   The secret to eating a lot of fruits and vegetables is to buy organic. Non-organic produce tastes really bad, and everyone buys it, comes home and eats it once, and then lets it go bad in that drawer in the refrigerator called "the rotter". Then we go out and buy more, eat it once, etc., etc.. Most of the fruit and all of the vegetables that I have bought organic have been delicious. I remembered eating oranges as a kid and how good they tasted, and I despaired of ever being able to eat any again because they were so sour, but the organic ones are so delicious that sometimes I wonder if someone injected sugar into them. The last time I bought a regular cucumber and green pepper, I threw them away because they were disgusting. Ugh! Organic is the way to go.
   The shocking thing that I am doing is exercising! Yes, me! I have always been a reader, and it was hard to get off the couch to do anything because I was so tired all the time. When I had to change my ways or go on insulin, I knew that I had to exercise, and I knew that I couldn't do that on my own because of my back, so I got a personal trainer. That is without a doubt one of the best things I ever did. And my trainer is absolutely great! I love her to death! I highly recommend her: Kerri Davis
   Did all this effort and good eating work? Oh yes! In three months my A1C went from 7.6 to 6.8, and the next time I went it was 6.6. I lost weight, went from a size 16 to size 10, and felt fantastic. Unfortunately, there is more to the story. I haven't completely blown it yet, but a little bit. That story next time.

This is an ornament that I made recently. I am loving the fleur de lis pendant die from Spellbinders; everything you do with it is beautiful. I wish I could have gotten a better view of it, but when I took a picture, it didn't show up when I put the memory card in the computer. Maybe it had something to do with the battery dying in the camera, ya think? So I tried to scan it, but my Mac wouldn't save it to a file, so I hooked up my laptop, scanned it, and here it is.

My Health Saga, Part I

2009-12-09T01:15:00.000-05:00

   In May, 2008, my doctor informed me that he wanted to put me on insulin because I had uncontrolled diabetes. He had been telling me for a while that I must get my A1C down, which is the average blood sugar over a three month period. It should be 6.9 or less, but mine had been 7.9, and I had only gotten it down to 7.6. What I was doing obviously wasn't working! When he said "insulin", I thought to myself, "Oh, no, we won't be going there!" I have read enough about diabetes to know that insulin does as much damage as sugar in the blood, if not more, and since the problem with Type 2 Diabetes is that the cells won't open to let the sugar in (the insulin unlocks the cells), then there would be excess sugar AND insulin in my blood. No way! So I told the doctor to give me three more months, and I went home and cried and prayed and wrestled with this for a week. Then I girded up my loins, set my jaw, and did what I knew I should do all along. I stopped having desserts when I ate out or went somewhere where they were serving them, and I started eating meat, vegetables, fruit, beans and peas, and nuts. My treats each day were sugar free fudgsicles, sugar free ice cream, and sugar free candy (you can't eat more than one piece a day or you will be in big trouble!). I quit eating breakfast at McDonald's and drinking Diet Coke except on Sunday. The main thing I did was begin to eat a LOT of salad, soup, and fruit. There is a secret to this, and I thank God that I found it. Stay tuned for the secret and what I did next that made a BIG difference. People who have known me for a long time will be pretty shocked that I actually did this!
   I will hopefully have some samples on here in a few days. I have made some Christmas cards and tags that I want to show, especially my Tim Holtz style tags. I think I will upload my Fall wall hanging now, even though the pictures aren't the best; the picture of the last L turned out yellow for some unknown reason. You can get the idea though. It's still on the wall, by the way; hopefully I will get this place decorated for Christmas next week. I just can't figure out how to store the wall hanging.
   Blessings,
   Janis

Welcome!

2009-12-06T18:26:00.000-05:00

     After following a lot of blogs over the last few months, I have finally taken the plunge and started one of my own. My main focus on this blog will be rubber stamping, but as you can see from the header, I am all over the place, hence my title: The Eclectic Blogger. I know nothing about what I am doing here, so the look of this will change over the next few months. Hopefully I will figure out how to make it more attactive, and I will be adding things to the sidebar. I have quite a lot that I want to say, but I will be putting a little on each day because you don't want to read a novel in my first post. I am going to start with a few samples of my stamp art, if I can figure out how to get them on here. I have been following a lot of stamp artist's blogs over the last few months, and I have see a lot of wonderful, beautiful samples of their work. I am not where I want to be, but as a result of studying their work, my stamping has improved, and I am enjoying it tremendously. (It didn't hurt that I bought a small fortune worth of supplies, either.) My photography skills are minimal, so that should be improving also as time goes on. Please cut me some slack at first; I am very new at all this and don't know what in the world I am doing, but I'm having fun! I hope you will come back and see what is going on here often, and that you will enjoy what you see.
   Now, about the samples that you see at the top of the page where I DO NOT WANT THEM! I have done everything I know to do, and they are STILL THERE!!!ARGHHHHHHHH!!! Ok, I am calm now. Taking deep breaths... I told you you would have to overlook things and cut some slack. The first card is one that I did several years ago, and is a flat card. I am now doing a lot of layers, and the second card is one I did last week. The background paper was stamped using a clear stamp and an acrylic block with grid lines, and the lacy piece behind the oval was done with a Fleur de Lis pendant die from Spellbinders. I stamped the words and snowflakes on the oval with Stampin' Up! shimmer paint in frost white, which comes out looking pretty silvery. The words aren't exactly silver, and there is a story behind that. I used a sponge dauber to ink the stamp with the shimmer paint, but I didn't have a new one so I used one that had a little pink chalk on it. That gave it a pinkish cast, which was a good thing because it wouldn't have shown up at all if I had used a clean dauber. Sometimes the stupid things I do work out really well! Of course, in the picture it doesn't show up well so you don't know what I am talking about, but trust me, the writing shows up well in person.
   Okay, I am going to stop now. Please check back in a few days and I will try to have some better pictures of my samples on here. I did a Fall wall hanging that I really loved; I hope to show it to you next time. And I will talk a little about my experience with diabetes. The last year and a half of trying to keep my body healthy and avoid going on insulin has been quite an adventure.
   Thanks for visiting!
Janis Morris