Life By Lindsey Rae

I've been very neglectful in writing anything here in the past while. I have just been either busy, tired, both...or not feeling like doing anything. So basically, I guess what I have been up to recently is:
- Songwriting
- Painting, both a bathroom with Jerrod and an old cedar chest I acquired a few months back. (more on that disaster later.)
- Practicing some recording with my new at home set up
- Playing with my camera and starting to make some videos
- Thinking a lot about what to do for my Primary class
- Planning lessons and shopping and making things for my Primary class
- Reading
- Researching things I am working on for music, art, primary, etc.
- Hanging out with Jerrod
- Doing a little scrapbooking, here and there...
- Sleeping more than I want to and feeling not so great some days.
- And more or less of the usual...It all sounds pretty usual!

Today the temperature got up to 73 degrees. That's how it should be in February, as far as I am concerned. If it was this nice everyday, I would feel better. I always feel better when the weather is nicer.
So, since it was nice out, I had to work outside to take advantage of the good day.
I mostly finished up organizing my stuff in the garage. Jerrod cleaned it all up a couple weeks ago, and left my stuff on one side for me. But, I couldn't do much with it when it was cold out, because I didn't want to stay outside in that. (I hate cold a lot.)

I seem to have injured myself again. I am a little too good at running into things. When I was cleaning I hit my funny bone on Jerrod's weight bench in possibly the most un-funny way possible. My arm is still hurting very badly hours later and doesn't want to bend anymore. It was more than the average hitting the funny bone.

I also started sanding a cedar chest that I've had for months now, that I have been planning to re-finish. It was a second-hand item that I got awhile back, but I haven't had the chance to do much with it...and also wasn't sure how I wanted to finish it, so I was hesitating to start. But, now I think I am going to do it in black to match our dresser and use it in the bedroom to store extra blankets and that sort of thing. It's pretty dirty right now and so it's going to be a lot of work to clean up. I'm a germ-a-phobe, so that kind of freaks me out. But, at least I got a good portion of the sanding done, which is good. I really have a desire to refinish furniture, because it's cheaper if you can find something good that is second-hand and also, it allows you to be creative in doing a finish you want. But, I really, REALLY hate sanding ...my arms and hands get tired quickly, even with the electric sander.

There has been lots of bad storms and tornadoes in the south tonight, including Middle Tennessee. Doesn't sound like much came into Wilson County (where we are) though. But, there was quite a bit near where we used to live, not too far away. We have had some rain and quite a bit of wind, but from what they are saying is going on in some other areas, nothing very bad comparatively. Hopefully it stays that way. I feel more concerned about storm damage now that we are homeowners and not just renting. It would not be fun to have to be the ones to have to fix things.

I'm realizing that most of the stuff I have been writing about lately has to do with my primary class...I guess that shows where the majority of my social interaction has been coming from.

This week's lesson was on faith. So we talked the scripture in Alma 32 and about faith being like a seed and like a seed if we plant it and nourish it, it will grow. So, I got this wonderful idea to do the thing where the kids get to plant a seed and all that. I remembered that I had these tiny little terracotta pots that I had got somewhere at one time and I could paint those up all nice and then give them seeds to plant in there and they could take it home.
Only problem was the seeds...at least, I thought that was the only problem. I didn't expect there be a big selection of seeds this time of the year, but I thought I might find some left overs of something. I didn't really care what...just wanted to find some seeds. I looked at 3 stores and called around, but had no luck. Even Wal-Mart and Home Depot didn't have any. Finally, I found a few packs of vegetable seeds at a discount store. I ended up getting lettuce seeds because that was all they had that would work.

When I went home, I washed all the pots out and then prepared them by filling in the cracks in the surface, sanding them, and then started to paint. Well, after days of dry, 100+ degree heat, at the moment I started to spray them...and I am not even kidding about this...it started to rain. Not a lot, but enough big drops to mess up that nice wet paint. It was too hot and humid out and I couldn't even get them to dry. So, I had to bring them in and ended up hand painting all them. Everything was working against me. Plus, I have a cold and I felt horrible yesterday, so the last thing I wanted to do was to be running around looking for seeds and trying to fix a messed up paint job.
After those were dry, I painted a quote from a primary song around the rim of the pots: "Faith is like a little seed. If planted, it will grow." Then I used scrapbooking rub-on embellishments to put their names on each one and add little flower decorations on the outside.
This morning I got up and filled them with dirt and boxed them up to take to church.

