Twelve "Ty's"

Listening to: Jon Foreman's "The House of God Forever"

My bridal shower was a couple weekends ago. It was amazing how many people were there. I was thoroughly overwhelmed with excitement and gratitude. During the shower, one of the women gave a devotional on being a good wife. She shared twelve different points, all ending with the letters "ty." She'd printed each word to pin to the board as she went over each word. I took them home, and just tonight I rediscovered them. So I had some fun "adding" to her points.

Exhaustion and distraction are an awful combination...




Yeah, more pictures. What's up with that? Well, I no longer use the blog I used to put pictures on, the other personal one. It was sort of a one time thing that I never updated, so I decided to delete it and have one less blog. Why not just use my art blog? Because that I'd like to keep as professional as possible, and as much as I love posting all my creative comings and goings, some things are just silly. Or at least I think so. If anyone puts up a fight I'll at least consider it, but for now these will remain here as party of my story.

Gr... Who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind again. I'm so indecisive.

Banana Muffin Monday

I don't usually put images on this blog, but I'm up for trying new things.



Today I felt very productive. I woke up at about 8:30 in the morning. Waking up early always helps me feel like I've got the whole day ahead of me. Also, I was expecting a visit from Chelsea. We'd planned on getting together to work on wedding favors. So before she got there, I kept myself busy by tidying up the kitchen, washing and putting away dishes, baking, and taking pictures around the house.

The new banana muffin recipe I found was a big hit with my family in New Jersey a couple weeks ago, and so I decided to make them this morning for when Chelsea arrived. It is actually a vegan recipe, which shocks a lot of people. I've been doing a lot of vegan baking/cooking this summer because my sister is vegan. It's been fun looking up new recipes and learning ways to make good food with the sometimes challenging limitations.

Anyways, after cleaning and baking and taking pictures, Chels got there. We popped in a couple movies and worked on wedding favors. We worked on them the whole time she was here, breaking only to eat and use the bathroom. The favors are not even close to being finished, but it still feels good to have gotten so much done today.

I'll be heading out to my mom's in a bit, where I'll try to recruit my sisters to help me get more done.

Jealousy and Resentment

These are two of the biggest things I have to watch out for in myself. I am excellent at both, and I wish I weren't. Last night I had a jealousy issue, to the point that I could feel my heart shifting to hatred and self pity. So I had to mentally talk myself out of that. This morning I had a resentment issue, in which hurts from the past were brought to mind, and yet again I felt my heart leaning toward hatred for someone. I know why. But that doesn't make it right.

In general I am not like this, but being human I am very capable of every sin, every evil. It is in my nature to be drawn to self pity. It is in my nature to hate. It is in my nature to take the easy way out, to do what feels good. But the ability to choose whether or not I accept my nature is what separates me from the animals.

I could choose to keep hating. I could choose to go on being jealous. It would be so easy not to bother fighting any urge that came up. But would I be happy? No. I'd only be hurting myself, or hurting others. So there are short-term and long-term consequences of just giving in. It's easy in the moment, but what about later? What other parts of my life will things like resentment and jealousy sink into?

I'd rather not find out.