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!

One day we will fly away

The 4x4 is another I did in the bird swap last year. It was drawn with pencil, watercolor pencil, and also colored in with watercolors on a gessoed book page background.

Also pictured are my little birdies that have since flown from the nest. Emily, my oldest dd, is the one sleeping at about age 2 with a couple of little buddies. Didn't she look so sweet?! I'll have to make sure she sees this post, because somewhere along the way in her life she developed a fear of clowns. Holly, the youngest dd, was evidently very thrilled to receive the talking Big Bird. I love how we caught that expression on her face!

They both married in the same year, 2006, within a few months of each other. They both have wonderful young men for husbands, so we are very thrilled, even though the weddings almost killed me, lol! I don't feel sad about them being gone, rather poignant about how time flies and how it seems trite to say but true, that it just sems like yesterday that we took the pictures shown above. I don't really feel like the empty nest is a bad thing. I look forward to me and my dh having some time to rediscover us as a couple again and take some trips in our RV and just have some fun. Not that it wasn't fun, raising my girls. I love them to pieces and am very proud of the wonderful,caring, special people they have become. You never stop being a mother anyway and now I also feel like I am gaining 2 new friends as my dd's have passed the age where their Mom was stupid and not cool to hang out with. At least, I feel that way, and hope they do, too. I guess what I'm saying if you can look at the positive aspects of the littles growing up and leaving, it takes away the sadness of them being gone.

Some humorous notes

An advantage to us living in the country is that I can let Max out(both dogs live in the house) and let him go take care of his business. Our property is off the main road entirely. We have to accompany Angel since she is older, little, and has ADD. I would worry about her wandering off or a larger dog attacking her. Max, though, goes off marking his territory and then seeking privacy for other matters. He doesn't like to be watched. He never goes very far and comes right back when he is done, MOST of the time. Occasionally he decides it would be fun to go chase some cows in neighboring pastures. He is part Sheltie and has a herding instinct. We have tried to discourage him from this as we don't want the owners of the cows becoming angry, but Max will still sneek away and have his fun. The humor in this is that somehow he will manage to scare a cow or has really bad timing in coming up behind one and he comes home with a fragrant dark green smear of cow poop somewhere on his doggie body. Today it was only a small bit on his leg, but he has had half his head smeared with it before. The time that happened, I had let him back in the house, not paying attention, doing something else, until a very obnoxious odor knocked me up the side of the head and I turned around to see him looking at me with a totally innocent expression, like, "what?, I've not been anywhere near any cows!, not me!"

Another funny thing. I mentioned in one of the posts about Leonardo Birdman that I had found and then lost a miniature snail shell. Think I figured out what happened. While getting rid of the dead old growth in my little herb garden behind the house, I found some more of the little snail shells, about 5 or so. I brought them in the house and put them on the big work table in my art room. Later on I went in there thinking to glue one on the assemblage. I looked at where I had put them, thinking that I was missing one and that perhaps it had rolled to the side, so looked around the tabletop. Well, it had moved to one side under some papers, but not because it had rolled there but because it had crawled there! I didn't realize this at first, but moved it back to the papers I work on and turned around to get the assemblage piece and then back to see a tiny snail head peeking out the shell. I set it free as well as another one that was not empty either. As for the original lost snail, who knows where it ended up? If it makes it back home, wouldn't it have a wild alien abduction tale to tell!?!

What the world needs now

This was a page for a stamp-themed chunky book swap I did last year. I need to remember how I did this background because I like it. Think a lot of these started out with a gessoed page which I then layered paint on in different ways. The bright colors of this one are what I like I think as I like lots of color but don't use it as often as I should, tending toward more subdued looks. I try to take time to scan all of what I send out, because so far most of the art I've made is for swaps. On looking back at the scans, there will techniques I tried or experiments that I forgot about. Journaling about each different one would be great, but if I took the time to do that right now, I'd never get the art stuff done. On this page, the painted background was my experiment, the next layer some purchased paper, of course the stamp is real, and the words just cut out of an old book. I've seen Jennifer Black use this technique and I really love her work.

