The cutest bags...

 My sweet, amazingly talented friend Kathryn, who made the adorable blanket that Briar laid on...(it is on our bed now), the programs for the celebration,....also has a shop.  It is on facebook now, hopefully on etsy soon.  Check it out here...and buy something cute!!  Or just stop by and give her some feedback.  OR go tell her how impressed you are that she is so multi talented. A wonderful singer. A beautiful person.  A great quilt maker. An amazing friend and sister.  A beautiful flower maker (check the one out on the bag, she also makes them for your hair with any fabric, just ask her).  She makes me smile.  One of the many people that the Lord has used to encourage me during this time.  Hope you find something fun.  Who wouldn't want to receive something sweet from her shop as a gift?

I love this bag especially because it reminds me of Briar's blanket (See it peeking out, above?) And it's Amy Butler fabric...which just makes me smile anyway.  I'm hoping to buy the one below, so don't set your sights on it. :)

At work...

This picture came in an email to me today. It made me smile. This is my best bud Hay. We spent a summer together in Macedonia. It felt like ten years. In real life, we've probably only spent a total of 9 weeks together. But it feels like years.  Just an example of how people are walking through this journey with me. Sending me love in different ways, every day.

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
-Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

I feel like each day, God gives me enough to make it through the next day. He is El Shaddai, one of the Hebrew names for God, means "the all-sufficient God,"the God of more than enough. By trusting that God is enough, I can take life one day at a time.  As I walk through each day, I can truly say that work is going well so far. We are on day two.  I have had to tell the story several times (By story, I mean telling people that my baby has a fatal birth defect, watching their jaws drop. One person even thought I was joking, because I said it so straight faced. I suppose it is just normal at this point. It is my life. It is truth), so eventually I asked my principal if we could send out an email to the staff to divert all the questions. It has worked like magic, and people still talk to me about the baby, but they refrain from talking about Briar's "Problems" (notice the quotations, because I don't think they are problems, but they are problems tot he world)  My counselor actually said that when her husband had cancer, this was the way she chose to deal with it at work. She needed to focus at work, so she just couldn't talk about it over and over.  I think it will work well. Now, if we can just send an email to all my students :) and give them social skills so they won't ask! Just joking, I have no clue how I'm going to deal with the students and their interesting comments and questions.

So, we bought this nice car from my grandma. It is a great car, and we were lucky to pay cash for a vehicle. It is so nice, in fact, that it has leather seats. As much as I like these, with 100+ degree temperatures, it makes for scorching seats.  That, in combination with my pregnant self, requires some extra care. So, after burning my bottom a couple days in a row, and sweating (GROSS) on the leather, I decided to cover a pad I like to sit on with fabric.  (Amy Butler fabric, of course).  I am not talented enough to sew a cover for this very interesting slanted shape, so I decided to bring the glue gun back out.

I used this fun fabric:

I burnt myself several times. The glue gun will cause that problem. I still have scars on my fingers from a crazy time making curtains for my mom :)  

This is the finished pad.  It makes my new (to me) car look really spiffy.


Here is a snippet from my new skirt that is SO ADORABLE.  I just love it. It was handmade from a place called twirls.  It is so, so special because the sweet woman who handmade it even emailed me recently to tell me that as she makes things, she thinks about the person she is making it for. She knows my story, and she told me that she prayed for me as the made it.  How special is that? I felt really loved to know that!

Amy Butler Bag, How I miss thee...

Oh Amy Butler bag, I miss you. You were stolen. You are probably sitting in a dumpster somewhere. You were so carefully made by one of my favorite etsy sellers...and then some mean person took you...took out everything expensive in you, and threw you out. I drove around the area for weeks hoping it might show up. It was one of a kind. Not that expensive. But it was CUTE.

Today I don't have to work. No screaming second graders. No taps on the shoulder, or the hip. No screams of (insert rude phrase here) to other students. No conflict management.

WOO HOOO!!!!!!!!!! Excited won't really cover it here. I will miss my second graders, but boy will I enjoy the break.

I digress.

I mean to tell you that when I was trying to make a shutterfly book for a Christma present for my mother in law and sister in law, I came across this pictures above from Europe this summer. I bought the bag especially for the trip, so there would be room in it for my Nikon D80 monster camera. Then, this fall, after my husband returned from Deployment #3, we went to do a midnight 5K...and someone smashed our truck window to get my hidden away purse. Mean people bum me out.

Anyway, I told my DH (darling husband) that if he wanted to look on ETSY, he could search for Amy Butler and he would find lots of cool things.
He called me later and in normal sarcastic (but true) fashion, he said, "Who is this AMy Butler and why didn't I know about her earlier? Her stuff is so cute!". This is coming from a really tough AG....who is not into 'cute'. Love him. I later got four emails of 'purchases' from etsy I had not made. Lucky for him I like surprises, so I didn't snoop.

I hope there is a new bag within them. :)

More soon! I've been doing little crafts!