Joy Leanne

I finally got around to making something for myself the other day. All this sewing and I had not made a single thing for me. :) So here it is. My project journal.

I cam to a startling realization today. It has been percolating under the surface for the past few weeks and today it came to the front of my mind and demanded to be named. I like Mondays. I was not always this odd. As a high school and college student I, of course, had the obligatory distaste for Monday and the beginning of the school week. Then when I worked I felt about the same way. Often Sunday nights would result in stomach aches because I hated going into work just that much. Perhaps this new found affinity for such a loathed day is a result of actually liking my "job". I find something increasingly soothing about moving from room to room of home my restoring order after the weekend. I enjoy sitting at my desk paying this weeks bills and shaping the schedule and meal plan for the week. After a relaxing laid back Sunday there is something rejuvinating about the return to a scheduals and order on Monday. A return to regularly schedualed meal times and nap times. A ...

SO I wrote this yesterday and didn't post it because it felt silly to post two blogs in one day, but I was afraid I would forget to today I will post two. Oh well. :) I was having a conversation with my sister in law today. We were discussing the fact that every job has it's down sides. I don't know a single person who loves absolutely every aspect of their job. My husband is a great sales man and enjoys working with people. However, he takes very little enjoyment in doing inventory (who would?). Motherhood is no exception to this. So often women feel like they are betraying their husbands and children if they admit there is a part of being a wife and mother they could do with out. The questions remains then if we don't like what we are doing, why do we continue to do it. For starts we continue on with our jobs, whether is be selling cars or changing diapers, simply becuase we are adults and that is the right thing to do. You don't stop providing or caring for your ...

I wrote something yesterday that, when I look at objectively I can see how it would come across as negative. The interesting thing, is that negativity wasn't my goal at all. Neither was the lies that I know came across. For most people to speak or write a lie is to give it power. To give it legs. For me it is the opposite. As long as a thought it trapped in my head I will obsess, I will re work, and I will dwell on it. Those thoughts will run around my head until I am physically exhausted. However, when I write it traps those words on paper. Once that is done I can objectively sit back and look at them and see them for the half truths they are. I can examine them at my leisure. I can look at them from all angles. I can sift through them and pick out the beauty from the ashes. And there is beauty there. I recognize the potential lie in saying "I will never." However, in the moment this is how I felt. And I think there is a certain beauty in allowing ourselves (for a very b...

I will never be the writer I want. It is a simple fact. I am too shallow. Too random. Not nearly motivated enough. Not nearly original enough. I read other peoples work and am inspired. Full of purpose I pick up a pen to compose something that can rival my muse. Only to realize I have come up with a poorly done fake imitation. I am at best an obnoxious obvious wannabe. a knock of off a great work. I will never be the woman I want to be. I am too scattered brained. Too unfocused. Too needy. To self centered to ever truly be an inspiration or encouragement much less the kind of woman who change's the world simply by being herself. I have tried to please to many people and as a result have come achieved mediocrity in everything from making jewelry, writing letters, blogging, sewing, baking, quilting, and mothering. I know a little of everything and a lot of nothing. I am a typical oxymoron clique of hating the band wagon and hating to be thought of as different. I guess I never reall...

It had hit that cold part of winter. The part of winter when you have a hard time remember how hot and miserable you were in the summer. The part of winter when it is always gray, always overcast, and never snows (at least not here in Virginia). It's always the hardest part of winter for me. By the end of later January I'm always driving myself crazy. I can't imagine how horrible it must be for my poor husband and daughter. Most days I just feel apathetic and lethargic. I love my life, but for some reason I feel dissatisfied with myself. I want so desperately to grow. I ache for spring. Winter has never been my season. To bleak, to suffocating. Not even hope. Not enough motivation. It's to easy to make excuses to pull the covers tighter and ignore the world around you. It's to cold to think, to cold to care, to cold do do, or feel, or act. Maybe that is why God gives us cuddly little toddlers. To crawl up into our laps and bring a little warmth. The relentless cold ...

It's Mother's day. A pudgy little Boy of four or five hands a clumsily wrapped gift to his mother. Most likely an older sister had offered to help him wrap the gift. But chances are he instead on doing most of it himself. That's just the way he is. Content to be the baby of the family, but fiercely independent at times. His mother opens the box and does the appropriate ooing and ahhing and holds up the gift for every one to see. The little boy's eyes shine as he see's the earrings in his mother's hands. Boy had spent a long time agonizing over his choices at the jewelry wall in the dollar store. He was determined to find something worthy of her beauty. Watching Mother show off the blue plastic hearts he knows he chose well. "I wanted to get you diamonds" say Boy, "and then I saw the blue ones." She could have worn them around the house and Boy would have been thrilled. That's the kind of child he was. Innocent and easy to please. But she ...