Happy Birthday to Me! :)

I'm a little late posting about this, but my birthday was Monday! Hooray! I had the first birthday party that I've had since....really middle school. And....I didn't take any pictures the whole night. Ugh. lol. We had 12 people plus Derf and I over Monday night. It was a lot of fun to get together with friends and just hang out. I was also toasted to. I felt so special. :D Really, I did. I ended up playing it off, because I'm not too good with things like that, especially in public. I tend to be more toward the modest side. And, now that I think back on it. I hope that everybody didn't feel slighted that I did play it off some.... :-/

I ended up making my own cake. It's ok. Derf was going to the night before, but we didn't have any eggs. Everybody was so surprised that I was making my own cake and then that I was cleaning up. lol. It's just what I do and how things were done while I was growing up, which is kinda sad now that I think about it.

Well, I don't want to make this a long post without pictures, so here's what to come later:

*birthday presents
*new porch furniture
*new shelves above computer....I hope they don't fall.

Oh, I'm having a house warming party on Saturday. So, I may be MIA for a while. And if you're wondering, yes, there will be pictures....lots of pictures. :D

Cork Board Jewelry Displays

Here's one of my latest projects. I've seen this on several blogs and knew it was a great idea for my jewelry. I like the way it gets to be displayed and not tangled in a box or something. These are just 4 cork boards wrapped with burlap cloth and a leather fabric I found in a clearance bin at (evil) walmart. I stapled it all with staples for paper. *Word of the wise: don't use a staple gun. The staples will go all the way through and puncture your hand when you try to put something on the board, and it slips and you try to catch it by slapping the board with your hand to find said staple. It's not fun.* Anyway, I hung them with some small picture nails on each corner. It's pretty neat if i say so myself. :)

Three Word Thursday

It's too hot.

A Book Review: Love is an Orientation by Andrew Marin

Here in the last few months or so, I’ve been reading a lot more than I usually do. I’m not a big reader and tend to be a slow reader, but there are a lot of books that I’ve been wanting to read and never got the motivation to do it. As a preview of book reviews to come, here are my latest reads: Velvet Elvis, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, (read most of) Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts, (started on) Jesus Wants to Save Christians, (started on) The Fellowship of the Ring (I haven’t gotten past Tom Bombadil, which I hear is the hardest part of the book), Love is an Orientation, and (started on) Crazy Love. Wow. Now that I’ve actually named them all, I’ve read a lot of books since October/November of last year. This is compared to my having read barely one or two books a year since fifth grade. lol.

I wanted to do my first review on Love is an Orientation mostly because it’s the freshest on my mind. The author is Andrew Marin of the Marin Foundation in Chicago. I first heard of Andrew at the Youth Specialties Conference in Nashville, TN last year. (As a youth worker, I STRONGLY urge any of you who work with youth at any organization, religious or otherwise, to attend this conference this year in Atlanta, GA. Go here http://www.youthspecialties.com/ for more info.) Derf and I had arrived just in time to hear him speak during the big worship session. After that we realized we wanted to go to his small break-out session. It was worth it. I was told that during the big worship session, people were walking out during his speech/”mini-sermon.” I really don’t remember because I was too captivated in what he was saying. I could go on about that, but I won’t this time. :)

Anyway, let’s get back to about the book. First of all, the guy who wrote the forward made an excellent point: you will either finish the book hating it or loving it. I finished it loving it. I love it because it hit so close to home for me. Not only by having gay family members, but with how church and culture had brought me up to think about, not only gay people, but those who didn’t “follow” my/our way of thinking.

The book is about raising the bar on a conversation (as a communication major, I LOVE this. :) ) and to not just assume, not just judge right off, not just act like you know it all, not just act “holier than thou,” but to actually sit down, shut up, and listen to people’s stories and give a crap about what’s going on in their lives and not what they are doing or how much they are sinning. The book addresses many questions that conservative Christians and the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) group will throw out. Many people will throw out close-ended questions and through this book with some simple rewording Andrew Marin helps you figure out how to respond to those close-ended questions with open-ended answers.

I would and could go on about specific details of this book, but I don’t want to give away some of the major points that Andrew Marin has made. It’s his book after all. lol. The book itself is well laid out. It is a factual book, but doesn’t overwhelm you with many statistics. There are lots of stories and personal accounts of Andrew’s work and how God has worked in his life through the Marin Foundation to balance the factual side. I will say, though, there are some things (like with any book, movie, or any medium) you will find that will not mesh with your way of thinking. I did find some in this book. However, I do ask this: please do not let those few insignificant things turn you off from a book that is so sincerely written to the church to change their way of thinking. He is not asking you to agree with the GLBT community. He is only asking that you drop your judgmental/hateful thinking to accept people into your life who are genuinely trying to find a place in this world the same way you are. Most are looking for love, some are looking for Christ, and some are looking for ways around the pain of rejection and humiliation.

