Hold Dear

Days 5 and 6

Still playing catch up with Shimelle's "Journal Your Christmas" on-line class. I am lovin' this so much because it is makin' me all happy and Christmasy. Here are days 5 and 6. Remember I'm jumpin' around a bit and so shared Day 7 with you yesterday. I'm almost done with Day 8 but didn't want to wait until I finished it, just in case the power was out! It is super rainy and windy!!!

Day 5's prompt was advent calendars and then day 6 was to think about good Christmas memories and then not so good and then narrow it down to one each!

I'm gonna go now...the power is flickerin' so I'm shuttin' down! Goodnight!

JYC Day 7

First of all, I want to tell you that all your bloggy love and kindness has made me SO happy! I just feel all shiny! Thank you thank you!

I got a few more days done for Shimelle's "Journal Your Christmas" on-line class. Here's day 7 and unfortunately, I left days 5 and 6 at work! Whoops! That's a disadvantage to doing my journal this way...it's a little TOO portable!

The prompt for day 7 was to write about our feelings about gift giving. Here is my interpretation...

I also wanted to share with you a picture of the fabric that I bought a few weeks ago. Isn't this just yummy?! It totally reminded me of scrapbook paper so I went a little nuts with these fat quarters. It's from a shop in Multnomah Village called Fibers in Motion. They were at Art and Soul as a vendor and I've been wanting to visit their shop. We were in Multnomah Village to have dinner at O'Connor's and while we waiting for our table, I popped in to this shop. SO glorious! My head is just swimming with ideas of things to do with this fabric! I'll get around to making a quilt one of these days but for the time being, I may just make baby blankets or stuffed cats or flower pins with this fabric!!!

Okay...see you tomorrow! I'll post days 5 and 6 and hopefully a few more! Almost caught up!!!!

Journal Your Christmas.

Well I finally found some time to participate in Shimelle's on-line class, Journal Your Christmas. Life has just been outta control busy lately and I wasn't findin' the time to create. I decided over the weekend to do a purely hand drawn art journal, I could pretty much work on it anywhere! At lunch time, on the bus, sitting in bed. Very low tech! I kinda need that right now.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a pad of 14 x 17 drawing paper at Goodwill for .99 cents. I cut some sheets down to make 6 x 6 squares, punched in some holes with good ol' trusty (my beloved RubiCoil) and after I've done my drawin' and doodlin', I'll bind it. I'm already thinking I may like this method because before I bind the pages, I can insert samples of things such as scrapbook paper I use when I make our Christmas cards or paper I use to wrap gifts or even receipts! Cool!

So here are days one through four. I just started today so at this rate, I'll be caught up by Wednesday! Sweet!!!

The pens I'm using are a set of Uniball Signo's that I bought at Joanne Fabrics with a 40% off coupon. Gotta love savin' money!!

Okay, I'm off to go do some more catching up! Thanks for looking!!!

checkin' in.

Hi...just thought I'd pop in and chit chat for a bit. It's been one of those super low key, cozy house kind of days. Glen and I slept in until about 9:00 and then he went downstairs to make coffee and bring in the paper. While he was doing that, I turned on the TV and watched me some bowling! How fun!!! And how serendipitous is that? I had just mentioned in yesterday's post how I love to watch bowling and, lo and behold, I turn on the tube and there it was! Like magic!

Now I'm just sitting at the computer, listening to the washing machine and the quiet. Also, I can look out our front window and see Atticus chasing the birds, in the rain. He's a funny boy. He came home yesterday without his collar...again! That makes four collars he's lost! We really really need to stop buying nice ones because this is getting expensive! My favorite collars are the ones with the little bell on them. I love him wearing those because It's so cute when we call his name to come inside at night and we can hear him jingling off in the distance, making his way home.

Right now...Glen is off to Costco and Miranda is off at work. Did I tell you that she got a job at Starbucks? It's been about a month now and so far so good. I am SO happy for her I can't begin to tell you. One of the many cool perks is that she gets a free pound of coffee...a week! This morning's coffee was the decaf Christmas Blend.

We went to the movies last night with Wayne and Becky. We watched DejaVu with Denzel Washington. Denzel....hmmm...mamma like! :-) Oh yeah, and the movie was really good too. LOTS of action and tension.

Later tonight is Glen's airplane buddies Holiday Party. Glen shares a hanger with two other planes. The other two planes have shared ownerships so between the three planes, there are six pilots in the group! They also pal around with several other pilots in the hanger rows. They get together almost every Thursday for "Hanger Night" so it's a very social group. I'm so happy that Glen has this because he LOVES LOVES to talk about airplanes!

