Still in the recovery mode at my house so what’s a person to do when their foot looks like this?
Yes, it hurts.
I spend a lot of time on the couch with my foot elevated while searching for things that make me laugh or inspire me to change things.
I stumbled onto this amazing youtube clip of PIXAR’s studios. I think my office might be to dull, lacking in fun and well–to pretty. I’d love, love, love to sit in the big chair.
What about you? After watching this are you thinking of adding some fun to your writing studio or home office?
This is a blog hop, so hop on over and read some more fun authors.
When I was a teenager I so hoped I wouldn’t be like my mother. Anyone else have that thought? Maybe it was your father you didn’t want to be like?
Now I realize how valuable my mom is, and what she has passed on to me is mostly good.
Not so good? I find that I have a need to be right about everything, and my medical history seems to be a copying hers.
I look at the keyboard while I’m typing, and I see her hands. I’ve heard her words coming out of my mouth and I think, “I am my mother!”
She’s passed on some great things to me. The love of Jesus, strength when life is really hard–unbearable even. I’ve watched her stand strong when many would have fallen. I’m not quite there yet but I can see some of her strength in me.
I learned how to compete and be a good loser by playing hands of canasta and a marble game called agrevation. Mom also passed on the love of words to me. She taught me to read by the age of 4 using Rebus readers. But then she modeled reading. Mom showed me the joy in the adventure and escape from everyday life by opening a book and turning the pages. She also read me books that made me cry, like The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I discovered it was okay to be sad and to grieve–even the fictional characters.
I discovered this gem of a photo of mom reading. Look at all those books on the shelf! Not only did the love of reading come from my mom but my grandparents.
My advise? Pass on the love of reading to the little ones in your life. Or volunteer to help others learn to read. You’ll be giving them the world.
How many times do you give up when you think the odds are to impossible to succeed?
How do you overcome obstacles blocking your way?
I came across this song by Mandisa. I knew I wasn’t alone. I have Him who goes before me, after me and lives within me. How could I not overcome?
Like everyone, I’ve had to overcome hard things in life. Grief has been able to grasp my ankles and pull me under many times. Some days I wrestle with dark spaces, and I don’t understand why all of my brothers had to go to heaven so soon. I don’t get to experience the annoying, “Hey you’re older than me,” or “What do you think we should get mom for Christmas–since you’re a girl, why don’t you do it?”
God has helped me overcome the sadness through two men at church who have taken the ‘Brother Role’ seriously. They will do something to make me laugh or annoy me,and I remember that I have brothers on earth. We’re related through Christ. I am grateful to Eric. S. and P.V. for providing a bit of family that might have been.
I’ve had a rough few months in the writing game and spent some time talking with author Staci Stallings. I told her I was afraid. She responded with, “You’re like Peter.” After listening to her I asked her to write a post about fear and Peter. Read it once, then read it again. Staci has shared a lot of wisdom through this piece.
In or Out?
If you’re a Christian, you’ve surely heard the story of Peter out there in the boat on the wind and waves. Then out from the waves there comes a figure–walking. At first Peter and his friends think it’s a ghost, and they freak out.
Through the wind, they hear a voice call out: “Don’t be afraid!”
Okay. I’m a scaredy cat. Truly and honestly. In fact, me and fear go way back. So I can tell you if a ghost came toward me, walking on the water, and said, “Don’t be afraid!” I would probably veer toward afraid even more!
But Peter didn’t.
Why?
Because Peter knew that voice. It was the voice he had heard many, many times. It was the voice of his best friend, Jesus Christ.
Have you ever heard that voice? Maybe it was a whisper in your heart. Maybe it was someone talking about a dream that’s been on your heart, but you’ve not really listened because it seemed so very unattainable.
Then out there from the waves, the voice calls to you, and you think you recognize it just like Peter did. So Peter tested the voice (ever done that?). “Lord, if it is You, tell me to get out of the boat.”
And Jesus says, “Come.”
Come.
Oh, it sounds so simple! Right?
