Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 3 Comments

My “Word of 2015”

My friend, Maria, blogs at My Barefoot Soul.  We met many years ago when we were both blogging over at Xanga.  (Does anyone still blog there?)  Anyway, earlier today she wrote about choosing a “word of the year” and I think she chose the perfect one for herself.  Toward the end of her post, she asked if any of her readers had chosen a “word of 2015” for themselves, and I realized that not only had I not chosen a word for this year — I’d never chosen a word for any year.  So I thought about it and I have a word for this year:

Persistent

/pərˈsist(ə)nt/
adjective
adjective: persistent
1.
continuing firmly or obstinately in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.
“one of the government’s most persistent critics”
synonyms: tenacious, persevering, determined, resolute, purposeful, dogged, single-minded, tireless, indefatigable, patient, unflagging, untiring, insistent, importunate, relentless, unrelenting; stubborn, intransigent, obstinate, obdurate; formal pertinacious

2.
continuing to exist or endure over a prolonged period.
“persistent rain will affect many areas”
synonyms: constant, continuous, continuing, continual, nonstop, never-ending, steady, uninterrupted, unbroken, interminable, incessant, unceasing, endless, unending, perpetual, unremitting, unrelenting, relentless, unrelieved, sustained

I think persistent is a good word for quite a few reasons, which I will share with you now.

  1. In 2015, I plan to be persistent in my pursuit of a stronger relationship with the Lord.  It’s been heavy on my heart for months that my commitment has been less than stellar, and that for a long time.  When I realized that I’d had “good” excuses for missing worship and fellowship with my church family for almost two months, I thought “what a sorry example of a Christ-follower you are.”  The Creator of everything that is, my heavenly Father who sacrificed his Son for me — am I so important and so busy that I cannot carve out time in each day for prayer?  And yet, when a crisis hits, I truly do pray without ceasing.  Hypocrite, much?  So this year, if you see me standing in the paper goods aisle at Kroger and I look like I’m talking to myself, I may just be having a little visit with the Lord.
  2. In 2015, I plan to be persistent in the love of my family.  Sometimes loving family members is not easy.  Sometimes it’s not convenient.  Sometimes it’s a downright pain in the backside to love, and the sense of obligation (because it’s family) makes it even harder.  When I think of what my life would be like without my husband, daughter, and extended family, though — oh, how I love them all!
  3. In 2015, I hope to be more persistent in looking for opportunities where I can serve.  I have often used the excuse that “my plate is so full right now,” or “I do for my extended family” or “I made a donation.”  I really need to stretch myself and look for opportunities to serve face to face with people in need.
  4. And lastly (because if this list becomes too long, I might as well blow it off), in 2015, regardless of circumstances, I plan to pursue persistent joy.  That kind of joy that gets you through the saddest times — because you know that everything’s going to be okay even though you feel as if you may die.

So do any of you have a “word of the year” for 2015?

Posted on by Laura Jinkins

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel vision:  defective sight in which objects cannot be properly seen if not close to the center of the field of view.  • informal — the tendency to focus exclusively on a single or limited goal or point of view.

The definition of tunnel vision indicates it is a bad thing, a defective thing and when applied to difficult circumstances, the definition fits well.  Imagine you’re facing a most difficult challenge.  This challenge is of such magnitude that you can’t see anything else except your foe and the likelihood that your foe will triumph over you.

Now imagine that the challenge, the foe, has been replaced with God.  Imagine your tunnel vision has allowed you to ignore every other complication, every other distraction in your life and all you can see at the end of the tunnel is the magnificent glory of our heavenly Father.  Maybe tunnel vision isn’t always a bad thing.  Maybe it can be used as a tool to hone one’s focus to the one true God.

I’m hoping that 2015 is full of a spiritual kind of “tunnel vision” for me, where I focus on the Lord and block out distractions that would interfere with my developing a stronger relationship with Him.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins

A Testimony

So I am working on this “prayer without ceasing” thing.  Carrying on a conversation with God throughout the day, and it’s been interesting.  Something really incredible happened this evening and I’m thrilled to share it with you.

My niece requested a Pandora bracelet rather than a senior ring, and her mother gave it to her for Christmas.  My niece asked her mother to choose the charms and my sister selected charms that had great meaning for both of them.

This evening they were running errands at an outlet mall about an hour from their house, and when they were almost home, my niece realized her bracelet had fallen off her wrist somewhere along the way.  When I talked to her, she was very upset because the outlet mall is large and the odds slim that someone would turn it in if it was found.

I suggested that while her mom drove she call the stores they’d been to, to see if anyone had found it.  After we hung up the phone, I prayed — I asked the Lord to reveal the location of the bracelet to an honest person, someone who would turn it in so my niece could recover it.  After I prayed, I decided to call my mom and ask her to pray with me for the bracelet’s return.

The Lord is so good — roughly an hour after the bracelet went missing, my niece called a shoe store they’d visited and the sales clerk discovered the bracelet in a boot my niece had been looking at.  I’m so glad that my niece’s bracelet has been found and so in awe of how the Lord cares about even the most “minor” details in our lives.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

Searching for Faith and Trust and Peace

For several months I’ve been struggling with my faith in God and my ability to trust Him no matter what the circumstances around me may portend.  As a result, it seems as though there’s a constant flutter in my chest — an absence of peace and an almost paralyzing anxiety.  It might not be so paralyzing except that my worries are not simple matters like trusting God for fair weather on a  day when we need to install thirty blinds or for provision to pay off a bill or take care of a house repair.

My weak faith, my difficulty in trusting God are my own fault because I’ve not been diligent in reading His word — getting it really locked into my mind and heart.  And so recent worries threaten to overwhelm because I struggle so much to believe that He cares about me or that He’ll take care of my worries.

Worry #1:

I am almost fifty-one years old and I’m not in the greatest shape.  I’m not talking about the vanity of fitting into the same clothes I wore thirty years ago.  Aching hips and creaking knees, pains that shouldn’t be showing up for another twenty years or more are slowing me down.  I’m talking about not knowing if that anxious feeling in my chest is just an anxious feeling or something that requires a trip to the ER, and being OCD about keeping aspirin in my purse since that supposedly can lessen the effects of a heart attack if taken quickly enough.  And while I hope to spend eternity with the Lord, I am terrified of dying any time soon.  I want to see my daughter achieve her personal goals (whether that be children’s librarian, music teacher, wild chorkie wrangler, etc.), see her marry a good man who will cherish her the way God intended, to hold my grand-babies if that is in His plan for our family, to enjoy the “twilight years” of my life with my husband, whom I love more than anything in this world.  I have friends who say, “Take me now, Lord!  I’m ready to leave this world behind and be with You in glory!”  And I feel guilty for not feeling the same way, because it seems as though I am putting my husband and daughter above God in importance.  But surely He would not give them to me if He didn’t want me to love them with all my heart?  Would He?

Worry #2:

Then there’s that.  How to transition from the parent who makes decisions, guides, and protects a beloved child, to the parent who gives advice, guides and tries to protect the not-still-child, but not-quite-adult…  How to be there and offer counsel and accept that the counsel may or may not be heeded.  I have cried and prayed over how to let go and accept that in this fallen world, heartache and pain are a given and I have not been, and may not always be able to protect my girl from either, because she is growing up.  While I struggle to trust God, my struggle to trust humans with regards to my girl is even greater — I’ve loved her for well over nineteen years (if you count the time I carried her) and it’s difficult to not view the intentions of some of the people entering her life with suspicion.  Do they see her for the wonderful young woman she is, or do they see her as a source for something they want – a commodity to be take advantage of?  She’s so amazing and she loves so hard and she wants to believe the very best about people — until they hurt her and then she’s devastated.  It’s the kind of hurt, the kind of devastation that makes a gentle heart hard and less likely to love in the future, in hopes of not being hurt again.

I’ve loved like that and been devastated when the love I gave was cast aside like yesterday’s trash.  It’s a huge part of the anxiety I feel — wanting to spare her that heartache because I know how it feels and how it scars and how it never goes away completely.  Then I am forced to remember that as much as I love her, God loves her even more than I do.  Whatever happens, if I put my faith and trust in Him, He can redeem any situation for His glory.  So I need to spend more time praying, reading my Bible, strengthening my faith and building my trust in Him.  Then His peace will come.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins

Progress

Before and Almost Done

One of the things that I’ve been working toward is throwing out what’s not needed and organizing what’s left behind.  You might look at these photos and think I still need to throw out a lot more stuff.  But truthfully, I HAVE thrown out or donated a lot of things.  Most of what you see here is necessary — at least it is to me.

I was very happy to have recently scored the desk and two bookcases shown in the top two photos on VarageSale.  We are book people, and we’re not talking “only fiction” or “reference” or whatever.  We love almost anything that can be printed and bound between two covers.  We dabble in “ebooks” from time to time for convenience’s sake, but we’ll never give up our beautiful book collection.

If you look at the upper left-hand photo, there is a bookcase on the left that I got at IKEA a number of years ago.  It’s solid wood and the shelves are supposed to hold up to 77 lbs.  This was a huge selling point for me, because I didn’t want the shelves to sag over time.  That bookcase holds my cookbook collection, as well as a number of stitchery books (mostly cross stitch).  The cabinet below holds some crafting supplies.

And you can see in the lower left-hand photo an identical bookcase on the other side of the window that holds some of my favorite history and literature textbooks from college on the upper shelves.  Below them are some storage cases holding photographs that are organized, but need to be put in albums.  In the cabinet below I store scrapbooking magazines and idea books.

But I digress from my VarageSale score.  The desk and two bookcases visible in the upper righthand photo — I was able to buy them for $135 last week and, while they aren’t super high-end pieces, they are solid wood and pretty well made, as long as I keep their limitations in mind.  (The drawers are stapled, not dovetailed, so I’m thinking it wouldn’t be wise to load them down with too much weight.)  Now that I’ve gotten them semi-organized and know for certain that they will serve my purposes, I plan to paint them and replace the drawer knobs on the desk with something a little more my style (the current “frogs” are NOT my style — amphibians weird me out).

The hutch above the desk has all my business materials (client files, pricing binders for calculating quotes).  The bookcase immediately by the desk has:  Shelf #1 – Photography references; Shelf #2 – Writing magazines, rough drafts of my novel, critiques; Shelf #3 – Office supplies; Shelf #4 – Old novels that belonged to my grandmother; Shelf #5 – High school and college yearbooks.

The second bookcase needs three shelves cut and then I will do a little fine-tuning of my organizational efforts.  Over all, I think my purchase is really going to help me with organization and time management, since I won’t be searching for things that are scattered all over the place.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins

My Old House

Eddie Bauer "Craftsman Bungalow" Palette (Valspar, available at Lowes)
Eddie Bauer “Craftsman Bungalow” Palette (Valspar, available at Lowes)

I’ve lots of dreams for our house, but some are more expensive than others. I’ve decided that paint will give us fairly immediate gratification with the smallest expenditure. Yesterday I prepped the entryway from the garage between the laundry and kitchen. Patched holes with wood putty, smoothed them over with some sand paper and wiped everything down with environmentally friendly mineral spirits to get rid of years and years of dust and grime. (The entryway is still wearing the same coat of paint it was when we bought our house 14 years ago. Yeah, I know.)

I also bought a desk, hutch, and two bookcases off Varage Sale the other day. They aren’t fancy and only cost me $135. I think they will look pretty good after I paint them. I really needed the additional bookcases for things in my office, so this seemed to be a pretty inexpensive solution to my ongoing battle with disorganization. I’m going to go ahead and organize the things I plan to use the set for before I spend a lot of time prepping and painting them. That way, if it doesn’t work as I hope, I’ll just turn around and sell them again. Sometimes you have to try it out to know if it’s the right solution.

The color palette I’ve finally settled on for the majority of the house, and have already used in the living, dining, and kitchen (after YEARS of trying to decide) — Eddie Bauer’s “Craftsman Bungalow” in these colors: Mercer Blue, Cattail, Craft White and Limestone.  (Disclaimer:  I do NOT live in a “Craftsman Bungalow” — it’s a 1950s/1960s Ranch (?), I guess . . . but I love these colors and I love Craftsman-style furniture, so whadyagonna’ do?)

68e533ce92071e4f18765a0aff0e711dfdae55bf351511915d7e64ad1efc6409dbb213c1e06fecf840a41433928d9c86

Valspar "Limestone"
Valspar “Limestone”

The image above is a fairly accurate representation of Mercer Blue and it is the color that I painted our living room walls several years ago.  In fact, it is the color that wraps around the perimeter walls of our entire common area, which is somewhat open.  When you walk through the front door, if you go straight ahead, you walk into the living room and as you go to the right, you see the dining area.  If you keep going to the right, you go through the kitchen and end up back at the front door.  There is a wall separating the living and kitchen — on the living side, it is paneled and on the kitchen side, it is covered with a closet housing the hot water heater, cabinetry, and the stove.  So the Mercer Blue takes care of the outer walls of this part of the house.

The Cattail is the color of the paneled wall on the living room side.  This representation is not quite as accurate as it appears real life.  On our paneled wall, it appears to have more of a green undertone.  I really like it with the Mercer Blue.  And when I get to it, all the trim will be painted Craft White.  I’m thinking about doing the kitchen cabinets with the Craft White, too, but adding some sort of antiquing glaze to make them stand out a bit from the rest of the trim.

In a few weeks, I hope to paint my office and the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bath the Cattail with the Craft White trim.  And last, but not least, I plan to use the Limestone in our bedroom.  This representation is the closest I could find.  If you look at the paint chip at the store, it is a really pretty grey — and definitely warmer (but not too warm, since I like cooler colors in the bedroom) than the Shale blue I selected from this palette and used in there a few years ago.

There are lots of other projects we want to tackle (my husband is working on replacing our siding with Hardiplank as he has time and money), like putting bead board paneling over the 1960s’ acoustic tile in the front part of the house and tearing out the weird closet/cabinet thing I use for a closet and putting in a REAL closet for both of us.  Those are a little more expensive, though, and I’m thinking that a fresh coat of paint on everything will be a nice compromise in the meantime.

The real excitement is knowing we only have about four years left on our mortgage!  So fresh paint or no, this old house is looking better and better as time goes by.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 8 Comments

Pop Tarts

I must confess, I borrowed this image from Google . . . and sadly, the blog where it first appeared no longer exists, so I have no way of crediting the photographer.
I must confess, I borrowed this image from Google . . . and sadly, the blog where it first appeared no longer exists, so I have no way of crediting the photographer.

Received the loveliest email earlier today.  When my girl visited her aunt in Washington, D. C. in July, her aunt took her to a little diner called “Ted’s Bulletin” the first night she was there.  Jami loved the food and was especially impressed by their homemade pop tarts.  So much so, that when she flew home a few days later, they stopped by to pick up a few “to go” for her to bring home to us.

The pop tarts were so yummy that I scoped out their website and ended up sending them an email to say how much we enjoyed them, and how we hoped to visit the diner in person someday when we visit my sister-in-law.  They replied that they were glad we enjoyed them, and they hoped to meet us in person someday.

But that’s not the email that I’m referred to . . . a second, unexpected email arrived today requesting our mailing address.  It seems that Ted’s Bulletin may be considering the sale of homemade pop tarts by mail order.  They need to test shipping methods, to see if the pop tarts will arrive at their destinations still looking like pop tarts, or just a box of sad pop tart crumbs.  So Ted’s Bulletin is mailing us some pop tarts and would like our feedback on how the pop tarts look when they arrive, and how they taste.

Maybe I should get a t-shirt that says “Ted’s Bulletin Pop Tart Shipping Research Analyst” or “Ted’s Bulletin Pop Tart Shipping Tester” . . .

Really looking forward to that box of homemade pop tart goodness.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 4 Comments

Busy

Boy, is it hopping around here!  The teen girl is finally home from her “world” travels and we are running to get the loose ends tied up with regard to her college registration.  Considering registration ends in twelve days and classes start in twenty-one days, I guess we’d better run!

Kind of, sort of related to that is a recent plantation shutter job I secured.  A large Catholic church in a nearby community ordered 32 plantation shutters from me for their Family Life Center.  I am so excited and thankful, because that will be quite the feather in my cap, to have that job in my portfolio.  Not to mention the fact that it will come close to paying tuition and fees for at least one, if not two semesters for the teen girl at the local college.  What a relief!

I’ve got two shutter quotes I need to finish up before turning in tonight, so I guess I’ll say goodnight for now.  When we get back into a routine (or at least some semblance of a routine), I plan to blog here more often.  I have several ideas for what I think will be quite entertaining posts.  Come back soon, now, ya’ hear!

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 6 Comments

Letting Go

So earlier this afternoon I did the unthinkable – I made an airline reservation for my sweet girl to go visit her aunt in a few weeks.  I, of my own free will, paid good money to put my girl on an airplane – WITHOUT ME.

I think I may need drugs, hard liquor, or both to get through those five days.

I’m kidding.  Really.

REALLY.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

Treasures

Brownie Hawkeye Camera
Brownie Hawkeye Camera

My guy took a personal day on Friday so we could take care of several errands, including installing some blinds for a customer before she went out-of-town for a week.  While we were out, I mentioned a garage sale I wanted to check out.  Truthfully, it’s not really a garage sale.  There used to be a resale shop in Sweeny, crammed full of all kinds of castaway goodies that were no longer of any use to their original owners.  When the ladies finally decided to close the door on their resale shop, they hauled everything home that didn’t sell in the “going out of business” sale.

Every couple of weeks, they send out an email to their former customers announcing their “garage sale,” which consists of all the stuff that didn’t sell.  I’ve never gotten a chance to go by there until Friday.  I went looking for EAPC (Early American Presscut glass, also sometimes referred to as “Star of David” glass), but they have sold most of that.  In fact, the one item they had that I wanted was just too rich for my blood.  A rare bowl, they were asking $125 for it.  Um, no.  Moving right along.

We were about to leave, and then I saw this sweet little thing.  A Brownie Hawkeye in the original box.  So exciting!  And only $10!  I’m pretty pumped about it.  I found a source for film and I’m seriously planning on ordering a few rolls so I can see if it still takes decent photographs.   If anything comes of my experiments, I’ll scan the prints and share them here.

Kodak Brownie "Fiesta" Camera
Kodak Brownie “Fiesta” Camera

I also found this little camera, a Kodak Brownie “Fiesta” which is about ten years older than I am.  I think finding film for it might be a bit more  challenging, but at $5 for the camera in its original box, and with the flash attachment — I am pretty pleased if only to have it for display purposes.   It was a great deal, as I discovered earlier this evening this same camera is going for around $20 on eBay!