Okay and lastly, here are a couple of snappies of Glen's sweet new ride....

I love this picture because you can CLEARLY tell that Glen is very happy with this car. I wish you many many miles of smiles with this one sweetheart!!!

i am weird.

I was tagged by Sharon a few days ago to come up with six weird things about myself. I've had some time to think about this so I'm gonna give it a go...

1. I have no wisdom teeth. Nope. Not a one. When I was about 25 I finally asked the dentist why my wisdom teeth hadn't come in. He looked at my X-rays and told me it was because I don't have any. Not sure what that means.

2. I love to recycle. And I don't just mean doing the right thing for the environment and all that. I mean I LOVE saving, preparing, sorting, and (sigh) putting the barrel out on the curb when it's full. SWOON! And here's a little confession (Glen don't read!). When my family empties a can or bottle, they often leave the container out on the kitchen counter. I grumble and make noises reminding them that they are allowed to put stuff in the recycle bin too but secretly, I don't mind! Just that much more for ME to recycle! I think it has to do with my love of organizing. Oh and I also love cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer.

3. I love to watch bowling. Back in the days before electronic scoring, I used to watch bowling on Saturday afternoons and practice scoring. And in my defense, this was when I was single and lonely! :-) It was fun because the pros get a lot of strikes and spares and it was a comfortable challenge for me.

4. I don't like socks. I'm sure this is a holdover from my "surfer" girls days growing up in So Cal. Living in Oregon I've learned to wear them because it gets so freaking cold but I am always acutely aware that there are socks covering my feet. These toes need to breath!

5. I love manual labor. I think that's one of the reasons I love gardening so much. I LOVE hard work! Pulling weeds, raking leaves, digging ditches, etc. Once Glen and I were given some firewood from a friend. We had to carry it, load it, and stack it. I had so much fun!!! I love that feeling of total and utter exertion. You'd think my running days would have lasted longer.

6. I read the obituaries. I just find them fascinating.

I have a handful of others in my head but not sure if they qualify as weird or just plain anal retentive! :-)

So I asked Glen if he could think of anything weird about me. He was kind enough to say, "I can't think of a thing, honey!" Someone remembered Christmas is just around the corner! :-)

Rather than tagging people, I'll just put out there that anyone who wants to play, please do so and let me know! It's easier than you may think!!!

 

a better day...much better.

Today is a much better day. Thank you for all the bloggy love and condolences for Geri, our little furry girl. We will miss her.

One of the reasons today is SUCH a good day is because today Glen got a new car! Hokey schmokes it's a cutie! It's a 2007 Mazda3. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow. Glen and I went out to dinner tonight and I got to drive it home. SO fun! It's really fast. Oh, and did I mention it's red??? The color is actually called "true red" but it should be effin' red!!! It's gorgeous! I'll post a picture of it tomorrow. :-)

Oh and Glen is fully aware that this is his mid-life crisis car. :-)

The current issue of Teesha Moore's Art and Life had an article in it where she asked some really cool and amazingly talented artists to give six words that they thought were interesting. I totally loved this and when I read it, I instantly started thinking of my own interesting words. Well, a couple days ago in my bloggy travels, I saw that Edina was inspired by Teesha's article and made a post on her blog asking people to share their six most interesting words. AND (this is SO cool!) she's going to do a drawing to give away a zine from Randi Feuerhelm-Watts (you HAVE to go check this out!) I think that's totally cool...and fun! And since I am a fan of fun, I had to play!  Here are the six words I think are interesting, in no particular order:

1. Cuneiform - such an old word - a sturdy word - you just KNOW that Leonardo da Vinci spoke this word.

2. Pianissimo - I feel classy just saying this word (and it makes me think of Lilli!) :-).

3. Filibuster - is this cussing?

4. Swizzle - okay, I am totally cussing.

5. Kern - this word makes me hungry.

6. Ensconce - again, another classy word - I feel like I'm at a spa when I say it.

Oh I just remembered one of my most FAVORITE words... BEHOOVE! What a damn fine word! I have used this in conversation and find that people either know the word, or will say "you just made that word up!"

Play along...won't you?

sad day.

Okay, so even with all the love and happiness going on in my life, today was still a very sad day.

First of all, like so many others, I am so heartbroken over the death of James Kim. This kind of stuff just rips me open. It's like my emotions don't understand that I didn't know this man or his family. I am a total outsider who just followed the story, anxious, praying for his safety. But despite this, I have been tearful ever since they found him. I'm just so sad for his family. I'm thankful that Alicia has some info and links on her blog of ways to help.

