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.