March 9 - National Panic Day?

Hi again.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I hope you haven’t all moved on to someone funnier, smarter and who posts much more than I have been lately. But if you have, I totally understand. :) 

Until lately, I’d been completely uninspired to do any art work.  Back in November we learned that due to our short sale in 2010 we wouldn’t qualify to buy a new home for at least another year.  It didn’t matter that we had enough saved to pay 20% down.  It was depressing.

I hated renting….especially renting from someone who was more than a little anal about his lawn…of all things. We lived in that house for over a year and never fully moved in, if you know what I mean.  We never wanted to make the rental a home and get complacent about living there. So it was depressing to find out that we would have to stay for yet another year.  

But My Guy and I decided to get creative.  Instead of going for a conventional mortgage we decided to look for a home whose seller was willing to finance the purchase. I’d done it before so I had no qualms about it.  But we had a lot of “Wants” and “Must haves” so we were sure it was going to take a while.  We got lucky, after few short weeks of looking we found one and  WE MOVED!!   Packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking, rearranging etc… it all takes a while. 

Among the wants and must haves was a studio/office for me. This place has a detached  studio space that is 18’ X 15’ ---how cool is that? Here are some pictures of the  space just before I moved in. 

This is my art side:  Love those shelves!  I plan a painting area, a paper crafting/collage area and a sewing area. I have lots of fabric that’s still in storage that I want to pull out and play with. I also have glass and plates to mosaic with and I want to paint furniture..see there is no end to those “wants.”

This is my office side….there is room for a desk, file cabinets and printer on this side.

And it has two huge windows on the north and west side.

I’m excited about the possibilities.  To date I have moved in, the shelves are filled, but it’s not exactly right yet. It’s a work in progress. 

Speaking of work, my first journal page in weeks:

Thanks for stopping by, Come back again soon. I hope not to make a stranger of myself for too much longer.

Saying our goodbyes to our favorite beach

As you may have read, we are moving to NM soon and in these last few weeks that remain, we are visiting some of the places and restaurants we have loved in Northern California. Saturday, my guy and I went to say our goodbyes to Stinson Beach.  We’ve celebrated our anniversary there a few times and spent many a weekend walking the long stretch of beach over the last 23 years both with and without our daughter and her assorted friends. There were a lot of great memories created there.

Here is my guy looking out at the ocean after a long walk.

My feet in the water. It felt so good.

Do you see where the hill tapers off into the water?  That’s where we started our walk. There’s hardly any one that walks out this far unless they live there. (There are houses to the left of where we were standing.) It was our “3 hour tour” but, alas, we didn’t get stranded on a lovely island.

Here is my tribute to our lovely weekend.

Time on CD

My studio has been needing a clock for a while now but instead of buying one, I made one.

Here my first effort, fairly plain because I didn't know what I was doing. I altered a used CD to make the clock face by painting it first with gesso and then with a few colors of paint.  I used rub on numbers for the 4 major time increments and dashes for the others. Then added the clock mechanism which I bought at the craft store for $6.99.  I did beef up the back of the CD with glued on chipboard but it was probably unnecessary.  Next time I would leave it off.

 

"People don't understand the virtue of time, until their clock stops ticking." -

  --  Steve Goodman

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe it been months since my last post. (oh, that sounds like I'm in a confessional) This year has been very busy, fun, emotional and stressful. I run the whole gamut of emotions from extreme happiness to sadness and everything in between.

My daughter got married in May in San Diego and had a reception in our home in June. The wedding was on the beach and was just beautiful. The reception was fun as well. My brother came to the reception as well as lots of people from my daughter and husbands work place. Then a few weeks after the wedding reception daughter and new husband informed us they were moving to New Mexico. What??? My baby moving three states away? I know they chose NM because that's the only other place she's liked and because there are other family members there. But my baby moving three states away? Once I got over the shock I volunteered to drive with her while new husband drove the moving van.

OMG what is it? W-h-a-t is that thing on the side of the road? Drive faster please, we need to get away. OK not necessary, that is one in a series of dinosaurs statues on the side of the road in eastern Arizona. I took as many pictures as I could as we were driving by them earlier this month. They are just too funny.

The trip to NM earlier this month was long but we got closer as a result. I stayed with them in their new apartment for a few days after we got there. They both got lucky in that they got jobs right away. She had a job lined up even before she got there and they loved her. (What's not to love, she's adorable and a hard worker when it doesn't involve housework. )

This new "empty nest" is very different and very quiet. I thought it would be easy to deal with but it's harder that I thought. Last night my husband had an evening managers meeting and didn't get home until 8:00 pm and it got lonely here. This house is entirely too big for us. When we bought it we thought our dear girl would be going to college in Sac but instead she moved out soon after we moved here, then she got married.

As far as my art, I'm working on two journals, and some ATC's. I'll upload some soon. The above image was a self-portrait taken during a long walk I took in August. The image below is from the same walk.

So much to do, so little time

Wow it's been a little while since I've written. So much is going on that I hardly remember to write. I'm taking an online programming class in C++, I've gotten involved in 4 ATC art swaps, I just finished adding some art to a deco, My Guy and I are looking for land to build a new home and trying to prepare the current house to put up for sale in the spring.
Building a new home is so exciting. Last weekend we found some property not far from here. 7 acres of land not all of which we can afford. We will probably partner up with a friend of My Guys and split the land between the two of us. But that's where the probelms come in. The land only has a water hook up for 1 home and we need another. Water hookups are not easy to come by and when you can get it, they are very expensive.
shoot, I have to stop now....my guy is waiting for me to watch a movie. More later.