Broken with Perfect Brightness of Hope

Father, please Comfort and bless those who stand in need of comfort. How often have we heard this plea during a prayer at church or even during a family prayer in our own homes? We are admonished in the scriptures to ' mourn with those who mourn'. To take others burdens upon ourselves that they might be lightened.

Around Christmas I mentioned our dear friend and neighbor was diagnosed with 2 brain tumors. His wife is one of my dearest friends, even a friend of my heart who knows and keeps those secret things of my heart, close to hers.

 They live next door. We planted our yards to compliment each others. Their backyard is the other one blended with ours, pictured in my header photo.
Although life has been going on for others, my sweet friend has been in mourning as she has lovingly cared for her sweetheart until he passed. She mentioned  to me a few days ago, “How can life seem so normal for others when mine if falling apart?”

This morning I stood on their driveway, as her husband, sweetheart, companion, friend, and lover was driven away from their home in a black shiny Hearst. He was 61 years young. Hearts broke and tears  flowed...

My friend, their children and other family members stood there and watched as it slowly made the way down the street,  hearts were broken. Although we have light and knowledge through the gospel of Jesus Christ of where R went this morning, and of the incredibly sweet reunions he is enjoying today with his Savior, Jesus Christ, and other loved ones, my heart is weeping for my precious friend and their children. Especially for their precious 17 year old daughter who we have watched grow up into a lovely young woman and who has is feeling the loss of beloved daddy in her life. Please pray for her.

***

Last week I shared my excitement of winning this beautiful chair. I didn’t tell you how I found the package had arrived and was waiting on our porch. The door bell rang. I opened the door and my sweet friend was standing there with these lovely white lilies in her hand, a thank you card and a huge hug. We stood there, hugged and sobbed liked babies and then she said, “Oh, you have a package.” She brought it into our home and she marveled that a friend in blogland would send such a gorgeous gift to someone she didn’t know. (Thanks Again Muse:)

Then, she collapsed as she poured out her heart and the pain that was there.  I am so grateful for friends!  That we have each other when life gets hard.

Later,  I sat on our sofa and looking at my two gifts which arrived at the SAME time, the lilies she brought and the generous gift of the Fleur de lis chair, with the symbol of the Lily,

I couldn’t help but think of the poignant symbolism of the lily. (I hadn’t realized at the time I captured both in them in the pictures I had taken of the chair:)
Here my sweet friend was thinking about me, another person,  when her OWN grief was almost more than she could bear, brought me her love and the sweet lilies of the field.

So often friends comfort others when their own needs are greater than those being comforted. “That quality is like the generosity of Jesus on the cross. Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity!” by Neal A Maxwell.  I have witnessed her doing this over and over again during the years.
I couldn’t help but think about the Easter Lily and what it represents. I know I will never look the same way again at a beautiful lily.

Lilies are brown, wrinkled bulbs that are buried deep in the earth, then send forth green shoots that grow tall and have beautiful flowers.
The Easter lily blooms at this special time of year and reminds us that our Savior, Jesus Christ was “buried” in a tomb and came out of it resurrected, glorious and will never die again. I am so grateful for this knowledge and for HIS gift of the ATONEMENT in my life.

Connie just posted on their Caringbridge blog,  where she has posted their incredibly moving and poignant journey these past few months,
“ Today, my love, R, passed away at 6:54 am. I will be forever changed. I will find words soon. Right now my heart is broken. No words.
Still sending all my love,

I am heart broken for her.  My heart weeps she has lost her sweetheart so early in life. I am grateful they know and hold to the knowledge of their love and marriage is eterna. They know they will see each other again.
He was the same age as my own dad was when he passed away. I know how hard it has been on my mom. I hope I can be there in the coming days and months to mourn with and COMFORT  her and their beautiful family as they mourn the passing of their own gentle and spiritual man who loves the Lord, husband, father and grandpa.  But mostly just love.

Please cherish those around you, love them and hold them tight. Enjoy each day! We never know.

Much Love, Beth

Irish Goodies

May the sun shine, all day long,

everything go right, and nothing wrong.

