Challenge #24--Midway Reflection & Voting Reminder

Hello everyone! We have reached the midway point of Challenge #24. The theme for this challenge is all about SERENDIPITY.   As usual, I am going to share a little introspection with you all that I am also presenting on my own personal blog in my "Motivational Monday" feature.

Sweet Serendipity

Ah sweet serendipity... that fortunate hapenstance where luck has us finding valuable or pleasant things that we had not looked for or anticipated.  Today I'm going to do something a bit different.  I'm going to share a personal story of how serendipity worked in my own life.

A long time ago, in a small town in central Ontario, a young girl dreamed of what her future might be.  She had always been fascinated with sign language and hoped one day to learn it.  Now when this young girl applied for college she found only one program that she was interested in, among all the courses available at all the colleges in Ontario.  That program would teach her how to work with children who had exceptional needs.  Just after her 19th birthday she received a letter stating she had been accepted into the college of her choice.  With deep joy she let out a little 'whoop'.  However, the next sentence took it away.  While she had been accepted into the college, unfortunately the program she chose was no longer available.  Her poor heart was broken.  Now what was she going to do?  There was only one program she had been interested in.  However, as she kept reading, the letter went on to recommend other programs that might be similar and her heart started to re-mend.  She read through the first two and no interest sparked but then she got to the next one in the list.  As it happened, a new program was being implemented that very year.  The program was called, 'Sign Language Communicator'.  At first she did a bit of a double take and had to read it again.  Sign Language?  Really?  If she'd seen that one listed, it would have been her first choice off the bat.  It seems that serendipity stepped in at just the right moment.  So, this young girl, full of dreams for her future enrolled in the Sign Language Communicator program and toddled of to college that very fall.

Now let me tell you another story.  This time it is the story of a man who was not satisfied with where his life was and decided to go back to school.  This man had always been fascinated with sign language and the deaf community.  In fact, he volunteered regularly with The Canadian Hearing Society in the city he lived in, in western Ontario.  He applied for and was accepted into St. Mary's college in Michigan into their sign language program.  He was very excited.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the tuition was going to be outrageously expensive and since the college was in the States, he could expect no help with funding from the Ontario government.  His poor heart was broken.  Now what was he going to do?  There was only one program he had been interested in.  As it turns out, he soon found out about a new program being offered in his home province and his heart started to re-mend.  He applied to the college offering it and was accepted into the college.  It seems that serendipity stepped in at just the right moment.  So, this man, full of dreams for a different future enrolled in the Sign Language Communicator program and toddled of to college that very fall.

There were twenty some odd students in the program.  Mostly females but there ended up being two men.  One was married and one was single.  Since the class size was so small, everyone got to know each other well although groups started to form.  Mostly, the more mature students hung out together and the younger ones in there own click but everyone knew everyone and all were friendly.

During the second year of the program, the young girl started to struggle with the actual signing part of the program while the man struggled with the other components.  It seemed natural that these two come together to help each other out and so they did.  Within a month though, their friendship started developing into something else and a few weeks later they became a couple.  Three months later they became engaged, and fifteen months later they were married.  On April 29th of this year they will celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary together.  Neither of these people expected it to happen.  As the man often stated, "he didn't go to college to end up with a wife but somehow it worked out that he found one anyway".

Ah sweet serendipity...that fortunate hapenstance where luck came into play and directed the future of two people's lives.  Neither us these people had anticipated that the college program of their desire would come into existence.  Without that happening, these two people would never have met, never fallen in love and married.  Had it not been for the program opening up at just the right time, their lives would have taken very different paths.  Instead serendipity stepped in and they both found pleasant things that they had not looked for nor anticipated.  The quote by Lawrence Black that I used on the front of my card says it all as it could apply to both circumstances--their college program and their subsequent love:

 Serendipity: 

Look for something,
find something else, and
realize that what you've
found is more suited to your
needs than what you thought
you were looking for.

All I know is that without serendipity coming into play, I would have had a much different life.  Thank you serendipity!

As a reminder, here are the watermarks and links for the wonderful images that the team worked with for the midway.

 From Sami Stamps...

