Oh, the irony!

This past week a high school marching band was told to sit out halftime instead of doing their show because the show included the song "How Great Thou Art", which is a classic Christian hymn. As with any story like this, there is more to the story. In a nutshell, this school in Mississippi had someone sue them over not having religion in school because they were praying at events and such. The school lost and has already violated the order once. The Washington Post has the order as stating this, "Defendants are permanently enjoined from including prayer, religious sermons or activities in any school sponsored event including but not limited to assemblies, graduations, award ceremonies, athletic events and any other school event. That means administrators, teachers and staff of the Rankin County School District may not participate in any religious activity, or solicit or encourage religious activities at school or while performing duties as a RCSD employee." The judge did not say specifically they couldn't play this song, but I can see where the district would assume it was off limits.
Friday night, while the band sat silent, people in the stands sang the song, and the Christians in the country went wild. It was a fun moment of mild civil disobedience. The story and video have been shared across the country. That is the part that makes it ironic to me.
A band director I know, who I won't name, sneaks a classic hymn into almost every one of his band's concerts. He doesn't make a big deal about it. It is usually in the middle of a innocently name medly, and I'd be surprised if more than a handful of people noticed. Why? Because when a high school band plays, it is just notes. No words, no witness, no gospel, just notes. 
If this band had taken the field last Friday night and played as planned, a few in the crowd would have smiled, some may have sung to themselves, and many others would have taken the moment to run to the bathroom and stop at the concession stand never noticing that a hymn was being played. Now, because someone insisted that this kind of thing can not be done, people who would have never heard of the Rankin County school's rendition of "How Great Thou Art" have not only heard the notes, but have heard the words, which is actually what makes it a Christian song. By opposing it, they have actually spread the message of this song better than the marching band would have even if they had won a national band competition. Excellent work Angry Atheist!

In the theme of words making the song, did you know that you can sing the words of "Amazing Grace" to the tune of the theme song of "Gilligan's Island"? And that the notes part of the National Anthem was first written by a British guy for men's social club? In spite of that, I have never once heard "The Star Spangled Banner" and been overcome with the desire to play cricket.

Everything right turns out wrong

As promised, here is what didn't work.
Let's start with these pretty easy and cheap flowers.

It is pool noodle with a chip tray glued on. I had pool noodles, the trays were at Dollar Tree. I was going to nail this for a mere $1 per flower. The problem was how to make them stand. Pinterest calls for toilet plungers. I wanted larger clusters of these. I didn't have a dozen plungers, nor was I going to buy them. I did have a large supply of foam board that could be cut and repainted.
Lesson 1: Spray paint (or spray anything really) eats foam board. Like acid, eats it. Bubbles up. Dissolves.
Lesson 2: You can use low temp hot glue on pool noodles or foam board, but not if you are attaching them to each other. It melts the material and has nothing to bond to.
Lesson 3: Super glues also eats foam

What worked: I filled the grooves made by the glue that eats with liquid nails, I placed toothpicks in the bottom of the noodles to have an anchor while the liquid nails dried, and I stuck a wooden rod down the middle of the noodles for more support. Even with that, they are shakey and 2 ended up just being propped in corners because even with all that they still fell.

The tree stump was another get internet idea. Take a 5 gallon bucket, cover it with spray insulation foam, and paint it brown. Instant stump.

More like instant pile of elephant poop.
The fix: I carved down some of the more bubbly and swirly parts, made some crepe paper flowers on floral wire, added a butterfly, and baked some tiny clay mushrooms on toothpicks that would stick into the foam. The tiny mushrooms are probably my favorite thing and will be coming home with me. I also placed in on some fake grass I found, which also helped.

The palm trees are the one that almost broke me. They were actually a zero cost project. The church had a large stack of paper bags that no one needed. The trunks are made from pool noodles and those sacks with the bottoms cut off  and smushed down. The cut bottoms went to the snack staff who used them as little trail mix trays. The leaves were bulletin board paper we already had with bamboo skewers as support, glued to spray can lids that would fit onto the noodles. The problems started again with the base and getting them to stand. Glue and foam board just don't mix. I had to use a heated cutting tool for foam to dig a trench for a tube to set into. Then the noodles would set into the tubes, and the cap with leaves onto the top. Fishing line would make it all stand.
 The plan was for each backdrop to have an 8 foot double noodle palm and a 6 foot palm on either side. That is 8 total.  When I started putting them up I realized that the backdrop supports were the same height as the trees and offered no support for the tall trees. There was a period in there where I just sat down and stared at it all, seeing my whole plan crash and burn because the large trees would not work no matter what I tried.

