Freezing in Florida!

Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window, and to my surprise there were 4 men in a small boat huddled up with fishing poles in hand on the canal. It was 30 degrees out! I got my binoculars to see what kind of brains it took to go out at sunrise in freezing weather! These guys had on big heavy coats, winter hats, gloves, leg warmers . . . I laughed. I thought " it must be pretty bad at home or these guys have no common sense at all." The fish live out there all day, you do not have to go early in the morning to catch them. We catch them at noon, or late in the afternoon . . . These poor guys, 4 of them, not one or two as you might commonly see, 4 freezing guys hunched over with coffee thermoses and fishing poles (and no room to move around), sat out there in one spot for five hours! Most fishermen keep moving, they go up and down the sides of the canal and keep finding new places to catch fish. I never saw them pull up anything! Every time I looked out the window I just laughed again. You know they went home to tell a miserable tale!

We have had cold spells, once it even got in the lower twenties, ice and all! It was Christmas eve and Christmas day and everyone hoped for snow. The power company had to shut down every hour for 20 minutes or so to keep up with the demand for heat. That was back in 1989!

This past October, yes I said October, we had the first round of frost warnings, and again in November, for most of the month off and on it was in the forties most mornings. Sometimes the thirties. The week before Thanksgiving we had frost and freeze warnings again. It warmed up some for Christmas and New Years, This past week it has been in the forties most mornings. Now it is very cold, upper twenties this morning, thirty degrees yesterday morning and tomorrow it is to be in the upper thirties! For Florida this is just way colder for way longer than usual.

Not complaining, just wondering what happened to the global warming I keep hearing about???!!!!

Painting Violets, step by step

Prep:
Prime a small piece of hardboard, at least two coats then sand lightly with fine sandpaper. Or use a primed canvas and sand it lightly with fine sand paper to make it smooth. Take pictures at different angles of the flowers you want to paint.

The sun was coming through the window on these violets in my kitchen. It made vibrant colors and strong shadows, so I thought it would make a nice painting. I put the image on my computer, zoomed it in and cropped it to this format.

Draw some rough thumbnails on scrap paper to get compositon ideas. I placed the flowers a little off center for a stronger composition. The photos had the flowers too centered which makes the painting less interesting in most cases.


I am using acrylic paints.

(Click on the images to see a close up)



Step 1: Rough in basic shapes with a medium to large flat brush. Use water to make the paint thin and easy to apply.

Step 2: Decide on a background. The photo was pale orange and white and the leaves did not show up well, so I went with blue. I also strengthened some of the colors in the leaves.

Step 3: Make corrections. I changed one of the leaves in the background and put some base color on the violets. I used redviolet, purple and ultramarine blue with white to get varying shades of colors.

Step 4: Lay in thick paint. I used thick amounts of color, first in the back ground, then on the leaves.

Step 5: Add details. I start using a small brush when I add details, but I am still using thick paint.

My attention here is on the violets. I want them to stand out the most and be the focal point.

Hint: Take a break when you think you're done, look at some other things and come back with a fresh eye. Turn the painting upside down, or look at it in a mirror to see the overall color balance.

Almost finished, but I need to fix the leaves on the right and the one just below the bottom flower. I also want to finish up the flowers with more details. After the corrections are made, I use a very small brush to add a few extra details and sign my name.

I put important information on the back (copyright, full name, date, medium used, etc . . . ) and keep the front with a small signiture using a color that goes with the painting.

Here is the finished painting:

"Violets"

6 x 6 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

By Fawn McNeill Barr

Click here for more painting tips!  Happy painting!

Doctor's report

Robert had a good series of scans, the shunt is working and the headaches are easing off. The Doctor told him he could wait until he is fully recovered to begin any radiation therapy or radio surgery. The tumor in his inner ear is very small and non-cancerous, and is growing very slowly.
In the meantime he is trying to get his strength back and keep food down. He has lost more than 13 pounds the last three weeks, because the headaches make him nauseous.

