Home, sweet, home?

Hhmm! Don't seem to be spending much time in it lately! But it has been for good reasons. My oldest, Emily, phoned on Friday to say that she had a job interview lined up here in Alabama. I think I have failed to post that she and her dh are wanting to move back from Texas to Tuscaloosa. They found that, while they like the Fort Worth area and have made some wonderful friends, they miss being closer to family. She flew in Sat. morning, so my dh and I went down to pick her up from the airport. She went with me to my Mom's on Sat. afternoon to help Mom with some replanting of some flowers and some work around her house. Then on Sunday, our church choir and some members of our church travelled to Montgomery to sing at our sister church there, Rosa Parks Church of God. It was a lovely, lovely service and they fed us some wonderful food afterward. We were gone most of the day Sunday and then on Monday we took Emily down to Tuscaloosa for her interview and to see my youngest dd, Holly and her dh, who are still in college. BTW, Holly has fussed at me for not blogging more faithfully. Evidently she is my most faithful reader!

Emily got the job! So that was great! We were late getting back home last night and it was early to rise this morning, both for her and for me. She to fly back home and me, back to the grindstone. I don't plan on being up too late tonight!

Today's picture is another of the postage stamp pages done for a chunky book swap.

I am approaching my 50th post soon and am thinking about doing a giveaway, but am not sure if there will be enough interest. Then again, if someone is kind enough to visit my blog, they should be rewarded. I was thinking of a collage pack, but if non-artists enter, I'll have to rethink the prize, I guess.

I will post when I decide what I'm going to do!

Think pink

Finally finished the pink art piece for Jo Anne's pink art swap. You can click on the thingie on the side(forgot what it is called) and it will take you to her lovely blog and the info about the swap. It was mailed off this morning. Hope she likes it. As you can see it is hand-stitched, since I've not conquered my fear of the sewing machine yet. This started as a piece of fabric from a vintage pillowcase which I then embellished with ribbon, felt leaf, sequins, beads, embroidery. The main flower was made from some strips of sheer pink fabric. On looking at the scan, I realize that I forgot to go back and rescan after I added some pink dots here and there. You'll be able to see it at Jo Ann's blog once she receives it. I decided right before mailing it that it needed a little something more.

It has been a few days since I posted. Just finished up my weekend to work and it seems like I was home very little the last week. One of the things I have accomplished has been to start getting my old rolls of film developed. This is part of my goal to begin to get myself more organized. In this instance, I have SEVERAL rolls of 35 mm film, some 110 from a camera my dd had, and did have 4 disposable cameras that needed to be developed. When they were originally taken, I would often not have the time or money at the same time to get them taken care of and then it just got to be something I forgot about most of the time. I took the 4 cameras to Walmart yesterday and had the pictures put on cds only. This way, I can see what is on the film(as I don't know for sure anymore). Of course, I was not smart enough to label the film canisters or anything when they were taken. This only cost 4.23 per roll, so not too bad. Next I'm going to start in on the film, a few rolls at a time. These yielded some pics of Max when he was just a puppy which means those were taken 6 years ago! Sadly, I have film that is older than that. I may post one of the puppy pictures here. Max was so cute!

After I get the film on CD and print out the ones I want, then I plan to get started organizing all the pictures which are now just in storage boxes or in a cabinet all willy-nilly. Maybe, I'll be able to incorporate my own photos and family into my art and perhaps do some art projects for family members using the photos.

Oh, well, baby steps are steps after all and better than no forward progress at all!

Wide awake and ticked off and musings about sleep

Here I am on my off day, a person who loves to sleep late but, normally, on a work day up by 5am or so, to get ready for work, up at that stinkin' time anyway! I woke up at 15 min. til 5 this morning, with a tickling, aggravating cough and with my joints kind of hurting AND wide awake. I kept laying there with my eyes forced shut, telling myself that you WILL go back to sleep. The tickle in my throat wouldn't go away, though, and I just couldn't go back to sleep. Perhaps it is just allergies, as I did end up pruning rose bushes and pulling weeds at my Mom's yesterday. So I gave up and got up, took my shower and the doggies outside, took some allergy medicine and some ibuprofen, and am sitting here at the computer at a time I SHOULD BE ASLEEP!!!!!!

Speaking of sleep, that is something I kind of struggle with. That is, getting to sleep. My mind races too much, so I normally have to take something over the counter to get to sleep, like melatonin or Tylenol PM. I am a light sleeper as well and always have been. My normal sleep pattern, if it weren't for work, would be to stay up late and then sleep late. So in working an early shift, I have to kind of force myself to go to bed earlier than I want to. I know I'm rambling, but you know, I'm up when I WANT TO BE SLEEPING, so bear with me.

