Audio of Yesterday's Story

Whether you read the piece of writing I shared yesterday or not, you should check out this audio of it.  Click on the link below the photo to listen.
The backing music is not mine, that came from a cd by Nancy Goudie.  But all the spoken word is me and written by me.

Those Feet - A Prodigal Returns

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Those Feet - The Prodigal Returns

Writing Inspired by The Prodigal Son by Rembrandt 

It was the dirt on his feet I remember.  The dirt ingrained so deep I couldn't imagine it ever coming clean.  The dirt that represented the anguish of his heart, his desperation to “come home”. Yes, it was the dirt on his feet I remember.

I didn't recognize him at first.  I mean, he’d been gone so long we thought he was dead.  But the master, he never gave up hoping, looking, watching for his son to return.  And then, there he was, the master I mean, off and running.  I’d never seen a Jewish master run before, and there he was, grabbing up his robes in his hands and running down the hill.  To whom?  To what?  Why was he running?  And then we saw him, this man that the master had obviously seen approaching, this dirty, unkempt man, who had obviously not been living well.  He looked like a slave, not even a household servant like us, just a slave. His skin burnt from working in the sun, and wearing filthy rags. The sandals on his feet had certainly seen better days, they were only just holding together.  And those feet, those dirty feet, yes, it was the dirt on his feet I remember.

Because as the master reached him he saw the master coming and he threw himself at the master’s feet, but the master had turned already to lead him up the hill toward the house.  And so as he knelt before the master, all I could see of him was his back and the soles of those feet.  That’s when I recognised him.  I KNEW those feet!  I had served this family for many years, I had been there the day this son was born, I had bathed his feet each day when he came in from playing as he grew and then from working in the fields with his Father.  If he cut his feet working in the rougher ground, I was the one who tended to his wounds.  I KNEW those feet.  Well, that and the fact that then I heard him . . .

“Father, forgive me.” It was an anguished cry, that obviously came from somewhere deep inside.  He wasn't going to be polite, he wasn't going to worry about who did or did not hear, all he wanted was to be allowed to come home. “I don’t deserve to be your son, make me one of your hired servants.”

He was asking to be one of us.  To live like this in the house of his father, to be ordered around by his family, and even by some of us?  How could he be willing to live like that, to accept that in the house where he had once been a son?  I didn't understand, and then I remembered his feet, the depth of dirt that was ingrained there spoke of many days walking home, without knowing what would await him.  He must have rehearsed this speech a thousand times.  I could not imagine what he had done while he was away, what he had been through, but I knew that even this, that he was proposing, must be far better than staying away. Or else, how could he suggest such a thing?

But the master did not wait, did not listen to his son’s protestations, maybe he didn't even hear them, because he grabbed his son by the hands, pulled him up to his feet, and he hugged him.  Another thing I don’t think I’d ever seen a Jewish master do before.  He hugged his son in full sight of anyone who cared to look. In full sight of neighbours, family, friends and servants. 

He brought him into the house and pretty soon we were all busy running around bringing things.  Clothes.  Not just clean clothes, but the best clothes, the sygnet ring that signified authority within the household, the fatted calf for a feast.  And then, as the others ran around preparing meat and bread and all the other food for the feast, the master called to me “The sandals, go fetch the sandals, the best ones from my room.”

So I fetched the sandals and I knelt before him as he had knelt before the master, and I took a bowl of water and a cloth and I bathed those feet again, and slipped on the sandals his father had kept specially, and I swore to myself that I would always remember those feet, those dirty, filthy feet.

.

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New Embroidery Machine Review - Brother SE400

My new embroidery machine arrived today!!!  I am SO excited.

It's a Brother SE400 Embroidery and Sewing Machine.  Originally I got the PE500, but the 500 does only embroidery, not regular sewing, and keeping that one would mean I would have to manage 3 sewing machines - one for sewing, one for embroidery, and my beloved Babylock serger.

I may just embroider penguins on EVERYTHING

I'm quite excited about it so far.

It comes with a whole bunch of preset embroidery designs, and you pretty much just get it threaded and then push "go", and change the thread when it's ready for the next color.  It's really super easy.  It also has 4 fonts so I can get it to spell stuff out.  Now I can stitch my name into my underwear!

I am fighting the urge to secretly embroider sparkly purple My Little Ponies on the butt of all Darrell's pants.

It's got a touch screen control panel, filled with icons which are slightly mystifying, but which claim to allow you to edit the size and rotation of the embroidery designs.  It also has a USB port so I can theoretically load in my own designs, although that promises to be a bit of a nightmare - the software is not mac compatible, and it takes a special .pes file format, and I haven't got the first clue about how to convert, say, my logo into an embroiderable design.

My first test was (of course) on fleece and it seems to like the fleece just fine.  I'm excited to see how this new machine enhances my hoodie designs.  Yay, Embroidery!

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LED Fairy Lights - Steampunk Costume Accessory and Fairy Room Decor

Wow! So, I've been out of the country, fire dancing at a theme park in Japan, for most of the winter. I'm back now and I got an embroidery machine for Christmas, which I haven't even taken out of the box yet, because of the aforementioned Japan trip.

