painting for the children

yesterday i spent a good portion of my day at the all women's gym my dear sis used to be an instructor at. no...i was not exercising. for those of you who don't know, this gym was suddenly closed last fall (very sadly) and recently two of the old instructors decided to buy it and re-open it, new and improved (very happily)! if you want the full scoop go here and here.

anyway, i was asked to add some whimsy to the childcare room by painting something on the walls... anything. i agonized over what to paint and finally after surfing anthropologie's website for the bazillionth time i found some inspiration in the form of a pillow. i simplified it down a few notches and then headed on my merry way to the gym yesterday afternoon.

as usual, what i estimated to be a 3.5 hour project turned into a 6.5 hour project...funny thing, no matter how long i think something will take it always takes double! i think i should start guessing lower.

after i took a dinner break i headed back to the gym with snack, diet pepsi, my laptop, and 'road to avonlea' in tow. (what i good is painting if you don't have a miniseries to go with it!)

well, about a half hour later sweet miss eren (one of the new owners) showed up with a key so i wouldn't have to call her at who knows what hour of the night when i left and a snack in case i got hungry. what a dear! thankfully she is a lot healthier than i am. lets do a little compare and contrast here...

her snack.... my snack...

thank you, eren!

after all my work was finished i was pretty excited about the final product. it actually turned out better than i thought it would! so, i decided to share a few images with anyone who's interested...

DOWN with motivation!

does anyone else feel like their motivation abandons them just when they need it most?  i have had the hugest lack of motivation to get just about anything done lately...to eat healthy...to exercise...to study my Bible...to clean my apartment...to clean my shop...the list goes on and on!  and i'm sick of it!

so mr. motivation (don't know why i associate that word with a male) this is to you...

we're through!  from now on i will pay you no heed!  you've burned me one too many times and i will no longer let you determine whether or not i get something done!  you will rue the day you ever messed with me!  i am determined to live how a see fit and you no longer have the pleasure of being any part of my success!  haa!

....hmm, i wonder if this constitutes as a form of motivation...

on this journeeey...to the paaast!

this story goes back a few months...right before a period i like to call the blogging dark ages...

it was november, a cold one at that, and my father and i decided to go for a weekend road trip to the music city (aka. nashville, TN) to finally finish the long awaited journey on cd. (most of the time if people compliment me on this project, the one thought that goes through my head is, "yeah, thanks, i'm soo glad it's done!")

well, while we were on this trip i decided to take a few pictures of all the glory for those of you out there who wonder what it's like to be involved in an exciting recording project. well, let me preface this by saying it's not very exciting. mostly it's a lot of tedious work...fun tedious work, but tedious none the less.

anyhow, these pictures are long overdue their original intended post date so without further ado, i present you with...

A JOURNEY THROUGH A NASHVILLE STUDIO TRIP IN PICTURES!

here's dad still working into the wee hours of the morning on "twilight." seriously folks, we had just finished like a 10 hour day (that might be an exaggeration cause i really can't remember) we got some chinese food, watched "get smart" and then phmm! he was back in the chair with the head phones. i couldn't believe his stamina! once i left the studio i was done. no more music for me! it was starting to make my head hurt!

This is what i spent that time doing...

like i said, a recording project requires a lot of tedious work.

NEXT DAY:

this is me sadly LOCKED outside the sound room! see the tears forming in those pitiful eyes? all alone without a soul to turn to! no friends...no comforts...EXCEPT....

COFFEE! and in a tennessee mug with hearts all over it none the less! seriously, this mug and the blessed contents within made my weekend... most of which i spent slightly shaky. oh, the bliss of caffeine.

they finally let me in so i could take this nifty picture of the mighty men hard at work in their wheely chairs. i resumed my spot on the sofa (where his picture is taken from) and continued to read my pal, ted dekker...you know, in between all the recording, opinion giving, and decision making.



see...here's me at work...scrutinizing over the details of something though i don't remember what...probably "twilight". hmmm. everytime i say that word i think of the vampire movie, which is really sad because the actual song is pretty stellar and inspirational. kudos to you, shaun groves! notice:

1. i'm shoved back into the kitchen. i smell sexism!
2. mr. heartsy tennessee coffee mug!

all in all, it was a good, very long, and very productive weekend. on the way home dad and i listened to "showdown" on cd...yes, it was a ted dekker filled weekend. and strangely enough, about a week after we got home i started going through recording withdrawal and told dad we should do another cd. i think for now, though, we'll just enjoy the fruits of our labor.


oh, and can anyone tell me what the title of this post is from? if you can there might be a special reward...

the questions that plague me...