Closer to home sad news...our dear sweet precious kitty girl, Geri, died today. She was 15 and had been deteriorating over the last few months. Losing weight, moving a little slower. But still, when you got near her or cuddled her, she would turn on her purr that sounded just like one of those Trebil's from Star Trek! So sweet. However, yesterday, she looked exceptionally skinny like she lost weight over night. And then this morning when we picked her up to love her, she didn't purr so we knew she was leaving. We're so thankful that she didn't appear to suffer and experience any pain. She still ate right up until yesterday and was a "any lap, any time" kind of cat! We'll miss her and will always love her and her funny meowsie ways.

On a much happier note, tonight was the my last Graphic Design class. Whew! I'm done done done! It was seriously a major butt kicker of a class! The workload was intense. I learned tons and tons but am extremely thankful that I am done and I didn't quit like the other 15 or 17 students! When this class started, there were 24 - 26 students. There were only eight of us that finished it. Each week, fewer and fewer students showed up! It was crazy! Needless to say, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders! 

So starting tomorrow, I will resume my happy happy life and get back to doing more fun stuff! Like Sharon's 6 weird things about myself, Edina's word sharing, and Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas. And basically, life as I used to know it!

Okay, off to go hug and kiss everything that's two- and four-legged in my house! xo

journal making.

Whoo-hoo! I made it through another milestone! I'm finished with the crazy frenzy of cutting, glueing, punching, and binding that I put myself through when I prepare journals for my company's annual Holiday Bazaar! I'm so thrilled that this is done because NOW I can now move on to my next project (aside from school stuff!) and that is Shimelle's on-line class "Journal Your Christmas." It began December 1 so I'm a tad late getting started with that but I'm not too worried. School is over NEXT SATURDAY (A-men!) and so I'll have some time to play very soon!

So I LOVE making journals. Heck, I just plain LOVE journals. I'm actually kind of obsessed with them. I buy them and I make them and someday, as God is my witness, I'll use every last one that I own! :-)

So here's a pictures of all the bookmaking supplies I pulled out, just before the frenzy:

For the covers, I used cardboard (that I bought at SCRAP) and covered it with some drop dead gorgeous scrapbook paper (My Mind's Eye and Basic Grey). I found that the two-sided coordinating scrapbook paper is ideal for this type of thing. Not only because it's so beautiful, but also because it is a heavy stock and so helps add weight to the cover.

At SCRAP, I also bought a bunch of book cloth strips. I used it for one of the journal covers but it was so time-consuming that I decided not to invest the time this year. But next year I will! It think it just turned out so beautiful. I was so tempted to keep this one for myself! The paper inside this journal was a box of plain white stationery that I bought at Goodwill for .50. I'm gonna keep my eyeballs open for deals like that from now on!

Here's a picture of the journals at bazaar all finished! I added ribbon just for decoration because I have SO much of the stuff, I thought I'd better start finding homes for it.

Here is a closer view of one of the journals and then the inside coordinating paper.

I also made a couple of small journals with that just have glued spines.

And then I also had a bunch of journals I made for last year's bazaar that were hand-stitched. I didn't take any detailed pictures because I thought I had some already but I only found this one shot that is in my Other Artsy Adventures album.

Okay...I'm off to go do some art, that is if I don't fall asleep! Hope you have a great week!

Journal Your Christmas.

WATCH THIS SPACE for Christmasy stuff!!! Last year I signed up for the on-line "Journal Your Christmas" class with Shimelle and she opened it up for alumni to join in. How cool! Just wish this wasn't like the busiest weekend of my life! I'm aiming to get crackin' on it Sunday night! Yeee-haw! One thing I can do right now is post a manifesto that Shimelle penned, getting us to prepare ourselves for the journey ahead! So even though I can't sit down and make physical art like I wanna, I sure can write and think and dream like I wanna....

Manifesto: Noun. A declaration of one’s intentions.

Starting December first, I will keep a Christmas journal. In it, I will write something every day to reflect on the holidays of my past, enjoy the holidays of the present and dream about the holidays of my future. To some, this will be a stack of papers and trivial scribbles, but not to me. I am taking back my Christmas, I am letting it be something I relish and, most importantly, I am giving at least fifteen minutes every day to myself no matter how crazy this season becomes. I hope you will share, encourage and understand as I make something with my own hands, my own words and my own memories.

I aim to post my entries on blog. Other artists are doing this with me, and you can see their work here. Or you may join us.

Above all:

Enjoy the season. I know I will.