In the end, I transferred bags onto some cardboard carpet rolls we had in storage. Those could stand in the base unsupported. My short trees were now the tall one and my tall ones got cannibalized for random other spots, such as by the piano waterfall in the chapel.

The flowers:
For these I actually bought a kit at Michael's. The kit had four, which I used as templates to make the others. The kit came with pre-cut pieces and lots of sticky tape. Foolproof! Yeah, after 24 hours the provided sticky tape un-stickyed and the flowers popped apart like a jack-in-the-box. I remade them with glue dots. Same result. Regular double stick tape. No luck. Actual glue. Nope. 

What worked: I stapled each petal together, then stapled the petals to each other and the base as much as I could. For the spots I couldn't staple, I used red tape. If you aren't familiar with red tape, it is a crafter's ultimate double sided, serious stick, tape. It made my titanium coated, sticky resistant scissors gummy. Hardcore.
To hang them, I was taking no chances. On the backside I used a small hole punch to make a hole that I reinforced with tape, and then strung twine through it so that I could tie it to the railing upstairs. The key to them staying has been hanging them where no one could touch them.

The backdrop was my sure thing. LifeWay makes pretty backdrops to suit the theme. I agreed to take this on because I was just dressing up the backdrop. Easy peezy. Except, the backdrop was smaller than I thought it would be. I don't know why I didn't measure it out before we put it up so I would know, but I didn't. When we set it up it in the large worship center it was dwarfed. Lucky for me our church has a closet of flower arrangements which included some that were just greenery. I grabbed every one I could find and then filled them with the most tropical blossoms I could find at Dollar Tree. The effect was perfect. It all came together so well.

I'd post full tutorials, but the honest truth is that I am just not that good. When people ask me how I did it or what is holding something together I tell them it is prayer. This wasn't me alone. It wasn't even just me with the people who helped. This is way outside me and my skills. This was God. The things I needed were always there. From the carpet rolls, to a can of black spray paint, to fake grass strips in just the right size. When things fell apart, I prayed over them, and a new way presented often with better things to go with it. When I wanted to give up on something, encouragement came. And, when I was certain that it was going to be a disaster, it came together better than I could have imagined. It was too much to brush off as anything else other than God's guiding hand for me. Some might question why I'd post about what went wrong because no one would know if I didn't tell on myself. The way I see it, if I didn't tell, people would give me all the credit when the real glory belongs to God. 

Wrong turned out right

I knew that I needed to post pictures of how the VBS decorations turned out, but I felt like the pictures made it look all perfect and brilliant, which is really only half the story. Through this I learned several ways not to make palm trees, that Pinterest pictures can be kind of evil, and that the LifeWay idea book may have very good intentions, but is extremely unrealistic without a design team and a large budget. In the end, I am rather glad I didn't have the team and budget. Instead, I had  a couple of awesome friends who would take an hour or two here and there to cut stuff, hand me things, and listen to me talk out my plans. I got to rummage through every storage closet and supply room in our church finding things I could re-purpose. It was like a crafting treasure hunt.
Okay, pretty first.
Our church divided our VBS into two parts. The elementary aged children start the day in our main sanctuary and the preschool starts in our chapel. The church purchased a backdrop panel for each one, and I was tasked with dressing them up and building off the backdrop.
This is the chapel. It is actually a very old church that the rest of the church grew around. I love the chapel.

To get to it you go through a small hallway. I lined one side with vines made of plastic tablecloths, tissue paper butterflies, and small crepe paper flowers.

The other side has a bulletin board, which I covered with a themed mapped.

One the way out of the chapel you pass a piano that we didn't want little fingers playing on. It became a waterfall. Nix had a brilliant idea to use one of the failed palms as a rock pool border.

One of the other ideas that worked well was the signs I made. These were part of an old VBS project where another brave soul with more talent than me had painted foam board to look like wood. I trimmed down pieces, touched up the paint, and then painted the middle with chalkboard paint. After this year I realized that the more reusable I can make things, the better. I made a bunch of these things and put them all over the place. This also has reused yard sticks for the post.

