A very merry christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger. Things get pretty hectic around Christmas when you're a church musician. Thankfully everything went well and all my big services are over. I even pulled up the nerve and played the harp for 3 different services.

Every year my family draws names and makes a gift for someone. This year I got my cousin Sarah. She loves frogs so I made her this puzzle box. I used 5 different boxes to modify and put together the final design. I used magnets to help everything stay in place when its closed. The frog sits on a dowel which must be removed in order to open the box and get the lid covering the drawers off. Lots of clay and paint made the box pretty. I think that she really loves it.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Long weekend away,

I have had a fabulous week. First of all I had a wonderfully fun halloween. We did our usual small family party at our house where we have a bunch of crock pots out for good eating, costumes if you want, trick or treating rounds with the kiddies if desired, sitting on the porch passing out treats, and new this year relaxing in the newly installed hot tub out back. As you can see this year I was Little Red Riding Hood. I had fun carrying around beers in my basket to pass out to deserving parents. (My first recipient was a man dressed in a pink ballerina tutu who actually pirrouetted for me!) I must admit that some trades were done with the beers as I was very open to accepting them as well as giving them away.

I made my nephew into a globe decoration as I had previously done with my neices. I just couldn't make him into a fairy, so we made him pose (rather reluctantly) in a dragon costume and then I glittered him up and surrounded him with his own treasure. He seems to be happy with the results.

We left fairly early on Saturday for our long weekend to Ohio wine country (east of Cleveland). It was beautiful weather with temps reaching in the high 60's and even along the lakeshore it wasn't to cold. We visited many of the wineries and ended up coming home with over a case of assorted wines! Such wino's huh? Craig's favorite winery was housed in the church you see above. The dismantled the building and moved it to where it now stands. It still has pews inside and you can clearly see where the alter was placed. The beautiful field picture is the view from across the street. We were pulling out and had to stop and get the camera back out because the lone tree amidst all the well kept rows of vines was stunning. We rented a beautiful house along the Grand River and the picture below is the backyard from where we stayed. It was very peaceful and relaxing. It was a perfect anniversary trip in celebration of 12 years of wedded bliss.

'Thank you so much for stopping by.

Halloween Extravaganza

I'm joining in the fun with Vanessa and the festive Halloween Extravaganza. After all, Halloween is one of my mostest favoritest days of the year. Who could resist a day where you can dress up however you wish, visit with neighbors and receive yummy goodies?

The wise old fortune teller warns me. According to her open minds are dangerous-your brains could fall out!

She's full of other advise as well, but I think you can believe that she doesn't know quite as much as she thinks she does. I guess that's what happens when you are stuck in a crystal ball.

Actually, the type of halloween I simply adore is filled with fantasy and dress up and letting those childhood dreams of fairy tales and magical kingdoms come to life. In honor of this, I have followed the lead of Tina Wright and her magical fairies she shared in Somerset Studion Gallery-Summer 2008. I loved her creations and the fact that she made them out of a wine glass really intrigued me. As soon as I saw them I wanted to make one of my own.

I used some fun photos of my 3 neices and went to work. Of course I had to add wings and glitter and fluffy furs. Crystals and crowns and fairy wands too. I stuck with themes of believing in yourself, play, and dreams because I hope that all 3 of these beautiful girls allows herself to do what she wants in life. And I think these 3 factors-if sufficiently explored-allow someone to truly know oneself and leads one to know what they will be happy doing in life.

The beautiful fairy wearing the black skirt has been expressing her creative self in amazing ways lately. She made this art all by herself. I love the way she's naturally employing mixed-media techniques of layering and using multiple materials. I visited her yesterday and loved that she wrote out the words, cut them off and then glued them on instead of just writing them where they ended. The cat cutout has been embellished with flower shaped crystals too. I thought this was pretty impressive for a kindergartener to accomplish all on her own.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a fantastic upcoming halloween

She's back!!!!