Being a light sleeper paid off for a while, since when I first started working as a lab tech, we had to take call. What this means, is after working a full day, we were on call to have to go back in to work, to do whatever stat labs were needed during the night. I work at a small community hospital and at this time in history, the 80's, this was a common practice at facilities like ours. They would beep or call you and you had to get up out of bed and drive into work and do what was needed. Sometimes you got to come back home and sleep a little and sometimes you didn't. I did, sometimes, just stay at the hospital and try to catch a few winks in a spare room somewhere if possible. Then you would have to work all day the next day, after little to no sleep. I did all this for the princely sum of either $15 or $30 extra per night, depending on whether it was an 8 hr or 12 hour call. Sweet, huh! (BTW, they did finally decide that was illegal and started paying us overtime.)

Also, for about 7 years, I worked 3rd shift. This was while my girls were in school and in enabled me to have a flexible sleeping schedule and attend some of their school functions, though not always fully awake and coherent, lol! I finally got just too phyically tired and went back to day shift. I actually liked third shift, but I guess I must have been a little ill at times, because when I mentioned going back to it later, my family would get this scared look in their eyes and scream, NO!.

So now I'm back on days and go in early, because I work 10 hour shifts and I like to get home with some time left in th evening. I get myself through the getting-up- early days by telling myself I can sleep late on my off days, so POOH on this morning!

Also, along the lines of sleeping, I have a question? What do you do with your arms while you are sleeping? I am a side sleeper for the most part or occasionally on my stomach and I find myself struggling on what to do with my arms, finding that often I wake up with them in some awkward and sometimes painful position, like scrunched up under my head or body. Just curious.

Oh yes, today's photo has nothing to do with my rant/ramble on sleeping. This is a pic of both of my dd's taken in November, 2005. Holly still had her braces. I couldn't find a more recent photo on my computer with both of them in it.

I'll shut up for now.

I'm a bad mother

I remembered that Sunday was my dd, Emily's, birthday, but forgot to post about it here. To tell the truth, before church, I got online and sent an email to her and then kind of got a little weepy because she is in Texas and I miss her and then after church, I had to go to Mom's and then the day just got away from me.

She celebrated her 25th birthday on the 13th. As Mom's always say, it does seem just like yesterday that she was born. I am very proud of her and the wonderful young womjan she is today. (Both of my dd's are very precious to me). Emily recently started a blog

The pictures are of Emily and her cat, Bama, who is presently living here, Emily and her Dad, and then Emily and her husband, Craig. Holly will be mad that I've not posted one of her, but I couldn't find a good one of she and Emily, so I'll have to work on that. There is a lot I could say, but don't have the time to compose it all right now. Need to go to help my Mom today with some errands and stuff.

Journal pages about art

One of my "in my mind" goals for the future is to add more art to my life, to find ways to fit art time into my schedule and also to maybe find a way to make it at least part of my life if not my livelihood. This, in my mind, gets into the craft vs. art argument that a lot of people put forth, so when I say art, I don't mean to imply that I am an "artist" in the way that most professionals would mean it. I don't presume that much, but mean perhaps an artful way of crafting, using painting, collage and assemblage methods to be creative in making items that can be used in a decorative manner but also to express a mood or idea. I call that art myself, but know that for some, that would not be "real art", but craft. I do plan on doing some more painting and drawing, as well.

I have a visualization altered book started that I want to express these dreams and goals in and will be sharing that as I go along. Right now I've done the outside, which I've already posted about and gessoed and glued some pages together. In the midst of working on other projects, I've been mulling over how I want to do the expression of my goals on the pages. Like do I want to draw pictures or try to represent them with collage, but what will probably end up happening is that I'll just get in there and start doing something and see what happens.

Home alone!

My dh has gone to Tuscaloosa for the "A" day game with my dd, Holly, and my dsil. It is a pretty day here, though a little cool, so it is probably a perfect day there for a football game. Tuscaloosa can be unbearable when the weather is hot as the humidity there seems to be about 200%. He went down last evening and won't be back until tonight, so I'm enjoying some alone time, which I seldom get. You would think with both dd's married that would not be the case, but my dh is self-employed so he is home most of the time and I spend the majority of my time at work and then several evenings at Mom's with her.

Last night I stayed up late finishing an art project which I can't share right now. I have one more that I am working on for the Pink Art Collaborative project. That one I will be able to share when I am done with it. My art room continues to be a mess because I'm having to work when I find time to do so, and no time for straightening up.

Today I plan on watching some movies, maybe sitting outside and reading on the deck to enjoy the lovely sunshine, continuing to do some light housework here and there, and maybe make a little art that's just because. I know, I know, I could be straightening up the art room since I just complained about it, but that is going to wait until another day. Lovely spring days when I'm all by myself are as rare as hen's teeth these days, so I'm going to "do what I want to do", to quote the Addams Family song.

The photo today is another from before since I've nothing current done that I can post yet. It was another of the postage stamp pages, one that I really liked when it was done. Thought it represented how I feel today, so I'm gonna take my Mona Lisa smiling self off to enjoy the day!

More pictures

These photos were made on Sunday. Although the view was beautiful, if this had been summertime instead of spring, the mosquitos would have probably been unbearable. We have learned this will be a place to go to during dry weather only.

