Lesson in humility

I am a firm believer that God's hand is at work in everything. EVERYTHING!

These past few weeks have been extremely challenging for me at work. I have been at this facility for 4 months and have submitted my resignation. This was a very tough decision to make because I have never in my professional life put so little time into a company, but this particular culture just wasn't right for me.

Things are hectic, one of my key staff members was let go without my involvement and another key staff member is like days away from giving birth to her second child. So, there's a lot to balance, which means stress. I'll spare you the mundane details, but I was trying to close the month of December this past week. Friday comes up and I have a report to audit and balance. I start at noon....by 5 I haven't balanced and I'm starting to get upset about it. I try different methods, I re-look and re-look at all the details I know to evaluate and I'm not getting it. I work in a financial aspect of business and balancing is pretty much the nuts and bolts of what I do. By 8pm I was tearing up a little bit. I found my mind reaching out for something...some worldly crutch. "I need a drink", "I need a cigarette" (I quit 1 year ago this week!) "I need some chocolate".

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks...I don't need any of those things. I need Jesus! At that moment I stopped everything and closed my eyes and prayed,  nothing beautiful or specific, just "Jesus help me, help me, help me". I began crying. I ended up having to close the month out of balance because it had to be closed by Friday night, no exceptions. I have never done this and left feeling like a complete failure.

I went home at 9pm I went and had a bloody mary with my husband and some guacamole and chips, which hit the spot. The next morning I woke up I felt completely relieved. God conveyed to my heart that it was my pride that was keeping me at work that many hours, my pride that was torturing me all week. Because, Jesus is my number one boss and sometimes I will be wrong and I do not know everything I think I may know and I am not perfect. But He loves me! No matter what, He loves me and embraces me, even when the world doesn't, even when I do wrong or fall short. I don't need to reach for anything other than Him for comfort.

I hope for everyone around me to feel this type of love down to their marrow. God is so good and He truly does make all things work together for my good.

Wishing you a great week!
Much love,
Aubrey

Cookie sheet magnet center

First of all, I am probably one of the worst people to come up with cute and fun names for crafts. I'm the person who puts 'thing-y' after the exact name of projects. For example, I was going to call this project "the cookie sheet and bottle cap magnet thing-y."  So, with that lovely disclaimer, here is the fun project I worked on for my friends birthday.

Supplies:
Craft paper (scrap booking paper is what I used...I just love all the gorgeous designs...but I'm not a scrap-booker)
Paint, color of your choosing
1 small cookie sheet (Dollar Store)
Ribbon (scraps I had on hand)
bottle caps (for some reason I saved these for several years, just knowing I'd find something fantastic to do with them.)


Mod Podge
I used "Dimensional" something-or-other by Mod Podge, but I belief the original tutorial I read for this called for resin....in hindsight, I think next time I'll try the resin...I got a lot of bubbles in the dimensional magic stuff.

Jewels/gems, glitter, charms, beads or whatever else you would want to stick in your bottle caps to decorate them.

I tried to pound some of the bottle caps flat...that was kind of a bust, so I recommend just leaving them 'as is'.
I painted the backs of them green....which I had on hand. They needed a couple coats.

Once they were painted, I used a 3/4" hole punch and punched out some circles from my craft paper. I used Gorilla Glue to secure them, but, hot glue or mod podge would probably work just as well. After I was done, I kind of wish I had used Mod Podge because not sealing the paper gave it a look through the clear dimensional magic that made it look a little wet. I was probably the only one who could tell.

After the backgrounds were in, I places my charms.

Once I was done placing my charms, I filled the caps with the dimensional magic liquid. I had to pop a few bubbles with a tooth pick. Some of them dried with big empty parts where the charms were so, next time I am going to try it with resin and see if I get a better result.

Once I was done with the caps, I left them to dry and moved on to the cookie sheet. I simply cut a piece of scrap book paper slightly smaller than the back of the sheet and mod podged the back to adhere it to the back of the sheet. I drilled pounded holes into the top of the cookie sheet to run my ribbon through. I had a tough time with this. If anyone has better ideas on how to do this, I would love suggestions.

I added some burlap and buttons for decorations and waited for my caps to dry.

Once the caps were dry I glued magnets to the back with Gorilla Glue (the magnet strip I bought at Hobby Lobby was pretty weak so I had to raid my fridge for yucky magnets that had a strong grip, note to self: buy stronger magnets next time).

I thought I took a picture of the whole thing finished and I didn't....got to get in that "blogger" frame of mind!!! This was a fun and easy project that will probably be a definite Christmas gift idea!

I wish you all fun crafting and many blessings through the Lord!
Love,
Aubrey