CQJP2012



                    This is my first attempt at crazy quilting and
at making a purse with a clasp.




I decided I needed to have something that was me in the design.  I am a big time beach comber and I love to salt water bay fish with my husband.  Nothing like it when your out early in the morning and watching the birds and the calmness of the water or watching a beautiful sunset on the water.



This is my AAHA design.

I love to crochet.  I took a trip up to Nebraska to see my daughter and kept sane in the 15 hour drive by crocheting many things.

This is my attempt at making the spiders that Kathy Shaw did a tutorial on her website for.  Here is the link to the spider on her website  http://www.shawkl.com/2011/09/beaded-spider-tutorial.html

I don't like the way a chain feels on a purse so I was trying to come up with a different shoulder strap.  I just wish I didn't put the larger beads on it.  I was hoping they would keep the chain of beads from moving around but they still move around.

Pajama Party Invitations

 

I had just the most wonderful thing happen.  I went looking one day for some invitations I could send out for the pajama party my family is having.  I couldn't find anything any where that would have anything to do with pajama's.  I checked party shops, walmart, scrap book stores, hobby lobby, michaels.  Nothing, you would think with slumber party's being one of the top birthday bashes for teenagers I could find something.  Anyway discouraged I go home and draw a pajama shirt and started going through my fabric stash.  I made 9 different pajama tops.  I put ribbons and buttons and beads on them.  I found a napkin that had a really sexy blond with a martini glass in her hand that said, "Why make happy only an hour" on it.  I glued it to the back of the envelope and glued the pajama tops to the front holding stickers of various drinks.  Anyway long storey short, I mailed 8 of them one day.  I had to go inside because there is special pricing on things that don't go through mail machine.  About a week later I mailed one to my mom, the ladies at the counter remembered the other 8.  They were describing them and telling me which ones were there favorite.  They said everyone in the post office saw them. That made my day!

MEMORIES WITH FAMILY

OMG!  I found out that not only is my son coming home August 4th, but my daughter is coming here also so that she can see him too.  I will have both of my kids here at the same time. Halleluah for small miracles.  I've talked to my sister and we have come up with a plan to get the whole family together.  We are going to have a pajama party and have the whole clan of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmother all together to play games and have fun making memories. 

My dad passed away back in 1999 and my mom has been asking for years for the family to go to church together and have the flower arrangement in the church in honor of my dad.  Well since we will all be home together on Aug. 7th, 2011 we will all go to the church to honor my dad.  What a special week end we will have. 

I hope and pray that nothing happens with the military between now and then that would keep my kids from coming home.

I am just so excited.  I haven't seen my son in 18 mths and I haven't had them home together in almost 2 years.

Time with family is the greatest thing ever

I just came back from a vacation trip to Bellevue, Ne to visit my daughter and son in law.  I had the best visit with them.  Leaving the hot Texas weather and traveling north was great.  I packed only summer clothes and about halfway to my daughters I figured out I was in trouble.  We started out in Texas with our car air conditioner working it's little heart out and still miserably hot in the car, about halfway up we began turning the air down more and more.  On about our second gas stop I was freezing out walking the dogs.  I was in shorts and tank top in 50 degree weather.  The sun started coming up about the time we reached Nebraska and what a sight.  It full of green rolling hills.  The trees were happy and reaching for the sun.  The rivers were full to the brim and glistening in the sun. It was really great.  I was so happy to see my daughters face and to feel that great sorely missed hug.  We spent most of the 4 days I was there in the house talking and playing cards.  We really didn't want to go any where, we just wanted to be together.  We love to play the card game hand and foot and boy did we play it.  Then on the 4th day she went back to work and I stayed to have lunch and dinner with her and then the dreaded good bye.  I cried most of the way home already missing her. 

The trip home was just the opposite.  We could feel the warm air sinking into the car.  When the sun started coming up, we could see brown, dry and thirsty landscape everywhere.  We stopped at my sisters house in Flower Mound, Tx on the way back and I spent some great time with her and my mom.  We love to sew together all day and have morning coffee and evening wine out on the back porch. My mom is planning a 4th of July party so I made her some little patriotic jean pockets for the silverware and napkins for her guests.  Again, I had the same sad feeling saying good bye to yet another family member.

My son called me while I was traveling back to my house.  He said, "Mom I'm coming home to see you August 4th".  Oh, something great to look forward to.  I just love my time with my family and I miss them so much.  My son is stationed at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy and I haven't seen him in 18 months.  I can't hardly wait to see his face and give him a big hug.

My husband is so understanding.  He listens to me cry about needing to see my family and he drives me where I need to be to see them.  It's really a special thing because he has already lost his parents and brother.  I know he misses them alot, but he doesn't have the ability to plan to go see them.  I wish I could return that favor to him.

Ain't family just the best thing ever!

Feeling pierced by society

Have you ever had a day where you felt like no one noticed anything about you?  Where even if you were totally buck naked no one would even notice.  The day you went the extra mile, went out of you way and on each event no one even acknowledged you.  You get stabbing pains all over your body from hurts throughout the day.  You feel bare and raw from trying so hard with no avail.  I saw this cactus out in a dry barren field on a day that I was afeeling that way.  I thought it summed up real well how I was feeling, but then on the same field not to far away I saw another cacti that had beautiful blooms on it.  I thought well tomorrow maybe I will look that way and feel beautiful in a barren field.  Funny though, I went back the next day and the beautiful bloom was gone, spent, withered away.  Life just seems that way these days for some reason, but I feel better because when I'm feeling sad, barren, unimportant I know that on another day I will bloom and be beautiful again.

