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.