While visiting a friend in Harrisburg this weekend, I had a chance to stop by PA Fabric Outlet. Housed in a century-old former bakery, the offerings were so plenty that I had trouble focusing my attention in any one direction. Rolls of striped ticking fabric, swaths of soft gray suede, antique seamstresses' dummies gathered in silent communion and walls of trim volleyed for my attention. Slightly overwhelmed, I opted to do a complete walk-through so that I would know what I could find on a more leisurely future visit. One aisle near the back of the room caught my eye immediately. Stacked high with rolls of fabric in blues of every shade, it brought to mind a great pair of jeans with variations in tone that only add to its appeal.


Inspired by the comfort we all associate with our favorite pair of jeans and the fact that I love seeing materials used in unexpected ways, I thought I'd check out what was on offer in the denim furniture market. As it turns out, there's very little out there. Or rather, there's a lot out there but most of it is heinously ugly and barely worthy of taking up space in a basement man cave. The two main categories that I came across were bloated sleeper sofas and novelty couches patched together from old jeans and used for store displays. So I expanded my search to include accessories and interiors with a general bluesy mood that suggests the softness and variation of denim. With all of the washes available today, I think there's a lot of room for denim to be re-invented for the furniture market. The following is a small taste of the possibilities.

A grouping of vintage artifacts and a casual china cabinet.

Meticulous tailoring transforms rectangular sections of denim into an inviting sling chair from Scrap Lab. Frayed strips from old jeans come together in a cushion that suggests a seascape. 

Walls washed in blue create a serene atmosphere that works as well in an apartment office as in a beach house bedroom. Ralph Lauren Home offers paint kits to achieve the indigo denim effect.

 Screen-printed feathers add color to a linen and denim cushion from Elkhorn Design.  A studded denim couch is surprisingly elegant against coral walls in Cath Kidston's welcoming home.

(Images: License plate vignette from Easy Elegance by Atlanta Bartlett, publisher Ryland Peters and Small 2009. China cabinet from The Comforts of Home by Caroline Clifton-Mogg, publisher Ryland Peters and Small 2010. Denim strip pillow featured on Hey Susy. Blue washed walls featured on Home Design & Trends and Trendey. Studded denim couch featured in October 2008 British Vogue and seen on Nest Decorating.)

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I was this month's guest blogger at Laydeez do Comics This month Phillipa Perry, author, psychoanalyst and wife of Grayson Perry talked about her graphic novel Couch Fiction. Other speakers included Ian Williams creator of the excellent Graphic Medicine and Columba Quigley.

LDC is a graphic novel reading group or forum with a focus on comic works based on life narrative, the drama of the domestic and the everyday, set up by illustrator Nicola Streeten and artist Sarah Lightman. As well as selecting favourite works to base discussion on, artists, academics and fans are invited to speak. LDC is also platform for people to test new works and ideas or works in progress.

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Outright.com is the best Internet business website ever! I linked my paypal account so it automatically inputs my etsy transactions and sales, my receipts that are uploaded on shoeboxed.com, and am going to the bank to link my business checking tomorrow. Everything will be automated and outright even estimates how much you'll have to pay in taxes each quarter. Best of all, it's free! It's got a section to input gas mileage so that's the only thing I'll have to manually track. I love the business aspect of owning a small business but hate it when it interferes with the creative aspect. This will be perfect. Outright calculates my profit and loss statements, taxes, revenue, categorizes my expenses, and is completely automatic.

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Still Breathing has endured as one of my favorite films since I first saw it about a decade ago. Brendan Fraser plays a San Antonio musician, Fletcher, whose father and grandfather both had visions of the women that were meant for them and subsequently found and married them. Fletcher finally experiences his own vision of his bride and he travels to L.A.'s Formosa Cafe to find her. There he encounters Rosalyn, played by Joanna Going. She is a con artist who mistakes him for her next mark and sets about seducing him. Intensely pursuing her but determined not to sabotage their relationship by rushing things, Fletcher eventually breaks down Rosalyn's defenses. During a stroll down a tree-lined street, he pauses to tell her about how he builds cairns. He takes her hand, palm up, and piles several little stones on it to commemorate the moment they are sharing together. Soon after, he tips her hand and lets the stones fall. Cairns aren't built to last but rather to punctuate a moment in time.


