Junk it Up

Our Oldest Grandson's Graduation

2011-05-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

Following a friend

2011-04-30T00:28:00.003-04:00

OH MY! Time gets away from me, so there are a ton of new things to talk about. Right now I am interested in entering a giveaway on another blog, so I am just in here posting a quick link and entry for my friend, Jody's, blog and giveaway. Today I received the most amazing envie of metal goodies from her. I had sent her some shrink plastic to try, and she insisted on sending me a RAk in return.

Her RAk was FAB and was most definitely personalized. She included an assortment of the most luscious metal embellies ever seen! My DH even appeared to be covetous at supper time when I opened the package in front of him!

Anyway, here is her badge. I invite you to follow her blog and to check out her creations.

New Catherine Moore Stamps

2011-02-01T11:22:00.006-05:00

I belong to a Yahoo group, Character Constructions, that showcases artists' work created with Catherine Moore's Character Constructions line of stamps. Well, I receive regular updates to the group, but because I haven't been very active since joining it several years ago, I usually just delete the notices as I cruise through checking my email. But a few weeks ago something caught my eye- her new stamp line, She Sells Seashells, and it was on!

They were being released for shipping on the day after I happened to see them, and from the minute I saw them, I just couldn't stop thinking about them! I am not kidding, they literally would not leave me alone! Anyway, after looking, and drooling, and yes, lusting after these stamps for a couple of days, I just did it! I ordered ten of the fourteen plates. I still would like to have the other four plates, but I will wait to order them because now she has drawn me back in, I may be going back for some of the other years' releases that I didn't buy.

The back story is that I purchased her first line, Inner Child, when it was first released in red rubber, before she changed her line to using Clearly Constructed clear acrylic stamps. I love them so much and have used them for tons of different projects and dolls. I have used those old red rubber stamps to death, and in fact, they are what I used to make my paper doll flip book, La Livre Des Femmes Papier, which had a couple of the dolls in it published in Somerset Gallery Summer 2010. I posted a little about my disappointment that Stampington kept the book so long and that I was afraid they had lost it, but the book did make its way back to me, so I am happy . Well, mostly. The only other thing to complain about that event is that the photos of the dolls that were published were credited to someone named Norma Skogland, not to me! Oh well (big sigh) . . . So anyway, I did not purchase any of the intervening years' releases although I liked them very much. To get all the plates for one line is rather pricey, and I had been working on making my own doll patterns and parts and was making mermaid paper dolls and fairy paper dolls and Matryoshka paper dolls - you get the picture. When I saw these mermaid stamps in the She Sells line, though, I just had to have them, and now I am revisiting her catalog often, looking at the things other people are doing with her stamps, and now I have the bug again. But in the meantime, I've been busy with these mermaids, and have a ton of other ideas in mind. Today is a snow day for me, so right after I get this leedle update added to my much-neglected blog, I am off to execute a couple of those ideas.

Tutorial for Four Inch Monogram Medallion

2010-08-11T09:52:00.030-04:00

Making a Four Inch Rosette Medallion
By Christine Kepler (Please credit me if you use this – Do not use this tutorial for profit)
This rosette will have three layers of paper: Layer one is a four-inch diameter pleated base rosette, next on top of the base is a three-inch diameter ruffled crepe paper rosette, and the final, or third layer, is a two-inch diameter pleated rosette. The layers I listed do not include any embellishments or other layers you may choose to add to your finished medallion. The layers I am listing and showing photos of are general guidelines only. You may choose to substitute tulle or lace ruffles for any of the layers, or you may use specialty papers such as mulberry paper or metallics for your rosettes. You may make the paper strips narrower or wider to make your finished medallions larger or smaller. Again, this tutorial is for a four inch finished medallion.

Supplies

One strip paper 2” X 18” hot glue gun small piece of cardboard
One strip paper 1” X 16” glitter
One strip crepe paper 1-1/2” X 18” tacky glue or equivalent (not glue stick)
Various embellishments such as gems, pearls, leaves, flowers, ribbons, and a chipboard initial or letter if you are making a monogram medallion. You may also want a compatible color of ink to ink the edges of your rosettes as I do.

Step one:
Begin by cutting your strips of paper to the above widths. I use 12 X 12 scrapbook paper, cut two strips of each width, cut one of the strips off leaving about a quarter inch to overlap each other, then I glue pieces together to get the lengths I need.

Step two:
Begin scoring the paper strips (not the crepe paper – we will come back to it later). I use the gridlines on my paper cutter because it is marked off in quarter inches, and a bone folder to crease the paper. Remember that whatever increment you use to score and crease the paper, that is how tall each layer will end up being. I like the quarter inch pleats because we are building up several layers. If you were making just a one layer rosette, you could pleat it in half inch intervals and your rosette would be ½ inch thick. Score both paper strips in the same way. Now is when you need to plug in your hot glue gun so it will be hot. After you have scored your paper strips, it is time to pleat them. Just start folding like you are making a paper fan, back and forth on the score lines. Hold the paper folds together as you go back and forth, making a little bundle.

Step three:
It is time to glue the ends of your pleated paper strip together. Allow the folded strip to come unfolded, and bring both ends together like you are making a bracelet. Using the hot glue, spread a thin line along one short edge and bring the other short edge together and glue, making sure you have two mountain peaks glued together so they look like one crease. Now your strip of pleated paper should form a circle like a bracelet.

The next step seems a little tricky, but just work with it a little to make the medallion. Start folding up the pleats again while holding them together. When you have almost all the pleats folded into a little bundle, lay the bundled part down on the work surface, hold it in place with one hand, and with the other hand, manipulate the rest of the pleats to lay flat so the part that is not folded all together can kind of “spring around” with the bundled pleats to form a circle. I don’t know if this makes sense to you, but your goal is for one side of the pleats to all come together in the center of a circle. Another way to do this step is to stand the “bracelet” up on edge so it is standing by itself. Using your palm, press down on the top edge and press the whole thing down onto the work surface.

This should make the top edge you are pressing on close in together and allow the rosette to form itself. As soon as the pleats are uniformly arranged in a circular shape, put a dot of hot glue in the center, AND

HOLD THE CIRCLE ON SEVERAL SIDES UNTIL THE GLUE COOLS. If you don’t hold it, your pleats won’t hold or your circle will pop out of shape and you will have to start over with laying the circle flat and gluing it.

Turn the medallion over and put a spot of glue on the back, again waiting for the glue to cool. Repeat this step for both strips of paper to form layers one and three of your medallion. After your rosettes are formed, this is when I ink the edges of the rosettes to give them a more finished look. Drag the outer edge of each rosette across your ink pad giving them as much or as little color as you choose. Set rosettes aside.

Step four:

This is where you will form your crepe paper ruffle. Using a small piece of cardboard or stock, trace about a one inch circle and cut it out. Lay the circle flat on your work surface, and put a little dab of hot glue on one side about ¼ inch in from the edge of the circle. Lay the edge of your strip of crepe paper into the hot glue, then start bunching it up into that glue, gathering it into that spot to give it fullness. Add another little dab of glue onto the circle where you left off ruffling the first section, and then keep ruffling the crepe paper on around the circle until you have evenly created a ruffled rosette similar to your pleated one. The end of your crepe paper strip should meet up and overlap the spot where you began making your rosette and the cardboard circle should no longer be visible. Don’t worry if it looks a little rough - you are just going for a fluffy look and no one will see the center of this layer so it can overlap and be a little messy in the middle. Next, if you want, you can glitter the outside edge of the crepe paper. To do this, simply put a mound of glue on a piece of scrap cardboard or paper so you can dip the edge of the crepe paper rosette in it. Just barely dip the edge in the glue, and then dip it in a dish of glitter. Shake off the excess, dip the next little section of the edge in the glue, then glitter, and keep going all the way around the edge. Hold over the trash, shake again, and set aside to dry for a bit.

Step five: Putting it all together!

Gather the embellishments you think you want to use. In this example I have a small piece of feather trim, a beaded rose about ¾ of an inch across, and about a six inch piece of antique tatted lace. I also have a one foot piece of green silk organza ribbon, ¾ inch wide, that I am going to use for a hanger on the medallion. Lay the largest rosette flat on your work surface. Using the hot glue, put about a dime-sized glob of glue into the middle of the rosette. Lay the crepe paper rosette onto this OR, if you are using an embellishment that you want to be peeking out from under the edge of the crepe paper ruffle, glue that down first then lay the crepe paper rosette down. Add any embellishments you want to layer under the top rosette in place, then add a dollop of hot glue to the center of the crepe paper rosette and lay down the last, smaller rosette. You will need to find a small pearl, gem or jewel, paper flower, or some other small thing to glue onto the very center of this third layer to cover up the glue you used to make it into a rosette. Next, take the one foot length of ribbon, bring both ends together and knot them making a hanging loop. Turn the medallion over and glue the knotted end into the middle of the back with some hot glue. Then, smooth the hanging loop so it lays flat and tack the two sides of the hanging loop to the upper edge of the medallion so it will hang flat. The last step is to add any final embellishments or, in this case, a large chipboard initial.

Some Final Thoughts . . .
• Paper works better than cardstock. It is harder to get good, even pleats into cardstock, but it can be done.
• You can pleat your rosettes without marking, but it is hard to get them even. Just think about folding those childhood fans!
• The larger and farther apart the pleats are, the taller your rosette will stand.
• You can change up the middle layer. Instead of crepe paper ruffles, use gathered lace, feather boa, tulle – whatever you want.
• The more you practice, the better you’ll get!

One more note: there is another, somewhat easier way to make the rosette, but I don't think the rosettes look as sharp and neat. Cut a strip of paper the same width as you want the finished diameter of your rosette to be. If you want a four inch rosette, cut a four inch wide strip of paper. Halve the length you think you will need. To make the above four inch diameter rosette calls for a 2 inch by 18 inch length of paper, so to make the same rosette in this manner, you would double the width of the paper strip to four inches, and halve the length to nine inches. Follow me so far? Pleat, using the paper fan folding method, back and forth in quarter inch intervals. When you have it all folded, tie a sturdy piece of string or bend a little wire around the exact middle of the bundle of pleats and and twist or tie to secure it tightly. Starting with one side of the bundle of pleats, run a line of glue along the side, and glue an edge to its mate on the other side of the midline of the bundle of pleats. hold until it dries. It should look at this point like a paper fan - a half circle. When it is dry, repeat on the opposite side so you have made a full circle. Again, this does not make as neat a medallion, IMHO.

The Livin' is Easy

2010-07-19T11:39:00.003-04:00

It's summertime around here, and the livin' is EASY! Well, sorta, anyway, if you don't count all the yard work and gardening work. It has been a week since I returned from a fabulous, sixteen-day vacay spent visiting some of my sisters and a wonderful Internet friend.

The day of my return I harvested some gargantuan zucchinis that my hubby should have picked the day after I left! No worries, though - those went into a monster recipe of zucchini bread I made a few days ago. I ended up with five big loaves, a half dozen large muffins for hubby's lunch, and a mini loaf. For one of the loaves I used my Pampered Chef stoneware loaf pan that makes a BIG loaf. I'm not sure how many cups it holds, but I think I used about five cups of batter in it. So that's the loaf we've been eating. I took a loaf to my regular Friday night play date with the girls at the the Shack, took one to the neighbors, and have a couple more tucked into the freezer along with the tiny loaf and the lunch muffins. This should last until the next baking day day!

Besides the zucchini, we have been livin' easy eating some other varieties of squash from the garden, too. I have been pan-sauteing yellow and white patty pans and yellow crooknecks and serving them with just a little butter and S&P. I harvest them when they are just about a couple inches in diameter - SO stinking good. Yesterday I sprinkled a cookie sheet with some EVOO and sliced about six small patty pans onto it, then roasted them in a 375 degree oven while I was baking some crumb-crusted lemon scrod. YUM!

Then there is the Swiss chard. That's good, too, if you like greens with a little bite to them. I planted regular white chard and rainbow chard, both. Since I planted them rather close, they needed thinning, so when I thinned them the other day, we got to eat the thinnings! I washed them and trimmed the root off and let them dry overnight in the fridge wrapped in paper towels inside a baggie. Then I sauteed them in bacon fat, added a little S&P and mmmmn! they were good too. That's what I mean about the livin' is easy - I love eating out of the garden in the summer! My green beans are about ready to pick, so I am already thinking about how to serve them and what I else I will have with them.

I usually don't plant cucumbers b/c they take so much room, but my neighbor keeps me supplied with all of those I can eat. That's why he gets zucchini bread! We have tons of tomatoes coming on, as well as the coles - broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage - which we had to plant twice b/c of the garden thieves. We have a couple of kinds of pepper planted also that I will use with the tomatoes to make salsa to put up for the winter. Besides the salsa, I will can the tomatoes to use all winter long. I use canned tomatoes in all kinds of stuff, and I hate paying almost $2.00 a can!

My vacation down south was tons of fun! I started off on June 22nd by flying to my youngest sister's house in Tampa. I visited with Juliet for a few days, and while there, got a new tattoo! It is a gorgeous blue swallow with its wings spread and sprays of pink cherry blossoms in the background. I had it placed on my right outer ankle and it is about three inches across. I love it! No tattoo remorse for this girl!

After visiting with Juliet, my sweet BIL, Ed, drove me to a meeting point on I75 where I met up with my Internet buddy, RyeRye. We met last summer through Swap-bot and became fast friends. RyeRye and I felt as if we had known each other for years, and in fact, call each other "Sistahs from another Mistah!" We embarked on a super adventure within about an hour of meeting each other: we went para sailing! That was so much fun, and not scary at all. And this is coming from a person who is terrified of carnival rides and roller coasters! During my five day stay with her, we went yard sailing, to the beach, bead shopping, and ate a bunch of great stuff. Also, the snot beat me at my own game, Scrabble, twice! One of the highlights with my visit with RyeRye was her hubby's bird, Conrad. She had taught him to say my name, and he has driven them crazy saying my name all the time before and since my visit.

Next, my sister Diana, came to pick me up and took me back to her place in Naples. she just bought a new home in a gated community. She has her own pool and her house is as cute as can be. She has great decorating taste and even though she's only lived there for a few months, she has it almost all decorated. My newest addiction after spending time in Florida? Sushi! Diana and I ate it almost every day I was there. After spending a few days eating sushi and drinking wine and lounging in her pool, I began to feel pretty darn privileged! Saying again - it's summertime and the livin' is EASY!

For the last leg of my trip I flew from Naples to Charlotte, NC, to see my sister Susan on July fourth. I hadn't been to her house ever before, nor had I ever met my niece's children, so I was glad to be able to visit there. The first night, being the Fourth, they had a barbecue so their friends could meet me. Afterwards, we sat outside forever enjoying the great weather and the (illegal) fireworks displays put on by their neighbors. Ken took me for a ride on his bike the next day so I could see the area a little. The next day Susan took me to an arboretum in the area. We had a wonderful time, and on July 7th, I flew back home. I had a wonderful time visiting everyone, but I think that will be my last grand tour for a long time. I really missed my hubby and my lil spotted dogs.

So, my summer is going very well, and I hope YOUR livin' is easy, too!

So Disappointed in Somerset Gallery Summer 2010

2010-05-25T19:25:00.005-04:00

I am so disappointed in Somerset Gallery 's Summer 2010 issue. I submitted a piece of artwork 19 months ago. After receiving the runaround for over a year and a half, my work was finally published. With an incorrect title and attributed to the wrong person!! It is absolutely sickening that such a high-profile publication and company has something like this happen. Especially since they have held onto my work for so long! And, what is even worse is the fact that they haven't returned the piece yet! I contacted them several times by email and finally, by telephone, because I thought they had lost the piece. They assured me it was safe in their offices, but now I am having serious doubts. If they can't attribute it correctly and even get the title of the piece wrong - which incidentally was ON THE COVER! how on earth are they going to be able to manage such a complicated thing as to get it in the USPS and delivered to the right person? I am sick, just SICK. Kudos, Stampington, for such a dismal effort.

New Fun

2010-05-18T23:45:00.008-04:00

Okay, I've posted on here before about my Swap-bot group and some of the things I've done, but I just tried something new this past Friday and had the most fun with it! I'd been wanting to try making a pincushion out of an old piece of china for years. In fact, I used to sorta kinda collect old creamers and sugar bowls. But I don't really collect anything anymore (except dust and craft supplies . . . and junk, and well, you know, stuff) and I didn't have any of the odd sugar bowls or creamers at this house (as opposed to our other house, the old house where a lot of my stuff is still stored). So when I saw a swap for a pincushion made out of a teacup or creamer or sugar bowl, I knew it was a match made in heaven. Hadda do it! The one pictured here is on its way to a special friend in Florida.

First step was to go to a flea market to find a piece of old, chippy china. Did I content myself with just one piece? Wellll, I think we all know the answer to that one - I came home with about six different pieces - and other assorted odds and ends, of course. Most notably a bag of nine assorted old millinery birds. Very cool, too, I might add! Next was a visit to JoAnn Fabrics to buy some velveteen to use for the pincushion part. Nothing else would do except the velveteen as far as I was concerned! I was a wee bit embarrassed to make the lady cut only a quarter yard each from the four rolls I chose, but she was really very nice about it. And of course I had to tell her what I was doing with it because I was so excited about my project! After that, I had only one more excursion to complete my list of supplies necessary for this fabulous undertaking; a trip to the dollar store to buy turkey skewers to use to create faux hatpins. Unfortunately, the Dollar Store skewers were junk and so that necessitated a trip to Hobby Lobby to look for the "real" stickpin blanks to make your own, but they did not have any of those. I ended up using "good" skewers Deb and Jack already had at the Shack.

This one was sent to my swap partner.

