2010h

I'm considering taking on a project that on the surface doesn't seem a big deal, but when you throw in to the mix that I'll be in school full time and working and need to keep a happy home life with my hubbens, it could prove challenging. There is also what my husband pointed out, what about all the other books I want to read and will want to read in the coming year?

What is the idea??

Reading the complete works of Charles Dickens over the course of the year 2010. Yes, I could do that easily enough, but I want to really dig into them. As a teenager I read the works of Shakespeare and filled the book with notes and such. I'm dying to do that again. I know, right, I do that for school. But I want to do it for fun! We'll see how much fun it turns out to be.

I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged, because my husband loves it and thinks it's relevant and that I will like it too. I don't think I can finish it by Friday...but I will try. David Perdue had an informative and interesting website about Dickens, his life and work.

Will I do it? I'm leaning pretty heavily toward yes. But we shall see at weeks end.

Ah, Christmas

This is my favorite Santa this year. He's so sweet, and innocent, very child-like. I know that is not what St. Nick was or that it is what Christmas is about, but that innocent joy and unabashed love are so endearing and very much a part of my Christmas memories.

I dread the day when Joella's kids are too old to want stories. Every year I find ornaments for each of them and come up with a story for each one. Aiden's have been ongoing and about the same main character who I thought up because as a baby he never wanted to be still. We rocked and bounced constantly and that seemed to sooth him, which made me think he'd have good sea legs and so stories about a sailor have be a recurring theme for him. The girls' tales tend to have a fairy tale element in them, and I like to have some sort of moral, or at least sentiment in there as well. This year is no different. I hope at least one of them likes to read. I'll have quite a book to give each of them someday, full of stories writ just for them.

Merry Christmas all!

Christmas Eve

Is't this the cutest Santa? His little legs are just slightly bowed. Too cute. Again, from Meredith :)

Having no school and no babysitting I've been busy sewing to finish x-mas stuff for folks I love. The quilts, oh the quilts. They are not what I had envisioned when I started last summer, but they are cool none the less. I've also been knitting up a storm, and in amongst all this I sit down and practice. I think I've averaged an hour and a half a day, but I do 20 or 30 min. then get up and do something else and go back later for more. I am so determined, resolved to give my best.

I must admit though, I can't wait till I'm done with all these projects for others. I want so badly to work on something that is for me. Just me! Hopefully that day will come next week.

Peace.

Progressions of Santa's

I found this guy at a Christmas shop in VA while visiting my sis this past fall. I love how he looks carved of a log with the bark peeled back as his coat! This one holds a tea light, which I love, and he has a bell on his hat. Both of these Santa's are new this year. I am just posting Santa pics like crazy this week. I've been avoiding things these last few months. It would be nice if work (head work especially) could be done, and then you move on and it's back there where you got it done. But somethings are always there, I hope by continually dealing with them even though they don't completely vanish, I will get so good at dealing that they don't disrupt heaven and earth anymore. Wow. That was a bit cryptic. But I suspect that there are less than 4 people who read this, so I'm good.

Peace.

Happy Yule!

These guys came to me last year via Meredith's mom, Pam. She was my piano teacher from the age of 12 to 18ish. And most of those years I thought of her as one of my best friends too. Her opinion of me was always so important to me. I wasn't always the best student. I had my share of teenage attitudes, but she was always, and still is, very supportive of me and has helped me as I embark on the journey of life in all it's twists and curves. Becoming close friends with her daughter has been a joy and has had more of an impact than I imagine either of them know.

The quilts for the kids are turning out great! I will post pictures soon.

Good Times

These are the first two Santa's Meredith gave me. She's good at picking the one's with that "something" in their faces. I'm going to have such a hard time putting these guys away!

Christmas at the Sinco's went well. That was the label I put on the smallish x-mas party Jason and I had last night. There was good food and good friends, what more can a person want? Preparation for the festivities were more labor intensive than we'd thought they would be, but also were completely worth it. We decided to rearrange a few things in the guest room and study, which we both tend to call my room. Originally we were going to have a room were we'd have all the books and a couple comfy chairs and our desks. but the room is really too small to do that justice and I had to have a place for my sewing and crafting things and doings. Thus the rearranging. Now the books are mostly in the guest room and looking quite nice I must add. Jason found some nice shelves for a steal at a flea market and we cleaned them up and he made extra shelves to fit inside them and viola! It is a beautiful site.