Now for the big one. This is also where we do pick up and where the family night program will be. Everyone sees it and I wanted it to be magical.

Main stage

 Waterfall complete with tree house and rope bridge.

The large painted animals are again reused from the aforementioned talent that came before me.  I just gave the frogs a fresh coat of paint in more jungley colors.
I really love how the vines and large flowers turned out. The flowers were not a pinterest idea, so that made them different from any of the flowers in the classrooms. They were hung all along the balcony. I made a dozen flowers in total.

I had some extra palm leaves (because I can't do math during summer vacation) and this garland I saw in the Oriental Trading Catalog. I knew I'd use it, I just didn't know where until it came in. It fit perfectly in the foyer on the half wall upstairs. It was one of the things I didn't plan but worked (as opposed to the things I did plan that didn't work)

Okay, That's the pretty. Later I will give you the ugly of it all. I didn't want to taint this image of lovely by pulling back the curtain just yet.

Not pleased with myself

If you are on my Facebook page or have been within 10 feet of me this month, you probably know two major things about me. 1. I have been busy to the point of exhaustion  2. I was put in charge of the large area decorations for my church's Vacation Bible School. You know these things because I have not exactly been handling them with peaceful grace. It has been more like with loud grumblings. Why? Because I have stress and control issues. I don't like being in charge because things go wrong, and in order to handle the idea that things go wrong, I make plans to compensate until I am literally sick with worry. Rocky called me out on it a couple weeks ago. He asked the hard question, "Why don't you trust yourself?" The ugly answer is because these things rarely turn out good enough to please me.

Galatians 1:10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Oh....oh.....

I am a servant of Christ. He put this before me, and He will see me through it. Not only can I do what He needs me to do, but I can also do it joyfully. I don't need to be pleased with the finished product because it is not for me. It is for God and for the children who come into our church that week. If an old lady in the church doesn't like how it looks, if the pastor had something different in mind, or if (and much more likely) it isn't up to the impossible standard I set for myself, then the world will not end. If I do the best I can for God and to light up the imagination of the children, then the real standard has been met.
So, if you see me the next couple of weeks and I am grumbling or frazzled looking, do me a favor and ask me, "Are you remembering who needs to be pleased?"

On a side note, this has also given me an excuse to learn to makes these awesome 11 inch paper flowers. I love them, but could never justify making them until now. 

Wandering

You know that feeling when you step out of Walmart and you can't for the life of you remember where you parked? You just wander to where you usually park hoping to hear the car beep when you hit your lock button on the key fob. Then you remember that you parked by the other door, so you trek across the whole lot only to see that everyone in town who has a car the same make and color as you has come to Walmart today. If you are my kind of crazy, you next get a fleeting thought that maybe someone stole it, and when the police come to help you, and ask when the last time you remember seeing your car, you will have to say, "Just before I left the house". Right before that fear takes hold is usually when I find it, and hope no one saw me wandering around the parking lot, because heaven forbid a stranger see me act crazy. I save that kind of behavior for friends and family.

 
In church, you hear often that we need to focus more on God. I just had trouble focusing on a very large vehicle, and you want me to try and focus on the unseen? That, my friends, is a whole different kind of wandering. One of my favorite lines from Lord of the Rings is when Gandolf says, "Not all who wander are lost." I know Tolkien meant it differently, but I am so thankful for how it also applies within Christianity. 

In Matthew 18:12-14 the Bible says that when we wander from God, He drops everything to bring us back as a shepherd would a lost lamb. Verse 14 says, "In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish." How great is that! If we get distracted and don't remember how to get back, God will be there yelling at us "Hey! Over here!!!" Sometimes he may even send a friend to walk you over. It is such a comfort to know that even when I wander, I'm not lost to God.

Now, if we could only get Walmart to have valet parking, 

Reading Lesson

This past week I was gently challenged to make an intentional effort to focus some of my writing on God, and to do so in a public way. I often do write down things that God has laid on my heart or a new (to me) insight, but rarely do I publish it to the blog. The question of "Why not?" was asked. My answer was a list of doubt filled questions. Who would want to read it? Who am I to tell people this stuff? What do I know in comparison to the others who are more qualified and better practiced in expressing things in a God honoring way? I'm nothing special.

