some of the birthday loot...flowers from my son Jordan, a necklace from my Mom and Dad made by the pastor of our church(he does wonderful cloisonee) and a scarf from my Mom and the book is a present to myself...my daughter gave me the new "nickel creek "cd it is great listening

a link to the website I wrote about below

this is my friends website /http://www.vralstedstudio.com/ he painted the picture I blogged about below ...and then told you all to google him ...but then decided to see if I could give you the link myself cause you should look at his work!!! sheesh..I've had a glass of wine...

well tomorrow is my 45th birthday...this is a present I got from my friend Randy Vralsted google him and you will see his art on his website...I will post more photos of presents tomorrow

that is my grandmothers chair that I inherited...she had a PINK bedroom....

I spent some time cleaning and reorganizing my basement creation area...I was too lazy to take before photos....this is my sewing table with the phaff....and serger ...and featherwieght...and white rotary....in a little square so I can turn to the machine that meets the need!!

I bought myself this " big foot " during a break in the coffee shop effort this weekend ...I have been trying it out this evening and so far results are good...the foot that came with the low end phaff I have is too small and always catches on things.....

My Dad bought me this constant ink system and I installed it all by myself!! It uses pigment inks and I have already put it to good use in some creative efforts to come.

I have been madly helping my sister try to get her new business venture off the ground...she is opening a coffee/art house and is having some enormous problems with her contractor...my husband has just been a wonder!!! we spent the last 2 days working working working...I hope it pays off for my sister's sake!!! I did get some creative work done on a quilt for a challenge...I will take some photos to show ...I like the texture that is emerging with gesso and inkjet photo transfers...but now I must cook and clean etc. etc.......

Sunday and Monday

The party was a success and the crowds were well behaved so I am glad that is over. I am heading off this afternoon to the specialist for a look at what the hormones are contributing to my general state of mind. I have to be sure to SAY how I have been feeling as I tend to think my symptoms are whines and am reluctant to give the whole story...but I think I will just be whiny today!!! I had a nice morning and finished cleaning up the party and organized bills and projects and installed a continuous feed ink system on my printer so watch out new art coming!!!

This is the sun coming over the hills this morning with a little bit of fog in the meadow...quite nice

there was lots of food and everybody behaved themselves....whew!!!

and here is the birthday girl 86 years old!! you can see she never stops trying to enlighten the crowds

Fandamnly

My in-laws are coming over today to celebrate the birthday of the family matriarch, my MIL, who is 86 today. I have volunteered to be the host for the party and that is OK except we have the potential for some major drama. The 3rd child in the family is a man of 52 years who has not worked out some issues that he should have way back in his teen years and I was hoping he would not come....well he is...and I will have to ask him to leave if he is disrespectful or rude ....and he has never not been both...so I am not looking forward to the afternoon....why can't we just????you get the picture....my husband is out of town and he is very grateful for his job!!! I'll have to make him pay later....

No art this week cause I worked all 5 days making up for the week before and on the days I work I am sucked dry...just a husk of a girl...I have tried to pull back from pouring so much of myself into my job and the folks I am working with but it seems that is not possible...I like to give them the best of me and that leaves the ability to create in the dust...maybe tomorrow I can do a bit but then I have a gyn appt ...not looking forward to this but I am in need of some hormone adjustment and I am hoping to get some help with that....so I'l let you all know if I am still upright tonight...and maybe some pictures....

all better

I collected the renewal form from my mail and checked the box I had overlooked ...the question was " do you have any criminal charges pending against you ? " yes..or no....they had highlighted this question in case I couldn't see it AGAIN!! So...I checked the no box...who would check the yes box??? Wouldn't you check in case the charges are wrong or something??? Then I got up early and drove through traffic into Portland and turned in the form and now I am legal ...YEA!! What alot of stress this has been...in 2 years when it is time to renew I intend to be the first person to return the renewal form...I expect all you dear kind friends to hold me to that!!!