At our church we’ve done this scene in VBS a couple of times, and when Peter starts to get out of the boat, the other disciples FREAK OUT! “Peter! What are you doing?! You’ll drown! Don’t Peter! NO! Don’t go!”
Have you ever been there? Wanting to strike out and follow what God’s put on your heart with your family and your friends trying everything and every way they know how to talk you out of it? In fact, maybe you are even good at talking yourself out of things.
“Well, I don’t have the money.” “Well, what will other people think?” “Well, it probably won’t even work.”
You know Nike’s slogan… Just Do It?
Clearly you are not alone in this indecision because that campaign slogan is one of the most successful in all of advertising.
Peter made the decision. Just do it. Just get out of the boat. Listen to Jesus. Don’t listen to all these people who are not Jesus.
And now we come to the pivotal moment that trips so many of us up… getting out of the boat.
I’m sure the first touch of his tooties on that water made Peter seriously question his own sanity. “Wow! Is that water cold! Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Maybe being in the boat would be better. At least there, I’m safe.”
Have you ever been there? Half in, half out? Have you ever wanted to get out of that boat so badly you could feel your heart dragging you, and yet…
And yet…
Here is a spiritual nugget of wisdom. The most dangerous moment of all for Peter was being half-in, half-out of that boat. With the wind and waves picking the boat up and dropping it, he very likely nearly capsized the whole thing.
What happens a lot is, we as Christians get to this moment and freeze. Our decision become indecision. Our faith becomes doubt. And we stop, clinging there. Half-in, half-out.
I want to encourage you today not to stay there. Do not let analysis-paralysis set in because it’s a cancer that kills dreams. Your dreams. And God’s dreams for you.
Listen to the voice. Make the decision. Breathe and realize that yes, there are going to be challenges. This will not solve everything. But if it’s on your heart to do, God is the One Who put it there. If you believe through the wind and waves, the fear and the doubt, that this really is Jesus calling you out of that boat, then it’s time to Just Do It!
Take a breath. Make the decision. And get out of the boat.
Don’t stay in that most dangerous moment any longer than you absolutely have to because it truly can and will drown your dreams and you just as surely as staying in the boat will.
The boat will not save you. Clinging to the boat with one foot in, one foot out will not save you. The only way to truly be saved, to be truly free, is to be out dancing on the water with Jesus. He’s calling to you. He’s waiting for you. What are you waiting for?
In or out? Which will it be?
Copyright, Staci Stallings, 2013
Love to be inspired? A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, #1 Best Selling Christian author, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure!
Check out Staci’s
“To Protect & Serve”
Now just 99 Cents!
It’s also blog hop day! Check out these other blogs.
I saw these snickerdoodle muffins on pinterest, but they weren’t gulten-free. I had to try to make them so I could eat them. When though? Time seemed to be filled every day.
Then the undesirable happened. My computer died. Well, that opened up a lot time. But we went to Michigan for a wedding. What is it about water lapping a sandy shore that instantly relaxes tension? I want to bottle that feeling so I can have some every day.
Hover Image to Pin!
Back to A2Z:M is for Muffins!
The original recipe appeared here on Eat Me I’m Delicious if you aren’t eating gluten-free head over there for the real recipe.
1 1/4 cup Vanilla Greek Yogurt mixed with 1 tsp. baking soda
2 1/4 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour ( I use Jules which has xantham in it, if you don’t have that you’ll need to add xanthm)
1/2 cup sugar and 1 TBSP cinnamon mixed together for rolling
1. Cream the butter and sugar until soft. Add in the vanilla. Next add in one egg, mix, now add the other egg and mix.
2. In a separate shallow bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar and nutmeg.
3. Alternately add the flour mixture and yogurt mixture to the egg-butter mixture. Start with flour and end with the flour. Scrape the bowl so you get it all.
4. Scoop about 1/4-1/2 cup of muffin batter and drop it into the a shallow bowl with the cinnamon sugar mixture. Roll the muffin until covered. Put into muffin tin. You should get about 12-14 muffins.
5. Bake about 20-22 minutes in a 350 degree oven or until pretty golden brown.
Hover Image to Pin!
