My mind races sometimes!

  So many things are going on in the world. I can’t fix any of it. It’s not in my power for most, other then praying. Some nights I can’t sleep because I can’t shut off the day or the week,or the month in my head.

I’m watching the changes in the industry. We see only one side of the coin now and it’s mostly liberal, no middle of the road or conservative views. Heaven forbid, that would be awful!(Sarcasm) I think it’s awful that when a conservative family is portrayed on television, they make them all out to be biggots and hate mongers. Sadly, it’s not true!!! We are shown a skewed view of who conservative Christians are.

I am a conservative Christian, but I don’t hate anyone for their beliefs or choices. It’s not my place to do that. My place is to love everyone, it doesn’t mean I like some of the things I see going on in the world, I live in the world, but have the “choice” not to be of it. This doesn’t mean I segregate myself away from my friends and family who don’t believe as I do, on the contrary. I am to love them where they’re at, pray for them, but not judge. That is no one’s place, not anyone on either side. I have liberal friends who judge me because I became a Christian. Even my sister,who is gay, became afraid I would hate her. We are doing great. She has seen that I still love her just as much as I did before I became a Christian. She and my younger sister have remarked at the change in my spirit, one of kindness and understanding. Jesus has brought me that.

Don’t judge me because I am a Christian and I promise to do my best to not  judge anyone in my life who is different from me. I ask the same of you. I pray blessings on you all.

Fun with Moulage!

It’s been a long time since I have posted on this blog. Life has a way of getting away from you. Anyway, this last weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of a combat injury simulation team doing Moulage. Basically, we were tasked with the job of re-creating injuries that would be possible if an IED went off at a public arena. Now that was a challenge in itself. There were two teams of three people. Each team had 60 people to put wounds and bruising on with 5 minutes per person for all their respective wounds. Interesting enough, I found working fast wasn’t an issue, as much as making it look camera ready. For someone like me who is used to doing camera-ready work, that was the hardest for me to let the wound go from me without being absolutely perfect! Oh, OCD, you make my life complicated sometimes! What I loved most about it was having to think on your feet.

I had a fractured foot to do(photo above) and I was using a product to make the bone that was to be protruding from the wound. The material was too gummy and wasn’t working right. I pulled out  a trick that Suzanne Patterson had taught me to make tendons in wounds. Q-tips! I figured if I cut the q-tips up, I could make them simulate the small bones,tarsi, in the foot. It worked! I had a blast!

As a make-up artist, it is always good to try different mediums of your craft. It will make you a more rounded craftsman. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to doing it again! If you want to know more about this you can check out Suzanne Patterson’s blog at http://creativeartistryfx.blogspot.com/ .

Halloween an excuse to look bad!

The Start of the transformation!

During the transformationThe Finish

The Finish

This is what I did Friday Night!!! I don’t do Halloween. My son David is dating a lovely girl from our church. She is one of 11 children. That family’s quiver is full!!! Anyway,her older brother Johnny(called Jonno) had bought a geico caveman prosthetic piece on line and asked if I would put it on. They were having a costume party at his mother-in-law’s house. Well, it was a stock piece, so I had to cut it up into sections to get it to fit Jonno’s face. It came with nothing. I painted it and added the hair. I had a blast. Thought I would share!

Cruising and reunion

Me on the balconey of our stateroom!

Swimming with the Dolphins!!!

Some of the reunion committee!

I have been slammed for months! Between planning the cruise with my sister-in-law and being on the reunion committee for my highschools 30th, I am exhausted!!!!!