I've not had time to work on much new this week. I tweeked the Birdman some more, added some shells to the front of the wings and found another tiny snail shell but decided to add it to the top of the shrinelet as extra decoration. I'm waiting until I think I'm done with him to take another pic and post it.

I did get to Hobby Lobby. Well, should confess I went last Friday and then yesterday afternoon, too. Visiting restrictions will have to be imposed on me, I can see. Limits are going to have to be put into place. Yesterday, though, I didn't spend much. I had realized they had jewelry tools and findings half price and I had been too cheap to pay $11 for a crimping tool, so I went back to get it on sale. I want to try making some of the book thongs when I get a chance and possibly some jewelry.

I've been thinking lately, as this post is bringing it to mind, how I'm all over the place in what I want to do. Debating whether I should try to force myself to focus on just one thing. My problem is I find myself fascinated with each new discovery and want to try each one. That's always been the way I've been. There is just so much out there in this wide world of ours to learn and do and just so little time to do and see it all. As I discover things in the world of arts and crafts, I feel the same way. I want to try it all. I also think that I am trying to find what I need to be doing, what is my medium, what is my voice. Not the only one I will try, but what is the best way for me to express what I want to express or what is my talent, if there is such an animal. I can draw and used to could paint decently many moons ago, but haven't so far made the time to resurrect the painting skills, though I have been trying to do some drawing again. I think for now, I'm going to give myself permission to keep trying new things. Why are women always analyzing what we do and judging ourselves like this anyway? I don't think my husband ever worries about why or what he does.

As for today's picture posted, I think the words speak for themselves.

Excuse us, we're running to Hobby Lobby!

Yes, our Hobby Lobby opened today! And, pooh, I had to work and then we had church services this evening, so I've not been yet. (edited to add: I didn't mean that I was mad that I had to go to church, mainly that I had to work!) A coworker who works 2nd shift came in braggin' about having been there, the rat! She said that it is supposed to be one of the biggest around this area. I would have settled for a token store, just so I didn't have to drive an hour one way to get art supplies! So, YEAH! Guess you know where I'll be going after work tomorrow!

Here is Leonardo the Birdman

I am not sure if he is finished or not. It seems that I need to put something where the wings join the box, but I haven't hit on the right something yet. This is the "shrinelet" I mentioned in a previous post which started out with me wanting to alter a electrical outlet ala deMeng but which turned into a shrine/assemblage piece that is really weird I guess. This is what it wanted to be, though, so here it is.

The outlet ended up being the base onto which everything is glued and is only visible from behind. I glued a rusted box to the front and put Leonardo's face inside. Faux rusted a miniature magnifying glass to glue over one eye and used some beeswax around the face to soften the look some. There are shells, a piece of wooden trim, a fuse, half a hickory nutshell with a lovely heart shape, a little spring(I had a miniature snail shell which I want to put in one side of the spring, but it was dropped and disappeared, so I've got to find another one), twig legs, real feather wings. I forgot to take a picture of the back, but I used small pieces of book text and decoupaged the paper to hold the twig legs on and then also used the same technique to cover the back of the plastic pieces to which the feathers are glued. I really like that look especially on the back of the sand dollar piece. I want to try something later on with that combination, maybe some jewelry pieces.

I've gonna have to keep posting the next few days to move the studio pic carnage on down the page!

Art room pictures

In response to a challenge on the Mad Hat Blog, I am posting some photos of my art room taken without ANY straightening up. Some sad side notes to this, I not too long ago spent quite some time attempting to organize, threw a lot out, and for me this is better organized than it was. At least, I know where things are. Well, it WAS last summer, before my Dad & Mom both had major health problems and of course, I acquire "stuff" here and there. I post this knowing some of you will look at this and possibly scream or laugh hysterically at what was for me a real, honest attempt at organization and trying to do it with what items I had or using inexpensive baskets. At this point in my life, I can't afford to spend a lot on organizing units or shelving.

