So, now...about this TWILIGHT thing...

maybe because after months...YEARS, it seems!!...I finally got my hands on "Breaking Dawn".I am indeed a Twilight addict...I read the first 3 books in a week, way before Christmas, so I had to wait way too long for my final fix. :):)Stephenie Meyer is an amazing writer...it is such easy reading that you never realize how much you read at a sitting...you just want to keep going and see what's around the next corner. If she writes 10 more I'm there!!! Maybe I swim against the tide, but I have always been partial to Jacob...how about you?

My BFFF Petrie

I can't go long without sharing my BFFF Petrie...no, that isn't too many F's...he is my Best Furry Friend Forever! He is my shadow, my baby, my protector, my comforter...all the things a 4-legged, flop-eared, brown-eyed,hairy, polkadot guy should be, and we are devoted to each other. So I was scared to pieces the night about 3 weeks ago when he suddenly couldn't hardly get his rear end up off the floor, could hardly walk,couldn't jump up on his favorite chair, or do ANYTHING much but lay there and look at me with those pleading brown eyes asking mommy "what's wrong with me? It hurts!" Now mind you, he is only 4 years old...not an old guy...and this came on out of nowhere in the middle of the night. After a day of this, my two wonderful awesome sons took him to the 24 hr animal hospital, knowing their mom was freaking out JUST A BIT (and they love him too). Two prescriptions and a lot of dollars later they brought him home and the verdict seemed to be a pulled muscle or pinched nerve in his back. After a week or so of enforced "lie down and don't move", all the pills, and LOTS of love and hugs and kisses, he is now back to his bouncy, jumpy, hyper, ADD-dogness and I AM SO GRATEFUL TO GOD!!!!

Being a Bunco Babe

Anyone out there play Bunco? What an amazing excuse to be totally silly, playing a basically pointless game, stress-free...and maybe win a neat prize here and there!!!!! I so look forward to Bunco night...we have them once a month, rotating between homes. It is so liberating to have a perfectly "reasonable reason" to do something meant only to be fun and thoughtless and a time to be with friends and bond!! And a little scream of "BUNCO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" here and there is very good too...don't men have their "male bonding" times where they go into the woods and howl or something ? :)

Winter musings

Cold...warm...colder...warm...cold...colder...around here, winter can never make up it's mind from one day to the next!! This is the "high desert"...but this desert got its share of snow this year...comparatively speaking of course!! I enjoy a good snow and a cold winter, at least a "New Mexico" cold...but come Feb. 1 I am ready to move on to spring. We have navigated our way through 3 seasons now in our new and changed family structure, and done so somewhat successfully. We have conquered bills, holidays, birth, pet illness, shortened job hours, loneliness,redecorating, car issues, income tax...made new friends, begun new challenges, determined to forge ahead in our new lives. God has never left us alone for an instant...never let us down. So onward to the new life we have been given...along the twisty road we go!!

Creating something out of something else...

or making lemonade out of old discarded lemons! It's really rewarding to take an old slab of wood and with a torn piece of scrapbook paper and a photo aged at the edges, to create a neat-looking picture that is far more appealing than a photo in a frame (though it does depend a lot on the subject of the photo :):)!!) Or use the same slab of wood, add a bird's nest, some silk leaves and little birds, and you have a sweet little naturescape that looks real.
For me the reward is not always just in the results, but in the process and in how far out of the box I went to get those results. That's why I tend to avoid premade scrapbooking kits...if it's all there for you and all you do is stick it together, then who actually created it?

This is a Harley Davidson clock I made awhile back. I truly love recycling CD's into fun stuff! It is primarily polymer clay on a wood base, with a few scrapbooking embellishments thrown in for good measure!

Even the cover is fun!!

Lots of people love to journal...it gives them a release and a way to compose and pour out their thoughts and feelings. Being a bit of a different sort, I find myself drawn more to expressing myself on the OUTSIDE of the journal...personalizing it on the covers.