Grooving On Saturday Morning

STUFF I'm GROOVIN' ON THIS WEEK

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300 Thread Count Organic Cotton Sheet Sets from Walmart (clearance price 20 bucks!)

Children's Museum In Portland

Material Objects store in Portland (talk about being a girl in a candy shop!)

Marden's deals on clothes (french connection sundress for 12 $!!)

Wearing Headphones while shopping (no muzak for me, thanks)

Having their checkups over and done with (whew!)

Unexpected craft goodies coming in the mail from mixed media pals

Sprouting Seeds

Holland Frozen Waffles

Charlie & Lola color books

Printable Canvas Sheets

Aluminum lined, taste-free water bottles from SIGG

Tiny butterfly barrettes on tiny curly-haired girls

Sunsweets's individually wrapped prunes (called "ones") yummy

The smell outside of growing things and the ground after a soft spring rain

Leaves sprouting on the trees (finally!!!!)

A new outfit to wear to the assembly tomorrow (yay!)

Hoops & YoYo E-cards

Calvin & Hobbes PC Icons (free from iconarchive.com)

Ah....the sun!

First note....today the sun is shining and the birds are singing.....not just metaphorically but seriously in real life! Who'da thunk it?!!!!

The last week has been an eventful one, weather-wise.....they are referring to the last bit of unpleasant weather as "The Patriot Day Storm". It was a doozy. A week of ridiculously high winds and rain.....and that was right on the heels of yet another snow storm so the ground was so saturated as the snow melted that the rain had no where to go. We had waterfalls and rivers along the roads and gullies and in our basement. Richie had to buy a sump pump (he heroically grabbed one of the last ones off the hardware store shelf just before other customers had the opportunity to!) to get the water out of our basement. We pumped it for days! It just kept draining back in!

Although our cable was out for a couple of days, we never lost electrical power, much to our astonishment. People all over Maine were without power for a week.....even in the city of Portland. Craziness!

Also, last week, my vacuum bit the big one and we were without means to clean the ground in crackers and other meal-residue off the carpets. And the day AFTER the vacuum died, Mia got a hold of a super-sized tupperware container of Cheerios and emptied them out on the livingroom floor. Then, hours later, she emptied out a container of salt all over the hallway, stairs and living room. On Wednesday, some poor sister in a bind asked to drop off her child and I had to say 'no' because our home was no longer fit for human habitation and I would die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw our place as bad as it was. I felt like such a heel saying no but seriously, it was THAT bad.

So after much begging and pleading with Richie to please just go and buy ANY vacuum while on a break from work, I realized that I was just going to have to drag the girls to the mall and get one myself.

Seriously, it had been a week.

You have no idea just how bad it was.

SERIOUSLY.

So yesterday I got out my handy phillips screwdriver and attached the handle to the vacuum (which was wayyyy more simple than I imagined and was also the only assembly nec. on the new vacuum). And then I proceeded to spend TWO HOURS vacuuming the first floor of our hovel.

(btw, the dictionary definition for 'hovel' is:
1. a small, very humble dwelling house; a wretched hut.
2. any dirty, disorganized dwelling.
3. an open shed, as for sheltering cattle or tools. )

You may be thinking, "wow, two hours is a long time. That must not be a very good vacuum." But alas you would be sadly mistaken! I am in Domestic BLISS with my new 'toy'! I spent those two hours sucking up every last bit of dust and cobwebbing and crushed cheerio in the place! I even sucked up spiders up in the corners of the ceilings (DIE CHARLOTTE!!!! poor wilber will just have to get bacon-fied!) and behind the television. I did the pantry, the mud-room, the stairs....I went nuts.

Unfortunately, I only realized the folly of my ways when I was suddenly so exhausted that I didn't have the strength in my wrists to disconnect the attachements and realized that I had to lie down..... (for the rest of the day and didn't have the strength to take a shower to get ready for the meeting.) Not smart. But at least I could rest with the knowledge that I had a clean half-a-house. I am still not up to tackling the second floor but man, do I love that vacuum!

