Outside Carrot Top Studio: Time With Family & Life Lessons

Last week I ventured out of Carrot Top Studio to head East for time with family. Here's my mom (who I get my gift of color placement and love of fabrics from) and my daughter (who has a great artistic eye for photography) and that's my dear son making the photo bomb. His action is an example of the good fun we were able to have throughout the holiday. Life lesson: laughter is a gift.

Many of you have bought our peace and healing themed stoles that give back to the Alzheimer's Association in honor of my mother in law. We loaded the iPad with pictures from her past and enjoyed traveling down memory lane with her. She doesn't speak much anymore but it was interesting to see which images she'd react to by tapping on the screen with her hands. Life lesson: visual images can speak loudly.

Last Monday we spent time with my husband's Aunt Mary. She was the one that introduced my husband to the joy of trips into New York City for shopping, fine food, and a bit of Italian opera. In recent years we all loved eating strawberry ice cream with her as this particular food brought her little bits of joy. Aunt Mary was surprisingly called home as she slept that night. Life lesson: savor each moment and embrace those little bits of joy.

I write this on the 6th Day of Christmas. As Christians we can mark this day not just by thinking of the six geese a laying in the popular Christmas song but as the six days of creation that confesses God as Creator and Sustainer of the world (Genesis 1). My take away from a very full last week, logging 30 hours of driving, spending time with friends in our former hometown, cherishing time with family in three additional cities, and celebrating the life of a loved one leads me to the last life lesson: "He upholds all things by the word of his power." Hebrews 1:3. I am so grateful for God's love and the witness I have had to it this past week! 

P.S....it is great to be back in the studio....doing some cleaning out and goal setting this week! We'll be back with new inventory and plenty of ideas for 2015! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram (carrottopstudio) for the latest news!

Remembering

The last few days have been full of remembering for my family and I as my father-in-law left

...a Christmas Eve, gathered around the table, telling stories

this earthly place and was called to a better one last Thursday. His wit and ability to tell a story or joke was supreme. Over the years much family time was spent around the dinner table listening to stories from his past be told. We'd heard them many times before but his enjoyment in remembering kept us on the edge of our seats with intrigue and usually much laughter. These stories and memories are comforting to us now and we will carry them forward into the generations to come.

I'm the kind of person that enjoys looking back, hearing about the past and learning from it. In this moment of my life when we've said good bye to the man we called "Sox" I am so thankful that God gives us the gift of story, recollection and gleaning knowledge from those that go before us. And maybe that's one reason I enjoy connecting God's Word through art on ministry stoles at Carrot Top Studio. 

symbols on ministry stoles tell the story of our faith

Story telling is powerful in so many ways. The stories engage us, give us hope, and they can awaken us. I realize that a stole on a pastor, minister, or priest isn't essential to the ministry. But our anticipation is that if it is your tradition to wear a clergy stole that it will be a tool that helps you tell the story of our faith.

*curious about this Advent stole? Read about it here.

*BTW-we called him "Sox" because of an incident in the golf course locker room...involving stinky socks....and that's just one of the stories!