New Samples

   I finally got around to downloading pictures, and I am going to break this up into 2 or 3 posts, because I have a lot of pictures! In this post I am showing my new samples, not many to look at, but I finally got into my studio yesterday and did something after a long hiatus. It was quite a relief to do something creative for a change. Beth wanted some clothespins to put on her refrigerator so I worked on that. I made 3, and I'm not too crazy about the one with the heart. I should have done more with the clothespin, but, oh well. Too late now. Be sure to click on the pictures to get a much better look.

   

Here are the first clothespins I did, along with some tags that I did last year. Oh, the one with the red and black was done by Tammy several years ago for Valentine's.

That's all for the samples.You can see what I did with all my SU! boxes; now I can see what each set is without getting up close. It's a wonderful thing!
Blessings,
Janis

What God has done for us.

I want to share with everyone what God has been doing in my life, and the truth that He has been showing me. I have been reading a book by Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel,  that is the clearest, simplest presentation of truth that I think I have ever seen. God had been showing me the truths in this book for a long time, and He has used it to nail everything down.
   On Tuesday of last week I saw a commercial for Oprah, and I knew that I had to see that program. I forgot about it and missed almost the whole show, but I did get to see the last 15 minutes, and as soon as it was over I called Barnes & Noble and reserved the book that they had discussed on the show. It was Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth, and I could see that I really, really needed this book. I finished reading Farley's book on Friday, and Saturday I got the Roth book. At the end of The Naked Gospel he says to just be yourself, and I wondered, who in the world is that? When I began reading Women, Food, and God He began showing me who I am. It took at least one-and-a-half hours to get through the Prologue and first 2 pages of the first chapter, because I was constantly stopping, thinking, talking to God, and writing, and I want to share the insights that God gave me.
   Over the last few weeks, God has been nailing down the truth that the old man is dead and the new man, created perfect by God, is who I am now. As I read I realized that when we are born a bar is set for us by our parents, then teachers, and then the church. That bar is expectations, perfection, etc., and we spend our lives jumping, trying to reach that bar. Most of the pain I had experienced over the years, and there was a lot of pain, was from killing myself trying to reach that bar. Then I saw that it was like a dog in front of a refrigerator, and on top of that refrigerator is something that he desperately wants. So he jumps, and jumps, and jumps, and jumps, and will go on jumping for a long time to get it, but he can jump forever and never, ever reach it because it is impossinble for his little legs to propel him that far. He will never reach it, but he keeps jumping. Then I saw God reach out and take that thing off the refrigerator, come to me with it, and say,"Sit down. Rest. Stop jumping. I already did it for you. Here, take it, rest in what I have done. I made you whole, perfect. I did away with the bar. Quit jumping." What a wonderful, beautiful God we have! He does it all, and He wants us to rest in Him, not kill ourselves trying to do what He has already done. So now I can look you in the eye and say something that to most people is quite heretical: I am not broken. I am perfect. Walking in the Spirit is walking in truth, and this is the truth that I intend to walk in, leaving behind the guilt and shame of never being good enough, being broken and never able to fix myself. Give it up, people, God has already done it!
Blessings,
Janis
PS: If you read these books, please read The Naked Gospel first. Roth does not seem to be a Christian, and the truth in the Farley book is foundational to what she has to say.

My Suze Weinberg Wannabe Post

   One of my favorite blogs is Suze Weinberg's. She is an artist who lives in New Jersey, and she leads one of the most interesting lives I have ever seen. She is always going out with friends, riding with her motorcycle friends, going into New York City for shows, etc., and she takes tons of pictures. I would love to share everything with others the way she does, so I have started taking my camera with me everywhere. Sometimes I actually remember that I have it and take pictures! I ate lunch with Jim and Cynthia Stephens the last Sunday that I was in town, and I took a picture of them to make up for the day that I wanted to take a picture of everyone and the darn camera wouldn't work. (So who knew that the diagram for the batteries meant that the batteries should go in upside down from what it said? Stupid camera!) Anyway, here's their picture. I love these people!

   Last weekend was the big Morris fishin' weekend. The men went somewhere near Brunswick, Ga. to fish, and the women had a big award dinner. It was the GOLL awards: Girls of Linnie's Legacy. Linnie Morris was my mother-in-law, and she had 7 children, 3 boys and 4 girls. Each woman and child received an award, and I wish we had a video of this because it was great fun, and really funny. I won't go through all the awards, but I received the "Married to a Morris the Longest" award, Beth's was a Spirit award, and Daphene's was "Best Use of Facebook". We dressed up in prom dresses, formals, and  extra fancy dresses, did our makeup for hours, painted nails, did hair, etc., etc .. It reminded me of a commercial that was on years ago: a dog was making a sandwich and he had lettuce, tomatoes, bread, meat, and a lot of other stuff flying up in the air he was going at it so hard. I expected to see lipstick, powder, brushes, nail polish, etc. go flying any time. But we finally got all put together and went over to my sister-in-law, Janice's house for pictures, then on to the country club in Alma for the dinner. Ok, side note here:  When I married Andy, we couldn't wait for Janice to get married so there would be some way to distinguish the two of us. Wouldn't you know, she married a Morris. So I am Janis Morris, and she is Janice Morris Morris.
   Without further ado, here are the pictures of the GOLL Awards Dinner. I'm starting with the preparations that afternoon (before pictures). This is my sister-in-law Sue and her daughter Cathy.

