Autumn Brings A Few New Things...

Well I have been really busy for the past few weeks and haven't really had a lot of time to pay much attention to the blogosphere...but I have few new things that are going on that I wanted to let you know about them because I didn't want you to think I had left you all  in the dark.

My Baptism 
 This past weekend my sister (Noel) and I were baptized, God has been so good to me. I know that salvation does not come from baptism, but is in fact a way for us to witness to other publicly that Christ has buried our old self and raised up a new life in Him.

This is us with my friend Jess and another girl from church (this is us being cRaZy)

And this is us "trying" to be normal ;)

My Testimony
 I am not exactly sure if I have ever shared my testimony on here or not, so since I shared about my baptism I wanted to share my testimony so that others might be able to read and know about how I came to Christ. Hopefully it will be a witness to someone as well.

I was about five when I realized that I was a sinner and going to hell, the thought scared me so bad that I asked my parents about how to "get saved". They explained it beautifully and I said a prayer, and got baptized. But I don't think that this was the time of my salvation. Although I said the "sinner's prayer" I didn't see a lot of change. Oh I tried to change, I did as much "good" as I could trying to earn the salvation that Christ so freely gives us.

When I was eight my mom died of inflammatory breast cancer, I was infuriated with God for taking such a perfect mother from her perfect family (this is what I thought our family was at the time "perfect"). I couldn't understand why, if God was so good He would take someone away when she was needed so badly here on earth? I was very bitter towards God at letting this happen.

 I became embittered even more after much verbal abuse from my step mom,  I hated myself, I hated her and I hated God. There were several times that I had suicidal thoughts and it was only by the grace of God that I did not go through with them (and  I was scared of death). When she left all I could think of, was how I'd been hurt and how as soon as I turned 18 I was going to leave home and leave that hurt behind. This turned into out right rebellion against my Father, I was so bitter that I didn't care who I hurt, and in doing so I hurt my whole family. I wish I could change the things I did, but I can't.

  God started changing my heart at the very end of '07, I started to realize how much God loved me and how he had kept me safe from some very evil things that could have happened, but didn't during my time of rebellion. God started turning my heart towards Him and my earthly Father. In June of '08 we started to going to Grace Fellowship Baptist, I loved it, I knew God had brought us here. But,  I also knew that I was different, and at times I felt like such a hypocrite (of course in all reality I was being a hypocrite). God continued to work on my heart and in August of '08 I finally fell on my knees before God and asked him to forgive me of my sins and take me and make me whole. He did. I was so relieved and now I am happy to say that I am living for Christ, only by His Grace and Mercy am I able to make it through each and every day.

 I had been so materialistic, setting my heart on things below and now that I am a child of God I can gladly look to him as the only thing I need, my favorite hymn is "Be Thou My Vision", because it describes so well what God is to me!

Be Thou My Vision

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word,

I ever with thee and thou with me Lord;

Thou my great Father, I thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;

Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;

Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower:

Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:

Thou mine inheritance now and always;

Thou and thou only first in my heart;

High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven's joys, O Bright Heaven's sun!;

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

My Herbs
I am sorry to say that my herbs have not received the attention that they should have this summer and many of them have been neglected. One plant that I have is called a loofah plant, it is not actually what we would call an "herb", it has no real known medicinal value other than it is really good for your skin when used topically as an exfoliant.
  I have grown this plant before with nothing coming to fruition, and this year I thought I was going to end up with this big HUGE and I do mean HUGE vine growing all over the place for no reason, AGAIN. The other day we had just gotten home from working out and I started messing with the vine (to train it in another direction), I started complaining about how it was never going to grow anything and that I might as well pull it up...as I started to pull one vine up and over my sister's flower garden (to get it out of her flower bed), Lo and behold there was the biggest loofah "gourd" I'd ever seen...it was beautiful...see:

Not that I have ever really seen a real loofah plant or gourd in it's skin...I have seen them peeled and even used one myself ;) Now I have your curiosity, if you don't already know what a loofah is, well I will tell you.   

