Under Construction

Life. It changes. This past year has been a HUGE adjustment for me. Going from being home all day with Nana & scrapping all the time to constantly being gone at work & meetings and rarely any time to craft. Well that's all about to change! I got a new JOB!!! I'll be working at Willo Beauty Bar at Loehmann's Plaza. I'm very excited and one of the best parts is my new schedule: 3 days a week off with 2 half days (I have to be at work at 8AM on those half days though :o ).  I'm really looking forward to spending more time crafting. I MISS it!!! It feeds my soul. I also plane on more blogging and a makeover of this dreary place. So there will be reason soon to check back more often again. See ya' soon with an all new look.

Seriously???

I'll be shocked if anyone even reads this anymore. I haven't even blogged since MARCH!!! I can't believe it's been that long. My life is just so different than it was in Kansas. Work & recovery take up so much of my time, and then there is the laziness :) I really miss crafting & am searching for a new job that hopefully allows me more time to craft. I HAVE been doing some art journal prompts for Year In The Life Art Journal but half the time I forget to get them in on time. I can show you some of those now. BEWARE: Obscenities ahead!!!

 Manic Monday was the prompt a few weeks back. LOVED that song in the 80's. I got the copics out and did a little drawing about the stuff I always have to do on Monday's. Ugh! Gets in the way of my 'relaxing' lol.

On the radio the song says "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green but it's really Fuck You and I couldn't resist a big neon FU journal page. :)

The last prompt was Faith. You gotta have faith faith faith, right? lol So I wrote some things about why I have faith like the wind blowing on my face & the changing of the seasons & the feeling I have inside & that my life is happier having faith than questioning if I should and then of course some George Michael lyrics cus I couldn't resist. I finally found my stencils in a box so I got them out along with some mist and stickles and paint.

The new prompt will be up in a couple of days and I even already turned in my page! Yes SHOCKING I agree! I wish I could figure out a way to make money art journaling. Go check the YITLAJ blog in a couple of days and get to it!

Lillian Martha Casteel Osborn Feb. 21 1914-2011

I’ve been meaning to make this post for a month now but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s been a month now that my Nana passed. It’s really just now settling in and there are moments when it doesn’t seem real, as there are when anyone dies. She left this earth on the same day she entered it 97 years later! When she took a turn for the worst I just knew she’d die on her birthday and she made it almost 2 hrs in. She lived a long beautiful life and was loved by many.

Nana lived in Kansas all her life. She was born in Pittsburg, went to high school in Cherryvale, lived a short time in Lawrence while Papa finished Pharmacy school and settled down in Independence where she raised her children. She lived in the same house for almost exactly 65 years. She was a true southern Lady to me and an excellent hostess & housewife. She took lots of pride in her home. She loved the color celery green as her entire house (and I mean ENTIRE) was painted that color so it would be a good accent to her favorite color of yellow. Her favorite flower was Carnations. She said because they were sturdy flowers and lasted a long time.  She thought the greatest invention of her lifetime was the Polio vaccination as she recalled the fear she had over her children possibly contracting the disease. She was a depression era child so always practical, at least her thoughts were practical to her! Her & her mother Maude lived with Maude’s sister Hattie and her husband Onty & Maude’s two children by her first husband, Virginia & Pete, in a small apartment in Pittsburg. Uncle Onty worked at the movie theater as a projectionist and so Nana got to see many films and recalled seeing the first ‘talkie’, The Jazz Singer, with her school class.  Papa & her started dating in junior high. They were both only-children being raised by single parents. They only broke up once & eloped in secret. The news of their marriage beat them back to Kansas though and they had to come clean. This secret marrying has become a theme in my family.  Nana’s chicken salad recipe is still the same recipe that the drugstore serves daily. DeFever Osborn Drug is now called Independence Pharmacy but their spirit lives on there. Nana gave birth to a boy Robert and after several miscarriages and a tubal pregnancy her & papa adopted Virginia who was named after Nana’s cousin (Side note: Virginia & Pete both moved to California just like me. A story I heard about often once I told her I was moving).  One of my favorite stories Nana used to tell was of Papa & his friends stealing the food from the girls sleepovers & how they used to hide the food in the piano so the boys wouldn’t find it.