I finally did something

 

I finally finished my Halloween journal and actually mailed it to a magazine.  I have never gone that far before.  It was such an accomplishment for me.  I have never put together from scratch a journal book.  I learned a lot about water color paints and pencils, gesso, modge podge about using scraps in my stash at home, and most importantly using things I normally would put in the trash at work. I am so proud of this work I decided to share some on this blog spot.

I made these characters to place on the outside because the some of the journal pages are about Ghosts, cats and pumpkins .  It's like they are inviting you in.  These creatures are made from plastic caps that I normally throw away at work.  Since plastic thrown out in our trash is a real problem on our mother earth, I decided to start saving the caps and trying to come up with ways to reuse them.  I really love these characters and they were a lot of fun to create.

This is my page for cats.  My daughter absolutely loves cats.  She has 3 in her home that she has rescued.  She is such a softee when it comes to cats that is why she is the queen of cats.  I was so proud of the watching eyes in the trees on this page.

I have always loved Haunted houses, black cats and woods that feel creepy on Halloween.  In the fall when the leaves have fallen off the tree I enjoy going outside during a full moon and seeing the shadows that are casted on  the ground from the trees.The more snarly a tree the better the show.  Walking through a woods can be so spine shilling.  There are animals making noises and casting shadows.  You can just feel there eyes watching every move you make.

 

What would a haunted house be without a creaky stair case?  Don't you just love those houses that when you walk in the room you feel like someone is following you?  You walk around the room always looking behind you., your hair stands upon end  feeling like prickly pears and you swear you  can hear something almost every moment you are there.    

I always pictured that the inanimate objects of all our most popular Halloween character also had excitement and energy before the fun of the magic hour of Halloween.  I could see the brooms dancing and gathering together bursting with so much eccentric energy.  You could almost see the swirls of wind flowing around them.

 This is a page that I imagined what my spirit would be like if I had no worries in life.  In a journal expressing Halloween one could visualize a special day when the child like fun and freedom could come out and play.  I pictured that freedom would look very energetic and full of color.

I remembered in my younger years that I had a pumpkin patch at the back of my property.  I lived on 5 acres of woods and abutted a field of pumpkins.  That always seemed so strange to me.  I thought that field was so desolate.  It was black and hot and dry.  Those poor pumpkins just laid there in all that heat.  I fell in love with them then because there birth and growing up was horrible to me, but in October they were so orange and so beautiful.  I always paint or construct a pumpkin with beautiful green leaves because the green makes their orange so beautiful and I think they deserve their beauty to shine.  So when I thought about the pumpkins for this journal I wanted to show fun and frolic in the pumpkin patch on Halloween.  I made the field green so the orange just shined on the page.  The way a pumpkin should be.

And what better way to end a journal than a picture of the full moon showing the energetic brooms swirling in their light with witches and cats aboard their backs. But of course there also has be a bat some where in the book. 

The thing I did right in my life

I am very proud of my children, but I have to admit that the 2 of them in the Air Force is a bump in my road that I never expected to have to travel.

My daughter was having one of her typical moods that she is famous for one time when I came to see her.  Being the nosey mom that I am, I would keep asking questions until I could finally get the answer to the problem that was at hand.  You could never imagine what my face was like when she said, "Mom I'm joining the Air Force".  I've always wanted to be the kind of mom that supports and tries to guide my children.  At that moment I was at a total loss.  The only thing I could do was say please take Smokey (her step dad) with you to the recruiters office.  Don't know if it was the right decision or not because Smokey is for the military to give children discipline and meaning into their lives.

Next thing I here is my son was considering joining himself.  He said he always wanted to but he didn't because he thought it would upset me.  Since Brittany made the move, he decided it would be ok for him.

When basic training comes it is the worst experience for a mom.  Suddenly these kids you have loved, nurtured and kept up with all their lives are striped away.  When I did get the opportunity to talk to them they were so distraught and their was absolutely nothing I could do for them.  Their voices were some other person on the phone.  Letters mean everything to a military person.  I mean they are like GOLD.  It is their only connection to the outside world.

 After I made it through them being in basic training, I thought ok our lives will be settling down, but NO.  When Brittany left San Antonio, Tx to go to Goodfellow Air Force base she met Devon Barker on the bus.

Their relation became close to a point that when it was getting time to change bases they decided to quickly get married so that they could be stationed together at the same base.  Only I didn't find out until several months later because she new how much a wedding meant to me, so she was afraid to tell me.  Oh well, her happiness means a lot to me to, and Devon is good to her, and they seem to be very happy.

    

I had probably the best Christmas ever in 2009 before my children scattered all over the place.  It was at my sisters and most of our immediate family was there.  We had our first ever white Christmas.  All of our family was snowed in and couldn't go home.  We played cards, watched old movies, and finally made bed palettes to sleep on for the night.  It was superb.  The next day I new my children had to travel by car, amazingly we had breakfast and watched the snow melt and the road became safe again.  I think it was a magic Christmas I will never forget.

I now have to admit that I think the Air Force has been a good thing for the 2 of them I just wasn't ready to let my babies go, but when is a mother truly ready.  I miss them very much.  I've already told my husband that he needs to work real hard to get our lives in order because when I some day here that grand babies are coming, well that's when we'll have to talk because I'm not missing that in my life. I just consider the separation I'm having with my kids right now a bump in the road, but I'm taking a detour for a while to find my way back to them.  Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed life without the constant care and worry of kids, but I miss that time of day when the kids are in bed safe in the house and the world just all seems right.