ANYWAY! By this time it was around seven P.M., but who's counting? When we got back to the Shack, it was time to have a little nosh . . . Okay, Okay already! I worked the rest of the evening and ended up with these three fabulous (IMO) creations. The birds on the last one is a new bird purchased at JoAnn's for an altered bird swap I was in a few weeks ago and which did not get used for that swap. So it's not one of the vintage ones like the one pictured decorating its nest above. My friend in FL will be mad she didn't get a bird on hers, but I will deliver her a bird in person in a few weeks, hehehehehe! The bottom one is mine! All mine!!! And on it I used some reallllllly nice old antique buttons and some antique jet trim (because it's mine - all mine!). I really like the old cup and saucer because it's so chippy and especially because of the sentiment, "Remember Me" on it. I can see that being passed on to my granddaughter and her saying, "This belonged to my grandma and she used it every day." Or something to that effect! More likely, "Can you believe the shit my grandma used to have setting around?" Whatever!!! I like it and that's what counts!

So this is what NEW FUN I've been having. What have YOU been doing?

What's New With You?

2010-05-11T22:01:00.002-04:00

Hmmmn - many things are new around here. New plants growing, new babies, too. Birds laying, hatching, fledging - birds humming at the feeders! Squash growing, weeds growing, grass growing - hope to get my 'maters in soon!

Whew!

What else? Not much! Getting ready for the school year to wind down - doing ordering for supplies and new manipulatives.

Having some fun with my students reading Frog and Toad Together (first grade) and memorizing poetry with my second graders. Now that's fun! And they are so good at it that I am amazed! Without me having ever alluded to any of the higher level poetic devices like personification, metaphor, etc. one of my second graders recognized a comparison between human jaws and pencil sharpener jaws in a poem. That was very cool, but immediately we talked about it for a hot second, and another student piped up and said hey, the poem right under this one is doing it too! So that was a perfect segue into a discussion of personification and one that I think they all "got." I love it when that good ol' light bulb goes off without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears!

So, what is new with you?

Have I Told You . . .

2010-04-15T20:51:00.001-04:00

what a great life I am living? Seriously. I have so much. A super hubby. A nice house. A wonderful job. A fulfilling side life AKA friends and hobbies. An extended group of family and friends to whom I can turn at any time for anything no matter how great or how small.

I just returned from dinner out to celebrate the accomplishments and retirements of some terrific former coworkers. Three people retired from our district this year, so we celebrated their years of work and friendship at a local eatery. I was thinking about being a no-show because I have pretty much been on the run the whole week in the evenings. I decided to go because I have become really rock-solid lately in honoring the commitments I make. It's a personal thing because my philosophy over the years has hardened into a belief that your word and actions are pretty much the only things about you that people remember, and if you don't live up to your commitments, people remember that. I know I do.

So anyway, the food was great, the conversation was sometimes inspirational and sometimes nothing but hilarious, but the feeling of camaraderie was so pervasive that I left feeling loved and valued - even though these are people with whom, for the most part, I have had no contact with for the greater part of a year. Some of them for even longer than that! Beginnings are good - I loved it when these same people welcomed me into their daily work lives almost three years ago, but I loved it even more tonight when we talked and had so much fun. What I really loved was the feeling that these are not acquaintances, but people who value me for being me - warts and all. Many of these people have been known to me for years. Some for as long as I have been employed in the district, seventeen years, but when I switched elementary schools three years ago within our school district, I made some friendships that changed the way I view education, made some others that have vastly improved my teaching, and deepened others that began during my first year of teaching. This has all benefited me immensely. Whether these people have benefited from knowing me is unknown to me. I hope I can enrich their lives in some small way, but I am coming out the winner here. They have given to me, as they have given to many children, the fruits of their knowledge, compassion, and educations.

So thanks to all you ESE teachers. You know who you are, and I am not going to further embarrass myself or you by naming names here.

In other news, I made a new Fish God friend. This is the husband of another coworker, and I will probably wear out the friendship there as I make midnight fish emergency calls to him. He sold me a new tang to replace one that I inadvertently murdered, and with all the wonderful sea life he has husbanded, he is my new "Go to" guy. I am determined to make the marine tanks under my care flourish and thrive, and I am definitely bitten by the bug. I am waiting patiently for the recently set-up Biocube to cycle appropriately because it is where I am going to start my first nano-reef. I wanted seahorses, but after researching I have found that neither of the tanks I have are deep enough for anything but dwarf seahorses, and they require live food which I am not prepared to feed. Someday!!!

So, have I told you lately what a wonderful life this is?

TODAY I AM

2010-04-13T22:33:00.002-04:00

Golden. I went for my Pap, my mammogram, and a bone density test all in one day today, and I am good to go until this time next year! Yay me for good women's health!

And, my house got spring cleaned today, too. Woo-hoo! Granted, I didn't do it, but it feels so luxuriant to walk in and see sparkling windows, dust-free ceiling fans and vents, and gleaming cupboards, walls, and woodwork. Pinesol, I love you! (Of course I owe a big thanks to Chris and Teresa, the wonderfuls gals who did the hard stuff for me.)

After my doctor visits and before I met my high school friend for a long afternoon lunch, I jumped into a JoAnn fabric for a minute. They had silk flower wreaths on sale two for $25.00, so I grabbed some fresh ones for the front and side doors of the house. The one now on the front door is a grapevine with a couple of summery sunflowers, some lemons, and some fern-y looking greenery. The side door has bunches of big, white sunflowers and daisies. Very summery looking and almost guaranteed to make feel good when I look at them as I'm driving up our long driveway. I'm not big on silk or artificial flowers in the house, but I do like having wreaths on my doors reflecting the different seasons of the year.

Tomorrow is back to school, and I feel good about that, too. My first grade students are having great success reading the last two books I have chosen for them. The books are ones that have a very controlled vocabulary consisting mainly of sight words (Dolsch vocabulary), and rather than just drilling, drilling, drilling on those sight words, the children seem to be internalizing them much better when they are used in the context of a story. But, Duh! That is something that we learned in our most basic education theory classes years ago! My Kindergarteners and second grade students are also making progress in reading and learning, but I seem to be leaning toward liking the first grade mentality much more than K or 2. Hmmmmn. Food for thought there. . .

On Sunday Richard and I worked outside. He mixed up a batch of weed killer for me, and I spot-sprayed dandelions and other pests in my flower beds. I do hope I didn't get any overspray on any of my Stell d'Oro daylily border or on the various colored Achillea I have planted in my dry sun bed. If I did, I have plenty of other daylilies I can divide to fill empty spots, and I think the achilleas have sprouted enough runners that they can survive some parts of the parent plants dying off. Dandelions and sow thistles!!! Two of my biggest gardening banes! I can never get the tap roots out when pulling or digging, and if you don't, the buggers always sprout ten more where there was one before! Anyway, after doing the beds, I walked the goat fence and the posts with bluebird houses where it is hard for Richard to mow and sprayed weed killer along there, too. Once the stuff works its magic, we will have nice, straight-looking fence lines w/o a bunch of raggedy weeds outside the fence. Inside the fence, the goat patrol keeps the weed population in check.

And speaking of goats - the triplets born on April first are in fine fettle. They are now "eating" hay. It is so funny to watch them take a little mouthful of something and act as if they are chewing it. What they really do is just mouth it a little and then spit it out. After that they usually leap wildly up into the air and act very surprised, as if "Hey! How did that get in my mouth?" And the littlest one, whom we've named Slim, is really beefing up. But I am not surprised at all by that because he is a lusty little drinker. Even when he was brand new he nosed right up to the wonderful milk machine that is his momma, good ol' Bessie, and got his fill of her yummy goodness. So I am happy that they are doing well.

And that is all for today.

Today I . . .

2010-04-08T17:53:00.002-04:00

Need to get down to the basement and TRY to find my work tables. I have three tables all set up for my own use downstairs and right now they are covered in piles of stuff. I tried to keep separate areas for different activities, but it doesn't seem to work out that way.

We had some water issues down there earlier this winter, and I had to rearrange some of my piles that were on the floor and move them to safer spots - the tables. I haven't put anything away forever, and my art supplies seem to be stealthily creeping up the stairs.

I have a prom dress that I am hemming for a former student and her prom is Saturday, so I need to do the dress tonight. My serger and sewing machine have their own table - sort of - but I will have to clear off a large space around it and cover it with a sheet. No fuzzies or snags on the dress please!

We had Monday this week off school, and it's a good thing we did. I had a water change planned for my marine fish tank and was plannning on using the water I removed from the tank to start cycling a new tank. Halfway through the water change, my filter pump went out and I ended up having to drive 100 miles to get a new one, come home, make some adaptations, and set up a new mechanical AND biological filter. I didn't want to try anything very tricky becasue I've only been in the marine business about a year, so instead of relying solely on the new bio filter alone, I am floating the old bio wheel in the tank for a while. The Pacific Blue Tang hates me and thinks I am trying to kill him. Anyway, that whole business of having that pump go out has left me panic-stricken about having a back-up plan for other fish emergencies. I've been researching like crazy and have a good idea of what I need to put together, so now I just have to put it into action. I wanted to put seahorses in this other tank, but after reading up on seahorses, I find that this new tank is too small. My next choice is a hummingbird wrasse if it isn't too large a fish for this bio-cube. But I am not giving up on seahorses! Just need to learn more and hone my fish-keeping skills.

In other areas, I am testing all my students' reading abilities and writing reports for their classroom teachers. The end of the school year is drawing to a close, and that is always a time for me to reflect on what I've taught this year, what still needs to be taught, and also on the things that we are not going to be able to get to. Right now we are going into state testing times, and that is stressful for students and teachers alike. Teachers are taking their kids on field trips, all kinds of activities are starting up for the kids, and it really makes for a crazy time of year. Soon it will be time to take everything down and pack it up again. Seems like I just did that!

What Have I Been Doing?

2010-03-25T20:15:00.007-04:00

Wellllllll . . . Lately I have been spending way too much time engaged in activities that a friend's daughter says are just mindless activities that give you a false sense of accomplishment - computer games. Most notably, Farm Town and Country Life on FB. Argggh! I quit Farm Town back in the summer because I was spending several hours a day on the computer just playing that stinking game, but I unblocked the application a couple of months ago, and unluckily for me, my farm was intact. Then, being the follower that I am, the same friend whose daughter calls computer gaming mindless activities with false senses of accomplishment (which they are), sent me a request to help her out in Country Life - so I did!!! Now I am sitting here once again with this stupid game occupying me in the evenings.

Sitting here putting this down in black and white makes me feel ashamed of myself. I can really see that it does no good at all, and it does, indeed, induce a false sense of accomplishment since there is no real-life gain in playing these games. Yes, you build up a bank of coins and goods, but what can you do with it? In a way you are competing against others, but there is nothing measurable achieved. As a teacher, I have viewed video and computer gaming as the enemy because many children neglect reading and homework and physical activities in favor of their virtual counterparts. Now I find myself getting sucked into the very thing I have advocated against. Hmmmmn. Time for a change in habits for me, I think.

I can think of about three dozen things that I could do right now to take the place of my little addiction. Coming to the foremost, with the arrival of nice weather, is cleaning out the flower beds around here. That includes picking up the pukey remains of last fall's pumpkins sitting in melted puddles of what-used-to-be-orange, white, and green nearby the steps. Soooo attractive to look at. I always do that - leave them for spring and I always un-enjoy it so much! As long as they are hidden by snow, I let them go, but they are always lurking under the snow and in the back of my mind, waiting for spring! As old as I am, you'd think by now I would be done with it and haul them down to the compost heap (so-called) in the fall.

Another upcoming job is too clean out the veggie plot. That, too, is a fall job that I didn't do this year. But it was kind of neat this winter to look out the back door and see, hanging on for their dear lives, the little pear-shaped heirloom yellow tomatoes that were left on the vines. (Unlike those lurking pumpkins!) I don't know why, but these particular tomatoes really stick to their vines. I bet too that they will self-sow if I don't get too aggressive cleaning that area. I loved those tomatoes in salads this past summer, too.

Another big thing I can do to stay away from computer games is my continuing self-directed professional development. I have spent many evenings this winter reading and researching and relearning many early primary best practices for teaching reading. My big job change at the beginning of the school year prompted this flurry of PD, and it feels as if it has really paid off. I am much more secure lately in my knowledge base and my teaching practices. I think that increased confidence has benefited my students, too. Either that, or just their natural developmental progression has increased their growth through the school year, but I like to think my intervention has helped! I am still reading and rereading my Jan Richardson, Debbie Diller, and Richard Marzano. Another hugely valuable resource that I continue to explore is the Florida Center for Reading Research web site maintained by Florida State University. This database is vast and although I have downloaded and copied all the materials for grades K-3, I haven't read or evaluated it all, yet. Of the eight-ten activities I have tried, I found several worth using again, so I will definitely keep sifting through this treasure trove of materials looking for teaching materials to use with my students.

The other things keeping me busy lately have been hand-made goodies. I am hosting a traveling round-robin swap through my paper doll group on Swap-bot. That endeavor has been semi-sucessful in that one person dropped out after not sending on the dolls she has received for the past couple of months. I think she has deeper issues than the doll swap, though, so I hope she gets everything in her life straightened around. She is a talented artist in real life, but her health and employment issues are not where she needs to have them. The other swap participants have hung in there and are creating some really cute outfits for the dolls. Don't know who has my doll right now, though! I've also been making a BUNCH of jewelry. I finally used the bright red coral nuggets (huge and honkin!) that my hubby bought for me at a bead and gem expo in August. Now I need to think of something exciting to do with the biwa and dentil pearls I bought there as well. Now they are GORGEOUS! I really need to come up with a special design for them. I also have been making a lot of Pandora style keychains lately. They are pretty cool. I've also been experimenting with some fabric creations, but I am not trotting them out for a while. I need to work on my technique! And last, but certainly not least, I finally found out that my flip book of paper dolls is being published in the summer issue of Somerset Studio's Gallery magazine. I can't wait to see how they feature it. I hope it will be a multi-picture spread just so people can see the diverse group of dolls I stamped and embellished. And that, Folks, it all there is for this update!

Sunday and It's COLD!

2009-12-06T11:23:00.004-05:00

Today is Sunday, and it is cold out. I guess it's supposed to be cold here in Ohio in December, but I am never ready when it starts settling in and staying cold. I have miniature dappled dachshunds, and they are very low to the ground and short-haired, so when it gets like this, they have to have their coats on to go outside. Sometimes I am a bad mother and try to get them to go out without their coats, and they just stand there and give me dirty looks. It's like they're telling me, "You know better than this. Do you think we're stupid?" And it usually works to shame me into getting their coats for them.

Another reason I dislike the arrival of cold, snowy weather is that it tends to make me hibernate. I've posted before about the fun I have every Friday night going over to the Scrap Shack to play with my friends, and the cold weather sometimes makes me stay at home. It's not that I don't want to go play; it's just that I have never learned the fine art of packing light. So, instead of dragging all my stuff out and packing it in the car, then unpacking when I get there, I just snuggle up in my jammies and think about the fun I am missing . . . Sigh.

So, here I sit on this sunny, cold day looking for reasons to complain. I think I'd better get up and get moving to warm myself up!

A New Doll

2009-12-05T19:50:00.002-05:00

This is a new mermaid doll I made last night at my weekly visit to the Shack. She is made from a template available theenchantedgallery.com.

Long Holiday Weekend Plans

2009-11-24T20:45:00.003-05:00

Today was the last school day of this week, so I have a full day off to get things ready for Thanksgiving. I haven't planned my menu formally yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what we're going to have. I am pretty classic - roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry something, gravy, stuffing (for my hubby, I don't like it), pumpkin pie, relishes, squash, maybe some turnips, and also some mincemeat tarts. Oh, and homemade yeast rolls in crescent shape. So yes, there it is - I have planned my menu. Now for the shopping list . . .

Tomorrow is also my hair appointment day and cleaning day. I have the major cleaning out of the way, just little stuff.

I have finished up all my dolls for the time being. Now I am ready to start making some jewelry. I have a ton of beads I want to play with and make some dazzling new creations. Got lots of ideas. So maybe Friday evening at the Shack will be jewelry bling night.

Friday AM will be one early morning jaunt to Michael's. Last year I scored some really good deals and it wasn't crowded at all at six AM! I can always stock up on my new favorite glue; Zip Glue. It's a great quick drying, non-wrinkling paper glue. LOVE it!

So there you have it in a nutshell - my long holiday weekend plans. Oh, that reminds me - I need to pick up the rest of the black walnuts out of the driveway that we have been hulling by running over them with the car. And those will be used in future plans for Christmas goodies.

Get 'Er Done

2009-11-21T21:48:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's me, Ms. Get 'er done. Last week I complained about all the swaps I had to make that were sending me over the edge because it seemed as if I wouldn't be able to get them done on time. Well, I am here now to crow about my ability to get 'er done! They are all finished, and will be going out in Monday's mail. Friday night's Scrap Shack get together was very productive for me, but I also spent several evenings holed up in the basement working some late hours, too. Now someone needs to come over to my house with a scoop shovel to help me clean up my mess down there! It is a disaster of epic proportions - there are some pretty precarious piles waiting for me to carefully approach them and start the sorting process so all my stuff can be put away.

Even though I fight valiantly against it, the collections of "stuff" seem to grow continuously. Should I just give up the fight and fill my house up with all the things I might someday need? I really wonder if I will ever use the rest of the VERY NICE French bread sack I tore to collage-sized bits, used two pieces for the Marie collage, then meticulously saved for the future. It's a wonderful sort of paper with an almost imperceptible pin dot pattern . . .

Maybe I need to charge up that get 'er done thing to a really high level and race down to the basement and organize like crazy. But I'm thinking (and I bet you are, too), that I am probably going to save all my get 'er done for all the important things that I fill my life up with!

Now off I go to find more important things on which to focus my awesome get 'er done powers .