Just before we left, I made a bunch of gorgeous fairy lights and hung them from my ceiling:

I got some colored bottles and covered them with iridescent cellophane, using mod podge and a heat gun.  I've had the mod podge for EVER and was never quite sure what to do with it.  This was an excellent application, I think.

Then, I took some leather scraps and cut them and tied them around the cellophane-covered bottles.  I filled the first couple of prototype fairy bottles with a battery-operated LED strand with about 8 lights on it.  I pushed the cork in and braided the LED cord in with leather cord wrapped around the neck of the bottle, and now the battery pack can get wrapped around a belt and the fairy bottle dangles from my waist.  It's an incredibly awesome costume accessory!

Here I am sporting 2 fairy bottles at the Dickens Fair with Nick in all his steampunk finery.

The little ones worked so well that I wanted to make some bigger, more permanent ones.  I asked for (and received!) a fantastic strand of multi-color, color changing LEDs for Christmas.  It was a bit of a project, but I made 10 more fairy bottles of varying sizes and colors and soldered together a bunch of lead wire between the LEDs before enclosing the LEDs inside the bottles.  This was a bit of a project - I am not the world's best solder-artist, though I'm probably a bit further up the ranks after doing all those connections.  

At the end of it all, though, my fairy bedroom now sports 10 color-changing LED fairy lights - 4 at the corners of my hanging bed and 6 more around the room.  I even have a remote control to turn them on and off, and to change between the colors.  I can pick one color or get them to softly cycle through the rainbow.  

There will be more LED projects in the future!  LEDs are neat.  :)

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Jessie J Headshave

Jessie J shaved her head for Comic Relief! The gorgeous popstar cut stages of her hair off as the program progressed culminating in a completely shaved head. Jessie's super-shiney bob and fringe looked great before the clippers were taken to her raven locks.

Here are some pictures of the best of the action:

Just a couple of weeks ago Jessie sported an asymmetrical bob

On the night, back with her trademark blunt fringe

The first cut completed by Lenny Henry 

Chelsea shaved head and bangs

Completely shaved and still gorgeous

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Prayer Spaces

Next week I will be leading a team that will be holding a prayer space in a local school.  We are rather excited about this opportunity and looking forward to the week.  There is still lots to do to get ready, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share some thoughts with you.

Back in October I shared a post about Why Prayer Spaces, in which I shared some of the history behind the prayer spaces in schools movement as well as snippets from recent reports and a video about prayer spaces in schools.

I also shared a post of some creative prayer space ideas.  Next week, we are only using one of the ideas in that post, the hands, and we will be drawing our hands on large pieces of paper, although for future spaces I would like to invest in a large printed and laminated hand.

Since writing that post I have made a board on pinterest for ideas for prayer spaces in schools and am gathering ideas at an incredible rate.  If you are interested you can check the board out at http://pinterest.com/aislingbeatha/prayer-spaces-in-schools/

So, onto next week.  We will have a variety of prayer stations.  The one we hope children go to first will be the calm zone where through mp3 players and quiet music with a spoken track over the top and the use of glitter calm jars, we hope they will calm down a little from the excitement of a new space and be ready for the rest of the room.



We will have a world zone where children will put post it note prayers onto a large world map on the wall, or pray for a particular part of the world as they put a piece of a world map jigsaw in place.  Next to that will be details of a charity the school supports with a marble run so that the children pray for the length of time the marble runs down the run.  On the other side of the maps will be a table with cress seeds to be sprinkled onto wet paper towels so that they can see their prayers grow over the week as their seeds grow.  This will be connected in to environmental issues.

As we are heading towards palm Sunday, two of our other activities will be using paper palm leaves which a team lovingly cut out last Sunday before church.  First will be a zone where they write down a prayer for someone who is important to them because on palm Sunday we remember the people celebrating how important Jesus was to them.  The other is the BIG QUESTIONS zone where children can write down a question they would want to ask of God and it can be absolutely anything!

And finally we will have a fizzy forgiveness table where children can think about letting go of something someone has done that has hurt or upset them by dropping a fizzy vitamin tablet into a bowl of water and watching it dissolve away.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Prophetic Crochet?

Yes, I'm serious.  I've seen prophetic dance, prophetic paintings, prophetic writing, so why not prophetic crochet?

First of all, what do I mean by prophetic arts in general.  I'll steal a definition from the author, Matt Tommey.

Every time you create a piece of art, you get the unique opportunity to allow the Father to flow through you by the Holy Spirit to touch the life of the one who is interacting with your work. This process releases the testimony of Jesus through your art – who Jesus is, what he’s done, His presence, Glory, power, grace, mercy and healing – it literally releases the Spirit of Prophecy or the Breath (Wind) of God imparting life to the one interacting with your creative expression. Because the Holy Spirit can work through anything at anytime with any person, your artwork becomes the place where Heaven meets earth – a table of sorts – where the Father waits to interact with people that interact with your art. It’s there that a divine conversation often begins.

