A different point of view...

I was recently talking to a friend of mine, we were talking about Christmas, I asked him if he gets any presents for Christmas, he said "No, my family only gives gifts to Jesus, it's His Birthday, not ours."
Think about it...If it's Jesus's birthday, why are we giving gifts to ourselves? We should be giving to Him.
Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't give, we were made to give, I'm asking "Who/What are we giving to?"
Giving isn't always good, we may give our parents disrespectful words, we may give words that hurt, and receiving them is unbearable
"What you have done to the least of these you have done unto Me."
Some people may look at it and say "Oh, if I donate to the least of these, Jesus will be happy!" This is true...But what if we are ignoring the least of these? What if we rebuke them? "What you have done to the least of these you have done unto Me." it's not just giving, it's everything you do, to the least of these.
It doesn't matter how much you give, it's about to whom you choose give.

So, this Christmas, maybe consider filling a shoe box, or simply donating a little money.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

~Nana

Christmas is making it's way out of the closet...

Christmas music, snow, pretty lights....What's not to love?
This year it seemed as if Christmas slowly started walking into the world...And after Thanksgiving got out of the way it darted into the world! Or, at least my neighborhood. I live up North, so up here people put up their Christmas lights early, while it's "warm", so they don't have to do it when it's blistering cold out!
The lights make the neighborhood magical...And the snow covers the not-so-green grass...It's so beautiful at Christmas time...It's almost as if you can see the joy...Except in the malls, especially when there are sales. ;)

~Nana

A Wonderful Adventure...

A few days ago I went to a friends house....
The first thing we did was go outside and cruise around...
Hair flying in the breeze,
Sun glasses on,
Cruising around...

We weren't actually "driving"...Let me paint another picture,

Teeth chattering,
Hair blowing like a tornado,
Sunglasses falling off,
Holding on to rails so tight that your hands hurt because if you let go you might fall off,
Making doughnuts, (the ones you make in the ground, not the pastries)
Mud and leaves flying into our mouths,
and screaming "SLOW DOWN!!" because we didn't want to drive into a creek.

The answer.
Go-carts.

~Nana

Good morning!

As I woke up early and savored my morning alone... With myself.. My thoughts.. And my acoustic music, with a long list if stuff to get done, I peeked up through my window after around 2 hours of work just quickly enough to see the sunrise. In that moment I feel like life, and everything attached to it, it's all gonna be okay.

-Nilly

A Random Stranger Made My Day...

At Church this morning, the pastor told us to go around and shake hands with people as usual...
Most people just lightly shake your hand and say "Good morning.", well, one man stood out...
He was a very interesting man, I like him already! He has a white Santa Clause beard.
He firmly took my hand, while he was aggressively shaking my hand he said "God Bless you!!",

he did this to everyone he shook hands with, I found it amusing when he shook my brother's hand he said "It's good to be blessed by God! God bless you!". He was saying "God bless you" to everyone that surrounded him.

This man made my day, and brought a smile to my face.

It reminds me of a phrase I heard in a movie, "HUGO", a very good movie, but one phrase got to me...

"No one had ever seen anything like it before.", I had never seen a man with a white Santa beard firmly shake someone by the hand and say "God bless you!" with such a joyful tone.

Someday, I want to do something "No one had ever seen before"...

Trying to go beyond curiosity,
Nana

Feeling Christmas-y.

A few days ago it started snowing, and when there's snow on the ground, Christmas comes to mind, so, I got my Christmas tree out of the closet and put it up! I love the way the ornaments shimmer against the lights...

Merry Christmas!
~Nana

The Adventure Of Moving

Last year in June, I moved from one state, one I've lived in for my whole life, to another state....Fourteen hours away.
I'm starting this story on a Friday, a dark and cold night, I just got out of my youth group, which ended at 10:30, this will be my last time, I put down all my souvenirs and gifts from my friends in the grass, as soon as they hit the ground I was being bombarded by hugs, I didn't know if I'd ever see these people again, after all, we were moving, the next day, soon, after all the hugs and good-byes, by mom came to pick me up, and take me home, for the last time, I'm trying to stop the tears from coming down my cheeks, there's a big lump in my throat...But wait, my mom's phone rings, it's my friend's mom, she invited us to go to Stake'N'Shake with them, we had a grand time, we got some shakes, ate spicy peppers, and yelled "LIGHTING!!!" when ever lighting would strike. It was 12:30am when we got home, I went downstairs to go to the computer, my friend had wrote her email on my hand, and I wanted to email her, but the computers, were gone, packed up. I brush my teeth and go to bed exhausted from all the fun and bittersweet moments that happened that day.