She's back! My friend and therapist has finally returned and she looks damn good too! Lets go back to May when she left for her spa visit. She had an old crackled finish which covered her beauty. Her keys were chipped and in many cases completely missing. She was tired and scuffed all over on the outside. Inside she seemed to be falling apart more every moment. Not holding a tune like she used to and basically just old and abused. One ugly toad of a man told me to scrap her-there was no hope of fixing her and she was junk. Thankfully my hubby and dad talked some sense into me and I got a second opinion.
I found a lovely woman who looked her over and said "Oh yes, she's fixable" and "I think she's worth it." So much was sorted out here on the home front as far as timing and finances and in May she left for some much needed rejuvinating work. As you can see she got a manicure and a pedicure (with such shiny metallic polish!)

She got her name freshened up over her nails as well with a tattoo that is a replica of the one she wore for so many years. She has some authentic name tags and serial information preserved

inside her.

She had a very nice rest and even got to lay down for a portion of her visit while she had new strings put inside. Nickel plated pins and German hammers restored her voice and she can once again boom with authority. Her face lift is truly a remarkable thing as all her fine lines and age spots have disappeared. She received no stain, just a high gloss laquer finish to allow her beauty to show. And to hear her sing, oh I wish I knew a way to share that with you. She truly is amazing. Her low notes boom and her high notes sparkle. She has an amazing feel when you play her now. She simply springs to life the minute you sit down with her.
So what am I doing taking pictures and posting here? Simply a small break from playing. You see its been 4 months without much practice and while my friend had a nice spa visit, I haven't been restored and my back is complaining after playing her for 4 1/2 hours. I'll be going back for more in just a minute though. I just wanted to allow each of you to see that this story did have a happy ending and share in my joy.

Thanks for stopping by.

Michigan Breast Cancer 3 Day

This past weekend was beautiful for the Breast Cancer 3 Day in Michigan. Walkers and crew alike had a life changing time and this is a tribute to all of you incredible people.

Cleveland Breast Cancer 3-Day

I had a wonderful time at the Cleveland 3-Day. Enjoy!

The Return of my Muse...

August has been a whirlwind already! I just dont know what goodness to share first. After focusing primarily on the harp music, my muse wanted to play with mixed media again and she truly outdid herself. Earlier this year Kara at Mother Henna organized a personal healing and inspiration card deck. She did a marvelous job of coordinating between all the artists and we were rewarded with a gorgeous deck of cards. I've been wanting an appropriate place to keep my treasured deck, but just didn't know what I really wanted. My polymer clay was calling me so I went there to start. I love playing with UTEE overtop of my clay to give nice depth to pieces. I began to wonder if I could recreate one of my cards in clay. I started by sculpting out some fish in a pearly orange mix. I added some scales and fin detail then brushed over a layer of a yellow pearlx to make the little guys shimmer. OK, I decided that these were useable. Now I had to make a pond for the little swimmers. My first try, I painted a pond right on the box lid, surrounded it with clay rocks and filled with UTEE. When I baked this one, the UTEE bubbled up really bad. I ended up scraping it all out and redoing. I still had alot of bubbles, but it was ok. Unfortunately the rocks weren't creating a seal and the UTEE was leaking out of the pond and I couldn't achieve the depth I was looking for. It still turned out cute, and you can see the first one in finished form atop the purple box.

My second attempt, I made the blue water out of clay also, made sure I had a good seal around the rock bottoms, and tried again. Success!! Much better level of depth on the orange box topper. I continued to play with the purple box. I used a mixture of 4 or 5 paints to do a mottled background. I made large polymer clay rocks, drilled holes in the bottom corners of the box, and added the rocks for legs.

I added swirls of glue and coated them in 2 colors of glitter. I glued down a braid of fibers to add more texture. On the end of the fibers I tied 2 polymer clay hearts. Finally I added metal word tags such as dream, inspire, hope. Some of the metal tags have a glass bauble glued over them to make them pop.
The orange box was made using many of the same techniques. I used various stamps to add a discreet pattern that adds interest and depth. I sculpted a large goldfish to dangle off the fiber braid end. I added a star crystal to dangle from the middle of the braid, and a small swarovski crystal to brighten up the other end. I used letter stamps to add words as well as metal tag words.





