Catching Up

Just thought I would let you know I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth.

Wednesday we went shopping for a couple of hours and then since we were in the area, we stopped by and visited with my mom and dad and one of my sisters for a short while.

We had a small dinner on Thanksgiving Day with our son. We enjoyed the visit with him, however I didn’t spend as much time with him as DH did; I was cooking while they were out in the garage working on our truck replacing the radiator. Our son just bought a new truck this past week and is very proud of it. It’s his first ever brand new vehicle to own. DH wants to trade in our truck, but I am trying to get him to hold off as long as possible before doing this. (We just don’t need another bill right now).

I have a small art piece that I started on awhile back, but haven’t been able to work much on it so I won’t show anything yet.

And today, I did some cleaning in the living room and got out the Christmas tree and put it up. I am almost finished with decorating it. I just have some strings of beads to add and then it will be done. But of course, there is more cleaning to be done and a lot more decorating so it may be awhile before I post again. I am trying to keep up with reading the blogs, but it is a little hard to keep up with at present.

Talk to you all later!

Here It Is

As I mentioned in my last post I've been tagged for the meme thing, so here goes:

1. Three screen names that you've had: I have used strugglingartist. I also have used leftylou. I don’t really have a third.

2. Three things you like about yourself: I am an optimist. I can keep a secret. I try to be a good person.

3. Three things you don't like about yourself: I am really a shy person and find it hard to talk to people. I hate the fact that I am such a procrastinator. The fact that I really need to exercise, but can’t get myself to do it.

4. Three things that scare you: Growing old and not having enough to live on, (financial account says we have enough but I’m not sure about it). Gaining more weight.

5. Three of your everyday essentials: I feel I need to attempt to create something, but a lot of times this doesn’t happen. That first cup of coffee every morning.

6. Three things you are wearing right now: clean underwear, a t-shirt and jeans.

7. Three of your favorite songs: This is really hard for me. I like to listen to the New Age music channel on Dish Network, but I don’t know the artists because I am always in another room and can’t see the name of the artists’ whose music is playing.

8. Three things you want in a relationship: Passion, compassion and understanding, and loyalty.

9. Two Truths and a Lie: I like creating things. I love chocolate. I love doing housework.

10. Three things you can't live without: Ice Cream, Pepsi and going in my studio to create.

11. Three places you want to go on vacation: The Grand Canyon, Hawaii, and Yellowstone Park.

12. Three things you just can't do: Can’t drive a stick shift. I can’t get myself to exercise. I can’t make small talk with people very easily.

13. Three kids names: Cassandra, Jay (my son’s name) and Alexandria.

14. Three things you want to do before you die: Sell one piece of art. Be able to spend some real quality time with my husband. Win the lottery.

15. Three celeb crushes: Mark Harmon, and I can’t remember their real names but I like the characters Alex and Nick on McLeods Daughters.

16. Three of your favorite musicians: This is hard as I do not listen to music nearly as much as I used to years ago.

17. Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you: eyes, smile and long legs.

18. Three of your favorite hobbies: quilting, attempts at photography and messing around with mixed media art.

19. Three things you really want to do badly right now: sleep, work in my studio and be finished with this meme.

20. Three careers you're considering/you've considered: when I was in high school, I considered becoming an airline stewardess (as they were called back in the day); a medical transcriber, and a ….. secretary.

21. Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy: I can do carpentry work; my hair was very short for many years, sometimes I cuss like a sailor.

22. Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl: I used to always dress to impress other women, I always had to have makeup on when I went out (I don’t now); my hair always had to look just so before leaving the house (it doesn’t always look so great now).

I've Been Tagged

Vicki from www.variegatedthreads.blogspot.com tagged me for the meme thing. I will have to take a couple of days to answer the questions. This will be really hard for me as I don't have answers to several of the questions. I promise I will do my best to answer these.

So Sleepy!

I am sitting here trying to read through the blogs. I am having a hard time getting through these as I am feeling very loopy right now. I am taking my new medicine at nine o'clock and by about ten thirty it is making me so drowsy I am having difficulty staying awake.

Before I started this medication I would usually come and read the blogs after I watch my TV shows if I didn't get to read them earlier in the evening and I usually didn't make it to bed until about one thirty. Now I have been going to bed by midnight at the latest. I have started drafting a new piece and trying to pull fabrics for it but it is slow going. If this medication continues to affect me in this manner I may never get anything done. This crap really sucks!