 A loofah is a natural sponge that can be dried to the point that it is a hard sponge and can be crushed up to be put into scrubs or lotions as an exfoliant for the skin, or it can just be used as a bath sponge for someone with dry skin ;)  It can also be dried to just the point of a soft sponge, for kitchen or bath use...I am so eager to use these (now I don't have to wait for coupons to go buy more sponges...HOORAY).

I also have two aloe plants that just "went to town" this summer, they really grew and I am so proud of them, see:

They have gotten SOOO BIG!!! Their Mama is so proud of them ;)

I won't show any pics of my other herbs, I am so ashamed of what they look like...they will come back next year, but if I had cared for them properly they would definitely come back with a lot more fruit.

Blog Giveaway Coming Soon
All my blog readers look for a giveaway coming soon, I have several gently used books that I want other girls to be able to read and I know I don't need to hog them all just because they look nice on my bookshelf and I might read them again one day. So I thought it would be nice to get them out there to girls who really need to read them and who haven't read them before.

Fall Festivals
 We are trying to get some Fall festivals in this year so that we can advertise our business', I of course have my Herb Business and my sister has her Sewing & Knitting Business and my little sister Rachel has taken up my grandmothers business...baking cakes (and other goodies) for the public. So here we are trying to get into as many as possible with as many products as possible ;)

All of my sugar scrubs ;)
(personally I love the Lavender one best)

Cleansing Oils

Tea bags

Healing Balms (assorted)

Some Loose Herbs

My New Haircut
Well I didn't exactly get my haircut, although I plan to go soon and get a few layers put in...but I cut in my own bangs. I think they look pretty good, everyone else says so except some of my family (although they claim that they are growing on them...I thought they were growing on me...lol,jk!). I will probably let them grow back out just because I am a low maintenance girl and these bangs just take up to much of my time to make them look good for me to keep them. ;) How do you like them?

Rushing Chairs
 Our chairs for our table have been slowly falling apart and one by one they had to be retired. We finally decided to see if we could get them fixed. Noel found out that there were instructions on the internet on how to do it yourself, so Dad bought the rush and Noel and I began rushing our chairs. Personally I think they turned our pretty good ;)

This is a chair that isn't so bad, but still needs
to be rushed ;)

This is the finished product...Daddy refinished
it as well...doesn't it look nice?

Making Things
 Autumn always brings lots of new ideas and what better time to carry them out than the here and now (if you have the products to do it with...lol).
 Nanny gave us a whole bushel of apples, of course we weren't going to eat them all, so Noel and Rachel made a few apple pies. I am not a fan of apple pie, so I don't know how it tasted but everyone who ate them seemed to think they were wonderful, and they looked wonderful too.

Noel has been needing a dress form, so instead of spending $30-50 (or more) on buying one, she looked up to see if she could make one. She found many ways to make them and asked me to be her form, I was skeptical at first but I knew she needed it and so here I am looking like Mulan ;)

ok. so not as pretty as mulan, but hey
it looks like her armor. This is me when I am tired,
no shower, no make up :P and trying to be positive

and yes I'm asleep standing up...nah, Rachel
just took a picture of me ;)

Noel mixing up the glue to get started ;)

I'll be sure to post pics of the finished product once it is done ;) ...Noel is still working on it!

 And Sometimes Things Happen that we didn't Anticipate...
 Well, as my younger sister Rachel was in the middle of her shower Tuesday afternoon the water turned cold, we suspected the pilot light on the hot water heater had just gone out. Dad re lit it , but it would not stay lit. So now we are waiting on a new hot water heater, so while we wait I get to practice my "Old School" way of washing dishes...of course we already had quite a load for the dishwasher but then things kept piling up and soon the sink was over flowing, so to improvise I used out big stainless steel bowl as a "sink". I was only to sad that I couldn't be boiling my water outside over an open fire.

All finished...now to continue doing this for a few more days.
Hopefully I will continue to be as enthusiastic about it ;)

It can be fun doing things the "old" way, I actually had some time to think about things and talk to the LORD while I was standing there doing the dishes ;) Maybe one day I will have an outdoor kitchen where I can boil my own water over an open fire and I can wash dishes and clothes in the outdoors :) Maybe one day...

So what has Autumn brought in that is new for you?