 Our newest member of the family, Tammy, who received her official Morris  adoption papers at the dinner, is working with Sue's granddaughter Sammie, while Beth is looking on.

Remember Sue? This is the after. Ain't she purty? Love the earrings!

My beautiful daughter Beth and daughter-in-law Daphene. Beth has had this dress for years; it still had the tag on it, and she was thrilled to finally get to wear it. We had to show their gorgeous gams, as Andy would say.

Hey, that's worth a second look!

You know,when I look in the mirror, this old woman is NOT what I see! From looking at all these pictures, I think it is evident that I need to learn a whole lot more about makeup. Market America has a line of cosmetics called Motives, and they have just come out with a set of DVD's on applying makeup. That is a set of DVD's that I have to have! If I improve, I will post an after pic. Pray for me!

   The eye makeup was pretty nice, but you can't see it in the picture. I even had silver glitter on my eyelids. There is a funny story about that ...I'll save that for another day.
   Now we are at the dinner. Other people got much better pictures than these; as you know, I am a dismal photographer! I won't comment on the pictures except to say, look for the  children as they choo-choo around the room in perfect stair-step order.

   Well, I will comment on this one. The two girls on the left are my grandnieces Sarah and Ashleigh (sorry if I spelled your names wrong, girls!) These dresses were spectacular!
   Remember the choo-choo?
 

   Now the next two are a riot! Someone said to look at Amelia posing, and I turned around and saw Cara taking a picture of her. I couldn't get my camera fast enough! These are my two wonderful, amazing, never-a-dull-moment grandkids:                                                                                                              

  

I think I'll call this "Miss May".

What beautiful grandnieces and grandkids! (Ok, so I said I wouldn't comment. So sue me!)

  This one includes the token male!

   Janice presided over the festivities. They played a song that was appropriate for each recipient, and Janice gave a speech about each one. It was so funny! I wish I could remember everything. Sue got the Fashionista award, and when Janice said that the award was going to someone with 35 pairs of slacks, I knew it was Sue. I was staying at her house, and I had just thought to myself the day before:"She has the most clothes of anyone I ever saw!" She has a whole room for a closet, and clothes in every other closet and the laundry room. What fun!

Aren't the grands grand?

This is the next day, with yesterday's hair and makeup. It is pretty strange to see someone with messy hair, casual clothes, day-old makeup, and glitter on her eyelids!

The men have returned from the big fishin' weekend! Too bad I don't have pictures of all of them.

      

Well, that wraps it up. When I got back to SC, I spent 2 days on the couch, but it was worth it. I had the best time! The Morris women are a wonderful bunch, and so much fun to be around. Can't wait to see what we do next year!

   Oh, and on Sunday, Amelia threw the cat in the pool. What a riot!

 Blessings,
Janis

Very Random Post

   Well, things have been pretty crazy lately, what with going to SC and back, a tooth extraction, and everything I try to do on the computer going absolutely haywire. I wanted to put some pictures on here a few weeks ago of my grandkids washing my car, but I never achieved that, so here they are:

Unfortunately, 15 minutes after they washed the car (with Brian's help!), it was golden again. The driveway is right under an oak tree. Oh well, it was clean for one brief, shining moment.
   We went out to eat last Saturday with our friends in Graniteville, SC, Richard and Susan Showalter. We went back to their house and played Mad Gab, and laughed our heads off. What a fun game! I took some not very good pictures of them and their daughter, who is staying with them while her husband is in Afghanistan.

See, really bad photography! But Richard and Susan look great!

 Oh, oh! I see someone really hamming it up!

   

   I was going to stay until next Monday and then come home for a dentist appointment on Tuesday, but I had to come home Wednesday so I could have a tooth removed on Thursday. I may have another one pulled on Tuesday. Really looking forward to that! Not! Then I will be going back to SC on Wednesday so we can go to Hazlehurst Thursday night for the big fishing weekend. I have never been able to go to this, so I am looking forward to it. Not that I will be fishing! The men do that somewhere near Brunswick, Ga, while the women usually have a scavenger hunt, but this year we are going to have a GOLL awards dinner at a country club. I can't imagine what in the world I am going to wear; they are really dressing up for this. I will be blogging about the dinner afterward, hopefully with good pictures. Considering how crazy the scavenger hunt is, I can't imagine what the dinner will be like!

