All Hail the Chief!

Of course you must know that I’m referring to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
The One Who holds the universe in His hands and covers Himself with light as a garment.
The One Who stretched out the heavens as a curtain… It is He to whom I refer.

I was reminded of this scripture last week on a day when we were supposed to have rain. The rain came, along with a pelting wind that drove it against the side of my wee crumbling cottage. But then I noticed something else. Not the gentle sound of rain drops splashing against the windows but something more like rocks being thrown from above.

I peered out the window and saw that my backyard was being covered in tiny white hail.

Streaks of it blanketing everything in its icy coldness.

Usually when it hails, in our little hamlet, it hits the ground only to melt within minutes, but this time it decided to stick around for well over an hour. In all my years of living here I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but then strange things are happening in the heavens and I think stranger things are yet to come.

Today it’s supposed to rain again. So far all we have are gray, dreary skies.
What’s going on in your world?

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

O Lord my God, You are very great:
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.

He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters,
Who makes the clouds His chariot,
Who walks on the wings of the wind,
Who makes His angels spirits,
His ministers a flame of fire.

You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever,
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters stood above the mountains.
At Your rebuke they fled;
At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.
They went up over the mountains;
They went down into the valleys,
To the place which You founded for them.
You have set a boundary that they may not pass over,
That they may not return to cover the earth.

Psalm 104: 1-9

Music, Color, Light, & Sound!

Well, here it is, January 11, 2013! AND I am late again! Me thinks I might need to change my name to McTwisp…after all, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!”
Even though I’m late, I thought it would be appropriate for my first post of the year to be some how party related. We did make it through the end of 2012, did we not? That should be something to throw a party about, but I never had a doubt.
Hubby and I thought about throwing an End of the World party but it landed on the same night as a study we were doing at church on the Emergent Church…scary stuff, but then I digress, so I’ll leave that for another time.

This past December my hubby decided to buy himself an annual pass to Disneyland…something he hasn’t done in over 10 years. How could I resist not re-newing mine even though I was about to give mine up. So one night we stepped out of the Muppet theater to see this party going on.
It looked like great fun! It was!!

The stage was brightly lit in blues and purples with swinging lanterns overhead.

And the band was made up of the Mad Hatter, Alice, and the white Rabbit…they were pretty good if I do say so myself!!! Hubby and I don’t usually attend such parties, however it being inside California Adventure we decided it couldn’t get too out of hand.
We only stayed for a few songs since it felt like it was below freezing outside, but we plan to go back on Friday night when they’ll be playing again.  Apparently they play every weekend.

Don’t you LOVE the costumes?? I do!! But then I love most costumes!!!

Alice’s ruffled skirt is especially darling...

Who would have thought to add little “This Way, That Way” tags to their costume? Maybe Alice needs a few reminders of which way to go or maybe she wears them for the poor wandering souls who get lost in Underland. But, whatever, I think it’s one of the cutest details I’ve seen in quite awhile!!!!

Okay, back to reality.
School starts in less then a month and I had planned to get much accomplished during my time off, but sometimes life takes different twists and turns. Our washer and dryer have both given up the ghost and I’m waiting for a new set to be delivered on Tuesday. Hubby and I were both horrified at the price! And I do mean HORRIFIED!!! We kept walking away and then going back. The salesman tried directing us to something I didn’t want, as they often do. So we ended up going home then coming back again. OI! How I hate buying huge appliances!!!

Well, I must be off for now, but one of my resolutions for this year was to blog more, so hopefully I’ll be back sooner then later.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend…until next time…

xoxo Cori

Merry after Christmas!

 

Once again. I missed Christmas in Bloglandia, but to those of you who happen to stop by,
“Merry Christmas” from my cottage to yours!!
It has been awhile, hasn’t it? I think I say that each time I stop in and each time it feels like more time has passed since my last visit. Thankfully I"’ve been given a moment to catch my breath and hopefully catch up with many of you.

We had a wonderful, peaceful Christmas spent with Jim’s family…Good food, children’s laughter, and just being us. For the first time in many many years I actually baked and had my plates ready when the neighbor's stopped by. I’m sure they wondered what was up since Cori is never on time.

For my 51st birthday Jimmy bought me a harp. It’s a pixie harp with 19 strings which, is perfect for me being one of my nick-names is “Pixie Queen.” I’m sitting here laughing to myself so I’ll go off on a little bunny trail and explain. You see, I have a friend…we’ll just call her Honey Bee. One day Honey Bee and I were bored when we noticed a book of baby names lying on the shelf, so we decided to look up the definitions of our names. Her definition was, you guessed…Honey Bee while mine was a pixie like creature that dwells in a hollow near a stream. So Pixie Queen I became…ok…hopping off the bunny trail and back to my new harp.
I read on the internet that before you play your harp, you are to give it a name, since they are not considered to be mere in-adamant objects, but each one having a unique personality of its own. So I decided to give mine an Elvish name, what else could I do? After much research and debating I decided to name her Erulissë (Air-oo-lee-say) which means Grace. There were so many beautiful Elvish names to choose, but I kept going back to this one. I like the way it gently rolls off the tongue. I’ve been playing and tuning her each day, but need to find a teacher.