I have tons of fabulous memories of times I spent with Nana & Papa growing up. Being the first grandchild I was a little spoiled . Nothing could compare to these last 4.5 years with her. I’ll be ever so grateful for them, and her. So many things that are ingrained in me are from her.  I love you dearly Nana. May you rest in peace.

The picture above is Nana on her 96th birthday a year ago. Eating chocolate of course!

What I’ve been up to…

I’ve only scrapped one or two pages since I moved to California. Sad times. I’ve just lost my mojo for scrapping unfortunately. But there’s a good side to the lost scrapping mojo and that is I’ve been making lots of collages. Ok well a few collages. But I plan to make a lot more in the future and this is totally where I want to take my art. Since I’m in recovery my collages have included recovery quotes. It started with one for my sponsors birthday:

Next I made one for my sponsors sponsor:

And it’s just evolved from there:

So that’s it. I hope to have more to show soon. Also I think I still have some spots left in my Crafty Pay It Forward in the post below so go sign up if your interested.

Have a great day & THANKS for stopping by!!!

Pay it forward & Friday 5

 

I promise to make a handcrafted item in 2011 & mail to the FIRST 5 people who comment that they would like to join in, only asking in return that you post this on your blog and offer 5 people something you make by hand and mail to them this year.

Sounds like fun doesn't it?

Not sure WHAT I will make yet but I can promise you that I will put my hands, time, love & creativity into something cute!

I hope you decide to join in and Pay It Forward with crafty love!

This weeks Friday 5 comes from a different site Friday5.org 

1.  Who's not as funny as he or she thinks?
Charlie
2. What's not as big a deal as everyone thinks?
 What other's think of you.
3. What's something people aren't concerned enough about?
Teacher salaries
4. What's something in the grocery store that's underrated?
Fruit
5. What do you pay to much attention to?
My cell phone

And I'm out! Hope you all have a great weekend.

52 Weeks

So I'm participating in Kim Whitten's 52 Week Project this year where you take a self-portrait every week. I'm doing most of mine on my iPhone, just like my Project 365 which I actually completed last year! (Yay ME!) and am doing again this year. I started Kim's idea last year but it didn't last long. I know I've grown in my ability to love myself this year because of the fact that I'm not freaking on every pic so far. Anyway, you can check out the flickr group here.


Week 1: I went to San Francisco with my friend Jacqui to get her Chinese visa and it was closed for the holiday so we had breakfast at the Squack & Gobble. I took this pic of my reflection in the mirror with the menu boards behind me.

Week 2: 2 days after the above shot was taken I came down with an awful cold that would NOT go away. I missed a week of work and laid in bed the whole time. My kitties were my constant companions and so I snapped this pic one day while convalescing & cuddling with Hambly.

Week 3: This week brought my 44th birthday. One of my co-workers gave me some awesome big hair with a side pony & I decided to make a collage of pics with my Diptic app.

Week 4: It was a gorgeous (although rare lately) sunny day in Davis & I caught this long shadow of myself while fetching some lunch.

I have week 5 but haven't uploaded it yet so you can look for that later.

Friday 5 (or 10)

Actors/Actresses.
1. favourite actor/actress growing up?


Brook Sheilds (she was so scandalous with Pretty Baby & Blue Lagoon!)
Tom Cruise (We were such dorks we took pictures of the paused television screen while watching Risky Business)
Molly Ringwald (I'm STILL waiting for Jake to bring me my cake and I inherited her passion for the bad boy, although none of them looked like Jude Law)
Demi Moore (I was always in love with her long beautiful hair and still am. I also thought her cocaine addiction in St. Elmo's Fire was tragically sad. To bad I inherited that too!)
Robert Downey Jr. (need I say more?)
and a few others I'm sure!
 
2. favourite tv show/movie they were in and why?
See above!


3. favourite quote by said actor/actress?
Oh I suck at this so no idea
 
4. favourite image of said actor/actress?
I think Demi is WAY more beautiful now than she was in the past. RDJ too.

5. what would you like said actor/actress to appear in?
Oh hell I don't know but make it good


Ok I'm so not into those questions so let's do last weeks. (BTW you can find these at Live Journal 

1. what's something you're really good at doing?

Being ME!
2. what's your best character trait?
Compassion
3. what do people often compliment you about?
My crafty/artistic talent
4. what's one of the nicest things you've ever done for someone?
Gave a family Christmas presents anonymously
5. what's your best physical attribute?
Eyes


Have a great weekend!

