My husband has had the last two weeks off and has been working on our bathrooms.  Our masterbath has not been functional for 15 years.  The ceiling which broke in the other bathroom has been repaired too.  I was brushing my teeth and Dh came in the master bath saying I had to look in the guest bathroom a minute.  

I went in and found the ceiling repaired.

I wept.

Hard.  And ugly.  I don't have a pretty cry, I don't think, but I cried my heart out.

After that things got better on the home improvement front...We purchased everything at Menards and saved 11%. In spite of having picked the stuff out years and years ago, we were still able to get stuff which was very close to the original.

I worked tirelessly on my bible journal stuff.   I made lots of DIY art supplies, made three new art journals, made a couple mini-journals from the small boxes bar soap comes in, began working on my bible study/bible journaling class I plan to teach, and spent my Christmas gift card from Hobby Lobby.

My migraines are bad.  I had to cancel my appointment with my pain clinic because my boss went into surgery for kidney stones
and I took her jobs.  I was the lead for two jobs-one was just me alone, the second one was with Mary.  Then Jackie and I worked a wedding reception on New Years Eve.

The weather has been kicking my head like a soccer ball.  I really dont know how much longer I can take this.  It's called chronic unresponsive migraine.  I think.  I can't remember exactly what he said...But it doesn't respond to the usual treatments. Then there's the SUPERGLUE.

Did you know that super glue bottles are the same size and shape as contact solution?  Did you know that when you don't have your contacts in you can't see? 

So my daughter super glued her eye shut.  She has a contact lense glued inside as well.  The lids are glued together, with the lense glued to the inside lid.  It is not attached to her eye.  She has a small sliver of open eyelid at the inside corner, which is where I keep putting the antibiotic ointment.  Hopefully she will be able to get her eye open today.  This happened Friday.

Kids went back to school today.  Yeah!!

the hassle for the cost savings. 

Yes.  I actually said that.

I wrote in a post earlier about my quest to make an art journal from a Dollar Tree composition notebook.  I began by glueing two pages together, so instead of 100 pages the journal will have 50 pages.  Then I started gesso-ing those pages to give them additional strength and "tooth" for my art work.  (This journal is going to be my art technique journal, where I try out ideas and new techniques before I put them in my current journal.)

Let me tell you, this has taken me an excessively long time to do.  I am a very fast painter.  But with the gesso, I have to dry the pages after I prime them...Good grief!

A dear friend and I went to see A Christmas Carol tonight, or last night I should say, and it was delightful.  Just charming.  The actor who portrays Scrooge, Steve Williford, has been putting this show on and playing that role for 29 years in a row.  He plans to do one more year as Scrooge, for a 30 year run, then change to other roles in the show.  Friends of ours were also in the show, which made it even more fun. 

It was held at the Women's Club.  This is a venue we had hoped to rent last summer for a little jewel-box of a show-The Importance Of Being Earnest.  It's a lovely vintagey feeling place, deep cream walls, large arched mullioned windows, thick heavy wood trim, chandeliers.  There is lovely tulle wallpaper and curtains in the ladies room.  And I'm a sucker for tulle.

We talked about ideas for the future set, and came up with good ones.  Minimal sets, very elegant deep ivory and antique gold
with sumptious costumes.  Very rich and lush.  A truly breathtaking production of a very abbreviated version of this classic comedy.  I'm really looking forward to this one.

Since I can't sleep tonight, I thought I would try my hand at making some art supplies.  I have been making art journals for awhile now, from cereal boxes, mac and cheese boxes, trash meant for the recycle bin.  I've been having a lot of fun with it, as it's free stuff we were going to get rid of anyway.  If I mess something up and hate it, I don't feel bad pitching it.  Recently I discovered the joys of bible journalling.  It's the same sort of thing, only using bible study (and often a journalling bible) to create meaningful, deeply personal, art which speaks of God and your walk with Him.

I do not have a journalling bible.  I'm using a large sketch book I picked up from Micheals for about 5 bucks awhile back.  The pages are not what I really want for my bible journalling.  I would prefer a journalling bible like this one:  the ESV journalling Bible.  Which I can't seem to make into a link with this tablet...Here's the amazon page:  http://www.amazon.com/Single-Column-Journaling-Bible-Black/dp/1433531917/ref=pd_cp_14_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XEAVMBZC33VDYE3EE0E


Back to the frugal art supplies...So I've been checking out some of the amazing work done by these ladies who are bible journalling.  Truely wonderful and breathtaking kinds of stuff.  I won't be doing that.  I study the bible.  I'm a bible teacher.  I look for the 5 W's and an H then go to the original text, in the original language.  I study the time period, the location, the political activities going on at that time, what world history was happening then-all to put the word into the correct context.  Because context RULES.  So many horrible things have happened because people didn't handle the word of God appropriately.