Scott Allen Liming

2009-11-18T23:30:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday, Son! I just wanted to let everyone know that today is the anniversary of a very special event in my life! It marks the day my wonderful son was born. Scott, thanks so much for being you. You are a kind, caring, empathetic person. You are intelligent and are not afraid to be the voice that speaks out for injustice and cruelty in the world. I am proud of who you are and what you stand for. I will always love you.

La Reine

2009-11-18T23:13:00.004-05:00

Here are the latest dolls I have been working on. Blue one sent off already and the pink one and display collage she's shown in are in the box ready to ship off to my swap partner. I hope she likes her.

Post Script to Dolls, ETC.

2009-11-14T23:49:00.003-05:00

Hoo-Boy! I wish I had paid more attention in business and office class when I was supposed to be learning how to type! Man, I had a big, long post all ready to go on here about how much I accomplished last night at the Scrap Shack, when BOOM! my finger hit the wrong key and I deleted the whole darn thing! So, instead of trying to remember what I had written and go into all the boring details, here is the short version: I got some things done! Made three Marie Antoinette dolls, one of which is totally done. The others are going to be easy to finish up. Finished the huge doll except for a pink feather boa which I purchased this evening (bought some more Zippee Glue, too, which I love!). On our weekly late-night/early morning jaunt to Wally World, I bought the items I needed for this evening's potluck/turkey shoot my hubby and I attended. Today I finally sat down and made the genealogy list for the goats hubby requested, made the pot-luck food (yummy golden baked onion casserole and crock-pot peanut clusters), and then we tagged goat ears. OUCH! they said. That's the update - I am getting that elephant eaten one bite at a time . . .

DOLLS, DOLLS, AND MORE DOLLS, OH MY!

2009-11-12T20:25:00.002-05:00

I've posted before about my paper doll group on Swap-bot, Paper People Art Dolls, so I guess most people know I like paper dolls. And if you know me personally or know anything about me, you might know I sometimes tend to get in over my head on projects, and this seems to be one of those times. I recently started a swap for a traveling doll with the participants' faces as the dolls' faces. The swap has twelve people participating, so all twelve dolls will be worked on by all the participants. The schedule won't be completed until late next summer, so this is a pretty involved undertaking. My doll isn't done yet, and I'm getting a little nervous about this because I want it to be perfect. But that's not all - I've also created another fairly involved swap for a Marie Antoinette paper doll. This isn't just for a doll, though. It also includes a display folder or backdrop to go with the doll. But even that's not all! I also decided that I just had to have a Frida Kahlo doll made by another member of the group, jewelrydoll180, so we arranged a private Frida doll swap. But wait! Even that's not all! Since I love jewelrydoll180's dolls, AND I am greedy, we also arranged a private Marie doll swap! Arggggh!

Are we done yet? Nope - I am also making a huge, jointed doll (this is the same doll we are making for the Traveling Round Robin Self Doll Swap) for a friend to give to her husband's boss, AND another one like it as a surprise for the above-mentioned friend. This isn't even mentioning the pair of Thanksgiving-themed dolls I made last night to go out in tomorrow's mail! Or the profile surprise swap I am in or the bead projects I have in mind or the wreath for our front door that I made last night, or. . And that all these things are due by the end of November? And that I said I wanted Thanksgiving at my house?

Did I mention I sometimes get in over my head? And that I hold a full-time job? Or that I have a husband, three dogs, three cats, 25 goats, and four fish? And that my house is actually kind of clean? And that I cook now and then? I need to stop now and go someplace quiet. Seeing this in print is even scarier than having it in my head! I better get my butt off the computer and down to the basement and GET BUSY! BYE NOW!

The People Behind the Blogs

2009-11-09T20:01:00.004-05:00

I already spend way too much time on the computer, but I sure wish I had more time to spend browsing through people's blogs! Last night I hopped on here and noticed I had a comment on a post, so I stopped to read the comment. From there I was drawn to the commenter's list of interests, so I clicked on one that was a common interest. That took me to whole list of people who shared the same interest, and suddenly, there I am cruising through various blogs. My problem is that I am nosy. I will be merrily reading someone's blog when out of the blue I will wonder about some little piece of their personal lives. That sends me off sniffing for their little bits and snippets of their lives and lifestyles and I never do finish reading whatever it was they thought important enough to share in that day's entry.

The other bad thing I do is start off reading one person's blog, notice a link they have that looks interesting, click on that link, and never finish reading the original person's entry. Then, I get lost in such a convoluted web of open windows and links that I don't ever find out what I was looking for in the first place . . . Adult ADD, maybe?

Confusion

2009-11-03T18:01:00.002-05:00

Today I am feeling confused. I feel as if I do not know how to teach or how to do my job. I feel like I am out of my experience area and that I am not doing my students any good. I also feel like my job is mostly an "add-on" type of job and that I'm just a warm body that is filling a spot that has been created so the school district can get federal dollars.

Crockpot Peanut Clusters

2009-11-01T01:43:00.002-04:00

Okay, this is not going to turn into a recipe blog or one about my cooking adventures, but I am posting a recipe here today for my Facebook friends. Last night I stayed home from my weekly jaunt to Deb's famous Scrap Shack so I could make these peanut clusters to take to a friend's Halloween bonfire. Easy, right? Well, you know there is always a fly hovering in a corner somewhere just waiting to get into your ointment, and last night was no exception.

Richard saw a crockpot he liked last week at Meijers that was on clearance. He didn't buy it then, but when he went to the store on Friday afternoon to pick up the ingredients for the candy, he bought it, so we decided to use it last night for the peanut clusters. About two hours into the cooking time, I smelled what I thought was Richard making some toast. Turns out it was the candy, BURNING! Sure enough, that crockpot was defective, and by the time I smelled it, those peanuts were burnt black! The chocolate was all bubbled up and charred. Talk about nasty. . .

So at 11:00 P.M. last night we made a run into Marion to get more ingredients. We loaded up the OLD crockpot with the stuff and Richard fired it up at five this morning, and at 8:30, I was spooning out mounds of chocolately-peanutty goodness. (Somehow it just isn't as appealing at that hour.) Of course, I had to whine to my friends on Facebook about burning the first batch of candy and having to remake it, which naturally led to people wanting to know what I was talking about. So, that is why I am posting the recipe here. Now if any of my FB friends want the recipe, they'll have to follow the link I'm posting and come here and read my blog to get the recipe. That's kind of a sneaky way to get readers, right?

Crockpot Peanut Clusters
Two 16 0z. Jars of dry-roasted peanuts, one of them SALTED and one UNSALTED
Two 12 oz. bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Two 12 oz. bags of white choc chips or equal amount of almond bark or white dipping coating
One 4-8 oz. bar of sweet German choc.

Layer in crockpot in order given - peanuts MUST be on bottom of crockpot. Do not mix. Cook on LOW for three hours w/o lifting lid. Turn off, mix well, let sit in crockpot for twenty mins. Spoon out in heaping teaspoonfuls onto wax paper-lined cookie sheets. Let set for a few hours in a cool place. Makes about seven dozen peanut clusters. Warning: Addictive! Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Okay – here are a few things I have found out from making these:
There always seems to be a little too much chocolate left in the bottom w/o enough nuts so you could probably cut down on choc a little or add a few extra nuts.

You can change up the kinds of chocolate you use to suit your tastes or suit what you have on hand.

Don’t lift the crockpot lid while they’re cooking b/c water could run into the chocolate and that ruins chocolate.

I absolutely KNOW putting the chocolate on the bottom will make them burn because one of the teachers I work with did it at school when we made them with kids one year.

Update to the Update

2009-10-30T20:16:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I talked about how busy I've been with my Swap-Bot group, paper People Art Dolls, but I have been even busier in my real life! If you read my post two days ago you heard that I was switched (I'm making myself passive in this move!) to the other elementary school in our district a week before school started this year, and was assigned to a new position. Although this move was an involuntary move on my part, I have grown to like the job most of the time, and am enjoying the interactions with the children I am teaching.

Our school district has been experiencing a great deal of upheaval the past couple of years. Our enrollment has declined considerably necessitating a reduction in force for two years running. This, coupled with an inability to come to terms with the board of education on a contract for certified staff, has also created some divisiveness between the teaching staff and the administration. The way all this affects me is that due to the reduction in force, teachers who were riffed left positions open that had to be filled from within and many people were shifted to different jobs and buildings. The job I am now doing was to have been done by a veteran, 34 year teacher. She was assigned to a different building, and rather than moving for her last year of teaching, she decided to retire thereby leaving a vacancy which was filled by me. I really don't know why I was chosen, other than the fact that it is a reading position and I do hold a reading endorsement. There were however, several other people who really wanted the position, and had expressed no interest in it or desire to move again since I had just moved from that building two years previously.

But I guess sometimes we need a little prodding to break out of the ruts we have grooved ourselves into, and I am no exception to that axiom. I was pretty upset about the move at first because at the end of May I had packed up my fifth grade classroom as ordered. Every. Last. Bit. Of. It! From the floor to the ceiling, my fifth grade classroom was packed awaiting orders to see if I would be moved. Everyone in our building had done the same because we knew there were being cuts and there would be many moves made. But in July I received a letter telling me my assignment was to remain the same with the exception that I would also be adding fifth grade Social Studies to my teaching duties. That was fine with me; I love social studies. So, I thought I was set to go. Since I had so much to unpack (I own some books!), I began unpacking and getting my room ready about the first week of August. It took me about two weeks, to get everything unpacked and put away, and to get my posters hung back up and to decorate my bulletin boards, do copying for the beginning of the year, and to get things ready for the students. I also wanted to be ready ahead of schedule so I could take the week before school started to enjoy family things and get things done around the house. Finally, because I was ready ahead of schedule, I began overhauling all my filing cabinets at school and reorganizing everything in them. By this time it was August 13th, and school started on August 24th.

Well, on the afternoon of the thirteenth when I was on my way home, my friend called to tell me that the superintendent of out district was asking for my cell phone number! Now that was a new one for me! I immediately became nervous. The Sup't. does NOT just call you up on your cell! Anyway, as soon as I got home I checked the answering machine to see if he had called our home phone. Whew, I thought to myself. No messages from him! Well, a little later, as I sat on the deck talking to our neighbor, my cell rang, and guess who it was! The superintendent. And guess what his message was. When he asked me why I wasn't saying anything after his message, I told him I was pretty much dumbstruck, but I wish I'd asked him some questions. Like why me? How long had my name been tossed around for the job? But I didn't, so now those questions will remain unasked and unanswered. But again, sometimes we just have to be shaken out of our complacency and get handed something new, which is where I am at this point.

So, do I like my new job? Yes, I do, on most days that is. It is very different than what I had been doing, and I am having to relearn many things from my undergrad days in college regarding early literacy. That is a good thing, though, because I really enjoy research and learning. Is it easy? No, because nothing about teaching Kindergarten, first, and second grade children can be assumed or taken for granted. It is very touchy-feely and hands on, and having been accustomed for so long to fifth and sixth graders who are more independent, I am having to make some major adjustments to the way I speak, think, and teach, among other things. Some days I feel as if I am mothering more than I am teaching, and some days I go home wondering how Kindergarten teachers ever make it to retirement! On the other hand, it has made me much more humble about my abilities because now I can really see the hard work and dedication put forth by our primary teachers! In my former life I often wondered why children arrived in fifth grade missing some piece or other of what I considered essential knowledge, and now I marvel that they arrived there with as much as they did have!

How long will I be in this position? I don't know, but I think the move has a been a positive one for me if for no other reasons than the ones I wrote of in the preceding paragraph. Change has a way of opening our eyes to a new perspective and that, for me, is a good thing.

Paper People Art Dolls

2009-10-29T20:54:00.005-04:00

That's the name of my Swap-bot group that has been consuming huge chunks of my time lately. The reason it has been consuming so much time? We've grown! (http://www.swap-bot.com/group/60da1bd1b0a02190d47611c4d36a1309/about)

This is a group that is dedicated to making paper dolls, so the focus of what we do is pretty narrow. This was reflected in my group's membership. Up until recently there were about thirty of us in the group, and we weren't very active. I'd create a swap here and there and three or four members would sign on to swap, but to tell the truth, it was getting to be pretty boring! I was even thinking about getting out of Swap-bot altogether until I made a fabulous new online friend. RyeRye invited me to join a group she founded on the "Bot," we began chatting, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, here I am complaining to RyeRye about the small membership of the group and wishing I had more members to entice into swapping dolls with me. She immediately does what I should have done long ago - INVITE new members. Some group founder I am. Didn't even know I could do that! Does she invite one or two? Oh heck no - she invites bunches, tons, GOBS of new members. And so our membership for PPAD grew from thirty-two paper dolls lovers to 105 members within just a couple of weeks. That girl is nuts, I tell you! Anyway, with our ranks pumped up by this amazing friend of mine, our group is experiencing a renewed vigor and is practically brimming with talented artists ready to swap some gorgeous, original pieces of artwork.

Our group has a gallery on Flickr now where we can post pictures of our dolls for everyone to ooh and aah over. If your curiosity is piqued, you can roll on over to our photostream (http://www.flickr.com/groups/1231880@N24/). Even if you think paper dolls are for kids, I bet you will still get a kick out of the unique interpretations created by the artists posting here.

I'm very excited about a couple of the swaps we have going on right now, too. One swap is to make a Marie Antoinette paper doll, and while that concept itself is not new, we're taking it to a new level by creating a backdrop, or display stage for her. The most exciting and fun swap I've created for this group, however, is The Huge Traveling Self Doll Round Robin swap. This swap was taken from Lisa Vollrath's site, Go Make Something. (http://gomakesomething.com/ht/artdolls/flat-self-doll/)

She originated this Self Doll and put the pattern up, so I can't take credit for the doll or the idea, but I am taking credit for making it into a round robin doll swap. The people who signed up for the swap are making a "Self Doll." That is, the doll has your own face or your self on it. Then, we are sending our dolls off on a round robin journey so each person in the swap can make something for the doll before sending it on to the next person in the circle. We've also made the swap more fun by creating an identity, or theme, for ourselves. My alter ego? I am going to be a Wild West dance hall gal. My inspiration for this came from an anniversary card my mom sent to my husband and me years ago. It shows a dance hall gal and a cowboy at the bar. She's hanging off him with one arm draped around his neck and her other hand in his back pocket. I think that about sums up my personality, folks! We've also got an Audrey Hepburn (hey cpbunch!), a hippie chick, and a fairy princess, to name just a few of the multiple personalities floating around in this swap.

I'm loving the play of ideas and creativity we're bouncing off each other. It's refreshing to the soul to be a part of a dynamic group having fun together. And the best part is we don't have to travel far or invest a lot of money in it. It is happening within our own homes and at our convenience. We set the parameters for how much time we devote to it, and how involved we become with the group.

I bet at this point you're asking, "But what in the heck do you do with paper dolls?" Well, I don't actually do much with them except look at them and display them in my personal, private areas. I don't inflict them on my husband, much, because, well, he's just not that into them. But I guess because I made them as a young child and because I like girly things, I just like them. They're fun to make. So there's the reason I like paper dolls - pretty much a no reason type of reason. So if you find yourself bored with nothing much to do, check out Paper People Art Dolls on Swap-Bot. You may just find yourself elbow deep in glue and paper fashioning a new persona for yourself!

I'm Baaaaaaack!

2009-10-25T12:12:00.003-04:00

It has been absolutely months since I posted anything on my blog, but that doesn't mean that I have been hibernating! Things have been pretty exciting. First of all, I have lost 77 lbs. since my bariatric surgery March 30th, so that is pretty exciting. If you read any of my posts right after surgery, I had some comkplications and ended up back in the hospital. All that straightened out very quickly, and I feel marvelous now.

The second big thing that happened was I was transferred to a different job. I had been teaching fifth grade reading and language arts for the last fourteen years, but a week before school started this August, I was transferred back to our other elementary school and assigned to a Title I reading position teaching Kindergarten, first and second grade students. I was upset at first, especially since I had my fifth grade classroom all ready to go! But I made the move, and although it took a while to get everything packed back up and then to sort through all the other stuff that went with the Title classroom, I finally got settled in. I actually like the job , but I am having to relearn a lot of early primary material! It is definitely a learning experience!

My husband and I have been very busy this week with the goats we keep. We have TEN new babies. The oldest one is two weeks old, and all the rest are less than a week old. We just had three new arrivals this morning. And that is where I am going to leave you on this update as I am off to make sure our tiniest ones are eating and doing well. I'll be back with more updates soon!

Feeling Themeless

2009-06-18T09:50:00.006-04:00

Why do you create? Whether it's writing, making art, or creating something with your hands, why do you do it? I have been struggling with this idea for a while, and I really don't know the answer to it. I'm beginning to see glimpses of the answer for me, personally, and I'm not liking what I'm beginning to understand about myself.

The first answer some of us may give is, "Because I can." And that answer works, to a certain degree, with me too. That answer falls under the category of having a talent and using it, but upon closer inspection, I find fault with myself by doubting whether I CAN, in fact. That is, do I really have a talent or merely a propensity? How do I measure up when comparing myself with others? Can I justify the time and money spent on creating objects or pieces of work that are made to give or trade with others and that have no lasting significance other than the fleeting satisfaction given to the maker or the recipient?

Because I do not create "fine" art, I am beginning to believe that the ephemeral existence of my pieces does not justify their creation. What happens with the things I am making after a couple of years? When I die, I will be leaving behind thousands of dollars of supplies that my survivors will either pitch or sell at tag sales. Will there be some of my descendants who will treasure and display my creations? I don't think so. First of all, look at what we are doing to the Victorians' scrapbooks. We're tearing them apart for the German paper cuts and the calling cards to use in our own pieces. Our own society is not one of saving and treasuring items of the past; we are living in a throw-away society where each item has its own obsolescence programmed into itself.
The ephemeral nature of paper arts and hand-crafted items is not the only reason I am struggling with this issue. I am also beginning to understand my true motives for creating. I think I am looking for recognition. Can this be good? It seems narcissistic in nature. There is a book out now, and I don't remember the title, but it examines why the social networking sites like Blogger, Facebook, My Space, Twitter, all these things that people are using to talk about their lives, are so popular right now. I believe its premise is that at some level, people are all insecure narcissists who need to have someone admire them for something and/or make their lives matter for something. I think I fall into this category. Can that be healthy? Why am I putting this out here now? To sound important? To make you feel sorry for me? To have you reassure me that what I do is important? Or is the answer to all my questioning merely that I think too much?

