Hold Dear

Me So Tired...

I know I haven't been around in awhile. Whenever that happens, you just need to know that it that it means I am out living and enjoying a very full life!

This past weekend I flew down to SoCal to attend a couple of Anahata classes that Emily hosted. It was so marvelous! I actually didn't take a ton of pictures because I just bought a new camera and I'm not quite comfortable (or competent!) with it yet. I'd better get on that real fast though because this coming weekend we're going yurt camping at the beach! Then the following next weekend is Art and Soul! I can't miss capturing all that fun!!!

Take care, loved ones...I'll catch up to you soon!!!!

September 12 of 12

Hi ho...I'm a little late with my 12 of 12 for this month. I was real good about taking pictures during the day but in the evening, I just faded. I had some dinner, put on my jammies, curled up on the couch and just stopped doing things. It felt great! I really didn't think I'd have enough pictures to put together a 12-pack o' pictures, but I did!

To see more 12 of 12 action, go on over to Chad Darnell's blog. You'll be glad you did. :-)

My day in 12 pix...

Woke up to Mr. Cutie. He usually cuddles under my neck but lately, he's been sleeping at the foot of the bed.

It was already a beauty of a day and Mr. Tubbo Bubbo was so anxious to go outside that he was hanging out at the sliding glass door in our bedroom. We don't let him out of this door but if, by chance, he stays out all night, THIS is the door he comes to. It's upstairs and to get to it, he has to climb on the roof! What a fuzzy doofus!

This is the view from our bedroom (just outside the sliding glass door mentioned above). Our bedroom faces the front of our house and has a deck that runs across the front. We live at the top of a cul-de-sac so we get this gorgeous view of the neighborhood trees. And can you see that hint of color in the trees?! Fall is on it's way, my friends!

I had to put this picture of me up. Can you tell that I have new glasses!? :-)

New glasses? Yep, new glasses. I have a little story for you. If you just tuned in for the pictures, you may want to skip through all this blabbity bloo boop. :-)

Thursday morning before I left for work, I decided to add a quart of oil in my car (per Mr. G's recommendation). The box of oil was in a cupboard in the garage, and when I went to pull it down, it fell on my face! My face was fine but it totally ker-twangulated my glasses! I went to the optometrist on the way home from work and after discovering that my frame style was discontinued and no spare parts could be ordered, the optician suggested we find some frames that my existing lenses could be popped in to. Well, the lenses fit into a total of ONE frame! I'm very thankful they were a style I probably would have picked out and not some dorked up number! Oh and the best part? After first being told that I would have to pay for the new frames and just get a discount, after all was said and done, the optician told me that she decided she wasn't gonna charge me...at all! I tell you, that was some good news!

Okay...back to the 12 of 12! I had to stop for gas on my way to work. How wrong is it that these prices are considered "good?"

I had to take a package to the post office at lunch, which is inside the Gus J. Solomon Courthouse. The courthouse was built in 1933 and has some exquisite Art Deco touches. During the building's construction, some bottles were unearthed and are on display in the entry. So gorgeous!

I love the font on this sign!

And here are the windows at the post office. I just so love the Art Deco influence! I've gotten a lot of inspiration for doodles just standing in line right here!!!

Next week my team is moving to a new building (still downtown) so I had to pack up my office. Here is my empty cube and my entire work life on a cart.

In the early eve, I go visit my sweet peas. Still blooming...

And lastly, a shot of our neighbors sunflower. Can you see the bee at 4 o'clock?

So that's the end of September's chapter of 12 of 12! Hope you had fun...and hope to see you next month!

Another Charm Swap!

So I know I wasn't blogging too often there for awhile, but that's just because I was getting stuff done! In fact, I'm feeling ALMOST caught up with all the miscellany stuff that was going on over here! And good thing too because the fall term starts Sept 21 and I registered for a Writing class! Eeek! I just felt like I had taken enough time off to play around in Artsyfartsyville and thought I should get back to school if I wanted to keep up with my "a degree in eight years" plan! :-)

And because I'm getting caught up, I'm gonna try to catch up with some fun bloggin' too!

One thing I got to cross off my list, charms for the last charm swap for awhile! I still plan on making charms for Art and Soul (in October!) but this, my friends, is it! It's been tough, but I haven't signed up for any new ones lately. Yay me! :-)

This swap was hosted by Lori and the theme was "The Alphabet." Each person picked a letter and we were to then make 27 charms. In return, we will each receive charms for each letter of the alphabet and an "&." I can't wait! I chose the letter "X." I went for this one because I remember a calligraphy teacher once saying that X isn't just a letter, it's an event! I just always loved that! And it's true...how often do we get to write the letter X??

Here's what I came up with...

Do they look like Silver Clay charms?? :-) That's kind of the look I was going for! These charms are made out of white Fimo clay which was then stamped, baked, silver-leafed, antiqued, and sealed. Whew! These babies were involved!!! But I'm SUPER happy with the results!

Here's a whole mess of them in their little packages.

Hey check out my latest obsession...old license tag key fobs....

Aren't they dreamy??? I love this kind of stuff! I'm gonna make a bracelet out of these babies.

Oh and also, I added a few bits to the Hold Dear Etsy shop. Now I ask you, who can't resist plastic, fuzzy, fake strawberries??? :-)

See ya!!!

Post ArtFest Fatbook

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I sure did. For some reason, it just felt like this weekend wasn't rushed. Friday night Glen and I went out to dinner for our date night. Saturday was house stuff, including picking some tomatoes from the garden.