May those you love bring love back to you,

and may all the wishes you wish come true!

~Irish Blessing

This picture was borrowed from the Woman's Day Magazine
Goes perfectly with my recipe of

Thin-Mint Grasshopper Pie

 1 box Thin Mint cookies (32 cookies) (mmm my favorite Girl Scout cookies)
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups cold milk
1 Package of Instant Jell-O Milk Chocolate Pudding
1 Package of Instant Jell-O White Chocolate Pudding
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 tub (12 oz.) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed, divided use


Remove 10 cookies and set aside.
Crush or process remaining cookies, then mix them with the butter. Press firmly onto bottom and up side of 9-inch pie plate.
Pour 1 cup milk into large bowl for each package of pudding.  In the chocolate pudding add  1/4 tsp peppermint flavoring and in the white chocolate, add drops of green food coloring.  (Mixtures will be thick.) .


Spread the chocolate and  peppermint pudding mixture over crust Thin Mint crust.
Chop 7 cookies and combine them with about 1 cup (doesn’t have to be precise) whipped topping. Spread this mixture over the top of the mint flavored chocolate.
To the White Chocolate pudding mixture, add the rest of the whipped topping.
Spread this mixture over the cookie mint layer. Fluff an and swirl.  Decorate with  the 3 remaining Thin Cookie Mints.
Chill for 4 hours or until set
Makes 8 servings

St Patrick's Day Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ice Cream Sandwiches: Use your favorite green ice cream, ours is  mint chocolate chip) to sandwich between chocolate wafer cookies. Freeze until ready to serve.

May the Luck of the Irish be with you all week!

~ ♥~

Fleur de ~ Free

Remember when I posted this fabulous giveaway?

Well, I won!!! You would have thought I won the lottery! 
 Because I did!
♥

I was so excited I could hardly sleep the night I found out.  It was such a surprise!   My husband was out of town in a different time zone and had already gone to bed. I just HAD to share the good news with someone.


So you are probably right if you thought, I went to find the other AUNTIE in the house whom had retired just 20-30 minutes before:”) Bless her heart...I was so bad.  But I couldn't contain my excitment!
This is my silly side.... ( I got a pretty good scholarship in drama when I graduated from high school. TRUE!)

She  didn't know what to think when I burst in her room doing a happy dance. She was alarmed and shot up in bed and asked, “What’s wrong?  Are you Alright?"”

I started to sing  as I were on Broadway...

“Nothing! ... Everything is Greaaat ... Everything is Gannndd!”
She looks over at her clock, and then at me with a puzzled look on her face, “What are you doing?”

 I went into an academy award speech, thanking my husband, my parents, my children, and most of all our dearest Muse!

Then I bounced on her bed saying, “ I WON, I WON!!!” I won the CHAIR!

Being a non blogger she asks, “What chair? And who is the Muse?”

“THE Fleur de lis CHAIR,   I won it. Come and see!”....

She declined  and said, "Tomorrow!"... She went back to sleep!!! LOL :'}

To say the least I was a very happy girl. 

~
This is so beautiful and such a generous blogging gift and  comes from  a very wonderful lady we all know and lovingly refer to as the MUSE.

I was surprised to say the least.

Friday, the big box arrived.

Excitement started to build as we opened it....

 and I was so excited to see what it looked like!

I really love the Fleur de lis symbol which reminds me of the 2 years my husband spent in Paris, France on a mission.

The symbol is for the French Monarchy and means the Flower (Fleur) of the Lily (lis).

Oooo the cushion is so pretty!

It wasn’t the color I expected, it was even better, with soft buttery and dusty blue swirls

with the sage background ='s  perfect!

I love the gorgeous wood detailing. The color of the wood matches our piano.

We moved furniture around to find a new home for this
lovely gift.

 

I filled glasses up with ice water to remove the carpet indents from the previous furniture.

 (Just a little tip that works!)

We first, tried it by a Japanese painting, a grandmother of one of our 5 Japanese exchange students painted for us.

The colors were perfect. Two cherished gifts together.

Then we decided to move it to the other corner.

 The color of the cushion goes so pretty with our living room furniture.  