Oops, I almost forgot about the inside. I used sticky backed felt, cut it to size and lined the bottom and sides of both the lid and the base to give a cozy finished look to the project.




So, what do you think? I had so much fun making these because I got to play with paint, clay, stamps and fibers all at once!




Lets see, I have adventures at the fair and an overnight camping trip pictures (I went dragonfly hunting with my camera) to share but I think that will wait until my next post. It seems amazing that its August 6th already. I want the remainder of summer to crawl by because it has been beautifully relaxing and rejuvenating. I do hope all of you are experiencing the same.

Glitter Toes

Craftyhala came up with the grand idea of having a "Glitter your Toes Day!" and picked out today to do the sharing. If you go to my sidebar I'll guess that many of the Glitter Power Sisters are doing the same.

I'm off to do route safety on a training walk for the MI Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. If you're not familiar with these walks, they are 3 day walks that cover 60 miles in total. Each walker must raise over $2,200.00 in order to participate. Each year they raise millions of dollars to further research and fund underpriveledged women in getting screened and treated. I have been involved with the walks for 5 years now, and will be on event for my 7th and 8th event in August and September. A very talented quilter from my church made and donated a quilt for me to use in my fundraising. I am selling raffle tickets for the quilt for $2 each, or 3 for $5. If you're interested you can donate online here and then let me know where to mail you tickets.

Dad's Birthday

This painting was done for my Dad's birthday. This photo is of him and me a LONG time ago. It has always been his favorite. I really struggled trying to think of something to give him this year, and then I thought I'd try to paint a version. You can see my painting on the left and the photo on the right. I'm not really great at painting people, but I was really happy with how this turned out. Dad seemed to really love it and that's really all that matters.

Well, it seems I've been a very bad blogger and not posting in a long time. I've been busy enjoying my summer. My harp lessons are going well and thankfully I'm improving quickly. I don't feel quite so uncordinated now, but I still cant play what I want to since I'm still learning. Its definetly been a good thing to do, and I think it'll help my teaching when my piano students return in the fall. I know fully remember what its like to be brand new to an instrument.

My piano is progressing nicely according to my last report. The soundboard is in good shape, so I'll come in under the estimated cost! Wonderful news. I'm anxious for its return. I find myself walking into my office and wanting to just play and not having it there is so sad.

In other summer activities my softball team is doing well, we're tied for first and we're still having fun. My art has been a little slow. I had a week of not being inspired to do anything. I think that has passed now. Maybe I just needed a short break. We went to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs this week and saw so many great artists. What talent all gathered together.

I'm off to run errands. Have a wonderful weekend.

Rockclimbing and Whitewater Rafting Adventure

For about the past 5 years I've chaperoned our church youth group on a trip to West Virginia. We go whitewater rafting on the New River for one day and can choose from a list of activities what to do the other day. I volunteer to be the rockclimbing chaperone. This year we had a wonderful day with perfect weather and 2 fabulous guides. We did 7 different climbing routes and a 100' rapell as well. I had so much fun. I suprised myself by finishing every route they gave us including doing the hardest of the day, an 85' climb twice!! I did better than usual on the rapell also. Usually I am a bit intimidated at the first time stepping off the top of that 100'. This year I didn't even hesitate, just stepped off and stopped myself about 15' down to look around and enjoy the incredible view of the gorge. All in all I held up pretty well physically and did 4 rapells and 8 climbs.

The following day, we rafted the river. The New River is a fun time with rapids ranging from 2 to 5 on the scale. The water was slightly low this year and the rapids not nearly as big as they've been in years past, but we still had a great time. We were able to swim through one of the smaller rapids, and purposely flip our boat on another one and that increased the excitement a bit. The adults on the trip had a much more relaxing time than usual as we only had a group of 21 as opposed to the 70+ we had 2 years ago. Its always a great group of kids and an easy trip to accompany them on. It seems we get pulled aside every year and complimented on their behavior. Its a joy to be able to spend some time with them away from church service.