The shunt was put in November 21st, 2008. It has a valve that regulates the pressure in his brain. If the ventricles in the brain swell to much the valve opens and the excess fluids drain through a small tube that runs under the skin from the top of his head down into his abdomen, where his body absorbs the fluid. The valve makes a bulge under his skin on his head, and the tube runs through a small hole they drilled in his skull and through his brain into the ventricles.

It is all very amazing to me!

The ventricles usually drain fluids away through small channels in the back of the head. The tumor in his inner ear is close to this area and next to the brain. It can cause swelling that shuts of the normal draining process. This causes the ventricles to fill with excess fluids and the brain swells too. It shuts down the nervous system.

In the week before the surgery, Robert lost the use of his legs, his bodily functions, and his ability to communicate. I thought the brain damage would be permanent, and I am so glad I was wrong! He is making a full recovery! He does have tremors in his hands, which started about a year ago, but were very mild. now they are much more prevalent. No one seems to know why.

Some headaches are expected from the shunt surgery, (after all they drilled a hole in his head!) but these usually don't last so long and get better not worse. The other factor is that when they do surgery they tip your head way back and put a tube down your throat. Robert has an old injury to his neck that is really hurting now, and the headaches run up from the back of his head to the shunt area, then spread out.

The Doctor said they will probably come and go, but they should get better now, And his chiropractor has been helping with the neck injury.


On top of all this Robert has had shingles since September! I have never seen a more miserable thing happen to a person. After the blisters go away the nerves inside his body get easily agitated and he said he feels like someone has hooked him up to an electrical current. If I hit a bump in the car and don't slow way down, he grabs his chest and moans.

So I keep asking God, how much can one person bear? Why does he have to suffer so much? Well, my mother sent this book to me, called "The Shack," and there it is!!!! The answers to so many questions. It opened up my mind to new ideas and new understandings. I thought maybe Robert was so hard headed and so stubborn, that God had to let all these things happen to teach him a lesson. I am sure he will be forever changed and learn many things from all this, but my understanding now is that our own choices, our own independence that we value and declare to God so often (that we can do things on our own) can cause us to reap the painful consequences.



I have truly been challenged to the very core of my faith. I am selfish and demanding, and very impatient. I am so wrong to think that God wants us to suffer. Father God is faithful in spite of it all. He may answer "No" sometimes, and even worse, "wait." Yet so many times he does answer "yes" too!!!!

Robert update

My husband, Robert, did very well the first two weeks after his major surgery. He was doing physical therapy, and regaining his balance and his strength. then he began to get severe headaches, the 'sick at your stomach' kind.

He has battled them for two weeks now, and we went back to Shands Hospital for more tests. The shunt is doing it's job and is not the cause of the headaches. They are coming from the back if his head and his neck. His docter said an adjustment would not hurt anything and would be worth a try.

He has been given pain medication, which in turn just makes him sick at his stomach . . .
So he has lost over ten pounds, and is still having terrible pain.

Today we saw a chiropractor, who is into holistic medicine. I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel! Robert ate almost half of his dinner, and later had a little pie. He kept it down, and only took half of his pain medicne . . .

Maybe we can get to the root of the problem, instead of just treating the symptoms.

Happy New Year!!!!

Thanksgiving for surgery

So very much to be thankful for:
No more wheel chair for Robert-- he is using a walker now.
He no longer sits in silence, he reads the paper and talks on the phone.
His hands no longer shake and he can do most things for himself again.
He tells jokes and laughs at those that are told to him.

What a miracle!

Turned out that the bigger problem was excess fluid putting pressure on his brain, so much so that he lost mobility and dexterity, not to mention speech and normal thought processes. The last week before the neurosurgeon put the shunt in his head to drain the excess fluids, I thought I had lost him forever. Last Friday was the surgery, and we came home Tues. just two days ago.