I also learned a valuable lesson. I'm only as neurotic as I let myself be. I have always, and I do mean always, had the freedom to organize and arrange my books the way I wanted, which really only makes sense to me. Friends have looked had my arrangement and wondered aloud what the pattern or sense is to it. So when we actually got to combine our libraries and organize the books, I was having a hard time letting go of my way of doing it, much less successfully explaining it. I won't go into the following details other than to say that my husband is a very loving and patient man and that I realized that he'd never organized his books before and was looking forward to the experience, and after all, they are JUST BOOKS. He did a beautiful job and I think we both feel a lot better about it.

Now, most of the crafting stuff is in the study and I have to get it organized and put away so I can finish some quilts. I will be taking photos of that to post here. I hope I continue to be proud of myself concerning the quilts. We shall soon see! Now, I have work to do, my sister will be here in less than a week!!!

Ho Ho Ho

Santa and wine!! Genius really. This is the most recent addition to my collection. Most of which have come from my friend Meredith, she likes to feed collections and has pretty incredible taste if I do say so. I am still doing the journal, but I want to post pictures of my Santa's for a while. Jason and I worked on some stockings and stuffing them, I'm still working on the last part of that, making gifts while working on finals is fun! Actually it is good, I don't get burnt out on either thing.

This house is feeling like Christmas central! My sister and her family will be here for a couple days after the big day and we are both trying to make sure they have a good time while here. I am so looking forward to having the semester firmly behind me and just focus on family and friends and all the projects I've been saving for these short weeks!

Finals and I'm crazy

Well it's here. Crunch time, the time when I find out how much I've put off and how little I can do about it. Time when I know my heart hates me because I'm so stressed and tense and don't exercise (who has time?). I'd really like to be here. In this picture. Either right now at the ocean, or back in time to when I took the picture. I'd like to think that if I could do that I would come home and plan ahead and stick with those plans. But we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men...

So I'll just take a bit to stop and write about this time, it's vastly more interesting to me right now than what I should be writing about. Which isn't fair, I am looking forward to finishing these papers, not just because they'll be done, but also because I like what I get to write about. Guess that is my cue to get back to it. :)

Thankful

This weeks page is dedicated to the color teal. Previous two weeks pages, the tooth extraction and a yellow house with green trim and a red door, don't necessarily want such a thing, just wanted to write about it. We went to my folks' for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful time of relaxing and playing games, and of course eating delicious food! And when we got home yesterday we got a tree!! Decorating it was fun, Jason took a lot of pictures of that process, but I was in my jammies after a long day of driving and don't want to share all of those. Guano was insistent that he be the center of someone's attention, so many of those photos have some of him in them.

Goodness he's cute!

I am so blessed, I'm madly in love with a wonderful man, who takes such good care of me! I have so much to do for school and the holidays. Life is a bit crazy. But it was good to take a few days and see my parents and put up a tree. Now, there are papers to write, music to arrange and pieces to memorize!

Blue Skies

As I write this it has started to rain, but the above picture reminds me of the blueness of the sky these past few days. The weather has been beautiful, so not what I expect in November, but nice none the less.

On the 5th a tooth was pulled from my lower right jaw and my bottom lip and chin are still numb and hurt from time to time. Apparently this can happen and will go away eventually. The recovery from this ordeal has been rougher than I'd have thought, but the dentist thinks it may well be the last tooth I ever loose because the roots are so healthy. That at least is good news!

That same day my dear husband drove to the Ill. side of STL and back to bring home a sofa from his folks. It is great to have a nice comfortable sofa that is easier to get off of, but it made for a long day, and the weekend following was barely enough time to recover.

I did do an art page last week, but I will not be posting it now. The reason is just that I know I'll be doing another tonight, and would rather wait and to a post just about that, and about art in general.

The same ladies who did the Artists' Way are now doing Walking in this World, by the same author. We are meeting in public later this evening. I should have called ahead to warn the shop, they may want to make sure we get a secluded table. When we get together nothing is sacred, meaning that everything is discussed and then some. Well, and we're loud. Or at least, I'm loud. I can't wait though, chpt. 4 and 5 are so good! It will be fun to talk it out and hear what every one else has to say.

I will leave you today with a photo I took inspired by an artist I've seen in the Somerset Studio magazines.

