All Things Bright and Beautiful

In January, is there anything more refreshing that "bright and beautiful"?

 Adam brought these flowers home on Thursday. Every Thursday morning our local grocery, Food Lion, gives away their "old" flower arrangements to the earliest customers who ask. Isn't that lovely?
Last week (that's 10 days ago!) he brought home these:

 They're still brightening my studio right now.

I started spinning again, just a little. I chose some dark brown fleece that was already cleaned and picked.

 It doesn't look as dark as it really is. I find a nest of dizzed fleece such a pretty, perfect thing. I haven't spun any roving in about 9 months, but it was easy to pick it back up again.

I've been craving an ice cream cone. In January. I know, there's no excuse for that kind of crazy! Adam bought the ice cream, and I said I would make home made cones ... and I did! 

 They're very good, and the recipe is from Food Wishes.  I do recommend it.

Church this morning was lovely. Our sweet people love to fellowship with each other, and it's a joy to be part of that! But now the day is turning cold ... very cold tonight ... and we're hunkered in the house, anticipating warming activities like hot cocoa, popcorn, a good movie, a snugly robe and slippers, snoozy dogs. But Adam is cutting up a pineapple!

 It's a perfect pineapple, and a very healthy snack.

 Last year I transplanted half of my much-beloved Creeping Fig plant into the ground in front of the house, which is south-facing. I hoped it might survive winters there and begin to climb up the house a little. Well ... it is!

Just a little so far, and it probably won't thrive well with our winters, but maybe in a little corner it will look this pretty. I think it's such a sweet  plant.

Tomorrow I'm deviating from our usual Bible study topic. Adam preached recently about turning our fears/anxieties into prayers, as David did. Writing them down as prayers, speaking as David did. You can hardly go wrong with that kind of prayer. I did this with some of the heavy heartaches I'm struggling with lately, and it helped a lot. I felt assured that God had heard me, and I felt much more peace that the problems were in His hands. What relief! Years ago, it was bitterness that was eating away at me on the inside, but in recent years, it's anxiety, sorrow, worry. Surely it's not supposed to eat away at me either!

 Adam made me a cool leather book for which I'd not yet found a good purpose. Now it will be my Fears-Into-Prayers book. I want to be more devoted to praying fervently and long for inner sorrows that I can't share with others, but that I desperately need God's intervention to help -- and not just help the situation, but help my hurting soul too. Here's the book:

When I write my prayers in it, I try to write in the manner David did -- very personal, very pleading, very emotional, brutally honest. I hope I stick with it.

January can be a dreary month. I hope you have some bright and beautiful things in your January that help you through!