Once I have all that in order, I look for application.  Begin with prayer, handle the Word correctly, apply the truths to your life (and make changes in your life where necessary), end your study time with prayer.  The bible journalling is to take me out of my standard way of bible study and give me a bit more relaxed/informal way of connecting with the Lord.  Just read the bible, let the words wash over me and meditate on what the Lord is saying to me through His word.  Then use journalling, sketching, painting, stickers, letters, quotes, songs or whatever moves me, to show how the passage touched me.  What God was saying to me in that verse, how I can use those new insights in my daily walk with Him.

But the supplies used are often expensive and I don't have money to spend on art supplies right now.  So I saw what these ladies were using and decided to make my own.  Here's how I spent my night:  I made six spray bottles of alcohol shimmer inks, with an additional eight for re-filling and extra colors.  All for pennys.  Here's how:

Since I had never used alcohol inks or shimmer mists before, I looked them up on Pinterest.  The directions given caused me no end of angst.  I could not get my paint to mix at all with the straight rubbing alcohol.  It was a diasaster.  Next I tried food coloring with the straight rubbing alcohol.  Again a bust.  I tried oil paints rather than acrylics- horrible.  

Finally I tried something that worked.  A very small amount of acrylic paint, an eighth of a teaspoon probably or less, with half water and half rubbing alcohol.  Success!  After an excessive amount of shaking, the mixture blended sufficently enough to test spray. 

A lovely mist coated my test paper.  But it was blah, in my opinion.  I wanted some glitz.  Some sparkle.  Some snap!

All the recipes I found for this shimmery type of stuff called for something called Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments.  Yeah, like I have that just hanging around...And it's in the middle of the night and my hand is throbbing like crazy...No, I was not going to run out and look for that stuff, even if one of the 24hour stores would have it.

A few months ago I bought two multi-compartment eye shadows from the Dollar Tree.  The reason for this was the little metal pots the eye shadow comes in makes wonderful miniature cookie sheets and bake ware.  So I had two of these 12 pot eye shadow sets.  

They shimmer.  They sparkle.  They were going into the alcohol inks!  

Since I figured whatever these Pearl Ex things were, they would probably be more intense than my eye shadow pots.  So I doubled up on the amount for each spray.  I used two per color.

This actually made enough for my little jars of glimmer mist, which I then transfered into the spray bottles.  There was enough leftover shimmer in the little pots that I refilled them.  So rather than have eight shimmer mists, I have six Alcohol Inks with shimmer and eight Glimmer Mists.  All in colors appropriate for any type of journalling page I've seen done to this point.

I found a 2 oz bottle of Rangers Dylusions Collection Ink Spray, bubblegum pink, for 5.85 plus shipping and handling on Amazon.  This was without any shimmer. Here's a breakdown of my costs:

6 spray bottles from 5 Below.  $5.00
1 32 oz. bottle of rubbing alcohol from the dollar store:  $1.00
2 12 color eye shadow sets from the dollar store:  $2.00
8 one eighth teaspoons of 8 different colors of craft paint from Goodwill:  $1.00 (this is a rediculous over exageration of the cost, but I have no idea how to figure out 1/8th of a teaspoon from a 2oz bottle of craft paint 8 times so I just gave you the cost of one of the 2 oz. bottles)
the little jars were free, as I washed them out from a former project and had them in my work room

Total cost for 32oz of alcohol inks and glimmer mists: $9.00

Which equals, if my math is correct, 28 cents an ounce.  But WAIT! 

I did not use nearly all of the rubbing alcohol or the eye shadows or the paint.  Only about half.  Which would bring our total to $4.50.  That brings our total to:  14cents per oz.

Not bad for my nights work.  Not bad at all.  And the sprays are gorgeous!  They dry almost instantly and the shimmer is luscious!!  I'll need to get more spray bottles and make more in every color!  I love this!

So oldest daughter and I went Christmas shopping today.  We had great success, leaving only a handful of gifts left to buy.

And speaking of hands...

While checking my list, and I am not a light traveler so I had stacks of papers and stuff with me, Erin decided I should put all my stuff in the console between the front seats.  She flipped it open, spilling my stuff all over the place.  I was reaching down to pick them all back up and she slammed the console top down to shut it.

