Catching Up

In looking back it seems if I've blogged at all it has been about jewelry challenges, and even those have been very few as of late. So let me fill you in on what's going on in my world.

This is a photo of our oldest daughter. She will be 24 on April 21st.  We moved her all the way from Kansas to North Carolina a couple weekends ago.  It was a long, sad ride back to Kansas without her.  She has a wonderful outlook on life, always smiling, never too proud to do silly things, kind, giving and helpful. I will miss her laugh and that wonderful smile. Celebrating Easter without her was a bit difficult, and she will be celebrating her birthday alone this year. I'm so proud of her for wanting to be out on her own, starting a new life in a new place where she knows no one. And I can't wait to hug her the next time we are together.

My dad continues with getting rid of things after my mom passed away.  This was my lunch pail when I was in grade school.  The thermos is missing, and it has several scratches, but I'm so glad my parents kept this for so long.  My twin sister had one similar but it's no where to be found.

I've been eating leftover Easter Candy--a lot!! I love jelly beans but recently found that their shiny coating comes from Shellac, a chemical derived from the excretions of the Kerria Lacca insect.  This coating is also on candy corn and other candy.  I hope I didn't spoil things for you jelly bean lovers.

I bought a Swanstrom Disc Cutter from Rio Grande with my Christmas money.  It came as a kit with a brass mallet, bur life, centering plugs and urethane pad.  Have I used it yet? No.  But one of these days.......

Outside my window the sun is shining and the tender green shoots of wheat in the field across the street is a beautiful sight to see. It reminds me of this Easter hymn:

 Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.