After we taught them the lesson, Jerrod and I helped everyone plant their seeds in the pots. They all wanted to know what kind of seeds they were. I didn't want to tell them I could only find lettuce seeds, so I kept saying, "Faith seeds." "Yeah, but what kind of seeds are they?" "They're faith seeds!"

One of the girls really liked her little pot a lot and was very excited about the color she got; she was excited to put it in her window. I was happy about that. She is one of the only ones who ever says that she appreciates the stuff I do. I appreciate that. However, I don't know if any of them ever said thank you after all I went through to get those little things done for them! I want them to appreciate it, because I think it's important they should learn to show gratitude. Maybe the next class they are in won't be so fun and then they will start to realize that our class was better than they thought! I try to do fun stuff, because I know that it's hard to sit through church sometimes and I want them to enjoy being there and look forward to being there.

The primary presentation is coming up. They are having quite a few kids do little solos on the songs, which I thought was different. I offered to give a free voice lesson to any kid who is going to do some singing in the presentation. Not that I will be able to do much with a 4 or 6-year-old in one lesson or even two, but I figure it's good for them to get practice and build up their confidence. And, it's something I can help out with that I don't mind doing.

A couple of nights ago, I was out in the garage working on a mosaic table. While I was breaking glass with a hammer on the floor (Jerrod's favorite thing to see. haha) I happened to have my head up for a moment an saw a furry tail in the air. My first thought was that it was a neighbors cat come to annoy me again, and in the moment I would have gone to try and get it away, I realized that it was actually a skunk! As I was sitting in my garage, a skunk walked right in and sat down almost beside me. I panicked! But, silently, thank goodness, because the usual kind of loud panic I usually have when I see a bug or something would have not worked out well in this situation.
I ran into the house to tell Jerrod about it and he said to just stay inside and that it would go away. But, I said, I don't think that is a good idea, because he might wander further in and decide to hide somewhere and then when won't know where he is and when we need to close the door later, we have no way of knowing if he is locked in!

So, Jerrod said to go watch him. So, I had to go watch him. I went out and stood in the driveway, behind the car and tried to keep my eye on him to see where he would go next...hoping it would be out. But, he wasn't in any hurry to leave. He made himself quite comfortable curled up in a little ball in a corner. It was in this moment that I realized that I had never before thought of how to deal with an intruding skunk. Because, trying to make him leave could be disastrous. So, I was more annoyed then anything because of the fact that he interrupted me while I was hard at work making a mess with glass.

After a little bit he finally did waddle away. I was pretty glad about that. I have seen skunks around in the flower beds and stuff before, but they have never actually tried to come inside. He better not come back though. Not that he would really care what I think and I'm pretty sure he would win if we ever got in an argument about it.

Below is a picture of the table I am working on. I get stained glass scraps and broken glass and break them with a hammer to shape them closer to how I want them. I also put silver leaf on the backs of a lot to add a metallic shine and to lighten up the color. That takes a long time. Then. I arrange them, kind of like putting a puzzle together and glue them down and then after that, do the grout. It's got a way to go until it will match the previous one I made, which is below this.
These are a few pictures of a coffee table I did last year. Unfortunately, the pictures really don't show what it truly looks like because it's almost impossible to capture the look of stained glass and mirror in a photo. It looks much better in real life...but this is a little bit of an idea.


And a few other things I made with my broken glass....The first thing I tried was this mirror covered box. I got a wooden box, painted it and covered it with broken mirror. The mirror was all free because I ended up getting a ton of it from some people on craigslist who gave me some old broken ones for free! This was an experiment to see if I would like doing mosaics.

These "Love" letters were done on letter forms with mirrors and black grout.

I found this big pot and plant stand at my appartment...someone didn't want them, so I claimed them for free! I painted the stand with textured paint and then did the rest in mosaics with the matching pot.


This globe was another Craigslist find. It was a regular globe, I got for $4. I sealed it and then got tiny pieces of glass and covered each country with a different color.
I really liked it the best before it was finished, but now wish I had not done the ocean area with mirror. It reflects too much and takes away from the colors of the stained glass. I don't like the white grout either, so I might try staining that. It has become a very heavy globe. That's a lot of glass on there!