La Belle Design

This is my daughter wearing my wedding gown 4 years ago. My mom made the gown. Isn't it a beautiful gown! You can't see it fully here, but it is a floor length sheeth dress with a train that detaches. I designed the dress and went with my mom to pick out each piece of lace and satin used, and my mom painstakingly made the dress, veil, and customized my shoes with matching lace. She even sewed seed pearls into the lace. It is a treasure to me and we only had to make minor alterations to update it from it's original   1992 design--i.e. remove the shoulder poof and bows from the veil and train attachment point. Last Friday was my mom's birthdy and Not Quite Mr. Darcy  was dedicated to my mom. She helped grow my love of reading and of God at a young age. The main character of  Not Quite Mr. Darcy  moves to England to be a nurse/caregiver for a woman in the early stages of dementia. My mom suffered through Alzheimer's for about 14 1/2 years, so the book was a way to ...

  This Christian Fiction/Romance set in 1921 has many heart wrenching tender moments and much redemption. It’s a beautiful story not just of the romance that unfolds between Arilee and Adam, but also of their relationships with family and others in their community. I had the opportunity to listen to the audiobook version and each time I began listening, I didn’t want to turn it off. The way Jennifer folded history, faith, family secrets and even church hurt in with the romance was so natural and they all intertwined into a lovely story.  It left me feeling encouraged and strengthened in my faith while pushing me to dig deeper into God’s word and look to Him for my hope. The romance was touching and realistic as Arilee and Adam work through their own failings and relationships with God.  Other key characters who added much to the plot were Arilee’s brother Davis, and her niece and nephew.  The female narrator did a good job of adding enough variation to each o...

Kindness Review from the last lesson: Romans 2:2-4 ESV - 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man--you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself--that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? This comes in the middle of a section on judging others, but it reveals an important truth about God’s kindness. What do we learn about the purpose of God’s kindness? -God is kind to us in spite of our sin and patient with us in our sin. -His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.  Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV - 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in...