With You (Valentine's Day and love category)

Umbrella Splash (Spring and Easter category)

A Little Bit O' Luck (St Patricks Day category)

On Your Arm (Valentine's Day and love category)

From Lunagirl...

Dance Digital Collage Sheet

Wind Roses Compasses (Turquoise) Digital Collage Sheet

Wedding Day Digital Collage Sheet

Owls Digital Collage Sheet

We are fortunate and blessed to have the chance to work with all these fabulous images during the midway.  Thanks so much to our amazing sponsors.

To help inspire you down the path of serendipity, check out the wonderful projects most of my Design Team had the opportunity to create.  I even had the chance to participate as well...

Finally, that leaves our...

Stephanie, from Steph's Scrap Happenings, who is our guest designer this month, created this gorgeous card...

Clicking on the team members name (or in the case of our GDT, the blog name) will take you to their blog where you can check out the details for their inspirational creations!

So if you haven't entered already, what are you waiting for?  Create a project and/or post that is positive AND relates to serendipity, provide an explanation of how your project and/or post relates to the theme somewhere in your post or come over and leave a comment with the explanation.  Easy, peasy!  You can enter our latest challenge by clicking HERE.

Also, I know that the participants would love for you to go and pay them a visit.  Remember we're creating a Path of Positivity to follow one project at a time and we'd love to see you somewhere on that route even if it is just by leaving a comment on an entry from someone who has touched you somehow with their project and/or post!

If you are new to this unique challenge, you can find out the impetus behind why I started it under the 'Introductions' tab and all the details you need to know in order to participate, in the 'Challenge Details' tab (both tabs located at the top of the blog).

Don't Forget...

You still have until 11:55 p.m. tonight, to vote on your favourite entry for Challenge #23.  Voting is quick, easy and painless so I hope you will consider casting your vote if you haven't already.  Don't forget, if you leave a comment after voting, you have the opportunity to walk away with a selection of digital papers created especially with your interests in mind. To check out all those eligible and cast your vote, click HERE.  Winners for challenge #23 will be posted next Monday.

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER MOTIVATIONAL QUOTE ON SERENDIPITY?
If you need some additional motivation to help inspire you, I've provided another sentiment on this month's theme (the first is available HERE), free for you to download.

 Left click to bring the image up into the lightbox in its full size and then right click and scroll down to 'save as'.

Credit Notes For This Creation:
© 2015, Lisa L. Décosse.  PUO.  However, you are allowed to use the sentiment on handmade projects that you intend to sell on a small scale basis provided credit is given. You also need to include a credit note and a link to this blog should you use any of my images in your creations and post them on your blog. Please be sure to familiarize yourself with my full terms of use found in the 'Download Instructions & T.O.U.' tab at the top of this page.  Of important note:  Please do not share my images with family, friends, etc. Additionally, do not post any images to file sharing services like Box®, 4-Shared®, etc. Instead, please direct people to my blog so they can grab the image for themselves. If you would like to post a watermarked version of the image, please contact me to obtain one. 

This word art creation is in png format and published at 300 ppi. It is quite large in order to accommodate different programs that people work with.   If you are a card maker you can always resize it smaller without distorting the quality.

Font Information:

• Foglihten font created by gluk
• Butterscotch font and Butterscotch_Alt_p_to_z created by Nicky Laatz

Click on the font name to take you to a download location.  The first font was listed as free for commercial use at the time this project was made.  The second one is one I have purchased as part of a bundle and the licence states that it may be used for commercial purposes.  As such, it is my understanding, that I am within my rights to use these fonts in my creations and offer them to others.  Please refer to my full terms of service for what you can and cannot do with this digital creation.

SUMMARY
Whether you are new and need to familiarize yourself with all the details,  or a returning participant and just need to refresh yourself, you can always find out everything you need to know in order to enter this challenge in the 'Challenge Details' tab at the top of the page. You can enter the challenge by clicking HERE to take you to the current challenge post where you can also find a quick summary of the details related to this challenge, towards the bottom of the post. 

GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY...

Please show your support to our wonderful guest sponsors by going over and checking out their work and saying hi if you have the chance.  As mentioned above, this month our guest sponsors are...

Our regular sponsors include...

 

  If you ever have any questions be sure to EMAIL ME or just leave me a comment.

We look forward to seeing you participate!