CareNet baby shower

 

 The ladies of our church hosted a lovely baby shower for an organization called CareNet.  Among other things, it is an outreach ministry for abortion-vulnerable women.  We all brought baby clothes and stuff for them to give to mothers who might not be able to afford it.

I don't know who came up with all the ideas, but there were some of the cutest decorations ever.  :)

First of all, this cake.  There were rubber duckies on the cake.

Well, I like brownies and mini pecan pies, so...

 

More duckies and candles

We were supposed to guess the number of M&Ms and almonds in each jar.  I won the almonds with my complicated math work, and someone else won the M&Ms but she prefers almonds so we traded.

A fish bowl, with the blue bubbles stone things, rubber duckies, and a flower: so cute.

My adorable sister by the food table

Our schedule

There were even ducks in the punch!

I loved the windowsill decorations with candles :)

Prisms making multiples reflections...

"Empowering people to make informed choices"

Us :)

my writing desk

Maybe you know, or maybe you don't.  I'm crazy about writing.  But what really drives me nuts is how little chance I get to do it.  With schoolwork and all my other responsibilities there's hardly any time to sit down and just write down some of my ideas.

So, the other day, my mom was dusting and cleaning off all these old tins and jars she never uses.  A lot of them were really adorable.  She just doesn't need them.  So I claimed one for myself, to keep in my desk.

I was having trouble deciding what to do with it, though.  Finally I came up with something.  There's dozens of story worlds in my head, so I wrote the name of each book, story, or character on a slip of paper.  I put them all inside the jar.  Every day I take one slip out, and I just write.  Not for a particular amount of time, or a certain number of words.  I aim to write a paragraph or two.  I don't bother starting at the beginning of the story.  I just take whatever I have in my head and put it down on paper.  And just making myself write a little bit, without stressing myself out about it, really helps to get the "creative juices" flowing.  Stories I haven't though about in a long time suddenly come back to life.  I may not know where I'm taking them.  I just start getting them there.  :)

(P.S. I rarely actually use this desk for writing.  For one, in the winter it's too dark in my room.  I can see OK, but the light isn't coming at an ideal angle.  I just shove stuff inside my desk [hence the pens, spools of thread, darning egg, ER wristband, and random papers I probably don't need.])