This is me ignoring all of that.

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My father will love them, and we will come to them, and make our home with them."

John 14:23

I have spent a great deal of time not enjoying reading. Being dyslexic makes it a chore at times. Books assigned to read in school were awful. (Red Badge of Courage in 10th grade, really?) Trying to read the classic King James two column reference Bible was a nightmare. Page distractions, hyphenated words, and that awkward column down the middle filled with some sort of reference code designed to keep people like me from ever figuring it out (not really, but it feels that way at times)  

In my late 20''s I realized that my kid's reading level was about to pass my own, and I needed to be able to read what she was reading. This time it clicked, and I got hooked on a good read.

Some positive peer pressure shamed me into picking up Pride and Prejudice. It took me FOREVER to get through. The language was almost foreign. It stretched me like nothing had before. I had to watch the BBC series to really get some some of it. I was crazy proud when I finished. About a year later, I decided to read it again, and this time it took me less than a week to read it, and I caught so much more than before. I was use to the rhythm of it and had a lot less to look up. I picked it up again recently because I needed a familiar and beautiful read to quiet my busy mind. It went from being the biggest reading struggle of my life to being comfort food.
My biggest shame as a constantly failing person who wants to follow Christ is that I have not read through the Bible. Sure, I've hit most of it. I know all the highlights, and I've studied through several of the books, but I don't read it like I should at all.  Not even close. I still struggle. The begets are where my dreams of this feat usually die. It dawned on me that it is because I have never challenged myself to get through it like all the classic novels I have been pushing through these last few years.
The first time through will be hard. The second time through will be eye opening. The third time will make God's word home. I've been a Christian the vast majority of my life, but this is the first time I am excited by the idea of reading the entire Bible. It took me a full year to make it through one of Tolkien's works, so I'm afraid to set a timeline for me to finish this. Let's just say that when I do, you'll hear about it. Not out of pride for myself, but out of pride for what God will have seen me through.

If you also struggle with the usual format the Bible is printed in, you may want to look into this one. The ESV Reader Bible. It is written like any other book. No more red letters, breaks in lines every fourth word, or tiny distracting number everywhere. I'm sure it makes a terrible study Bible, but for straight reading, it may just be brilliant. It is on back order now so I must not be the only one who thought so.

10 Things NOT to Donate

I spent the day helping set up for a garage sale to benefit my church's mission projects. For the most part, the items donated by church members were great. They were clean, in working order, and from this decade (mostly). However, there was another stack. This stack came from one county over where a school had attempted a similar sale only to have it rained out. They generously offered to let us have everything. It is while going through these things that I realized even though you should not look a gift horse in the mouth, if said horse has colic and a really bad limp, I think it is fair to question the motives of the giver.

With that I give you 10 things that you really should never donate

10. Home decor from a different century. I promise that no one is sitting around wishing they could find blue and mauve country kitchen valances. 

9. The free flip flops they give you when you have a pedicure

8. Well loved stuffed animals. As cute as they may have been new, at some point they become gross and creepy and need to go away

7. Clothes with holes. If you would throw it out, so would we

6. Clothes with stains, unintended paint splotches, and especially something that looks like your grandmother might have been buried in it. Please refer back to the second part of number 7.

5. Anything with duct tape holding it together. I kid you not, there was a hedge trimmer duct taped to a painter's poll. Your red neck inventions, no matter how genius, do not need to be donated.

4. A poorly framed picture of a dead cat (RIP Fluffers 1985-2005 you had a good run)

3. Anything and everything that might be considered a ladies unmentionable. 

2. Used men's underwear. This goes along with the last one, but I felt it needed it's own line to reinforce that nothing that has touched your bare behind needs to go to charity. EVER.     

*Drumroll*

The number 1 thing you should never ever under any circumstances put into a bag you are donating to charity is....

 A USED BAND-AID!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go shower and possible get my shots updated. 

PS: If you live in my town, come see the sale tomorrow. We threw out all the scary things and ended up with a lot of cool things. 8 to 3 Friday and Saturday at 1220 Laurelwood Trail, 30041

All of it goes to help our mission churches.

You're a Wizard JD

It's not everyday that your young man turns eleven. That day came last month. Thanks to pinterest and a stash of parchment paper, I planned to make JD a Hogwarts acceptance letter for his birthday. It turned out pretty sweet. I applied the same basic style to make party invitations. For favors I made these easy snitches from this tutorial on Epbot.