Pondering…

For the last week I’ve been pondering on the last Reverb 10 prompt. I’ve started a couple of blog post and then trashed them because they just didn’t feel ‘right’ to me. I’ve been sick the last few days and have even laid in bed wondering what this prompt meant to me:

December 31 – Core Story What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world?

What in the world IS my core story? At first I was thinking it was one of survival for I’ve come thru a lot in my life, but when I think of a survivor I think of the guy who cut off his arm to crawl out of a mountain or someone surviving the holocaust or cancer. Really I’ve just survived life and that’s no more miraculous than any other person. Recovery came next but while I am most certainly an addict and have once again been thru some difficult times because of those things my story is not so horrible. I never lived on the streets or od’d or many other awful things that others endured and have lived to tell the tale. Maybe it’s perseverance. But the opposite of that would have been just giving up and well, life goes on and while there have been many times I’d like to get off the train I haven’,t and so I wake up each day and continue to do the things required in life whether I feel like it or not. It’s called living. So loss is on the list of life experiences. I’ve lost a lot of people near and dear to me but eventually everyone will deal with that. I just got a huge dose of it early in life. So while I don’t know what one thing is my core story I know that all these things together, along with some other’s like adventurer and creative and spiritual make up my story: survivor, recovery, addict, loss, perseverance, adventurer, creative,spiritual student of life.

I wasn’t going to pick a word this year because I wanted to take that Ali Edwards class at Big Picture Classes and didn’t have the money and so I thought I’d just skip the whole thing ya’ know. But the emails from her blog just keep coming to my inbox and tonight I scrolled thru them and while I’d had the word Adventure in my head, when I saw the word Flourish I knew it was the word for me this year. It’s my time to flourish. This is my year!

Reverb Ketchup :)

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself.  Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

When I read this prompt these 2 photos are the first that popped into my head. Me doing a very bad Julie Andrews impression on top of Mt. SomeThingOrOther in Colorado this summer. I LOVE the Sound of Music! I always wanted to sing “I am 16 going on 17” but I also wanted to walk down the aisle with that ridiculously long train. I think this captures my silly fun side and my spontaneity. I LOVE going to new places and doing new things and seeing as much as possible and I’m definitely doing that in this pic.  It was beautiful on top of this mountain with the 2 lakes and small waterfall and all of us in our Jeeps. It’s not the cutest pic and I don’t have a stitch of makeup on but I’m having a great time and that’s really what it’s all about.

December 26 – Soul Food.  What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

I LOVE good food. And I’ve tried a few new things this year that I’ve never had. Jacqui & Giuseppe got me hooked on this coconut yogurt from Germany and also one with chocolate chunks in it. And then there are the German pastries that are delish. Oh and the Italian coffee. I had Puerto Rican food for the first time. I LOVE fried plantains. YUM-MY! I even had a Puerto Rican/Cuban Christmas dinner and had Yucca plant for the first time and the delicious pastilles. This coming year I’m hoping to have Russian food. I want to try Borscht.

December 27 – Ordinary Joy Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

This could be so many things but I think it would have to be seeing Nana sleep so peaceful and the kitties all curled up around her. The house all quiet and just this safety and serenity being there gave me.

December 28 – Achieve.  What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

I want to start selling my art. I think it’ll give me a lot of satisfaction at overcoming some fear and joy that others like what I do. I think fear is holding me back now and I’m not taking full advantage of the little time I do have. I’m lazy so if I do accomplish this then I’ll have overcome some of those obstacles. I need to finish the things I’ve started and then open the etsy store or/& art fire and talk to the business owners and start networking and making the art!

December 29 – Defining Moment Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.

That moment is definitely the conversation with my sponsor I had almost a year ago. I was complaining about some stuff as we alcoholics like to do and I told her I hadn’t been happy since I’d come home from visiting California. My sponsor promptly told me that the only time I’d been happy in the last year was when I was getting ready to go on a trip and then I was always depressed when I came home until I was going somewhere else again. That maybe it was time to re-evaluate my caregiver status and go live my life. It was like something inside me clicked and I knew that it was indeed time to start looking at other options.

December 30 – Gift Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year?

Nana’s love for me. She’s given it for almost 44 years. And it was her love that let me go so easily to go live my life. It’s her love that fills my mind and heart with wonderful memories.