seasons blessings everyone!

looking at others blogs always makes me feel like such a slug!
you people are so talented! and fast!


I guess when it all comes together it seems like magic.
all my favorites seem to get a project done a week and I can't even get one done a month it seems. I suppose it doesn't help having things scattered around the house like I do but if I don't things get hopelessly entangled and I loose track of where I am and what I'm doing, so even though it looks like a mess, it's really organized chaos!)
Ok so not accomplishing much creatively in the last two weeks but getting steady progress done.

one of my work spaces is an old music stand layed out flat its very useful for beading as I can raise or lower it to my need and it has a lumpy surface so beads don't go rolling off the edge all the time.

here is the BJP so far, I am at the attaching the dangles part.

here is a picture of the back, I know most people don't like showing their undersides but it can be interesting.

I love how my little goddess' wings glow! This is actually two pieces, the wings were part of a dragonfly charm that was broken. the shop lady said I could have it since they couldn't sell it!
(tee-hee! gimmy!)
so i chopped off its little head, filed down part of the body with a round diamond file, soldered it to the back of the goddess charm and voila!
ain't she purdy!

my other workspace in the throws of creation also.
I need to straighten this place up!

my other project in production are some christmassy bits.
4 days before christmas and I still don't have a clear idea of what they will be.
I can't seem to get my head around them.
that's what I get for starting a project, with no clear Idea of who they are for or what they will be!

I leave you with the view from my living room, past the christmas tree, into the organ/sewing room.
I love the view out that window, particularly when the sun is shining through it.
it lites up the crystals hanging there and throws rainbows all over this part of the house.
I wish I could get a decent picture of them but sunlight is elusive.
Happy Holidays every one!

I have started several new pieces in the last few days.
a small Purse cover and card folders,
I have also started another BJP piece called "whatever a moon has meant"
and finished a piece called "wherever you go" I haven't mounted it yet though.
it doesn't ;look bad but I'm not horribly pleased with the results .

on the homefront Christmas is approaching fast and we have tickets and a car reservation for our trip to Chicago. I'm looking forward to spending the week with my children.
we will be spending part of it in Indiana with my DBF's relatives and the rest of the time with my mom. I hope her water heater is up to the 7 people showering per night task!
must remember to pack warm + snowgear it looks like it will be a typical blustery Chicago winter.

I get soo spoiled here in the great northwest, with our 40*+temps and the rain that only comes after the sun goes down.I still have plants that are growing and we even got sun today!

BJP-Fate

I knew I could figure Fate out if I just sat and cogitated on it for a bit.
I remembered the three fates of greek mythology the moirae and it all fell together.

clever rabbit!

see I knew that twelfth grade edjukashon would come in handy! *grin*

I'm working on "where ever you go I go" next.

still don't have anything for that "whatever is done by only me" line.
I'm waiting for another flash of insight!

BJP-heart

Here is my first finished piece for the bjp. I know, I know, it doesn't start till January and we don't get to post picks till April.

*BUT*

I don't know what this year will bring and even if I have ideas I know there will be some points at which I won't wanna.
so I'm working ahead in anticipation of those time when I won't be motivated or inspired.

now does anyone have any ideas on how i can image fate
(the good kind not the bad kind!)
and the phrase "whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling" ?

I'm having the darnedest time with those two phrases

this is the view out the back door onto our snow covered deck. just a light dusting for thanksgiving.
and look at all our wood!
that happy pile is just the branches and smaller pieces, we haven't even begun to split the larger rounds, some are3-4 feet across!


the last few days have been more productive I seem to have found my Mojo! yea!

I am in the delightful diversions RR, my first for CQI.
so I made a 10x10 piece. it's very monochromatic for me, i am usually more colorful than that but the girls were so quiet with their sand pails I thought any more would be to much.

I am also working on my BJP project.
i chose the E.E. Cummings poem; i carry your heart with me, as a thread to hang my project on. the poem has been one of my favorites and it really does tie together my life for the last year.

this first piece is rather self explanatory, as the first line of the poem it opens the listener to the inner workings of the authors love for this person.
at the very beginning he is telling us, twice, this person is so important to him he carries them in his heart.

I carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
I am never with out it
(wherever you go, I go, my dear and whatever is done by only me, is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate( for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world ( for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has meant
and whatever a sun will allays sing is you.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life.
which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and it is the wonder that is holding the stars apart.
I carry your heart
( i carry it in my heart)

new deck and an idea

My deck is done! yea!
just in time for the rain. boo!
but it's so pretty! can't you just see the potential!
It even has a reinforced spot so I can hang my comfy chair!
I can see a nice table and chairs, hanging pots with trailing plants, pots with other plants, a fountain (maybe) a vine or two to overhang and dangle.
oooh! I can't wait till spring, so I can sit on my deck, have my morning cuppa and sew!
I love a blank canvas!
even the front stairs look nice!
and now I have a place to start thinking about my BJP project!

I'm a joiner

I have joined both the BJP for 2011 and crazy quilting international.
now lets see if i can keep up!
I need a theme for my journal, something that will run the course of the whole project and link each one together.

which got me thinking, the last year or so has been a turbulent one, I divorced my husband of 20 years, with no place to go, no family support and a retail job that payed $800 a month and sucked time like Cronos.
so instead of "ruining" my children's lives I left them with their father in the house they grew up in, with their friends and familiar surroundings.
I felt it would be less disruptive than pulling them away from everything they know and relocating 2000 miles away in washington. Right?