Next, I wanted to make wands. I stumbled onto these bamboo chopsticks and decided that with a little bit of clay and paint could turn them into wands. The ones I found were much like these on Amazon.

This turned out to be so easy and awesome that I had to share a DIY post.

Cut off a chunk of clay and roll it into a ball warming it up with your hands to make it easier to shape into a handle.

Instead of wraping it around the chopstick, push the ball down on top shaping it downward. This will prevent fussing with smoothing a seam.

Now have fun with it. I twisted some, added subtle lines, a bold swirl, I even pressed tulle into one to form a snake like pattern. Use your imagination and any random thing you think might look good. You can redo it as many times as you want until you bake it.

I had a set of metal letter stamps, and used them to put JD's name on his to make it extra special. I couldn't resist making one  for myself as well.

Per the clay instructions, I baked them for a half hour at 275. When they cooled, I used a chocolatey brown to paint the whole thing. It took two coats to cover. At that stage they looked much like tootise rolls (or poop, depending on who you asked).

After the brown dried, I applied a layer of black paint, and then used a papertowel to wipe most of it off before the paint dried. The black paint settles into all those texture marks you made before and really brings out the details to make them look more like carved wood.

I used a short flower vase with marbles in the bottom as an easy place to let them dry. Plus, it looked cool. 

For an extra magical touch I used a little of this copper paste stuff that I had on hand. I used a paper towel to buff on just a tad, and only on the handle, to give it an slight shimmer.

The last step is to use a clear satin sealer to help the layers of paint all stay intact. 

The only hard part about all this was waiting on coats to dry. 

If you are feeling adventurous, Epbot has an expanded version of this, only her wands light up.

Extra tips:

Thin irregular lines that are not deep give the handle a more realistic wood look. 

Before you put it in the oven, grip the handle for a second. Careful not to do it too tight or you'll leave finger prints. You want it just enough to make it fit in your hand. Slight dimples where your thumb or forefinger might rest. It gives it an added feeling of it fitting to you.

I'm Back!

It has been a while since I've posted. Life in general has been exhausting. In spite of our trying to keep the family from becoming over scheduled, we managed to do just that for the past couple of months. There have been basketball games, concerts, and so, so much homework. The long weekend and end of the basketball season has given us all a chance to catch our breath. Then makes it possible for me to post my annual Valentine's recap.
We no longer try to celebrate the holiday. There is just no point to it. Our anniversary is next month, and that is really much more special. So, aside from putting together a little thing for JD to hand out in school. I ignored all things Valentine related. It was kind of nice. It was certainly cheaper and less frustrating.
We woke up Saturday morning with Rocky on day 3 of a migraine, the kind that makes you feel sick all over. Nix had sinus problems and had lost her voice. As our record goes, it was shaping up to be a good one. We had a pajama day, watched movies, and generally did nothing. I made dinner, and was starting to feel smug about missing out on the usual tragedy. Then it happened. My stomach turned on me. There was gastrointestinal distress that I will not paint a full picture of. Rocky was still trying to get over the headache, and needed sleep. As is our tradition, we slept in separate rooms so he could sleep and I could watch tv until I felt better.
The next day came. We both had jobs to do at church that morning, so we went to get ready. Thankfully, Rocky was feeling better. I, on the other hand, .... well, I wasn't able to leave the house. Nix was also feeling yucky still, so we had a Marvel marathon laying in bed for a good bit of the day. I only keep the church nursery twice a year (bi-annual baby fix), and I missed it. It was a light week, and they were covered, but now I"m going to have to find another way to get baby snuggles, and the cat is not being as helpful with this as I would like.
Later that night, a friend had a similar streak of bad luck that ended with her husband needing stitches. Someone accused me of sharing the curse, and as I was typing that we hadn't had any bloodshed this year, Rocky sliced open the back of a couple of fingers. There was blood. Lots of blood. One cut landed on the folds of a knuckle on his right hand. It took a good chunk of skin. It was gross. Because of the location and nature of the wound, it didn't want to stop bleeding and he couldn't patch it. When I put fresh bandages on it this morning it still looked new. It will not be healing quickly.
Rocky and the kids both have today off. The weather was suppose to be snow but it is just really depressing icy rain. Because of accidentally not taking enough vacation days last year, Rocky has tomorrow off too. We had planned on a really fun day out with just the two of us. Now we wait on the school board to decide if the ice to rain ratio is worth cancelling school over.
The good part about all of this is that we have all laughed a lot. Even when we weren't feeling well, we would declare things such as "It's not Valentine's until somebody bleeds!" I am warping my children. I apologize to their future spouses.

