A Day of Rest?

At church over the summer, one of the pastors had shared a message about keeping the sabbath and how that was probably the most broken of the 10 commandments.  He challenged us to incorporate rest into our schedule and the value of taking a day of rest. 
I stored that challenge in my mind for the future since I knew with my busy routine, I could use the challenge to discipline myself to schedule rest into my life. 
Since mid-September, I have been trying to figure out what day should be my sabbath day.  I know people typically do Sundays but weekends have been notorious for filling up with workshops and classes.  I tried Monday but that didn't seem to work well.
I've figured out that Wednesday is really the best sabbath day for me.  It just seems to naturally make sense since I go to a program at a community church that has a crafting and tea time. It's a very calm and restful environment.  I can then use the rest of the day to do little mundane things and in the evenings all the kids go to a program so often hubby and I can go for a quick date night dinner.
Here's the question I've been wondering: what if my hobby is my work and my work is my hobby?  My "job" as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator is something I do because I enjoy stamping.  Am I not allowed to stamp on my day of rest?  But what if it's stamping that makes me feel happy and rested?  I didn't want to be too legalistic but at the same time, I didn't want to blur the definition too much so that Wednesday becomes just like any other day.
I have a workshop this weekend and I had in my mind to do a little birthday tag since apparently many of the guests are moms of young kids.  I have been really wanting to sit down to design this tag but haven't had time...until today.  My "day of rest".  Aarrgh.  Should I do it? Should I not?  Oh the delimma!  Is it work?
I decided to try to take a nap instead.  Unfortunately it wasn't one of those beautiful, long 2 hour naps.  I think I was too worried I would forget to pick up the kids after school even though I had an alarm clock on.  So then I woke up and wanted to stamp that tag but I told myself that I'm supposed to be resting.  So, since my neck/back was bugging me, I took a hot bath.  Are you getting the picture?  I was trying so hard to rest on my sabbath day, it was stressing me out that I wasn't doing what I really wanted to do which was make that tag.  I was even imagining what stamps I would use and what paper. 
I finally gave up after the bath and went and did what I really wanted to do and what would make me happy.  It took only 15 minutes of playing to get something that I was happy with.  I knew I would use that big top birthday DSP and of course fox and friends.

I think my rule for my sabbath days is to avoid doing things that will make me feel busy and rushed and stressed and instead do things that make me feel rested and closer to God.  I think stamping for fun (as opposed to stamping in stress...like I've got to come up with 5 different projects for a stamp a stack tommorrow) is allowed on my sabbath day; especially if not stamping stresses me out!  Grin.

I know I am not the only one who has a busy, crazy life.  In fact, I know many of you have a much busier life that I do.  Maybe you can consider treating yourself to a sabbath day.  A day to rest.  It is good for the soul.  And if you decide to stamp on your resting day, I won't mind.  Send me a picture! 

Appreciation Night Fun

I was so happy last night. It was the little things that made me happy. I had planned to cook this chicken dish for everyone but realized as I was making it that preparing it for 30 people took a lot longer than for my family of five. (duh) and then when I stuck it in the oven I worried that since there was so much jammed in the pot it would probably take a lot longer to bake (duh) so I jacked up the heat and hoped everything would turn out okay before all my hostess and club girls walked through the door...and it did! Yea! The food turned out okay and there was enough. I was also happy that everyone fit in my home. (I was kind of worried about that). I was also happy that I had managed to finish making a little treat for everyone. It's the sort of project that once you start, you have to finish because it's not like I could only give half my guests a thank you treat. This was made using the petal cone die that I received as a birthday gift. I've already put it to good use.

Most of all I was happy to be with friends. Here's some pictures from the evening. Here's Marianne and Louise stamping. Great smiles girls!

One of the major highlights of the evening were these cupcakes that I commissioned one of my club girls, Nicole, to make. What's special about them is that they are iced in the soon to be released 2011-2012 in colours: pool party, calypso coral, lucky limeade, wisteria wonder and island indigo. She also made little toppers using a new stamp set called pennent parade cut out with the co-ordinating punch.

I even dreamed about these cupcakes last night. I knew going to bed that left over cupcakes is what I wanted for breakfast. I could only do that because Kevin and the kids were away for the weekend so no one would see me pigging out on cupcakes at 8:00 am in the morning!

Here's the cards the girls stamped:

A simple card made elegant with the tulip embossing folder. We used the retiring Eastern Blooms set (not too late to order it!) and the colours are certainly celery and perfect plum.

A thank you card for the summer season. The cardbase is regal rose and the dsp is from the brights paper stack. The stamp set is the sunny fun set coloured in with my many marvelous markers (of course)

And my personal favourite:

Isn't this just the perfect little birthday card for kids? I CASE'd it from Jacque Craig a demonstrator from Hawaii. It's using the celebrations dsp and the party this way and fox and friends stamp set.

So, I'm hoping a good time was had by all at my annual hostess appreciation night. I know I had a great time. I loved ending the evening by giving everyone a free stamp set. Who doesn't love free stamps? My shameless plug is this: if you don't want to miss it next year, make sure you book a workshop with me. Why not earn some beautiful things from the new idea book and catalogue, have fun with friends while learning stamping tricks AND reserve your spot for my next annual hostess appreciation night? Email me now to set a date!