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I crochet for fun, mostly for baby blankets and the occasional scarf though.

Earlier this year I made a coaster for a friend for her desk.  At the time she worked from home, after she and her husband moved from Charlotte, NC to Thomson, GA the coaster kept its place on her desk at home and her new job required her presence in an office.  Last week she asked if I could make her another one for her desk at work.

I asked her what color she’d like, the previous one was purple.  I listed off a bunch of colors and she requested green since she works for a nursery.

For fun I added felt flowers, attached with washable fabric glue.

For all of the fun You:Create projects this week check out the link below.

Yesterday morning I ate a cupcake.  Right after I finished eating my 110 calorie bagel thin.

I didn’t need the cupcake (yes, thank you captain obvious) but I was tantalized by it’s pink frosting, chocolate cake, and sprinkles.

It wasn’t even a good cupcake from someplace like Sprinkles or Sugar Daddy’s.  No, it was just a cheap, ordinary cupcake from the grocery store.

But I fell for the siren’s song that sings sweet lullaby’s to my cupcake love language.

I wish I didn’t struggle with self control.

I wish I’d only eat what I should eat and not the things that make me feel guilty and fat afterward.

Though eating may be my biggest struggle with self control, it dances in other areas.  My attitude, my anger, my…well…just about everything.

I searched YouVersion for verses in the Bible that contain or relate to self control and here is what I found.  88 verses (NLT) that pepper the Old and New Testaments instructing us to be self controlled and the dangers of not being.

In short: lack of self control leads to destruction.

Whether we give in to our desires for food, sex, anger, or possessions we are allowing those things to become our saviors.  We put them in front of God and allow our lives to be run by them.  They become our pleasures over our pleasure for God, and in the end they destroy.  They destroy our bodies, our relationships with others, and more importantly our relationship with God.

No, eating a cupcake does not create a chasm between God and I, but if I can’t be self controlled with something such as my eating what does that say about things that can create that chasm?

In an email to a friend I outlined how I was pushing for Fall:

• Apple spice candle burning
• Cinnamon roll candle in my drawer waiting its turn to be burned
• Hot coffee preferred over iced
• Recipes to make using stuff like butternut squash, pumpkin, and carrots.

I’m ready for Autumn.  It is my favorite time of year despite the fact that we really don’t get Autumn here unless you count November – February.  However, Autumn is still 23 days away and it’s supposed to be 108° on Friday.  #SIGH!!

I’m excited for the next couple of months here at PrudyChick.com.  There are some exciting things happening including two series one of which that will feature some amazing women guest blogging it up. I will also have my first giveaway next week. Eeekkk. *chair dances of excitement happening here*

Maybe a new look to the site.  I love the way she looks now, but she may need to get dressed in more warm tones for Fall & Winter.  We’ll see…Shawn is getting increasingly busy with freelance work which is great.

I’d also like to post another couple I’m Impressed posts.  I seriously have amazing friends that impress so much on me I just want to shout to the world, “Hey, pay attention to these people.  They’re doing something right.”

And maybe another VLog.

If you’re not subscribed to PrudyChick.com you can do so here.

Since I’m pushing for Autumn to start the end of August, tell me what is your favorite things about the Fall season, and yes I know my friends in Australia you’re starting Spring?

I read an awesome post on Wednesday by Mandy Steward.  She told the story of a little boy and his prayers.  The mom so convicted over her own prayers being safe and ordinary she stopped and thanked God for the extraordinary, simple things. (Read the post.)

My heart was roused to thank God for the seemingly ordinary, but are really extraordinary things.

Dear Lord you are most generous in the blessings you’ve given me.  I thank you for…bracelets that look like threaded gumballs.  Green shoes.  Pen & paper and the ability to pour forth my heart.  Dark purpley eye shadow.  Laptops.  Lattes.

For precious pictures by a more precious little girl in India.

Thank you for frozen yogurt, mango frozen yogurt, coconut frozen yogurt, and the Mochi I love topping it with.  For text messaging & Twitter.  Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffins….smelly good candles…and Autumn!  Thank you ear plugs.

Thank you for giant Chihuahua ears.

Thank you for funky & outrageous colored nail polishes.  For sleep in, lazy Saturdays….And awesomely funky tights.  For sweet wine, and cupcakes…oh and brownies too.

What extraordinary ordinary things can you thank Jesus for today?

Gitz is a huge inspiration to me.  From her condo 1600 miles away she challenges me.  She challenges me in my faith, my walk with Jesus, and to be creative.

I respond, she responds.

I’ve grown to love painting.  I love it even more when I feel inspired to paint, have no idea what I want to paint, then it hits me like when the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie.

My You:Create was inspired by a quick trip out to get frozen yogurt.  As I was turning off our our short little street onto a somewhat larger street I was captivated by the contrast of the trees against the darkening sky.  The trees were black against a velvety blue back drop.

On the opposite side of the sky the moon was as big as a ferris wheel and bright orange.  I wish I’d had my camera and a lack of buildings to capture it on “film”, but it was amazing.

I chose to make my moon silver.  After I was done with the tree I’d wished I’d painted the moon first so some of the moon beams could be seen through the tree branches.

This was probably the hardest painting I’ve done to photograph & edit.  Here is a different angle for your perusal.

I’m planning to put this in my cube at work.  Maybe I’ll share a pic of it in it’s new home too.

: | : Edit: Here is a picture of it hanging in my cube at work. : | :

Check out all the other You:Create links by clicking the logo:

Monday night as I was writing yesterday’s post, I was reminded of a poem I wrote back in 1994.  I think it was the first poem I ever wrote.  It was written out of a desperately empty heart.  I debated sharing it here because I was not sure it fit.  It is in some ways highly personal and after sharing it with one person they told me it was depressing.  Despite that, it’s remained close to my heart.