In case you are wondering....(.and who wouldn't be at this point right??? )

........I got a Bissell Lift-Off. It is a bagless wonder with all sorts of handy little attachments and it converts into a canister and you can carry the canister portion all around the house with this little strap since the cord is part of the canister portion and not the upright portion. GENIUS. I used to spend literally HOURS on my hands and knees vacuuming with the hose attachement down on the floor because of the wide spaces in between the floor boards of our 19h century hardwood floors. I would be so sore and swollen afterward that it would take me a week to recover. I only got down on my hands and knees once yesterday while vacuuming and that was to use a really cool new attachment for throw rugs. It was a dream come true!

I could go on and on about my new found love but for the sake of anyone strange enough to even be reading this blog, I will spare you.

Anyhoo, I found some old packets of seeds behind the dryer (no, I'm not kidding) and decided to plant them in some egg cartons to see if they would sprout. Putting them in the ground when I don't even know if they are viable yet seemed like too much of a commitment and frankly, I have exerted myself to the point of exhaustion enough this week, thank-you-very-much.

My crocus bulbs came up during the midst of all that stormy weather and are still standing and grinning happily at the sun today. I'd take a picture but my digital camera is dead due to the fact that I used up all my AA batteries on the flashlights I was putting together in case the power went out. I'm due for the weekly grocery shopping trip when I will venure out into the big bad world of commercialism with a fistful of coupons and a dream of buying starbucks coffee for below retail. (it happened only once and is now one of my current hopes whenever I set foot into the 'dented can' store) So that has been my week.......squalor, rain, flooding, and now clean carpets and sunlight streaming in the windows.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

Wednesday's Mental Wanderings...

As always, the weather seems to be my big gripe lately. Today is Beee-U-tiful! Sunny and bright. Tomorrow however, they are forcasting heavy wet snow. Dude, do they not realize it is APRIL??? Sheesh.....I'm never ever going to get to plant a garden. EVER.

After finishing my collage yesterday, it feels like a big weight is off my shoulders. No deadlines to meet for awhile. Whew! Man, do I hate deadlines.....of all kinds. Not just dislike-- HATE. STRESS STRESS STRESS

Now I'm just stressing a teeny bit over upcoming anniversary dates and a wedding. With the anniversaries,.....I have to come up with some sort of gift idea. Someone help me out here--- what relatively inexpensive gift would YOU like to recieve? Something you wouldn't really buy for yourself but that would be fun and memorable. I'm ALL out of ideas.

As for the wedding....well.....All I have to do is get dressed and show up. It's not like I'm the one taking the plunge and planning out the day to the last itty bitty detail.......But then I'm thinking, maybe, given my constant paleness, I should go mystic tan. Who looks cute in a strappy dress with glaring white arms like uncooked sausages hanging from either side of them??? But then again, even those 'gradual' tanning moisturizers seem to be leaving huge brown streaks on my albino self. This could be a potential DISASTER. I could look like I was hung from a meat hook and dipped in a vat of old cooking oil.....Then I'm thinking, hmm....I'll probably want to wear cute shoes, I should probably also get a pedicure. But hmm...if I get one and then the wedding is a week later, it will look stupid because my nails will have grown, the polish will chip and I will probably already have callouses and it will all be for nothing.

Hmm....I think maybe I should just give my appearance up as a lost cause, look like a frumpy unkempt mommy-type person and just try to focus on fitting into my dress.

Hmm......maybe I should just stop thinking about it altogether.

On another note, I've belonged to silvertag for a couple of months now and haven't even come close to winning ANYTHING. Nada. ZIP. ZILCH. Has anyone ever tried it and won? If so, please drop me a line 'cause I'm losing hope.

ALSO, please please pleeeeeease, someone take pity on me and

leave me a comment.

Several people have claimed to reading this blog but no one ever leaves comments EVER. Dude, one sided conversations are sadly pathetic so if you are reading this, please just give my ego the slightest little NUDGE and click on 'comment' and type something. ANYTHING. GIBBERISH IS FINE. Just let your fingers hit some keys and hit 'enter'. IT's really fine. SERIOUSLY.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, would ya????