I am using my youngest dd's old bedroom, only 10'x11' or so. Some of my goals were try to use what I had already, knowing I couldn't do anything structural, to create a small sitting area, a place for music, and a work island or table that I will try to keep clear(cough, cough-notice picture of work island area in the center of the room). So I did what I set out to do, just for an organizational-minded person, I'm sure my efforts are laughable. I decided to post these in the hope that someone out there might
A. get a laugh as noted before
B. there might be the slight off chance someone out there as bad as me would be made to feel better
C. if you're not quite as bad as me, but thought you were bad, you'll feel better knowing there is someone worse

If my Mom used the internet, I don't think I'd post this. Definitely didn't take after her in the way my mind works. In a future phase of further organization, I hope to do better and please keep in mind I am working on several projects right now as time permits, so haven't even been trying to straighten up much, but really if I am working on something my desk top looks like this. SIGH! I should shut up, as in "he that doth protest too much..." or however that goes.

Altered lunchbag

I had received a corporate logo lunchbag at the Nashville trip. Of course, I no longer work for that company, since they sold us to another group. So, I came up with an altered front for the bag. Used gel medium for the glue hoping that it will be both flexible and strong enough to work with the paper and other items I used. I chose the image at first because it is so opposite me and my sweetie just as a joke, but then came up with the words, "if life is a game, play it with all your heart", which I strive to do, not necessarily as far as exercise goes, but in the sense of truly living with your feelings and trying to experience all that you can of what you want to do. Like I said that is a goal.

Robin for spring

Last weekend we had snow and this weekend it's spring! This is a 4x4 I did last year that I thought looked very spring-like. Got one swap in the mail and now need to get to work on some other unfinished projects. Actually I need to do a lot of things, like cleaning and laundry, but I've done a little of both so far today , and little goes a long way, don't you think, of some things? I've enjoyed watching the birds at the birdfeeder today, though flocks of starlings are passing through and scaring all the pretty birds away.

First attempt with wax collage

Today's photo is a 4x4 I'm sending to a friend in an individual swap. I don't think she reads my blog, so should be ok to post a pic. This started out as a piece of my work area paper. I always keep a stack of paper underneath what I'm doing. Sometimes it is some old watercolor paper that is kind of aged-looking already and sometimes just plain white scrap paper(this was some that got folded up on one end so it wouldn't go through the printer) Anyway, these papers catch some great serendipitous colors and textures from the paint and glue. This was pretty textured from gel medium, glue, and paint. I liked it as it was but have been wanting to try my new mini iron to melt wax, so I grabbed some crayons and the iron and dropped some wax here and there. I did think some of it was too thick, so I used the iron to remove some of it. The wax was used as the "glue" for the paper page elements which are a small medieval picture and the gold paper is some more of the scrap paper painted gold and then cut out with decorative scissors or punches. I attached a "believe" charm with a tiny brad and the cross overhead with gel medium. Presented in honor of Easter and the meaning behind it.

So excited...

...I can't sleep! Have you seen that commercial for Disneyworld? The little boy is so cute! Well, my excitement is from the fact that there will very soon be a Hobby Lobby opening in my town, only 2 minutes from where I work. Hhmmmm?!? This could be both very good and very BAD! Right now the nearest craft/art supply store is a Hobby Lobby either 40 miles north or south of me and a Michael's even further than that. With gas as high as it is, I can't make myself take trips off that far, just to get "stuff", well, I only go every few months or so. If we go to see my dd and dsil in Tuscaloosa, sometimes I can get to the one there. It could be argued that I don't really NEED a lot of things and I might agree with that, BUT ya gotta have some glue and basic supplies sometimes. And what is the harm in checking out the clearance section while you're in there? I've taken to driving through the parking lot of that shopping center to check out the progress. Today I did really have to go to Pet Depot to get my spoiled allergy prone doggy some Sweet Potato/Fish dogfood and am glad to report the parking lot of Hobby Lobby was full of cars of employees working industriously as I could see through the windows putting up shelves and signs AND there are lots of dumpsters full of garbage which surely means that lots of STUFF is being unpacked. All official signs are on the front and back of the building so thumbs up on the progress!