happy thanksgiving!

oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“for who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

for from him and through him and to him are all things. to him be glory forever. amen.

romans 11:33–36

the days of crafting

hello all! happy weekend!

last night, i went to the bethlehem craft boutique. what a blast! i was hoping to accomplish a great deal of Christmas shopping, and boy, did i ever. of course, i can't post any shots of what i bought for others, but i did buy one little treat for myself, from the table of the lovely liz minnie! it's a cute little button to wear on sweaters, coats, or even a hat.

two years ago, i had a table at the boutique. oh, how different those days were. :) that was right before we bought our home, and i was dying, dying for some type of creative outlet. i was reading tons of craft and design blogs and longing to try/tweak what i was taking in. i was bursting! i was also just starting to take an interest in interior design, but we were living in a rental, and i could only go so far in terms of decorating. so i set up an etsy shop for my crafting experiments, and had 13 online sales! it was such a triumph. 

when we bought the house, things really changed. i didn't have much time for small creative endeavors, but that was okay, because we were designing and remodeling a home! we were not only picking out paint colors, but tile, light fixtures, faucets, doors, and even choosing where walls/sinks/cabinets/showers/toilets would go. i still go to bed thinking and dreaming about ways to decorate and furnish our home, but last night's craft boutique made me want to pull out my sewing machine and make all sorts of little crafty things, too. i don't have as much time for crafting, but i am planning to make a few of the Christmas gifts i'll give this year. there's just something really special about a handmade present.

speaking of decorating, i'm off to apply the last coat of polyurethane on some dressers i started, oh, a month ago! stay tuned.

i got me some new glasses

from here:

things are crisp and clear. it's great to see! i actually ordered two pairs, but the others aren't in yet.

in other news, i read this verse this morning and it struck me afresh: "and from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." —john 1:16

grace upon grace! 'tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

is anyone else listening to Christmas music yet? i think it's the snow. feels like Christmas is just around the corner.

the end of fall

i really missed the opportunity to shoot any photos of our gorgeous minnesota fall. most of the leaves are off the trees now. but as sunday was such a lovely, warm day, i set out in the afternoon to do a little photo practice on manual mode. i gave myself the assignment of finding color amidst all the dead, brownness of pre-winter. here's what i came up with.

[something with vivid red leaves growing in the middle of our rocks? yes, we have purple rocks. maybe the former owners were vikings fans? who knows.]

[our neighbor offered to paint our storage shed for us this summer. i think he was sick of looking at it in its previous state. we chose this bright blue.]

[a tree in our front yard—no idea what kind of tree it is. i was flat on my back taking this shot up at the tree and ben came out the front door to ask if i was okay.]

i'm loving the camera. oh—also, ben downloaded trials of both adobe's lightroom and apple's aperture for me to try. i know a lot of people like lightroom, but i wasn't impressed by it—probably because i don't know how to use it properly. :) aperture, however, blows my mind. i used it to edit these three shots. i had been using iphoto, so using another apple program was pretty easy to understand. just my two cents for those interested in photo stuff!

me vs. the knobs

howdy and happy sunday morning to you all!

i've been working on painting some side tables/dressers for our bedroom. they are these from ikea.

i am about to put on the clear coats, then they will be finished. finally. next i have a dining table to tackle and a door to paint . . . but one thing at a time.

moving on, i want to share a triumph! or maybe two. the knobs that came with the dressers are kind of ugly, but i had leftover paint from other projects so i thought i'd try painting them before buying replacements.

first of all: painting knobs? how can you paint something you have to hold in your hand? grrr . . . well, the wheels started turning (scary, i know). i tried sticking the screws through the top of a cardboard box lid. then i screwed on the knobs. i could reach beneath and turn the screw to turn the knobs and voila! it worked. no need to touch the knobs.

okay, that was the first triumph. i know, i'm easily pleased. and here's the second: although it is not perfect, this is my FIRST acceptable full-manual photo!

probably could have increased the aperture a bit, the shadows are a bit funny, and the color of the knobs doesn't look true, but i'm happy with it. judo chop!