I have since built a few cairns of my own while walking along Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Its meditative effect makes it the perfect way to shed city life stresses. Part of the fun is trying to build something that looks like it shouldn't be able to stay standing. Balancing it on the edge of a boulder or leaving a space at the center that you can see through makes it more than just a pile of rocks. Each structure is so precarious that I always know when it has reached its limit. Usually I'll continue on my walk until I'm on the other side of the creek and then I'll watch people's reactions as they discover the cairn. Dogs and children are particularly fascinated by these unexpected art installations in the wild.


Definition: cairn 
Pronunciation: \ˈkern\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English (Scots) carne, from Scottish Gaelic carn; akin to Old Irish & Welsh carn cairn
Date: 15th century
: a heap of stones piled up as a memorial or as a landmark (Merriam-Webster)


The tallest cairn I've managed so far.

As a seller on Etsy, I love browsing at what is on offer from artists and vintage lovers around the world. It turns out that my love of cairns is shared by a number of them. Here are a few that captured my attention.


Moss Terrariums' Cairn Terrarium No 1
Made for Fun's Bottle Stopper
Jibby and Juna's Cairn Illustration Pendant
AntiGenre's Cairn Ring
Groundwork's Cairn No. 3--Limited Edition Print
 (which I also happen to have framed in my bedroom)
Jenifer Glagowski's Original--Orange on Grey

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Yay for me! I'm so excited and proud when I googled myself the other day and found a whole article dedicated to Reclaimed Wreckage and my work by Trendhunter Magazine. I absolutely loved the magazine but reading the article was exactly what I needed to kick the motivation up today and come up with even more amazing products. Thanks Trendhunter!

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I have taken on an incredible challenge. On Nov. 19-21, I'll be walking 60 miles over the course of three days, camping out at night with thousands of other women and men taking this journey with me.



A couple years ago my sister Stacey, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s been through countless chemotherapy and radiation sessions, and a big surgery and has never stopped fighting or lost hope. Through everything she’s remained my mentor and friend and guided me through all my major life decisions from having a baby to getting married. Growing up she was the one who always gave the best Christmas presents, potty-trained me, and took me to all the best theme parks. Stacey has been more than a sister to me. She’s been my friend, my role model, and teacher. She is currently in Phase 4 and just started going to City of Hope last month. I would do anything to make her life easier. One in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. That's why I'm walking in the 3-Day for the Cure. Because everyone deserves a lifetime.
It's for an event called the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. Net proceeds from the Komen 3-Day for the Cure are invested in breast cancer research and community programs. Komen for the Cure® works hard to build a future without breast cancer, and I have pledged to raise $2,300 to help bring us closer to that goal.
Please consider making a donation of at least $75. If you can't give this amount all at once, you can spread it out over four months, using the payment plan option, if you donate online at The3Day.org. Please also ask your employer if they will double your donation with a matching gift.
Just follow this link to visit my personal fundraising Web page and make a donation. If you don't want to donate online, please download and print a donation form from my Web page and mail it to the address on the form. Or you can call 800-996-3DAY to donate over the phone.

Sincerely,

Lisa



P.S. please don’t wait.

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I recently bought a tattered old book called The Business Guide; or Safe Methods of Business by J.L. Nichols, A.M. With headings like "Practical Maxims for Getting on in the World" and "How to Apply for a Situation", it makes for an interesting read. But reading wasn't my real purpose for buying the book. Instead, it was the bookplates of ornamental penmanship inside that drew my attention. The fact is that I'm a sucker for good penmanship. I would easily hang one of those chalkboard menus we associate with Parisian bistros on my walls and call it art (a future post may well celebrate unintended cafe art). I've been known to spend hours in Word putting various fonts through their paces. So to me these images of once popular penmanship drawings constitute the perfect marriage of writing and design. 







(Images from The Business Guide; or Safe Methods of Business by J.L. Nichols, A.M., published by J.L. Nichols & Co. Naperville, ILL., 1896 and available at amazon.)

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Two weeks ago, I moved in to a second brick and mortar shop (the first being The West End Garage in Cape May NJ). The Milkhouse in bucolic Glenmoore, PA, is well on its way to being a destination antique and housewares mecca. As often happens in life, my biggest challenge led to a solution that has become one of my favorite elements of the space. There are no side walls to differentiate between my shop and its neighbors. I didn't have enough doors to block in the entire space, so I opted to hang fabric panels from floor to ceiling on each side. They help to define the space without blocking it in and still allow the light from two windows to reach the rest of the store. 

An old twin bed has been converted into a bench. 