*UPDATE*

Schools are out and so is our power. This is shaping up to be a much more serious ice storm than we thought. The kids are camping out in the den by the fire. If not for the concern of all the trees creaking and transformers blowing, this would be kind of fun. 

Funny bit: the smoke detector beeps when the power is out. If you take the battery out, it beeps louder. Rocky is now in a fit of desperation trying to figure out how to disconnect it from whatever demon is powering the beep. It is now beeping faster and I am laughing harder. 

Potion Master Box

I needed to put together a quick birthday present for one of Nix's friends this week. Being that she is a friend of my kid, this isn't your typical Sweet 16, so I got to have fun. A few years ago we made an epic zombie themed box of candy. I'm still kicking myself for not making more detailed pictures. I wrapped it in brown paper with cation tape and painted my hand red to leave"bloody" hand prints on it.

The crossover between that party and this one are low, so I recycled the idea but with a Harry Potter twist to suit the birthday girl.

I started with a simple wooden box from Hobby Lobby (cheap thanks to coupons). I could get all fancy and paint the box, but if it were me, I'd want the box raw so I could paint it myself. This girl comes from an artistic family (as did the last one), so raw it is.

For the contents I wandered around Target for candy that spoke to me, and followed it up with a trip to the English food section of our Publix. Here is what I ended up with and how I labeled them.

The two small glass jars were also from Hobby Lobby and also very inexpensive. I have just over $15 invested in this. 

If you look closely, you might notice a couple of non-Harry items in there. I thought a couple of nods to other British fantasy/ sci-fi would be fun. 

Here is a close up of the tea and the turkish delight.

The finished box inside.

And after wrapping. I googled a still shot of the book in the movie and did a fair recreation of the inscription to give it that added touch that no one but me will notice.

This was fun, and quick, but took a bit of creative thinking. There are a lot of themes this could get adapted to fit, and isn't really gender or age specific. The only catch is that you need to check for allergies before you buy the candy. 

Struggling to be Thankful

For the last three years I have taken November to be what I've called randomly thankful. Each day I post on Facebook a totally random, somewhat ordinary thing that I am thankful for. Last year's highlights included ziploc bags and gas station microwaves. This year I wanted to throw in a little something different, but it is so different that I fear it must be done in small doses. I want to be thankful for things that I am not naturally thankful for. In short, the things I complain about. Being a somewhat sarcastic person, I've been worried that it would come off as snide. This is where a blog post to explains things comes in. I'm going to start with once a week and see how it goes.
I wanted to go about this with as pure of intentions as possible. That lead me to read up on what the Bible says about being thankful. Spoiler alert: It is pro-thanking God for everything He has given us even if the rest of life is kind of not going well. Job comes to mind, but for the record, I am not trying to sign up for a month of Job.
Something in Ephesians 5 caught my attention. In addition to being openly thankful there are things I also need to not do in order for this to really work. I need to not use obscenities (not too hard for me), no coarse joking (okay, a little harder but totally doable), and no foolish talk (I'm in trouble). Foolish talk is my go to. I tried changing what version I was reading, but they all seem to agree that being silly was a block to being really thankful to God. I even tried The Message, which was foolish and set me back to square one.
My main point of this post is to warn you. I have not thought out what each post will be. I have no idea what will be impressed upon me each day. What I do know and trust is that the Lord is going to hit me with something I need to be more thankful for and that some of those things will not be fun. This idea has been weighing on me since September, so I have had time to settle in on the idea. I hesitate to invite others to join me because I have no idea what I am in for. Honestly, I am a little nervous. This is a big trust exercise for me. So, if you want to take the risk with me, great, but if not I hope to see you all continuing to be randomly thankful this month because it is fun, enlightening, and points more of our lives towards God.
Thank you for your support and understanding in this. Now for my first one.
Today I am thankful for the awareness my stomach problems have brought me. It sits me down more often than I'd like and my dietary requirements kind of stink, but I have to eat healthy, I am so much more understanding of others' who have invisible health problems, and it makes me appreciate the time I feel good as well as the things I can do when I feel bad. I wouldn't choose it, or wish it on anyone else, but right now, for today, I am truly thankful for the blessings God has given me through it.
Wow, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I wish I could convey through words the emotions that spilled out of me typing that. There is no way I could ever say that out loud.

