Category: Friendship

Wednesday, July 22, 2026 The Workshop: The Flower Fairy

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I was taking a stroll through Pinterest and became enamored of the things people were doing with their dried flowers and leaves. I’d been making bookmarks by randomly strewing them in laminating pouches and running it through the laminator. I liked how they turned out. But now there was a whole new game going on. Clever people had used different elements of flower petals and leaves to create wonderful images. I had some dried flowers and leaves left over from last year and thought, I bet I can do something like that. I invited my friend Barb over for this adventure and we got to work. I showed her some of the different designs and we chose a flower fairy, thinking it didn’t look too hard. We were wrong.

For one thing my dried things were so dry that they were brittle and hard to use. In addition, as we were placing them on our paper, every time we breathed, they scattered. We decided we needed to put a little glue on each piece while placing it. This was when I discovered that my friend Barb is glue-challenged. It turns out that she’s had a bad relationship with glue for many years. In her hands, it seems to find its way to everything but the thing that she wants to be glued. She told me of a time when she was using super glue, and ended up with several things being super glued to her fingers. We went ahead with our project, but it was a trial to her.

The Pinterest flower fairy was so charming and delicate. Her hair was a poetry of thin petals curling away from her head, and her face was well-formed. Her figure was trim. Her skirt was flowing and her wings were sheer and lacy. The bouquet she held out was lovely. More flowers grew out of the grass at her feet. Our supplies were meager, so we had to make do with what we had.

In the end, I had a flower fairy. Her hair was an unfortunate stiff thing that looked like she’d been caught in 20 mph winds. She turned out rather buxom as well, nothing like the lithe sprite in the original. Her bouquet was just two little flowers with no holder. However, I thought her legs and feet turned out quite well. Here she is:

And below is Barb’s flower fairy, who ended up with somewhat of a mop head and a matronly body, but is still presenting flowers with an attractively slender arm. I love her wings, bold and purple! I think her legs must have come off at some point, but we can pretend that she tucks them under her skirt while she’s flying.

When I see our flower fairies, they make me laugh and give me good memories of a laughter-filled afternoon with a good friend. By the way, I didn’t actually ask Barb’s permission to share hers on the blog, but I can’t IMAGINE she’d say no. 😬

I’ll probably have the Flower Fairy delete this in the morning. She might as well have something useful to do.

Thursday, June 25, 2026 A Good Friend, An Acrylic Adventure

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I hosted a paint party recently. It was my job to not only find enough people to come, but also to pick out the painting that we would do. I had about 10 paintings to choose from. They were all nice, and I dragged my feet on the selection. Finally, the event was drawing nigh and I had to choose, so I picked one that I thought was quite striking.

The paint party was lots of fun and I got to know some of my neighbors a little better. It’s always interesting to see how the paintings turn out when you do one of these paint parties. They’re all basically the same subject with the same paint, but rendered in different ways. Still, that striking painting struck me differently when I thought about where to put it in our house. The bright red and yellow in the sky just didn’t fit anywhere here. What to do?

My good friend Teresa visited today and among other things we talked about that painting. She is an interior designer, a skill I do not possess on any level (hence, picking a painting that doesn’t work well in my house).

“Should I just throw it away?“ I asked.

She looked at it thoughtfully and said, “I wouldn’t do that. Why don’t you repaint the sky and the sun? You could put in some more muted tones that would make it more suitable“ The fact that she thought I was capable of this was quite encouraging. I had a few dozen small containers of acrylic paint that I had not looked at nor opened in probably 15 years. Why not?

As soon as she left, I got to work. It felt rather touch and go the whole time. At one point I accidentally spilled a little orange paint in the sky and had to just blend it in and hope for the best. The final result, while not perfect, is a painting that I think I can find a place for on one of our walls. I would not have been brave enough to try it without her encouragement.

That’s the difference that a good friend can make.

I’ll probably repaint this post in the morning.

Thursday, October 23, 2025 No More Pain

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Original post in June 2023: This painting is for my friend, Sherri, who deals with chronic pain due to neuropathy. She’s always so cheerful when I see her – I don’t think I’d deal with my pain half so well. Now I need to put this one in the mail for her.

Update: I’m reposting this today in honor of my friend Sherri whom the Lord recently called home to Him. She is living out the beautiful truth of Revelation 21:4b:

There shall be no more pain
for the former things
have passed away.

