Faith Filled Friday

Faith. A small word. Five little letters. Websters dictionary defines faith as complete trust or confidence in someone or something. The bible defines faith in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." For me faith has always been a deep belief in the fact that as a child of the king "God's got my back." 

To me it is really that simple. Do I still worry? Oh, yes. All the time. Do I still overthink things? Oh please, O.T. should be my initials for Over Thinker. I am a pro at it. 

If I am such a believer in faith and try to trust God in everything, why do I still worry and overthink? Because I am also impatient. Yes, I pray about things and yes I give it to God. BUT and here is the big one: 

I DON'T LEAVE HIM ALONE TO TAKE CARE OF IT FOR ME. 

That's right, as soon as I give it to Him, if I don't see immediate results I stress and worry it over in my mind to the point that I decide to try to "help" him achieve the results I am seeking. Does that work? NOPE. Not at all. It's like He is looking down and wanting to smack me upside of the head and say "Oh my goodness, let it go. How can I take care of this if you keep trying to interfere?"

So this year, I promise to try to give it to God and sit back and let Him do His thing. He'll be happier, I'll be happier and I am sure if I get out of the way, He will do amazing things for me. 

So my friends, while I constantly urge people to have faith, I realize that I have to do the same thing. I have to put my money where my mouth is and let go and let God handle things. 

Have a great Friday.

 

New Year.....new plans.....new wish list

Thanks to 2020 and job changes, for awhile I had to sell off some of my Pyrex. It broke my heart, but that's okay. I can restock it. I currently have some things on my wish list that I had and want to replace and some things that I want that I haven't been able to find over the years. So here is my 2022 Pyrex wish list. 

The #1 thing on my list are the solid bowls to go with my Town & Country bowl. I have the big one with the pattern. I am normally not a fan of the Cinderella (bowls with handles like this). But I absolutely love this pattern. You can get the other sizes in the pattern or the solid. But I want the solid really pattern. So that is the top thing on my wish list. 

I thought I didn't want to collect the pink. But I have changed my mind. I am loving all the pink pieces. So I am going to start looking for some of those. If I remember correctly, I think these are the scroll, stems and daisies. But not sure I have that right. 

I want the Blue Horizon. This is one of my favorite patterns that I had to sell after my husband died. I had the mixing bowl set, the fridgie set and a couple other pieces. I want to at least find this one again. 

I love this one. I want to say it was an acorn pattern. But not 100% sure.

And I have never had this one but always wanted it. Just not sure what this pattern is called. But love this size casseroll dish.

And I love the divided dishes especially in the barbed wire pattern.

I'm not big on the Cinderella bowls in this pattern, but I do love this set of fridgies.

This is the #2 item on my list. The Homestead. It will be the next set of mixing bowls I want to collect.

I have looked for this for over 10 years and not found it yet, but it is still on my wish list. The black tulips. I just love this.

I am not even sure what they call the solid color mising bowls with orange and yellow, but I do love them. 

These two are so rare that the solid blue with the starburst has sold for $700 at one time. So unless a family has a yard sale and has no clue what they have, I'm sure I will never get this nor the bowls called the eyes.  Another very rare find.

The stripes comes in so many colors. I have seen them in blues, yellows, pinks, reds, browns. I am not sure what the actual colors are that made a set.

That's it for now. I'm sure I will think of more to add later. Have a great day.

 

Planning ahead

I changed my kitchen decor last summer. For years, I had reds and vintage. I went to a more modern with navy and yellow and incorporated lemon stuff. Seven or eight months into the new color scheme I am over the lemons. So I am going back to reds, but that's okay because some of the my vintage stuff is red, yellow and navy so I don't have to redo everything. But I was at Dollar Tree and they had these cute dish towels for $1 each and I love stuff like this so they came home with me for the over door. 

With more snow heading our way and the first one not even melted yet, I need to head to Walmart and Hobby Lobby for towels and fabric to make some dish towel decor for Valentine's day. I made these for me, my Mom and sister several years ago. Think I'll make some more while I am snow in the next couple of days.

And yes, all my craft plans was instigated because the following sign popped up in my Facebook memories. So now I have to craft again. 

I am also going to spend some time over the next couple days researching beach hotels for my summer vacation. Not sure who is going with me yet. Don't really care. I have several choices. The most important thing is that I am going to go to the beach.

Lots of plans for today, Thursday and Friday since we are supposed to get more snow. There is an old wive's tale that says if it snow at the first of January and doesn't go away in 24 hours, it is waiting for another snow. I believe that is true. We had 78° Saturday, 54° Sunday, and 3-4" snow on Monday morning and it is Wednesday and still deep on the ground with some black ice. Now they are saying more heading our way on Thursday and Friday. So this is my favorite weather statement for East Tennessee. It is so true.

Have a happy over the hump day. Stay safe my friends.

 

This crazy weather

 I know we have crazy weather in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, so usually nothing surprises me....usually. But as I am still so confused that Saturday, January 1st, at 4:00 p.m. I was walking around the Optimist Park near my house and it was 78°.

