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The Shepherd's Studio             

A Life Well Lived For Yehoshua!

     My Joyful Journey. A place to worship, create,       live, love & LAUGH!!!              

The Joy of The Lord is My Strength!

An Act of Love

12/3/2019

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Our church is doing a fundraiser for a Winter VBS. In Texas each Independent School District (ISD) pretty much sets it's own vacation dates. Our ISD has a very long Winter break well into the New Year. So a few ladies decided to offer a Winter VBS for the kids during their vacation. We have a very small church on a very small budget.

The fundraiser is a very unique Christmas photo shoot. Guess who sorta volunteered to shoot the pics? Our daughter is a professional photographer and she taught me enough that I'm dangerous! 

I pulled my Nikon D80 out of mothballs and snapped 4 pics and it proceeded to die! Not only was I extremely sad because my Nikon was dead but in 3 days, I was suppose to shoot pics! I didn't stress too much over it....many people have some kind of digital camera today....but I was used to shooting a Nikon and I love my lenses. So, that night I went to church and mentioned it to a friend and she said....

"oh I have a camera you can use. My daughter is a professional photographer and she gave it to me to learn how to use, but I've never had it out of the bag. I have no idea what kind it is, but you are welcome to come by and get it."

To God be the glory! It was a Nikon and I did a little happy dance!

Jehovah Jireh! God our Provider!

I've been shooting pics every Sunday afternoon for 4 Sundays. Then I spend a few hours each week editing and sending them by email...in East Texas high speed internet....leaves a lot to be desired! The Lord keeps reminding me to serve with gladness and joy. 

It's been fun....but I'm pooped after standing on my feet all day and doing squats. After I come home and edit them during the week, I'm filled with joy and you might hear me telling a few adults in the pics....keep your eyes on ME! heheehee...never fails...they have ADHD!

Not only was this the best $20 people spent for a fundraiser....they got awesome pics!

Here are a few. Don't ya just love the Texas touch!!! :)
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Humbly His,
​Diane

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Giving Thanks!

11/27/2019

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Psalm 100
A Psalm for Giving Thanks

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

This is my favorite Thanksgiving song. 
I pray that no matter where you are or who you are with, that you will lift up a hymn of grateful praise to the Lord. 

This has always been my very favorite holiday made special to me by my Grandmom Hamilton who was an immigrant to America is 1904. It was the first holiday they celebrated as a family after she arrived with her mother and siblings to join her father who came first to secure a job and housing. Every year Grandmom made it full of food, fun and family. I will always treasure those memories. 

​Bob and I are 1400 miles from our families but it doesn't stop us from giving thanks and sharing a meal with someone. We're having a fella (or 2) from our church share our table and the Lords bounty to us. We are blessed among men. Truly blessed!

As always we will list the 5 things we are most thankful for, just as the Pilgrims who survived that first year with only 5 kernels of corn. 

1. I'm so thankful that God chose me in 1971 to be His daughter and for the blood of Jesus that bought my redemption.

2. I'm thankful for my family near and far.

3. I'm thankful for our 2 new grandlittles who arrived this year to bless our lives.

4. I'm thankful for my church family at Percilla Community Church and the love that abounds there.

5. I'm thankful for The Shepherd's Studio and the hands that built it! (even with it's S L O W internet connection!!!)

Blessings,
​Diane

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Fall Gardening In Texas & Cancer

9/28/2019

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Our temps have finally cooled off a little here. Our high is about 93 instead of 99-110! The sun is much lower in the sky and although we've been in a drought for 3 months, it's not feeling like scorched earth.
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I'm still harvesting eggplant and peppers from my container garden on the driveway pad. I think my summer squash actually do better in a late summer planting. My harvest of Butternut Squash came from volunteer plants that came out of my compost. :) 
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 My first attempt at fall greens only burned up in the heat of August. I finally reseeded Arugula the last week of August before my trip to Maryland and it came on strong while I was gone! I love the peppery bite from Arugula...The Hired Hand not so much. I used it in his carrot juice this morning and he said, "Somethings a little different today." I said, "Arugula!" He sorta frowned but drank it anyway. We're upping his antioxidants and anti androgen foods after we found a large Basel Cell Carcinoma on his face. He's treating it with Rife therapy and food. It's been quite a shake up for him because of the location being so close to his ear, eye and brain. It was hiding under his sideburn, so we failed to see it growing. It started out a good inch in diameter. After Rifing for a month it's reduced in size dramatically. 