Then Saturday evening Glen and I went over to our neighbor's house for a beverage (cranberry juice and vodka? Oh yeah!) and then we went to a late show and watched Hell Boy II. It was pretty entertaining. It was directed by Guillermo del Toro, the same director that did Pan's Labyrinth so that componet of it was super cool.

This weekend also included finishing up some charms (more on that next time!) and packaging up some orders from the shop. Ooooh! I'm having so much fun with that! Thank you thank you so much for your support. I absolutely love sharing and the plan is to get some more stuff posted this week!

This past week, the mailman has been bringing me lots of goodies. One of the things was the finished Post ArtFest Fatbook that Kristi hosted. Perfect timing that the arrival of this book coincided with ArtFest 2009 registration! I previously shared with you what my pages looked like. Here's the completed book...

So cool! Thank you Kristie! Here's what this little sweetie looks like on the shelf in my craft room with my other beautiful fatbooks and assorted books.

This little area makes me so happy!

Okay...I'm gonna sign off now. Much more to share but I'm gonna go hang out with my sweet man. He leaves for yet another two week trip tomorrow. Serious boo-hoo but we're fortunate he has a job. It really hasn't been that long since he was out of work for almost a year. So all in all, I have nothing to complain about. :-)

howdy, you gorgeous people!

Hi there...my dear friends have been calling me. In the last week, I received phone calls from both Lilli and Gina. Sigh. How did I get so lucky to have such great pals? This whole blogging thing has just SO blessed and SO enriched my life. Thank you so much!

Both of these gorgeous gals called just to check in. Gina said she wanted to make sure I was doin' alright because I'd been kinda "quiet" lately in blogland. I am and I have. Life is just super crazy fun happy busy. So many amazing things going on and add to it all, my job has been busy. In addition to the mountain of work on my desk, I have been assigned some required reading in prep for a team "offsite" meeting.

I'm reading Now, Discover Your Strengths. Just to talk about this for a minute, this book includes a "StrengthsFinder" assessment. I'm gonna out on a limb here and assume that you aren't familiar with this assessment (I'd never heard of it until I picked up this book). After answering a series of questions, the assessment determines your top five "themes." These themes are your natural talents, or strengths. The assessment actually determines your top 34 themes but to find 6 - 34, you have to pay more moola.

My top theme is "Relator," which, in a nutshell, means I am a people person. SURPRISE!!! :-) To paraphrase some of the Relator's qualities, this is a person who does not shy away from meeting new people and that relationships only have value if they are genuine. The Relator will initiate deepening of relationships and the more a Relator shares with someone, the more they risk together and the more they risk together, the more each proves that their caring is genuine. Holy Moly...I think that describes me! I think I would be really surprised if the majority of bloggers out there (and certainly the ones I've connected with!) weren't Relators too! This kind of stuff is SO interesting to me!

Okay...so enough blah blah blah about that...I have some artsy fartsty stuff for show and tell! I finished up a LO in Elise's Round Robin that is slowly coming to a close. I think I have one or two more LOs to do and then I 'm done diddely done!

These pages are for Angel's book and her theme is "Words," hence, me very messily including my most favoritest quote ever.

And you may have noticed that the pages are all similar in color and elements. That, my friends, is because my craft room is SUCH a ridiculous mess right now that I am crafting at the coffee table. I have to go into my room, find some supplies near the surface, and go somewhere else to craft. This is not a fun way to work! 

Okay...time to get out there and enjoy some of the gorgeous weather! Gonna clean up and garden and harvest our bounty of tomatoes!!! I think pasta sauce is in our very near future!

A bit excited...

...it's ArtFest season!

And thanks for all the looks (and purchases!!!) over at the shop! I'm having SO much fun!!! I have lots more to get up there but life is SUPER busy right now! Love it! :-)

It's open!!!

Hi there! Well, as promised, Hold Dear's Etsy Shop is now open for business!!! I'm pretty excited...mainly because I have SO much stuff and I've run out of room! It's ridiculous! I just have a few items in the shop but as I get things together, I will add more and more. I have some "collections" of things in mind. Oooh! This is fun fun fun! Pop on over if you get a chance!

In other news, this weekend started out crazy but then slowed down, thankfully! Glen and I went out to go karoake singing on Friday night and while we were out, Miranda called letting us know she was heading home (she'd been out with friends) because she hurt her foot. Oh boy. Turns out that a large piece of a metal cable punctured the top of her foot and went in about 1/2". It instantly got infected, of course, and so Saturday morning, we made a trip to Urgent Care where she got a Tetanus booster and antibiotics. All is fine now but that sure took a bite out of our mental energy for the weekend.

Thankfully we had something very fun planned for Saturday night. We went over to Andrea's house for a birthday party for her very fun hubby. Andrea, her husband, and all her friends are some very cool people. Seriously. We had a great time!

I did venture out to make a trip to Michael's today to take advantage of the 50% coupon action going on for Labor Day. I'm gathering/packing up some supplies to mail ahead to Kim. Kim's gonna hang on to some stuff for me so for Anahata and Emily's art event on September 20 and 21. I'm SO excited about this one and absolutely can't believe I'm going!

Oh and BTW, ArtFest registration starts TOMORROW!!!! Eeeeeek! I'd better go turn in some bottles and cans to make some money for that! Or  better yet, how about I just hustle and go put LOTS of goodies in the shop!? It'll be a win/win for both of us! :-)

Thanks again to Sandy who designed the gorgeous banner for Hold Dear: The Blog and Hold Dear: The Etsy Shop! She's a mightly talented girlie!!!! :-)