Quick Update

I’ve been busy lately!
I have been sculpting a lot, and even trying to sketch a bit.
I promise to show you soon. Er, maybe I shouldn’t promise.
But I will definitely try.

Amazingly, the Mech Dragons are starting to catch on! I really planned to have a pile done to take to OddMall this fall, but I have to start figuring out how to make them more quickly, because I am not doing a good job keeping up at the moment. If you are interested in commissioning one, please let me know!  {Email glimmer @ glimmerville.com is a good way}

Mech Dragon No. 3

Worserly, I am not keeping up with the Ladies Bible Study at church. But I AM keeping up with the “read through the Bible in a year” program – which I highly encourage you all to try. I have discovered some really interesting things, and it’s really helpful to read through the sweep of scripture and not just take it a verse at a time. It all fits together better this way.

I ought to be…

  • Finishing a brass-filigree-enhanced necklace that I am 5/6 finished with
  • Finishing a necklace of blue buttons
  • Finishing the Mech Dragon No. 3
  • Finishing a small clay robot I started a long time ago
  • Painting several clay pieces that I did not yet paint
  • Finishing a logo for Tore
  • Starting a logo for JD
  • Working on a logo for myself (Glimmerville)
  • Finishing 3 or 4 half-started drawings of a character of mine
  • Finishing a sketch of a new character
  • Figuring out charcters for that webcomic idea I had
  • Drawing a Dolphin for Laura
  • Drawing a Minotaur for Gus
  • Journaling for my part of the game night group story
  • Modding my pair of goggles
  • Praying about whether I can go on the missions trip in 2010 due to time constraints
  • Walking on the treadmill more
  • Praying & read the Bible more
  • Watching what I eat
  • Cleaning out the attic
  • Throwing away the clothes I do not wear even if I think I will fit into them again someday (ha)
  • Organizing my craft supplies (but I cannot function without clutter!)
  • Finishing a half-finished short story that I actually liked writing so far (been on hold for years, though)
  • Finishing the “Candlelight” drawing I started several years ago and still like

Feel free to add things you ought to be doing too!

Feel free to add things I ought to be doing that I forgot to list, while we’re at it.

TechCrunch vs. Scoble

Now I just read two completely contradictory articles – by prominent tech folks who know what they are talking about - on how to “manage your friends” on Twitter.

TechCrunch (Michael Arrington) states here that “there is an unwritten Golden Mean that shows ‘more people follow you, than you follow, therefore you are interesting and I should follow you’.” So if you auto-followback and follow people in the “vague hope they will follow you” you would not look like an interesting person and interesting people won’t care about you.

Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) states here that “you need to follow everyone, because you learn from the people you follow.”  So if you follow everyone all the time, you will enjoy having a huge user base of people to interact with.

(Paraphrases mine.)

I think I fall somewhere in between, when it comes to “Twitter philosophy”.

Do you have an opinion?

Growing in Grace

Warning: navel gazing.

Sometimes I don’t think I am growing.

When I work with the youth on Wednesday nights, the youth pastor always asks for testimonies, answers to prayer, and what the Lord is doing in your life. I have a testimony, and I see answers to prayer, and blessings every day! But I never “feel a way the Lord is working in my life”.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter; feelings are just feelings. But often I wonder about it. I hear so many people say “you should be able to look look back on your life a decade/year/month/etc. ago and see that you are holier/closer to Christ now” and I never seem to.

Right now I’m reading through Jeremiah. Back in college we had a class in which reading through the entire Bible was required – so I did it as fast as humanly possible. So this time I’m trying to read Jeremiah with “actual thought and understanding”. I read it through in KJV, and now I am reading it through with a Wycliffe Bible Commentary. Seeing each phrase of Jeremiah with an explanation makes it easier to understand (although reading it in “anything other than KJV” would also make it easier to understand – duly noted). Next I will read it again with my NIV Life Application Bible, for a different take. Finally I think I will try to write it over “in my own words”. This is the biggest “self motivated” Bible study I have done for a decade, to my shame. 

Everyone says “learning about the Bible/God is not the same thing as getting to know God himself” but, to quote a song, “you can’t stand on the promises if you don’t know what they are”. So I will study God’s love letter to us, to learn about Him – there has to be a balance there.

I love all forms of video games & geekery, and sometimes it does bother me when I think how easy it is to spend an hour on a game and so hard it is to spend fifteen minutes in prayer. [Asking “WWJD” before killing an orc is not the same as “WWJD” before spending the hours on the game. ;)]

And which has more eternal value?

I have no happy ending to this post. Just my $.02 and exposed inner conflict, same as any other Christian. It is worth it to ponder this hard question.

Unfortunate Food

This was from the 4th of July. It really didn’t taste bad, but the presentation…

This instantly reminds me of James Lileks great books on “Regrettable Food” such as this one. (Amazon link )

But you can tool around for a long time on his website, looking at his goofy collection of… things… in the “Institue of Official Cheer”: http://lileks.com/institute/index.html

Another work in progress shot

I am sorry I haven’t been updating this blog!