Not My Usual Self

I want to apologize for not having written much of anything lately. I have been in a big blue funk lately and just have not been able to do much of anything. I am also having some female problems and went to the gynocologist yesterday which wasn't a pleasant experience. It seems I am getting close to starting menopause, but at the moment my hormones are out of whack and so she started me on some medication to help balance things out. Anyone out there taking Prometrium? It seems one of the side effects is drowsiness and right now I am feeling so out of it I just want to go lie down and sleep for ever. I hate to take any medication. I could never take Pamprin when I was having bad cramps because it always wiped me out. I hope that this will be a temporary thing because I really miss trying to go to my studio and create stuff. I have to go in January for some further tests and I am not really sure how I feel about that.

I realize I am just rambling on and I really should give in and go to bed, but I had to take the time to read through my usual blogs. I figure if I am not able to create something, I can at least try to keep up with everyone else and check out what you all have been up to. I love seeing every one elses' work. I hope you guys will continue to check in on my blog and I promise I will try to post something more interesting soon. I just want to thank everyone who has been visiting my blog. You guys are the greatest!

I am now going to sign off and go to bed.

No Quilting, but.....

Not much to report in the way of quilting and such. We are still dealing with all of the necessary yard work that this time of the year brings about. We have one and a quarter acres of property with large pine trees in the front and a small “forest” across the back of the yard. So every year in the fall there is a ton of pine cones that fall off the trees as well as a ton of pine needles. This all has to been picked up/raked up if we want to keep what little grass grows under these trees.

I mentioned in an earlier post also about all of the leaves but I didn’t mention that even though we have a lot of trees near the back of the property; it is the neighbors leaves that blow into our yard and then we have to get them all raked and mowed to get rid of them. DH is not a person who can just let stuff like this go. It has to be dealt with even if it means doing it a couple of dozen times. Now me, I could let it go two or three days before tackling all of that again cause you know that until all of the leaves drop it doesn’t make sense to kill yourself doing all that work knowing that several hours later you can’t tell that you did it. Oh well.

I thought I would share a few photos I took over the past week or so of different things around the yard.

This one was taken a week ago and is part of the back of our property. The trees had quite a bit of color although not all had changed yet. Today they are practically all bare.















I took this one the other day. It looks like there was an awful lot of air traffic within a short space of time.















I mentioned that DH had cut down some trees recently. I took these after we finished cutting up a walnut tree. Kind of interesting, don’t you think?















DH found this a few years ago and placed it in this flower bed. (all the flowers have been cut back for winter).
















And this is something I purchased several years ago.















At the time when I bought it I thought I would be using it as a birdbath, but decided afterwards to just use it as a piece of yard art.

What I've Been Doing, Again

Don't have any pictures to post, but thought I'd let you know what I've been up to this past week. Earlier in the week I worked off and on, on the Day at the Lake quilt trying to finish up block # 3 (see earlier post below). I also spent several hours for two days doing yard work, trying to get things in shape before winter. Still not completely finished.

We have several huge pine trees bordering one front corner of our property which means we have to pick up the ton of pine cones that drop around this time of the year plus rake tons of pine needles and move to the back of the yard. We did some of this yesterday and then got to do it again today because we had a lot of wind last night that blew down more pine cones and hopefully the last of the needles. And that doesn't even include the tons and tons of leaves that have to be dealt with also. We also mowed grass.

And last but not least, today DH decided he wanted to cut down yet another tree near the back of the property, which entails me cutting all the smaller branches up into even smaller pieces to be burned later. He cuts up the larger parts of the tree and stacks it near the little gravel road that runs right beside the property and lets anyone who wants it take it. This was probably about the 20th or so tree he has cut down and he ain't done yet! He still has several more in mind to cut down and I am telling you this is a lot of work, especially when your yard is hilly and you have to walk back and forth from one side to the other a hundred times. We had a big storm last summer that blew down half of a humongous tree and landed on top of our garden shed. I'm talking a tree with a trunk so big that I could not ever begin to get my arms around it. This was a major mess to clean up and the tree was actually from the neighbors property.

Anyway that's what I have been up to and will be doing more of this next week. I have been playing around with an idea for another art piece, but haven't gotten very far with it.