A poster print mold spells Glassware for New Year's (it took me some effort to figure that out). Next to it hang a lovely pair of French prints in my favorite colors for the season--corals and aquas.

I love the simplicity of a Hoosier table with bleached wooden legs. Next to it a straw rocker is paired with a cushion made from a vintage tablecloth. A hat mold has been converted into a bird-themed shadowbox.

A bristol vase makes an elegant lamp. Beside it, laboratory jars store vintage marbles, porcelain number balls and dominoes. A teacup candle with a tangerine scent hides under a glass dome.

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My new rubber clutch is the perfect night-out bag with its compact size, durable exterior and conversation-starting material. It hangs comfortably from a rubber wristlet and carries a lipstick, cell phone, cards, and keys with ease. I named it the Corrine Clutch after my mom, Corrine Miller, who spent hours upon hours helping me with the design and completion of them.




My mom has been the most amazing support with my business. From watching the baby to cutting fabric, making linings, and prepping zippers, my projects have come along so much faster with her help. Her input has shaped most of my bags from the hobo bag to the Corrine clutch. She loved the design and we switched roles as I made fabric, cut patterns and prepped zippers and she sewed the pieces together. She was so proud of the finished product it was as if the bag named itself: the Corrine Clutch.

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The house has been on hold... too much going on with my day job! Yet, it's still on my mind. I still frequent blogs and check HGTV more often that I should. After talking with Abby (friend and fellow artist for my family's company), I have decided to make the formal living room a den/craft room that can be used for multiple things. I just don't ever see Nate and I using a formal living/dining room except for a few times a year. To us, that seems like a waste. When we decide to purchase our much-needed barstools, we will be able to fit 12 people in our dining room area. That is more than enough. Here is a little inspiration I found on a website for the den/craft room (there is even a pug in the photo!):

I am on the search for some unique french doors, fun table, and a piece of furniture that would allow me to store my craft items (sewing machine and the new Cricut). I would also like a fun and funky bench to go in our entrance. Such as this one that is in the yoga studio that I go to:

Lots to do... once summer hits!

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“We get to listen”
by Stephen Haff

Thank you for including me.

This speech is based on my personal experiences. Whenever I assert a universal truth, please take it with a grain of salt.

You may have seen a flock of birds, maybe starlings, thousands of them, flying wing-to-wing in breathtaking formations, folding in on themselves, then flowering, blossoming out, like a rose opening layer after layer; they swirl like a tornado, then spread into a long skinny string and alight along a power line. The flock is a being, a being that makes decisions without a leader. How do they know when to go this way or that way, up or down, spin or fly straight, land or take off?

You may also have seen a school of fish, say mackerel, doing the same kind of thing, forming, disbanding, reforming, hundreds of silver flashes moving swiftly as one, finding food, avoiding predators; no one’s crashing into anyone,  and no one’s giving orders. How can this be?

My understanding is that the individual starling or mackerel responds to the movements of neighbors left, right, above, below and in front; according to their movements, a basic algorithm or function in the brain of the starling or mackerel processes what to do, and it’s instantaneous--there’s no real thinking going on, apart from the algorithm doing its work. They’re just BEING--in relation to their neighbors.

Over the years of my career as a teacher, in classrooms and rehearsals and now in the meetings of Still Waters in a Storm, I have preached compassion. When schools generated oppressive lists of rules and standards, and mind-crushing rubrics for grading everything children do, I threw those charts and lists in the garbage and asked young people to follow only one rule: LOVE EACH OTHER. I believe that if we respond to our neighbors according to this rule, everything’s going to be all right.

But what does it mean to love each other?

I don’t know.

I do think that part of love is respect--not in the typical school sense of obedience to institutional authority, but in the sense of making room for our neighbors to be who they are.

I also believe that trust is a big part of love. If we’re to become who we really are, our best beautiful self, we need to trust each other, to know that we’re allowed to be us.

In my experience, the single most important part of love is listening. Real listening, with patience, requires compassion, builds trust, and demonstrates respect.

The group I started two years ago in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn is called Still Waters in a Storm, and we operate on this algorithm: everyone hears everyone. That’s it. We meet, no more than 12 people at a given meeting, ages 6 to 52, with most in their teens and 20s, we eat pizza, and we write, about anything, in any style or genre, any number of words. Then, we take turns reading our writing out loud and listening to each other. After each reading, the group responds, not by judging or grading or liking or disliking, but by saying what we noticed, what we felt, what we related to, and by asking questions that encourage fullness and precision of expression. These responses say that we are listening with care.

