besporyadok

skool's out for summer!!/ramblin'

i am so happy. no more weekends filled with anxiety about  HW i haven't done. One more class left and I'm done!! A master's in Library Science, woohoo! we're taking the summer off, tho'. i've either taken or won't touch with a 10 foot pole, the classes being offered and i'd like my life back for a little bit, thank you very much.

anyways, lotsa' catching up to do.

bunny had another tummy bug episode, poor thing, last week. all better now! can i just gush about how much i love her? so much, so so much.

this was taken in march, i think.

 

btw, here is the other bark cloth inspired rug - photos do not do it justice.

for passover i made this apple praline tart out of martha stewart and it was fabulous. The crust, for once, was parfait! it had cognac and figs and apricots in it, plus a little of an almond praline you make.

i want these singing birds i saw in Dwell Magazine. i thought i had the same thing from hearthsong catalog, but you just shake them, and they're not nearly  as realistic.

Beach

 

sunset on the drive back from the beach.

yesterday we went to the beach in the afternoon with friends and their dog . it was a little cooler there, than inland, in the burbs, but it was a beautiful day. bunny did well walking in the sand.

i also cut all the fabric to start my quilts (1 for each twin). i think that might have been the easy part!

no reprodot delivery, yet. bummer.

here are some pix of my  rugs. i need to reset the ev on my camera - so pardon the lighting. this one is the 1st i ever did, a little class kit (i completely changed the pattern, though). it's mostly strips of wool, with a manos yarn border:

this is the ugly rug/purse i am currently hooking:

it's mostly manos with some green ribbon and some glittery green-blue ribbon.

i have another rug i hooked, which is about 2.5' x 30', maybe that i based on a piece of  barkcloth that hung, as a curtain, in a great aunt's and then my sister's house. this one is all manos and i consider it a labor of love. i'll get a pix maybe this week; i gave it to my sister.

i need to figure out how to  link to flickr, one of these days, as well as get a sweater: it's 65 in the house and 70 outside! i'm freezing!

back in the saddle

i finally got my new laptop, but then my wireless connex has been on the fritz. sigh. i love and hate technology.

i've been super obsessed with getting back to do something/anything creative (happily, at the expense of housework and TV and unhappily, school ). as for TV, i've stopped watching the few shows i followed regularly (ok, except LOST) and a lot of the crime shows, i just can't watch anymore - there are too many child victims and maybe it's just mommy stuff, but it's too awful for me to contemplate, esp. as "entertainment."

have been working on my rug hooking lately. i've been working a lot on a handbag, which i started last year, before bunny was born. i have to be honest about it, i don't like the design i drew on one side - which is almost finished. I'm using Manos yarn - which i like better than traditional wool strips. the Manos has a streaky dye quality to it and is nice and thick.

anyways, this morning, i decided the other side of the bag would be a japanese koi/carp kind of fish. he'll be orange. The color and fish will tie in with the theme of alleged water-plants on the other side... what was i thinking? one of my deepest disappointments is that i don't draw well...which is why  i like rug hooking and mosaic and other 3-d endeavors so much - they're forgiving in that realm.  of course, the darn carp drawing has problems, too! i'll post some pix soon of my 1st 2 rugs and the ugly rug i am working on.

i ordered the Amy Butler pattern for the nap-pillow and some fabric from reprodot. i'm hoping to get it today. i'm anxious to get that made. Right now i have a garnet hill quilt a friend gave me as a baby gift on the kitchen floor. me'n'bunny lie on that and sometimes she falls asleep there. of course this means sewing...dahn da dahn dahn!

i also finally ironed the thimbleberries fabric i bought eons ago and hope to make two small quilts from Kids Under Cover, for my friend's twin boys due in june. of course, now i have to cut it. i have this phobia about cutting fabric, which probably stems from my upholstery class(es) where i was using 48$/yd fabric to reupholster 8 dining room chairs a wing chair and a slipper chair. actually, it probably stems from ineptitude...heh!