These are so good even Mr. Quiet ate them.
Have you ever made snickerdoodle muffins? What’s your favorite muffin?
What do you do if the work you produce can’t be sent by email, text or put on a blog? Because my idea of fun is writing I often forget about others who work in creative fields. Like my son, Andrew. He produces amazing art work and it’s often on large wall size canvases.
What if your work is so big it has to be moved from one floor to the next down steep concrete stairs, or by an elevator?
First you have to have a space to create work of that size. For my son that means an older building in the city. The building is ancient and has been used so much that the concrete stairs are worn in the middle much like wooden stairs of the early to mid 1800s.
This weekend we helped our son move his paintings from his studio to the Concrete Ocean Art Gallery in St. Louis. His show is Friday, Oct. 4 at 7 pm if you happen to be in St. Louis stop by and check it out. Here’s a painting by Andrew Brandmeyer that will be available–without the blue MOVING PAINTINGS rectangle –I added that.
Moving paintings require muscle, great care and a truck. We have the truck and trailer, and Mr. Quiet has the muscles. (He’s not going to like this photo…I took it when he wasn’t looking. That’s his thinking face.)
And a cat.
No artist or writer is ever without a cat right?
Don’t touch these!
Andy packed the painting with care into boxes. Lot’s of protection to make sure the frames aren’t scratched or the paint chipped.
I couldn’t help it. I had to play with some of the fun apps I learned about in the iphonography class.
This one fit through the door. After one attempt we realized the bigger paintings couldn’t make the turn at the bottom of the stairs and had to be moved by the old building’s freight elevator.
Every time we left the studio for a few minutes the door gate had to be locked because of where the studio is located.
We followed Andy to the gallery, driving slow, cautious of the cargo we carried. Works of art, creations only one person could do. With a sigh of relief we arrived at the Concrete Ocean Art Gallery and our responsibility ended.
It’s “J” week on the a2z meme. I didn’t know what to write about so I asked my husband, Mr. Quiet, “Any ideas?”
Mr. Quiet, “Jingle, juggle, joy.”
Love the man, but while he can remember the oddest things he has trouble recalling what I’ve written about on this blog. While I’m mulling over the best wife responses to his suggestions, he comes up with another word.
“Jukebox.”
“What can I possibly write about a jukebox?”
“All those times you hung out with friends in college listening to music instead of going class? Dropping hard-earned money in the slot to play your favorite songs?”
Again, Mr. Quiet has forgotten a few things I told him about my college experience. It was nothing like his. I never went anywhere except to class, the cafeteria and the library. Oh wait, there was the year I discovered the foosball table. I might have missed a few math classes because I was winning.
“Do they even have those things anymore?”
Mr. Quiet, “Don’t know, maybe they’ve been replaced by the cloud.”
“Maybe. How sad.” In my hometown at the Frost Top restaurant there was a jukebox. My family went there sometimes for burgers. My favorite song was, “I Shot the Sheriff.” My dad seemed to run out of money after I played that one…wonder if it was because he was a policeman?
Just in case you are too young to know what a jukebox is let me define it for you. It a beast of a record machine, you put in your money and picked a song from the menu. There would have been a button next to the song with an A or a B and a number, and it looked like this:
Jukebox! Pin me I’m history!
Imagine carrying that around with you instead of an iPod.
Not just get it, but grab you by the ankles and pull your feet out from under you?
What does it take to shock you so much you GASP? Your lower jaw drops and you intake a huge amount of air?
Yes, like that.
The recent Miley Cyrus act should have made my face resemble the above photo.
It didn’t. It made me sad for her and for the girls who loved her as Hanna Montana. There is a great blog post written by Daphne E. Tarango called the Day After for Miley Cyrus that says everything I felt.
Maybe I can’t be shocked enough to GASP anymore. The world around me has fallen into such deprivation that even my friends aren’t gasping at what’s happening in the news.
Then my cell phone and the house phone rang at the same time that suprised me, two friends calling at the same time.
There was news, bad news so shocking I gasped.
