Growing A Noble Life.

Hello everybody... whoever may be out there!

I popped by for a quick chat.

I have been living in Alameda, California the past 6 months. Five of those months have been spent in a cosy little one bedroom apartment, in which we have been creating quite a pleasant haven. Although only a single bedroom, the flat has a very spacious feel to it and out small backyard, maybe 20x12ft ( approx 6 x 4 m), has been steadily filling filling with greenery and flowers and hanging things, not to mention my lovely table and umbrella. We just added a birdbath, too!

We have solar lights and are awaiting a small solar powered water fountain to sit in the birdbath and make it more attractive to our flying feathered friends.
Some images of our developing garden over the past several months.

 

 

 

 OUr Tomatoes have skyrocketted... particularly the rogue one by the wall that we didn't even plant , nor have we needed to water! It has cherry tomatoes forming and has now outgrown all of our six foot tall vines.There are three other 'rogue ones too, one in the centre of our bunch at the front. on to the left of our three and another on the far right fence, coming up beside the spider plant you can see in the other shot above.
i love our garden, and my table is my favourite painting and studying, general place to be, spot!!

 

And here are some photos of our night time garden under power of solar lights. Our umbrella is lit underneath too, but we aren't usually out there then. It's not warm here at night..EVER! lol

 Below is the view of the tomatoes on our side fence  and part of the back, and the one to the right of a back fence, which we look out upon directly.

I have rearranged the little twinkly ones and likely will again as I want them to look like a starry sky. For anyone looking , you can buy a set for $1 at the Dollar Store!

I love being able to build and grow something, but for all that, still dreadfully and perpetually home sick for my babies and my country and culture

I keep busy and want to be productive, so, work with Larrie in music, and solo, as I can drive myself a few places now, and I ride my push bike too, ( seen left.. "Kulana")
I have also been drawing and painting a lot of colour-in templates. The one in this picture is for my mum to have for her grands and great grandchildren.. They are small jigsaw puzzles. :)

As you can see, I made colour-in templates for these as well.

I have been studying and writing blogs, but for my other sites... sadly neglecting this one, but it is hard to keep up with all three. You can read the others at https://theincorruptibleseed.com/   and https://ourfiresideromance.com/  .

Other Adventures

We went to visit some friends at Lake Almanor over July 4...highlight for me was seeing the sunrise for the first time in five months!!! I have been starving...gut ache starving!

I managed to see two out of three mornings I was there. Beautiful place, and we had some boating fun as well. Much warmer there!  But it gets white winters, which I will experience later this year-if I am here.

We are taking another short trip up there in Aug 28-Sept 2-just before we leave for Oz on Sept 5.


More Painting.

 

 

Another ongoing project I have started is creating a series called Colour Your Word. I do these for my own meditation and heart establishing, but they are fun and could be helpful to others as well, so I made templates of them as well. I think I will compile them in a book and add some guided devotional work.

I might do the same for the kids puzzle ones.. and I have more puzzles to paint! :)

Feel free to save and print for your colouring fun, but I would appreciate you letting people know where they come from if you share. Thanks!

Closing Remarks

So! Lots of visual pleasures for this read. I hope you enjoy them. I certainly enjoyed living the noble life that led to them.
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts and please feel free to skip on over to my other blogs and make your mark there,  too.

Jesus Is Lord, He loves you and wants you to know Him.
 He is coming soon for those that love Him.
 Best to acquaint your self with Him now :) Amen!

What is it really ALL about?

Here I am, back in the US!
And I am sitting at a newly acquired, sweet old desk, in a corner nook of a pretty large bedroom, which faces out over a quaint little yard, in which we have just hung a retractable line. Larrie has pulled up the weeds and that has drawn the birds back, which makes my heart smile.

I wrote a blog on my other site yesterday, http://theincorruptibleseed.com/ and so, I thought I would post one here today. :)

Life Just Keeps Moving Forward.
Sooo much has happened since I last posted. It wasn't easy to leave, but it felt like the right thing to do and the right time to do it! I finally pulled myself away from my beautiful family in Oz, to set up a new home with my US born husband, Larrie. Although, it was after a short delay because I had something of a serious issue with a very nasty polyp in my left nostril!