Confessions of a lowly earthworm ...this is not really art related...well maybe a little

I know earthworms a useful creatures and that is the only thing keeping my head up tonight. I got a letter on Monday telling me that the Oregon Dental Board ( hencforth known as ODB ) had not recieved my renewal application. So I called them right away ...so they said a) they still didn't have said app and b) " you are aware that it it illegal to parctice without a current lisence". I called my office and told them I couldn't work tuesday but that I hoped th ODB would get the app and I could work wednesday. Called ODB tuesday afternoon...nope still not there....I put it in the mail 7 days ago...where could it be....called the office can't work wednesday....occurred to me late tuesday night I could check the web site and see if I'm current yet...yea! it seemed to me I was ...the page said I was last updated 10/03/2005 called the office on wednesday told them it's OK I am legal again. Went to work today got a call at the office from an investigator for the ODB he says to me " you know it is illegal to practice with out a current lisence " I am completely confused...tell him I had checked the web page and it looked to me like it renewed on the 3rd...he says he does not show this in his paperwork...he says they did recieve the app on the 4th but I had failed to completely fill out the app...( I forgot to put a check mark in the box that said if I was currectly being investigated for a criminal act ...or not ) and they sent it back to me ....so my boss is very unhappy with me....I am unhappy with me this is a list of my crimes

1) procrastination in returning said app leaving only 4 days till it expired
2) failed to read and check ALL the boxes
3) can't read a web page cause the " update" date has nothing to do with current lisence just if ODB has interacted with ones file...you have to click on your name and a new page comes up that tells about the lisence status....

so I came home to the mail ...that had the offending app which I will complete...and take personlly to the ODB offices tomorrow in portland ...hopefully I will be legal...

so now I need a quilt to show how low??? Lower the earthworms....BTW they cashed my check for 140.00 on the 29th so ???

Weekend Work

At the last minute, before we left for San Diego, I threw together some small bits of collaged elements. These are a mixed bag of fibers both paper and textile. Then I put a few embellishments into a ziplock and worked on these while we sat and sat and sat...A few people asked what I was doing but most payed no attention. If I can get these photographed I think I might have time to get them to the fine focus entry ...just in the nick.....I have had some unexpected days off this week due to my procrastination at sending in my license renewal forms ...and some other office worker type stuff that we won't talk about...some of the people I love best are State workers so I know they are not all....well ...what ever...I got some art done...also looked at the blogs and saw that there is a new SSL challenge that I caught up with today...well back to work tomorrow....good night

" dancing with raindrops"

" tears of joy "

My effort for the simple still life challenge

" It was a ...."

We're back

We arrived back home in Oregon late last night. We had a good time with lots of family and it was so good to see Conrad again. I am not the best traveler though, and I am so glad to be back home in my space. At the last minute I started some small pieces that I might be done with soon and I had a great time finding interesting textures to take rubbings of on the depot base. I am sure that those military guys had no idea what to make of this crazy woman going around holding up a piece of fabric to things and rubbing a crayon on it...nobody said anything though. There was an interesting mix of people at the graduation. Some boys had huge families wearing matching t-shirts and some boys had no families at all. Conrad gets to be home for 10 days then back down to camp pendleton for combat traing then to florida for a year for school.

They all had these funny tri level tans from wearing hats ...this is the new marine...the whole process is awesome and I don't mean that to be all good...I see that they are largely confident young men who are rightly proud of having gone through this process ...and I think that we as humans need something like this to kick us into our adulthood....but ...hopefully what comes after this for these young men will not beat them down again....It does gives you goosebumps to HEAR them physically move as one organism.....

We are back from San Diego where we saw our son Conrad graduate from Marine Boot camp....that's him in the middle ...the first glimpse of him for us in 3 months ...he could not look at us ......it was great to see him

We were able to get together with my nephew Ty and his wife Kara ( the couple on the left ) and see the new baby ( my brother Rob is holding her ) and various other nieces and kids ...we met at Dana Point which was not quite half way for them but it took us forever to get there from San Diego cause of the fires and slow traffic...makes me glad I live here...

Here is the Apple hat on the head for which it was intended, MiKayla Rose...she is as beautiful in person as in a picture and a very relaxed baby as you can see.