The first picture today is at about 1/3 of the way up the biggest climb of the day. One of the guides was awesome and took my camera (with my permission) and literally tied in and hung out over the cliff edge to get these pics. The second is about 2/3 of the way up. This was the first time I had ever followed a crack and climbed in that manner. It was actually easier than some of the other techniques necessary. The last photo is when I was at the very top and starting to be lowered. Can you see the ground WAY down there?

I hope all of you are living your adventures to the fullest.

June Honey Moon

I'm late for the party due to being slow on finishing my art and having commitments for the entire morning, but I have finally arrived for the wedding festivities. Tinker has decided to honor love and marriage by hosting a fun day of memories and sentiments. Can you think of anything better to celebrate on a beautiful June Saturday? The weather here is absolutely beautiful and I'm imagining many young ladies smiling into the sun, dressed in their gorgeous gowns, and laughing with abandon. I was wed in November, and it was the first snowfall of the year. It was just barely coming down and beautiful. I love snow so this seemed like the perfect start to my marriage. We had a 5:30 ceremony in the church I grew up in, and now am the organist for. We lit the aisle candleabras and dimmed the lights. My old piano teacher was our organist and we were surrounded by our friends and family. I married my best friend. We were high school sweethearts. We dated for 6 years, making it through a long distance relationship period while I attended school 500 miles away. We were and are in love. This year we will celebrate 12 years of wedded bliss. Craig always jokes of the importance of us being able to make each other laugh, so my humorous art is in reference to that.

It reads - Having been told to "Marry someone who makes you laugh" She wed the clownfish.

The canvas is covered with torn pages painted with a blue glittery wash of ocean. I painted the mermaid, and fish on cardstock and cut them out like paper dolls.




I also cut out the tiara, top hat and bow tie seperatly and later glued them in place . I used a piece of lace tucked under the tiara for her veil.

I embellished her with a sparkling "diamond" necklace, emerald belly ring and bracelet, and the handsome groom is holding out the diamond ring she will wear to honor their union.














Dont you think the groom looks very handsome? He was a nervous wreck before the ceremony, but as soon as she began swimming down the aisle, his face lit up with love for his blushing bride. Have you ever peaked at the groom when he first sees his bride coming down the aisle? Most people miss it because their attention is on the bride. It is usually quite a site to see the look of nerves switch over to complete happiness. I hope you'll take a glance the next time you attend a wedding.

Thanks for stopping by.

Harppy Days

I have the harp and I've finished one lesson. Its very weird for me to feel awkward at an instrument. Its been a very long time since I started learning a new instrument from scratch. I'm finding my posture unsure and strange, but I am really loving trying things out. I've played through the songs I was assigned so many times and was to eager to move on so I went to the library and checked out another book of music and I'm challenging myself to do more. I hate being bored when it comes to music. Music should be inspiring and soothing, not boring and tedious. Anyways, I am having fun with the challenge. The only down side to the instrument is that I'm spending all my free moments at the harp instead of making art. It will balance out after the newness of the instrument wears away. I have sketched some things, but haven't finished anything.

Its been hot here. Really hot. We've also had some horrendous storms with winds like I cant remember ever having before. They actually were strong enough to blow a train off the tracks the other night. I'm thankful that we've not been one of the many who has lost power lately. I'm also thankful that the new fence has withstood the winds in its incomplete state. Having the fence up for about half of the yard so far has made an incredible difference in the atmosphere out back. It feels very secluded and private already. We are loving it and have returned to eating our meals outside which we did not do at all last year because of the new neighbors and their yelling. You can see the fence in the background of the rose garden. Wow are the roses ever in bloom. I just love how thick and lush they are this week. They smell fabulous too!

That's about all I've been up to. I haven't even made time to visit anyones blogs this week. I have a softball game this evening but I'm going to try to do some visiting before I leave. I hope all of you are doing well. Thanks so very much for stopping by.