The cruise was a true blessing. Rain was expected for the whole trip,we were blessed with beautiful weather for the whole thing! We sailed from Ft.Lauderdale to the Grand Caymens(Georgetown) We went to Hell and back. I’m not kidding, there is a small town on the island called Hell. It was given that name a very long time ago. I don’t remember the whole story.We took a lot of pictures there. The coolest part for me( because I am a”Pirates of the Caribbean” fan) is that the island’s original name was Tortuga!!! That’s the pirate island in the movie. I was very excited about that! We also saw tons of Iguanas. We then sailed to Cozumel,Mexico. There my sister-in-law and I swam with Dolphins. It was so cool!! They almost didn’t feel real. There was Iguanas there too. They had one at Chankanuub park that was tame and I held him. We had such a wonderful time that my husband wants to do it again…so we prebooked for another next year. You see, my husband isn’t one for traveling which makes it tough for me because I love to travel. I did pray real hard that this trip would be good for him. The Lord answered. My husband wants to do it again. God answered my prayer. I didn’t want to always travel without my husband and now we have a means to travel that he is willing to do and likes a lot. We got back on a Thursday. Friday morning I went back to work, just for a couple of hours. That night was the start of the Reunion. Ronnie and I went. I t was fun. The next night,Saturday night, was the formal night. We got a room at the hotel we were having the Reunion event in. We had a great time seeing people we hadn’t seen in years. This was the first time since my husband and I got married that we had spent more then one day together we had 8 full days and it was a blessing. Thank you God for that time. My husband works 7 days a week, his choice, so I only get him several hours a day. Sometimes it’s only a kiss goodnight as we are crawling into bed to sleep. I cherish this time we had together.

I’m off to sleep…work tomorrow! Got to make the talent look good!!!

A lot of “same-old” and then…

Me in front of my construction project!

Lately it’s been the usual schedule for me work, church, community group, lunch with kids, work on make-up lab construction, etc. Last week, I got a phone call for a job only 5 minutes from my house. A cake job. 4 days with just two people to make up for high def. I told the lady I would call her back. Something in my spirit made me feel uneasy about the job. I had had a small one day fall through two weeks prior. It was on a weekend, so it didn’t interfere with my work at my regular gig. I talked to a friend from work and told her about the job. To do this job was going to require me to not work my regular job and this past week was the once-a-month heavy week! I started getting afraid that if I took the job it could be cancelled. It was a lot of money. I knew there was no one available to cover me at work. She said and I knew that if your spirit is uneasy about this, it can’t be from God and God will bless me if I don’t take it. See, I had been praying for a big job because they had cut my hours at work. It made things here at home very tight as far as, bills are concerned. It came on an inconvenient week. Everyone at work would have to pick up my schedule and it was already a jammed week. I called the lady back and thanked her for offering me the job, but there wasn’t an easy way to clear my schedule to do it. I sighed and went on through the weekend knowing I did the right thing, but I sure needed that money. I know,God will provide!

Monday morning, I get approached by the guys in Marketing to help them out with a project. They will be doing a morph effect for a spot from a mannequin to a human. Not a big deal except the mannequins do not look like the actress. They look Asian with eyebrows in the wrong place. They asked me if I could fix them. I will have pictures next week of that project.  I fixed the mannequins, but I get to do the mannequins’ colors on the actress as part of the morph! I am so stoked and I thanked God for some creativity. My job is the same everyday. Same makeup with no change ups. That is very hard for me to not get to create.Then I got asked to put hair on the head of a man who shaves his head, but used to wear a ponytail just in the back with the rest of his head shaved. I am venting that to have ready for Friday of this coming week. Once again,I thanked God for letting me use my gifts for Him. So you see, God blessed me with these projects. It gave me overtime hours on this past week and this coming week. It’s not as much money as I wanted, but God knew what I needed.

Alright Already!!!

I get a comment post from my friend Coni to write!!! Yep I have been slammed. My birthday weekend(May 30) is my birthday. I went to Wilmington to help out my sister. She’s having multiple physical problems which at first I thought she was exaggerating until I was with her. She’s not in good shape. Please keep her in your prayers. Before you go”What a great person!”, I was totally out of my comfort zone going down there. The Lord put it on my heart that that was were I was supposed to be. My sister and I haven’t had a great relationship most of our lives.We are different people and I have been very intolarent to her behaviors in the past, she in competition with me.  I knew I had to go and help her, but I really didn’t want to because my selfish side was saying that it was my birthday. I went. It was a tough,emotional weekend.

