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December 30, 2007
A beauty of a backpack
While my brother and his family were visiting Eden coveted quite a bit her cousin Joanna's pink Hello Kitty backpack. So since I did not have a present for Eden to open with the Knuts' in Atlanta, I took a backpack that Josiah got a gift in last Christmas and I coverted it into a girl pack for Eden. I turned the bag inside out, and hot glued this cute fabric to the front panel and back panel. I said a little prayer and turned it right side in. Awesome, it worked. Again, recycling in it's perfect wonderful heart-warming form.
house | By | 6:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 28, 2007
This is the only way recycling actually works
I do recycle, and when it wasn't insanely troublesome I put out my recyclables on the curb to go where they needed to go. I do not have a lot of faith that recycling does a lot of good in the grand scheme of things. I won't go on about the points Joel has on recycling, I'm sure some of you have heard it already. Tee Hee. Joel thinks of the financial reasons to recycle or not, very often too much money is spent to recycle products that are not really important to recycle. But I said I wouldn't go into that so I won't. To make my conscience calm down a bit I do a couple things to reuse things in our house. I use paper bags all the time. They carry food from Aldi, they carry school supplies, food for special events, they hold rags, they get used to wrap art for mailing. I reuse all those plastic containers that luncheon meat comes in. I hardly ever throw away the plastic bags from Walmart unless they have meat juice or milk products all over them. I use them to line garbage cans and I use them to pack up things for mailing or moving. Someday I hope to learn how to crochet these plastic bags and make cool stuff like floor mats, reuseable shopping bags, baskets etc. These things are no-brainers, a lot of folks do these things.
If you haven't checked out a mag called Ready-Made you should. It has lots of practical ways to recycle things in your own home. This is the only way you know the products you don't need anymore become something worthwhile. My neighbor Jan gave me some lettuce before she left for Christmas vacation since it wouldn't last much longer. We couldn't even finish most of it before it went bad but I knew I would use the container. I stuck it in the dishwasher and accidentally stuck it on the bottom rack. The dishwasher melted both sections flat but not goopy. I remembered a project in Ready-Made that had a bowl made out of construction site fencing. It was cool all orange and hexagony. But I thought I could do the same thing with my wonky lettuce container. Show Nuff. I turned the oven on at 400 degrees and when it was pre-heated turned off the oven. I stuck a bowl with tin foil over it on a funky cookie sheet and centered my plastic sheet over top. I turned the oven light on and watched the plastic melt. The plastic turned out kinda milk glass looking(cool!), with little dishwasher splotches on it(not so cool). I did melt one edge a little too much but I still love how it turned out! It will grace our table for a while. And so kid friendly!
house | By | 3:38 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
December 27, 2007
Christmas'ed Out
What a wonderful time was had by the whole fam! The kids were hilarious and classic reactions were classic. It is always wonderful to see my kids venture into a new phase of play with newer toys made for older kids. This was the first year Josiah proclaimed "I want". And his want was not to hard, a blue light saber. Josiah got his wish.
At the same time Christmas was hard this year. Not because money was tight, or because we travelled all over the world, but it just was hard. I think the gathering of "stuff" as delightful as it is makes my blood pressure rise. My house has so little storage space. My awesome, green, energy effcient, brand new house has a tragic flaw. NO STORAGE. No basement, no attic, and closets that are diffucult for me to oraganize. I am admiting on the www that I have a closet weakness. I'm not a pack rat, I mean, I am a woman so that qualifies me to have some excess of things like lotions, hair products, shoes, accessories, bobby pins. And I am also an artist so that means an excess of canvases, brushes, papers, pens, cardboards, different painting substances etc. I am an art teacher for pre-K. elementary and high school so I have everything from art history texts and intricate project books, to simple books about making things with paper and glue, and different craft books for different age levels. I used to think it was pretty wierd that we didn't have that many books, well I think I'm catching up to the rest of the world. I also am a mother of small children so I have stacks of their projects from school and paintings they did at home (I do throw quite a bit away). And toys, lots of toys. I think the little bitty pieces are the ones that get me, mostly because I fear the usefulness of said toy will vanish because I am not tidy enough or organized enough to keep all the pieces. So as you can see, Christmas adds more things to the mix. How ungrateful am I? I actually am very grateful for all the wonderful things that friends and family gave us, it's a wonderful silence in the house when the kids are playing with new things. It's an unusual sound!