Sweet Muse must have researched some of my back posts, just to pick the perfect color. That is just like her!

We love our new chair!

And many others will enjoy it too! Look what sweet grandluv came

to play with me today.

She showed me fun tricks and we played

PEEK

A

BOO!

 A very warm and sincere Thank You to a wonderful friend and lady, Dearest Muse!

The Muse has so many talents, humor and wisdom she shares along with a heavy dose of love in her comments and friendships she makes here in blogland. 

Look what this month's Give a Way she is hosting!!!

These wonderful Calligraphy pens

and

A Card Making Bonanza!

 And even a Gorgeous Scarf HERE

Her giveaway is on her Prose site. HERE   

  I  have been  very impressed, enjoyed and moved with her inspiration

 which seems to naturally flow from her.

Please go visit her today!

Enjoy a Fabulous week!

~♥~

Creating NEW from our OLD

I have been feeling the urge to create lately. I don't do it as much as I did while raising our family, when creativity was a necessary part of our daily living. Then it was necessary to make things stretch while working with whatever we had on hand. Some of those dinners, celebrations and the costumes which were made at the last moment turned out incredible. The mother of invention is so necessary for us women! Lol.

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.
Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.
Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children.”
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I had three of these pillows I had purchased years ago at Costcos. They were taking up needed room in  a spare bedroom closet.  So they were put in a pile for charity when doing some cleaning/purging.

They I realized how sturdy they were and decided to make them over with some fabric I bought on sale.

I  measured  and marked where the buttons should be positioned.  The hitch was that I still hadn't found the right buttons, even after several weeks of looking.  So I just put the cases on the pillows, without any buttons.

We finally found the perfect buttons... but they were 8.00 a piece! $72.00 was a bit too pricey for buttons for recovering old pillows.

Then I remembered a coat I had gotten on an 'end of winter' clearance several years ago.

  I cut off the larger buttons which gave me exactly the  9 buttons I needed and they = Free! 

 This weekend I finally finished my project!

I placed velcro along the edges to keep the opening closed and

and finally was able to add the buttons.

I liked the slpash of color they added in the family room

Can you find a pillow which looks the same?  I don't think so, because NOT one of them turned out the same!

(Notice the position of the buttons are on top of the opening, AND underneath the opening because each was sewn differently! And then, even one had an extra strip of added fabric when I accidently cut the material too short!) ;]

“What you create doesn’t have to be perfect. So what if the eggs are greasy or the toast is burned? Don’t let fear of failure discourage you. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you—whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside.”

So don’t LET the fact that if you were to try to make three pillows which were suppose to look the same, and each  one of  them turned out different, ever stop you from using your creativity!!! :-)

I am linking  to 2nd TIME AROUND that my friend Diane does each Tuesday

And for the first time with  Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays

and DIY Project Parade. 

 Please visit these wonderful blogs  and get some wonderful ideas.

 Thanks for hosting these fun parties!

 I was very impressed with all the creativity going on over at the DIY BLOG.

Enjoy a fabulous week!

~♥~

Spreading Warmth

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am reading in so many blogs, we are all hungering for the beauty of spring.  Yet, when it is so gray and cloudy outside and the earth is brown, it seems so hard to believe Spring is really is right around the corner.

So I have found it is nice to have ‘warm beauty pictures' in my show and tell arsenal.

Our son went on a holiday to Puerto Rico a couple years ago with his cousin Shantay and several friends. He downloaded his pictures in my picture folder and I see them every time I glance through my pictures.

With our forecast calling for rain, turning to snow in  the valley tomorrow, I felt it was time to bring these pictures out and share. They bring a warm smile to my face!

This beach looks like it is just waiting to be enjoyed.

The rainforest is gorgeous

Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth."
Soren Kierkegaard

Spring is coming!
I am so grateful for the light of sunshine and the warmth the Lord gives us through his sweet mercies.

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."
Victor Hugo

I am linking up to Outdoor Wednesday.
 Please visit Susan at a Southern Day Dream is our wonderful hostess, to see more Outdoor Pictures.
Create a warm memory of your own this week!
~♥~