New Idea

I had an idea the other day as I was looking at Google Earth. I always seem to go to my old house in England to find it on the map, and look down. Even though Mum and Dad moved out 6 or so years ago, it will always be the home I remember. I had lived there until I got married, yes, for 19 years it was my home (I was 19 when I got married, I know that is young).
So as I was looking at the satellite of the house I realized that it played into my continuation post of the other day. The writing of memories, especially those of home. I would print out these pictures and make album pages of them. I really think a double spread, 12 x 12 would work best. When I thought of printing the pictures smaller I realized that I would loose some of the details. So I printed out a picture of my old house, and I am ready to put it on a page. The trouble is, and this is always my trouble, deciding what to write. KISS comes into play here. The address and the phone number that I can still reel off my tongue 20 years later. Descriptions of my room and how my dad was always knocking a wall down or a doorway somewhere. When my brothers started to drive and there were 4 cars parked at the curb. The sycamore tree in the front garden. And when I start thinking about it, these memories and 100's more start to form in my mind, and I realize that I will not have room for them all. I will, of course, have to journal a lot of this, adding pages as I go.
So thanks Google Earth for this look into my past. Here is the picture I have of my old house, to go with my memories. Now to go start writing them down.

Newness

     So, I have been looking around the web at my favorite blogs and websites. Everyone is talking about the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 in one way or another.  Of course I have been thinking about it too, but I have to say that somethings that will be happening in 2010 are a continuation of this year.
     I finished my CNA class on December 3rd and I will take my state exam on Jan 15th.  Of course I am a little nervous, who likes tests?  I am confident that I will pass though, (oh, I hope I didn't just jinx myself).    This is a pass/fail test, and I really don't like that as I would prefer to know exactly how I did.  The pass is the important part though and will put me on the state registry so I can get a job.  I also applied for nursing school in the fall.  I have no idea if I will be able to go, if I get a job I may not be available for the classes, but the deadline for applying is Jan 15th so I had to put in the application if I want to try.  There are only 40 slots and I am not sure i have enough points to qualify, there will be others with much more than me, 10 of those slots however are filled by a drawing of names from the application pool, so who knows.  That will mean another test to qualify. 
     My middle son passed his driving test in early Dec.  I am nervous about him driving by himself and especially in winter weather.  He thinks he is indestructible like most teens and wants us to let him go all over the place.  Of course he has never been out on the country roads in this flat landscape and had an inch or less of snow blowing enough to blind you.  It is a constant battle trying to talk to him while he is having a tantrum fit for a two year old. 
     My youngest tried out for the volleyball team and didn't make the team but is a manager.  She has to go to all the practices and games.  She is excited, and has had practice the last two weeks and games start on the 7th of Jan. 
     My oldest interviewed for a job last week and I hope he gets it.  It will do a lot for him.  He will be 18 in April and is a Jr. in high school and I think he needs the confidence.  His brother just started working too, so I think they both will be happier to be working, and making a little money of their own. 
     I have not made much of a dent in my to do list.  In fact I have added more and more to it.  That is surely a continuation and will be for many years to come.
Oh and I will turn 40 in Feb.  I have never been bothered by numbers when it comes to age.  But 40?  Ahhh, yeah.  It just seems strange, being the youngest in the family and mostly the youngest of my friends for years, this is a strange place to be in.  Is that middle aged?  I don't feel it.  I think what bothers me most is that if I am going to be 40 all my family and friends are getting older with me.  Where did all the time go?  I still haven't done so many things that I want to.  I think it is time to start working on that list. 
     Lastly, I have been thinking about my family a lot the last couple of weeks and I realized that I need to start writing down the stories I remember, good and bad, to preserve them for my kids and my siblings kids.  As my family is in England, my kids did not grow up around them, so my memories are all they have of my siblings, and their kids.  My mum and dad have been here twice so they have met them and will remember that, but not what they were like or how they live now.  I have never been to the house that my parents live in now, I still see them in the house that I grew up in.   When I sorted out the photos that were laying around I found quite a few of our time in England, the ones my husband and I took.  There are not so many of my childhood.  Instead of letting them sit in a box, I want to make a journal of who, what and where.  This is going to be an ongoing project for sure. 

Where have I been?

Wow it has been forever since I wrote anything on here.  Life sure gets in the way sometimes.  I would like to say that my excuse is the Nursing Assistant class I just finished up. (bragging I got an A) but that didn't start until October.  I had a biology class too but that was only one night a week.  (I got an A in that too!)  I guess being an older student it is easier for me to keep my mind on the goal, but after the 2nd or 3rd 100% on quizzes my kids were like "you always get 100" and were not impressed.  Humph.
I has been kind of strange being around the house again with nowhere to go, plenty of things to do, although not done though. 
I have decided to set myself a goal.  One thing a day. Well maybe two because Christmas hasn't even started to happen around here yet.  We can't locate the legs for the tree and so that isn't up yet.  There has to be another box somewhere.  DS can't find it and so DH said he would look today.  I still have a major gift to buy and no idea what the recipient wants.