There's a lot more detail to it, but after a five day delay, a doctor's reassurance and determining to trust God to look after me whilst away from our benevolent medical system, I was America bound. Upon stepping on US soil, I blew the rather long and two sided offending polyp right out my nose! Answered prayer.
Yep, God is faithful!

 We set about looking for an apartment straight away-which had always seemed like one of those, 'never gonna happen' things. We encountered a number of challenges as we were stayed in a comfortable (and costly over time) one bedroom hotel space right by Alameda's waterfront.

I acquired a couple of regular slots to play for seniors locally as a solo performer and began working at Lifesavers, where we trained to be CPR and First Aid Instructors, firstly in the office, but also to complete my own training. Larrie has already done his and is out conducting classes alone and in teams. I have run a few classes in the office but am yet to be a paid participator in classes out of the office.

Another wonderful gift of God was finding that my employers are also lovers of Jesus! Another answered prayer for more Christian community in my every day! On top of that, another friend, whom almost died, was brought back to recovery and to the Lord, through it. This was also a direct answer to prayer. This musical connection and his wife are also a frequent part of our lives and God has added them to my ' God family' here. This was a miracle of healing physically and awondrous transformation spiritually!!

I just wanted to give God some well deserved glory for these answers to prayer AND MORE that aren't listed. I returned to the US with my cup overflowing in His goodness!

Challenges come
Of course, every endeavour comes with challenges and we were faced with some. We had a slump where it started to look like things were being stacked against us for getting a place. This brought some heaviness and strain, but I just had solo praise parties, coz I KNOW God hears and answers prayers-yes, in His way and timing...but I know He does.

After a couple of weeks, we did find our very first one bedroom home. Of course, we had NOTHING lol, but furniture and household goods have been coming to us, through lovely people and members of the family of God. Now, after being here for a month today...we are fully furnished and functional and everything is about just adding the personal things that make our place our home.


We don't have a TV, but we can watch things on our laptop. If we want one, I know it will come.

Family

I stay connected with my babes, updating them with photos and longing for their news. Things got heavy when my lovely last great aunt, Faye passed away, and then my mother's friend, on the same day as well. Then , another precious person went into hospital, and I started feeling so troubled about being away. Especially, when I get a midnight call from my brother worried about our mum. (She was shaken from recent deaths, but she is ok.)

This has all been very hard to deal with due to the distance. But I am certain I pray more fervently than ever I would if I were physically present.

Here are a few snippets of My Noble Life  from the past month

 Part of my morning push bike commute when I work in a home based office at the other end of Shoreline ( see below) It's a great ride!
That's our bathroom and new shower curtain and towels. We prefer to buy pre-loved and recycled, but we needed a shower curtain fast lol

 An earlier picture of our little dining room.
Things have developed and we have received all of what we need , furniture wise-and curtains- from friends...except we bought an old desk from Urban Ore in Berkeley.

  Also from my ride. We scored a bunch of lemons, so I tried my hand at baking something lemony! It was SOOOOO yum. It was supposed to be a slice called lemon butter bars, but i baked it in round trays ... so looked more like a lemon cream pie!
 Well, this one did. The other one was left creamless...and I don't which I preferred. I LOVED the base...so tasty and biscuity!

I felt like I had to wait the longest for the thing I wanted most...a workspace. This is just the beginning , but I love all the timber and now, I have a very groovy microphone stand sty;e floor lamp and an added little draw/slot thing that sits atop my desk.
Not sure what that's called.

As soon as I had it, I wrote, drew, painted lol
My first painting/drawing since I arrived back in the US. It has inspired a Collection of Series and ideas and I am on the next one now. I am making the template available for a Colour Your Word Colour in Series.

So! That's it for now. Time to create!

And what is it really all about?
Knowing God's faithfulness!