Unfortunately my finger was in the way.

It's broken.

How do I know this, you ask?  Because noones finger bends just above the knuckle.

Since it was pointing off in the wrong direction, I snapped it back in place and bought some gauze and tape.  After a quick splint, we were back on the hunt.

And we found lots of things on my list.  Leah's big present rang up $30 bucks less than the ticketed price.  I was spending to much on hers simply because I haven't been able to find anything even remotely decent.  By that I mean something that won't break within the first 10 minutes and costs tons.  It's all cheap, flimsy crap with a "name" stuck on it.  Do they even make toys that will stand up to a childs play? 

I bought the my little pony castle-which works with her ponys.  Last year we made a huge dollhouse from a bookcase, which I painted to look like the Equestria Girls homes.  Each of the girls were on there, with the interior being Twilight Sparkles library, Rarity's store and Pinkie Pie's place.  The exterior has the celestial palace, Apple Jack's farm, the tree house, Fluttershy's place, and the village too.  I think.  I painted it shortly after the movie came out last year.

Then we found an addition to the game she loves (from Grammie and Grampy last Christmas) for the party Christmas night.  This leaves a gift for that party for Anthony, the rest of my mom's gift, my dad's shirt that isn't a shirt, Evan's presents, and then a few I'm making for people. 

The several I ordered have not arrived.  Although the one I ordered for Laurie has had it's statis changed to processed.  It had said pending...Maybe that means they moved the shipping container from the dock onto a ship...The tracking of the package has not changed a bit.  Still resting comfortably in China.

Maybe Christmas will come in February for some of my loved ones...

We are people of faith.  My mom and I are now "prayer warriors" for my brother, Jeff.  We have gone to battle against the evil one and his minion, cancer, which has invaded my brothers' body.  We know this is war and the battlefield is the very flesh of my dear baby brother.  

Having said that, I spoke with the Lord earlier.  I told Him if the evil one was determined to take one of my parents children,  it shouldn't matter which one that is.  I asked the Lord to intervene if this is the case and take me instead of Jeff. 

That should satisfy the evil one, if he is determined to kill one of my parents kids.  Of course, I asked that the Lords will be done in all things. 

I've also been praying the Lord bind up the tools of the evil one-sickness and pain-and cast them back into the depths of hell where they belong.

Tomorrow-or is it today now-Jeff has his biopsy.  My prayer is that it is not cancer at all and they were wrong about that.  That his severe pain is kidney stones and nothing more. 

And if I may ask:  Please, anyone reading this, could you please lift my brother and my parents up in prayer?  They are struggling with this and our family is very close.  It is utterly heartbreaking watching my parents suffer like this.

Thank you.

Our family tradition is to get together Christmas Eve night, have a wonderful meal at my parents home, open presents with Jeff and Cass and their kids, then they go home-we stay over night and open presents Christmas morning at my parents house.  Have breakfast, then head home.  We've always done this.

The last couple of years Jeff and Cass have been going out of town with Cass's family, so we have our party with them earlier.  Which we did yesterday afternoon.  It was the first time I've seen Jeff since he's been sick...

He looks absolutely wretched.  He's lost a significant amount of weight, and he was not overweight to begin with.  His color is poor.  He is in a tremendous amount of pain, which is a big deal because he NEVER complains of pain.  EVER.  He's nausious with pain in his kidney and abdomin.

For the first time, I could actually imagine my brother sick.  I mean SICK.  It was a shock.

The whole world is changed.  Nothing is as it was yesterday before the phone call from my mom.  There is a grimness in every action, a dark determination to carry on and to kick this cancers ass.

The good news is we are tough people.

Really tough.

When we are handed something like this we grit out teeth and face it head on.  We fight, tenaciously, until we win.  We never quit.  

Good old-fashioned farm stock.  That's what we're made of.  Hard working, tough as nails and strong in our faith.  Hopefully these things will work in our favor with the war against cancer we fight now.

They certainly can't hurt.

Well, this will tie with the two other worst days of my life:

1.  The day my husband was diagnosed with Myastenia Gravis.

2.  The day out son stopped breathing altogether and I used mouth to mouth and breathing treatments to get him stable enough to go to the hospital where he stayed for three days in a tent.

3.  Today.  My brother has cancer.

Cancer.

My brother.

There is the life before the phone call, then the splintered remains of what had seemed so important scattered around my huddled, weeping mass clutching the stupid phone...