HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL here in the Walking by Faith House!
The weather…..
This week we really start to see some cooler temps . We are trying too eek in our last summery moments . We will dip down into the 60’s later this week
Right now I am….
I am sitting at the kitchen table listening to a Tv show on my phone. I’m about to make myself a cup of tea and take my book up to bed.
Thinking….
I may not have been completely ready to start back to school today with the kids but it was good and what was needed for them and for me. I enjoy (mostly this season of life with our family right now. Homeschooling was something I never thought I would do but it has been so good for us and we have grown so much through all of this and its fun to watching the kids eager to learn.
On my reading pile….
I’m still reading The same books as last week but we added a Hudson Taylor Biography for morning basket
Hello Fears
Get Out of Your Head
A time Management book (Can’t remember the title)
S.H.A.P.E.
my Bible
On my TV…..
YouTube art videos and Touched by an Angel
On the menu for this week….
Monday -BLT’s Tuesday – Beef Stroganoff Wednesday -Meatball Subs Thursday – Chili and Biscuits Friday – Chicken Bacon Ranch Casserole Saturday – ???? Sunday – Pasta and Garlic Bread
On my to do list….
Kitchen needs to be deep Cleaned
Finish the Homeschool planner.
Purge Kitchen cabinets
clean and purge craft room
finish emptying craft closet
In the craft basket….
Nothing at the moment
Looking forward to this week….
last summer moments with friends
Looking around the house….
all the cleaning and organizing listed above
From the camera….
First Day oof 10th, 9th, 8th, and 6th.
On my prayer list…..
All of the places around the world in horrible turmoil, the south. Friends and family going through some rough spots and wisdom for our journey
Bible verse, Devotional….
Still studying through Philippians one but I’m thinking that taking some time away from that to adjust to a new schedule might be necessary. I’m going to take a peak tonight at options and let you know next week what I have decided
Welcome to our new weekly blog post, A Time to Play. Sunday afternoon’s were made for relaxing in our house. It is something we have made a huge priority over the last few years. We guard it pretty closely and it ends with a date night rotating amongst the family members. It’s a way that my very busy Hubby is able to spend quality time with each one of us.
Well this is the beginning of what I hope to carve out some time to learn some new skills. As we have had to change our schedules when hubby left his ministry it has been difficult to find the time for my craftiness. (HEHEHE- that just sounded kinda funny)
Scheduled play Time
Now each week will look a little different- some weeks I will share some artwork or I might share a favorite supply
This week for instance I am going to share….
WHAT’S In MY TRAVEL ART BAG
I have had this Eastpak Back Pack since I was in High school- It has been half away around the world with me and back again. It has been through 4 years of college too. It has been camping and hiking and has now found permanent residence in my craft room.
The front pocket
Let’s start with the clear pouch that holds 2 bottles of water- I used two travel bottles that came with our camper. (It had shampoo and conditioner) in them. and there is masking fluid. It keeps white spaces when using water color. you paint it on and then rub it off when dry. a glue stick and some binder clips.
Then there is my favorite mechanical pencil and a simple microfiber cloth for wiping off my paint brushes.
Then there are scraps of paper for testing projects and an artist card pack.
The Big Pocket
This is one of my favorite watercolor notebooks. It’s small and I love the spiral bound option so I Can fold it over for easier use.. I have really grown to enjoy Arteza’s Art supplies and there a bunch listed throughout this post. You can check out their website here and stay tuned to learn about more of their art supplies! You can check out more here
THESE are my absolute favorite water brushes also from Arteza. They come in 6 different brushes 3 round (small, medium, and large) and 3 flat brushes (Small , medium, and large). I lost one of the caps while we were camping 2 years ago! the velvet bag came with the Artsy palette coming up in a few pics
this pencil set was an Amazon find. I needed a cheaper set for traveling and I needed some new drawing pencils. this set was perfect.
This simple little travelers notebook was something I put together a few years ago. I had to re-work the band. and I took so over side sketch paper and water color paper and cut them down to fit the inserts. It is perfect for camping and traveling.
