Thought Train

One day I swear you'll hear about the rest of the Williamsburg trip. 

But today I was doing my usual praying and thinking in the shower. See if you can follow this train ...

I was praying to God (I know your relieved can't fool me).

      Then Jesus .... The birth ... Christmas in 2 days! ... Back to Christmas eve ... the drama I'm not looking forward to ... the Sing-Ma-Jigs I got for the mini-cousins and signed From The Lockes ... My cousin Amber Jo ... She's now married ... the wedding gift I made with their names ... How Locke is 5 letters and so is Jason and Staci ... And this is what I came up with today that started with praying. Not a bad way to start the day.

 

And then I thought this might be nice.

 

 

And then I remembered I did some graphics after getting the following story in an email. It's gone around I'm sure you will know it.

From the heart of an unknown author— When I meditated on the word Guidance, I kept seeing “dance” at the end of the word. I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn’t flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music. One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back or by pressing lightly in one direction or another. It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully. The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other.My eyes drew back to the word Guidance. When I saw “G: I thought of God, followed by “u” and “i”. “God, “u” and “i” dance.” God, you, and I dance. As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust that I would get guidance about my life. Once again, I became willing to let God lead.My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings and mercies be upon you on this day and everyday. May you abide in God as God abides in you. Dance together with God, trusting God to lead and to guide you through each season of your life.And I Hope You Dance!!!!!!!!

Thoughts

Sorry for the poor quality

Here's a thought ... JJL and I are not outside light people. We try most every year and I can't remember a year where it was a success. Could it be we are just not smart enough to figure out how to lay out extension chords to get everything lit up and plugged into the one source on the porch. Could it be laziness in not wanting to layout the amount of extension chords? Do we perhaps have an extension chord limit? We strung the one strand and it nearly and it completely wore us out. I was then confounded after a couple of days why I never saw the lights out. ...

                         Me: Did you set a timer on the lights

                         JJL: Yes, It's set on dusk till dawn

                In my head: I work dusk till dawn? How depressing. I need sunshine. That's probably why I'm feeling gloomy. I should REALLY remember to take my vitamin. That has vitamin D in it. ... (I really could go on)

That black hole with a little bit of yellow dead center is Darth Vader

I have heard there are those that don't put baby Jesus in the nativity set until Christmas Eve/Day. Because you know, He wasn't born yet. So do these people have all the other characters setting round an empty trough? And really if these people are going to get all snotty ... 1. Not all nativity sets is the "baby" separate from the trough. 2. Do they only set up the wise men every 3 years? 3. And they should really not set up any of the people until Christmas Eve 4. There should not be a barn or wood structure either, it should look more like a cave.
So take that!! You crazy Nativity set "authority" person. Stop sucking the life out of how other people set up a nativity set and just be glad they are.

I seem to think there was something else I was going to type up. I really need to write this stuff down or speak a voice message. If it was important I would remember but lets be frank or bill or tom haha I couldn't resist ... I digress. I'm not sure I even remember the important stuff anymore let alone the stuff I would write about here.

Holy Mackerel - Get it? It cracks me up every year.

Years ago I bought a 4 foot tree. I decorated it mostly with nautical type ornaments. I would try to go the Hallmark store the day after Christmas to get half off on the Lighthouse series ornaments. To my dismay they have ended that series. I get married and unknowingly accept his Hallmark ornaments. His far out number mine. So we have some nautical, and quite a bit of trains and a whole lot of Star Wars. It's a by sea, by land, by space theme tree.

Speaking of nativity sets we got one that was JJL's deceased father and mother's. It was missing a wise man. Go ahead and snicker, it only gets better. I stop at a store I thought used to carry nativity pieces and don't anymore. But on the way out I was asked if I found everything 1. I'm walking out empty handed. what do you think? any way what I answered was "Nope, I was looking for a wise man." You should have seen the wide eyed look I got. I then answered, "You know for a nativity set". That was received with a OOHHH answer.
Ha ha - can't find a wise man - I crack myself up.

Notice the new one - His grass base is a little more brighter than the others.

On a sober note -  Christmas music is allowed to be played at work the week and if we are lucky two weeks before Christmas. The lines of "Christmas music can get fuzzy. Personally I think all Christian music is Christmas music. I heard a song that had a verse about Noah hearing the screams of men and women dying. I don't know about you but that makes my heart break.

Let me try to connect the dots.

Unsaved - screaming - while I am saved.

How many times have I heard the Noah story? How many times have I heard about spreading the word and evangelism? How many? More than enough.

If I don't get around to blogging again this month I wish the 5 of you a very Merry Christmas all through the year and next :)

Work Stuff

Since the beginning of the year I have been designing ads for Carl Black Chevrolet out of Nashville, TN for our publication of Tennessee Wheels and Deals. I started out using Chevrolet pre-made ads and fitting them into the space for the cover. It is sometimes like, well you know like fitting a size 14 body into a size 8 dress. Or have none of you ever experienced that ... wink, wink I know you have. Well after awhile the pre-made slicks ran out and I started picking out pictures and coming up slogans for the covers and thought I would share a few.

July 14, 2011

Check out the photoshop work of looping the sign around the tree.

August 11, 2011

August 25, 2011

It was fair week down in Nashville so I decided to acknowledge that.

September 8, 2011

The vehicle started out with no view just a solid gray and so it was an easy "paste into" of Tennessee mountains. And just so that you know it was not my intention to rhyme just a quirky happenstance.

October 6, 2011

For this one I wanted to choose a font that is not normally used for the publication. There are only slim number of fonts that are "printable". So, to make this work I had to make the font for lack of a better term a graphic.

I had this one all designed. But the dealer wanted something to do with football so I came up with the following ...

