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.