Somedays you just need a coloring book! and this one is small enough to just slide in amongst the other stuff in the bag and I can just grab it and the colored pencil pack and go sit at t a picnic table somewhere. and the little book to the left is just an insert for the travelers notebook above covered in scrapbook paper and it has some heavy duty mixed yardstick.
This little pack has a bunch of goodies in it. Hubby and I have matching ones. His is gray and mine is this lovely shade of purple
The top picture is what is held in the pockets on the left hand side.. The pack come with three pencil holder “Pages. the first one is stitched in but the second two can be put in with velcro. I only have an extra one in. in currently. the first one front and back hold my Arteza Woodless Watercolor pencils- they are my faves to date. they are so smooth and not scratchy like some. And they dissolve so well.
Page two
The second page has my PITT Pens (fine Liners and a Mechanical pencil with Red lead in it!!! I have recently started using red colored pencil to sketch in before I water color over it. It just kinda melts into the painting and adds depth to the artwork.
The big part of the pack has just a few little things.
This little cellphone looking device is actually a watercolor paint palette. I needed something small. Would you believe that there are 60 colors in it? I love just how pigmented these colors have and I love to play with them.
The top picture are 2 silicone muffin cups one for clean and one for dirty water, my kneadable gray eraser (AKA stress therapy) and a roll of WASHI tape .
These are super special paints!!! These are Derwent Graphitint watercolor paints. They have Graphite mixed into the hues- These amazing paints give wonderful earthy tones with a slight graphite luster. I have thoroughly enjoyed using them and I am currently saving upper the water soluble Graphitint colored pencils.
Finally these mini travel brushes can be corked and make for easy travel.
If I need to get smaller I can just grab the purple pack and the travelers notebook. and be good to go. These are made by Sakura Koi and come in round brushes in 3 sizes (small, medium, and large).
So are you ready to play>. Join me each Sunday and be ready to share what you are working on!! I can’t wait to hear what you are working on!!
In the past I haven’t shred what we have done for school. It just seems like such a trigger subject for so many Christians and I just Shied away from the conflict it could bring. I had a blog post about last years school choice all set and then I chickened out. It was just easier to avoid the school choice drama.
Well you all know the journey I am currently on and I am working on eradicating the fear out of my writing so I’m just gonna preface this here before we get started. …..this is our choice. I am not going to force our choice on someone else. And I likewise expect the same respect.
It is what works for our family in this season…..and I can tell you we have done it all. We have had kids in public school (Hubby and I both went to public school)- and we had good reasons for it.
All four kids at some point have been in Christian school and we have had great reasons for that too.
And we have just homeschooled one kid while the other kids were at a different school- and we have had great reasons for that.
And both last year and this year we are homeschooling all four kids and we have GREAT reasons for that.
Expect more posts about homeschooling this year! Just little did-bits that have helped us through the process and remember we are homeschooling two special needs kids too. That adds an extra element of excitement around here!
Thanks for joining me on this journey!
To Read more Choosing Courage posts Click here (yes we just finished Day 13!)
Good evening everyone! Welcome to post #12 in the Choosing Courage project. I hope you have had a great week! I have a very interesting question for you tonight! Have you ever invested time into someone- given them all of your heart (I’m not talking about a spouse necessarily), just to be all of a sudden accused of being a horrible person in some shape or form.? You are left standing there with the pieces of your shattered relationship laying at your feet and the overwhelming sense of “You never really knew me”?
If we are honest we all have (especially if you were a girl in middle school. We also have the tendency to either take offense far too easily or project our own problems on other people (more on this in a future blog post).
Grace upon Grace, Mercy upon Mercy
No matter which side you are on it’s important to remember that our ultimate goal as believers in Jesus is to be Christ emulators. And Jesus was full of GRACE and MERCY. I know some people aren’t naturally bent towards these traits. We need to work very hard to be like Christ. It takes practice and sometimes blowing it and then being able to learn from those mistakes.
