TIME keeps tick tick ticking away....

I was opening up an old journalling book that had exactly two entries in it from somewhere around five years ago and lo and behold I found some really great articles that I had previously printed out about journalling. From the previous dates on the journal entries in that book, it is probably obvious that i'm one of those people who starts off with a project with the best of intentions and FULL of GUSTO and then my enthusiasm peters out and I forget all about whatever the project was as it disappears under mounds of paper and supplies of OTHER projects.

I have a whole stack (if I could actually find them all and store them all in one place) of journals floating around the house.....and they all have several entries at the beginning of the book and lots and lots of blank pages. My reason for pulling out that particular journal book was that I (A) actually knew where it was located and (B) had yet another burst of enthusiam for putting pen to paper. I decided to start writing down three positive things everyday that I had experienced. That was almost a week ago and so far there are two entries. Soooo....SORT of a success....

But Back to the articles that I had printed out and tucked into the journal.....They were all printed out way back when I was working on office job. They were all from a website called themestream so I figured I would go back there and see if there were more writing gems to be scooped up. Alas, the site is gone and replaced by one of those 'browser' sites that makes popups appear all over your screen. (joy) So I did a google search and stumbled upon a really cool site: http://www.creativity-portal.com

What a GEM!! There are lots of articles on writing and painting and trusting your instincts and stuff to get you going when you are blocked. Alll KINDS of great stuff! Lov-ing it.

So that is all I have to say today. I've spent ENTIRELY Too much time online today already.

I was hoping to do some cleaning up of my dining room table (alas, there is very LITTLE actual dining done on it) and/or of my actual craft table in the craft/play room.

Have I cleaned even one thing? Nope.

Have I spent any of my precious time making art or USING my creativity? Negatory.

Will I probably waste even MORE time online today.

YES. Definitely yes. *sigh*

JUST LIKE YOU, MOMMY

While we were at Christmas Tree Shops over the weekend, Bella spotted this Cinderella Wig and was very excited because she had recently been talking about how she wanted to have

"Yellow Hair Just Like Mommy".

I tried to explain that she would have to wait till she was a grownup to have 'yellow hair'. But when we found this wig, how could I say 'no' when she was so excited at the possibility of having yellow hair like her mommy???? LOL

SUMMER IS ENDING...

Being that it is the end of August, I am anxious over the coming colder weather. It seemed like the summer wasn't all that long this year. We NEVER made it to the beach (except one cold day in late spring I went with girlfriends). When I say colder weather, i'm not talking freezing rains or bundling up in scarves and mittens. But it IS seeming like time to pack away the shorts and tank tops. It's time to start wearing socks around the house and short sleeves are replacing the tank tops. No more tanning (or sunburns). I love the seasons here in New England but at the end of each one, I start to get sentimental and wish it would last and last. (except for winter....winter is so long that I am thoroughly ready for it to be over when the time comes!) The golden rod that is growing everywhere on our property is making Richie sneeze his head off.

The garden is really starting to produce now. We ate some the GIANT greenbeans last night for dinner. Bella is holding up one of the smaller ones. I swear some of them were like a foot and a half long!

Yesterday afternoon was beautiful and all four of us went outside to play for awhile. I decided to take some mailbox pictures across the street from our house and Mia decided to follow me. She is such a little TINY person with her wild crown of curls.

Here are my two little ones in matching sundresses. I dressed them in these dresses on the last warm day forecasted. It was a now or never deal.... Bella still loves to wear clothes matching either me or her sister. I think it makes her feel sort of safe, like she belongs. It seems to be an ongoing theme with her these days.

Now is this MY daughter or what?

She was soooo excited at the bakery counter, pointing and jabbering on excitedly over all the "cookies".




Here are the girls yesterday afternoon on the slide. If you look really closely, Bella has her "kitty" (she is a girl kitty but has no name at this point) with her on the slide.

She goes nowhere without her kitty lately.