Angry Chicken has some delicious Japanese sewing books on her site. Which I covet. There is a kind of Japanese Mall in an old Sears building nearby here. I have been meaning to go to get some bunny bowls for bunny. i should peruse there for books...and some fresh tuna to make our own sushi!!! mmmmm.

Lost Book Titles

i stumbled across this site looking for the title to a book i read in childhood, that i could not remember. It's a wonderful resource if you want to find an elusive book title you've forgotten: Loganberry Books, "Stump The Bookseller." it's also great a reminder about childhood stories you read an may have just forgotten all about.

well, i had been hoping to do something artistic today...but i paid bills,  did laundry, repotted some orchids  (please don't die!) while bunny napped and now she is back in the saddle again. thank goodnes, i think she's feeling a bit better.

Neat-o

Today's New York Times has an article on online museums. The Museum of Online Museums (aka MoOM) has links to real museums and other more, well, esoteric collections like The Grocery List Collection or The Collection of Candy and Cigarette Packaging.

Fifty-nine

it's fifty-nine-count'em-degrees! i'd say half the snow has melted in the yard, the crocuses are blooming (the ones from our september 2000 wedding), the daffs are poking out narrow alieny green fingers to test the air and the poppies have bravelyput their leaves out, flattened to the ground like tattered, moldy, green lace. i toured my garden ghettos. so called because they're so matted, tangled and neglected. new baby last spring; i let a weed stay in the garden that has TAKEN OVER (it was so pretty and pink); i didn't cut anything back this fall. to enjoy the fabulous weather, cats 1 & 2 have been sent on a forced march outside; the 3rd doomed to an indoor life b/c she's deaf and old.

home today. bunny has the runs and has been banned from daycare. poor thing, very low energy. sitting on the floor right now, knocking back a bottle & hugging this little creature:

This is lola bunny. I got her for Bunny's 1st birthday this month from Zebra Hall (which is one of my favorite toy stores, along with Magic Cabin, HearthSong, The Play Cottage and MonkeyBean Toys) If you pull her tail, she plays "you are my sunshine," which i always sing to bunny and her daddy.

i adore the nap pillow angry chicken has on her blog. i dream about being able to sew and to make something for Loobylu's Month of Softies, and little animals and friends for bunny. when i was a little girl, i had mountains of stuffed animals, which i insisted remain in bed with me. Bucky was my favorite, i still have him and he travels with me. i took him to the hospital when Bunny was born; the nurses LOVED him. maybe a pix after i get the new laptop - he is very well loved.

anyways, this weekend i dusted off my singer featherweight. Maybe in May, after school gets out, i'll give a sewing project a whirl. Maybe not the nap pillow though - might be too complicated for a 1st project, esp. given the fact that i wasn't initially threading the machine correctly!!

also this weekend, i made grilled asparagus, parsnips in butter and cauliflower mornay as my contributions to easter at my sister's. i also made the easter "baskets," which were egg shaped boxes, with vintage chick images on them, which matching tiny chicks inside, along with the requisite chocolate and jelly bean goodies.

we also untangled the wisteria from the trees it was threatening and laid the groundwork to train it over the shed instead. I know now wisteria is a pest, but i didn't when i took the seeds from my mom's house and planted them to grow over a swing set frame we couldn't remove. So far, all i've gotten is one little grapey cluster of flowers...i'd love a profusion someday...

what i didn't do this weekend is HW, which of course means i'll be gnashing my teeth over my next assignment due for library school on monday...again. last semester was hard enough to get into, post-baby...but for some reason this one has been even harder. thank god, i just have one more class after this one... i just want my personal time back, guilt-free.

i also did not repot my orchids, as planned. i bought bark and sexy new pots. all of them desperately need it, but i'll hold on repotting my oncidium and one of my phalenopsis. the former is blooming and the latter is about to...

hadn't been able to post much b/c my laptop has been on the fritz. i ordered a new one, should have it and presumably some other tech headaches (moving files and re-installing sw--god help me if the darn palm sw doesn't work ...AGAIN...) when i get it in april. anyhoohah, hope to post more & more frequently, and have more pix and stuff then...