This is a must read for the church today. I believe with all my heart, we are not getting something that was taught by Jesus. Yes, we are not perfect and never will be anything close to what Jesus was and is, but I feel wholeheartedly we are straying further and further away from His original intentions—to love God and to love our neighbor as ourself. He didn’t mean to pick and choose who that neighbor is. If He did, it would be worded “love your neighbors, who are similar to you, like yourself.”

And this now segues me to Crazy Love…… :)

Our "Chillas"

I would like you to meet our “children.” Well, they are not human children, but both our parents call them their “grand-chillas.”

This is Mocha (the ebony/black one).

And this is Pinball (the standard/grey one).

They are our chinchillas. And aren’t they adorable?!? Mocha just turned one on May 3^rd, which is also our anniversary. Yeah, he was born the day we got married, and when I found that out about him I just had to have him. Pinball will also be one this month. We got them from a breeder who lives in Tennessee back in July last year. By the way, if you ever think of getting a chinchilla, I recommend finding a breeder close to you; even a hobby breeder would be great. They know all about the ones you are trying to purchase and can set you up with a pet that will best compliment you. They can also tell if you’re not ready for one and can give great advice. And best of all, most breeders will meet you and work with you if they live further than you’d like to travel.

When we got them, we still lived in an apartment. The pet fees for a cat or dog were too expensive and the land lady let us have small caged pets without any fees. We really wanted to get a rabbit because I had fostered a rabbit from a society that is now called Huntsville Friends of Rabbits and I just love rabbits. However, with the loose hay, the dander, and other allergens, I was not able to keep the rabbit. Andrew and I weren’t married yet, but every time he came over he had a severe allergy attack soon after, and I noticed I wasn’t sleeping well and had headaches a lot. We had to give him back. That was a very sad day.

Well, after we got married we wanted a pet and I started researching rabbits, how to live with allergies to rabbits, and other things. Andrew made the suggestion of getting a chinchilla. I thought it was a little strange because they had always been in the “too exotic animal for me” range. So, I researched all I could about chinchillas and found out they are, in a sense, hypo-allergenic. They do not have dander, LOVE condensed hay cubes, and, most importantly, don’t get flees or other pests most pets get. The only draw back was the dust baths they have to have.

Most everybody said they loved their chinchilla and had next to no allergy problems with them. We were sold.

So then we traveled to Chattenooga, TN to meet the breeder to get them.

They are so cute, and yet so spoiled. Keep checking back here for chinchilla adventures and stories. We’ve got plenty. :)

Have a great day!

Lee

Welcome greetings and first project

Hi!
This is my new blog. I've been bitten by the blog bug and now I have two blogs! I can barely keep up with my first one: www.rocketcitycakes.blogspot.com. So, I hope to post at least once a week on either or both these blogs.

Well, since the other blog is dedicated to just the cakes my husband and I make, I'm dedicating this one to our house and other goings on that I would just like to put out here on the interwebs.

I guess I should welcome you to our humble abode. Welcome! :)


Yes, that is the MLS listings picture. I was so excited about this house that I saved all of the pictures from the MLS listing.

So, on to more exciting stuff! This is my greatest creation (that isn't a cake) yet. I bought a sewing machine and the cabinet/table for $20. Turned out the sewing machine (the thing that I wanted the most) had broken gears and the feed wouldn't work. But, I soon realized I could use the table as an entry way table. I've been looking for one that my husband and I could agree on. The entry way is a little narrow so we had to find something kinda small. Anyway, here is the before.

That's a piece of art we got from my husband's grandmother. It's a modern type piece and thought it was kinda cool to go right there. And now, here's the after:

Oh, no. Sorry it's so dark. I'm not that great at taking indoor photos at night. Here's a close up:

I love this so much!!! Here's a photo montage of the process:

There were some scratches and water stains in the finish of the wood and it needed sanding badly.

Here is my new toy. I really like this thing! :)

I meant to take a picture of it after I sanded and before I started spray painting, but I forgot.

Here's a leg that I haven't painted and that's what most of it looked like.

Yea! And please excuse the head in the corner I wasn't paying much attention what was in the shot because I was so excited.

If you want to know of any advice that I could give when doing a project like this, it would be: take your time. I'm very impatient when it comes to projects and tend to skip steps, like priming before painting. The wood totally soaked up a lot of the paint on the first coat. What I should have done was sand, prime, paint, sand, paint, and protect (with a coat of protective sealer). Well, the sealer is on my to do list, but I will have to do it later because I just wanted it in the house by this weekend. I'm so excited for the possibilities of this little piece of furniture.

Have a great day!

Lee