It sleeps with her. She puts it down for naps when "it is tired" and wraps it in blankets when "it is cold". And it is a major catastrophe when kitty goes missing. She was missing once for like most of the day once and it was a very emotional time for her. As it turned out, Kitty was 'hiding' in the living room under an opened book. Bella likes to make kitty hide but tends to forget where she is hiding. Yeeeshh.....

What's really funny though (to my twisted sense of humor anyway) is Mia's complete disdain for kitty. She likes to take the kitty away from Bella and throw it as far as she can. Sometimes Bella will set the kitty down while she plays and as soon as Mia spots it unprotected, she runs and grabs it to stash it or toss it off somewhere. Yesterday, Bella left it in the tricycle basket on the porch for safe keeping. Mia of course grabs it out and pitches it out and over the porch railing as far as her chubby little arms can throw.....

Poor kitty....

CREEPY CRAWLIES

Soooo....most of my friends are aware that I have a real problem with spiders.

Not so much a 'problem' as a Phobia Actually.

In fact, the first time I watched Arachniphobia, I was annoyed that someone in the room with me was screaming at some point. I was like, HELLO, you are ruining it for the rest of ussss.....Then I realized it was me.

How is that for an out of body experience?? Very strange....the way phobia's work.

Anyhooo.....my four year old wanted to see "the pig movie" so I got her a copy of Charlotte's Web to watch. This was one of my favorite books as a kid. I read it over and over. My little paperback copy was bent and tattered from all the times I'd poured over it, savoring every word. (I always pictured myself as Fern, the little girl on a farm who related to animals rather than people and didn't like wearing dresses.) And yet, I couldn't bring myself to watch the movie. For some reason, READING about a blood sucking talking insect was considerably easier than seeing one on the TV screen. (kinda the same for vampires....on paper they are romantic and mysterious and on the television they are just creepy and icky and gross).

So today my little one wanted to watch the movie again. And since I had a brimming bowl (that is the size 'cup' I prefer) of coffee and a plate of breakfast, I sat down to see if I could watch it. And to my amazement, I DID ! I even cried when Charlotte died. And couldn't stop. What is up with THAT??

My four year old was so busy talking about the farm animals that she was a bit weirded out when she noticed me hastily wiping away the tears-- so I don't think she really gets the death concept. But that is okay. I was just surprised at how much I still cared for this little talking-with-a-large-vocabulary spider from my favorite childhood story.

WHO KNEW???

By the way, have you ever had baby spiders balloon down out of their egg sac ONTO YOU??? I have. I still have nightmares about it. And if I am too sleep deprived, sometimes I Hallucinate that it is happening again. (Yeah, it freaked me out a TINY bit.)

I have to say, if they really yelled, "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!" when they were parachuting away I might think they were a bit cute. But I draw the line at them crawling around on me. I started unconsicously rubbing my skin and squirming at the point in the movie when they were crawling ALL OVER the farm animals in the barn. If it weren't for the beautiful-fairy-happy-ending-music playing in the background at that point in the movie, I think I might have been screaming because bugs crawling all over you is a HORROR movie in my book. How could it be rated 'G'?????What were they thinking????? GR-OSSSS. I don't care how 'nice' the spiders are.

NO CRAWLING ON LIVING THINGS.

That is THE Rule.

I also had to inform my daughter that in REAL LIFE the spider would be making a meal out of, not JUST the pesky flies, but also every animal in the barn. SPIDERS ARE EVIL. I don't want her gasping in horror the next time I fly through the room in my phobic frenzy to smash a spider. Yeeckkhhh!

POOL PARTY PICTURES

WEEKEND IN REVIEW

Whew! Had a whirwind of a weekend!

Saturday morning a friend and I went to an Art Festival (first annual so a little small but SO FUN!) in South Paris

(no, not THAT Paris....Paris, Maine).

And then afterward, we found a charity book sale where they were selling books for 1$ a bag! SCORE!! I ended up with two large boxes AND a full bag of the coolest vintage and antique books! And the sweet little old ladies gave the whole haul to me for the teeny weeny price of five bucks! I felt like I was cheating them a bit but they were firm on the price so who am I to complain! My hubby was like oh-no-not-more-books-in-the-house! WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO PUT THEM??!!!