Twelve hours later, at 4:00 a.m., I woke up to see if it was snowing and it was. The temp was a windchill of 26° and I already had 3" on the porch and it was still coming down hard. So I made a snowball and it was some of the best packing snow I had seen in years. And yes, I put on a coat and gloves over my jammies and went outside long enough to make a snowball at 4:00 in the morning. Doesn't everybody?

I had to work a little while yesterday morning, but I work from home so I continued watching the snow fall. After work, I finised up some housekeeping I wanted to do and worked on this little tier shelf for my dining room table. I have a beautiful blue and white tablecloth to go on the table, but it needs ironed. Right when I went to iron it, my iron knob broke and now it won't come on. New iron in my future so I just used this tablecloth for now. But I love the shelf.

I had a new vase and some flowers I had bought at Walmart. So I decided to arrange the flowers in the vase for my living room coffee table. I am so happy with the results. I love this arrangement.

Then that evening I ordered Pizza Hut and sat down to read some more of my Nora Roberts novel that I got for Christmas. Pizza Hut has been out of my pork sausage I love and finally got some in. So he loaded it down for me because he knew I had not been happy with it gone. But apparently I must get too many pizza's from there because he remembers me when I call in. 

Now that was a wonderful start to the first few day of a new year.

2022: New year. New Goals. New Plans

 The last year, I didn't post much since I was going through so many changes due to Covid. We had changes in the way we did church. Changes where I worked so I started a new job. With all that came a new learning curve. Plus I helped a friend work on his first business and we have been getting a second business of his up and running to launch this month.

On the home front, I have done lots of redecorating. Spent more time with friends and just tried to piece together a whole new routine from the after effects of Covid on all our lives. I have redone some of my decor in various rooms. This winter I will be doing some painting and maybe even get a new living room suit. I am going to go with gray. My furniture is in great shape, but it is floral. There are starting to be tears in the fabric because it is over 20 years old. Time to bite the bullet and upgrade. Something similar to this maybe.

First, I want to thank everyone who has still followed my blog and commented when I did have a chance to post everything. Also, a big thank you to those who have stayed in touch with me through Facebook and Instagram.  

I have lots of updates and things to share with you. I am going to start making sure I blog again everyday because I miss all y'all and your wonderful comments. Stay tuned each day to see what's up in my tiny little world.

Playing Catch Up

I was heading to town recently with my daughter when we saw a giant yard sale in the parking lot of an antique store. Since we are both bargain hunters, we had to stop. There really was no choice. It was even on the side of the road we were on. 

As you know, I love teapots and especially the tea for one sets. So when I saw this at $10, I really wanted it. That is a great. Most tea for ones are $25 - $30. And this one had no chips or stains. Like new. So, having watched a fair share of American Pickers, I had to try to bargain. I expected $8 and I was going to ask for $7. I asked if she would take any less and she said, I'll take $5. SOLD.

Then I noticed this cute short teapot. It actually is square shaped on the top. It had $10 on it and I was going to offer $8 because I had never seen one like this before. I picked it up to look at it and when she said, you can have that one for $5 as well, I didn't even think about it. Now just to find where to put them. 

But the first find really made me happy. I actually looked it, sat it down and started to walk away. Then it hit me, you rarely find these with a lid and in such good shape at a decent price. I didn't even try to bargain. I see these in antique store that are faded and no lid, and they still want $18 for them. She had $6 on this one. Long before Tupperware and Rubbermaid, Pyrex had fridgies. This is one of a four piece set. I am going to try to find the rest of the set.

Here is the actual original four pieces: 2 red, 1 blue and 1 yellow. Going antiquing this weekend for sure with the rest of this set as my target. Just to prove how ridiculous people price these. This full set is $85 online. No way.

Have a great Thursday.

Some great finds

 It's been awhile. Life has a way of getting in the way. Since we were together last, I have had so much going on. Things are finally settling into a routine. Both the granddaughters celebrated birthdays. 

Shelby turned 13 in July and for her actual birthday she wanted to go to Gatlinburg, TN and play tourist with her little friend Megan. Since it was a Friday and both parents were working, I got nominated to take them. I needed a break and love to play tourist, so I agreed. They had a blast. In case you can't tell, Shelby is the one with the crown and sash. She's been a princess/diva since the day she was born.

In September, my beautiful Alexis turned 17. She's a senior and my mind can't wrap around how much she has grown up. We went to eat at Fort Worth Texas Kitchen. It was really good. We all had a great time. Of course, I had to get my traditional picture of just me and my beautiful girl.  

Colby's birthday was the first of the month. We are getting ready to celebrate tomorrow night at a family gathering. He turned 11. He's been busy with baseball all summer. He lives, eats and breathes it. As you can tell from this pic during a recent game, he takes it very seriously. He's so talented.

I had shown you some craft supplies I had purchased to make some mini rolling pins. Well, I made them and they are selling like hotcakes. I sold 26 of them within 24 hours of posting them. Here are a few of the designs. You can find them and more at our Etsy Store, TwistedCrystalArts with no spaces. 

We have a lot of patterns to choose from or you can even request a theme to go with your kitchen. These are so much fun to make.

I am really going to try hard to get back into blogging every day. I really miss it. Have a blessed day!