So my plans for this small period of down time is to get some things organized. I have to hang things that have been just propped up for six months. I have things I need to paint, stain or polish. It has been so easy to get discouraged in this effort and I'm praying my way through it this time. I really need the Lord to give me courage to tackle this thing. It totally makes me feel inadequate and the money needed to organize things isn't around right now. There are so many more 'I wants'. I know there are ways I can make this process economical, and take steps in a wise way. Hopefully my new toys will not distract me from my goal. It is very tempting when you have a new mixer and Project Runway to watch.
My first day back to school is the 7th and I've ordered some materials from the National Gallery for teaching some organized art history. The materials are free, they loan them out for teaching purposes. I can't wait to see what it's like. Before that though, I must clean out the art closet at HHL and count the votes from the last student art show I hung. And I need to find a prize! Christmas break is finally starting to feel like a break with days full of no plans and kids sleeping in!! Amazing. So I'll keep you guys in the know and I hope to post pictures of the projects I want to accomplish.
Oh yeah, and then there's Clothesline, May 07 version. New and improved(I hope), if I have anything to say about it!
family | By | 9:56 AM | TrackBack
December 19, 2007
Were you smart enough to buy art for Christmas?
Now I will not devulge who is getting these pieces, but the giver's are such clever and thoughtful people. Art is a wonderful gift to give. Even Joel is effected by the love that is going in to these purchases. Of course, we are thankful, it's a gift to us too, to be able to sell a little extra over the holidays. Can you believe this giclee is the original size? It looks bigger don't it?
I'd like to thank all of my faithful readers for commenting, it's great to see some of you come out of the cracks to reflect on these things. I really felt heavy that day. Yesterday me and the kids did a few Christmasy errands that involved walking downtown. We got cinnamon rolls at Nielov's, and we took the Electric Shuttle to the Bijou. We spent some quality time in Rock Point Books. I love that store, it's wide open so I can let the kids play (the truck bed is the cest!!) and look at my own stuff on the other side. Of course, I love the kids books the best anyway. Loading the bike trailer-stroller into the Electric Shuttle is quite a task, especially with the lunch crowd from all the insurance companies, so we just walked all the way home! At first I thought I would regret it, that the kids would be mad that they weren't riding the bus, but they were great! I think the sunshine made all the difference. The sun on our faces, the exersize, the funny windows at the EPB. I knew I needed to get out of the house and move, ALOT. The blisters on my little toes are payment for my ambition. It makes me wish I had the necessity to walk more. That's why I long for a grocery store (or ANY practical store) downtown. I'd love to drive less and less.
And on a kinda humorous note, one of my art students tags buildings. Yeah, he defaces property. Hehe. If only he worked as hard on his assignments. He was working on his "logo" in class and I was asking him about it. I asked what it said and he told me "dank". As I was walking down an alley way on the way home I saw "dank" 3 seperate times! Thank goodness I had a camera to record my students "homework".
Again, thanks for all of you that decided to get art for Christmas. I'd say that it isn't too late to order some, but it kinda is. You can call Sandy at the Hollis Gallery at 423-265-4444 and get the thing you desire.
fine art | By | 9:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 17, 2007
Not so Simple
A few of you that know me in person have said to me that I am very transparent on this blog. Honestly that makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong, like maybe I should hide to protect myself or my family from some sort of danger. I've gotten myself in trouble with some things I've said, but it all was good in the end.
I feel I have to use this blog as a journal a little bit because I would drive myself crazy keeping up with seperate places where I recall events and feelings towards them. I admit I'm feeling a buncha hormonal today and often that leads to long reflective posts that I recover from as soon as said hormones are flushed out.
As thankful as I should be for everything I have I always want to keep it real with this kind of heavier reflection. We've all read those blogs, or subscribe to those blogs, that make thier lives seem peachy. Lives full of great things, nice pictures, funny children, happy parties, beautifully crafted projects. Life seems like a sit-com, divided into those short segments that get worked out in a few paragraphs of description. We don't necessarily hear/see the bad stuff. The flaws in our physique, the illness, the tantrums, the marital or financial problems, the traffic jams, the wonderlust, the dirt that surrounds the crevices of our homes. I mean really, do we want to see or hear those things? Don't we all read blogs to kinda escape from our mundane stuff? But then, where is the community? Is it healthy to just read people's happy stuff and compare our not-so-happy stuff to that? The real world is filthy and those of us that are housewives or have homes to take care of are always struggling with the filth. And you know I'm talking about more than actual brown dusty dirt.
We watch more TV than I'd like, we talk less than I'd like. I clean less than I should, I exersize very little. I indulge in things more than I should. I spend money I don't have, I take short-cuts I shouldn't, I don't read my Bible as much as I'd like, I look in the mirror too often, I buy things thinking they will make me happy, I am too proud sometimes. I am selfish. Aren't we all? Can I be more of a downer?
