Gratitude and
15,000 Thank Yous Every Day
15,000 Thank Yous Every Day
In a world full of pain and fear, I have learned that being grateful for the tens of thousands of blessings the Lord sends every day keeps me bouyed to Him.
From the mixed up files of Judy Goddard:
I guess I should not be permitted to use a computer when I have a fever. Last week I had a pretty bad chest cold. After a couple of days in, I got this crazy idea. I told myself, “Tom won’t be eating any Christmas cookies because of the diet he’s on, and I don’t really like to bake. I bet there are people I know who love to bake. I can ask them to bake me a dozen of what they’re already making and offer to pay for them!” Sounded reasonable to me! So I put a post on FB: “Hello local peeps. I’m looking for folks who are baking Christmas cookies. I’m willing to pay if you bake an extra dozen for me.” I asked those who might respond to message me. (Which of course, most of them did not.) When the responses came back, everyone said they’d love to bake for me but they wouldn’t let me pay! Now I felt really silly! What was I thinking?? Why should I ask anyone to bake for me just because I don’t feel like baking?? Well, a couple of people did actually do some extra baking for me and I told them how silly I felt and, of course, they said, oh no! we love you and wanted to do this! So now I have a very nice supply of Christmas cookies and every time I look at them I get a little queazy. God, bless those who have blessed me!
0 Comments
1 Thes. 4:1 Mirror Bible
Finally, then friends, we would earnestly implore you to mirror the walk which we share in this bond of oneness in the Lord Jesus. Live your lives fully in the delight of God. The bond is between and me other believers because of our shared oneness with Jesus. Paul says to live our lives fully in the delight of God. There are two sides to that coin. The first side is the delight we experience because we know we are safe and secure in the never-ending love of God. The other side is the great and complete delight God has in us because we choose to acknowledge all he has told us about himself. He is delighted with us! There is never a moment when he isn’t delighted with us. On Saturday, August 6, 2022, I participated in the 9th annual “Independent Author’s Book Experience at the Public Library in Linden, NJ. I'm the last seated person on the right. Author Renaee Perrier-Smith did a wonderful job of organizing this event. I was really impressed by the number of authors who were there to present their books! It’s a shame that the temperatures were so hot with high humidity! But there was a sizable turnout and I got to share my picture book to some really wonderful youngsters. It was a very positive experience. I made some friends and did a little networking. I may do it again next years. Two weeks ago I self published my second picture book!
I’m so excited! Since August 1st I’ve sold eight copies of When You Live in the Woods and two copies of My Navesink, the picture book I self published in 2020. I’ve received two reviews: M.K. wrote “I absolutely love your book. It's *even* more beautiful than I expected. “ T.S. wrote “I love this book! I read it aloud to my family and we so enjoyed every page, every poem.” Although both books are filled with illustrations that I painted myself and the words are all mine as well, I do not consider them children’s books. I call them “Beautiful Books.” Does that make me shallow? (Lol!) I have consigned my book My Navesink to a local high end farmer’s market in June and I’ve sold more than 10 copies through them. It’s not easy being my own marketer! Ask any creative! It’s hard to do all that left brained stuff when you live very comfortable in your right brain. But I have faith. I’ll have what I need when I need it. No more sweating the left brain stuff. Dear Maryanne.