All of a sudden, I am waken up by the sound of boxes being stacked and tape being ripped, "What's going on? It's only 8:30...Why am I up?"
I hear a strange whisper, "Is anyone in here?" a worker asked my brother, he said "yes, my sister is sleeping." well...At least I think he said it...I could've been dreaming...
I got up, got dressed in the bathroom, and started packing. Soon we were putting stickers on furniture, packing boxes with shoes, getting ready for the long drive ahead of us.

The ride was long, but it wasn't too bad, most of the ride I slept, and read, we stopped occasionally to let my dog out and go to the bathroom, and to fill up on gas, but eventually, and midnight, we arrived, at our new house? No, not yet, we're spending the night at our friend's house.
The next day we got up, my mom, one of my brothers and I, went back in the cramped van full of a bunch of...Stuff...My dad, and my other two brothers drove separately.
Soon we stop at a coffee shop, there's internet there, my mom is in there for about two hours...
And at last, we're in the city I'll be living in, and we arrive at our house, my dad and my brothers are already there, I look around, go into my room, not as big as I suspected it to be, but, it'll work. :)
We only have one rocking chair, a couch, and an air mattress for furniture, I slept on the couch cushion, it was a very tiring day...

Life with few entertainment systems and very few furniture is pretty fun! We would sit on the floor and watch movies on my brother's Xbox.

Overall, it was a bittersweet, fun adventure.

~Nana

Friendship bracelets

Recently learning how to make friendship bracelets I am now hooked. I've ranged from making bright happy colored bracelets to a little bit more sophisticated. (As shown) Happy Saturday! -Nilly

Art journal

This is my art journal (not extremely artistic) artistic isn't what I am going for, I'm trying to capture the texture if life (hence fuzzy pipe cleaners, tissue papers, water colors, bleeding ink, glitter and stitching... I literally ripped pages and sewed them back together.) I left raw edges, my journal is beyond imperfect its terrible but it captures the most important thing it can. It captures myself among its pages...
-Nilly

Beautiful things

It's amazing how easy it is to find beautiful things.. You just have to find the beauty! There's beauty in an old embellishment button because it holds a story... There's beauty is sunset.. Lets face it there's beauty in all!
-Nilly

Song Title/Lyric Art

Today I made this

Just normal "Made To Love"?
Look closely.

Inside the letters are the lyrics of the song.
I missed some of the lyrics cause I haven't heard it in a while.
And you can see how I made the letters, I wrote the letters in pencil, wrote the lyrics in pen and then erased the pencil. (Apparently I didn't erase it enough)
This would be really cool with "Forever Reign" or "Lead Me To The Cross".

You can hear Made To Love here.

~Nana

Halloween Adventures!

Halloween, between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, a day where kids go dressed up as characters and go house to house asking people for candy...What's not to love?
This year I handed out candy at a friends house, and usually when people hand out candy they say "Take two" or "Happy Halloween!!" Or some (rarely) say "trick." And close the door.
But not me, when I handed out candy to the kids I said "Merry Christmas!!" The first time I said it was out of habit, every time I give someone something I say "Merry Christmas!" I didn't realize I said it, til after I said it...The kid got a kick out of it though, and so did my friend! Soon my friend and her mom were telling me what to tell the kids, Happy Birthday, Happy Valentines Day, Happy Veterans Day (true story).
And as if it wasn't weird enough...I had a heart painted on my head...

Kids: "Trick or treat!!"
Me: "Happy Birthday!!" *Gives candy*
Kid: "Thanks!-Wait, what?!"
Me: "It's your birthday!! Congratulations!!"

The looks on their faces were priceless.

Those kids will probably remember me forever...Well, maybe not, but they probably told their parents about it! ;)


Merry Christmas!! (Happy Halloween!)

~Nana