a month of writing

Hello, all you lovely people out there. I hope you have had a wonderful start to Autumn.
I am wanting to start blogging regularly again. I have seen that some fellow bloggers are making the commitment to blogging everyday in October. After seeing this I said to myself,"Self, this would be a great challenge for you to attempt".  I stumbled upon some writing prompts on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago that might help with inspiration (Check out The Daily Tay's Blogtober14).
To any bloggers, or any other form of writers reading this, from what or where do you draw inspiration? I am curious.
I hope your September was wonderful! And here's to October!
God bless!

25 things I learned in 25 years

I have been meaning to post this for over a month now. This past July I completed a quarter of a century of life. I am now 25 years old. Bam. I honor of my birthday, (over a month after the fact) I thought it would be a good idea to post 25 lessons I have learned in my lifetime. Now, I am not saying that I am perfect at practicing these facts I have learned. I have just found them to be true. And they are listed in no particular order. Here we go...
   1) Do not take yourself too serious
   2) It is better to give than to receive
   3) Show more gratitude
   4) Count you blessings everyday
   5) Take the time & effort to show others that you care about & love them. You never may know when it will be your last chance.
   6) Laughter is GREAT medicine
   7) Do not worry about having many friends, put the effort into quality friends
   8) It is good to break a sweat everyday
   9) Find a hobby that you love, & DO IT
   10) Try to take your experiences, especially the hardest one, and grow & learn from them
   11) DO NOT let bitterness into your life!
   12) When having a conversation, listen. Don't just wait to talk. (Thanks, Pulp Fiction)
   13) Sometimes is best to just shut up, Hannah!
   14) Do not let your expectations get in the way of enjoying the moment, or what actually happens
   15) You can't judge a book by it's cover
   16) Worrying is pretty much useless, & causes more trouble than it is worth
   17) Always be polite
   18) There is no reason not to show kindness
   19) Make whatever life gives you an experience
   20) Try to encourage others as often as possible
   21) But, you cannot please everyone (some people are impossible to please)
   22) Start my day in prayer & scripture
   23) Be patient with others because you do not know what they are going through
   24) Making others happy will lead to your own happiness
   25) Forgiveness is more for the one who was wronged more than it is for the one who committed the wrong

God Bless!

Happy Father's Day: a re-post of My Hero in an Eye Patch

To commemorate Father's Day, I decided to re-post a blog entry I wrote for my dad's birthday this past January. I think it is funny & sweet.
Happy Father's Day to all the great dads out there! Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I thought that since it is my father's birthday I would write about him.  This is about a discussion my brothers and I had about our dad a couple months back.

My whole family and I watch AMC's The Walking Dead. If you are not a fellow viewer of this zombie filled soap opera I will give you a little explanation of the character, known simply as "the Governor", who is much more scary than any of the flesh-eating zombies on the show. ( Maybe I should call them "walkers", because none of the characters living  in the Walking Dead universe have ever used the term "zombie", nor have any of the characters, before the first day that zombism began to spread, known that the only way to kill a zombie is to SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! That was, unfortunately, learned by trial and error. It gives me some comfort knowing that I am well informed on the whole zombie exterminating thing if a break-out ever occurs. I digress; let's return to the Governor and my dad.) The Governor is a super bad dude that is a little wacky. But he reaches his pinnacle of bad & wackiness when he looses his eye.

AMC c/o  http://screencrush.com/the-walking-dead-season-4-spoilers-governor-standalone-episode/