October 20, 2011

Check out the model names in "football" style.

November 3, 2011

This took some photoshop skill. I don't like the passenger side mirror hanging out all by itself.

November 17, 2011

I'm not completely happy with the font for "Not Much!" All the image work was down in Adobe InDesign.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Indiana Trivia: The birthplace of the automobile, the pneumatic rubber tire, the aluminum casting process, stainless steel and the first push-button car radio was in Kokomo, Indiana.

sing Love, SING!

Just some ideas for an awesome band.

OPTION 1

OPTION 2

OPTION 3

OPTION 4

OPTION 5

OPTION 6

Wed. in VA (Wed. in IN in real time)

I know it's a week later but considering my record I think I'm doing pretty well with this blogging of the vacation. I'm sure the 5 of you are on pins and needles waiting for the next post :)

Wednesday, we started off in Jamestown, Va. We went to Jamestown Settlement. There is a Historical Jamestown for 10 more George Washingtons but we decided against that. We got the Jamestown with the Yorktown for a combo deal of 20 GWs. Not a bad deal considering we got 7 days at Williamsburg through the condo for less than 1 day price at CW. We left before the tickets were expired. We considered selling them in the parking lot but decided against it.

Jamestown - get this peeps they open at 9 and start the must see orientation movie at 9 - What genius thought of this? We are there before they open the doors and inform us the next movie starts at 9:30 - The guy let us in because you know it just started. And get this no photos allowed in the gallery??? Do they not know people blog!

Did you know the less clothes the women (Natives, and then African slaves) wore the lower the class ... is this still not the case? And do you wonder if the Slaves thought of the Indians as savages, too? And please forgive if I'm not being politically correct. It's the terms I remember from the exhibit.

Kitchen - They actually remove the gray embers and cook on those.

After the gallery, there was an Indian village, then the ships!!!!! and then the fort. This was done in about 4 hours and it would have taken longer I'm sure but we're getting pretty good at skipping over the things that don't interest us all that much. Like we spent lots of time in the church in the fort and on the big ship where there is lots of walking around and seeing of people and asking of questions.

I'm tattling by saying JJL did NOT take this moment to preach the Gospel like we've been learning to do from Sunday sermons

It was then back to Williamsburg. They were having a special talk about old maps and the like. And I like. So we go to the basically the real museum museum of CW. It shares buildings with the old hospital, mental that is ... wahahaha.

Well, the tour begins and there are too many people in a too small of space that there is no way to see the map the retired school administrator is talking about at the time he is talking about. BTW: did you know that North wasn't always at the top of page? some of the earlier maps it was to the right because that's where their "north" laid.

Well we get to the museum we are told about a lecture (I like lectures) on George Washington and his relationship with Lafayette.

Hand crank record player. The leathery tongue movies when it plays

In between skipping out on the map and before getting in line for the lecture we peruse the museum. We see funky musical instruments and then we see Signs, Statues and weather vanes say it with me kids ... AWESOME!

We are front row for the lecture and these seats are not wide hip friendly. And while we wait and the place fills up. I notice we are THE youngest by a good 20 years ... then we start doing the time thing and figured it will be very late when we leave here. All these people must have caught the 4 O'clock early bird special. So we ended up leaving and going to Captain George's the coolest, biggest, seafood buffet.

 JJL and I thought we were cool know it all crab leg eaters ... I have been shamed. A couple sitting at the table near us, the woman had 3 ... 3! plates piled HIGH with the legs. JJL and I proceeded to talk about how the legs will get cold and why get so many at once. We looked over the legs were GONE! They then proceeded to sit for like 45 min and then they went and got everything but crab legs. It confused us to no end why people would fill up on mac & cheese at a seafood buffet that cost $30. AND I noticed they put all the fat people the farthest away and the most stairs from the buffet. 


And then I heard Steve Jobs passed away and ... that's all I got to say about that.

Tuesday Outing

We headed out early to Colonial Williamsburg. Our first stop was the orientation walk where we learned how to read the schedule of events and just basic information.

Practice 18th century writing

Then it was off to reserve our spot to have a conversation with George Washington.

 

At the time of the talk, he's at the end of 2nd term and is not running a third.
JJL of course raised his hand and asked President Washington what he thought his greatest accomplishment was while in office. The pres being a rather humble and stoic individual didn't account any accomplishment for his own.

 
He ended by getting off the stage allowing us a "quick sketch". JJL took that opportunity to ask another question for which George came out of character,  rare thing! He then proceeded to acknowledge JJL service in the Coast Guard. These characters know their role so well its as if your speaking to the actual person. It reminds me of when we went and saw Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.

We attended an 18th century county court hearing. They asked for a married or want to be married couple to volunteer. JJL surprised me and volunteered us. The case was we were essentially asking for a pre-nup where my holdings would not become my husband's and he would not be required to provide protection or to say pay the executioner if I were to hang if found guilty of oh - murder. And of course being nervous and NEVER being on trial I answered the Judge with a "yep". This of course got corrected by the Judge. He also made the comment along the lines of you can't help who love chooses kinda like disease.

We were then recognized for the rest of the day by others that were in the courtroom. And JJL more than once said through out the week after I spoke boldly, "good thing I got that petition."

We had lunch in the area and then made are way back - all the while stopping in different trade buildings - to where they put on Revolutionary skits and

Blacksmith - the guy on the right has a 1776 tattoo he got before working at CW

Wheelwright

Market Square

Printer/Bindery and official Post Office - I love the "human alphabet" that I got the doll.

Talk of rebellion

Romance

Talk of freedom?

ending with a reading of the Declaration of Independence by about 7 different people ... goose bump worthy! and for JJL who served ... tear jerking.

I have more photos on Facebook and I would appreciate comments on the more arty type photos :)