Here is a picture of something I didn’t finish yet, just to prove I am not sitting here playing Plants vs. Zombies 24×7.  The “artfully arranged desk clutter” probably reveals more of my personality than I want it to.

Two half-way-painted birds.
Two half-way-painted birds.
Wow, I just haven’t thought of anything to post lately. It isn’t that I haven’t been busy.

Broken Toe

Yesterday I had a piece of foil on my dinner. I like to recycle the used (clean) foil to use as armature for clay creatures, so I went upstairs to stick the foil in the attic where I keep it. And as I went into the attic, in the dark, and stubbed my toe hard on the cedar chest. I could tell pretty quick that something was wrong, so I went to the emergency room. X-rays easily confirmed that it was broken.

Ouch.
Ouch.

 

So I’m home from work now, with an appointment to see a doctor later. We’ll know more then, but the ER doctor said I’d need to wear an ugly cast-type-shoe-thing for about four weeks.

A Balance

Wired
Wired

I have been busy, with graduation receptions, Father’s day, a wedding, some GARBC conferences – all sorts of good stuff. But I have also tried posting a few things to my ETSY store, like this little wired pendant.

I really love this thing.
But I have discovered that things I love are pretty universally not the things that actually sell.
How do you figure out what will sell, if you sell things? Or do you just make things for the love of making them, and assume “the right person” will find it, when they find it?
Fortunately for me, this is not my main source of income (or I’d be starving, because I haven’t sold anything all year, heh).
How do you figure out what to make? Do you do it for love, or do you do it for fanservice? Where is the balance?
Also, I am taking suggestions, if you can think of something you’d like to see!

Guard Your Heart

This past Saturday was the Hebron Youth Conference for 2009, entirely put together by the associate pastor of my church. He was simultaneously going through a rough spot in his family, so I am awestruck that he put so much time and effort into this as well. God definitely blessed his efforts!

I went as a chaperone, for the youth from my church. The theme was Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The main point being that we, as Christians, are to be holy – which does not mean “off in a monastery” but it does mean “set apart”. We need to keep out of the grime and sin of the world and culture. It’s a hard thing to do, but when the fruits God promises are things like love, joy, peace, etc. it does seem like there are good rewards. (And it is your “reasonable service.”)

I am not going to go over every thing every speaker said, but I will point out a few things that struck me as interesting takes. When you have been listening to sermons since birth sometimes it is amazing and refreshing to hear something that seems new.

  • Holiness is supposed to be as desirable and enjoyable as a sunny day vs. a cloudy rainy dark day.
  • We are not to “pursue victory” and be “defeated by sin” – that puts all the emphasis on US. In reality we are to realize that sin isn’t just a “struggle” within us; when we sin, we mar God’s reputation, as God’s children, and show the world that being a Christian doesn’t make us any different. That should be one of the motivations not to do it. And so it isn’t a victory/defeat issue, it is a “you are being disobedient” issue.
  • Sometimes our ATTITUDE is what determines whether a thing is beneficial to us or not.
  • When you have daily devotions, the object of your devotion is God. Even your time of prayer should focus on God and not just on “God help me X, Y, Z”
  • Keep having daily devotions even if you have no desire; the desire will come later.
  • Since the Bible is inspired, when you open it, by definition you take the the very breath of God!

Penultimately, I want to add a list of “Five things we want the Lord Jesus to be able to say to us if the Rapture should occur today” – as listed by Dr. Michael Peck. (I was even more struck by these since I knew the two other chaperones sitting next to me were going through such family trials that these were heart-wrenchingly relevant – and still nodding and amen-ing along with this. I was humbled and awed.)

  1. You obeyed Me even when you didn’t understand why. (Mt 4:18-20)
  2. You trusted Me even when it was hard (Ps 125:1)
  3. You worshipped Me even when your heart was breaking (Job 1,2)
  4. You loved Me even when others walked away (Jn 14:15)
  5. You accepted My will even when it was not what you would have personally chosen (Ps 40:8, Ps 143:10)

Finally, in the border of my notes during the sermons I ended up with this little character. I drew her once during each message, and so this was message #5, the final version. (We did have a 6th sermon but I didn’t draw her again.)

Oodle
Oodle

Where was I?

For all of January I was very good about posting in here about three times a week. This has fallen apart in February. That’s why I don’t think I would ever be able to do a consistent podcast – I am poor with this, let alone something that requires so much editing.

Anyway I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, and a wonderful Monster Day (Feb. 16, a day where you buy up leftover Valentine’s candy, and get friends over to watch crummy B-grade Monster movies, and draw monsters if you are of the artistic bent.) Not my idea (though I would take credit). I heard of this at Ninjahinjinx ( http://ninjahijinx.livejournal.com/ )