We are practicing love.

During a recent meeting, a 16-year old girl passed me a note on a folded piece of paper. It said, “Can I call you Dad?”

Models for this group include Alcoholics Anonymous, Quaker meetings, the one-room schoolhouse, our pre-agricultural tribes, the wolf pack, group therapy and all-night conversations with good friends.

In public school classrooms, where I worked for 10 years, I would often go bananas trying to make students “listen.” Now, having left the big system, the New York Department of Education, I understand that this was a struggle because the school system values control, and the silence of students is evidence of their being under control. So of course the kids rebelled. It’s cruel and inhuman to put a group of highly social primates in an enclosed space, elbow to elbow, and forbid their free communication. It hurts them.

The title of this speech, “We get to listen,” quotes a statement by the youngest member of the group, 6-year old Angie. “We GET to listen.” What in school was oppression here is privilege. “We GET to listen.” We’re LUCKY.

Why lucky? Because if we think of ourselves as the Stone-Age beings we are when we’re born--we haven’t evolved since the Stone Age; same body, same brain--we’re wired for interdependent life in a village or extended tribe, and we naturally want and NEED to know what’s going on inside those around us, so that we can all be synchronized.

We need to need each other.

Children want to know what grown-ups are up to, and grown-ups have a real responsibility to guide and take care of the youngins. This is what we are, even now, despite the many separations that have unraveled our tribes.

It’s unnatural to segregate children by age, robbing them of the full range of perspectives in their village, as unnatural as it is to put away our elders in “homes.”

No wonder depression and other mental illnesses are rising and swallowing us like a dark tide. We’re separated from each other and from our own true nature.

Schools, offices, hospitals, nursing homes, iPods and television all keep us from being together and listening to each other. Even if we don’t know this consciously, our brain stem knows, our primal intuition knows, and we suffer.

Art, be it painting, music, writing, acting, photography, sculpture, dance or architecture, makes room for us to know each other. Our imaginations meet. And no matter how much personal pain we carry inside us for reference, compassion always requires an effort of imagination. Art trains us in imagining each other’s inner life. We get to listen, we get to see, we get to feel.

What does this have to do with learning?

In my personal experience, deep learning happens in the context of loving relationships.

My grandfather, who passed away at age 95 eight years ago, told me a story about love and learning. At age 10, in 1917, he had won a bamboo fishing pole in a small-town raffle, way up in the mountains of northern Idaho. His father told him he would need to wrap the pole in thread, an intricate procedure. His father also told him that he, my great-grandfather, needed to rewrap his own pole, too. They sat side-by-side on the porch and wound thread around bamboo. My grandfather added, at the end of the story, that, looking back, he suspected that his father didn’t really need to rewrap his own fishing pole.

Love isn’t something that happens to you, like falling asleep in a hammock on a lazy summer afternoon. It’s day labor. Every morning, before you’re ready, you wake up in the dark and you’re an immigrant, lining up for a day’s work, with no guarantee that the job will be there for you when the sun comes up.

A recent study of monkeys revealed that a given monkey will exhibit loyalty not necessarily to blood relatives but to those monkeys who reliably groom him or her. Reciprocal altruism is a powerful bond, and I think it’s the key to sustainable learning.

I say “sustainable” because I’ve put an awful lot of time and energy into curricula and lesson plans and the latest magical program with its mandatory buzz words--“accountable talk,” “text rich environment,” “literacy across the curriculum,” “activating schema,” “the new continuum,” and on and on--the third magical program in one year that will fix everything. But one condition abides: almost none of the students want to be in school, and those who do are often seeking refuge from unhealthy homes. It’s so familiar that it feels normal: kids. hate. school.

For years I made a spectacular effort in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Bushwick, at the infamous Bushwick High School, a grand old six-storey red brick tower that looks like a prison or an antiquated mental hospital, where students would set hallway bulletin boards on fire and once threw a dog out of a 5th floor window. On the way down, the dog struck a flag pole that was sticking out the side of the building, broke his back, then fell to his gut-spilling death on the sidewalk below.