Her thyroid is messed up. That is one of the things the doctors are going to fix. In the mornings her levels are high( kind of like “roid”rage) She gets unreasonable and accusitory. It was hard to take. I heard that quiet voice say,”don’t get drawn in for a fight, she’s ill right now”. Man, that was draining. I was obedient to God. I cleaned her apartment for her. It wasn’t horrible, just a lot of clutter and dust. She, at this time, has mininal use of her arms. Dusting vacuuming and moving large things is out of the question. I took her shopping. She has been unable to work because of all this. No money, no food. Some of her friends had a small fundraiser for her so she could keep a roof over her head.(Side note- Medicaid disqualified her because of this. Yes, she getting an appeal for that garbage!) Anyway, I filled her cabinets and fridge. Her face lit up, she’s been so depressed with all of this. She kept saying” Wow, I can choose what I want to eat!” She had been eating peanut butter and crackers or cheap romaine noodles. She was so happy to walk,well, in her case,shuffle down the hallway without running into anything. I spent a day cleaning, a simple thing, but it meant so much to her. I colored and highlighted her hair. She hasn’t been able to afford to get it done in over 6 months. Not a big deal, go to Sally’s and get the color, bleach and developer. Again, she cried. She looked up at me and said,”Sara, it’s your birthday.” I told her,” This is where I wanted to be and was supposed to be.” She cried even harder. She said at one point that she could see that I was out of my comfort zone and she saw a light in me. I thought in my head, it’s Jesus. At that moment I knew she wasn’t ready to hear me say that. I finished what I needed to do,came home and slept an entire day. It was one tough weekend.

Since then, My sister has called almost every day to check in so I know she’s okay and to thank me for the food and the clean apartment. I know she appreciates it. One of her calls was a very weepy one. She had been turned down by Medicaid, the law office she had contacted to help her with disability had said they were to busy to help her and she wasn’t going to go straight to neurology at Duke but to their pain center. She was devistated.She was convinced because she had no insurance that they were trying to kill her so she would go away. I let her scream(yep, it was morning roid rage). I called back a hour later and said(gingerly)” My sister, I want you to look at one thing today positively.You may not be going to Duke the way you wanted, but they are excepting you there and will test you themselves. They will see for themselves what is wrong with you and you already have an in with one of the best hospitals in the country!” After some more tears she agreed.

The next afternoon I get a call from My sister. She was giddy!!!  She had some good news for once. She was so excited, she was going to treat herself to a small burger at a restuarant called” Hell’s Kitchen”. She has no vehicle and decided it was too hot to walk to it, so she went to another little place to get a small lunch. She comes out of the restuarant and runs into Mr.Glancy. (I tell you this because he owns the law firm that had turned My sister down for help in her disability and medicaid fights.) Mr.Glancy hadn’t seen My sister in a long time. She’s thin,shuffling and wearing a neck brace. He asked her what had happened, she told him all of her physical issues and being turned down for medicaid and disabilty. He told her she should come to his office. She explained that his office had already turned her down. He didn’t know this. He gave her the name of his personal secretary and told My sister to call her and set up an appoinment with him personally!!!!! She was so excited after he walked away. She told me that she looked to the sky and said” God, is this you?” She looked back down and just as she did a car drove by with a personal licence plate that said”Bless You”. I told her you can’t get anymore confirmation then that!!! I told her to hold on to that, don’t stop praying that everything is in God’s timing and no matter what, anything thrown at you for evil, God will turn to good!!! This is a big thing for My sister. She has wanted just to take all the good parts of all religions and that what she believes. God is showing her the way. Which makes me smile. He is helping build a bridge between the gape that has always been between My sister and I. The song says” God will show a way, when there seems to be no way!”

God has softened my hard heart to my sister and is showing her, who He is. Thank you, Jesus.