1. what do you do when you just have to have something sweet but there is none to be found and you can't leave to go get some?

this is a question that i stumble across often in my life. do i lower myself to calling someone, begging for them to help their poor sweetless friend out or do i just endure, in utter agony, longing hour after hour. i ask you: what do i do?

2. does having red hair really affect one's personality?

i've been perplexed by this question for years, but have yet to find a concrete answer. all of the redheads i know have the personality to go with it. every last one. i don't know about you, but i can't ignore that kind of evidence. at the same time i don't know every redhead that ever lived so there could be one out there who doesn't fit this stereotype...but it's hard to imagine.

3. if you could travel through time could you change the past, therefore changing the future?

or would it be like in lost where no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't change things...where fate or whatever would always somehow stop you...

well, there you have it...the questions that i don't know if i will ever figure out...but they plague me none the less. i'm sure there are more, but i can't think of them right now...maybe another post for another day.

the lamest prayer ever!

last night as i was lying awake in bed, unable to sleep thinking about all the things in the previous post, i prayed one simple prayer...

"Daddy," i said,  "please just help me to do something i can be proud of."

...and this is when He winked at me as if to say, "and this is where we'll begin, leslie."

good grief.  if i've never really understood why that wise and faithful Father of mine hates pride i do now.  

so we're working on bringing my heart to a point of caring nothing of myself and only of His glory.  somehow i have this feeling that that's really what it's all about.

to the One who has the power to heal

do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by the evil in the world, and desperately want to do something to help?  ...the kidnapped children trained to be soldiers, the aborted babies with no voice to cry for help, the millions of orphaned children, the raped women who are treated as outcasts...the list goes on and on.

and then when you feel like your heart just can't take anymore, while sipping a chai tea latte in panera (i thought i'd throw in a little irony for you), you get pummeled with the reality that all of the hatred, the selfishness, the stupidity and jealousy and short sightedness that is at the root of all the pain in this world, is alive in...you!  it's a hard realization to come to.

Lord, it's so easy for me to want to heal the pain that plagues this world i live in.  but help me to see the wickedness in my own heart and let You, the only One who can heal, take over.  i can't help on my own.  all my efforts, all my good intentions, all my hard work would be completely useless if i don't let You do the fixing.  because the evil i see in the world, is in me too, so how do i expect to have any power over it on my own?  oh Daddy!  fill me with You so i can make some sort of difference in this heart-sick place called earth.

God bless the cold...but only when there's heat!

what do you think these things have in common?

-things you wear to play in the snow, you say? no, i don't think so

-great fashion statements? hmmm...not quite.

-how about what is completely necessary to cover yourself with when sitting on your couch or bed under four blankets drinking hot chocolate or hot coffee or hot tea or hot water for that matter...anything to shake the cold? by jove, i think we have a winner!

yes, i'm afraid it's true. this tuesday, after what seemed like years of 0 degree nights (tiny exaggeration) we finally received heat! but up until that moment we spent our evenings huddled under our covers with hats gloves and (callie)3 sweatshirts, yelling to each other from our rooms so we could have some sort of conversation without freezing to death!

when i called nicor to say, "we have no GAS!" they calmly sent me jumping through hoops, cut off my desperate please with robotic tones of "hold on ma'am, let me look at your account" and refused to send someone to help us until just this week when, of course, it's too warm too need heat. in the words of rebekah and her mother, "honest to pete!" (i like that saying. it's almost as good as 'holy monkeys')

i told callie we should take a picture of us in our pathetic state to remember it for always, and she replied with horror in her eyes, "i'm not taking a picture looking like this!" (fyi: cold apartments make for very tired, disheveled looking roommates)

maybe someday i'll talk her into striking a pose for old time's sake, though right now it may be too soon to bring up such a bitter memory. but if she ever yields, you can bet it'll be posted here for all to see!

in the spirit of the season, let's all be reminded to give thanks for the many blessing we have...like HEAT!