It also takes a great measure of humility to admit that we don’t know everything. The only person who really knows our Hearts is God himself. Even we ourselves don’t know our own hearts because emotions can be severely deceptive. We can convince ourselves of lies both about ourselves and our closest of friends and when we let those lies and emotions take over and we lose sight of who Jesus really is and how we are supposed to love! UNCONDITIONALLY!
FORGIVE
This is the ultimate act of Christ like behavior , especially if you forgive before you are asked to forgive. Jesus provided the ultimate gift of forgiveness before anyone ever knew they needed forgiving..
Forgiveness is HARD. Especially when we have been hurt whether intentionally and unintentionally! But it is a choice we must make.
STOP PLAYING GOD
When we assume that we know someone’s heart , we are playing God. I know that’s hard to hear. But we all do it. And it’s so important to admit that flaw and move forward to understanding. That’s what we need to strive for understanding and love rather that assumptions and gossip. It’s our job to extend Grace and mercy so we can become the picture of true Christ-like love.
But how ado we do that? It Comes to to CHOOSING…..
It starts with some Courageous choices that goes against the world’s perspective.
Choose to acknowledge that you don’t have all the understanding of peoples motives. When we assume we know their motives we are saying we know them better than God. And in doing that we show that we don’t really know them,
Choose to Die to self. Put others before yourself and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Value other people and their insights I had a history teacher who had a phrase he used to say “There is a world outside of Hetlerville. Yes that’s a real place. But the point is we get so stuck with seeing what is in our immediate location that we lose sight that the world is a much bigger place. The same is true fore us as individuals. When we get so wrapped up in our own little worlds and all the drama in our lives we fail to see what other people are going through. and even sometimes we take the struggles we are having and project them onto those around us.
Choose Grace and mercy. It doesn’t matter of you are good at these things or not. we need to actively choose these! When we do so we will grow and we get better and better. But remember you can’t give what you don’t have.
These three choices are just the beginning! There is a part two of this coming soon…..So what will you be choosing to do? For me it’s forgiveness but more on that in the next post.
But while you wait you can check out the other CHOOSING COURAGE posts here
Happy Thursday and you know what that means! It’s Joy Dare Day. (It is also Day 11 of my Choosing Courage 100 day writing project) it’s the part of my week when I share about all of the little joys God has brought into my life. Those simple little blessings that I take for granted on a regular basis and this daily act of gratitude brings them front and center..
Day 20- 3 gifts in serving
watching people grow in their walk with Jesus.
seeing God meet unspoken needs
my own personal walk with Jesus growing leaps and bounds when I trust him to use me.
Day 21- A gift straight, curved, turn
Straight- colorful pencils (I got a great deal on a nice brand of colored pencils
curve- bananas
turn- the next bend in our path
Day 22- 3 gifts in Light
a new day
Christmas
our table outside
Day23- 3 gifts old
our parents -Both sets(they aren’t very old but older….) No way I can say this will turn out nicely! but I don’t mean it in a bad way!
our furniture handed to us from family. we have someaniques passed down from family and friends
Books!
Day 24- 3 gifts meaning
Our kids- they are always going on an adventure
Our animals are always doing something comical
our vehicle getting us from one place to the next.
Day 25- 3 gifts Fragile
Eggs- from our neighbor
cute little birthday gifts from my parents
Hearts opened to each other
Day 26- A gift cut, sewn and buttoned
Cut- A freshly cut lawn (I love that smell)
Sewn- A patched set of bean bag chairs that are well loved
Buttoned-Details all buttoned up- I love to finish things. and move forward.
I’m glad you could join me on this gratitude journey. It really is amazing just how much our hearts change when our perspective changes! There is always something to be grateful for- even in the hard stuff.
How about you? What are some little blessings that you are grateful for? What brings you Joy? Let me know in the comments below.
You can check out more about the Book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp by clicking here and you can check out more about the Joy dare by visiting her website here.
You Can also check our my other posts in my Choosing Courage Project by clicking here
Thank you again for doing me on my journey. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments
