Taking a Stand

It seems I am standing my ground, taking stands, picking and fighting my battles a lot more lately, but I will tell more on that later...

But first of all, we were just so thankful Daddy could attend Rhett's 13th birthday party!!! We brought the wheelchair for him to make it easier especially going out to the car. Although Daddy wouldn't look directly into the camera when I took pics nor smiled. It was a small gathering of family and friends. Rhett was getting few surprises except for one big thing. We decided to get him his own cell phone. We bought it hours before his party. I picked it out. A beautiful blue color with an orange cover. Rhett loves orange. In order to get it, Don had to trade in his old dinosaur phone and he got one just like Rhett's minus a cover. The neat thing about it was as Rhett was opening it, his Cissy called him on it! He has more texting capabilities than I do. His first text was to Austin. Just hoping & praying he doesn't go over his limit. He had a great 13th birthday.

Saturday night Don was driving us crazy trying to figure out his new phone. He was almost to the point of throwing it across the room after threatening to take it back and nearly cussing. I told Nancy that he did everything but cuss. Later he asked me if told her how close he came to cussing. It is funny how we do not like change. We want our old comfortable things not new fangled gadgets only a teenager can figure out without the bat of an eyelash. Sickening, isn't it? I seem to learn mine by trial and error. Mostly errors. LOL

In Sunday's paper was a special edition full of info for the incoming flux of soldiers from BRAC at Ft. Benning. There was a section for area churches, but they omitted the Churches of Christ in our community. This made me mad and Don even moreso. We took it to church with us. One of our deacons was rather non-chalant about it whereas Don wanted church members to start a phone chain of complaints to the local paper. Now my husband rarely gets mad or upset.

The next day, I decided to do something.... I emailed the editor of the special addition. He replied back right away, but I did not like what he had to say. I took offense at several things. He used the term of an "exhaustive" list of churches. I do not find religion to be exhaustive. So we had a bit of word banter back and forth. I did not ask for a listing to be exhaustive but inclusive. I looked up the meanings of anger, angry and mad in the dictionary before I sent my email back to him. I was not indignant or threatening. Nor was I a mad loon. I justified myself and my words with the the right ones which I knew were sent from above. I think any person whatever their religion would have been offended if their church was left out. He had to admit there is a difference between exhaustive and inclusive so I got my point across.

When I told Don what I done and was reading the emails to him, he got mad that I had put too much personal information about us in it. Then I got mad at him and wasn't going to read it aloud. I told him how he never supports me knowing he does support me. I could list the many ways. We just tend to say the wrong things in anger. Rhett was wanting the email to read badly, but I finished it. Then Don was proud of me at the end of reading it and said I did good. I was rather proud of me too. I sounded rather intelligent. So my non-existant journalism degree paid off.

I included alot of our church members in the email. Our ex-preacher's wife emailed back "Good for you for standing up for your beliefs." I got an "Amen!" from my friend Anne. And a "Go get 'em Tiger" from our preacher last night. Another member was going to reply to the editor himself if we had not received the last email that said I was right. It wasn't about being right. It was about standing up for your beliefs, your religion as well as oversights.

I did something sort of neat this week... I created another neat piece of artwork .... a 4x6 piece of watercolor paper was left at the arts center on the table. Someone had used it to test out paint colors so basically it was trash, but I took it home because I knew I could make art out of it. I saw red bird it in and played that up. I tested out more paint colors from our painting for upcoming VBS. I worked on it some more the night before last night mainly finger painting with my acrylics! LOL Then I used markers and a purple Crayola paint marker which I sort of blended. I colored in the background with a sky blue colored pencil, blending some of the colors. I really like it! To me it looks like you are looking thru a bunch of leaves and there is the red bird. The red, green an purple compliment each other. I think I will call it "The Red Bird". Like a Phoenix, it was has been reborn. It was left discarded & I made it into art. So give me your scraps and I will make them into art. LOL

Last night when I showed "Red Bird" to our preacher, he asked me if it was his. I had to tell him no. I do not give away my originals. I did tell him I'd make him a copy of it. This is his way of telling me how much he likes it which makes me feel good. He thought it would make excellent wallpaper.

I realize I have several pieces of art that are similiar to this. Maybe I should put them in a frame that holds 3 4x6's. I will have to see them in the frame first to see how they look side-by-side.

Besides finding acrylic paints on sale this week, a cricut cartridge on sale for my BFF church friend Nancy, I found 2 mini canvases with mini easels at Walmart. I had an idea for them until I begin "Red Bird".

Nancy & I stayed til after 11 last nite @ church working on painting our VBS soldiers! They are looking so good! We have even named them. The best one is Max which is the 1st one we did. Another lady helped paint him, but I had to go back & re-do some stuff like make the blacks darker. I always go back and do the shadowing. Our preacher likes him as Larry thinks he looks like he is walking off the cardboard! LOL I did take one pic of him with an unpainted helmet which makes him look a construction worker with a white hard hat! Max has beautiful long, flowing hair, a very wide nose typical of Biblical men from that era and area.

We were having trouble finding gold paint that works on the poster board donated to our church. Nancy did buy these Pilot gold & silver paint markers at Hobby Lobby. They are fine tip which isn't good for large areas, but it is SO pretty especially the gold. It is so shiney! I fell in love with these markers. When we got home, I told Don about the gold paint not working. He found me a bottle we had hidden at home which I was supposed to have used to paint a sax on this "person" he made out of nuts and bolts for Stephanie for Christmas. It represents her playing the sax in her band uniform. Both were put out on the counter. It is his way of saying, "PAINT THIS!" LOL

A bit of randomness...
It has been a good week and we are thankful. It was not without it's ups and downs as well as dramatic moments. I admit I lost what little patience I have at times. We are thanful to be here and not in a tornado struck area. We are thankful for all we have we often take for granted like air conditioning (my friend Bob) until it breaks down or ice in the ice maker (us). Thankfully I have a helpful hubby who can fix most anything. Today I matched up an old pair of pants with a newer top. A perfect match. Love it when that happens. I have noticed I have gone outside my color zones as of late which has been kind of fun on my art journey. This week I realized I can paint a fairly straight line which was brought to my attention. I am really comfortable with a certain red Crayola brush in my hand as if I were born with it. Some people were born with silver spoon rings on their fingers, I had to buy mine. I have felt really good this week for some unknown reason despite the sporadic downs I had. Its an imperfect world. We have our imperfections. So when we have a perfect moment in our lives, it means far more.

What are you thankful for this week? Care to share? Then please join us at the following...
http://womentakingastand.blogspot.com/

Happy Memorial Day weekend!