Flea Markets and Faith Journals

Okay, so don't tell anyone, but I *gasp* skipped church yesterday and went to the flea market with Martha. I think it's really important to spend some quality one-on-one time with your daughter-in-law, don't you? Gotta build those relationships, right? So I thought it was really a spiritual decision to give up church to spend time with her... Right?

Okay, fine! But, hey, since we've been committed to our little local church, this is the first time in years - YEARS I tell you - that I've skipped church when I wasn't actually out of town. And I don't feel too guilty about it. Maybe just a little.

Here's a little photo montage of the flea market:

Martha ended up buying what she's pointing at, which you can't see in the photo, but it was a large and very old, kinda grungy, but in a cool way, crucifix and also those little musical people in the middle photo.

I bought the vintage sheet music and the Longfellow poetry book (for $1.25 total). Of course, you will see pieces of said items featured in upcoming scrapbooking projects.

It was a beautiful morning, albeit a tad chilly, and I'm glad I went. Chris had a seminar he had to go to and our Pastor's college-aged children are leading the music for the next month, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to duck out. I was tempted to go to Border's after I left Martha's and buy an expensive coffee and leisurely-ly (?) read a magazine and/or to walk through Michaels or Target, but I knew these things would all lead to needless spending, so I refrained. Instead, I came home and read the paper - okay, did half the crossword - and fell asleep with my fuzzy little Beatrix in my lap and my devoted Rocky plastered to my side. What could be sweeter? Only coming home after our business meeting last night and watching the 3 hour finale of Survivor and seeing J.T. win it. Maybe not sweet-ER, but JUST as sweet, anyway!

Another project I was able to work on this weekend was the beginning of a faith/art journal that I'm keeping to record my thoughts while going through an online study I'm doing with some friends. Right now we're studying about joy.

So, here's the journal:

And here's the first page:

(as always, if you click on the image, you'll get a closer view) I'm so looking forward to expressing my thoughts and feelings and meditations on the subject we're studying through art journaling. I've been perusing some great art journaling magazines lately and have been really inspired to do this. Also, the galleries at SIStv are so full of beautiful art journal pages, so I'm feeling really inspired - in many ways! :)

Yeah, it was chilly at the flea market yesterday morning, but it was NOTHING compared to THIS morning. Which is fine for me, because I got up around 8:30 a.m. (it was about 37 degrees) and hopped into the hot tub - and listened to the birdie symphony, thank you very much. But Chris and Gary and M&M all went up to the Pine Creek area and were going to kayak and canoe down the creek today. Yowsa. I just stepped outside at about 11:15 and it was barely 50-ish - HERE. So, up there, it's certain to be a lot cooler. That wouldn't be SO bad if that water wasn't ice cold as well. Yeah. I'm glad I didn't go on this trip. I think I only want to be in a boat on the water (and especially a kayak-y or canoe-y type of boat) at such a time that if said boat would suddenly flip over and spill me out of it, the water would be a welcome refreshment, not a shocking, hypothermia-inducing, breath-sucking death machine. Um, yeah. I know Martha wasn't looking all that forward to the same stuff I just described, so, hopefully they dressed accordingly and all will have - literally - smooth sailing.

Well, seeing that it's almost 1 o'clock and seeing that I want to exercise sometime today and seeing that I'm going out tonight and seeing that I also wanted to continue my scrapbook room purge - well, SEE ya!