Saturday afternoon a friend came over with her son and we hung out and chatted as only girlfriends can do, then hit the mega-super-cheap-blow-your-mind-with-the-deals shopping trip to a local Marshall's. I've never had an INTJ friend before. Every INTJ (that I knew for sure was one) that I've met was male and usually I drove them crazy and they wanted to get as far away from me as possible. When I worked in the IT industry, I ran into them more frequently. Now that I work at home (and yes, don't get paid) I have a lot less occasions to meet new people (at least in person). So imagine my surprise when I met an INTJ who was also A CHIC!!!

I think if you've ever read my blog before you will find that I tend to be a bit on the narcissistic side.

(okay, i admit that MAY be a bit of an understatement.)

My favorite sibling (i have four) is the one the most like me. My favorite people to hand out with are the ones who laugh at my jokes and my favorite TV and movie characters are usually INTJ's as well. (They make the most emotionally-out-of-touch and intelligent-figuring-out-the-mystery types...excellent for plot development when you don't want your main character to realize that the love of their life is standing right next to them in like EVERY scene. LOL)
So I can't even express how much fun it was to not just spend time with but SHOP with someone as ...uh...."quirky" as I am. LOLLOL (and yes, I laugh at my own jokes longer and louder than anyone else. How obnoxious is THAT??? LOL)

So back to my weekend....Sunday we had the normal busy morning and then in the afternoon went to a pool party barbecue. And the weekend business sort of spilled over into Monday because I had a busy morning getting the girls packed and ready to go to their grandparents to spend the night. Then I did the weekly shopping and went to the chiropractors. And, since we were a childless couple for the evening, hubby and I went to an ACTUAL restaurant for dinner. And of all places we could have picked to go to, we went to the restaurant where the guy works who flipped his car several times into a ditch in the middle of the night last summer across the street from our house. He was SO nice. So we reminisced with him for a while before heading home.

And now it's Tuesday!

So is anyone planning a trip out here to good ol' Maine to come and visit me? The airlines are struggling to fill their seats this time of year so they are offering really competitive rates. Southwest.com is offering deals as low as 49-109$ one way!!!!

Yesterday's Art

Since Walmart is selling school supplies dirt cheap right now, I've been stocking up on 20cent boxes of crayons, 20cent packages of stick glue and 50cent memo books. Then I saw an article in an art magazine about spiffing up said memo books and figured, "sure! Why not?".

So Bella and I sat down with paper and glue and some cutting tools and set to work decorating our books!
She picked out the papers for hers, and smooshed them on (after i applied the glue) and stamped her name on the cover. Then in a moment of creative inspiration, she noticed a label I was taking off a roll of tape and asked if she could have it. Then she glued it on the cover of her book (the round label at the bottom). Then she went upstairs to her craft box, pulled out some red glitter and set about to put stripes of paste on her book and the sprinkled on the glitter.

I was so proud of her at that moment!

I also tried my hand at creating a face stencil. I was browsing blogs of mixed media artists and just fell in love with the photos on this one:
http://ramblingrose.typepad.com/
She had a link to information on creating your own face stencils (although for some reason I can't seem to find the link. Arrggghhhh). I somewhat followed the instructions. Basically, you open a photo in photoshop. Change it to a notebook sketch and then change it to black and white resolution. Then you print it out on a surface you can cut. I used a transparency but you could use cardstock or something heavy like that. The downside is, choosing a photo tht will work with this is harder than it might seem because you want to be able to link up the cuts with the outside shape and or cut details in the middle without the whole thing falling apart. I may not be explaining it well but if you give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

There is some trial and error involved and the cutting (I used a craft knife with a new, nice, sharp blade). I printed out about eight different pictures on transparencies in different sizes but found that the two stencils I created below were the only ones that were really going to work.