So, HOW does that relate to crochet?  This is a piece of crochet I did a few years ago now.  I had actually forgotten about it until it came up in conversation last week so I went and dug it out.

This came about at a time when a group I was involved in was talking about prayer shawls.  I felt that the Holy Spirit prompted me to make this particular piece when I looked at my yarn stash shortly after those conversations.  I had the black and the metallic yarn, but I had to buy the multicoloured yarn specially.

If you take the piece from left to right as it is pictured here, there is a journey through someone's life.  The prayer shawls we had been talking about were for people facing difficult situations and the black yarn represents that.  The darkness, hopelessness etc.  The light comes in, and fades out and I know in my own situations I have found myself wondering at times why God would give me those glimpses of what could be only to have it all go back to the way it was again.  So, the black and the metallic yarn come in and out, but finally, at the end the multicoloured yarn comes in, first mixed in with the black but then all by itself.  VICTORY!

You see, no matter what kind of creativity a person moves in, I honestly believe God can use it in the way Matt describes in the quote above.  And I am passionate about seeing people released into that.  That Christian art is not just about art with Christian themes, it is about art inspired by the Holy Spirit.


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Claudia Winkleman, Thick Brunette Locks

TV presenter Claudia Winkleman always impresses with whatever hairstyle she currently sports. We love the   thick fringe and shoulder length 'do best of all on her though.

Here are some pictures of Strictly and Film 2013's hostess.

Thick curls

Pretty with a ponytail

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Living Thankfully

Another week, another list.  Here we go then, in no particular order, On Monday 4th March 2013 I am thankful for . . . . 

863.  The best Christmas gift we could have wished for under the circumstances, the nurses at the hospital, somehow, through various phone calls managed to get my father a bed at the hospice, a much calmer, more peaceful environment than the hospital ward he was on.

864.  He's still with us.  For however long we have left, he's still here.

865.  He is only an hour's drive away.  Yes, that makes things difficult, but it could be so much worse.  I've had friends have to take flights to visit ailing parents, and because of the cost had to wait until the last moments.  We can visit weekly, even multiple times a week some weeks, without too much disruption to our schedule.

866.  My sister, who has done the bulk of the visiting and kept us up to date with what is happening.

867.  Friends at church who have travelled similar journeys with family members over the last few months, who have been there to hug and to say "I understand."

868.  Video notices from the children's outreach team went well at church this morning. A number of laughs were heard.  I hope to make this a regular thing throughout the year.  Here is a cut down version. (watch for the cast member jumping in shock at 2:39)



869.  Plans for our first primary school prayer space are coming along nicely.  You'll see more on that over the next few weeks.

870.  A husband who loves me and works hard to provide all that we need.

871.  A part time job for our eldest while he is at university.  Hard hours, and interesting senior staff, BUT it's brining him some much needed money.

872.  The possibility of an awesome opportunity for eldest son this summer.  So excited for him and praying it comes about.

873.  Meanwhile youngest son is moving along nicely with his studies and handing in his extended project tomorrow morning.

874.  The possibility, just the tiniest possibility of getting to Gathering of Artisans in Scotland this summer.  At £275 plus transport I can't see how we are ever going to make it happen, but even the possibility is an exciting thing.  I am keeping the dates free so that if God provides the finances I can go. (I can't link the image to the booking page yet as booking doesn't open until the end of next week).

875.  Friends, online friends who are more IRL than I could ever have imagined them being.  Thank you ladies, I am so glad for what we have!

876.

If you wish to participate in blogging about your list of 1000 gifts or in Thankful Thursday, you can do so by clicking on the banners at the top of this post.

Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Life As We Know It - update

Back in December I blogged about my father's illness.  At that time he was given days to weeks to live.  He is still with us.  On Christmas eve, the nurses at the hospital managed to get him a bed back in the hospice.  For a few weeks he improved as he fought off the repeated infections he had had while in the hospital.  Then he reached the end of that upswing and continued on the downward journey that the cancer brings.

He wants to go home, but as he lives alone this just will not be possible, so we are currently waiting for an assessment of his care needs which will be followed by a move to a care environment.  Which will take place over in our home town, about an hour's drive from here, because that is where my sister and my dad's girlfriend still live.

My dad

who looks so like his dad,

My dad who is struggling to come to terms with what is happening to him.
My dad who always knew how to have fun, always knew how to challenge us to achieve, always looked to serve others in some way, my dad who is coming to the end of his journey.  I love him and I wish this wasn't happening to him.

It has been hard to get my head around blogging, around putting words on a page, around planning and actioning craft projects and recipes.  It has been hard to think of those things as we have travelled this journey.  It has also been a time of transition for me in my calling, but more of that to come over the next few days.  That, of course, has added to the difficulty in putting words to the thoughts swimming around my head.  All those things I thought I was so sure of have been thrown up in the air and left to fall back down where they will.

So, that's where we are at, right now.  I aim to get back to blogging on a more regular basis, but I needed to start with this, so that you all know where we are at and the reason for any absences.


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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