Fairyville: Population 12

Here is the two page spread I finished today in the round robin book I'm working on. It's on it's way to Canada now....(man do I hate filling out those stupid forms). The theme of this one is Fairyville. The premise is for each person to create a miniature world and insert themselves as a fairy of some kind.....The quote reads, "If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come." (a chinese proverb)

Still snow on the ground....at home feeling icky today and waiting for the warmth of a REAL spring to arrive.

Monday.....again

Here's a picture of Mia I took a few minutes ago. She loves to say "cheeeeese!".

Not too much going down today. Bella got back from a couple of nights staying with her grandparents. It was eerily quiet around here without her. It is so nice to have her back home, noise and all.

I found some really cool new icons for my desktop. I got them from www.iconarchive.com

My favorites on this site are the starbucks coffee cups

http://www.iconarchive.com/category/food/coffee-icons-by-pixture.html

and the "Birdie" icons

http://www.iconarchive.com/category/animals/birdie-icons-by-jen.html

They also had some great calvin and hobbes ones and dilbert as well as a jillion other cartoon characters. I spent an afternoon changing just about every icon on my pc!

Off to the chiropractors shortly.....have some ideas in my head for the collage journal i'm working on....something along the lines of a miniature person looking thru the viewfinder of a camera....So far I took some pictures of my non-digital camera sitting on my new cambell's soup can tablecloth. I'm starting to feel more inspired so hopefully i'll have this collage well underway by tonight.

Nothing else to report....

later!

Wednesday's Whining

Hopefully this little tidbit isn't too small to read. I've really been neglecting my journalling in all it's forms lately. I haven't worked in my personal art journal, the group altered journal, OR any of my back-and-forth-between-friends journals! It certainly cannot be that I have nothing to say. I'm the biggest loudmouth there is.....always sticking my foot in there, for crying out loud. I think I just have been sort of afraid of my art desk.

Now, initially, I would agree that being 'afraid' of a desk sounds pretty ridiculous. But hear me out.... I walk back and forth across the house, in and out of rooms, accessing how much needs to be picked up, put away, and cleaned in each room I pass through. And then I think, I can't even STEP FOOT in the art room. I have WAY TOO MUCH TO DO! And there is the lack of inspiration....I was inspired like a week ago after checking out information on a whole bunch of woman painters, sculpters, and photographers.....and then got sidetracked with doing busywork around the house.....then the inspiration kind of just seeped away. *sigh*

I guess I just need to put the housework on "pause" and spend a little time at my desk and wait for the inspiration to come. Because lord knows, the housework never WILL be done....

Oh yeah.....and it is STILL SNOWING!!! The weather folks say this is the worst storm we've had this year. It's just crazy. It's April and the schools and businesses are closed due to snow. SURREAL!!!

Ooooo's and Boooooo's

Well, first things first....

IT IS SNOWING.

Yes, you read that right. It is APRIL 4th and it is @#$!%! SNOWING OUTSIDE !!! My chiropractor cancelled on me since the massage therapist can't get to Gray because of the roads. My headache and the rest of the sore parts on me are extremely annoyed with her....but more annoyed with the weather. ARRGGHHHH.....

My spring bulbs were about a couple inches high and then BLAMO! SNOW!! What is going on around here??!!! This is just nuts.

On a happier note, we (and by 'we', I mean Richie) are finished renovating the hallway! I am so impressed with how it turned out, ESPECIALLY the new laminate flooring in the entryway. I wasn't totally onboard when Richie bought the stuff and prepared to put it down but I held my breath and hoped for the best. And lo and behold, it is AWESOME! I LOVE IT! It is the only floor surface in the house that is perfectly flat and smooth. All of our floors are old fashioned wood planks with large, deep groves in between them. (To vacuum any room of the house requires me to get on my hands and knees with the vacuum attachments and suck out all the dust and dirt and whatnot that accumulates there. Makes me nuts.) Out new entryway can be wiped up with a papertowel and sixty seconds worth of effort with a broom! I LOVE IT!! (have I mentioned that yet?? LOL )

OUR HALLWAY

If you click on this picture of the hallway, it will take you to the picasa album where you can see the before and after pictures. (I recommend clicking the 'slideshow' button for best viewing)