I’m watching you on Survivor and I hear you crying out that you are too weird to be part of the cool group. I know what you’re feeling. I was/am weird too. I want to encourage you. You are a child of God. You have a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe! Here’s the cool thing; He made you the way you are for a reason. When I was in my 20s I struggled all the time with the things I was told, both verbally and nonverbally, that was ugly, stupid and I would never do anything right. It wasn’t until I was in my 50s that I learned that I was made the way I am for a very specific reason. And the same is true for you! I hope you can get a grasp of this before you’re in 50s! Here’s what I learned; Saying, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” is not just a nice saying. It’s an absolute truth! Jesus knew who you were at the beginning of time and he loves you SO SO much! He loves you with a love that encompasses all of who you are. You are perfect in his sight. He says so! It’s written in the scriptures! He finds no fault in you! I am a carrier of joy. So are you. I see it in you. Jesus has work for you to do that no one else can do. There will always be people who don’t understand you. But if you understand yourself and how much God loves you you can do anything! I love you sister! Fly!! When I was 12 years old, a television show premiered that completely captured my heart; “The Waltons.” I watched it every week and sometimes dreamed that I WAS a Walton. (I still do sometimes!) They had plenty of trouble in their lives but family always kept their heads above water and saw them through the most difficult times. My family was so, so much different than theirs! It’s a fact of life that we cannot pick the family that we are born into. But if we could, my oh my!! One of my favorite memories of that show was dinnertime around the table. My family, the one I was born into, never said grace. But the Waltons always did. Also at that time a book came out that changed my life. It was called Foxfire. It was a nonfiction book that told the story of a group of 6th graders who went into the Georgia woods to collect the folklore of the people who’s families had lived in those mountains for generations. The people who were interviewed talked about the traditions, practices and ethics that had come down through their families and how they used that information in their everyday lives. I’ll never forget the first article in the book was about an elderly woman who was cleaning out a hogs head with a knife.. (Not a barrel, but a real, pigs head!) As she carved bits off the head of that pig she talked about what she would do with all the various bits. The books are filled with household hints, DIY, ballad lyrics, musical families and on and on. I guess, in a way, it was my introduction to the world of preppers. These folks were set on protecting their way life. It was their choice to live where and how they did. One of my favorite episodes of The Waltons was about ancient cousin Martha Corine and her family, who lived in the Blue Ridge and were losing their ancestral home in order to create the Skyline Drive, a national park that was created by the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of FDR’s New Deal. I’ve been to the Skyline Drive many times and have books about the struggle families went through trying to keep their land. So, all of this is written to bring me to my main point… remember The Waltons sitting at the table and saying grace? When it was Grandpa Walton’s turn he would thank the Lord for the trailing arbutus. I didn’t know what trailing arbutus was but if Grandpa loved it it must have been very special Now, the tie in!
39 years ago my husband, baby son and I moved into a house that was situated off the road and in the woods. In the front yard was a scruffy patch of evergreen leaves that in the spring put out beautiful and tender pale pink blossoms. And they smelled divine! Our landlord told us his wife called them May pinks. And he also told us that the real name of the plant was trailing arbutus! I could not have been more thrilled! (It doesn’t take much to thrill me.) 25 years ago we purchased that scruffy patch and next month we will make our last mortgage payment and that scruffy patch will be ours, all ours! THIS Is how much God loves me! He gave me trailing arbutus. And every year I visit that patch and get down on my hands and knees and stick my face right into it, filling my senses with that sweet, sweet fragrance! Yesterday I had a space at the Red Bank Street Fair. I did this fair many years ago, trying to sell hand painted ceramics. Not a good idea. It’s amazing how much better I feel about my art now that I’ve taken training. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m producing the best work I am capable of! I can stand by it proudly and if someone asks who the artist is I can say proudly, “I am!” The weather was less than stellar. The wind howled all day. I was very grateful for my milk jugs filled with water that I used to weigh down each corner of my canopy! And I had a dickens of time keeping the table cloths on the tables! Then, during the afternoon, it started raining and right before we packed it in, it sleeted! That was enough for me! Many others had begun packing up around 4:00, an hour early, so we did too. My wonderful hubby, Tom came with me to help me set up and tear down. He was seriously concerned that we wouldn’t have enough room in the Jeep and I, who mostly feels inadequate in terms of sizing things up, knew that everything would fit. And it did with even just a little space left over. He was there most of the afternoon and periodically brought tasty treats. I’m so glad that he was there, not because I needed his brawn but just for company too. The foot traffic was good considering the kind of day it was. For the first couple of hours I made no sales and my spirits flagged. I’d worked so hard for so long, to have enough ready to sell and I have to say it, I didn’t think I’d do very well. But I was wrong. It ended up being a pretty good day for sales and many people stopped in to Oou and Aww over my paintings. By the time we got home, around 6:30 pm, I was pooped! Tom emptied the car for me this morning. He’s so good to me! Today I’m taking a long deserved rest. But of course, in the back of my mind I’m making plans for I’ll do tomorrow when I get back in the studio. It’s so nice to have a commission to work on! I love commissions! I know my customer will love the sunflower she as paid me to create. I think maybe I'll sign up for Red Bank Street Fair on September 11. Now, back to lounging! I have decided to begin emulation.
