Kate's First Commissioned Piece

Kate is commissioned! Granted it was me that commissioned her, but still :) By the way, she's very cheap! I got this one for only $5 :) This is a picture of her and her work (Autographed by the artist also).

It is a DIPTYCH; which is a painting that spans several canvases. We saw one in a book and studied what it meant and examples of it on the internet, then I told Kate what I wanted (We saw one just like this).

We did sample boards and talked a lot about the strokes used and tried different techniques. Eventually, this is what she came up with. As she painted I told her to stop when it was what I wanted. The only thing I did was help her talk through some of the steps and then when it came to the layered dry brushing I did some because the paint was drying faster than she could do two layers. She is very proud and it will be hanging somewhere in our house today if you'd like to come see it in person.

Paint is a medium that she has not really explored. She generally uses fine point pens and markers because she enjoys doing the fine details (something that is significantly harder with paint!). This little experiment has really opened her eyes to the possibilities. We are so proud!

My prayer: Lord, Thank you for giving Kate such awesome talents. She is amazing to us. Please give her the confidence to pursue any dream she dares to dream, and show us how to facilitate those attempts. Let her never fear men or what they may think of her. Help her to find herself in you and you alone. ~ Amen

Things are getting back to normal

Kate is back in school now and has started back to guitar lessons.
(Thought this was a cute picture of her and her guitar that I took with
my new digital camera!)
She played the worship song "Here I am to worship" for me the other day.
She's getting pretty good at this guitar thing.

She also made a 100% on her spelling test this week!
(NOT her favorite course!)

We are still meeting with insurance adjustors and FEMA guys on
all the properties...but we have most of the major structural problems
taken care of on the houses. One will require a few more weeks of
labor to complete. Slowly but surely...we will overcome!!!

My prayer:
God, just a little longer. I need strength to get my family back to normalcy. Help me. ~Amen

Hurricane Rita Update

I just got internet back for the first time in over a month.
I just wanted to write and catch you all up on life here after the storm.

Hurricane Rita wreaked some pretty nasty havoc around here. Officials are saying that things will not be normal here for quite some time. We have electricity and we are doing fine, but many people are not in the same boat.

We lost two rent houses almost completely, but our house was untouched (except for the barn...it's a total write-off). I cannot tell you what it feels like to drive up your driveway knowing that there is a huge possibility that little or nothing of your house could be standing...and see it completely in tact. I was in tears; partially because I know I am blessed and partially because I know others who lost almost everything.

Things are still very weird though. There are things that you still cannot buy here...
for example, Foldgers coffee is hard to find, and I went searching for a pair of Levi 501's the other day and NOBODY has them. Most restaurants and businesses are either not open or have weird hours and have LIMITED menus, even Wal-Mart is not open it's regular schedule and it's been over a month since the Hurricane. There are long lines of people EVERYWHERE...for the most basic of stuff.

Many people are moving out of this area completely, finding jobs and such in other areas. We have three sets of friends who are not coming back.

On a positive note:
We've seen so much happen because of this. Our church was able to touch so many hurting people in our community, and most realized that we were victims too. Which made it even bigger when they realized that we were taking times away from our houses and lives to help them...they all of a sudden realized that there is power when you don't let yourself slide into the victim mentality.

You can be victim and yet not let it victimize you.

It made this whole ordeal a lot easier to take for me personally. I realized how blessed I was!

Threw some pics in for you to see...talk soon!















This is one of our area churches. Central Church on the Rock. This is actually the location of my church before we moved to our new construction. That is the sanctuary you are looking in on.
Pastor Ron actually preached there the day after the storm :) for all the military to see!















This is an electrical tower. Full size they look like the ones in the background...this one is bent almost into a ball.
















This is the tree that fell on my barn.
















This is Darren standing IN the tree that fell on my barn...I was sure he was going to fall out! I really didn't think that this particular picture was worth the possibility of broken bones...I guess he did!