I am probably doing just what every other person in the world does at some point or other and which a philosopher (again, can't remember who) calls the stages of man. I am at the point in my life where I am questioning whether my existence has made a difference on the planet. I think I just need to get to the point of acceptance and stop worrying about all of this stuff. But how am I ever going to justify the money I have spent on all these art supplies? Maybe my claim to fame after I am gone will be, "Man, look at all the cool stuff she had!"

MISSING IN ACTION

2009-06-12T00:44:00.006-04:00

I haven't been very faithful to my blog here lately. I can't really come up with an excuse except that I've been on Facebook a Bunch! I think I owe that to my good buddy Michele, who introduced me to the evils of Bejeweled Blitz, a game on Facebook. Plus, several of my sisters and other relatives are members there and it makes it easier for us to catch one or the other of us online and chat. Cheaper than calling! It's actually pretty funny to catch up with friends from back in the day when none of had personal computers, to find that we all own them in the here and now.

I've been working on some Swap-bot swaps as usual, and these are the latest of what I've snapped pics of. The Victorian Row House almost didn't make it out the door. I wanted to keep it for myself. I guess the things you make that you want to hang on to are the best ones. If they are good enough to meet my standards, then I deem them good enough for others. I like the Vegas Showgirl dolls ok, but the outfits didn't turn out quite the way I envisioned them. I did like using the Marilyn Monroe doll as the model for the showgirls. I have asked to join a new group, Chunky Row House Group because they are making all sorts of these cute little row houses. The purpose of the row house, besides being cute, is that they are to be displayed side by side like - well, like row houses. The one I did has copper roofs and sheet acrylic printed with black STayzon ink. I used two of Tim Holtz spinners put together with a brad to make a weathervane. Like I said, I didn't want to send it off. But, my swap buddy Ayn, in Alaska, won out in the end, and she has it coming her way.

In other news, my mother has been looking around for a place to rent while waiting on th insurance to settle on her house and contents. Thank goodness my sister, Susan, who is a public insurance adjuster, came up from N.C. and found a company that does reciprocal work for them and put Mom in some good hands.

Mom has it in her head that she wants ot live out in the country now, and I've tried my best to talk her out of it. The reason I don't think she should move out into the country is because it is so much harder to live out in the country in the wintertime, and she is too old to move to the country by herself. She's 73, and I know that is not real old, but she is old enough that I think she needs neighbors. She's stubborn though, so I imagine the country is where she will be going.

A Road Trip to Hollo's or On a Paper Buying Spree

2009-06-03T19:56:00.005-04:00

Today was road trip day. My friend, Michele, and I went to Medina, Ohio, to a place called Hollo's that sells paper by the pound. I didn't look at my receipt, so I don't know how many pounds I bought, but I can tell you that I had trouble lifting the box it was in! I bought mainly whites and neutrals, but I also bought a few sheets of some 12 X 12 colored card stock. Also, today was my lucky day because they had the thinner chipboard that I like to use to back dolls and such. The last couple of times I was there, they had book board which, while nice for book covers, is way too thick to back anything with it.

Michele played personal shopper for a friend of hers via telephone, so she ended up with lots of paper and card stock, too. Both of us bought some really nice little folding boxes to use for mailing out swap-bot goodies, and we both bought some aluminum foil carry-out ware. The prices were really good on these items. I like to keep them on hand so when I make something to eat to take to someone, I don't have to worry about getting my dishes back or making extra clean-up for the people who I'm taking the food to.

We both sifted through the tons of craft goodies in their annex room, and mostly we resisted all the "stuff" in there, although both of us bought some beads. I have an idea that most of the stuff comes from down the road at a place call Pat Catan's because it was mostly Darice stuff, and that's what Pat Catan's carries. I had to work really hard to resist all the handmade Japanese papers in the annex. I have tons of that stuff already, but what I really wanted were the prints. I can't remember what they were called, but they were $9.50 a sheet, so I didn't get any. New rule: Use what you have and then you can buy some more. Like I'm gonna listen to rules!!!

After dropping Michele off, I got the idea that I was going to run down south to Delaware, Ohio, to go to Cord Camera because I want some of those tiny Basic Grey magnets, and I can't remember where I bought my last bunch. Cord didn't have any of them, and it looked like the economic slowdown has affected the scrapbooking industry because they didn't have anywhere near the inventory they used to carry. I did find some gorgeous Bazzil Bling papers in some scrumptious colors ocean-y colors. Don't know what I'm going to make with them yet, but they are pretty to look at!

I've been working in my studio area and have added new shelving, a 12 X 12 paper spinner rack, and lots of organizing baskets. One of these days I am actually going to have an area bigger than a postage stamp in which to work.

I haven't heard anything more from Mom. My sister from North Carolina is supposed to be here today to help act as a go between for Mom and the adjuster. That's what Sue does for a living, so hopefully she will be able to help Mom get reimbursed for everything she has coming to her that was destroyed in the fire. Even though she's not licensed in Ohio, she and her husband have a friend from Cleveland who will be acting for her. It will be interesting to see what Mom comes out of it with because she had tons of vintage and antique goodies squirreled away. Her cookbook collection alone was almost 300 books and it was all destroyed. If anyone can get her money out of them, it will be sister Sue. She is a pit bull when she judges someone is taking advantage of her!

A LATE NIGHT CALL AND THE END OF AN ERA

2009-06-01T23:09:00.010-04:00

You know when the phone rings in the hours between midnight and six A.M. that it's a harbinger of bad news, and last night was no exception to the rule. Our phone rang around 4:00 A.M. Monday morning and brought the news that my mother's house had burned down. The good news is that Mom was awakened by the smoke detector and got out in time. She was able to get herself and my dad's old Lab, Winnie, out safely. Everything else is gone.

This old house wasn't worth much as far as real estate values go, but it provided many years' worth of memories for our family. This is the house Mom moved into at the age of seventeen, and where we moved to when I was in fifth grade. It's the house we crammed twelve children and two adults into its three bedrooms. It's the house we all brought our spouses home to meet our parents, and it's the place we all brought our children to for the holidays. It's the home we all ran to when our father died four years ago. Now it's nothing but a burnt-out pile of rubble, but I had to run to it one more time to see for myself what it had become. And I cried. And I'm crying right now.

I didn't think I had much emotional attachment left to the old place because it seemed like I couldn't get away from it fast enough when I was a teenager. I was ashamed of its lack of amenities for almost all my life. I railed at Mom all the time to clean it up, empty it of all her "junk" and didn't visit her as much as I should have because of the house. I even hated it. Now that it's been reduced to a pile of charred wood and broken glass, I'm homesick for it. Now I see the value in it. Now I understand some of what Mom feels for the old place. Dilapidated, run-down, decrepit, at least it had stories and memories and life within those shabby walls. Soon it will be an empty lot because Mom says she's not living there on that land in a different house. And I get it. Now. When it's too late.

But. Mom is alive and that is worth more than any house on the planet. So we start making new memories. Now. And it's not too late for that.

I picked this bouquet of pink roses from the bush in the front yard. Although the bulldozer will come through soon enough and level everything and trucks will cart off all the rubble, they are a symbol of hope. I know this because Mom will be digging like a crazy lady, and you can bet these roses will bloom again in another yard.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

2009-05-26T20:20:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know it's not politically correct for teachers to be crowing about the last day of school finally arriving - but I am! The past couple of weeks has been very trying - meaning I have about one shredded nerve left. We have spent far too much time doing nothing. Grades were cut off about ten days ago, and since then, it has been a battle just keeping the kids from swinging from the light fixtures. I am vowing to teach right up to the last day next year. I MEAN IT! So if your child comes home the day before school is out next year and announces that he or she has homework, too bad. I'm not going to grade it either, but I won't tell the kids that.

Seriously, there has to be a way to keep the kids occupied the last couple of weeks of school without everyone losing their minds. We have shown movies, played games, given extra recess, cleaned and packed the room , had picnics, track and field, gone for ice-cream, you name it, and students think that is all this time of year is for. I have to disagree. Some fun is fun. But not two weeks' worth!

Anyway, this is turning into a rant, and I'm not letting it. I am just happy that we are getting out of school. I have all kinds of plans for the summer, and I guess I should start a list so I will keep myself on track!

PAPER DOLL LINK

2009-05-19T22:43:00.003-04:00

I'm trying something new, and maybe someone out there can help me with this. I want to upload some doll templates that I created for people in my Swap-Bot doll group. Please try to print these from your computer and let me know how that works. I'm not too hopeful . . .

Friday Night Playtime

2009-05-16T22:22:00.002-04:00

Went to my friend, Deb's, last night to play in the Scrapshack. This is the second weekend in a row I've gone over since my surgery seven weeks ago. Although I haven't built back up to my usual leave time of between 3-5 A.M, I stayed until about 1:30 A.M. I didn't get a huge amount of work done, but I did get all the Catherine Moore (www.characterconstructions.com) paper doll parts stamped I promised to send out to the members of my Swap-bot group. I also made an ankle bracelet for my swap partner in the handmade jewelry swap. It turned out really cute, even though I'm not an ankle bracelet wearer. Maybe when I get really skinny . . .

I'm down forty-one pounds now. One morning this week I changed my pants four times trying to find a pair that didn't look so baggy. Not bragging, you understand, but it is nice after being so heavy for so long to finally have my clothing not feeling like it was trying to strangle me! Today I went shopping at the Salvation Army store in Marion. For about fifty dollars I purchased two pairs of pants that fit me now and three more pairs that will fit in a month or so. I also found a great Land's End fleece anorak in red that is practically new for just $2.50! Doesn't fit right now, but I know it will in the fall. The find of the day, however, is the $5.99 pair of practically new Dansko dress shoes. These shes generally retail for about $110.00, and I NEVER buy them new. Mine are always off eBay. They are very supportive, and while they may not be to everyone's taste, they have great arches, which MY feet need. (Other purchases include old music books to use in my artwork, some books to read, a fleece jacket ugly, indeed, but purchased for the wonderful gilt thread medallion on the pocket, a little glass serving bowl with a pattern of blackberries molded into the glass $.99, and four old board games, one of which is a brand new OLD Stratego game. ) So, by the time I had piled all this into my cart, I was shopped out! My $54.00 really went a long way shopping today, plus it will stay in our community through the Salvation Army's outreach programs. Good Deal!

ROTFLMAO

2009-05-13T20:39:00.003-04:00

Yes, really. Some of you may have noticed that I belong to Swap-bot, a place where you can get in snail mail swaps for various items. Yesterday I decided to read the Swap-bot blog and ended up doing exactly what my title says for the better part of two hours. If laughter is therapy, then I deprived some poor shrink of a great deal of money last night.

The Swap-bot blog's author had some hillarious examples of awful craft items listed. Now, what you have to remember about Swap-bot is that many of the swaps created are for craft items of some kind or other to be created, and then exchanged within the group of participants who sign up for that particular swap. Craftastrophe ( http://craftastrophe.net/), is a site that posts pictures and comments of crafts gone wrong. Now, just so you know, I've made my share of creations that didn't deserve to see the light of day. And, if you read my Going to See the Wizard post, you already know that I've poked fun at myself and others in the past. So I think it is perfectly okay to laugh at othe people's stuff because I also know that there are people besides me out there LTAO at things I make. But seriously, if you want to just laugh and laugh, you need to visit this site. ***********WARNING: Some of this stuff should not be viewed while eating, taking a drink of a carbonated beverage, or by pregnant women. So go ahead, I dare you, not to laugh, that is!

New Paper Doll Swap on SWAP-BOT

2009-05-12T22:59:00.006-04:00

http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/36966 ap-bot.com/swap/show/36966

I just created a new paper doll swap on swap bot. This swap is for a Vegas Showgirl Doll. You will be creating two showgirl dolls and will have two partners. This is about BLING, BLING, BLING, Baby!

I plan on creating a whole series of swaps based on dancers, and then I am moving on to historical figure paper dolls. My goal is to start one swap per month. So, if you like paper dolls, drop by Swap-Bot to play!

I'm going to repost pictures of some of the dolls I've already made to try to get perople interested. How bout any of you bloggers? Do you like to dabble and play with paper? Here's the link: http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/36966.

I've also created a new group on Swap-bot, Paper People Art Dolls, and again, if you are interested in making and trading paper dolls, check out this group!

NEW FACE, NEW PANTS - ONE'S GOING BACK

2009-05-09T23:38:00.003-04:00

This is a new picture of me at thirty-nine pounds lighter. Of course, I didn't know I was going to take my picture tonight and post it on my blog, or I might have combed my hair - tee hee. I just was looking in the mirror and got the crazy urge to photograph myself because the way my face looks is the most notable thing to me so far about losing weight. I can tell in the way my clothes fit, too, but it is still how my face looks that amazes me the most.

I did try to buy some new pants tonight, and both pairs I bought fit me, but after I got home I thought about it and decided that two or three weeks from now those pants would be baggy, too. So, I'm just going to tough it out for a while and not buy any new pants. If you should happen across me and it looks as if I'm carrying a load around in my pants, well, I might be, but it will probably just be because all my pants are getting waaaay too big. And that is a happy dance kind of celebratory thing!

My husband is getting all kinds of creepy ideas running through his pointy little head. I think he has a Fredrick's of Hollywood catalog under his mattress or something. He keeps dropping these broad hints about leather mini skirts and such. I don't know what to do to disabuse him of these strange notions, but I have some ideas. One being to stop shaving my legs. If anyone has any other ideas to discourage him from dressing me in things I might have worn forty years ago, I would love your input. Although, it is kind of sweet that he thinks I'm going to look like I did thirty or forty years ago. I guess he just doesn't have much of an inkling about the breakthrough work Sir Isaac Newton just did on that new-fangled gravity thing . . .

THE MERMAID REVEAL

2009-05-09T00:56:00.004-04:00

Here is a picture of the newly junked up mermaid. Too tired for a long post, but she is going out in the AM mail. Hope the recipient likes her.

FISHY HEAVEN

2009-05-05T21:44:00.005-04:00

Everyone get out a tissue and get ready to read a really sad fish tale. I have a friend who is becoming more and more disabled from RSD. She had inherited two gorgeous saltwater fish tanks from her daughter who just graduated last weekend from the University of Findlay (Yay Echo!), and my friend just can't take care of them anymore. So guess who volunteered to take the fish tanks? Yep. You guessed right - me. See that big, blinking sign on my forehead? I've never even owned a goldfish. Parrots, yes. Several. Skunks? Yep. Raccoons? yup. Lizard? Right again. Dogs, Cats, Mice, Goats, Hamsters, Guinea Pigs, lots and lots of pets, I've had. But never fish. Not even a guppy.

And, not only are these fish tanks (plural), they're gulp, saltwater tanks. So, Echo came home yesterday and said, "Girls, we're movin' fish today." That involved sucking out 41 gallons of water, dipping out 6 fish and a sea urchin, moving about twenty pounds of live rock, buying fifteen gallons of water to do a partial water change, then moving all the aforementioned "stuff" about twenty miles down the pike. Well, having absolutely no experience with fish, I was terrified that I would kill these fish, and I kept saying that. "I know I'm going to kill them!" Repeat phrase. Repeat phrase.

Well, I know you've already guessed the end of the story. Yup, I killed 'em. Not all of them, only the most expensive ones, and Echo's favorites. Of course. Not really my fault, but I didn't get up in the middle of the night and check the temperature on the new set-ups. When I got up this morning, the fishies wouldn't wake up, so I tapped on the glass. When I tapped on the glass, the glass felt like a . . . very warm . . . so I dipped my finger in . . . and it felt like . . . bath water. Now I could see why the fish on the bottom of the tank wasn't moving- And the poor sea urchin's spikes had lopped over. Very, very sad.

I called my husband at work, and while I waited to be put through to his office, I was saying some very bad words - until I realized the officer at the desk had not put me on hold while he was calling for Richard. So, I think that guy may have heard some language he may never have heard before in a prison. Next, I called my friend and told her the sad news and begged her not to tell Echo, but I think her phone was on speaker, and more bad news - Echo had stayed the night and was sleeping with her mother who was in bed when I called . . . So that is the end of my very sad fish tale - except - I went shopping tonight and came home with $113.00 dollars worth of fish stuff. Stay tuned for more fish tales - I'm sure there are more to come!

Stella Gets Her Groove Back

2009-05-03T10:55:00.007-04:00

Well, not exactly, but I am rejoining the world. Mind, I'm not setting anything on fire - breaking no records for productivity- but I am getting back into the swing of things. Yesterday I finally completed some ATC's for a swap I was supposed to have sent out on April 6, AND I created my mermaid paper doll for another swap I'm in. The mermaid is not completed yet; I have not "Junked her up," but her form, face, and basic colors are laid down.

<-----------------Here's a sneak peek:

Now, you have to remember, "junking things up" is near and dear to my heart, so imagine her with oh, say, some jewels, a little tattered something-something hanging off her, some glitter, something in her hair, etc. you get the picture, right? I hope the swap partner I have takes a look at this doll b/c I did not use the template they posted on the swap. Not that it's not a good template, it just did not allow me to use my own ideas.

Here is the drawing I made for the house-shaped ATC swap I was involved in:

I ended up shrinking this from 9X12 to approx. 3X5. After I printed them, I colored them with watercolor pencils, cut them out, and stamped the backs with an ATC info stamp. They turned out to be very colorful. The only thing I didn't like was that I had to cut the drainpipe boy off so I could make it fit into the ATC format. And, it's too bad that I couldn't have put one more child in the picture to represent all of my brothers and sisters and me. Count and see how many children MY mother has.