The rewards of nature

The neatest thing happened yesterday. I started to work on this garden sign as soon as I got home from church. I found it at the craft store and it had the ugliest picture of a life preserver with the quote "Welcome Aboard" on it, but I loved the idea of painting on a garden stake. I quickly covered up the ugly and started sketching a butterfly. I was using a picture from a magazine I picked up early this spring. I worked on the painting all afternoon while my hubby and FIL worked on erecting a privacy fence. I stopped occasionally to talk with my SIL and nephew, but mostly painted for about 5 hours. It was a beautiful day here and I set up everything at the patio table and enjoyed being out in the sun. Anyways, after working on it all afternoon I was finally finishing up putting the sealer on when a butterfly flew over me and into my garden a few feet away. It was the one and only butterfly I'd seen all day and it landed on my purple weeds that I love and let stay in the garden every year since its a "pretty" weed. I walked over to look at the butterfly and nature rewarded me by sending a real yellow swallowtail to match the one I had just finished. It even landed on the purple flowers like I had put in the background of my painting. What a neat moment. I had to run in the house and get the camera so I wouldn't loose the memory. Even my husband thought it was pretty cool. My heart was so happy with the whole thing.

My piano finally was moved on Friday. It was a moment of mixed emotions watching it being loaded up and leaving. I was sad yet excited at the same time. My harp will be arriving on Wednesday along with my first lesson. I'm hoping that having a new instrument to play with will ease the seperation anxiety of the piano being gone. I'm sure I'll be relaying updates on the piano as they come, and also progress on the harp.

It's going to be another busy week here. I started out by playing a funeral today and have many other tedious things that must be done soon. Luckily there are some fun things thrown in to lighten my days. My nephew graduates from Kindergarten on Friday and I'm going to go watch. I think that will definetly be the highlight of the week. Its such fun to be an aunt! I hope all of you are doing well and having fun. Thanks for stopping by.

Good news

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. We had beautiful weather and time to enjoy ourselves so I'm feeling refreshed.

Todays art is a mixed media piece I did for my neice. She has just gotten her own room and its all princessy. I drew the head and torso, painted it in and cut it out. Then drew some legs and did the same. I used acrylics to paint her name and the background colors. I glued scalloped pages from an old book to the top and bottom of the canvas, glued down the 2 parts to my "doll" and then used some lace I found laying around to make a precious ballerina type skirt. I'll wait and give this to her on her birthday in a few weeks.

The frog was discovered on my walk at the state park on Saturday. I love frogs, on our way home I stopped and got 6 fish and 10 tadpoles for our garden pond. I cant wait to have frogs in my backyard.

I had my dr. appt. for the most recent test results and it was all good news. My hormones are out of whack and my periods have stopped, but they're not off in the way to indicate an early menopause. Because of the history of the mini stroke, and a blood clotting factor I have, they cant give me hormones to restart anything. The gynecologist diagnosed me with PCOS after doing a vaginal ultrasound, but she wanted me to go back to the neurologist because there was a small cyst in my pituitary found after my mini stroke. They wanted to make sure it hasnt grown, or producing something to effect the hormone levels. Anyways, my MRI showed that the cyst is not in the pituitary like they said last year, its in the pineal gland, it hasnt grown and it is not producing anything. So, good news all around. I think that leaves it as just a case of PCOS, and right now I'm not suffering any of the common things that happen with that. I'll just need to keep getting ultrasounds every 6 months if my periods dont return. Fertility problems aren't an issue as Craig and I had decided long ago to not have children, so that takes away a big concern of those with PCOS. Thanks so much for the good thoughts and concern you all voiced, it made waiting for results easier.

OK, I've been tagged by Alberta, so here are the rules:

1. Each player answers questions about themselves.

2. At the end of the post, tag 5 people by posting their names.

3.Go to their site/blog and leave a comment telling them they've been tagged. Invite them to your site/blog so they can read the tagged post.

4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've completed your tagged post.

I have to answer these 6 questions:

1. What were you doing 10 years ago? Lets see, I started my piano studio out of the house in January. Back then I gave lessons year round, so I think I had about 12-15 students at this time. I was also enjoying our second spring in our house and was planting roses. An entire garden of English roses.

2. What are 5 things on your To Do list? Return my office to normal from the piano move (right now everything is moved so it can get out), clean the bathroom, finish painting the bathroom door, clean the inside of my kitchen cupboards, weed the garden.

