Over Christmas we went to our cousins place, which is a farm. Strangely enough I took a lot of photos which I seem to have forgotten to post on here, so here are some of the cows chooks and sky I saw while at the farm. I did take photos of people too, but I figure you will enjoy these ones more.

As of last week we finished all our school holidays too. And are back to work. Well kinda, I spent all Monday editing photos from a photo shoot Sunday afternoon and got no 'school work' done at all. I am kinda finished school, but not exactly I am still finishing some things I was doing last year and then starting a Philosophy course thing.... hope you enjoyed the photos! 

Bookmarks can be a simple but nice gift to make for other book lovers. All it takes is a small amount of drawing skill, some pens, cardboard and inspiration.  

I cut out some bookmark sized bits of cardboard and began writing some words on one side, I decorated the text and began to draw. I did not know what the finished product would look like until I had finished. On the back of each book mark (except one) I wrote Art by C L Farrelly and if I got the quote from a book the name of the writer.... Tolkien. 

Drawing it all with a pen can be scary as if you make a mistake there is no going back and you could ruin the whole thing. I really like the effect the pen makes though. So they were all done in pen.

I have only actually made these six, but I do intend to make more because I really liked them. You could put thoughts or bible verses on them, and use different colours on one bookmark. 

This 'words' bookmark is a quote from a Shakespeare play that my sisters and mum went to see ages ago. Jane really liked that bookmark so I gave it to her.

My favourite is of course the quote by Tolkien "Never Laugh at Live Dragons" because everyone knows dragons make a book better so if you use that bookmark then the book is better because it would have at least one dragon in it! 

I made most of them for my brothers though. One who is 7 would spend all day reading if you let him. He is often told to go outside and do something, when he is finished the chapter....... and he is as bad as that as me.

Do you like drawing?

Have you ever made bookmarks?

Which is your favourite?

Thanks to Anna from The 3 Musketeers I have been tagged for a tag without rules, The Gratitude Tag. It looks like quite a good tag, for we are commanded to give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.~1 Thessalonians 5:18 And when you are being thankful it is rather hard to be sad and depressed.  


1. What is your favorite quote or verse that reminds you to be grateful? 
I don't really have a favourite as such, but I first though of Philippians 4:6-7, 

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I like that verse because I am one to be anxious about things, and it is good for me to remember to pray about things and give thanks for what I have been blessed with. There is also Colossians 3:17, 

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Which is a very good reminder to give thanks all the time, even when it is hard in circumstances in which it would be much easier for you to grumble. 


2. Who are you grateful for?
A lot of people, I could answer this question forever. But I shall choose my parents, for they are the two people (other than God) who have most shaped my life. I am so grateful for all they have taught me about living in a biblical, God honoring way.

3. What life events are you grateful for?
Again a lot, but as for something specific.... years ago all my friends moved away, at the time I did not like that, who would? In hindsight I now see that having no friends for a while helped me in a lot of ways.  I grew closer to God, because I read my bible instead of playing with friends, and I realized that friends could always move away and are often only for parts of our lives, or at least we have different kinds of friendship with them at different stages in life. But God will always be there. 

I also grew closer to my sisters, who when I was younger were mostly just annoyances, and well little sisters. Now we three are sisters who are also best friends, I am so grateful for that! 

4. What is something you are grateful for but often times don’t think about?
You know I could answer almost anything to this question at the moment though I am going to say my eyes; for two reasons. I just finished reading 'The Cay' a book in which the main character is blind. and I have been preparing a B.R.I.G.H.T Lights lesson on contentment and for that I have been reading about Fanny Crosby, a hymn writer who was blind and for an activity, we are going to try doing some things (like drawing pictures) while being 'blind'. We already had a practice of that and I am so grateful that I have eyes!

5. What are you going to do to show people your gratitude towards them?
Assuming I am going to do something well... I like notes, and so I like to give people little notes. I generally do it in a fairly random way.... and I also like presents so that is another way I show.... well... gratitude, friendship or whatever. I think it can be rather cool to receive a gift or note for no reason in particular, so I often do that to others, mostly family members but friends as well.

I tag;
Emily@Amity
Sarah@Trusting In The Lord
And Nadine Brandes; one of my favourite writers here

I am currently reading Unlikely Hero:The Road to Extraordinary by Duncan Robinson. It is a great book that I would definitely recommend. The thoughts in this post are my words but the idea was from that book.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.  And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”  When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” ~ Exodus 3:2-4

The question is this: what was so special about that bush, why did it not burn? The answer is nothing. There was nothing special about that ordinary little bush, nothing except for the fact that God chose it.

Often we seem to think we have to be someone special for God to use us for his glory and his kingdom. The bush did not play a long part in God's plan for rescuing the people of Israel. But it played a very important one. Maybe you are just like that little bush. A perfectly ordinary person, but when chosen by God you could be the start of something truly extraordinary.