Monday, monday (ba-da ba-da-da-da)

But whenever monday comes, but whenever monday comes
You can find me cryin’ all of the time...

i got up at 4:25. Actually, i love the silence of the house, the world in the wee hours of the a.m. i used to get up early all the time, and get so much done before bunny arrived. now, i sleep as late as i can. i'm  not tired b/c bunny doesn't sleep well (she's really an excellent little gal), but i think more from stress.

so I went to bed. and now i need to write. truth is, i guess i'm disfunctional and i need stress and pressure to perform. how the hell did i get this way? it's not how i want to be... o, i didn't mention this before but the prof. did not email back this week (which is the second time he's done that - v. annoyed).

and last nite when i went to bed, i just wanted to pick bunny up, bury my  nose in the top of her head and take her off to bed with me. what is it about the power and scent of sleeping child? but i didn't...

the sky is truly leaden, sitting over the nighborhood like a box lid and it's supposed to snow again today. so much for the vernal equinox. maybe it's my own fault because i didn't mark its passage, somehow. spring is coming, though. the redwing blackbirds have arrived in my yard and their hubbub, their appearance in the trees and on the feeders, as if stuck in some haphazard way by static electricity, their swirl of fluttering black wings with flashes of red and yellow is hard and fast sign...

i'd like to edit the html in the templates...but i don't know if that's doable. not that i have any thing beyond a rudimentary knowledege of html (here's my 1st and only stab at a website (for school of course; the nav bar at the bottom has a problem. i did this in 5 days, so it could be a lot worse...) http://web.simmons.edu/~keefem2/finalproject

well, i sure got a lot of extra work in this am. snort. and let's just hope whatever i do end up writing is not quite as rambling as what we have here.

...ba-da ba-da-da-da...

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late"

gad zooks. have an assignment due 2moro and just do not want to write it. i am having such a difficult time connecting to this class, never mind making the transition from a life "all about me" to balancing life between FT work, being a mom, and a graduate class.

spent most of Saturday at school freaking out about not knowing what I was doing... today, I spent doing housework, hanging with the Bunny and grocery shopping until my husband got home from work. and then, ok, i admit i got sucked into watching "Scent of Woman..."

anyways, tomorrow is going to be grim, because i am going to have to whip out this assignment and work...

on a happier, self absorbed note, i have decided what i'll do for the thank you notes for Bunny's first birthday gifts. When i'll find time to make them is another story, i suppose...i have also been thinking about trying to figure out how to thread the singer featherweight sewing machine i have, so i can participate in loobylu's month of softies, one of these days. i don't sew, yet i long to. I own that singer and larger model black singer - also of  old vintage - they're both in good working order.

Anyways, speaking of softies and things i'd like to try my hand at (ok, so far we're up to blogging, sewing and now felting...), this woman Natasha Fadeeva makes beautiful animals, some of which are needle felted - you just have to check them out: http://www.fadeeva.com/

ok, i'm either writing this assignment or going to bed...

Must...stop..now...

bunny is up and i have to go. she has dined on peas, chix, beets, avocado, jello, milk laced formula and chicken potato balls. one of the 3 cats is sitting patiently under her height-chair. i have had tofu and chix in blackbean sauce, noodled around here for almost 3 hours and need to accomplish something today - even if it's just to play with bunny.

The Very First Time..

18 March 2005

i've wanted to do this for a while, i read so many blogs, now it's time to  find out if it's for me.

i don't really have any business adding another thing to do to my plate, i feel like the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland most of the time...but it seems like this could be a learning experience and a way to do something for myself.

for one month, i'll try to do something here every day...

So, here goes nothing!

45 minutes later:

ok. i can see where this is going to be seductive and time-consuming. bunny is napping!! i should be folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning out the rubble in my study so i can actually work in there, DOING MY HOMEWORK... but no, 45 minutes have gone by. i just made a cafe au lait with the flame colored francis-francis espresso maker (do not buy one of these...expensive, tempermental counter demon) and i'm sitting here trying to figure out how to edit these pages...