In addition to my classroom teaching, I ran a collective called Real People Theater, or RPT, a group of neighborhood youth who rewrote Shakespeare, Milton and other classics, remixing the original text with Spanish and Street. The success, by every measure, was astonishing. Kids who otherwise refused to read or write were choosing to master Shakespeare. We received a lot of acclaim in the press and among renowned theater artists. The VILLAGE VOICE called us “Nothing less than a revolution,” and THE BROOKLYN RAIL said we were “One of the most respected theater collectives in New York City.” Graciela Daniele, a Broadway director and choreographer, thanked us for “bringing theater back to life.” We were even adopted as the official apprentice company of the Wooster Group. We traveled the world. Kids who had been barely literate attended elite colleges.

Then, all of us had to live the next day.

And the day after that.

Now, taking inventory of that group today, a few have started families, work decent jobs, or are continuing their formal education. One young woman has lost her mind, two young men are drug dealers, one is a coke addict who has beaten at least one woman after sex, and another young man is locked up for a couple of years for riding around with a loaded gun.

Ours was a story that Hollywood loves--the ghetto kids rise up, overcome, and are happy. Except, well, no.

I had several successive major breakdowns and fell into suicidal depression when the youngins I had given my heart to turned on me, tried to take over and call the shots. Having lived powerless their whole lives, they were drunk on all the praise and their own surging confidence, and acted according to the ethos of the street, which told them to gun for the big dog, which was me.

You could also just say that I had unrealistic expectations.

Following about three years of recuperation in my native Canada, including lots of cognitive therapy training and Taoist meditation, I needed to go back to Brooklyn and make things right somehow.

After several teaching jobs in Bronx and Brooklyn schools, I finally left the system, burning bridges as I just walked away, admitting that my being did not belong there, as an agent of control.

I started something then that is growing now, a group designed to accommodate comings and goings, to be patient, a voluntary one-room schoolhouse, a neighborhood within the neighborhood, where people listen to each other. It’s simple, deep and therapeutic, for all of us. The students say that this is what gets them through the week. But it’s not easy.

Power struggles rise up, usually as challenges to my authority--natural authority, based on experience and expertise, but authority nonetheless--challenges from young men who argue that they should be allowed to do whatever they want. They call this “freedom,” not considering how their unlimited freedom might affect the freedom of people around them, and that total license, like an asteroid heedless of what lies in its path, will collide with the planet of someone else’s desires or needs.

For humans who’ve been trained away from reciprocal love, there needs to be a retraining before they can fly like starlings or swim like mackerel, simultaneously free and together, making decisions collectively.

I guess that many kids are sick of being bossed around by teachers and parents, and they’re desperate to do as they wish. But that’s not freedom--although television advertising tells them that doing as they please is their birthright and even their patriotic duty--it’s not freedom any more than being “responsible” means doing your homework. Perhaps this is counter-intuitive, but I believe that real freedom is achieved by taking real responsibility for each other, that real freedom is a result of interdependence, of relationships, of love. I’ve kicked out three young men from the group already, for being narcissistic and having no conscience.

I used to take my 9th graders down the street every week to work with 1st graders; they would read and write stories together, and answer each other’s questions. Grumpy teenagers who wanted to be home in bed and balked at mentoring small children were visibly happy when they saw the little ones waving at them and smiling, as they, the teenagers, awkwardly entered a room whose furniture they had long outgrown. The little ones helped the big ones belong somewhere, be needed by a real person, set them free from a life of abstraction, free from segregation, free from a donkey’s burden of textbooks, free from competition with their peers, free from measurement, free from lovelessness.

Reminding myself daily to carry no agenda but love, I see my job as defending the sanctity of listening, against laziness and carelessness and a whole buncha things that fall under the heading of “B.S.,” and asking myself and my students to keep asking ourselves what it means to love each other. If we can keep the asking alive, petal after petal of the rose of our relationship opens. By caring for this flower, we make beauty, we make living art.

I believe that art is a human effort to re-enter paradise, to recreate universal understanding and universal interdependence. Artists are trying to get us back to the Garden, where the grace of being was installed in the gallery of nature, and everything was everything.

Maybe if we can see our relationships themselves as art, we might begin to treat each other with gratitude and reverence, begin to heal from the cutting of the umbilical cord that made us individuals and left us longing to be lost again in someone else, and begin to be not as lonely, after all.

The last words I leave to a student from my 9th grade English class at Bushwick High School eight years ago. She belonged to a gang called the Crips, so she wore all blue clothing and had her name tattooed on her neck in blue ink.

I had recently returned from visiting my 95-year old grandfather as he was dying in a San Francisco hospital, and I guess my grief was apparent.