As I said I wasn’t sure about posting it until today (Tuesday).  It was this comment by a dear friend that was confirmation.  I’m still not sure how it fits into my post from yesterday, but I felt the undeniable pressure to post it here.

No Answer

Dry and fragile, like the fall leaves,
my spirit finds no satisfaction, no relief.

I cry out “Oh my God, where are you now?”
Yet, still this emptiness lingers with no relief.

My heart finds joy and is soaring,
like an eagle on the blue.
How then, my heart then finds
no joy and comfort to ease my aching soul?

I cry out again, “Oh Lord, my God?
Where are you now?”
But still no answer to this loneliness I feel.

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All rights reserved.  Please be kind, do not take or use without permission.

There are advantages to living in the desert.  It’s not the 112°+ temperatures.  It’s not the Gila Monsters or other various monsters.  Living in the desert is like a Biblical lab in being in a dry and thirsty place.

I can understand verses like Psalm 63:1 where the Psalmist declares to God that he longs for Him like parched ground thirsts desperately for rain.  In Phoenix when it rains we have a crazy phenomenon of standing in our garages in the dark and watching the pellets of water crash against the concrete and asphalt.

Of late I’ve felt like this parched land.  Like the deer that is dying of thirst.  My time with Jesus has been longing not been there.  I’m fighting my will, and my will always ends up being the champion.  It is a constant struggle.  The thirst is there…but the effort is not.

I feel weary.

I made the choice tonight to put my will aside.  To take a harder path.  The one that did not include me being lazy for the last hour before bed.  I picked up my Bible, and I read.  It would be just like Jesus to meet me where I am.

Thirsty!

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If any one is thirsty let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”” – John 7:37 & 38 ESV.

Jesus knows my struggle.  He knows I’m thirsty.  He cries out to my heart.  I know you’re thirsty.  I know you desire to be with me.  I know you are struggling with your will.  I’m here.  I will fill you.  I will refresh you.  Come to me my daughter.  Drink in my Word.

I used to write poetry often, but I haven’t written a poem in a minimum of nine years.  Talk about a dry spell, writers block, etc.

The other day as I prepared to round the corner that would nearly drop me on our door step, it tickled.  A few lines.  I dropped my stuff as soon as I walked in the door and made a dash for my Moleskin and pen.  I had to take these images and put them to paper.

Most of the time my poetry is based off of circumstances in my life.  This one is no exception.  God is performing Extreme Makeover: Heart Edition on this 35 year old soul.  He’s teaching, purging, tearing down and building anew.  He is whetting my soul’s pallet for what a life without sin is.

I’d forgotten the process.  The wrestling through it.  How the words of a poem take shape and then morph into a different shape.

How the lines give voice to my heart’s whispers.

I long for Eden

Where sin did not destroy
Where perfection reigned

Where jealousy did not infect
Where pride did not stage civil war

Where death had not yet stolen
Where greed and selfishness did not take possession

Where separation did not exist

I long for Eden

Where communion was a walk side by side
Where joy was in the rise and fall of the sun and moon

Where worship existed in every breath

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All rights reserved.  Please be kind, do not take or use without permission.
Graphic by Shawn Landis

Yesterday I shared my weariness of being on this road I’ve been walking.  I loved your comments because they echoed my own heart.

Last Friday I was standing in our kitchen at work with another lady.  We watched as a baby bird enthralled with trying to jump on a window ledge.  He didn’t quite have the spring in his little bird legs to get up there.  A few moments later his momma came with what we quickly learned was a big juicy worm.

She flew down and attempted to give him the worm, but it was too big for him to eat.  She flew back up to the safety of the tree that shadowed him and did her best to make it more manageable.  Flew back down to the grass but it the worm was still too big.  She darted back up to the branches.

As I pondered all of this yesterday afternoon, I realized that I’m that little bird.  God has a great and excellent future planned out for me.

God is forming me.  Molding me.  Preparing me.  He requires growth out of me before I can take on what He has for me.  If He were to force the future on me I’d spiritually gag, and rely on myself.

Though this journey is long I’m thankful that He isn’t force feeding me.

I’m an impatient person.  I hate waiting on people.  I hate being behind slow drivers or walkers.  I’m early 99.99% of the time unless I force myself to be late and even then I struggle, and I fear I’ll have children who like to dilly dally and that already drives me nuts.

I don’t wait well.

Shawn and I have both been on a journey the past three and a half years of God revamping our perspectives and giving us dreams for the future.  At times it’s been a arduous journey.  Others it’s been one where I sit in the passenger seat and just allow God to drive [not that I don't have any responsibilities].  The road has been long.

I thought I’ve been waiting well, and I’d like to believe at times I have.  However, I’ve learned in the last couple weeks I haven’t been.  I’m weary of these travels, and my weariness has led to selfishness, and frustration.

In talking with friends, I’ve explained it this way:  I’m ready for the exit that will take me to the destination or at least the exit to the road that will take me there.  Instead I’m on the same road and only the name of the road has changed.  Patience, self control, and more waiting are elements this road requires.  The same elements that have been required all along.

I wonder who the person is I’m supposed to be at our destination and why it’s taken so long for me to become her.

I know this part of the journey must happen.  It is absolutely imperative.

So I continue on this journey.  Being shaped and reformed to the person I am supposed to be becoming.  I do my best to wait well.

How are you waiting lately?