He opted out of surgery for the time being. Gave up sugar because if anything loves sugar more than my man, it's cancer! For the most part he's eating a Whole Food Plant Based/Oil & Sugar Free Diet with me but since he is also slightly anemic, he's eating some meat 2-3X week. Personally, I wouldn't but he's his own man and I'll help him whatever ways I can. We're hoping this is the only cancer he has or ever will have. We have an appointment in a few weeks to check on a few other areas of concern. We covet your prayers. 
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I have a big incentive to grow lots of greens for this fall....he needs them and I love them! He'll get a big punch of nutrients in an 8oz glass than I couldn't force feed into him on any given day. 
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I'm making use of everything, even sweet potato leaves! I chopped them up in the mix I made for Spring Rolls. The Hired Hand ate them but didn't request a repeat!!!
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I'm hoping there's a big pot of gold under all these sweet potato vines! Actually 2 big tubs of vines! These are my first ever sweet potatoes and I started a fall pot....we'll see if they have enough time before our first big freeze in December.
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My gardening in Texas has been nothing short of a miracle! We live in a forest, we only have sun in a few choice areas...one being on the driveway pad. SO, since we only have 1 car and use 1 bay, the other side houses my container garden. I think I had a good dozen pepper plants, 6-8 eggplants, and 6 summer squash. I've got a couple pineapple plants, gogi berry, hibiscus, fig, artichoke, a tub of turmeric....and multiple citrus; lemon, grapefruit, satsuma, sweet orange and my favorite, kumquats!  It's been fun trying new plants in our zone 8b-9a. Watering is a daily essential though...but I have a routine now and everybody gets a good drink every morning. 
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I attempted to add perennial plants to my mostly sun/part shade side yard. We have nothing but sugar sand here for "soil". I'd hardly call it soil....it's just sand! But we found a source of mushroom compost and it does miracles for growing after I huff it and haul it 1 load at a time in the wheelbarrow!
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My garden garden is really a collection of "islands" where I've built up the compost. I leave wide open spaces for walking so I can spot snakes...thank goodness...none so far to scream about!!! I use the livestock tubs for carrots, greens and extra space since I'm chasing the sun here too. 
For the most part my 2nd growing season in Texas was a big success!!! I'm trying to embrace the change of pace and rejoice in the different variety. 

​God is the giver of all things. By His hands we are fed. 

By His Grace Alone,
​Diane

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Happy New Year!!!

1/1/2018

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Own Your Life:
Deep Intention
Bold Faith
Generous Love

II Chronicles 15:15b
"They sought God EAGERLY, and he was found by them.
​So the Lord gave them rest on every side."
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Have you ever wanted something so badly that it brought you to tears? And I don't mean something material....I mean, a relationship repaired, a loved one saved, a sick one healed.

In Sunday School we've been studying the power of a prayerful life. I can honestly say that for the last 20 years of my life, I've lived a prayerful life. I wish I could say that for the past 46 years of walking as a Jesus follower that I sought after Him with a prayerful life, but I did not. I'm not even sure I knew how. 

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14

Every New Year I begin with a word or a phrase that I have been especially prayerful over. One that would shape my life in this New Year. A word that defines my life. 
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This was my 2016 Vision Board. 2016 was a TOUGH year!!! But EVERY step was bathed in prayer. Bob and I didn't take one step that we hadn't prayed over.....we didn't want a life of regrets we wanted God's best. Oh, there were tears and some passionate feelings involved....hey what can I say, I'm a Strong Hearted Woman!

Looking at that Vision Board brings tears to my eyes....not one thing on it didn't come to pass. It hangs in our closet to remind me of God's faithfulness to us when we choose Him and His will above our own. 
This years 2018 board has been made very clear to me by God. I'm still gathering words and pictures from magazines....and my daughter smacks her head over my stacks of magazines. LOL! 

We've lived in Texas for 1 year now. We've adjusted well to retirement and being together 24/7/365...in fact, we love being together. We like one another's company....I'd choose to spend time with Bob over anyone else, hands down....well, except for maybe the 2 little guys in the photos. My heart explodes when I see them. No one could EVER of prepared me for being a Nana! 

I have spent 15 months asking God repeatedly....WHY here? Why this little poor rural area of East Texas??? WHY Grapeland Texas?