So, I am now coming up with all sorts of things I want to create. The fog has lifted and I'm Baaaaaaack!

Kreativ Blogger Awards Go To

2009-05-01T12:41:00.003-04:00

I promised I would think about the blogs that I thought needed an award, and I decided the following people should receive one. If you are one of the people I named, please stop by and pick up this badge by clicking and copying it, then pasting it into your blog by going to your dashboard and adding it as you would your photos. Then pay it forward by doing the following: Link to the blog of the person who gave you the award (me); list seven things you love; and send the award on to seven other bloggers who you think deserve the award.

Michele at http://creative-mayhem.blogspot.com/
Alicia at http://lookatmybooks.blogspot.com/
Cathy at http://partlypaper.blogspot.com/
Tristan at http://tristanrobin.blogspot.com/

No, this is not seven - but I'll find some others that I think deserve the award and I will post them later.

2009-05-01T11:26:00.005-04:00

I am headed back to school on Monday. I am happy to be going back, but I wonder how I'm going to be able to handle my afternoon nap. Will my students be understanding and be quiet while I drool with my little heady resting on my desk? Or, will they tie me to things like Gulliver? Will I wake up to find mustaches drawn on my face and my shoestrings tied together? Ah well, I guess I'll have to forgo that nap - sigh.

We will only have three weeks of school left after I return, so it will all be hustle and bustle trying to squeeze in everything that I need to get done. I have to do DRA's (Developmental Reading Assessment) for each child in my class, then the end year Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Test, finish the book they're reading, Among the Hidden, and finally, give them an end of the year spelling assessment. I also have to get all this in around them going to Camp Ohio for three days, Track and Field Day, Science Camp Day, awards ceremonies, and all the other craziness.

In between all this is the record keeping I have to do. All the reading testing I will be doing has to be scored and recorded in their reading folders, cumulative folders have to be updated, grades will need to be entered for gradecards, inventories, ordering supplies and books for next year, and whew! I need a nap now just thinking about all this! And that doesn't include tearing the room down and packing it up! So - how many of you out there think teachers are overpaid?

Anyway, I AM happy to be going back - I just know I'll be tired for a while, but there is nothing like being thrown into the thick of things to get you going again. And I think that is just what this ol' girl needs!

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

2009-04-29T10:35:00.004-04:00

I am so happy to being going to the hairdresser today! I know all of you ladies out there are always perfectly coiffed, but 'tis not always so for me! That "Only her hairdresser knows for sure," baloney never works for me because my hair grows so fast that it's always a struggle to keep up with those odd-colored roots that keep sprouting out of my head.

And, I know why it is that I do have so much trouble keeping the fact that I'm a gray-haired old lady under wraps.

When I was a teenager (imagine that, if you can), we lived across the street from a nursing home. There was an old lady who lived in the home with her little toothless Chihuahua, and she would walk him every day. Her name was Josephine. And Josephine, bless her heart, dyed her hair a deep, midnight black. Except. She probably didn't get to go to a hairdresser to have it done. Maybe a daughter or relative visited her and did it for her - I don't know.

But. What I do know is that I thought her head of white roots with the dark ends was ridiculously hilarious. And I laughed at her endlessly (not to her face - I wasn't that mean). And I told my mom that my hair would never look like that . . .

And so, that is why today I have endless white roots. Because in my misspent youth I had the audacity to laugh at someone else's hair, it has now come home to roost. I'm telling you children, listen to your elders; it could happen to you someday. So please, don't laugh at me when you see me wandering the streets with my little dogs on leashes and my long, white roots.

Hah! I bet you didn't think you were going to get a Por Quoi story and a morals lesson all in one post today, did you? Neither did I expect give them to you, but whew! it sure feels good to get that off my chest. And who knows, maybe confessing will give me a couple of weeks' respite from THE DREADED WHITE ROOTS!

HGTV Green House 2009

2009-04-26T21:54:00.001-04:00

Go to HGYV.com to enter to win this home! You can enter every day!

TA DA! AN AWARD

2009-04-26T21:27:00.002-04:00

Today I received a pleasant surprise. My friend Jan, at Ignite to Write, presented me with the Kreativ Blogger Award. How nice was that? Anyway, this is one of those pay it forward type awards, and below are the rules that go with it:

1. Post the award on your blog. Link to the person who gave you the award. Here's Jan's link: http://ignitetowrite.blogspot.com/2009/04/kreativ-blogger-awardfor-me.html and to her other blog: http://jan-mader.blogspot.com/

2. List seven things you love:
my hubby
my family
my animals
reading
nature
silence
art

3. List seven blogs you love and let those people know you’ve given them the award.
This is something I will have to think about, so I will get back to you on this!

THE NEW OREO BABY

2009-04-24T13:48:00.000-04:00

Here is the newest addition to our herd. This is Oreo, and she was born on April 3. She is quite the show off, too. I was just positive her momma was going to have multiples, and she did, in fact, have two, but Oreo's twin did not live. So, as before, mom Bessie is still a "one bunner."

As I write, Oreo is now three weeks old, and she is quite the "kid." She spends her time trying to figure out how to play with the six week old triplets, getting into trouble with the older goats, and mimicking her mother by trying to eat grass and hay. Oh, and I forgot - the all-time, most fun our goats have - trying to climb up onto the top of the dogloo doghouse we have in the goat yard for the babies to shelter in. At any given time, there is at least one, and usually two, young goats on top of the dogloo playing King of the Mountain. They butt, they shove, and they execute daring high jumps as they play. Oreo should achieve lift-off sometime in the next week. She is just about the right size, and she has been practicing her climbing skills on the discarded street sweeper brush we have out there for everyone to scratch on.

A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

2009-04-21T22:33:00.002-04:00

Being at home by myself the last couple of weeks has given me lots of time to think. As a matter of fact, that's about all I've done. I think it's the anesthesia, but after I have surgery, it always takes me a while to get back into the swing of things - to want to do the things I've always enjoyed doing as well as the things I need to do. Anyway, I've been reflecting lately on the people and relationships in my life. One conclusion I've come to is that I'm not the kind of friend I'd like to be. I don't call people and keep in touch. I'm stand-offish, I think. Taciturn, even. I haven't been like this all my life. I used to like being around friends and family more. What makes me like this? I think about my friends and family often, but what prevents me from sharing time and conversation with them? I know friends and family wonder about that, too. If someone is having trouble, I can be depended on to be there with food, or help, or money. But, what about when things are going well for people? That's when I'm usually invisible. Does it come with age, this wanting to stay at home and hide? Or, is it due in some part to the huge family I'm a part of, a pulling away after years of being part of the hustle and bustle and strife that comes with having eleven younger brothers and sisters and all the in-laws, exes, nieces and nephews and two marriages and step-children and grandchildren? Or, is this one of the stages all people go through as they age? Do we shed people and relationships and prune our social lives to prepare ourselves for eventual loss? I don't have the answers, but there is a part of me that says I don't do enough to maintain relationships with those I care about. If you're one of those people, know this: I think about you often. I remember and cherish the times we spent together, good, bad, or ugly. I hope your life is good, and if it's not, I hurt for you and with you.

I am Back After Surgery

2009-04-15T21:30:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm here. I had my bariatric surgery on March 30, and was in the hospital for four days. Surgery went well, but I had a staple line bleed that corrected itself very quickly. As a result, they held me an extra day. After I came home on April 2, I began to feel progressively worse, and was readmitted to the hospital through the emergency room on Tues, April 9. After a CT scan, it was found that my spleen had been badly bruised, causing swelling, which in turn aggravated my diaphragm causing the sac around my lungs to fill up with fluid and making one of my lungs collapse. I was hospitalized for another four days during which they drained a liter of fluid from around my lungs, finally allowing me to breathe again. I've been home since Saturday, April 11, and am feeling stronger every day. Jan, I see you're not following me, but just FYI, that silly Bessie had her "BABY" on Friday, Apr. 5. She had twins but one was stillborn. The surviving one is the cutest little "Oreo." She is dark brown all the way to the middle, then white, then brown to the end. She has three white feet and a white tip on her tail. She is so sweet and lovey. Hope this finds all well, and I appreciate all the good wishes from my readers. I will write more as I feel up to it.

LIFE IS GREAT

2009-03-22T10:25:00.002-04:00

A recent visitor to my blog influenced my thoughts for today's post. My writings here are usually no more deep than a raindrop running down a window. I'm not one to put most of my thoughts out for the public to read because I'm pretty private. I let people get a sense of what I'm like through what I say, but I don't share a lot. I do think deeply and reflect on esoteric matters, but keep most of my opinions to myself. This is a form of protective camouflage for me, I think. My thoughts and beliefs are not generally considered mainstream, and rather than rock the boat, I keep them to myself. Part of that goes back to the belief that as long as what you believe does not endanger or harm people, you are entitled to have your own beliefs.

Being a part of the status quo is important to me now, but in my youth I was more of a rabble rouser. I think what happened is that many societies punish the squeaky wheels and survival becomes a matter of blending in. So, as we age, we tend to subvert the more "unaligned" thoughts we have. One reason I think I have become less vocal about my opinions is that I am tired of swimming upstream. I don't like having to defend my opinions. Is this giving up? Is this not being true to one's convictions? I don't know. So, if while reading my blog you assume that what I'm writing is merely fluff, know this: I'm living a life governed by lofty principles and thinking big thoughts; I just don't have the need anymore to shout them from the rooftops.

CONTEST!!!

2009-03-17T22:38:00.003-04:00

Okay, I have one response to my contest for guessing when Bessie will have her kids. Jan, you will be winning by default if no one else guesses. But that's okay. I need to reward my faithful reader somehow. She still has not given up those babies! I think you are right on with that guess of three. My surgery date is March 30th. As you can imagine, I am beyond thrilled! It's finally here. Now all I need to do is get the things on my to-do list done.

A CONTEST!!!!

2009-03-16T21:32:00.008-04:00

The first picture here shows Bessie, the Hold-out! Notice her

bulges, AND her nice beard. Her beard isn't as long and luxurious as a Billy's, but it's pretty impressive for a Nanny.
Next is the terrible trio of trouble. In the rear is the little one, Clem, The front right is the female, Daisy, and the left front is Thor, the bigger male.

Here on the left we have a close-up of Daisy's cute little kisser, and on the right is another picture of She-Who-Won't-Be-Rushed.

LEAVE A COMMENT AND GUESS WHEN SHE WILL HAVE THE BABIES AND HOW MANY YOU THINK. WINNER WILL GET A LITTLE HANDMADE SOMETHING FROM ME!

Here is the terrible trio again . . .

And with momma, Heidi.

And again. Notice the stuff on the fence? Goat hair where they scratch. I'm thinkin' socks - if I only knew how to knit!

Okay, I'm so excited that I just can't stand myself! I received my approval today for my surgery! They are calling tomorrow to schedule, so it looks like I will be having it the last week of March. Hooray!!!!!!

CONTEST CONTEST CONTEST

I took a bunch of pictures of the goats today, so I am posting some just so you can see how much the babies have grown. Also, I took pics of the hold-out nanny so you can see how huge she is. I got some rear shots, so just so you know, I'm not trying to gross anyone out - Richard said, "Nice butts." I'm starting a contest with this pregnant goat. Leave a comment on my blog and guess when she will have the babies, and I will send whoever is closest a little handmade something! Really!!!

I CREATED A SWAP ON SWAP BOT!

2009-03-15T16:05:00.009-04:00

FUN, FUN, FUN! I love making paper dolls, so I am now the host for a jointed paper doll swap. I can't wait for this swap to start getting people signed up. I joined swap-bot a couple of months ago, and it a neat thing to do if you like getting snail mail and or packages. It's just a social networking site, but with a twist. People create swaps for all different kinds of things, then other people who belong to the site sign up for the ones they want. Swap bot then posts the swaps, and when the host reaches the end of the sign-up period, Swap bot assigns you your swap partner and you send whatever the item is out to your partner.
I swap with Swap-bot! So, here is a picture of a Ginormous paper doll I created a while ago. She is a fortune teller doll, and all the pockets in her completely-made-of-paper skirt contain paper fortunes. She is jointed, has hair, and has a cute pair of pantaloons and a cami under her outfit.

Anyway, I think this will be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to get started on my doll. See, I DID find something to do in the here and now, and No, Michele, it wasn't having someone stomp on my foot! (You silly wabbit) Michele, Deb, Jack, Cathy, I challenge you guys to join my swap!!!!!

I will re-post the widow here, too, in case others from Swap-bot jump by here to check out my dolls. THE WIDOW!!!!

This doll now resides in the Scrapshack. She has a place of honor along with her BLACK HAT. Her clothes are entirely made of paper, too, just like the Fortune Teller, Madam LaWeja's, clothes.

This is a mean looking doll, but that wasn't the way she was supposed to turn out! I wanted her to be a Spanish lady, and she would have had a mantilla. Oh well, that will come another time. She looks okay without her clothes, but with all that black on , she looks very severe.

I just came back in from a walk down through the back forty with the hounds. (It's really not the back forty, more like the back ten) It was so nice, and I really wore them out. Freda ( the girl) is football shaped, so she really needs to get more exercise. She takes after her "Momma" in that respect. Anyway, it was gorgeous, and I think it also helped my mood. So, right now I'm not so focused on the future happenings. The goats? She's huge, but she'll have those babies when she's good and ready. I just worry that we won't be here and she will have too many for her to deal with since she has been a "one bunner." (My term for single baby,tee-hee) Anyway, it can't be helped, so there's no sense worrying over it. As for my surgery, it will get here soon enough. It's not as if I am even ready for it. I still need to make sub plans for a month and clean my house, so I have enough to do without dwelling on when it will happen. so, that should be enough to keep me grounded firmly right where I am - In the here and now!

STILL NO NEWS!

2009-03-14T19:30:00.004-04:00

Waiting is hard for me! Our next set of baby goats have not arrived yet, and I still have no date set for my surgery. I'm getting impatient. I am so focused on the things yet to happen that I am not living my NOW life. That is not a good thing. I am wishing away time, and I feel like everything I am doing right now is just spinning my wheels. Does anyone have a method for living in the here and now? A way for me to just chill out and wait? If so, I'd sure appreciate hearing from you!

In other news, you should check out my friend Michele's blog. She is being published in an upcoming issue of an online magazine for a tutorial she created for a cupcake holder. Visit her blog and check out all the cool stuff she does with her Cuttlebug and Cricut. She's da bomb! And now I am off to the Scrapshack to try to forget my waiting woes! http://creative-mayhem.blogspot.com/

SPRING PEEPERS, REDWING BLACKBIRDS, GREEN SHOOTS

2009-03-11T20:49:00.006-04:00

My title says it all; Spring is just around the corner! I know, I know, we are still going to have some more cold weather, and we will probably have some snow, but the signs are making me hopeful. I'm a Spring and Fall kind of gal. I don't like cold weather, but I don't like hot weather either. I think it has to do with the intensity of the sunlight. I don't like the hot sun shining on me, and I don't like to sweat. So, even though I'm sitting here now in sweats and a fleece pullover, I know the days of shorts and t-shirts are just around the corner.

I'm looking forward to digging around in the dirt, too. I have an oak-leaf hydrangea that needs planted. I bought it last year, and it has spent the winter in its pot. That's not the greatest thing I could have done to it, but I couldn't make up my mind about where to plant it. We are going to put in sidewalks and a new front porch this year, so I have to move a flower bed. I need to do it early because the bed has large, established hostas in it, and I moved one of them before and it was a huge job. I dug, and I dug, and I dug, and when I was finally able to get it out of the ground, it was about the size of a bushel basket. I'm funny about hostas. they're one of my mom's favorites, but I only really like the large-leaved ones. My personal favorites are day lilies and true lilies (bulb). I have to say though, that I'm not a very faithful gardener. It has become rather hard for me to do much bending and kneeling because of my knees, so I tend to favor container gardening more. The weeding tends to get away from me more than it should. Anyway, it is fun to be thinking about what to put in my containers and thinking about sitting on my new porch enjoying them. I'll decide where to put that hydrangea when I'm done daydreaming!

PAPER MANIAC MY NEW ETSY SHOP

2009-03-08T23:31:00.001-04:00

Check out my new Etsy shop, Paper Manic. I have spent all day Sunday adding new items and taking the paper creations out of my Lil Spotted Dog shop.

BACK ON TRACK

2009-03-07T12:35:00.003-05:00

Okay, the tone of my last post was definitely not a cheerful one. I'm more on track today, though. I just came in from a fun time out in pasture with all the horned ones. We let the triplets outside for the first time today, and as always happens, they were comically fabulous to behold! They ran and leaped, and bleated, and generally had a rousingly great time investigating everything in the goat yard.

We have some "toys" for the goats to play on. These include a great big street sweeper's rotary brush, a Little Tikes play scape, and a large igloo doghouse. All these are in constant use: The doghouse and play scape are both sleeping space and king-of-the-mountain climbing places, and the rotary brush is where much of the personal grooming takes place. Imagine a person who can't reach that itchy place in the middle of their back leaning back as far as she possibly can and ruuuuuubbing that itch on a nice, rough corner jutting out. Then you'll you get a visual of what it's like seeing a goat leaning over and just ruuuuubbing herself along the entire length of the brush.

The babies checked out the house by going inside, so of course when they do that, Mom can't see them and starts panicking. She grunts her special "come here" grunt that brings them all running. When one of the babies gets too close to a larger goat, sometimes the big one butts them a little (not hard - usually they are pretty gentle with the little ones), and when they are scared, they have to go running back to mama for a little quick nurse of milk. This is like a pacifier to them and Mama seems to allow this.