Halloween and Happenings

This is a printers drawer my father gave me, it's been creamerized and cleaned up an the shells and rocks in it are all ones I got myself, most at the beach, but some from a creek on the AR/OK border and all with my sister. I like this, and just need to figure out where to hang it. Halloween! I was Mrs. Peacock in the (insert room here) with a rope, Jason made me a noose to carry around. I think it's obvious who he was, but it was a totally homemade last minute thing and he was rightly very proud of his costume! His cape had pockets! And on halloween day we did some yard work. Two new boxes Jason made and we filled and he made a nice compost box there in the corner, so so happy!!!! Next spring will be awesome! This week I did two pages because I didn't do any last week. Wed was a rough anniversary for me and that is mostly what these are about. And yesterday I had a tooth pulled and am recovering well. Jason went and got a sofa from his folks and now we have a nice comfy sofa in the living room!! I am so blessed and well loved!

a trip and page 7

Here we are, The Artists' Way girls or "Way Ladies". Last weekend we drove in my car to Willow Springs MO and had an adventure which involved meeting both the good country boys and the not so good country boys and both incidents involved my driving....we'll leave it at that. Hearthaven is a neat place! The two ladies that were there while we visited were so welcoming and good to us. It was a real retreat, complete with collage work and a hot tub! Thanks to Em for showing me how to do a timed photo on the camera! The trees are so beautiful right now! I didn't capture anything like what I wanted to, but I knew I needed to stop or it would be a HUGE mess.

And I'm seriously looking into getting a minor in folklore....it will be very helpful for my long term goal of Ethnomusicology. We shall see. Now back to my paper.

Page 6

My friend Heidi and I went to a piano recital Sunday and I guess it played over into the page I did later that evening. Still 6 for 6...I hope I can keep it up!

This weekend is going to be awesome! The ladies who have been doing the Artists' Way this summer and Walking in this World currently are going on retreat!! It will be chilly, but we can bundle up and I know it will be a blast.

I should post pictures on the garden. I've let the okra get ginormas and the zucchini are gone...and onions that the birds killed early in the season are coming back.....weird. I harvested all the annual herbs to dry for use and am going to transplant most of the perennial herbs so we can turn the beds...and we'll be putting two boxes out!!! Next year will be great!

I have to go to the dentist later today. Life is crazy this semester. All the papers and project to do. And I'm working on a Bach fugue in piano and loving it, but also realizing it is a challenge and hoping I'm up to it. It really helps to have a patient and diligent teacher!

I want to post pictures of the things I've been knitting, but as they are Christmas presents, I will wait. Maybe I can take a group picture of all of them before I wrap them....that's a good idea. I've been a knitting fiend. And am about to be a quilting one too!

Keeping it busy, Peace.

Surprise!

I actually did like I said and am posting this week's page and pictures of the study. This is where I sit every morning and do my morning pages and where most papers get written. And this is where I create. Sew, cut, bead, glue, paint, draw, collage....whatever, it tends to happen here. Jason got me a light to clip just above the table, it makes such a difference! We're gonna do some more rearranging in here, so these could be the before....we'll see. OK, I have more work to do.

Stress is fun Not

I did this page last week. This one i did two weeks ago after being in VA.

I turned a paper in today that I was ashamed to put my name on.....it was bad. But by turning it in on time I can shoot for an A with the rewrite. Late and the best it could have been would be a B. Yeah, didn't plan well on that. Working on improving planning for the rest of the semester, and will be cleaning the study tomorrow. I worked hard core on a altered book....which I should have taken pictures of for this....anyway. The study is a mess and I don't function well in this sort of chaos. So, I'll do this weeks page and get back with you.

Peace.

Virginia

Ah, the ocean!! I had a wonderful time with my sis and her family and was so blessed that Abby could come with me. It was great to have the cousins back together for some girl time. I loved to just stand and let the waves wash over me, if I'd had a bathing suit I'd have been out in them! My feet are burried in the sand I've sunk that far as the waves move in and out. It was beautiful to stand there and feel that, so much power and beauty holding that moment true. It was quite windy! This is Joella, my sister. On Friday we went to colonial Williamsburg and had a blast looking at shops an having lunch. Abby is probably realizing that I will become annoying with the camera soon. HA!

I did a page when I got home last week and have done another this week. So I'll post them soon, but the camera is not close by and I'm lazy, thus it will keep for another time.

Page #2

This week has been on the crazy side. For some reason getting into the swing of things the semester is proving more difficult than usual. Paper #1 is basically done and the first project got turned in OK. I think once I've had a couple tests things will feel more settled. Thursday I leave with my cousin Abby for VA!! The last bit of my 30th birthday bash. I'm pretty excited. I'm also going to miss Jason. This will be the first we've been apart since the wedding. I'd like to say this will be the longest we'll ever be a part, but no one really knows the future. OK, enough with the sappiness. I did this after my walk Sunday morning. I try to go to the nature center and walk the long trail every Sunday. It is so peaceful. I'm not the only one walking, I pass people coming the opposite direction and am passed by people going the same direction but at a faster pace....speed is not my goal with these walks, just going there and doing it is the goal. Eventually I'd like to be able to walk the whole thing at a faster pace and without getting winded or having to stop and sit for a few seconds. I think by doing it every week I will get there soon enough. The terrain is pretty all over the place, at one point you're walking through a field of wildflowers, others you're beside a creek walking on huge rocks which are often slippery and various kinds of forest. I love this place and will miss it when we move. So my Art Journal page this week was reminiscent of the walk. Geez, I should sleep more, I might make more sense, enough!

