“Mom, are House-Elves real?”

I was sitting in the kitchen when I heard one of our sons ask this question:

“Mom, are house-elves real?”

For those who do not know, house-elves are fictional creatures from the Harry Potter series. They are essentially slaves or indentured servants who can only be set free if they are given clothes. If that does not happen, they could end up serving the same family for eternity. They are tasked with everything from washing dishes, to cleaning rooms and shining shoes, to preparing dinner for the entire family.

Walking Home in a Suit

I will never forget the time I walked home from work in a suit. It was early in our marriage and we had just purchased our first home, and so did not have money to buy a second car. Fortunately our house was exactly one mile from where I worked, so I was able walk to work for the better part of a year.

During that time I received offers on occasion from coworkers for a ride either to or from work, but these were few and far between. The day I wore my suit, however, was a different story.

The Wise Man and the Baby Jesus

With the lack of snow this year I have really been struggling to get into the Christmas Spirit. We have our tree set up and we have been practising Christmas hymns with our church choir since Thanksgiving, but it just hasn't felt like Christmas. On top of this we have been trying to sell our house so the majority of our decorations are all boxed up and inaccessible.

As a family we finally decided to go ahead and set up some of our decorations, so I took the kids with me and we dug out a box of nativity sets that my mother-in-law had given us last year.

We brought them home and began unwrapping the tissue paper that each piece had been carefully stored in and started to assemble the different nativities. It took us a minute to separate each set from the others, and when we were finished I realized that there were a couple of odd pieces that didn't match any of the others. It was then I remembered that I had given her an incomplete set I found on my mission.

Incomplete is probably too generous a word, the set was all but gone! It consisted of two pieces, namely the Baby Jesus and a Wise Man. As we set up the nativities on top of the piano, the thought struck me at the significance of this odd set. Of all the pieces to survive it was a wise man and the Savior.

Human Eye

Date: March 10, 2014
Medium: Pencil
Description: The human eye has always fascinated me as a drawing subject. Over the years I have taken several lessons on how to draw the human eye, however I still struggle with eyelashes!