She has been regulating the nursing activity. I suppose because they would nurse all the time if she didn't. Right now it looks as if our fears of her abandoning the little doe are unfounded since Daisy is full of energy. But we are still keeping a watchful eye because it takes a very short period of time for these little ones to go downhill. We keep feeling her belly to see how full it is.

No new babies yet, though! Oy Vay! The size of that nanny! I hope she is a better mother than her twin, Psycho. Psycho (real name LuLu) was sold with her baby earlier this winter. She only had one good teat, and she kept having twins. That is not good. She actually managed to almost raise twins after her first pregnancy. She quit feeding one of them, and we almost lost that baby, but luckily, she was just starting to eat grain and hay a little when Mom stopped feeding her. We had to give her supplements, and she was the one who was sick in February, so she has become very tame and loving. New issue with her (Little Sister): I saw Birthday Boy mate with her yesterday. I think we will have to watch her very carefully because she is so small from all her tribulations that she may have a hard time carrying a baby.

Thank goodness the weather has turned a little warmer for the weekend. I know I'm not the only one this winter has begun to wear down. My students are tired, too. Wednesday I felt incredibly tired all day, like I could just lay my head down, thunk! on my desk and go to sleep. On Thursday, one little boy who was still suffering the effects of this stuff going around fell asleep twice back at the reading table. It was around three-ish, he was sitting by the window, where miraculously the sunlight was streaming through, and he had on a hoodie. All these things conspired to make him just so drowsy he couldn't stay awake. Which says what about my instruction?

The year has flown by in a blur, as usual. After the Achievement Test at the end of April, for all intents and purposes, the year is over. We go to camp in mid-may for three days and boom! the end of May arrives and we are out of school. Too soon! I'm not done! I still have tons to teach!

NOT FEELING IT

2009-03-05T21:00:00.002-05:00

Tonight I am feeling very ambivalent about things. I don't feel bad, but I'm tired of coughing. I don't feel tired, but I don't feel like doing anything. I don't feel like going to bed, but I don't have anything I feel like doing. So, here I am. Just here. Doing nothing. Much. I was going to write an update on the babies, but there is really nothing to update. No new ones. Yet. Not much new with the little ones- except mom seems to be trying to abandon the little doe. So. That's too sad to think about or write about.

I know what's wrong with me. I think. I'm feeling let down because my surgery hasn't been scheduled yet. I am waiting on emails and phone calls that haven't materialized yet. Testing for the Ohio Achievement test is coming up soon, and I'm anxious about how my students will perform (and, by extension, how I will be evaluated). So. That's what I feel like. I need Spring.

How about you?

WANTED: LOVING HOME FOR LIVING LAWN MOWERS

2009-03-04T20:08:00.003-05:00

In answer to Jan's question, "What do you do with all your babies?" The answer is, "I dunno." This is becoming a very puzzling problem for my husband and me. We started raising goats in the first place so we could keep our agricultural use real estate tax designation. We bought this house about three and a half years ago, and the previous owner raised alpacas. We could not afford alpacas, so for a year or so, we didn't have any livestock because we're not farmers. Or weren't farmers, I should say. But one day we received a notice from the county auditor telling us that our real estate taxes would be rising by $600.00 dollars per year, and they were going to reassess for the prior three years because they had sent someone around to see if the property was being used in accordance with the agricultural use guidelines. Which it wasn't. So, in order to save $600.00 dollars a year, my husband and I are now spending about $200.00 per month to feed our growing herd of goats. I'm glad I'm not a math teacher because I would be very disappointed if there was something strange about our tax savings.

Most people who know anything about raising livestock also know a little about the birds and the bees. I'm thinking Richard and I are kind of dumb on that subject because we just keep getting more little goats. I guess there is something in the goat manuals about keeping your buck penned separately. I think I also read somewhere that female goats will allow mating through fences too, if they can figure out how to do it. Well, after having so many babies born that our barn was bursting at the seams, we figured out a way to stop having so many babies: We got rid of the buck - except - before he left, he decided to leave behind a couple of departure gifts - and- we kept his son, Birthday Boy - and - I think BB has now reached puberty because I saw something - blush - yesterday that I think . . . So we're not really any smarter now than we were a year and a half ago.

We have sold some goats. Out of necessity, of course. Because of the barn. But doggone it, how do I know these buyers are feeding and watering the babies enough and giving them enough head rubs. And calling them by the names they were given? And I know Gary Bradley went into the soup pot after we sold him. That's the only thing a neutered male is good for. Except for Buddy, out little pygmy-Boer mix, who is the friendliest little guy on the planet and who won't be going anywhere ever because what can you do with a neutered male except - rub him and scratch behind his ears and wiggle the little wattles that hang down on his neck and feed him circus peanuts and apples and, well, I guess you get the picture. Even though I ain't Zsa Zsa Gabor, our little tax-saving enterprise probably should go by the name of Green Acres!

Pregnancy update: The mama is still growing! I don't know what she's holding out for now. Richard's birthday is past, mine isn't for months, and Christmas is a long way off.

Fritz and Freda received mail from Wales today. I was in a swap for a personalized matchbox on Swap-bot, and I received mine in today's mail. My matchbox was too cute with a little dachshund deco and my initials and lots of goodies inside, but all wrapped up in polka-dotted paper, complete with a card addressed to them taped to the outside was a yummy package of soft doggie treats. When I told them they had mail and showed them the package, they immediately demanded I open it up and divvy round the treats. I'm making them write thank you's right away!

DOES EAT OATS

2009-03-03T19:39:00.005-05:00

And hay, and so much water is required to make all that milk! I'm constantly thirsty. And I can't begin to even tell you how hard it is to keep track of all these kids. They don't give me a minute's peace! They are into everything they can put their little noses into. They climb on me and butt my udder a thousand time a day. And manners? They have none! They grunt and cry while they eat, and talk with their mouths full! If they're not grunting and crying while they eat, they're playing with their food! Wagging their tails and showing off - not paying a bit of attention to me. I'm constantly licking noses and wiping , well, you know.

I can barely sleep at night. Every few minutes I have to stick my head into their room and see if they are still in bed asleep. And nobody is ever asleep at the same time. It seems as if I just get comfortable, and the next thing I know, someone's head is stuck or their brother steps on them. Oh, and running in the house! Did I tell you about all three of them running at the same time? It's like they constantly are having some kind of track and field day. I just don't know what I'm going to do. Just wait 'til their father gets home!

The babies are three days old now, and this is when they really start to become comical. They act like they are spring-loaded. It usually starts like this; first a drink of milk, then a funny little stutter step and a shake of the head. Then suddenly, s spring straight up into the air. Upon landing, a stiff-legged stance and a startled look around as if to say, "Whoa, what was THAT?" And then it's on - crazy races around and around the pen (now in the big one) and tastes of all kinds of new things. A blade of hay being mouthed, a sniff of grain, a tickling first sip of water - now that is pretty darn scary. Then of course come the head rubs. Those little, just-barely-there nubs of horns are itchy, and chins are itchy and ears are itchy and well, when you're a little goat, just about everything itches! And that human that rubs me, I like that pretty well. I like to chew clothes, too. In fact, baby goats mostly like everything if you start holding and making over them when they are very young. They are loving, playful, inquisitive, and just plain cute! There's nothing like baby goat love!

Update on the other mama-to-be. Just that - no news yet. She is holding out on us, and getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger . . . I'm telling you, I'm going to run her around the pasture! She's never had more than one baby at a time, and I know this time she will be in for a big shock. I know she has at least two in that huge belly and maybe three. Does anyone know of anybody looking for goats?

NEW BABIES

2009-03-01T17:56:00.003-05:00

Okay, here are the new babies and some of the old ones! In the mob scene I have candy circus peanuts in the pocket of my sweatshirt. Peeking over the top of the gate is a little female goat that was sick earlier in February, and she became accustomed to getting hand fed all the time. Now she thinks every time we have treats, she is supposed to be the sole recipient of the goodies. We actually gave her probiotics from a syringe fitted with a small rubber hose, and she thought that was pretty good stuff! Just after we took these pictures, we gave the new babies their overeating disease shots, and Little Sister thought she was going to get some more soda pop when she saw the syringe! The picture of the single baby is the only doe of the triplets. Take a look at her pretty ears; they're all speckled! Her face is marked just like her mommy's, and her mommy is a really pretty goat. New names are: little doe, Daisy; big male, Thor, because he has a lightning bolt down the back of his head; small buck, Clem.

It's still March first, and the doe who had her buck on Richard's birthday last year is still holding out. I'm going to take her out and chase her around the pasture just so she'll give him another birthday gift this year. Okay, I'm not really, but I do think she will have her baby(ies) tonight yet just because her belly is dropped down really low in front of her udder. Now, you have to bear in mind that I'm still working on that veterinary diploma. If we get new babies yet tonight, I will upload birth announcements then!

Still Here and With More Babies

2009-02-28T21:04:00.003-05:00

Yes, I am still among the living. Both my husband and I have been ill this week. I took two days off school, and should probably have taken a third day off. Richard is just now getting the stuff I had a couple of days ago, but now I'm wondering if we aren't just cycling it back and forth. Our school was in the news this past week. We actually had Channel Ten News come to the school and do a story on our absentee rate. We've consistently had about 20 percent of the student body absent this week. Of course, they came on one of the days I was out sick, so I heard all about it from my students, who were excited about being on T.V. for any reason! We are shutting our school down on Monday so it can be completely disinfected. This will use up our last calamity day, so if anything else happens, we will be making up time.

We have babies! This afternoon about four I was lying down when my husband came in the front door and shouted, "We have twelve. Get out here and help!" In my fog I'm thinking 12? That's impossible, no goat can have twelve babies at a time! Then I realize he's talking about the size our entire herd has become. Duh! But he was wrong, anyway. It wasn't twelve, it was thirteen! Our girl had triplets! We got out there and started helping get everyone dried off. They are all good sized, but right now all three are walking on the ankles of their back feet. Their hooves are bent under. I hate to see that because I'm always afraid their little legs won't straighten out. Heidi's (momma goat's name) last little one was born on our anniversary, and one of her legs was bent pretty badly. It straightened up the next day, though, so that's what I'm hoping will happen with these guys. There are two little males (not good), and a little female. One of the males is a real chooch. He's got a big fat belly on him. All of them fed within half an hour of being born, and that is wonderful.

Heidi is such a good mommy! Last year she had her first set of twin kids, and tragically, they both died. The male was stillborn, and her little girl - so cute - fell into her water bucket and died of exposure when she was three days old. If you've ever been around baby goats, the third day is when they really start jumping and playing and trying out their legs. Those were our very first babies ever, and both of us cried buckets over the second baby dying. I had gone out to check on her around eleven P.M. before going to bed, and I found her. Heidi's next baby was Annie, the anniversary baby, born on August 11th. She is so sweet - and ornery! I think this is really going to get her nose out of joint, since she is used to being joined at the hip to her momma. She is already climbing onto the pen where Heidi is penned with the new babies. I think this will turn her into a real juvenile delinquent!

After the first accident, Richard and I changed practices immediately! No more open buckets around babies, and we put an infrared camera system in the barn. I was actually talking to my mother-in-law on the phone one day when she was enquiring whether or not we had gotten new babies, standing at the counter looking at the monitor telling her no, no new babies yet, when I saw one being born! I screamed, "Hey, call you back, one's being born right now!" I ran out to the barn in time to see it drop to the ground. Babies are so much fun, but I'm just not cut out to be a farmer. I cannot inure myself to the dying that inevitably occurs. I just came in from cuddling all three of the new little critters inside my coat, and getting them used to being petted and handled, and I already have images of one of them dying before morning. This is our third set of triplets, and of the three sets, one died out of the first set, and we sold the mama and the three babes of the second set, so I don't know about them. I wonder, though . . .

So anyway, life is exciting and we are getting better at the goat stuff, and we still have one more mama ready to drop a kid any time. This goat, Bessie, had her first baby on Richard's birthday last year, March 1 (tomorrow). So that kid became Birthday Boy. Really - that's his name! Then Bessie had a little girl, Trixie, this summer. So now, maybe she will give us another birthday gift for Richard, but I hope it's a girl. After all, we can't have two Birthday Boys, now can we? That's another bad thing about me; I name all the babies, and then when it comes time to sell them, I have a hard time because they have become family. Like I said, we're not cut out for this farmer stuff.

The Creeping Epizootey

2009-02-23T21:04:00.004-05:00

My title reflects my current condition: I'm sick. The creeping epizootey, the creeping crud; whatever it is, I've got it, and so do a bunch of my students. I began getting sick over the weekend after a big fifth grade feast of dishes inspired by the children's heritages. This morning I actually got up and went to school, but on the way there I started coughing so badly I couldn't get my breath, so I called for a sub. Luckily they were able to find one on such short notice, and I was able to come home a little later. Before I left, I took attendance and I had seven children absent out of my class of eighteen. Seven! I have never had that many students absent - ever! I'm beginning to think that Friday there was a huge germ sharing going on along with the food sharing. I'm taking tomorrow off, too, and I plan on not doing anything too strenuous. Maybe a little reading, a little blogging, a little Etsy-ing. To all my friends, I hope you are avoiding the creeping epizootey! I'm off to bed - just me and my cough syrup.

CHALLENGES

2009-02-21T09:41:00.009-05:00

A recent jaunt to one of the blogs I follow has once again inspired me. I am not a very disciplined person, and that is one of my biggest shortcomings. It is probably the single biggest issue my husband and I argue about. He has a specific laundry day, and all his laundry gets folded and put away immediately. My laundry day, however, is whenever I run out of clean underwear! And, it doesn't bother me a whit to rummage through a basket of once-folded clothes to find something to wear. Our closet is a huge source of dissension - his wire clothing drawers feature short stacks of neatly folded clothes arranged by type; my drawers are an explosion of straps and piles that were once folded, with splots of color escaping over every basket. My shoes are a mound that requires extensive excavation on a daily basis. My hanging clothes are neatly hung, but there is no rhyme or reason to their arrangement. This contrasts sharply with his arrangements of work shirts and pants, long-sleeved shirts, etc. All this about laundry is just one example of my approach to life - probably not a very good one, but it's all mine.

A long winded wind-up for what I really meant to say, but a blogger I follow, Jan Mader, is a children's author and writing coach, who has now extended her expertise in writing to those of us who struggle with that. Jan's posts challenge us all: students, authors, bloggers, parents, teachers, anybody or everybody with something to say. She challenges us to think about why and how we write, and she doesn't just throw down the gauntlet. She gets us actively involved in reaching into our heads and pulling out the seeds that we already have within. She encourages by asking questions and creating involving writing exercises. For me, a fifth grade language arts teacher, these activities are a goldmine! I am "creatively appropriating" (stealing) her ideas for use in my classroom. Not only do I think these exercises are valuable tools for getting kids to write; they are immensely helpful to me in getting my own thoughts into words. One of her recent posts, I Promise (http://ignitetowrite.blogspot.com/), seemed like it could help me become more disciplined, so I'm going to try it. Here goes:

I promise to do my laundry more often.

I promise to get to work earlier in the morning.

I promise to grades papers in a more timely manner.

I promise to help out more with the goats.

I promise to keep my studio area cleaner.

I promise to email my friends and family more frequently.

I promise to weed out my clutter of books and magazines in the living room more often.

I promise to keep my nails looking better.

I promise to unload the dishwasher more quickly.

I promise to differentiate my instruction more.

Now, the part Jan promises is easier: Pick the one of these that "jumps out" at you, and write for five minutes about just that one. And she is right - one does jump out at me, and that is the last one, my promise to differentiate my instruction more. So . . .

My promise to differentiate my instruction is something that I have been thinking about my entire teaching career. I always say that school teachers see a very narrow slice of someone's life and abilities. We have a consigned set of activities that we value, and that slice, many times, does not coincide with an individual's talents and abilities. I am not a huge advocate of the talented and gifted programs in schools because I believe that everyone has something they are better at than someone else and that all children should have opportunities for enrichment. I think every child should have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) designed just for him or her. BUT - once again that culprit, time, is the issue. So, I just began attending some classes being offered by the ODE for gifted education that I think will help in differentiating instruction for all students in my classroom. The concept I'm studying is called compacting, and it should help by letting students show me what they know, and allowing me to skip reteaching those concepts to them. Also, compacting involves more student choice in assignments through the use of interest inventories and learning modalities, which should increase student motivation.

Okay, I've written for more than five minutes here, but see - Jan was right! When I chose the promise that jumped out at me, it really was easy to write about because I am passionate about it! If you are reading this, I encourage you to visit Jan's blog to see what she has to say. It may be just the spark you are looking for to jump start your own writing or to help a struggling child begin to communicate more freely. Now, for me? I'm going to investigate those other promises, one at a time, to see what I can figure out to do about them!

Nothing New Under the Sun

2009-02-16T09:57:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I thought I had a wonderful new idea about making journals and sketchbooks from old books I had chosen for their wonderful covers. I was absolutely crushed when I looked at journals on Etsy. Guess what? It's already being done! Here I thought I had come up with such an original idea. I am now, more than ever before, convinced that there is absolutely NOTHING new under the sun! The only thing original about everything we do is put our own stamp of individuality on things.

I guess what really bothers me about this discovery is that I would not want to be seen as stealing someone else's special design. I did think of it - just not before someone else. I am still going to make these journals because I made my first one last night, and it turned out beautifully. I used deckle-edged paper and it looks really handsome. Very masculine with an eagle and e pluribis unum on a scroll under the eagle. So that is my stamp of individuality and my interpretation of an upcycled, repurposed book!