Today is Thanksgiving day, and I have not been so grateful for anything in my whole life as I have for this. To watch someone so strong become so helpless, and to watch them fade away and become so vacant . . .there are no words to describe the agony and helplessness I felt.

And now to watch him come back to life, back to his personality, back to finding hope to go on . . . Wow. God is good, and I thank him over and over for using the doctors to save my husband.

Now we have to see what can be done about this little tumor in his ear . . . I am sure only more good things are on the way.

radiation?

So we saw the surgeon about an acoustic neuroma that Robert has in his inner ear, it is pressing on his brain and we must do something.

The surgeon does not want to take it out, Robert is diabetic, and has just gotten over pneumonia.
He is referring us to a Neurosurgeon that does Gamma knife surgery. (please excuse my spelling! so many new words, and I have a hard enough time with everyday words!) Anyway, it is not like regular radiation, very precise rays converge at the tumor to kill it.

Risks are high no matter what we do, so we are getting more tests run and talking to more doctors. Robert has to decide on something, and he doesn't want to do anything. They tell us that is not an option, as blindness and paralysis is next.

I believe God is greater than all this, and no matter what Robert decides to do he will be fine. God can shrink tumors, and He can dissolve them too. Already the neuropathy in Robert's feet is fading away, they said that wasn't possible too! But he is ticklish now in his feet! Just a few weeks ago the doctors ran tests and he had no feeling on the bottom of his feet! I believe it is the first of many things God will do. He is letting me know he hears our prayers and He cares. Can't tell you how much hope it gives me!

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts!

Robert

Life is so up and down these days. I have to keep living. Everything says that nothing matters anymore. Some days my husband, Robert, gives up the fight and just wants to go on to heaven.

He has been diagnosed with a small tumor in his inner ear, pressing on the brain. It is not cancerous, Thank God, but his balance is off these days, hard for him to walk straight now. Next month we see a surgeon to find out if they will be able to remove it.

The headaches are worse, and he sleeps a lot now, at least in the day. The nights are long, sleep comes in small doses. It is as if time has stopped for us. Schedules do not matter, food doesn't get eaten, even favorite dishes are stared and poked at.

I am selfish. I hang on, I know he is in pain, but I can't let him give up, I can't let go of hope that he will get better. I counter every hopeless suggestion with God's word and truth, I will not let him speak death . . .

Am I wrong? Is death merciful? At least for him I am sure it is. I am too selfish. I cannot go there. I freak out just thinking about it. So I pray for healing, I search for remedies, I sit with him for long empty hours. We wait.

Next month we will see.

I try to live, I try to paint my pictures, I try to smile and say the right things. I try to find reasons to laugh, to get him to laugh. I miss his laugh.

Sometimes I just sit and stare at my canvas, I can't think straight, I can't focus. I know it is there for me. Painting has always been my way to cope, my escape. But for now I have to force myself to create something, anything. I just don't see that anything matters anymore. I know better, but some days I can't get there.

The Sabbath

The Sabbath means a day of rest. Saturday or Sunday for most, but if you take your day off in the middle of week that is good too, as long as you give yourself a day of rest! Our Creator knew we needed that or we would get to run down.

There is another kind of rest too, it is spiritual. The Almighty does not intend for us to try so hard to be perfect, or to keep up with man's rules of religion. These things appear good, but really keep us from really getting close God by keeping us too busy and distracted.

Jesus came to set us free from rules and burdens. We can trust him to lead us, teach us, and work in our lives, and we can pray anywhere -- anytime. He is already pleased with us, we are already accepted, and he made a way for us to be close to The Father. He forgives us and He makes us righteous in God's eyes. Too many religions tell us what we have to do to be accepted by God, they are way off base. Jesus says to believe in Him because we are accepted by God! He does the work in us, through us, and for us. He gives us rest.