Sherri and I met through homeschooling many years ago and I enjoyed her lively humor and sense of fun from the beginning. We saw each other somewhat regularly over the span of those homeschooling years, but it really wasn’t until our kids were mostly grown and gone that the friendship took off. Whenever we got together I knew I was in for an interesting conversation involving politics, current events, our shared faith, theology, our children, conspiracy theories, prepping for emergencies, health issues and more. Buckle up!

A few years ago, she broke her ankle and I ended up spending some time every week with her for a couple months. Originally, I just thought she might enjoy the company, since she was homebound. However, she came up with the idea that as long as I was there, maybe I could help her with sorting through her stuff. Both Sherri and I have a hard time getting rid of our own stuff, but there’s nothing more fun than helping someone else get rid of theirs. Say no more! I rolled up my sleeves and we spent those afternoons sorting through things, with me forcing her to make constant decisions about whether to keep, give away or throw away every item. Each time I left there were a couple more boxes or bags of things to get rid of. She was probably exhausted after every visit, but honestly it was so much fun. She was such a good sport about it all and the time together was a wonderful blessing to me. When she was back on her feet, she came over to my house to return the favor by helping me get rid of stuff in my craft room. She was every bit as hard on me as I was on her – and I needed it! And through it all, there was always lots of laughter.

Somewhere along the line, we got in the habit of taking each other out for our birthdays every year. It was a lovely tradition, one we both looked forward to. Her birthday was in August, but we didn’t get to it until early September this year. I treated her to a session of red light therapy with me before the meal, which was a hoot. I don’t remember much of what we talked about in particular that day, but it was the last time we were together.

I was shocked and devastated when I heard the news of her passing. Don’t get me wrong – I rejoice that she’s with Jesus and that her long years of pain are over. She is free indeed. But I will miss her tremendously. Everyone who knew her is now poorer without her in some way.

But thanks be to God, I will see her again, and for that I am very grateful.

I’ll probably not delete this in the morning.

Thursday, October 9, 2025 Of Hedgehogs and Yellow Raincoats

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I entered into a shop in Bayfield and thought it would be like all other shops of its ilk. But as I wandered through the place, admiring its wares, I heard a strange, high-pitched voice saying, “Psst! Over here!”

Puzzled, I looked around but didn’t see anyone, so I kept going.

“PSSST! Wrong way! You’re getting colder! Turn around!” I turned toward the sound of the voice, which appeared to be coming from a rack of beautiful cards made by quilling. Curiouser and curiouser!

A tiny movement caught my eye…and then I saw it (him? her?) – the hedgehog on a card was clearly gesturing to me with its tiny paws. I came closer to hear it better.

“If you don’t buy me for Teresa’s birthday, I will have been brought into this world in vain,” it said. And having delivered its message, it went back to being a card.

Strong words! Compelling words! What else could I do?

As it happened, I already had something for the aforementioned Teresa’s birthday, found many months ago in another shop of vintage items and remnants from estate sales. Teresa and I were there together ambling through the delightful collection of oddments, when she held something up and said, “Look at this! It’s adorable!” And it was: a figurine of a girl on a bench wearing a yellow raincoat, yellow boots, and sitting beside a little hedgehog. Although the item showed its years with small spots and minor discolorations, this did not detract from its charm one whit. Teresa put it somewhat reluctantly back on the shelf and as soon as we parted for our respective cities, I circled back around and raced into the shop hoping she hadn’t had the same idea. She hadn’t.

And now these two hedgehogs have been brought together. I expect the little yellow-raincoat girl is just as happy to have two of them to keep her company – and when they meet Teresa’s other hedgehog named Percival, there will be all sorts of rejoicing.

Happy (pre) birthday, dear friend!

A friend loves at all times…
Proverbs 17:17

This post may have exceeded the limit of hedgehog mentions and if so, will summarily be deleted in the morning.

May 2, 2018 Zoom

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I’m not sure yet what I want to say about this photo. I like it immensely. The idea of having a 70-300 mm lens never appealed to me in the past. I wasn’t sure what real benefit could be derived by being able to zoom further – big deal! When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child… I didn’t realize what lovely things happen to the background when you use a zoom lens. This humble bit of wrought iron is on our front porch, but what really makes this beautiful to me is that the ugly pre-spring patchy lawn behind it has been transformed into a mellow greenish hue of undetermined detail. The bright blurred background allows the wrought iron piece to stand out in proud relief and strut its stuff. The lens allows me to see this is a way that I couldn’t with my eyes alone. It occurs to me that this is a gracious way to view a friend, or even an enemy – let all ugly background stuff become blurry and focus on the best parts.

Zoom, baby!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.