Our Unfiltered Healthcare Numbers

We received our annual healthcare renewal letter today. I don't typically share details about our finances, but this is kind of a big deal. There are a lot of exaggerations and bending of facts to suit personal opinions. This isn't about my personal opinion. This is about the choices my family, and many others, will be making in the coming days.

First, I should explain that my husband works for a very small company that isn't large enough to have any sort of group rate policy. We pay for 100% of our insurance. Because of that, we have a very high deductible and try very hard not to need a doctor.

I made a picture of the price and benefit changes that were sent to us today.

There are a couple of things I'd like to point out. We were told that our premiums might increase some, but so would our benefits. As you can see here our deductible will decrease by $3,000. However it is still $7,000, which is a good bit more than what we spend on average on family healthcare costs. 

You'll also notice in the picture that we will now have prescription coverage. Yeah! But wait, there is that sneaky add on that it doesn't kick in until we meet our new $7,000 deductible. Boo! So, it really might as well still be no coverage at all.

The next upgrade is that I will now be covered for "Essential Health Benefits". These vary from state to state, but I am having a lot of trouble finding out what they are specifically above what we normally have. I know it covers mental health coverage (a total joke if you look at what is actually covered), maternity (no one in my house needs that), breast reconstruction, and then "others" that no one can seem to promise specifics on. 

Now we get to the math. For these new add-ons that we probably will never get to use and certainly didn't ask for, we are paying a pretty large price. To be exact, it is $526.18 per month more. That adds up to $6314.16 per year more. The total we are out of pocket for this is $9,413.28. Before we get real use out of it we must first meet the deductible. That puts us at $16,413.28 per year out of our pocket. 

We are not wealthy people, but we end up with too much income to receive any break or credit, but not enough that we would want to add an extra $500 a month payment for anything. I think most people probably arrange their budget so that even if they are well off they don't have $500 extra that they are willing to throw at something that has no added benefit. 

We are now looking at our options. We will talk to an agent, we will investigate every avenue we can find, but tonight the numbers just don't add up. There is a very good chance we will end up uninsured. 

Creeper Pumpkin

Last year's Minecraft Pumpkin was a huge hit. I had trick-or-treaters make their picture with it. Never have I had a carved pumpkin get that kind of attention. This encouraged me to do something similar this year, which logically can mean only one thing - CREEPER HEAD!

My process was similar to last year. This time I got a 14 inch square box (last year was 12), the paint grid was a much more merciful 8x8 formation, and it required a minimum of 7 colors. I say minimum because I could have done more, but I decided not to go completely crazy. Also unlike last year's, each side had a different pattern to it, so I ended up mapping out 5 different grids.
Here is the rundown
1. Find a pattern. I used this head for a papercraft on fps-x-games

2. Pick your paint. I went with 5 greens and 2 grays from Apple Barrel for the very important reason of that is what Walmart had, which saved me a trip across town to a craft store. I numbered them light to dark. I think the color names will give you a pretty good idea.
       1. Pale Green     2. Crisp Green    3. Palm Leaf    4. Kelly Green    5. English Ivy
          6. Granite Gray    7. Pewter Grey  (yup, they spelled it 2 different ways and yes it bugged me)

3. Plot it out. I'm going to post these small for space purposes, but you can click on each image to see it in detail. I raised the face up by one line so that the mouth wouldn't be at the very bottom.

 

4. Decided what side your face goes on. Pay attention to the way you fold the top. Then draw out the grid.

5. Cut the face out

6. Paint and paint and paint and then paint. But seriously, because of the bigger squares, this one was MUCH faster than the pumpkin one from last year.

7. Glue your top and bottom closed.

Remember not to use a real candle in these (cardboard tends to react badly to fire) I'm thinking of trying green glowsticks this year.
Our cat really likes them. The eye holes on the creeper are just the right height for her to stick her head in it.