Sometimes God call us to step out of our comfort zone. I can't imagine a bush enjoying being burned, at least not really burning, that would kill it. This bush did not get consumed though. We probably don't have to face anything as drastic as facing something that will (as far as we know) kill us. But sometimes we need to say yes to God and be that ordinary little bush that he can work through to do something truly extraordinary.

This is a test post. Or at least a post to test things with, on around. As you may be able to tell my blog is looking very different. As is my sisters blog, although only slightly so. Jane decided she wanted a different header image, some photos of her looking towards mountains with elvish writing on them. So a day after Christmas she dragged me outside into the freezing air so we could do a photo shoot before and as the sun rose. I got some nice photos, including this one. The change of header on her blog necessitated in changing a few other things so they went together. This image we used as the background as you can see if you go have a look at her blog, and maybe even leave a comment.

Here you can see my really old header images, my current and a sneak peek of my future one. I got tagged for the Lovely Blog Tag quite a while ago; Thanks lovely Sarah from Ink and Paper Tall Ship. But I decided I really had to do this post today because my blog will be looking very different in a few days! Still I am sure it will be lovely, well I know it will be. My blog has changed a lot since I started it back at the beginning of 2013!

But onto the tag...

The rules are simple: Give seven fun facts about yours truly, and then give this tag to fifteen other great blogs.... seriously 15, I think I shall have conveniently forgotten how to count by the end of this.

My sisters and I have always been Star Wars fans, so when we heard another movie was coming out there was no way we were going to miss it. Even if we had to drag our, at that time non Starwarsish cousin along.

Not so long a time ago in a town not so far away, three Jedi - One of whom looked remarkably like a Sith - Leia and two grownups one of which pretended to be Hans and the other who made no effort what so ever, made their way to a movie theater. Oddly enough they had no need to tell any one which movie they were going to see. And one of the staff almost bounced around asking to take a picture. Whispers started as they climbed to their seats. Children (what were they doing watching an M rated movie?) pointed and whispered to the parents, "Jedi, look there and Leia."

I got A Time To Speak by Nadine Brandes for Christmas, I had been 'dying' to read it since finishing book one in the series. You really need to read book one before this one as they are very connected. The thing I like most about the book is this;

They thought she was controllable

and they were right

but one detail they hadn't taken into account

She obeyed and trusted another more than her fear

she followed the uncontrollable God.

Happy new year everyone! Or at least all those in my up to date country of Australia. You Americans seem to lag behind somewhat, so happy new years eve to you all over there. And for your information this photo was taken a few minutes after midnight at the beginning of 2016.

I got another new chook recently. This time it is a rooster. A pretty green and black rooster otherwise known as an australorp cockerel. But he does not act much like it at all. He is still scared of most of the hens except Prim, the two of them get along really well. He was the bottom roster where he came from and as a result of that still has not much tail. So far he seems quite a nice fellow.

Over the last few years I have seen more of these flowers appearing. I am not sure what they are but they grow in many places in the paddock next door. 

Counted Worthy By Leah E. Good has sat on a shelf in my room for months, as I enjoyed waiting to read it. I knew, well, was fairly sure it would be a really good read, sometimes with books like that I like to have them a while before reading them. When I read this the other week I did not get disappointed, in fact it exceeded my expectations.

The Candy Cane

The candy cane is the shape,

Of a shepherd’s crook

Because the shepherds were the first, 

The angels told to look

At the Christ, God made man, 

Who came to save everyone

Who repents of their sins 

And believes in God’s Son.

Red is like our hearts of sin, 

Ourselves we cannot save

But that can be washed to white when we ask, 

Because Jesus his life gave.

We like our Christmas trees live. So a few weeks before Christmas we go hunting, last year we caught one lurking beside the road, the year before it was a gum tree amongst a forest of others. This year we captures a sheoak tree.

This is not a good craft idea for the weak of heart or anyone lacking patience. This will at the least take three days...... I spent over a week making this tree. But you do end up with something really lovely and useless!

A photo post! I don't seem to often do posts that are just photos nowadays, but this one shall be. Saying that, if you don't like bugs or at least photos of them then there is not much point in looking further because that is all there is here. I took these photos while observing flowers and pollinators for the Wild Pollinator count. I don't own a macro lens, so these are taken with an everyday kit lens with a filter which is kinda like a magnifying glass screwed onto it.

I also saw a cool looking leaf cutter bee, but I just could not get a clear photo of it..... or any for that matter she just flew to fast. All of these critters are quite small.

  

I normally only post about photo shoots on my Clear Light Photography Blog, but I thought i'd do this one on here too. Recently I photographed this couples love and excitement they feel anticipating their little boys arrival. I had not done any maternity photography before this, so it was a new experience.