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

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.

Spring Walk

We had a glorious day of weather here with lots of sun and the temp almost hitting 80. I decided to take the camera and wander the lagoon loop of the state park. Come along and see what I found.

This muskrat didn't seem to mind me peeking into his world. He was cleaning himself up, balancing on a log not far from the shoreline. A turtle was sharing the log, but you cant see him. I found that combination a bit odd. I never really thought about those 2 animals sharing a space. I actually saw 3 muskrats today. They seemed to be taking advantage of the sun while there still aren't many people about.

This egret posed for the first picture, but the camera beep as it focused scared him in to flight and I was able to capture this shot. When I kayak out here, these birds let us get fairly close. They kinda do a leap frog through our journeys, moving a bit further up the channel, allowing us to get near, and then moving further down. If you dont see one of them and get to close, they make a huge amount of noise when they take off in flight. They have scared me many times when I've been busy studying the nearby turtles and never noticed them until I hear a big commotion. They have a smorgasboard in the lagoons here with all the fish.

I'm still surprised I found this prince. He was hiding kind of under a bush purched on this log throne. I actually was trying to find a turtle when I found him. I didn't seem to bother his highness as he allowed me to bow to him and snap this picture. He was awfully big, and a little further on my walk I found another that was his equal in size. Of course, the second was in a seperate lagoon and I quickly realized I had walked through to another kingdom with a different prince.

This swan was all alone in the back lagoon. There were a group of swans near where I began my walk. They are always in that area near the lotus beds. Dont swans mate for life? I wonder what happened to this guys mate? He was very serene, stretching his neck down to dip into the water. He did get a bit territorial when a muskrat got a little to close. It made me glad I kept my distance.

These 2 geese were busy protecting their 3 eggs. Can you see the eggs? There was a blue heron not 20 feet away and I dont think the geese were real happy to have an egg predator so close. They built their nest on top of a muskrat or a beaver den. I actually hadn't noticed they had eggs until a nice bicyclist saw me with my camera and told me what they had out there. Not only did they have to fend off the heron, there were 3 other white egrets so close that you can see them and the heron in one of the other pictures I took of the geese. I guess its not all fun and games in the wild as they must protect their eggs from such close enemies.

I set out today hoping to see turtles. I love seeing them sun themselves on the logs. They are my favorite part of visiting the lagoons. When I'm in the kayak I try to see how close I can get to the logs. The turtles are pretty skitish and jump in the water at the first noise. By the time I snapped this picuture, at least 4 turtles had jumped off the log, but that still left these 14 brave ones for me to enjoy. There were lots of turtles everywhere today. Most of them were to far away to really discern what type, but usually they are painted turtles, with the occasional snapper thrown in. I grew up close to a river and I remember going down and finding turtles all the time. My dad would let me bring one home for the night, and then we'd go back and release him the next day. I've been fascinated with them since. I once stopped my car in the middle of a fairly busy road, put on my hazzards and then rescued a big snapper from the middle of the street and relocated him to the ditch where he would be safe.

I ended my walk by having this lovely creature flutter along with me for the last 1/4 mile. It looked like a monarch, but I really dont know. He was kind enough to land on a leaf so I could capture him before I had to go.

I hope that you enjoyed my walk. It was so delightful for me to slow down and really notice what was going on around me. I wish you all a beautiful weekend.