Change of Pace

I've decided to try and do one Art Journal page every week through the end of this year. This is the first.... I don't think I'm very good at drawing or painting, but I want to get better and this seems like a good way to begin. I'm also very inspired by Pam Carriker, her blog is to the right of this screen, BagLadyArt. Her work with Somerset Studios Art Journal magazine along with many other artists makes things in my head click and I find myself thinking, "I want to do that!" So here I go. This should also help me to keep this updated since I'd like to try and post each weeks page, barring the event that it would be too private. It seems that this has also been brought about by the Artist's Way book that some friends and I have just completed. We are going to begin the second book, Walking in the World, next week, but take it much slower giving more time to take in what we're doing and allowing for the crazy schedules we all tend to have! This past Saturday the girls came over for late lunch at lu's and I was thrilled to have flowers to put out for us to enjoy! Since I last wrote I've had a birthday. The big 3-0! My husband made me a beautiful portable writing desk, shown above, and the whole day was wonderful! I have some of the best friends and family anyone could hope for! And in a couple weeks the celebration will continue as my cousin Abby and I fly out to Virginia to visit my sister and her family!! And finally Donavin. Yes, I've named a trunk. :) I love him! And have been working to get him in better shape, though for his age I'd say he's in pretty good shape. I'd love to use him all the time, we shall see. I think that will be enough for now. I will be working more on the quilts, and putting together a new bellydance costume, to say nothing of all the homework coming my way....but I think it's good to keep up with this, let's see if I can!

Beautiful Day

This is a strip of the quilt for Torsten, Meredith's youngest. His brother decided his favorite color is blue...I will be interested to know what he thinks it is when he is finally talking!! This is a view of the first quilt I made, it is for Eleanor, my friend Helen's daughter. I tried to use a heart theme, but I'm the only one who seems to see it. Oh, well. All the rain we've had was good for the zucchini I guess!! This is today's harvest. Jason's mom gave me a recipe for frozen pickles that I will be putting to use today!! So, the zucchini win. I'm always tempted to capitalize Zucchini....but really think that's just going to go straight to their heads!! I know bad bad bad. The tomatoes are very crowded and I'm thinking of taking one out...we won't be eating that many anyway.....Jason is going to try and restake them as I did a less than satisfactory job at that last week. I say it's less than satisfactory by the way. :) So, school sewing and making things with my friends. Life is pretty good this summer!!

Growing

Aiden with the Guano, chillin', There's a caterpillar in the dill and Serenity wants to keep it. That child is fearless with nature! This is a fraction of the collection, they went through all of them before it was over and Jason came up with a structured game for them to play, I'm so proud of him! Happy 4th of July! Iris looks SO MUCH like Joella, it blows me away. And she's become quite the adventurer, wanted to go as far in the cave as she could, further than Aiden! WOW, been a month, that's no good, no way to have a blog. LOL. OK, We had the children last weekend, pictures above, and are only just now getting caught up. Jason basically worked 10 days in a row, silly man. I am so lucky and blesses and all the rest to have him. He is so good for me. He makes me excited to live the rest of my life with him. This is a nice peace. Other good news, I've lost 19lbs!!! Lost it pretty fast, three weeks, so I'm thinking it will slow down soon, but I'm not giving up. I want to be able to enjoy the rest of my life with him, and to do that I must be healthy. Much healthier than I am now. It's hard. And stinks. I don't like being hungry and I don't like not making and eating cookies whenever I want, but the trade off for not doing those things is HUGE. So, here I go!! I've been doing a lot with the crazy quilts and am so grateful to Linda, Jason's mom, for the fabric and notions she was able to get for such a crazy discount! I will post about the sewing and some other things maybe even later today. School has been great. I switched teachers and am so much happier. I told Jason last week that every morning should begin with Dr. Murray. I guess it helps to love the subject too. Music history of the 19th cen. :) Heaven! You can KIND OF see the garden in the picture of the girls with their sparklers, it's huge!!! Overflowing actually. Need to post about that too. Would have taken pictures this morning, but the rain nixed that. It was great to work out there in the rain. Ah, life is very good. :)