I also had a new comment on my blog today. I have a friend who lives about twelve miles away, and for whatever reason, we don't see each other often. She's been blogging for several years, and I read her blog often just to keep up with what is going on in her life, since I don't seem to be be able to keep up with her by telephone. Anyway, I am one of her "followers," and I guess she didn't realize I was following her until today. Anyway, she commented on one of my posts that she couldn't figure out who this "Glue Girl" person was that was stalking her. When she looked at my blog, she knew the cat was out of the bag. Now she is making some kind of blackmail threats about stories of glue messes and hot soldering irons and other sordid affairs. Whatever you may read concerning any glue stories or anything else along those lines, DON'T BELIEVE IT! I BEG YOU! NOT TRUE! I NEVER MADE A GLUE MESS! I NEVER . . . well, maybe a little of it is true, a tiny piece, just a corner of the truth. Maybe a spot of glue might have been somewhere it shouldn't have been. Once. Only. I swear . . .

JUNK STORE HAUL

2009-02-14T17:52:00.008-05:00

Today I stopped by a little second-hand store I've been meaning to investigate since it opened a year or so ago. What fun. I found some old books to repurpose, meaning I'm going to tear them apart and make new books and collages from them. I found a really neat little something. I'm not sure of what it really is, but in its new incarnation its going to be a bud vase for a single flower. You know how sometimes you're out looking at the flowers, and you find one whose head has lopped off and it has only about two inches of stem and a three inch head? Well, this little thing I found will be just perfect for that. I think it was meant to be a shot glass or something like that, but I'm repurposing it. I like that word. I've been seeing it a lot on Etsy lately, and even though it's something I've been doing for years when I've made something out of nothing or recycled one thing into something else, repurposing just sounds more sophisticated, like me, sorta, kinda - NOT!

The books I bought to repurpose (think - rip apart) are not valuable first editions or anything like that. I wouldn't purposely destroy a valuable old book. Many people think that just because a book is old, it's valuable, but that is not so. Water or sun damage, brittle decaying pages, chewed up corners, insect damage; all these decrease the useful life of a book. Generally, before tearing up an old book, I will research it on the Internet to see if it is a common book. I haven't found a valuable first edition yet, darn it! Anyway, my plan for the books I bought today is to use their gorgeous covers to make some journals to sell on Etsy. I specifically chose books today that had beautiful covers, and I will make my own pages and use my handy-dandy little Bind-it-All machine to make some gorgeous new books, thus saving these from certain death by landfill.

Anyway, I had fun browsing around, and the store was run by a church, so my money went to a worthwhile cause. A good afternoon, I think.

Valentine's Day is For . . . Class Parties

2009-02-13T22:43:00.004-05:00

T.G.I.F. Today was our class Valentine party, and were the students ever wound! We were on a two hour delay schedule which means the class periods were shortened to one hour apiece instead of the usual ninety minutes. You might think that an hour is a long time to have a class, and you'd be right, but it seems like such a short time when I am trying to cram four subjects into that time frame.

Today my students had their usual Friday test/quiz routine. I gave them the weekly spelling test and the weekly Daily Oral Language Quiz. Also, Friday is when they turn in the weekly Daily Oral Language sheet that they take home on Thursday so they can study the week's sentences, and get it signed by a parent to show they studied. Today was ALSO the day I collected independent reading logs, AND the day I had scheduled their first independent reading project to be due. Poor planning on my part! I made MY workload huge!

So here is what the day looked like (times 3, since I teach three sections of fifth graders):

9:10 -9:30 - Morning Opening : 48 students coming into the room at different times bringing
projects in every shape, color, and size; parents bringing
treats and Valentine boxes; students tossing onto my desk
money, excuses, notes to the office, and homework for
different subjects; students telling me that they are going to
challenge, band, and/or breakfast; taking lunch count and
attendance; checking my email for important notices . . .

9:30 -10:00 - Morning Seatwork: Are you finished with your Math Problem of the Day? Have
you studied for your spelling test? Where is your
assignment book? Whose paper is this with no name?
Last call for lunch money and notes to the office. Where is
your math? Whose paper is this with no name? What were
you doing out in the hallway? What do you mean you don't
have a pencil? It's ten o'clock and you should have been
done already!!!!!!

10:00 - 11:00 - Reading/LA #1: Spelling test; Daily Language Quiz; Worksheet for reading;
Sharing projects; Playing with our Valentines; Showing off
our Valentine Boxes for the contest; Asking, "What time
is our party?"

11:00 - 11:30 - Recess: I have outside recess duty. At least the sun was shining,
it wasn't raining, and the kids were OUTSIDE!

11:30 - 11:45 - Lunch: For students; for me, potty break!

11:45 - 12:00 - Study Period: HA! Not today.

12:00 - 12:40 - Related Arts: Phys Ed for them - lunch for me (carrots and dip)

12:45 - 1:45 - Reading/LA #2 Spelling test; Daily Language Quiz; Worksheet for reading;
Sharing projects;

1:45 - 2:45 - Reading/LA #3 Repeat Above !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2:45 - 3:35 - THE PARTY Homeroom students return and grab their Valentine
boxes from wherever they've been stashed around the room (including a five-foot-long cardboard limo) and put them on their desks. Next, eighteen students converge on me asking if they can pass out their candy, cards, cupcakes, cookies, fruit roll-ups, fruit kabobs, juice, cups, napkins, pencils, stickers, etc. (Room parents have strange looks on their faces) Students simultaneously: play a chopstick game; talk; gorge themselves; deliver "stuff" to other classrooms; vote for biggest, fanciest, and best theme Valentine boxes; gorge some more; chug sweet beverages; make a mess; open Valentines; make jokes; talk; mill around; try to get inside limo box; play bingo; gorge; make a mess, until YIPPEE! 3:35 has arrived!

3:35 - 3:40 Dismissal: Turn lights off; Tell students to put everything in bags;
clean up floor; go to lockers; Give clapping signal: Clap
once if you can hear me, Clap twice and look at me. "Put
your stuff in bags and clean up the floor!" Give school
quiet clap signal; "Put your stuff in bags and get ready
to go!" Turn lights off (again - supposed to stop talking)
"Put your stuff in bags and get ready to go!" Oh heck
"Car riders -leave, Busers -leave, Walkers - leave.
Out, Out, OUT! Everyone! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Love Hearing From You

2009-02-11T17:58:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I got home later than usual, and I was rather tired because we had a retirement party for our night custodian, Jo. Since I wanted to post a new entry on my blog, but I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to write about, I thought I would just jot down a little blurb about the book I had started the night before. I was surprised to find several comments left for me on that post! I enjoy reading the friendly and encouraging comments I receive on some of my posts because it feels like I am connected to that larger universe that I know exists beyond my little school's orbit.

Although I've never had the pleasure of meeting any of you in person, I feel as if you are my newest friends. This blogging stuff is fun! I reflect constantly on my literary development and progress through life, and one constant thread is woven throughout my reflections; if I had not had a mother who was a reader and lifelong learner, I would not be where I am today.

I know there are people who look upon teachers with some disdain and talk about "doing" versus "teaching," but I am the oldest child in a family of twelve children, and I am the only one with college degrees. More than half of my brothers and sisters are high school drop-outs, and my father had only an eighth grade education, so I hope you can understand what an accomplishment it was for me when, at the age of thirty-five, I decided to attend college.

The point I want to make is that I wish more parents would encourage their children to engage in literacy activities at home. Our entire society is so wrapped up in the concept of instant gratification and constant stimulation of the senses, whether through technology, sports, or always being on the go, that literacy education is left entirely to the schools. Schools don't have the time or resources to make sure that students are practicing strategies taught in school and honing their skills to be ready to move on. I'm afraid that many of the students I have are going to have difficulty finding jobs that will provide life's necessities, much less allow them to live the responsibility-free lives many of their parents are now allowing them to live. Also, I hate to burst any budding athlete's bubble, but those big money contracts go to those who work HARD and have big talent, and everyone needs a backup plan.

Even if parents just allow kids to scribble pretend letters and lists or point out environmental print, or tell nursery rhymes to their children, in the end it will impact the way they process and approach literacy, and improve their background knowledge. This last is a biggie with me. Sometimes it is unbelievable to me the lack of background knowledge students are bringing to the table. Is this just because our oral traditions have gone the way of the horse and buggy? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do think parents need to interact verbally with their children more often and do some of the other things I've written about to help their children be better able to navigate the world of print. Enough! I'm off my soapbox!

This post started out to as a thank you to those who are kind enough to offer their support and words of encouragement here - Thank you new friends!

What I'm Reading

2009-02-10T21:33:00.002-05:00

Alicia - you're my inspiration for this post; I decided to write tonight about what I'm reading. I love reading your recommendations. I just started reading The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. I'm about eighty pages in on this epic novel of about a thousand pages, so I imagine it will take a while to complete. So far, I'm hooked. It's starting off telling the story or Tom, a skilled mason whose dream is to become a master builder on a cathedral. Since cathedrals aren't being built much nowadays, you'd be correct if you assumed that the story is set in former times, as indeed it is. I know I am going to end up crying over this novel as Tom has already lost his wife in childbirth. I'll just excuse myself now to go get the box of tissues ready . . . Then there's the sequel, World Without End, also a backbreaking thousand-pager. I will have plenty to keep me busy while I recuperate from my upcoming surgery.

One More Visit

2009-02-08T10:02:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow will be my last visit with the nutritionist leading up to my bariatric surgery. I am so happy that the time is coming closer and closer for the actual surgery. The preparations for this surgery started six months ago when I attended a seminar for Fresh Start Bariatrics in Columbus, Ohio, at Riverside Hospital. It was pure luck I saw the ad for this seminar in the newspaper. Two years ago I tried to have the surgery through St. Vincent's Charity Hospital in Cleveland, and I was unable to complete the program. The steps to completion for both programs are basically the same, but Fresh Start does everything with you, whereas St. Vincent tells you what to do and then turns you loose to do it on your own.

Anyway, so far I have had to have heart testing, lung function testing, chest x-rays, psychiatric testing, take Prev-pak antibiotics (NASTY) to get rid of h. pylori, the bacteria that causes ulcers, give up caffeine, carbonated beverages, and chewing gum - all forever- learn to drink 60 ozs. of water daily, eat three meals and three snacks per day, count my protein grams, learn to chew well, eat slowly to make my meals last for at least half an hour, have no beverages either half an hour before or after, or with meals, and WHEW! I think I've done it! Also, I have had to lose 29 lbs. before the surgery, but I haven't lost that much, only about ten lbs. So, you can see that it has been a period of re-training my mind and body for the new lifestyle I am embarking on. Eighteen years ago I quit smoking, so maybe by the time I am eighty or so I will have a healthy lifestyle!

The six months of preparation have flown by. The hard part, waiting for the insurance to approve me and to get my surgery scheduled, will drag by much more slowly, I'm sure. I can wait, though. After all, it took me fifty-four years to get fat; I can wait a few more weeks.

The Weekend is Coming!

2009-02-05T21:20:00.002-05:00

Because of the weather, I haven't been over to the Scrapshack now for over a month, and I am missing my friends. For the uninitiated, the Scrapshack is my friend Deb's converted garage studio. The name was inspired by the fact that the shack, as it is affectionately known, is not very fancy. The fun and camaraderie, the atmosphere, the end products, and the people, however, are second to none.

The most important feature of the Scrapshack, beyond the people, is the fact that we each have our own huge table to sprawl on! Most get togethers at the shack commence with those of us who don't leave our "stuff" there making trip after trip carrying in our boxes, sacks, packs, totes, and whatever else we rat-pack our goodies into. After about an hour of schmoozing, we sort of get down to business. The business of deciding what we are going to eat, that is. Sometimes one or the other of us cooks, sometimes we have a potluck and even allow our -gasp- husbands to eat with us, sometimes we go out to eat, and other times we order in. There is even the rare occasion when we don't have dinner, but just nibble on whatever we happen to have stashed.

After these important rituals have been satisfied and everyone has made at least one trip into the house for potty breaks or a beverage - along about eight or nine o'clock, we settle down and decide to work on something. Usually that is different for everyone. Sometimes we know ahead of time what we want to work on, but most often we just look at our materials or some new paper (At least one of us has a paper obsession and it ain't me) or a new tool or embellishment, and wait for inspiration to strike. (And why does inspiration have to strike? Can't it sometimes creep up on you?) Anyway. Sometimes one of us will just sit there and listen and watch and talk without doing a thing. Another favorite activity at the Scrapshack is fondling. Fondling is just going through your pretties and making feeble excuses about needing to be more organized while you touch and stroke all your cool stuff. Fondling occurs often. Fondling is satisfying. Fondling sometimes even results in a degree of organization. Fondling oftentimes leads to discoveries of things you bought while sleep-shopping. Fondling is good . . . But I digress . . .

Anyway, once we finally get down to the serious business of creating, we become totally engrossed. Time flies by, and before we know it, midnight has come and gone. Usually around midnight is when someone discovers that there is an extremely important tool or necessity that only a midnight visit to Walmart can cure. We all pile into whatever vehicle happens to have the most freed-up passenger space, cruise on over to Walmart and wander the aisles aimlessly, dazed by the hypnotizing florescent lights, until whichever person breaks the spell first calls the others on their cell phones and orders them to the front of the store to check out. The Walmart visits usually induce a sudden desire for eats; Timmy Hortons, Mickey-D's, Sliders from the Castle, or maybe just some gas station flavored coffees. My buddies have learned that it's usually not a good idea at this point to let me eat because I have a condition that causes me to want to go home when my belly gets full. If I don't let my "condition" take over after we come back from our Wally-World visit, we continue on with whatever creation we are in the midst of imagining.

As the night ticks away and we start thinking about it being time to go home we finds ourselves periodically asking, "What time is it?" Someone will flip open a phone and exclaim over the time, but more often than not, we get sidetracked by another technique or comment or conversational tack, and the time slips on unminded again. Finally, one or another of us realizes she can't possibly keep her eyes open another second, and we all start packing up the junk we dragged in the night before. Many times as we are loading our cars, the first faint light is starting to creep up in the east and the birds are stirring in the trees. Loading up takes a while again, and we all help each other carry and gather up, and, after rounds of "Be carefuls," and hugs and "See you's," we back down the drive yawning like mad and make it on down the road. But we'll all be back - ready to do it all over again the next week or the week after -

I'm Addicted

2009-02-04T19:47:00.005-05:00

I'm addicted! Since participating in a swap on Swap-bot www.swap-bot.com designed to gain exposure to your blog, I've had the good fortune to "meet" some wonderful people and read their blogs. The scope of these writers is amazing! I have not spent a great deal of time online in the past reading others' blogs, but all that has changed. I am now subscribing to several blogs and blog lines, and I am quite humbled by the experience. The level of writing, the range of topics, and the depth of feeling put into words by some of those whose blogs I am following is nothing short of amazing! I am also getting tons of ideas for changing the way my blog is presented, so stay tuned as I experiment with layouts, gadgets, tools, feeds, colors, etc. in the coming months. Meanwhile, if you have suggestions for me to improve what I'm doing here, please contact me or leave a comment. I'm here to tell you, you can teach an old dog some new tricks!
My students are continuing to receive packages of goodies and information from Ohio colleges. Today brought three parcels in the mail, and students are eagerly looking forward to getting mail. It always has been a treat for students to be sent to pick up mail for the teacher, but now everyone wants to go check the mail. The coordinator of the program emailed me and told me that she would make sure that any students who didn't receive replies to their letters would get something from her, so that made me happy. I really don't want any child to be disappointed because I know how I feel if it were me being left out. Ohio Weslyan University in Delaware especially generous sending both a T-shirt and a pennant. Go O-WU!
Right now I'm off to follow my blogs - such fun!

You've Got Mail

2009-02-03T18:04:00.006-05:00

My students are starting to get really excited about the letters they wrote last week. One of our fifth grade Ohio LA Curriculum indicators is writing business letters, and my students wrote to Ohio colleges. This week they have been starting to receive replies, and they are lovin' it! Monday a girl receive a pennant from Columbus State (thanks Columbus State!). You know what she was most excited about, though? In the business letter they sent to her, they called her "Miss," and she just thought that was the best thing since sliced bread! Today, another girl received an envelope from The Ohio State University, Lima Campus. She acted just a tad disappointed because she did not get a pennant, but she did receive some very cool 6X8 color postcards promoting the university. I tried to play them up by saying she could send them to other people and write letters on them, but I don't think she was buying it. I am hanging on to the items the students get back until this spring so we can create an " I Can Go to College" wall to display everything. This will piggyback on our science and social studies teacher's unit about jobs, market society, and supply and demand.

This is when the students see the value of what they do in school; when they get something back from the "real world." This is authentic writing - it's what adults do in the course of going about their everyday lives. Now I just wish I could get them to realize that adults spend a lot of time waiting in line and that they don't push, chatter, kick, sing, whistle, or act silly while they are doing it . . . Sigh.
I am posting a picture of another dotee I made this weekend. My husband thinks it is ugly and a total waste of time, but I think it's rather attractive even if its face is lop-sided. I put a lot of work into embroidering the face and doing the beading and embellishment. Just in case you're not sure, it's a cat. Grin. I don't know what I made it for or what I'm going to do with it, but here it is.

Welcome to All My Swap Bot Friends

2009-02-02T19:33:00.003-05:00

This post is a welcome to all my friends from Swap Bot. Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my blog. I am fairly new to all this, so if you can give me any suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Most of the pictures here are of things I have made and have for sale in my Etsy store. I am also willing to do trades or private swaps. Just let me know what the protocols are for that type of thing. You may be able to tell from the pics what kind of things I am into, but just in case, I love paper manipulating, vintage/antique findings and embellishments, metal, ATC's altered books - basically just about anything.

My First Dotee Doll

2009-02-01T11:24:00.006-05:00

I just finished my first Dotee Doll last night, and I'm not sure if I made her correctly or not. After going through and looking at all the different Dotee Dolls on other people's websites, including Dot's, the original creator's site, I am convinced that I messed up by stamping her face instead of sewing it or drawing it. I think she turned out rather, um, cute? I named her BrideZilla because she is over the top in all her finery, and as we all know, on that show Bridezilla the women are just nuts. Anyway, if anyone could weigh in with an opinion on whether I need to redo her face or not, I sure would appreciate your input. She is for a swap on Swap-Bot, and I don't want to disappoint.