Isn’t that a great word, emulation? It means that I want to be as good or better than an artist that I have fallen in love with. I was 13 years old when I had my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I remember seeing artists sitting at easels set up in front of classical paintings. My aunt told me they were copying the works to learn how to paint like the masters. The other night I was watching NYC Arts on PBS. They were highlighting an exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum of Holbein portraits. I thought to myself, I love his work! I should see if I can copy it and figure out how he made such realistic paintings! My goal as an artist is to achieve photo realism. So, last night I was cruising through Pinterest and I found artwork by Michele Kortbawi Wilk and it blew me away! I have loved horses all my life and as a child I filled my days drawing pictures of horses. Her animal paintings are so incredibly lifelike! So, I have decided to emulate her; that is, use her art to inform my own work by copying hers, not to sell or in any way steal from her, but in order to see how she does what she does and hopefully use those techniques to create my own lifelike portraits of animals. Today I started sketching from one of her paintings. There’s no time limit, so I’m going slowly, really enjoying the process and learning from my mistakes. Once the sketch is done I’ll decide if I want to paint the image or maybe use pastels or colored pencils. Maybe I’ll do all three! When I took the Milan Art Institute Mastery Program I was instructed to use Pinterest to gather sources to use in my artwork. I had never had much interest in Pinterest but now I have many, many pages of sources. One the pages Milan suggested setting up I called, “Art I Want To Emulate.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant at the time but I do now. Watch out world! I’m gettin’ better!! Little verses Big I was born legally blind in 1959. My parents didn’t know about my eyesight until I was two years old. I also lack depth perception. All my life I’ve been an artist. From the first time I held a crayon I was drawing, mostly horses. I have always worked hard to create work that is representationally true. I want my horses to look like horses and my people to look like people. It’s been the teeny tiny little details that have thrilled me most. My eye doctor told me that was a result of my nearsightedness. Without glasses the world was a very fuzzy place indeed! But when I brought things right up to my eyes, as close as my nose, they came into to sharpness so I drew and painted little tiny things. Once, on a backpacking trip, I found a columbine flower all by itself on the edge of a path. I marveled at it! I could get my nose right up to it and study its contours and color shifts. Then, when on another backpacking trip in New Mexico, I stood on the top of a mountain and stared down into the desert below and realized that panoramic view was not nearly as exciting as that little blossom! Looking over the rim of that mountain was like looking at a post card to me. It was impressive but flat. I could not compare it to the beauty of the Columbine! Now I have near perfect vision due to early onset cataracts. I have permanent artificial lenses in each eye. I still lack depth perception but I no longer need glasses to drive or see the overhead at church or a dozen other things. But I put readers on when I paint. The Milan Art Institute taught me how to paint on larger canvases than I have ever painted before. Anywhere from 16x20 and up to 24x30. I even have some canvases that are 3 feet by 4 feet that I will use to paint landscapes. But I still love to paint small! I’m currently working on a series of mini paintings, 6x6 inches and 5x7 inches, where I can hunch on over and get my nose to the canvas and paint those teeny tiny details. Which is better? Not sure yet. I’ll let you know.
|
Judy GoddardMusings of a Saved Confessed Eccentric. Archives
May 2024
Categories |