So, you now know that I got a harp for my Birthday, but where else have I been and what have I been doing? I’ve spent the most intense semester in all my years of schooling…thankfully it’s over, but while I was there I learned…

How to paint in Photoshop.
I took a class and we painted trucks, apples, robots, and all manner of boy things. It was so much fun! I also learned that somewhere inside my heart is a children’s story waiting to be written down on paper.

 

I opened a Bakery (fictitious of course) and created every imaginable piece of packaging that I could think of. I also learned that things created in Illustrator don’t transfer well to the web “-(.

 

  

 

I learned that not every picture you see on the internet is real and that if you take a great amount of time and care, you can create your own little visual worlds.
Next time you look at a photo look real hard.

And I’ve learned, that when you are ready to come down off your shelf, God will move you in a new direction, but I’ll tell you about that later.

If I don’t make it back before New Year’s I hope you all have a lovely one and please be safe! It’s a crazy world we live in!!

Until next time…
xoxo Cori

Flying High over the sky’s of Southern California

 

If you’ve been watching the news you probably know that today was the day when the Space shutter Endeavor made her last flight.
Hubby called, from work, to remind me that she would be doing a fly-by over the magic kingdom, but sadly I forgot, until I pulled onto Magic Way and landed in the middle of a traffic jam. I couldn’t get to Down Town Disney for anything and then it dawned on me. “Oh yeah, today is the day that the space shuttle was doing her fly-by.

People were pulling into the huge Disney parking structure to watch from the roof top. Me? I pulled around the corner into a parking lot of a near-by hotel. There sat a woman on the tail gate of her truck and a man in a lawn chair with a cooler. I asked if they were there to watch the shuttle. “Yep.” They had the same thing in mind. The woman told me to pull up a seat next to her so I did and the three of us talked for about an hour.
The sun was blazing hot and people were starting to leave just as we heard the turbine engines of the 747 that carried her to her final destination.
Was it an exciting moment in the life of this 50 year old woman? You bet it was!!!

Did you get to see her final flight and where were you when she flew by?

The Vintage Marketplace

Hello Hello! Once again I’ve managed to find my way back to this special little place in the blogisphere. A place where we share little snippets of our lives, dreams, and the inner workings of our hearts.
I love it here and have been inspired by so many of you, but alas, life has a way of twisting and turning while traveling down its own path. Sometimes, if we fail to pay attention the path leads us to who knows where and that’s where I’ve been of late, the land of “Who Knows Where,” doing “Who Knows What.” Life, school, working on my cottage, and other such things. Sometimes I feel like one day melds into a month and then a year. An entire year gone in three days…do you feel that way too?

Anywho, this past weekend I decided to take time off from Who Knows Where and visit The Vintage Marketplace in Rainbow, CA.

I’ve been following Christie and Rita on pinterest so naturally I was curious to see what the two were up to. Oh, in case you didn’t know, Christie and Rita are the two talented women who host the Vintage Marketplace four times a year.

This darling old truck set the stage for the entrance and was the perfect place for a photo opp, which would explain The many girly girls dressed in lace just waiting to have their pictures taken on the bails of hay. Me? I just wanted to take the truck home, but all I got were a few pictures…such is life “-).

There were so many beautiful displays and the vendor’s tents were works of art themselves. Above is one of the sweet little arm chairs Rita had upholstered in burlap and Christie painted with her signature roses. I talk (or type) as if I know them, don’t I? In case you are wondering, “no I don’t” but I did get to wear Rita’s socks once and I always stop and say hi to Christie, even tho I’ve never introduced myself. I’m a wee bit shy at times. Note to self…”never leave home without a pair of socks in your bag because you just never know when you may run into the perfect pair of boots.”

I loved this pink tufted chair but decided to pass it up since I have six of my own waiting for my upholstery skills to be put back to use.

One of my favorite vendors was there…Sweet Magnolias Farm. It’s a mother daughter duo and they always have the sweetest set up. Their theme for this event was glampin’. I thought the converted chicken coop idea was darling, but of course it wasn’t a chicken coop at all, but then I suppose if you had an abandoned chicken coop in your backyard it would be a perfect spot for an afternoon nap provided it had a comfy day bed.

The day turned out to be one of the hottest since I can’t remember when, but then many a day in southern Cal has been strange. Humid, hot, and always the sky filled with giant thunder heads. Very strange weather we are having. Very strange indeed. It was so hot that I didn’t stay as long as I would have liked, but I wouldn’t have missed the event either.

I came away with a darling shoulder bag crafted from fabric and peach colored lace, a new/old table scarf for my wee little backyard table, and a fun scrap of fabric embroidered with roses and butterflies. I’m still not sure how I’m going to put it to use, but I know I’ll think of something.

All in all it was a wonderful day filled with tons of inspiration and eye candy.

Now back to reality…the new semester started two weeks ago and I have classes Monday thru Thursday.
You would have thought I’d be done by now, right? Me too! I call it one of those twists and turns along the path of life. Somehow things seem to take longer the older I get. Well, that’s life!

I hope life has been treating you well and any twists and turns along your path have been blessings in disguise.
Until we meet again, in this wonderful little corner of the blogisphere…
xoxo cori

Pictures from a past Vintage Marketplace