Look at The Governor (actor, David Morrisssey) with his big, bad gun, his bad snarl, & of course his bad eye patch!
It seems that, at least  in American cinema, that the eye patch gives an antagonist  more of an evil persona compared to the average two eyed bad guy. But when I asked my brothers about their thoughts, they agreed that they feel the same way as I do. The three of us have feelings of comfort and nostalgia from a man in an eye patch. That is because our dad only has one eye. He lost vision in his left eye when he was an infant and had been blind in the eye ever since. When I was less than two, and my brother Jordan was about 5 months-old (our youngest brother, Jamison, wasn't born yet), our dad had his eye removed due to pain and vision loss the atrophied eye was causing in his healthy seeing, right eye. The left eye's removal was a success and ended his pain and deterioration of his right eye. It was not traumatic for him since he was never able to see out of the eye. (I know it is a completely different for others loosing a seeing eye). He was able to get a wonderful prosthetic eye. It is one of the best I have ever seen in real life. Most people have no idea that it is a prosthesis. He is comfortable enough to joke about his eye.We sometimes play and mess with his spare glass eye. Jamison would take naps on our parent's bed when he was a very young child, & when my mom would go check on him she would find him asleep, wearing a pair of dad's jeans and dad's glass eye on top of his. This was one of Jamison's very weird ways of emulating our father. (Of course when you put the prosthesis on top of your eye it looks like you have a protruding blue eye, which is both creepy and hysterically funny. If things get a little boring with our guests, we just bring out the spare eye and let the good times roll). Another thing I remember about dad's glass eye is when you are about six years-old it is a great trump card against anything considered cool. "Oh, your dad is a policeman. That's nice... My dad has A FAKE EYE.". Or if you need something interesting to add when introducing yourself; "My name is Hannah. My favorite color is purple and,,, my dad can take his eye out". I don't know how many times I caused my father to be swarmed by a herd of elementary school children begging him to take his eye out. He never would oblige the kids (bummer). When I was six years-old  I felt that he missed out on a lot of opportunities to shock and awe. I have told him he could work in a haunted house tour on the side. He would just need to take out his eye, add some ketchup for blood, scream, "MY EYE! MY EYE!" and freak people out. You know, for supplemental income.
If I were ever to write a story, I would make the hero wear an eye patch. Why should all the bad guys get all the glory of monocular swag? Here is my real life eye patch wearing hero:

Happy Birthday, Daddy! Love you,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Father's Day!

God bless

high 5 Friday, 5/22/2014

Hello dearies! How was your week? It is starting to feel like summer in your neck of the woods? Have you been rockin' shorts & a pair of cheap sunglasses? (Insert ZZ Top song here).  Maybe you have this Monday off for Memorial Day, therefore having a long weekend, & have plans for a mini vaca?  
If you are curious about what I did this past week, here is a list of my favorite things that happened in my life.

1) A Jo-Ann's Fabric & Craft Store opened in my town! About 7 minutes from my house! You have no idea how happy this made me. Until last Friday, we did not have a craft store in my town.  The closest craft store was about a 30 minutes drive on a ridiculously congested highway. Yuck! Now I have a store at my back door! I am so excited :)

2) Mulberries are blooming. This my not mean much to you but this is a sign in my household that a super delicious treat is on it's way.   You see my dad is a one who loves to experiment. He experiments in many ways including when it comes to food. Many people I know make home-made ice cream in the summer months. Most make, or start out making vanilla ice cream. Why not? It is a very reasonable starting point, especially for a beginner. But not my dad. No ma'am. He decided to use the mulberries that started blooming in our yard. None of us had ever heard of mulberry ice cream, but my dad wanted to give it a shot. This is some of the most delicious ice cream I have ever tasted!
3) I am really loving the Spotify app. I heard about it a couple of weeks ago & have been listening to all kinds of music lately while getting ready, cleaning, baking, etc.

4) I am happy that I am on the cusp of finishing a crochet project. :-D

5) I am enjoying the iced coffee season. I have had a couple chilled coffee drinks this week <3

I hope you have a great weekend!

Check out the link party 

God bless!

He brings joy

God Bless!

Tunisian Tuesday

I think I am coming to the end of my first Tunisian crochet project. It has been fun learning a new technique in crochet. This will be a throw pillow, a small one, but it will be MY pillow :)
I just have a few rows to finish, stuff it & sew the edges together, & it will be done!
Have a wonderful day!
God bless!

high 5 Friday

Happy Friday Everyone! How was your week? I hope it was great. How was mine? Pretty nice..

1) Mother's Day. It is always nice that we take time to remember & be thankful for our moms! I love my Momma dearly.

2) Baking cookies is one of my favorite hobbies. I love it! I love trying new recipes & techniques. It is hard to beat a fresh, made-from-scratch cookie. Recently I discovered a new technique for baking cookies. Oh joy! So excited! I will post more about this in the future ;)

3) Earlier this week one of my "adopted" brothers (who is a member of our music band) return home for the summer from college. He spent a few hours at the house laughin' & jammin' with the fam :)

4) Referring back to Mother's Day; we had a Sunday dinner with the family in honor of our moms. It is wonderful when you can enjoy good food & good times with loved ones. (We are Baptist; We love to eat).

5) I love the warmer evenings. It is so relaxing when you can spend time out on your porch taking in creation.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Try the link party :)

God bless!