The weather here in central Ohio has turned into a tropical paradise again! We are up in the 40's as of noon, and I have been out on the deck in short sleeves and barefoot. I'm tellin' ya, It's almost bikini season!

I had some help in my quest for organization yesterday. My hubby came down and made little wooden spacers for some bins I was using on my work table, and he even wire-tied them together for me so they won't come apart. I knew I married him for a reason! He can make anything! He loves to do things like that, and he makes the most detailed plans. Me, I just start and if it doesn't work the first time, just revise on the wing. I shouldn't say I never plan, I do, just not in as detailed way as he does. I usually have a mind picture to start a project, but then let the piece take its own way as it evolves. That suits me most of the time, but I do admit to not always fulfilling my "visions," and that is sometimes frustrating.

That reminds me of making my granddaughter's homecoming dress this past fall. She had a "vision" and because she sews a little and is creative, she came up with a plan for the dress and a color scheme that was SET IN STONE!!!! The only problem was, her fabric was nowhere to be found. We shopped for eight hours one Saturday until we found some Halloween costume fabric that she deemed suitable for the top, and I found drapery fabric for the skirt. It turned out so cute, but I told her the next time she has a vision, to make sure she could reach out and TOUCH her vision before she came to me with it!

Anyway, I love her and I am proud that she wants to be different and creative with what she wears. I hope to be able to sew her wedding dress someday ( not too soon, though).

Posting My Picture

2009-01-31T12:44:00.003-05:00

I wasn't sure I wanted to post my picture on my blog. After I thought about it though, I realized that I liked being able to put a face with the words I was reading. Not that it really makes any difference - but have you ever found yourself reading a book or an article, then after reading it, you go to the dust jacket or back of the book and look at the author's picture again? I do that, and now I am wondering why. Do we do it to "read" the person's face to see how the words came to be? Is there a relationship between what someone writes and the way they look or their facial expressions? We know for sure that facial expressions and body language play a huge role in conversation, so maybe that is why I am interested in the face of the author after I've read some of his or her words. Whatever the reason, I do know that I enjoy looking at the pictures of the people with whom I am communicating. So, here I am.

This has been a good week for me to get things done at home, but a mediocre week to get things done at school. Mostly because we missed two days this week. I do feel good about the writing the students have accomplished in the past few days. I know they will love it when they start receiving replies from the colleges they wrote to. I will feel badly for those students who don't receive anything in the mail, but maybe they can write another letter to those colleges who send things out.

At home I've been able to knock out some housework (always a struggle to keep ahead of the dogs and the barn track-in), so I feel good about that. Plus, I've been organizing in my studio area AND playing. Last night I stamped and embossed on some jars, and they look good. I used Staz-on ink for some and White Daisy ink by Close to My Heart and the new stamps Deb and Jackie got me for a belated B-day gift. So, I think today will be more of the same - clean a little, organize a little, play a little. Tomorrow I plan on going in to my classroom and working. I still need to work on my classroom library reorganization process, but that is moving along thanks to two of last year's fifth graders, now all grown up and in sixth grade, who have been coming in during their free time to help me out. The other jobs waiting are {dum de dum-dum} lesson plans, of course, and grading papers. Dirty jobs, both, but someone has to do them!

Consequences

2009-01-29T18:03:00.002-05:00

There must have been some bad spirits watching when I did the snow dance yesterday because I got my car stuck in the drive this morning! I just knew the superintendent of our district must have meant no school when he called for that two-hour delay this morning, but I faithfully tried to go to work anyway. And, just because I forgot the part of the snow dance routine where you call out no crosses, I had to pay the piper. About 25 feet out from the garage door, I got my car impossibly stuck. So, did I have to go to work anyway? Yes, but someone came and got me. The good thing is, most of the students were there this morning, and we got a writing project just about finished up for the book we're reading, The BFG. If you're not familiar with The BFG, it's a story about a big, friendly giant who snatches a little girl out of her bed at an orphanage because she saw him. He takes her to Giant Country, so my students had to write a paragraph telling where giant country is, then create a map to go with their writing.

Some other thoughts: The weekend is coming, and even though I didn't make anything other than the widow paper doll last weekend, I did spend quite a bit of time down in the basement cleaning and organizing this week, so I feel like I can go down and work this weekend without guilt since it's so clean and neat down there. But, as the title of my blog states, my best thing to do is "Junk it Up!" And that is just exactly what I will do when I go there to play. Cover me in glue and roll me in fibers. I'm lovin' life!

Doing the Snow Dance

2009-01-27T23:48:00.002-05:00

We did the teacher snow dance today, and look what happened! I knew I didn't have enough weekend this past weekend! I just didn't think my little ol' snow dance would produce this much nasty white stuff. I think I'm going to grow up to be snow bird one of these days. I absolutely do not like winter. Sure, it's pretty to see a snowy scene on a calendar page, but who wants to deal with it all winter long?? And why, in all those homey Currier and Ives pictures, is the snow never dirty? Around our house, the snow is yellow with dark splotches most of the winter. And that's one good thing I just thought of for a new snowfall; it covers up the pee spots. Our dogs are not the delicate types who think they need to be private in their eliminations - they just stop at the edge of the sidewalk, or in the case of my dainty little girl whose picture is my avatar, she just stands in the middle of the path where the snow is lowest and makes her deposits. If my legs were only three inches long, and my belly as fat as hers - wait, my belly IS as fat as hers- I would . . .oh, never mind.

Got my hair done this P.M. and went grocery shopping. I figured I better make the best of my time in town, and I was having to get pretty creative in the cooking arena the past few days since I hadn't done a grocery stock-up for over a month. We're good to go now, because I even bought T.P. and laundry soap. You know, the essentials along with the other necessities like coffee creamer, doughnuts, and box wine. So hey, we're set. No more white roots, and groceries, too. Life is good!

Writing Letters

2009-01-26T19:35:00.005-05:00

Today was a day of worn-down pencils and sore hands for my students. I teach three sections of grade five language arts and reading, and all three sections worked like little monks scribing all period. As part of a project sponsored by a local group, our students are exploring post-secondary education options by writing business letters (fifth grade indicator) to Ohio colleges requesting information and hopefully, a pennant to display at school. Instead of having the students compose their own letters, I used a sample that was given to me in a packet of materials from the organization last summer when I attended a seminar. The group also paid for postage and a small stipend for stationery, which was great because I ended up footing the bill for a lot of postage last year when I pursued another letter-writing project.

It always amazes me how much kids like sending letters. They were all very careful of their cursive handwriting and making sure they got the format just right. I love "authentic" projects like this, because even though some kids may not get a response, they all treat it as serious, "official" business. The icing on the cake are the replies. Last year's project was a name game book, and I had students look up celebrities who had the same name as theirs and write letters requesting autographs. Some celebrities who replied were Steven Segal (sp?), Rachel Ray, Michael Jordan, Raquel Welsh, and Kyle Busch, among many others. The letters, photos, and trading cards the students received were scanned into their books, and then they got to take their keepsakes home. If anyone is interested in the Name Game lesson plans and grading rubrics, email me or leave a comment, and I will make arrangements to get all that info to you.

I used the Student Treasures Company who sends out free book kits to teachers. This is a great company because their kits are free, postage is free, and the only catch is that a K-2 grade has to participate because at that grade level, only the teacher gets a free class book that all the students create together. The company hopes that parents will purchase extra copies and this apparently brings in enough income that the company can extend the free hardback book offer to the other students who participate. I've used this company several times, and my students have written a local sesquicentennial history book that utilized trips to the local library, a walking tour of their town and speech from a local historian, and trips to the court house and county recorder's office. Other times kids have made autobiographies, ABC books, and cookbooks.

So, I hope all my students get something cool in the mail so they can brag about having written and honest-to-gosh, real, actual, prehistoric letter!

Play Time is Over

2009-01-25T22:47:00.005-05:00

Play time is now officially over for another week. I had a fabulous time messing around and JUNKING IT UP! in the basement. Yep, I glued everything that wasn't already covered in glue, and I absolutely, positively, glued all my fingers together! Kidding! I made this doll, and her clothes, and the clothes are made of crepe paper, which, when glued, gets REAL sticky REALLY quick. And, that whole sticky mess bleeds onto your fingers and makes them a delightfully, gluey, fiber-y, colorful MESS! I love it!!!! Can you tell I had fun? I'm not so sure about my creation. When I showed her to my husband, he said she looks mean. I didn't see it until I put her clothes on and took her photograph.

So here she is in her drillies (she even has fishnet hose and garters with bling!), and here is her outfit, and then here she is all dressed up. I think she is a widow. Does she look like one? Anyway, I have to think on her a bit. Maybe she just needs some different clothes. I wanted her to be Spanish when I first started. I'll think on it and get back to you.

Yes, I do think it is going to be necessary to make her another outfit. Her hat does not show her face very well. She's going to have to cast off those widow's weeds and get back into her life.

Maybe you'll see her in another incarnation - maybe not.

Playtime!

2009-01-25T17:23:00.003-05:00

It's playtime, folks! Just ran upstairs to get some templates copied on the computer, and it's off back to the dungeon to play. Making some dolls tonight. Maybe some pics later - maybe not. We'll see what I get done. Gotta dash - more later!

Etsy Stuff

2009-01-24T12:14:00.006-05:00

These are some views of my things on Etsy right now. Some are handmade, some are vintage. Feel free to contact me with questions.

Feeling Lucky

2009-01-24T11:17:00.008-05:00

Have you ever been to a fortune teller? I haven't, but I would love to go to one. Although I know that the little gllimpse of one of my creations shown below is a stereotypical image, I still find romanticizing some of my artistic interpretations in that way is fun. And, I certainly do not wish to be disrespectful to certain Romish heritages - indeed, I find those people to be of hardy, resourceful stock. Anyway, this is a little peek into a piece of artwork I created recently, and I wanted to share it because I really like the way it turned out.

This is a tiny peek, and I will leave it up to you to guess at her identity, but I do have say I am very happy with her outcome. I did all the watercolors myself, as well as designing and making all her clothes of paper. Here is another view of her "abode."

Where Do You Find Your Time?

2009-01-22T21:33:00.002-05:00

It seems as if I wish my time away waiting for the weekend to get here so I can vent my creative energies, but as Friday slowly wends its way here, I start looking around at all the housework waiting to be done over the weekend, and feel my urge to create just evaporate! Where do people find time to create? Between my job, daily chores, family obligations, and the occasional emergency, I feel as if my creative time is time stolen from something more important. I know there are people who say, "Take ten minutes and sit down and do something you enjoy," but I'm not a ten minute type of person. It takes me longer than that just to decide what to work on! Oh well, when they invent a way to make more time, I'm going to get in line for some! In the meantime, it's almost Friday, and I think the housework will still be here for some power-cleaning on Sunday.

The Books Were Still There!

2009-01-20T19:55:00.003-05:00

Okay, what's up here? I went back into my classroom today, and the books were still piled up where I had left them! I PROFESS to hoping some major magic had taken place and they would have been miraculously returned to their proper places on the shelves.

No time for anything more than a quick jot, here, though. Grades are due in the computer by tomorrow night, and I still have tons of papers to grade. Now I need those paper-grading elves!

I'm still expending brain power on thinking about my doll house interior and exterior collages. What I was doing before was using pieces of printed paper to make the rooms' accessories, and it was just looking too "flat." I think better approach would be to make the drawings myself and have a more childlike look to everything. Think stick figures here - I'm thinking Conte crayon or charcoal drawings. Anyway, Friday is still a few days off, so I will chew it over a little more. Any suggestions out there?

Books, Books, and More Books

2009-01-19T20:29:00.006-05:00

I went in to my classroom today to work on reorganizing my student library. Ugh! A one day job it is not. Our county educational consultant (bless her little heart!) volunteered to come in and help me make my cataloging system more student friendly, and I took her up on it. Well, after four hours of work and a wonderful Panera Bread lunch, I am nowhere near done. As a matter of fact, it is going to take a major push tomorrow morning for the students who sit neat the bookshelves to even be able to find their desks! I am going to have to go in VERY early in the A.M. tomorrow and try to get a little more organized, but I am still going to need to ask the students to help me. Oh well . . .

On a brighter note, the weather here in Ohio is getting a little warmer! After temps in the five to ten below zero range for a few days, that thirty degree increase to the mid-twenties felt downright balmy! Toward the end of January, I always begin thinking that spring is near, but then I wake up and remember that February through April are always really crappy months around here. The really good news is that it will be warm enough this weekend to be able to go over the the Scrap Shack and play this weekend. Deb and Jack played last weekend, but being the wimp that I am . . .

I'm finally ready to go back to a project I started last winter, but got tired of. I had purchased Sally Jean Alexander's book, Pretty Little Things, and had made several of the things in it like the Home Sweet Home swag, the lighted house, and a few other projects of my own design. Then I decided I was going to make the doll house. I worked on it for a month or so of Friday evenings, then I just lost interest in it.. I got hung up on the collages for the interior walls, plus I don't really like my exterior collages. The glass is all cut and ready to foil, and I think I have some new ideas in mind for the collages. I need to let go of my "too realistic" look and be more abstract in my interpretation. We'll see. Meanwhile, take a peek at my house sans its base. My husband has it on his list of Honey-do's to rout some grooves for my house to set in.

Clarification

2009-01-18T18:06:00.005-05:00

I have to clarify something about the moniker I sign my posts with and the way I introduced myself in my first post. I intro'd myself as Lil Spotted Dog, and the reason for that was because that's what my Etsy name is. Because I wanted this blog to go in the direction of paper arts and altered art, I chose to call myself "Glue Girl." That's because, if you read my profile, I disclosed that I've never met a glue I didn't like. Although that's not strictly true, I sure do like my glue! And, I have to be honest and tell you that I catch a lot of grief from my friends about my messy habits! Anyway, that's been bugging me since I realized it, so consider yourself clarified!

So Much Living; So Little Time

2009-01-18T09:02:00.008-05:00

I have rediscovered the joy of blogging! I mean, I had dabbled a little a couple of years ago, but I wasn't particularly dedicated. Now, for some reason, I feel more renewed and energized. I think it has to do with my outlook on life. After being a person of size for so many years, I have finally made a commitment to becoming a healthier me. On February ninth, I go to my nutritionist for my final visit before bariatric surgery.

I know some may think that is too drastic a step, or that it may not last, but I know that for me it is almost like being handed a new life. After suffering for years with osteoarthritis, two knee replacements, and a host of foot problems, I hope to have again the mobility and energy to reclaim the life I once had.

Anyway, help me maintain happy thoughts and send me your good vibes. I have discovered some fabulous people in the pages of their blogs, in addition to a friend whose blog I have followed for several years, and I'm looking forward to these amazing people speeding me on my way to renewed growth and passion in what I love.

One of these, The Art Nest (http://theartnest.blogspot.com/), I found when I looking for Sally Jean Alexander's web page. I felt an immediate connection to these people just from looking at the pictures of all the fun they were having at one of their retreats. I wanna go! That's another thing - for several years friends and I have talked about going to one of these retreats, and we've never gone (Well, we did go to one at Stratton House, and I'll tell about that one sometime), but I want to go MORE, MORE, MORE! Not only was I drawn to the happiness and camaraderie radiating out from those people in the photos, but their stashes grabbed me and I just oogled every picture of the luxurious fabrics and ribbons. And, that is not even to mention the most fabulous little metal bits and pieces of handmade jewelry and adornments that I spied.

It was enough to make me slobber! Just kiddin'! I only slobber at meals; not on my precious! (tee-hee) Seriously, here is an open invitation - I have lots and lots of pretties, too, and if there is anyone out there who would like to exchange bits and pieces from their stashes, I'd LOOOOVE to do that. Any takers . . .?

I suppose the next step is for me to photograph some of my stash to entice people to swap stuff with me, so look for that next. Until then, I'm off to ogle and slobber over other people's stuff . . .

Welcome Aboard to Me!

2009-01-17T20:37:00.006-05:00

Well, here I am, the Lil Spotted Dog. This is the place to hear about all things junked up, glued up, and well, just about anything. I am all about any kind of paper arts. I make altered books, ATC's (thanks to my friend Cathy at http://partlypaper.blogspot.com), scrapbook layouts, stained glass (see "Pretty Little Things" at http://www.sallyjean.com/), and paper dolls, among other junk.

My philosophy is, "Leave no bare spot unadorned!" Some of my favorite things are antique and vintage raw brass and copper pieces, and anything "blingy." My artwork has been published in Making Memories magazine, Somerset Memories, and Kay & Company's first idea book.

I have participated in numerous ATC swaps as well as round robin artwork collaboratives. Other interests I have are animals, (LOOOOOVE my miniature dappled dachshunds, Fritz & Freda), reading, and sewing. I recently made a frou-frou homecoming dress that was very short, very strapless, and very tight - but not for me (tee-hee!). I also like anything old. I have a vintage and antique button collection, a collection of antique clothing which includes some gorgeous Civil War-era outfits, and a huge stash of antique jet trims that I use in my artwork. My favorite season is Fall, and I love the smell of the fallen leaves freshly turned earth. I love to dig in the dirt, but I'm not a very good gardener because I hate to weed!

I am a public school teacher, so I fit my creative time in where I can, but most Friday evenings I can be found at the home of one of my friends, Deb, where we play until the wee hours. I also have a great area in my basement devoted to my beloved junk. Right now this area should be in the witness protection program and remain anonymous. Suffice to say that it needs some major organizational magic worked upon it.

If you are interested in seeing any of my "stuff" or creative endeavors, take a peek at my shop on Etsy, Lil Spotted Dog. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6704403 And now, you've had a chance to meet me, leave me a comment, and I'll get a chance to meet you!