About Cranberry House              Kathleen D. Angell   I live in Troutdale, Oregon, where there are some cute retail shops. A cozy warm area you can stroll down and look at antique shops with crafty things in them. I had looked there, some time ago, to start a small business. Everything was out of my price range, which is very small pickin's these days. So I had set aside looking there for the time being, but it was the place I truly wanted to start a small shop. I ask the Lord in prayer, out loud in my kitchen one night, mentioning all the reasons I thought it was a good idea to have a small shop, knowing in my heart it was sincere and why I felt it would be best to have an inexpensive place to start. I ask for something between -and - amounts. The phone rang a bit later, and it was a lady with a shop I'd looked at some time back, at the very best price now, a place they hadn't planned on renting separately before. Wow! Like many prayers in the past, this place was an answer to that conversation with the Lord. My confidence was now full to start because the Lord brought it and I knew it was okay. I now know what it means when Jesus says, that their joy be full. Ask anything in my name that your joy would be full and that we would go and bear much fruit. That is exactly what comes to me as I share. That in knowing that I ask, and the Lord brought the answer, my joy was full, and now my confidence was also strong in going, to go out and do and bear fruit, as I knew the Lord brought it. And so that is how Cranberry House has gotten started in Troutdale, Oregon. I'll be opening about March 20th, '09.  I'm starting a blog/ diary of sorts, on shopkeeping, and crafting, and most of all, about the Lord's wonderful ways, in downtown Troutdale. If you are ever in the area, come by and visit me.

He restores my soul                            Kathleen D. Angell   Whoaa, I went looking for stuff like wood chests last night, to re-do. I get off my regular job at six o’clock and thought I would catch a used store, and then go to the shop to work. I bought some pretty soft sage paint, black paint, found a huge can of red brick -like paint, and had painted alot of things black the night before and was on a working and painting, roll. I only have a short time in which to get product and the work done, in the shop we are opening. I couldn’t believe the prices in the used store. Scrungy stuff in the worst sense of the word, with that old creepy used look. At new prices. Someone went out smiling with some furniture, so obviously they know something that I don’t, or are oblivious to something I do know. One hundred and fifty dollars for what was I guess, considered an antique, but would really be listed as a throw away. The kind of thing you stick behind the barn, it’s so used out, and then when someone finds it for free they feel good. I feel compassion for the people every time I go out shopping. I can’t help it. Jesus loves them so. Sheep without a shepherd, no one seems to care for them. Even the shop I was at is suppose to be religiously based, and in their earlier days, did a most wonderful work, maybe they do now, too, I don’t know. But when I view the prices I can’t help but wonder. Why would anyone not want to show their Savior’s love, to the poor. Why would we not want to flood them with the love of our Lord by right doing? Why would anyone want to over charge the poor. I don’t seem to learn, though, as I go through this same routine about once every so many months. Sometimes I like to go to just be with the people. Jesus loves them so. Except sometimes I think they wonder what I am up to having such a good time smiling at everyone in the used store. Lord, give me grace to know where to take your love to. And keep me in remembrance that that is what it is all about. It is so easy for me to get grungy in my attitude, in the worst sense of the term, with just day to day things. He restores my soul.