I'm starting to see it....I'm starting to understand my calling in "retirement".  For 46 years of walking with Jesus I have had a heart for the poor. It could be that He made that a part of me because my family went through some very very very difficult financial and personal times when I was in High School. But my heart aches for the poor and the homeless, the sick and the dying. I know what it is to live in poverty. I know what it is to have parents addicted to alcohol. I know what rage and abuse look like from a front row seat. BUT I also know that God does restore the years lost to the locust!!!

Grapeland Texas has moved up from being the poorest county in Texas to being 8th! 
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I have no doubt that God uses all of our life experiences to form us and make us into His workmanship. 

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

​I'm sure that's why I had a heart to go to India twice and love on all those little orphan boys...I'd go back in a heart beat, but I truly don't believe God is calling me there. God was preparing me for the works He had prepared in advance for ME to do....right here in Grapeland Texas. Of course you'll never see my name in the papers or the headline news...God forbid that. I just want to make a difference, even if it's in the life of just in 1 child. I've started by volunteering once a week just listening to children at the Grapeland Elementary read. 

Our Sunday School teacher is the President of the School Board and he told us that the Texas prison system determines how many prisons to build by whether a child can read by the 3rd grade. I about broke into tears...my heart broke...I failed 3rd grade...I was one of those statistics! I told him right then and there that when they started up the reading program, I'd be there! There isn't a Tuesday that goes by that I don't sit there with those kids and say in my mind...will it be you. And I vow to not let it be on my watch.

I walk a couple miles about 4 days a week and I listen to Audible books....that way I can get more done! You know, multi-tasking! Two miles and 1 or 2 chapters! 

A few weeks ago I started a book I bought years ago....Own Your Life: Living with deep intention, bold faith, and generous love.  Yep, that about sums it up! That sums up what my heart has been telling me. 

My 2018 Vision Board will be Own Your Life or Intentionality...however that word has been way over used in the last few years...but it still applies. I have many things I'm praying about and all of them will go on the board. You'll see dining tables, you'll see children, you'll see art, you'll see gardens....God can and will use anything in our lives if we offer it to Him as a sweet sacrifice. Nothing is wasted with God. Nothing.

I am very excited to see how God chooses to use me in 2018 as I Own My Life! 
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Texas Gardening Challenges

12/2/2017

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My earliest memories of gardening are from my childhood. My parents had a garden at our childhood home. I don't really remember helping Dad in it but I remember rhubarb...that's about it...rhubarb. Both of my grandparents had big gardens. They grew all of their food except meat. I remember the best Lima Beans & Corn, the best berries, the best tomatoes, the most beautiful roses. The best life had to offer.

​PopPop Heath grew the very best watermelons in his lower Delaware sandy soil. He'd take me out to the garden pick a watermelon and then proceeded to cut open a big juicy watermelon and tell me that we were only going to eat the best part...the heart. So we did! Then he buried the rest. At their home, after a delicious dinner, PopPop would say he was going to "bury his garbage"...I now know that he was creating a compost pile...to him it was just a part of daily life...collect your kitchen waste and then bury it. I'm sure he amended his sandy soil with that very same compost. I think of him every time I "bury my garbage"...which somedays, living on a plant based diet...is quite often. I sometimes use compost trenches, sometimes I toss in a bin and just keep piling it in...hoping it's going to break down with the help of a few worms...and I have a worm farm in the garage. The worm farm has been working it's magic for about a year and I'm ready to sift the soil and remove as many of my red wigglers as possible. One sad fact here....we have no worms in this sandy soil. None! 

I remember my first garden back in Maryland. We weren't even finished building our home and I hand turned the sod to plant a garden that was only tended every few days or once a week, depending on how often I was able to go out to the building site. Our ground in Maryland was a clay loam...more loam than clay, but we always had 6-8" of top soil. Always!

Coming to Texas was a completely different ballgame! Texas literally kicked my life long garden butt this year! 

I had several factors stacked up against me.
  1. Sand...everywhere I look it's a sea of sand...but no beach! Some areas Sugar Sand...others a little loam.
  2. Shade...one important factor buying this place was there was no grass to cut (weeds...yes...grass...no..lots of shade)
  3. Heat + Sand=thirsty plants
  4. BUGS! OMGOSH I HAVE NEVER seen so many bugs. Fire Ants!!!!! Grasshoppers as big as my thumb...no joke!

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Meet The Newest Texan!

2/25/2016

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​1 by birth the other by choice and I got here as fast as I could!
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WE DID IT!!! I know many of you were skeptical because we've tried SO hard to escape Maryland before, but it's obvious that it was never God's time until now. Can you tell this man of mine is happy....this is epic that he responded with such joy!

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