A lesson in beans

 For some time now I have become convinced that you should not pray for patience.  I am of the belief that the way God proves to you He has answered that prayer is to test said patience.  In fact, I think this might be how I got Mikayla ;-)  One day I must have been praying for patience with my not quite one year old Noah and God chose to answer my prayer by blessing me with not one kiddo to test my patience, but two!  A hard lesson learned some days, even if I do love them dearly and wouldn't trade them for anything in the whole world.

That being the case, since I know it wasn't me praying for patience, I think someone must have been offering up a prayer on my behalf a few weeks ago when I stumbled across what I was convinced was the cutest wreath and instructions for creating it.  A styrofoam wreath, a hot glue gun and some beans - how hard could it be, right?

Well..

First of all, I can never do things the easy way.  The wreath that I had come across was done in dried lima beans.  But when I got to the store and saw the lima beans I decided they were too big and opted for northern beans instead.  It'll be so much cuter, I thought.

Then...

I can be really cheap at times.  The picture that I was looking at was of a circular wreath that was actually flat on the top and bottom.  But when I got to JoAnn's, that kind was $2 more than the wreath that was a circular tube!  Not about to be 'ripped off' I settled on the less expensive wreath.  There's really not any difference, I thought.

So I brought my supplies home and started my wreath.  I decided I wanted the beans in a slight curve to wrap around.  I'll only have to do the 'top' I though.  No one's going to ever see the back once I hang it up.

WRONG!

And I quickly (after I was about a 1/4 of the way through, so maybe not so quickly) realized that the way I was laying the beans out meant they wouldn't line up.  And it was going to look terrible.  And what a waste this all was.  Totally out of patience and with slightly blistered fingers from the hot glue, I ripped off all the beans I had already put on, cursed a few times for good measure and put the project away for the night, not sure if I would get back to it.

A few days later it was still calling my name, so with a deep breath and with a quick prayer for patience, because I KNEW it was going to be tested, I started again.  I am not one to start something and not finish it and I had been too excited about this from the start to quit.  And I'm glad I didn't - it turned out fabulous!  I'm planning on putting it on the front door and changing out the ribbon I use to hang it with every season.