In spite of the hand cramping from the cutting and the ink I managed to smear on myself, the table and all papers within the immediate vicinity, I was pretty pleased with the result. I inked the stencil images onto a page from a vintage house beautiful magazine (the largest one), a page from a vintage novel and an old piece of stationary I found laying around on my craft desk. What do you think? Am I the most narcissistic person EVER? LOL

I think next I want to try creating a floral stencil or one of a child's face like I saw on the blog I noted above. If I find the link with the directions, I'll add it in here.

HA! I FOUND IT!! THE DIRECTIONS FOR CREATING THE STENCIL. HERE IT IS:
http://littleblackkitty.typepad.com/a_little_imagination_and_/2007/06/tutorial_selfpo.html

BEETLE INVASION!!!

Now that my garden FINALLY seems to be growing and producing some fruits for all of my hard labor, the whole bug population for three thousand miles has descended upon it and decided that it is a

fabulous free bug buffet. UGH.

For years while talking about lady bugs, people around here keep correcting me and telling me that the infestation of ladybugs in our area are really "japanese beetles". And they always tend to say it with that cocked head and condesending voice reserved for city slickers that are out of their depth out here in the country.

WELLLL.....I am here to say that Japanese Beetles look NOTHING like ladybugs because I've done my homework and everyone that kept correcting me can come over here and kiss my big white city slicker booty!!!!!

There is a great website for identifying bug species....

www.whatsthatbug.com

I got the photo of the japanese beetle orgy (that is what they named it) from one submitted to their site. You can take a photo of a bug and send it to them and they will tell you what it is and if it is dangerous to you or your home or pets or whatever.

Anyhow, my big gripe today is that my garden is being reduced to skeletal leaves. *sigh*

And then there were these odd bugs ....they looked to be babies of some kind....on some of the lower leaves this morning. They looked like white-ish ticks. But I did a search on ticks and couldn't find any that looked like what I saw so I am thinking that perhaps they are some sort of aphid. Especially since they were crawling all over these shriveled up (THEY ARE KILLING IT!!!) leaves on our pumpkin plant. Ticks don't do that do they?

This is not a rhetorical question folks.

If you know ANYTHING AT ALL About bugs, please share your knowledge with me 'cause I am freaked out by all things buggy and these were freaking me out more than usual because they look so much like ticks. I am more scared of ticks than spiders and for me, that is REALLY saying something!

PICTORAL REVIEW

Since I have been neglectful in uploading new photos from my camera, I'm a bit behind in POSTING any new pictures....hope you don't have a slow download time or you are gonna be HATIN' this post!

Since it's been (HUMID and) Raining most of the week, we've spent quite a bit of time indoors. Bella is hanging out with my laptop in this picture from this morning.....the day started out cold and rainy (AND HUMID....ick!) and then after the clouds had exhausted themselves, the sun came out, the temperature soared and then it was Hot and Humid. Everything in the house is damp. Some things are damp because I didn't close any windows during the downpour....I think my bathroom scale may have bit the dust. I found it in a particularly large puddle since it sits under the window in the bathroom. (yes, I AM a genius) But the furniture and the carpets are all damp just from all the humidity in the air. I don't want to touch ANYTHING. The latex paint on the stairs is sticking to the bottoms of my feet. Overall, ICKY day.

However, the hot/cold/rainy/blazing-hot-sun days have been most excellent for the garden. I picked some tomatos and a not-quite-all-the-way-ripe green bean today just for the experience of eating a home grown one. A completely new experience for me.....eating stuff I've actually grown from a seed. I cannot express HOW proud I am. Beaming, actually.

Below is a picture of Mia from this morning. All of her litle pox seem to be fading to nothing and then this morning she got a new spot under her nose. Poor little one...

Richie bought me Roses this week.

I've been VERY, VERY good to him.

I finished my layout in the "Being A Woman Is..." themed book. I chose for my theme, "Being a woman means having fun getting DRESSED UP". It was a fabric book so there was actual SEWING involved. DOUBLE ICK. So after a sad attempt with needles and poked fingers, I got out the hot glue gun.

MUH HA HAAAA

It was so hot that Bella actually LET ME put her hair up in pigtails! She is working on her own personal craft project here....gluing and drawing on rolled up paper....