3. What are 5 snacks you really enjoy (in no particular order)? Ice cream, dark chocolate, bananas and peanut butter, string cheese, raspberries.

4. Name some places where you've lived. OK, this is sad, I've never left Michigan. I have lived in Petersburg, Ida and LaSalle which are all within 15 miles of each other, and I lived in Marquette while in college (a 500 mile move, but still in the same state!)

5. Name some bad habits you have. Taking on more than is comfortable, saying no and not feeling guilty, inflexability, obsessive/compulsive to a degree.

6. Name some jobs you've had. piano teacher, Beaded Jewelry Designer and Instructor, organist, music director, bookkeeper, customer service, waitress,

Now, here's who I'm going to tag: No one in particular. If you're feeling inclined to answer them, please do.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful day. Hugs to you.

Busy busy

Edited to add that Janet won my birthday drawing and received the polymer lion. Congratulations to my lovely blog friend and thank all of you for stopping by and the well wishes.

Life has been really busy lately. Its not bad, just a bit different for me. Things for the loan are done and approved and we'll sign the papers on Friday so that means hopefully the piano will go out next week to begin the restoration. I've also been playing the doctor shuffle and going for lots of tests. I'm confident that nothing super bad is going on, but they need to check something and make sure its still ok. Hopefully after todays test and the follow up visit life can return to normal.

The recital I hold for my students yearly performance is Friday so I've been busy perfecting everyones songs and easing their nerves. I finished teaching last night and I am free from lessons until my piano returns hopefully close to Labor day. Mentally it will be wonderful to be away from teaching, but financially I'll have to be more careful than I have been lately. Again, this isn't a bad thing, just different.

In preperation for the piano to be moved, I've been cleaning and organizing my office. This is a monster task as I'm far from an organized person. I bought some inexpensive storage units and assembled them to line one wall of the office, and sorted through my stacks of stuff. Its looking really good in there. I actually wanted to spend my evening in there and laid on the futon and read a book for a bit last night. Its amazing that I didn't think the mess of that room bothered me, but now that its all neat and arranged, I absolutely love it. I sure hope I can keep on top of things and keep it nice.

So my exciting news is that I'll be starting harp lessons the last week of May. I've commited to 3 months of lessons and rental. I figure by that time I'll know for sure if I want to continue to persue learning another instrument. I've wanted to learn the harp for about 10 years, but just recently found the opportunity to rent an instrument. It seems like this was meant to be considering that my piano wont be here for the summer and I was worried about how I would deal with that. I played the organ for a wedding last Friday and they had an aunt perform a harp solo in the ceremony. It was really beautiful and made me even more eager to begin my lessons.

My softball league started up last week. We played a fun game against the team we lost the championship to last year. We won and it was a very sweet victory. I was catching and every throw they made to me when there was a runner trying to score I was able to tag them out. It was a good fielding day for me. I didnt hit so well, but it was the first game so hopefully I'll get back in the groove. I at least got on base and scored twice. It was fun and that is the only reason I play. FUN!

The 2 pendants pictured today are made of polymer clay. I have tons of molds that I have made from many buttons and charms. We made these pendant together in class so I also had access to some other molds. Anyways, we pushed the clay in the molds and then sat them on a sheet of clay in a pleasing arrangement and then cut out the shape we wanted. We filled in any open space with little balls of clay to make it appear more complete. I did the orange one in class, but wanted to see what an all frog one would look like. I used a color to imitate jade for the frogs. I actually like the orange one better, but the frogs are cool too.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a wonderful birthday complete with a trip to a winery and finding a hopping dog birthday party in full swing. To say that I had fun would be such an understatement! I'm sorry this post is so scattered, but that seems to be how life is at the moment. It keeps things new and unexpected and makes for some fun and interesting times. I hope you are all doing well and experiencing lots of joy in your lives.

Another birthday...

35 today. It feels pretty good. Craig and I are going to visit some wineries and maybe do some geocaching along the way. Then we'll go out to dinner, but I haven't decided where yet. It'll be a nice, relaxed pace day and we'll have the family over for a party tomorrow after church.