Latest Adventures

 At Currumbin Sanctuary

 Beach walks and swims.

Life in Oz

So, just to catch you up...

I have enjoyed burleigh sunrises with Frendy One-who then went on a great trek to the other side of Oz over Christmas!

On Oct 31 -Nov 2, I went to do a short house and doggie sit in Palm Beach with Oscar-the 4yr old black spaniel.

 
Oscar and a little artwork. :)

I was busy working to complete a commission and then Rache and I worked together on a Christmas contract for Kings. With Esther, we ploughed through that quick smart, as I needed all my work done in time for Larrie's arrival. And we did a superb job! Thanks to Godls grace and enabling!
You can follow this link to see some photos in the folder
Christmas Art

After that, I learned that my season in a Varsity lakes home was closing out and with the arrival of Larrie, I would leave there permanently ( as a place to stay). We booked an Airbnb place in Tugun from nov 15 until Dec 4, when Larrie returned to US. But I stayed on another two nights, not yet fully clear of where I was going next.

The thing I find I have to constanty remember is to be where I am fully. be engaged where I am. I try , and i say it over and over again, yet i find myself constantly needing to remind myself that doing life every day is enough.

Sometimes, overwhelming all by itself.
But do you ever feel like you are supposed to somehow get beyond the day to day and bring forth something that requires more from you?

I get plagued by this! Life is good, blessed and wonderful in so many beautiful ways, but I think eternity is always  tugging at my heart, saying 'this isn't all' and to live with this eternity in mind-yet, be fully present!

This is a great paradox and the only way to live truly fulfilled, I believe. It takes God's view- Amen. Renew yur mind with the Word of God, so you can see how.  

Whilst Larrie was here, we went to Rache'ls baby shower, where it literaly POURED lol, Currumbin Sanctuary, beach walks at Tugun, visited Toowoombah with friends and the Japanese Gardens, sang at a couple of restaurants, binged on Netflix and a little basketball...

I ended up with my new artist friend, Esther for a week after Tugun. She is a delight!

After that, Rachel and Kani had their new home approved and so, i went to help Rache get settled. Kani was away on a work camp, so we did our best to get things organised and I moved a bunch of things from storage...with more to go.

Thus began the most difficult part of my Christmas/New Year journey. (More on that later...maybe)

 

By the time Kani returned and was on leave, we were up to Friday, Dec 15. Bub was due Dec 17(or 21) and on the morning of Dec 18, Rache had a show. However, she had a full day planned to get a whole lot done before bub and sinceno contractions had started, we went for it! It was a HUGE day  and started to close down around 7 when I dished out dinner and Rache started having early contractions.

These were the beginnings of "birth pains" lol.

We stayed up late working to organise the place, Kani being a man with a mission to prepare his home for his soon arrival. Rache didn't sleep all that well due to nagging contractions but we made it thru the night.

The deliberation about which hospital began and really didn't end until an hour before the birth, when we finally ended up at the splendid University hospital in Parkwood, just 10-15 mins away. (After having been to Robina sent to Uni and sent home) 

  

In the end , Rache, in true Rache form, sang her baby out and we were delighted. There was worship, there was Ange[l] , the lovely midwife, there was a flash of scripture on a monitor at the peak moment:
"You are the light of the world"  both Kani and I saw it.
And then there was Pearl Hope Puru, 3277gm, 7 lbs 2.25 oz and 49 cm long!

As you can imagine, this is the very condensed version.  And we haven't got to Christmas yet.
Here's the view from 'my' room...my home now, when in Oz...
And I have to leave it there...for this instalment of My Noble Life.  It has been a full on and very full few months. And since leaving the to dog sit the first time, I stayed in 6 differnt places, two of them twice! It's no wonder I have dreams of losing and misplacing all things, even ID-losing my belonging and identity with it!
but GREAT blessings in the midst of it all!!!  Praise the Lord God!

This is baby Pearl's NUNO...Rache's dad, David, who came up to join us for Christmas and the birth.