I called another friend and told her, same reaction. Pure shock. Gasps occurred every time I told a friend.
So what caused this?
My hairstylist is quitting. If you’re a woman you probably gasped too. It takes years to find the right person, to train them to do your hair the way you want it done and then one phone call and you have to start over.
It’s refreshing to know if something is personal my friends and I have the ability to rapidly suck air into our lungsand let out a gasp.
What we need to do is to relearn to be shocked enough to gasp at what is happening in the world. Even though we are not of this world we do live here, we need to be shocked enough to gasp at what is wrong. Not just losing our hairstylist.
Perhaps we (I) need more courage to face the things that should cause me to gasp and call them evil.
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” 1 Corinthians 16:13 TNIV
As my faithful readers and family know this past year has been a blur due to taking a statin drug, followed by the mold season! I really don’t remember much of 2013. I do remember telling my husband we’ll know I’m better when I drag out a paint brush.
I love to paint! But the idea of cleaning walls, taping fixtures and dragging ladder inside seemed like something I would never be able to do again.
A few months ago I did paint the new outside doors. it had to be done, but my heart wasn’t in it, neither was my body. It took a week to feel better.
But now!!! I’m feeling better! Look what I did!!! I even had Ed take down the light for me so I could spray paint it. It used to be an odd antique something…. I used Rustomluem metalic nickel.
The paint I chose for the walls is a Benjamin Moore color Smoke Embers.
Ed was more than happy to have me back to painting and feeling better. He does not like to paint.
If you want to pin to pinterest use the photo below! What do you think of Benjamin Moore Smoke Embers paint color? I love the softness it brings to all the hard surfaces. OH please do pin!
www.dianabrandmeyer.com/blog
Next up, the laundry room and WRITING!!!!! I love feeling better.
When you don’t feel well what things do you miss doing?
Do you like to workout? I do! But sometimes it starts getting old so what can you do to keep going?
Here are 10 ways to maintain your exercise workout and not in any order of importance.
Change your workout. It’s good for your brain to refocus on doing an exercise a different way.
Don’t work out sick. You’ll end up hurting yourself. If you’re coughing like a 2-year-old who coughs to get attention then you aren’t sick. You’re bored, see number 1.
Figure out your Workout Social-ablity Needs. Answer these questions to help you decide:
Do you work better alone, in a group or a mix of both?
Do you like your music loud but you live in an apartment?
If you have to drive somewhere to work out will you choose the couch instead?
Would it bother you to run into someone you know while wearing workout clothes?
Now find a class or a spare room and get started!
Get a workout buddy to hold you accountable. *note this doesn’t have to be a buddy that exercises when you do. I have a friend who calls and asks if I worked out. I can’t lie to her so this works for me.
Get a tip jar. Love this one, it came from Kimberly Smith, my boot camp instructor. After a workout I add some money to the jar.
Weigh-in only once a month on that scale! Exercising two days in a row won’t change the number on the scale, if it did, everyone would be at the gym.
Measure your progress by the tightness of your waistband.
Schedule your workouts. It sounds like a simple thing to do, but if you don’t put it on the calendar you’ll find something else to do.
Feeling stuck, not sure you are doing a move right? Hire a trainer for a session.
Don’t take more than a one day break between workouts–unless you like starting over.
Bonus!
Start working out on Monday and as early in the day as you can.
Use the DVDs you probably have stuck in a basket or hidden behind closed doors on a shelf. When you’re able to predict the next word out of the instructors mouth change to a different one.
If you don’t want to put money in the tip jar, fill a jar with stones and for every pound you lose remove a stone. Thanks Doreen Warfield, my amazing Zumba instructor, for that one.
DO IT FOR YOURSELF. Don’t start this so you’ll look good at a wedding, reunion or special event. It’s a lot of work to get into shape and if you aren’t going to respect yourself to do it for life– then don’t do it. YOU ARE WORTH the time it takes to walk around the block!
And here’s a bonus, if you want to get those 6-pack abs check out this post 10 Best Core Exercises.
Can you add to my tips? If yes, leave them in the comment section please!