Feeling my age!

For the past several months I have been slowly working on my office to turn it into a make-up studio and office. Yesterday was spent putting up some of the drywall. I needed more sheets. Ronnie and i went to the Home Depot and got 8 more sheets. I ache all over from carrying those things and putting the original stuff up. I just discovered that i have measured my drywall incorrectly and bought 3/8 inch and should have bought 1/2 inch. Yep, we have to take all 8 sheets back and exchange them out. Oy, my aching arms and back! Today I feel every bit of my 48 years, which by the way I turn 48 this Friday,May 30th!

I am excited about getting this room done, but it’s getting harder to do things the older I get. I am not bouncing back as quickly. Ah, well it will look great when it is finished!!!

Learning to say “No”

I have this bad habit of saying”Yes” all the time. I have noticed, as of late, that I really haven’t given myself time to just “Be”. Sunday at Church for four hours. Tuesday night,choir practice for three hours. Thursday night,Community group for 2-2and1/2 hours. I fill the other nights with the stuff I can’t do on those afore mentioned nights. I work monday through Friday anywhere from 28-45 hours depending on the week. I am trying to remodel my office in the middle of all this. Today I spent the day with my daughter who had her wisdonm teeth out and “needed” mommy. Next weekend I head to Wilmington to help my ailing younger sister. I have done three weddings and three prom make-ups and hairs in the last month. Filling in the spare moments is bill paying, house cleaning and cooking. I’m tired,pooped,exhausted. I’ve gained weight from too much rush eating. Not happy with the added pounds, though some friends say I look real good right now. I don’t like the poochy stomach and the fact I can’t get my tooshy in my jeans!!! I’ve decided that June is going to be the month I say “No”, so that I can refuel myself. Say a little pray for me. I need to take some time out and get centered. Thank you, God for all You have given me. My prayer is to rest in You for my spiritual peace and find quiet time for my physical peace.

Youth today

I’m not sure if any of you “older people” have noticed, but I have noticed that the twenty-somethings and younger don’t show respect to anyone. Social amenities are a thing of the past. “Respect your elders”, “Customer is always right”,  “May I help you?” “Please”, “Thank you”, “Yes Ma’am”, “No sir”. I don’t hear them anymore. My children say these things, but I stressed that it was important. People don’t accept responsibility for what they say and do. It’s always someone elses fault, but  theirs. Accountability. It’s not being taught. Our society is raising a bunch of people who aren’t accountable. Look at society, the young people don’t want to work for anything, they wanted it handed to them. They want a big house now. A big car…now! No value for hard work, no value for life and just do your part of the job, nothing more and they feel entitled to that pay check. The kids don’t want to work their way up, they want that high paying job now. What they are missing is that everything belongs to God, everything. We are blessed to be here, but it all belongs to Him. We are accountable to Him. We owe everything to Him. There is no “mine”, it is “His”. If what we do doesn’t glorify Him, we are spitting on the sacrifice that His Son, Jesus made for us. I’m done kvetching now!

Hurry up and wait

I’m sitting here at work. I work for a Christian Ministry. CBN to be exact. Like any broadcast facility, it is hurry up and wait for somethings and others are countdowns to live broadcast. I am at the present in the hurry up and wait mode!!! The sad part is, I am thinking of a million things I could be doing at home; like putting up drywall to my office space I am building in the house. I get antsy here. Yes, I am truly blessed to be working in a place that is serving the Lord, but the makeup work is the same everyday. This has been tough for me. I love to be creative and like to be stimulated creatively. Maybe, once in a great while I will get to do something interesting.

I recently heard that “we need to prosper where we are planted”. I’m not doing real well at that right now. Oh, I’m doing my work.100%, but I am bored out of my mind. I am frustrated with myself that I am letting the enemy tell me that there is no joy here because I am bored. I want the joy to be present even when I am not be challenged. I guess that,that is the challenge, to not be bored and keep the joy in all I do. Hmmm