Things that I need to do.
Mending clothes.
I have hemming to do for my pants.
Brandon has jeans that are ripped he wants sewn.
I have an art doll I want to finish.
(And I could add tons of other sewing projects here)
Gifts I need to make.
My niece is pregnant.  I need to do something for the baby.
My mum has requested some machine embroidery, not sure I remember how.
I have all the ingredients for peanut brittle and divinity candy.
Things I want to do.
I have not been making beads for months. 
I would like to finish a few jewelry projects that I have waiting.
Things I don't want to do.
Housekeeping.  Ugh, well, I keep trying to clean up, but there is just too much clutter.
De-clutter; see above.
clean up the yard, well, maybe in the spring now.
Did I mention cleaning the house? 

So, let's see if this will work.  Today I am leaning towards the sewing part.  I suppose it depends on if we find the tree parts that are missing.

Emboridery

This week I was sick and needed something to do while sitting and groaning, being totally ignored by my family unless they wanted food.

I decided to embroidery a piece I had been dreaming up and went to work.
Here is a picture of Klimt's Tree of Life.



I drew out my version onto a piece of fabric and got to work in stem stitch (which is not my strong point) and was delighted with the outcome, but of course I had to embellish more.



This was about half way through.  I filled in the green knots a lot more as I felt that it needed to be more lush The concept is spring through winter.  I had just started on Fall here with the red knots.

Now I am done with the leaves and I am working on lettering the seasons around the edge.  I am using chain stitch ( my favorite) to write the words.  When that is done I plan on decorating them with more embroidery; blooms for spring, a sun for summer and so on.  Ambitious aren't I?  Yeah.  I am already thinking about my next project.

What am I going to use this for when I am done?  Well I don't know.  I thought about a pillow, but I really don't want someone sitting on my hard work.  Maybe I will frame it.  I don't know, I will probably give it away. 

On a side note, I went out to make glass beads yesterday.  I bribed Meghan at the beginning of summer.  I told her if she would practice her flute that I would give her bead lessons.  Well, she has practiced (only a few times) so I took her out and let her make some beads.  She did pretty well for her first time, and with practice I think will be great.  This is definitely a parental supervision only activity though and I hate giving up my own time at the torch.  Maybe I can set up my old Hot Head for her to use. It is a beginner torch and will be great for her to learn on, but it is noisy!   I will see how it goes.  I learned my lesson after she was gone though.  I have a habit of getting really close to the torch to see, too close actually.  A piece of hot glass popped off my rod and landed on my lip.  As most everyone would do I used my tongue to push it off; bad idea!  I burned my tongue too.  As any respectful beadmaker would do, I finished the bead before going in the house for ice (it is not a bad burn, just not in a good place). Glad I did finish too because it turned out pretty cool.  Pictures soon.

The perfect bag

  I can't ever find a handbag I like, you know they are too small, too big, too soft, too hard, too....well just too wrong!  The same applies for a school bag and since I am going back to school in August I needed something to carry my laptop and any over priced books that they are going to make me buy just so I can carry them to and from class but never use.

So, I decided it would be a good idea to make one.  *sigh*  I should have a little alarm in my head that says "no..buy one, it will be cheaper in the long run.  Make do with the imperfect  (insert any item here) in the store.  Don't waste your time!"  Alas, I have no such alarm BUT; and this is a great 'but' this time,  I took a long time planning this project.  First I got out my handy dandy graph paper, a ruler and a pencil.  I measured my laptop, a file folder and estimated how thick text books would be.  I made my calculations and I drew rectangles and erased and planned and added seam allowances, then realized that I had it wrong and calculated again.

OK, so I had that part down, now I used my wonderful laptop, that I can draw straight onto the screen to plan out the construction.  As I wrote the steps it became clear I had forgotten things and I was able to go back and rearrange my steps.  Writing the directions step by step really helped me to see each piece and where it would go.  I never do this step, I just go blindly into a project and usually end up ripping out seams and cutting again.

Next I bought fabric, heavy duck.  I was excited to find a piece of patterned that kind of matched in the remnant bin. And there they sat for a week.  I was afraid to cut, I was afraid I would mess up and ruin the bag.  Now this is not something new to me, but in the last few years I have gotten over it a lot.  I figure there is no point in keeping that beautiful fabric, yarn, glass stored in neat bins never to see the light of day.  Use it!  Take a chance!  So here I was dithering about some cotton duck.