I made this lion yesterday in the car as we did errands. Its in the style of Christie Friesen. Its embellished with carnelian and I think picture jasper. I know its a jasper, but not positive on which one. Anyways, he's my first try at a lion. I've done a dragon, mermaid, turtle and frog in her style. I love her books. They're easy to follow and have lots of whimsy in them.

I cant decide what to giveaway for my birthday. It might be this. He's designed to hang on a wall. He's maybe 4" x 3". I thought he turned out cute. To be entered into my birthday giveaway just leave a comment and I'll draw a name tomorrow.

Birthday giveaway teaser

I dont have much time to write today, I need to do lots of errands in preperation of having my family over for a birthday party on Sunday. Thankfully most of the housecleaning is finished.

I painted this frog earlier this week. It on a metal sign I picked up on clearance from Michaels last year. I peeled off the glued on art and painted directly on the metal. I still need to seal it, but I wanted to share it. I am really loving this one. I had found a picture of the frog in a newspaper ad a few weeks ago and saved it to use as a model. Anyways, this might be the giveaway for my birthday, or it might get snapped up by the family while its here on Sunday. Anyways, if you'd like to be in the drawing, leave a comment and I'll choose from all late Sunday.

Birthday Giveaway!

On Saturday I will be 35. Most of the time I dont feel like that is possible. It seems like it was just yesterday I was finishing up graduate school, enjoying being a newlywed when in actuality it was over a decade ago! I look in the mirror and see the beginning of wrinkles and gray hairs that have escaped the coloring at the salon. Although I'm not so thrilled about the physical changes age is making, I love my life right now. I'm blessed to still do many of the things that have always brought me great enjoyment and I'm also more open to new adventures and ideas than I ever have been before. I am able to embrace those special moments with friends and family in a much more relaxed manner now, and truly appreciate the gift these people are to me. There is a great variety in my days that I love. Part of the new that I have come to love is blogging and finding a great, artistic community right at my fingertips. So, to honor all the visitors who may stop by, I'll be giving away something for my birthday Saturday. If you leave a comment on any of the posts I make starting today until Sunday, I'll draw a name to recieve a special gift from me. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to giveaway. I'll be thinking that over today, but I hope you will still sign up. Sometimes surprises are the best.

Ladies of the family

The ladies of my family on my dads side have one night a year where we all get together for a little girl time. We've done this for 5 or 6 years now. We started out staying at one of the aunts houses, but now we rent some adjoining rooms in a hotel. (That way no one is stuck with major clean up the next day!) This overnight has turned into such a wonderful celebration for all of us. Its fun to see all of us doing goofy things. We have aunts, great aunts, and of course Gramma. Gramma is the biggest instigator for doing fun and wild things. She is the one in the white long sleaved shirt-front row. You should have seen her having a field day playing with those wax lips. Our tradition is we order pizzas and make the delivery boy (Its always been a boy) take our picture so we have one of the whole group. Then we throw him a wildly large tip and kick him out. It is a girls night after all. We have developed the habit of gifting each other on this special occassion. The matching pink/lavendar sweatshirts were done by my mom, sis and I a few years ago. Aunt Brenda made us all coordinating pj pants this year. We each also recieved a handkerchief that Gramma hand crocheted an adging on, a cute little bear with his own tiny quilt sewn by Aunt Bev, a nice cushy pair of socks from Great Aunt Nancy, wax lips from mom, and other various little things. This year I made everyone angels because the women in my family really are some of my angels. This tradition has become one of my favorite nights of the year. I wish that everyone could experience something like this. I know a group of the Glitter Power sisters recently met up and did their 2nd gathering which is wonderful. Why not give it a go for yourself? Gather up some family, or friends, or your very best blogging buds and set something up. Life is so much richer when we allow ourselves the luxury of time well spent.

I had a scary week of waiting that is blessedly over in a great manner. Last week while I was at a gynecologist for a different problem, she felt a lump in my breast and scheduled me for a mammogram and ultrasound. Everything is ok, but it sure was scary, especially when they called me back from the waiting room to do more mammogram films. I am very thankful for the support and comfort my friends showed me through the week. Thank you.