Quilt Fort

Michael and I did not drive far to get to our Labor Day vacation destination. We stayed in a fort built in our living room.

Michael said he never built a fort out of quilts as a child, and he still hasn't built one.  I did most of the work.  He did hand me some clothes pins and was a good sport once it was up.

We had a mild disaster while I was assembling the east corner. The structure collapsed, and the books and tile coasters I used as weights nearly fell on his face! He survived, but this incident may not have happened if he he had been doing more draping of quilts over chairs and less reading of Star Wars.  Just goes to show ya--sometimes manual labor can be more beneficial to society than having one's nose in a book.

Scruffy enjoyed the fort before we did.  She took a nap while we took a lunch break.

We had to push her to the back of the fort so we could get in.  She promptly fell back to sleep.

Then we laid down on our pillows and turned on Gremlins. I thought it seemed appropriate to watch a campy kid movie. 

This was my first time to watch the flick.  I would no longer categorize it as a kid's movie.  As a child, I would have freaked if I saw little monsters blendered and nuked to death, and worse, I would have become mortified of Christmas trees, one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

However, the movie was campy and so was our living room.

I got this idea from my friend Laura at Minty Fresch.  It proved to be a fun indoor date.

What creative dates have you had indoors?

A Productive Day

Yesterday I tried out some of the projects I've found on Pinterest.

I made tons of cookies using New York Times best cookie recipe. I made a couple revisions because I wanted to use ingredients I already had...I'm frugal like that.  I used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of chopping up bittersweet chocolate, and I used all purpose flour instead of pastry flour.  (I was unaware until now of all the types of flour that exist.)

  

They still turned out yummy.  Perhaps someday I'll try the actual recipe.

By the way, this recipe makes about eight dozen cookies. I had to store quite a few in my freezer. They're good frozen, too, you know. And that way you'll be more apt to eat just one because it takes longer to eat it.  Learned this trick from a good friend.  That is probably how I should eat these from now on.  I got a stomach ache last night from eating too many, and the hubs said he didn't feel sorry for me.  Sad.

I also made homemade laundry detergent.  This was easy and should have a nice impact on the apartment supplies budget.  This homemade detergent costs about one cent a load.  Compare that to the 23 cents a load that All has been costing me.  Cha-ching!

The Ivory soap was cheap, but I suggest choosing a different soap. I'm afraid we may be mistaken as citronella tiki torches for awhile. Ivory smells very lemony.

It was also time for a new soap dispenser, so I made one out of a mason jar I had.  The pump of my last soap dispenser broke, so I bought a new pump, but that pump didn't fit the old bottle.  I was still stuck without a soap dispenser until I found this tutorial on how to make one from a mason jar.  I already had all the supplies, and this turned out to be the easiest project I did all day.

I did some of my usual projects, too--crocheting and copyediting. I'm a crafty, frugal nerd, and I had a crafty, frugal nerd kinda day.  It was nice.

I don't know what's yummier--those cookies or all this yarn.

I am going to try out amigurumi for the first time with this stuff. It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!

Mirror Wall

I finally decorated this empty wall.  All I've had up there was the clock for the last year or so. The other round mirror is an antique that I wasn't sure what to do with, and the two rectangle mirrors my mom gave me because she didn't know what to do with them.  So I found them a home.

I painted the frames off white and then lightly painted over the white with silver.

The bird was a wedding decoration. I like how peaceful he looks sitting up there.

Ah, that wall looks much better.

Sunday Video: Gianna Jessen Abortion Survivor (Part 2)

She unashamedly lives for Christ.

He Leads me through Fear

I've been lazy lately. Do you have those days, those months?  For me it's been months, months of piled up dishes, piled up laundry, piled up prayers that haven't been prayed,  piled up words of encouragment and God's grace that haven't been shared, blogposts that haven't been written, steps of obedience that have't been taken. I reached this peak of emotional crisis, questioning my purpose, my motives, my fears.  I took time to relax and it became a habit. Actually, I didn't take time to relax if I'm honest. The truth is I didn't know what to do, so I just stopped.  The truth is I've been battling anxiety, this general anxiety, and I just stopped.

Fear is paralyzing. I froze and struggled to break through the icy fear that encased me and walk through the spinning world that didn't wait form me.

Yet, God knows what I am made of, dust that so easily drifts with the wind of the world's shifting currents, but He never shifts to turn His back to me. 

I love the encouragement of this line from A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23:

The disappointments, the frustrations, the discouragements, the dilemmas, the dark, difficult days, though they be shadowed valleys, need not be disasters.  They can be road to higher ground in our walk with God.

The dark days break our pride and allow us to dwell in intimacy with our Saviour. When these dark day hit, I stopped, but I am thankful that our Good Shepherd drives us along through the valleys. I am beginning to hear His voice once again.  "Walk this way," he whispers, and He gives me the strength to take each step. Christ, my Shepherd, enables me to keep walking ahead toward the next mountain. He strengthens me through his Word, godly friends, scripture, sermons, radio shows, books, a stranger's smile.

I must keep taking steps forward, trusting that God is concerned with my every step.  My Maker accompanies me; He understands, and He alone lovingly carves out my paths.  This is the truth.  My head will tell me lies, but God doesn't lie. My head says that I need man's approval, that I am worthless, that I should give up. This is a lie. I can step forward with joy and confidence in what God has ahead. This is the truth.

I still have many piles to pick up, but I am learning again that I can trust in God's stability to stand up, walk over to those piles, and get to work. The Christian life is all about standing again.