The girl handed me a piece of paper folded in four, as it is here and now.

All I want to say before reading it to you is, THIS is what I’m talking about:

“Dear Mr. Haff,

Please try to be happy because you are my happiness in school. Even though you always smiling I can see. I know what is like to lose someone. One day they there, then they not. My aunt comes back at night to bother me but it’s okay.

Love,
Lydia

p.s. Eat more fruits!”


Thank you.

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On Monday morning, May 3, 2010, Carman woke up very ill. She had gone to bed early the night before, which is highly unusual for her. She has always been a night owl, but because we have been so busy with school finals and prom, we didn't think much about it.


Just after 1 AM, I awoke to hear her calling for me. She was nauseated and experiencing strong pains in her abdomen, on the lower right side. She began vomiting, and for the next two hours, could not hold down any liquids. She also shuddered uncontrollably, not with chills, just shuddering throughout her whole body.

During that time, we layed hands on her and prayed together, commanding the sickness and symptoms to go from her body.

I checked the internet several times for a list of symptoms of appendicitis, but her symptoms did not clearly indicate this illness. Also, as the first two hours passed, and she threw up repeatedly, her abdominal pain steadily decreased to the point where she was in almost no pain.

Her symptoms seemed more like a stomach flu. She had no fever, her pains lessened, and her countenance lifted. She became more herself, cheerful and peaceful. But I did not have peace.

As I was asking the Lord what to do, the Holy Spirit reminded me that Carman has a high tolerance for pain. The vommiting and shuddering were clear indicators that she had been in severe pain, so we decided to take her to the hospital to be checked, just in case. It was about 3:30 or 4 when we left.

By that time, she felt so well that she didn't think she needed to go. She even told me that she would go, "just because I wanted her to", but that she did not think it necessary. By the time we packed a bag, got dressed, and loaded her in the car, her pain was almost completely gone, and there were NO SYMPTOMS in her body.

When we arrived, the doctor pressed and pressed on her abdomen, back and sides, looking for something other than the appendicitis. She was no longer nauseated, had basically no pain, and was very chipper. After they ran the blood work, they ordered a CT scan because the white blood count was high.

We were laughing and talking, listening to ipods, and visiting with each other, when they finally came to take the scan. She had to drink the barium liquid, which she found quite disgusting, then wait one hour before the actual scan. Afterwards, we were told there was another one hour waitng period before the results would be ready.

Within 45 minutes the doctor came back in and said Carman would need surgery. They notified the surgeon on call, and said that he would be in to speak with us shortly. He never came. Soon, a different surgeon, a Spirit-filled Christian from Church On The Move, came in to examine Carman and speak with us. We were never told why we got this surgeon instead of the other one, but we believe it was by God's design. As he examined her, he said her symptoms were "unimpressive", and that he needed to take a look at the CT scan for himself.

He came back a few minutes later and said that she, indeed, would need to have her appendix removed. He seemed surprised as well, because of the lack of symptoms.

He had another emergency appendectomy to perfom before Carman's, and said that surgery should last about an hour. It was after 7 AM by this time. They started Carman on a saline IV, but other than Pepcid and Regulan, which they gave her as a precaution before the Barium liquid, they didn't have to give her ANY meds; no pain meds or antibiotics were ever needed before the surgery!

About 8:45 the tech came in and started the pre-op checklist. They wheeled her to surgical waiting by 9 AM, and at 9:15 we were asked to leave and they wheeled her into surgery.

At 9:45, only thirty minutes later, they said the doctor was ready to see us. We met him in a private waiting room, and he said she was finished and could go home later that morning, or early afternoon. The entire procedure took less than 30 minutes, and was a completely textbook case!

We were able to see her at 11 AM, and she was awake, smiling, and drinking water. By 11:45 AM, they had her out of the bed and walking to the bathroom. Just after noon, she was dressed and in the wheelchair on the way to the car.

Other than being tired from the pain meds, and three small incisions covered with band-aids, she is completely well.

It was only by the leading of the Holy Spirit that we knew to take her to the ER. If we had gone by our own understanding of her symptoms, we could be telling a very different story. Thank God for the power of the Holy Spirit, working in the lives of believers!!!

John 16 says, "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you."

We rejoice in our Father's faithfulness to us!

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Joann mentioned my work in their blog and included a link to my shop. I'm so proud!

Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores: Let Record Store Day Inspire You

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