Just Feeling Brave

Here are a few pics. I'm hoping they will all align into an order of some kind. I think the picture of me will come up first on my blog or at least that's the way it shows up on my blog writing page. This is a pic that I had my hubby take of me so I'd have something to send to Karishma in India. Karishma is a little 8-year-old girl who I have chosen to sponsor through Compassion International. I chose Compassion because they work through the local church setting and the truth about Jesus is taught to them. I've "adopted" children in the past but I was not allowed to write about my personal belief in the Messiah. Compassion encourages us to talk about our faith and to build up the child's faith also. Karishma lives at home with her mother and father and a sibling. Her father is a day-laborer and makes very little money to raise his family. My little bit each month helps tremendously. I am not doing this alone (I would if that were the only choice left open to me) but the entire deacon board at church has gone in with me on this project. It's sort of our project as a small group. I am responsible to make the monthly support donation and to do the letter writing but each deacon contributes $3 a month toward Karishma's sponsorship. That way it is not a big expense for me. It's strictly honor roll. They know if they donated the previous month and if they pay in advance, they know how far they are paid up. This is a terrible picture of me because you can see all the weight I've packed on on my chubby, little, round face. I have gained 40 pounds since I quit smoking and although I can't seem to lose it no matter how hard I try, it appears to have stabilized for me.

The second picture is of our tomato box. We went across the river yesterday and bought all the top soil we needed and the four tomato plants. We bought a cherry tomato, an early girl, a celebrity, and a whopper hybrid. Hopefully we'll have delicious tomatoes in a few months. This first picture is taken from our deck looking down on the box and the next picture is one taken while standing next to it. Hubby is wonderful about using scrap lumber to make things. The wood used for this box was given to us by our niece who was just going to throw it away and my son grabbed hold of it for us. It was an old frame for a waterbed and we had plenty of wood to build the box.

The next picture is of a drawing my hubby made. Hubby is an artist and I thought you might enjoy seeing what type of work he does. He sent me several photos of different paintings he's done and I chose to post this one first. Well it looks like I just lost the second tomato box pic. I don't know where it went but at least you have the one picture. Anyway back to the painting. I have dozens and dozens of paintings in my house all done by hubby. [I want to hit the return key but I'm afraid if I do the pic of the elk will disappear the way the second tomato box did.]

Okay I got brave and just moved my cursor down and clicked it. I'm still learning how to work with pics in my blog so you just have to put up with some of my trial and error attempts at doing things. Michael (hubby) has painted hundreds of paintings using everything from pen and ink to oil. This one is a pen and ink with watercolor. It is my favorite technique.

I have an executive board meeting tonight at 7:30 and that's about it for my schedule. I'm knitting dishcloths hot and heavy. My nephew just got married and my granddaughter and her fiance are getting married later this month so I'm busy making their wedding gifts. Dishcloths may sound like a puny little gift, but they are a labor of love to make them. It takes me about 10 hours to knit each dishcloth. I've chosen to knit them in garter stitch rather than get all fancy because the garter stitch doesn't stretch out as much when it is wet and the garter stitch takes more time because the knitted stitches are smaller and tighter together. It makes for a very absorbent dishcloth. Perfect for all the mop up chores you get in a kitchen.

Tomorrow is my day to go to the county fair with a bunch of friends from my knitting group. We've all entered things into the judging that we made this past year and we'll get to see if any of our work earned a ribbon or two. I sure hope my baby afghan wins a ribbon. It is very, very nice and just may win one. Keep your fingers crossed for me. We will go early tomorrow morning and get our cookies entered into the daily contest (that's what gets us in free for the day). You must understand, I am NOT a cookie baker. I may do a cake once in awhile or a pie if it comes frozen in a box. But I do not bake cookies. However I used a recipe given to me when I was only 10 or so years old by a neighbor who brought the recipe over with her from Germany. I used to baby sit her five boys. Those boys now have grandchildren I'm sure. Anyway I made up two batches of cookies and proceeded to eat one batch all by myself. They were very, very good and I will be baking them in the future for hubby and I.

So far I haven't gotten to my study in Proverbs this week I've had other things going. Hubby and I got our evaporative cooler cleaned out and ready to go for when we hit the high temps that are coming our way. Sat or Sun we are supposed to be above 100 degrees. So we took care of that on Mon and then yesterday was our vegetable garden and tomorrow will be my fair day. I actually need to go to the fair twice. Once in the morning with my knitting friends and then I'll go back later that night with my son and watch Kayla (my youngest granddaughter) vie for the Miss Calaveras title. Last year she came in first runner up. This year we hope she'll take the crown. She would really like to win the title. And for someone who's never gone to the fair, except to watch Kayla try out, I have a long day planned for tomorrow.

Hubby has taken the car across the river to have a heat shield bolted back on the underside of the car. The part simply fell off one day as I was driving the car. I circled around to see what had made such a terrible racket and there it was laying in the middle of the road. I scooped it up and brought it home but hubby couldn't fix it because the car needs to be up on a lift to get to the underside and we don't happen to have a lift around. I sent him with $150 and sure hope it doesn't cost more than that. It surely can't cost more, can it? Oh, I hope not. I'm hoping for to get at least $100 back.

Well I need to get busy doing something. All I've gotten accomplished so far this morning is the bed, a few rows of knitting, and this blog. I need to plan out dinner. We had Marie Calendar's pot pies for dinner last night because that's my knitting night and I get them all prepared with the foil around the edges and then he puts them in the oven about an hour before I am due to come home. That way we still get to eat together and it's piping hot when I walk in the door. I really need to do my study in Proverbs so I guess I'll take something out of the freezer to thaw for dinner and sit down at the table and complete my lesson for the day. It was a bit nippy this morning so I had my quiet time in here on the couch instead of out on the deck. Enjoy the day, my friends and God bless you.