Richie took the girls outside and took some pictures of them on the tractor. Amazing how big they've gotten since the last set of tractor pictures....

ART AND CHICKEN POX

Here is an ATC card that I worked on as part of a jam (three people take turns adding layers to a set of three cards and then each person who worked on them gets one of them at the end)....turns out that as the second person working on it, I should have left more of the original background intact. I ended up stomping all over the first person's feelings by covering up their image.

I'm pretty insensitive.

AND since this person likes a more cutesy style, she now apparently HATES the card.

While I am sort of feeling bad about this, I am ALSO sort of in an evil MUH HA HAAAA mode that they can't appreciate a more non-cutesy style....and I laid it on thick with my dark colors.

I think it must be some evil NT trait

( I'm an INTJ ...if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the title to this post and it will take you to http://www.typelogic.com/ )

that makes me feel superior to the cutesy people....cause more often then not, they are the SF's. It's recently been brought to my attention that I have a sub-conscious negative bias toward these personality types when it comes to things of a creative nature. And then of course there is the general superiority complex of the INTJ that kicks in. But honestly, I should feel WAY worse than I do.

I feel bad today about NOT feeling bad.
I'm the evil genius of the story today.
I'm sort of relating to that geeky villian that Alan Cumming plays in the James Bond - GoldenEye movie that is constantly clicking his pen (that later leads to his demise) and shouting,

I AM INVINCIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!
(along with some maniacal laughter, of course)

Hmmm....maybe it is just the heat getting to me.
It's a hundred million degrees today and I'm melting into a nasty pool of sweat....ick.
Also, my baby has chicken pox.
I really should have LED with that today. But I'm such a bad mother that instead of THAT keeping me up all night, I kept waking up having dreams about the lady whose card I trampled on who sent me a nice long letter explaining that I was mean to her and it is likely due to my ignorance and why don't I smarten up and stop wrecking her life.

Seriously.....THAT I couldn't get out of my head.....meanwhile my poor little girl is sleeping soundly in the air conditioned room next door. I wish there was more that I could do for her. She doesn't seem overly uncomfortable. She had the chicken pox vaccination so her case seems 'mild' but the fevers she has on and off are kind of scary when added to the heat we are suffering from this summer. I'm keeping her pumped full of fluids and giving her lots of cuddling....At the moment she is living it up and singing loudly in the kitchen along with a Matt Kearny song playing on my laptop.....totally oblivious that anything out of the ordinary is going on with her.

Life is so weird.

BTW, Below is an adorable picture my mom sent me of her and dad.

PRESTO CHANGO VIOLA!!!

Soooo....its been brought to my attention that there is some confusion on HOW this empty cigar box is involved in the final product (And to answer your question Mom, No, I didn't use it to store the extra art supplies after i was done making some art). It BECAME my work of art below ...Valid question, though..... So I'll give you a brief rundown on it's makeover....

First

I used a razor blade and cut the top off of the cigar box. (it it's on it's side, the top sort of looks like a door).

Then

I drew a triangle on the removed lid and used the razor blade to cut the corners of the box lid to form it into the triangle shape.

After

painting the box and the triangle, I sat the box up on it's side and glued the triangle on to it with hot glue to resemble a roof. I used an extra chunk of wood behind the roof to keep it upright and so that I would have something to attach hanging hooks from. I hot glue and nailed the chunk of wood on.

Next comes the fun part!

I started glueing on paper and doo-dads...I constructed some paper doll figures out of pieces of vintage women's magazines and the monkey is from an old paper doll set (and the bottle he is carrying is from an old book on plants). I reinforced them all on the back and propped them up so that they would give the scene dimension (and so they wouldn't be glued flat onto the background).

Finally,

I hot glued a strip of card stock paper (purple) to cover the glue from attaching the roof, added the mom with her toddler and some words and rick-rack. I printed out the image of the colored pencils on heavy cardstock and cut them out and attached them in layers on either side of the roof so that they would look sort of 'stacked' there. And then of course I added more decorations and viola! Finished!