   My friend Tammy has moved into an apartment with her husband in Chapel Hill. He has been released from the hospital, and they will have to stay there while he recovers from his bone marrow transplant. Please, pray for them. He was doing good the last I heard. Pray that he does not reject the transplant. Tammy and Orville, we love you and are praying!

   Blessings,

   Janis

  

Venting

   I saw a clip last night from a movie or TV show that Vanessa Williams is making, and she was fighting with another woman. I thought to myself that we are going to see people acting up worse and worse because of all the sleazy behavior and brawling that is shown on TV and in the movies. And then today I saw a blog post (Kayla Aimee) about an incident in a post office:
"Rude Lady told the postmistress that her mailbox key wasn't working and she needed the mail from box 28. The postmistress brings it to her. Rude Lady says "You had better fix my key now." To which the postmistress politely asks her if she has another key they can try. Rude Lady responded by THROWING HER MAIL AT THE POSTMISTRESS." Then they discovered that she was trying to get into the WRONG BOX! I think we are going to see more and more of this kind of behavior because it is on TV all the time. Books, movies and TV used to protray the finest and best, now it's the sleaziest and worst.
   Another peeve: I am sick and tired of the way people in the entertainment media inundate us with sex, sex, sex, and then they criticize men like Tiger and Jessie unmercifully because they reacted the way you would expect someone to react who sees this stuff all the time. If they want people to behave, then stop pushing the sex on them.
   Hmmm, I need to forget this stuff and go stamp something!
Blessings,
Janis

   What a great day! My stamping buddy, Tammy, and her friend Vicky came over and played this afternoon. I was working on lunch bags because The Stamper's Sampler has a bag challenge that is due by May 15th. I had made a couple back in January, but I used them for gifts, so I had to make some more. Tammy and
Vicky stayed up until three one night last week making shaving cream backgrounds. You never saw so many backgrounds in your life! So today they punched a lot of hearts, birds, etc. out of them. I made three bags and Tammy made one, because I throw them together and she is more careful, and hers look better too, of course! I took a picture of hers, but I will have to put mine on here later. I also took a picture of the two of them.
   Please pray for Tammy's husband, Orville, who had a bone marrow transplant last week. He is in the hospital at Chapel Hill, and Tammy is traveling back and forth to see him. When he gets out of the hospital, they will be living in an apartment for awhile while he recovers. He will have to stay there all the time and be very careful not to pick up any bugs or viruses. He is doing really well, and hopefully will be out of the hospital soon.
   So here are Tammy and Vicky (Tammy is standing):

We won't talk about how messy this room is; it does have a lot in it!

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I just love this bag! Wish I could show the details; I still have it here so maybe I can get a picture that shows the buttons. She stacked the buttons and tied them together. It looks fabulous!

   I will try to get my bags on here later tonight. I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday (Easter) . We met with our "church"  group in the gazebo at the park, and then had dinner at my mother's. Three of our group were going to eat out, so we invited them to eat with us. We had so much fun! The grands were so pretty, and had a great time hunting eggs, eating candy, and playing with all the stuff their Aunt Beth got them at the dollar store. We had gotten their dresses Saturday at Belks, and it took four of us to do it! I said, 'How many people does it take to buy an Easter dress?" At one point I was chasing Amelia around the dressing room trying to tie her sash. She must have tried on 10 dresses. We picked out a coral one, and then realized that that was not going to look good in pictures with Cara's hot pink dress, so it was back to the drawing board. But it was fun!

Blessings,

Janis

  

Envelope Samples

   Ok, I am making another attempt to put a post on. Hopefully this will not take several HOURS like the last post. ARGHHHHH! I have signed up for an online tutorial on blogging that I hope will teach me all the things I need to know to do a decent looking blog. It doesn't start until the middle of April; I can't wait!
    I made these envelopes a couple of weeks ago. I also made some altered envelopes using some that came with bills. The first 3 I made, and the last 2 are altered. I am enjoying using the altered ones for coupons and deposits.
   I cropped this and it is crooked. Don't know how to fix that!

The altered envelopes look kind of crummy, but they were meant to look this way, believe it or not. I distressed a piece of  printer paper with the new distress ink colors, stuck them to the envelope, and stamped them. I crushed  the paper before distressing to give it the veins. The stamps are from one of my favorite Stampin' Up! sets, Watercolor Garden. I have a lot of ideas for my new bird punch from SU! and paper bags, and I am planning to work on that next week, so stay tuned!
Blessings,
Janis