I am part of a non-denominational church, so we don't have a bunch of rules. Everyone is welcome to join, no membership. We spend a lot of time praying and singing, we study the Bible, and we help each other through the rough times. It is truly a place of peace and rest! Those who have been hurt by religious people (like me) can find hope again. The Holy Spirit shows up and heals people of sickness and diseases, and God touches the broken hearted. It is amazing to see so many miracles so often!

Isn't that what Jesus commanded his people to do? Heal the sick, preach the good news, and cast out devils? Most religions are not doing that! If they aren't, then maybe they are off base in their teachings!

I have been thinking a lot about peace and rest. It is hard to not stress out these days, hard to trust God when your life is falling apart. I have watched my husband turn away from God's truth, and watched him struggle just to breath. We have been back and forth to the hospital. I know God will touch him and strengthen him, if he will ask. I know Our Father wants good things for us. We don't have to die from disease and illness. He will call our name when it is time to go. So why is it so hard for us to seek God? Why do we turn away so easily? Me included. I am trying to read His Word more, and trying to let go of all the "what if"s. It is a process, we don't change overnight!

I know God's timing is perfect and he will take care of every detail. He has always provided. I think we are here to prove that even in the midst of trouble we will choose to love and serve God. I think it hurt Him deeply when his angels turned away from him, and he wants us to make that choice now, not later. I don't have scripture for that, it is just my thoughts rambling on.

Your comments are welcome!

Click here to see my painting "The Sabbath."

summer's end

Wow, it has been months since I posted anything here.

We went to Montana to see my family at the end of May, then had a lot of company through the entire summer, on top of teaching summer art camps for kids!

Oh, and I also took on some commission work, and sold quite a few paintings. Which was a good thing!

At the end of summer my husband got very ill (he had pneumonia). We have been at the hospital twice.

So now I am trying to catch my breath and see if I can get back to normal living, whatever that is.

I am seeing a whole new side to my husband: he does not blame God as so many would when life takes a hard turn, and he is almost looking forward to the after life. This is not something he has ever talked about, so it kind of intrigued me when he started asking questions. We are talking about such things much more now, but not in the negative way he used to give up and want to die. (I wouldn't entertain such thoughts.) Now it is more about his appreciation for life and those that care. He is finding healing in his spirit I think, and God's strength in this time of physical weakness.

As you can well imagine, I have not placed too much importance on my art work these days. It is there for me as a release from all this stress, and no longer the stress maker to get a painting done and posted every day. If I don't finish one, well, I just don't mind. Other things are more important right now.

So there is my last few months in a nut shell, and I am so thankful things are getting better around here!

Bell

THE BELL
I KNOW WHO I AM

I am God's child (John 1:12)

I am Christ's friend (John 15:15 )

I am united with the Lord(1 Cor. 6:17 )

I am bought with a price(1 Cor. 6:19-20)

I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)

I am a personal witness of Christ. (Acts 1:8)

I am the salt & light of the earth ( Matt.5:13-14)

I am a member of the body of Christ(1 Cor 12:27)

I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8: 1-2)

I am a citizen of Heaven. I am significant ( Phil.3:20)

I am free from any charge against me (Rom. 8:31 -34)

I am a minister of reconciliation for God(2 Cor.5:17-21)

I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)

I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)

I cannot be separated from the love of God( Rom.8:35-39)

I am established, anointed, sealed by God (2 Cor.1:21-22)

I am assured all things work together for good (Rom. 8: 28)

I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16 )

I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3: 12 )

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)

I am the branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15: 1-5)

I am God's temple (1 Cor. 3: 16 ). I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)

I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). I have been justified (Romans 5:1)

I am God's co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1). I am God's workmanship(Eph. 2:10 )

I am confident that the good works God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil 1: 5)

I have been redeemed and forgiven(Col.1:14).I have been adopted as God's child(Eph 1:5)

I belong to God

Do you know

who you are!?

Keep this bell ringing...pass it on

"The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.."

Numbers 6:24-26