Finally I cut into it, made my pieces, pinned the lables to each so I knew what went where.  Then again I let it sit, scared to mess up sewing into it.  Finally I pressed the parts that needed it and bit the bullet.

Things are never as bad as you think they will be.  It all went together really well.  I even added an inner pocket for the power cord, since I had some left over material.

I didn't have to unpick one seam.  So, is it finished?  No.  I need to add a strap and I didn't quite have enough for that.  So I will go back to the store and get an eighth of a yard or some strapping stuff.

So here it is...







Of course there is no way to know if this is going to be the perfect bag.  Actually I already know one problem I am going to have with it.  But I hope it works for me to go bad and forth to classes.  I can always plan another one.  "NO!  Go to the store, buy one!"

The summer night is like a perfection of thought. Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

Sunday, a summer day. I can hear a lawn mower in the distance. No kids playing yet, but I am sure they will be out later, screeching and calling to each other. The robins have found another home to lay their second brood and sometime tonight the town will shoot of the fireworks that were canceled by rain last night.
I have been busy the last few weeks. I painted Meghan's room while she was away in Florida. She had a great time with friends and came home to an orange room that had been planned for 2 years. I only had a gallon of paint, my mum and dad had bought it when they came to visit in 2007 to thank her for letting them stay in her room. It was only enough for 3 walls so instead of trying to match the color I did one wall in a blue/purple color. It was difficult to move around the room with her furniture in the middle of the room, the mattress and box spring leaning against a wall that I wasn't painting. I managed though and she was surprised when she got home, I think that the Jonas brothers poster was the thing she enjoyed most though. I had put it in a poster frame and it is up on her wall, so she can change the poster when she gets tired of them (hopefully soon). One of the things I am most excited about is taking off her closet door, which gives her a lot more room. Now just to find a beaded curtain to cover up the mess inside. I saw a wonderful glow in the dark one that I want to get.

Unfortunately I have been plagued by back and neck pain for a few weeks now and it is hard for me to do much of anything. Sitting in the computer chair is only comfortable if I lean back, which doesn't help with my typing and sitting in the recliner is OK, except for getting in and out. Turning over in bed is almost impossible and sitting on the hard kitchen chairs is not too comfy either. I have managed to get a few things done, but mostly I have been reading and feeling lazy, not wanting to bend over for anything I don't have to.

I sorted my photos. I know I have more somewhere but the ones I had in plastic containers here in the living room I went through and sorted into categories. I tried to go by the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) and it seemed to work, just picking a few titles to start, family, friends, places, and of course the three kids. Troy and I had one category together as there are a lot of photos with both of us in. It actually went pretty fast. Then I started sub-categories. Troy's family, Laura's family, Parents etc. I am not done with that part yet, but I am really glad to have the photos in some sort of order, now to find the rest that are hiding in the house in a dark corner somewhere. I think the hardest thing is going to be purging the pictures, letting go of something that I once thought important enough to take a picture of.


What started me off sorting the pictures was a list of things I want to scrap into albums. I found a starter on Plinky. "What values do you want to instill in your kids?". That got me to thinking and then I thought about others that I want to do. I would like to make a green book. Green in my favorite color and it would be easy to pull the things I have that are green together into an album. Also, suggested in an online magazine, Scrapbook & Cards today,I saw an article that suggested using facebook as a journal, expecialy those 25 random fact notes that I have participated in. Another great blog is Creativity Prompt that has lots of ideas for blogging and scrapbooking and jornaling, I don't think I will ever get through them all. There are so many resources on line that it is easy to get distracted from actually doing to just browsing. I really want to set a goal of 'doing' so I can get some real things done.

I will say that contrary to my quote for the title of my post I am not a fan of summer. Hot, sticky and buggy: my least favorite things. Spring and fall are much more my style. The mornings with the frost on the grass. The rustle of leaves sounding like the sea or the seemingly dead trees showing new buds ready to burst with bright green. I do enjoy the longer days and the summer fruits and vegetables though.



So off I go to do. Well maybe after a nap.

Robins Nest

We have a robins nest on our front stoop light. The boys knocked it down twice and the robin was intent I guess in her placement because she rebuilt it and I told them to leave it alone this time.
Meghan took some great pictures of the eggs in the nest on her phone but I have been having trouble getting pictures from electronic devices to my computer lately so I don't have the beautiful 4 eggs in the nest.
I do have these two pictures we took yesterday though. After this they were poking their beaks up like we were going to feed them and Robbie got some great pictures. He is going to upload to his computer so that I can add them here.
Anyway. Here are two for now.


OK Robbie's Pics now