Did I do the right thing? could I have handled the situation better? was there another alternative? am I running away from my responsibilities and taking the easy way out? I DON'T KNOW!

so how do you make the right decision when all the alternatives are bad?
I do think I made the best choice I could at the time.
I would never have done any of this, had the children been younger.
hence the reason for staying in a marriage, that's been dead for 10 years.
they are, for the most part, old enough now, to go out into the world and make some of their own decisions.
I have always been open and honest with them, I have always answered their questions as best I can with the information I have.
they may not like the answers and they were mad at me for a while but I think they understand why I divorced their father the way that I did.
the older two ( one is going into the navy and the other is in H.S.) have come to understand that being a grown up means making tough choices and that it's not always the most optimal choice, but it's the best choice you can make at the time.

so does this make me an awful, heartless person and horrible mother?
my EX would have me and everyone else he talks to, think so.
or did I make the best choice I could, given the circumstances?
I'll let time decide.

Blues today

when I can think of nothing,
when my creative juices run dry,
I stand in a corner of my room,
dig deep into my stash
and play in color.

I have gotten through the purples, reds and blacks,
It seems appropriate that I am Ironing the Blues today.
smoothing , re-folding, stacking, organizing.
watching the crows hunt for critters in the lawn thatch.
It seems that sort of a day.


Where is my Mojo?
I've lost it somehow,
did you set it down, somewhere and walk away,
only to have someone clean it?
I just had it a second ago.
is it on my head the, way father forgets his glasses?
can you find it, the same way you find your lost keys?
were did it go!
under the papers on your desk?
a coat pocket in the hall closet,
I know it's here someplace.
did it fall out when you went to get the mail?
under the bed, in the couch cushions?
I just had it!
the jeans I wore yesterday?
the wash machine?
a coat pocket, couch cushions.
no I checked there.
it can't have disappeared!
in the car, under the seat,
behind the bureau?
why can't I find it?
look in the fridge, just in case, the freezer too.
It's always in the last place you look

a bit of a circus

for the last several days I have been host to a variety of workmen. We decided (after the last time I went through it) to redo the deck. the two contractors who have been doing that have been here at the crack of 8 every morning, for the last 2 weeks sawing, banging, nailing and measuring.

the framing is done and the pergola is up and except for the snaffu with home depot, in which they sent us someone else's order the first day, gave us the wrong stuff the second time, then took 2 days to come back and fix it. there have been no other problems there. knock wood.
we also decided since we were doing that we would have the garage roof ripped off and re done. there was a nasty leak at the back, where the addition starts, that the nobabs who owned this house before Adam, screwed up yet another, easy job and didn't install the flashing right. so we have had the roofers banging away on the garage yesterday, today and tomorrow.

we also had a few trees that were getting too big for where they were. Now Adam will usually climb up there with the saw and cut and thin the branches,that's monkey-boy in the tree last summer, when they start interfering with his satellite dishes ( he has 4!) But since these trees were a. too big and b. near house and power lines, yesterday we had the tree guys out to take down a few trees.
I have new respect for the tree guy! Despite the persistent drizzle to potential noah event, he took the 40-50 foot tall hemlock that was only about 4 feet away from the front corner of the house down and It took him all of about 20 minutes, to denude the tree of branches and cut the sucker to a stump!

the other trouble child was the pine by the garage, that one was a harder decision to make as the tree was healthy but it was throwing out roots that were making a hazard of the driveway and it was easily 80 feet tall! then there were two other bonus trees by the garage we had taken down too.
those were only 20 feet or so. to close to power lines and the back of the house and too tall for us to do on our own. so it's been a bit of a circus around here for the last few days!

so now we have tons of sun in the morning! the birds are a little upset with us, I think they will for give us when we finish landscaping the spot with some pretty brush, a few bushes and a smaller growing tree. it's so open behind the garage now that it will take a few days getting used to. it's so nice to sit In the sun, in my chair, and have my morning cuppa!
I can't wait till the deck is done so I can sit out there too!

clarification

I'm not calling those who believe in a particular religion Wackos,
just those who feel the need to invade my sanctuary by ringing my doorbell at 0:dark30 on a SUNDAY morning and harassing me and mine on our beliefs!
I don't assail you in your home and tell you how to live your life. leave me alone!
I worship in my own way, in my own time & I don't need some half-baked, self-righteous, know-it-all to lecture on how I'm living my life wrong if I don't believe what they do! It's offensive in the extreme!

my dearest philosophy is Harm none, do what you will. my second is that, those who do not know thier history are doomed to repeat it! truth will set you free.
and it's not that I don't believe in God either (my grandmother & 4 years in catholic H.S.took care of that) I don't believe in RELIGION.

anything based on something written 100-200 years AFTER the actual events by, mostly, men. then agreed upon by, yet again ,mostly men-who BTW actively left out a whole bunch of other stuff-then went about forcing everyone else to believe what they did, is suspect at best. the overall death and destruction in the name of God is appalling.

I believe very strongly in the natural order of things. following the Earths seasonal panoply and helping it along where I can but I know my limitations.
I don't need some noobab to tell me how.
I leave you with a favorite quote by Alexander Hamilton
"those who stand for nothing, fall for anything"