It's 30 Days of Do, Bitch!

I guess it's time to stop pretending that I'm going to try to come back regularly or even semi-regularly, so I'm thinking each season for right now...it's still fall, right? Anyway, sorry to keep you all in suspense, but after my disastrous performance at the VMAs, I've really had a lot on my plate. (like stalking Rihanna, that skinny bitch)

So...what is there to talk about? I've been stuck at home for nearly 2 weeks with the dogs because Luca had kennel cough


If you've never heard a dog make a sound like it was hawking up a chainsaw, you've really missed out on something! Poor Luca...he really wasn't as bothered by the whole thing as Kai was. She wanted to go to daycare! Every day until around 1 in the afternoon, she would growl and fuss and stand in front of the front door. She'd start doing jumping jacks every time I made a motion that LOOKED like it was heading toward the door. This experience had me fondly recalling the days of trying to have 30 seconds to myself in the bathroom while toddlers pounded on the door or wandered into traffic. My poor cats, for which 'Dogs at Daycare'='Vacation' were not especially pleased, either.

I actually started a garden IN THE GROUND, if you can believe it. Here there be evidence. Now you know it WOULD have looked better and more convincing had there been actual FLOWERS in the garden, but I have just dug up my gladiolas and put in iris and daffodil bulbs, so you're going to have to use your imagination a little bit. Turn on Dora and grab your magic backpack if it helps. These are some lilies and irises that mom gave me to plant and they're doing pretty well. Behind that is my peony. This one is a deep fuschia, but I have ordered a pale pink (can't recall if it is blush or bashful haha) and a coral colored one. This garden was just the small corner I dug by the peony and I kept expanding it out a little bit at a time. Eventually, I hope to join it to a walkway to the lower yard.


There are also a lot of iris, hyacinth and daffodil bulbs here. I did have acidanthera sort of unenthusiastically blooming, but dug them up along with the glads.








Here are some of the results of my planting marigold seeds last spring. This is actually pretty cool. I must have exposed some of them to radiation or nuclear waste or dog pee because check out the size of this marigold... Ayi!!!! GOING SWARROW TOKYO!!!





Finally, here is a picture of a piece of slate that my youngest found and brought home for the border.




What else...I went to a great class, Advanced Layers, taught by Jane Dunnewold.
I learned how to do silk screen printing, soy wax batik, glue/gel medium resists, flour paste resists and very cool 'faux silk screens' made from interfacing, tulle and house paint and a whole ton of other fun stuff. I came home with dye all over my clothes and probably absorbed into every pore in my body. Since I just messed up my card reader, I'm going to save the pictures of some of my projects for another post.

So...what did YOU all do on summer vacation?

Summer Sprawl

Hello everyone! I am writing to you from Writely, which is google's document writer. I tried using windows live writer and I can't seem to get the proper posting url to work. I noticed other people having the same problem, but I don't see the workaround answer...anyone know?

And WHY, you are probably asking, am I even BOTHERING to find publishing software for a blog that I have so SORELY neglected? You should know the answer to that already. Stupidity (AKA Comedy) happens, and I am either there to perform, experience or witness it and I feel a responsibility to record it. This is not to say that my life has been "Stupidity free" since I last posted...nay nay! I can just never remember the stupidity by the time I get to the computer.

So, lets see...the summer so far, in review. Wake up, hide in the media room reading my email until Evil (the children) awakes. Spend day ferrying, fielding phone calls or scheduling intricate meeting arrangements for said Evil. I do get breaks, because Cuteness (the animals) needs to be fed, petted or walked. To add to this symbiosis, I have (sort of) taken up gardening, as evidenced by my dinner plate sized dahlia picture in the post below. Right now, I am working with containers, which I can keep close to the house so that I don't forget all about them. Sort of a KinderGARDEN, if you will. I haven't killed anything, except for poor "Jack Flower" (the card read, "take care of Jack Flower...he's got a gun!") which is a very hapless impatiens that my kids got me for mother's day 2 years ago. It thrived in a tiny pot until it got too big this spring, so I replanted it in some very nice miracle gro soil in a big hanging planter right in the middle of a sunny window. For all of my care and attention, it turned all powdery and the stems rotted and fell off. "Army of One" ? I don't think so.

Mist Yew

I've been having a great summer, this year. I am glad that I managed to get outside for a change...I'm even sporting a skin color that is slightly darker than "anaerobic grub" white! I've just finished the first phase of the "back to school" purchasing; the sport tryouts gear phase. As always, I am skating the last minute...tryouts started today. Next is the actual "buying of the school clothes" phase. Wish these damned kids wore uniforms!



Unbelievably, I was able to finish all of those small altered cards for the all-for-one project, and um...Bitches? They aren't due until NEXT WEEK. Now, of course, I will dawdle on mailing them until November. So, in clockwise order, I'll 'splain them. Top Left is rubber stamped and fabric collaged. The diver is collaged, covered with extra heavy gel medium and textures carved in (which you can't see on the scan) The camels are collaged and highlighted with copper stamp ink. The squiggle is a Zentangle done with Prang metallic and Marvy markers and Crayola spider writers. The TV card is collaged, and the checkerboard card has strips of marbled cards woven into it...then I gelled the shit out of it to make it stay. We'll see. All of these cards are part of different paintings that were cut into small cards to be altered by a bunch of different people. Now the paintings will be reassembled and exhibited.

No post is complete without a cute animal picture...lets see.



Aren't we cute? For new people joining me, Kai is on the left and Luca is on the right. He always looks sorta pitiful when he sleeps...a very sad expression on his face. Behold:

Wah! I'm Luca...mommy is making me take a nap! WAH!