Home from camping

We had a good time, even though we did seem to be swimming upstream to be able to get gone on Friday. Little things kept going wrong outside of the weather, which was very crummy. Downtown Cullman was hit by some straight line winds which caused a fair amount of damage and a gasoline leak which created some travel problems. I had to go help Mom out before we could be gone out of town and then we had a part break on the camper and had to drive to get a replacement before we could leave. It ended up being late in the day Friday before we got there and got set up. We have found out that Point Mallard is not the ideal campsite to go to after a good bit of rain. We haven't dealt with that much yet since after we got our camper, last May, there was no rain.

The pictures above in this post are of the area right behind our camper and were taken on Saturday. It was overcast on that day and not very warm, but then Sunday was a beautiful day and I got to sit outside and read and enjoy the view. I wish I had taken a camera when I first went out, because I had thrown out some leftover popcorn for the birds and a squirrel came right up behind my chair with me sitting in it to eat. It was only a foot away from me. My dd, Holly, loves squirrels, so I went in to get my camera and of course, it ran away. It did come back but not close enough to take it's photo. I did take some pictures with the sun out and some of Max and Angel in the camper. You can see the difference in the blooming of the flowers from the overcast day to the sunny one. I know I'm not the greatest photographer, but I've read that the only way to get any better is to just take a lot of pictures, so I'll just share as I go along.

Where's Mama?

This is a picture of Maximus that my girl's took once when they were dogsitting for us while we were gone on a trip and they opened the door and asked him the question, "where's Mama, Max?" and, bless his heart, this is him as he peered out the door looking for his Mama. Wasn't that mean of them?

Mama and Dad have lived through the tax appointment. It was not good news, but we were expecting to have to pay anyway. To celebrate surviving it and because I've been dying to go camping at least once this spring, we are leaving tomorrow sometime to go take our RV to Point Mallard Park in Decatur for a long weekend there. We're going to have Mom situated OK, I hope, and if something comes up, we won't be that far away. Max and Angel get to go with us. This was one of the selling points of getting an RV to us, that our doggies could go, too. Max loves it, but Angel just tolerates it. She is old and I think she feels disoriented because her vision is not good anymore and she doesn't know where she is. While Max doesn't like riding in the car, he seems to do better in dh's truck which, of course, is what we drive to pull the trailer and he loves that he doesn't get left behind while Mom and Dad leave. I told him we were going day before yesterday when I was cleaning in the camper and he jumped in, sat on the couch, and looked at me, like I'm ready to go.

I plan on taking some books, art supplies, music, and a few DVD's that I've not yet had a chance to watch. It may be stormy tomorrow night, so we'll have to keep watch on the weather. Otherwise, we should enjoy beautiful Alabama spring days. It may be cool enough Saturday night that we can have a fire outside if we find a fire pit reasonable enough to purchase. The campsite where we are going doesn't have it's own fire pits in the ground, so I want to get one of those portable ones. We could enjoy it at home, as well.

I'm taking my computer, but not sure if they have wireless access or not. If not, won't be able to check in until sometime Monday evening.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy April Fool's Day!

I'm starting it off recovering from either food poisoning or a stomach virus. Whatever it is not completely gone yet. We have an appointment to get our taxes done this afternoon, so yesterday in between trips to the bathroom I was working on that. I had already gathered all the papers together, but still had to work on totals. Actually, I still have a few more things to finish up, but didn't feel like sitting in front of the computer to use the calculator yesterday. Our's wouldn't be so bad, but we have the flea market booth and there is a good bit of paperwork that admittedly should be done as the year goes along. I have to admit that I hate that part of any self employment type business. Keeping up with totals and figures just does not appeal to whatever brain type I have. So, while I have an excuse for most of the year last year, being busy working and helping out with my parents and their illnesses, the truth is I could do better with this than I do. I do have an organizational plan for this next year which should help.

Enough of droning on about my problems! Due to various reasons, some already described above, and to me having to work this past weekend, nothing at all going on artistically for me. So another past work is pictured today. This is a collage/assemblage piece I did in 2006 for my oldest dd, Emily, and her husband, Craig, as a wedding present. Has nothing to do with it being April Fool's Day, lol. Just too lazy to search the web for an appropriate picture to go with the day. My youngest dd, who is kind enough to read my blog, happened to be home with her digital camera so we could take a photo of it. I did one for Holly and her husband as well, totally different than this, but don't think there is a picture of it so that I can be fair and share that as well. Didn't get my digital camera until last year. This was made on an old drawer piece that I saved from some old drawers that were in a broken down chest of drawers that had belonged to hubby's grandparents. Then there are different elements that represent them, their interests, and then just the symbolism of the 2 birds on the vintage game card, building a home together. Sorry the photo is not as good as it could be, but if you click on it and enlarge, you can see the details a little better.

Hope you all have a great day and don't get too many tricks played upon you!