I will not go on for decades of life, marriage and parenting pretending these things aren't bad. They are, I want to become someone I can be proud of. I've built up parts of myself and let other things suffer. I am a first child and have perfectionistic tendancies, but some things need to be worked on as if they can become perfect even if as sinners they never will here on earth. I need to work toward parenting like Christ who is perfect. I need to work toward being a perfect wife and love the way Christ does. And how do I react in my family when things need to be changed and I ignore it day after day? My kids and my husband are investments that take hard work and sacrifice. It hurts a lot, but the work should be above and beyond not just getting by.
This Christmas season I have been struck by things in our family that need to change ASAP. They are not at a point of urgency but really, do I want to wait that long? NO. I want to act now! They say that people that stay a healthy weight their whole life know when they've gained a little and change just a few things so they don't suffer with a hard hard diet change or activity level, they just adjust to a level where they do what they need to do and eat what they know to eat. I want to take this and run with it. I want to make changes that are mildly difficult not heart-stopping. I have not been satisfied, I do not wake up pleased with myself. This is not about resolutions even though it happens to take place at the end of the year, this is about conviction.
Prayer, Healing, Confession, Worship, Discipline, for me and my whole family. Beyond the dirty bathrooms and unpacked boxes. Beyond the holiday pudge and the teeth I forgot to floss. Real inner change that effects the every day and makes the years ahead less painful because I chose to adjust now. Lord, help me to be a child that obeys your voice.
the spirit within | By | 4:17 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
December 15, 2007
Mother Elfin' Christmas
So I've jumped on the bandwagon, mostly because I have no energy to post anything of content. That may change in another day or so. I feel like I'm recovering from the end of the semester and lots of neighborhood events. This has been a good slow week. So go elf yourself! This was our first try. And then I hunted forever for any picture of Joel. I have plenty, but not on this computer. It's annoying. But Joel's expression reflects kinda how he feels about Christmas. You know how the only reason Christians celebrate the incarnation of Christ on December 25th is because they needed something to do on a pagan holiday. And that Jesus was probably born in July or something. I love my Grinch. What's fun is you can record a message. Of course I couldn't think of anything too clever but it came out nice and clear!
family | By | 9:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 12, 2007
We've had alot of this going on lately. Enthusiastic Eden. Lots of volume, expression, detailed commentary and drama, lots of drama. You'd think she was 3, but no, not yet. It's wonderful, I love it. SHe makes me laugh and cry and she makes me a little crazy. She's way too cute to get away with it.
mommy time | By | 10:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 11, 2007
Waiting to stand still
MAINx24 was wonderful. The Coptix party was a blast. And I am so glad to be part of it. Thanks everyone, now I'm waiting for those last few things to be wrapped up, a.k.a. grades for school, and then I'll be full of Christmas cheer. And that's mostly due to all the tacky presents I got from my students and the Christmas CD Bob made for me.
fine art | By | 5:57 PM | TrackBack
December 7, 2007
I think I'm finally going to quit
I finished the final piece of art for the Metro Show at Hollis tommorow. If you're not planning on coming than you better change your mind! The last piece has a kinda inside joke, if you come to the show I'll fill you in.
I am so pooped and the action doesn't stop. Tommorow we'll do the family fun MAINx24 and do free carriage rides, the Christmas Parade, the Main Street Mural unveiling and then a good long stretch at Hollis to sip wine, eat brie and chocolate truffles and my Mom's St. Nicholas Cookies. The Southside tree lighting is at 5pm and I would love to swing by there and see the first ever Southside tree lit up. I need to find a handmade ornament to do my part. Then hopefully I can crash until the Coptix Party.
Sunday we have to do the Tykes class at church, so instead of sitting on my butt working on Christmas projects that have been left unfinished for the past 2 years, I"ll be planning an advent lesson for 11 3 to 5 year olds. And wrapping up plans for my last class before Christmas. We'll be doing handmade wrapping paper and some simple origami after the students talk about their self portraits. Monday NRV has a Ladies Night Out Christmas get together at Rachel's House, and Tuesday I have to hang my students artshow and find some prizes.
Maybe by Wednesday the 12th we can get our tree! Oh, that makes me so happy to think about that! Rum and eggnog and schmaltzy Christmas music! It makes exhaling feel so good. I also can't wait to score one (or two) of Amber's handmade owl ornaments for our tree.
I made a modern funky wreath out of mailing tubes. The idea is from the latest Readymade mag. It came out really neat! I don't have any flattering paint for it as of yet, but a piece of masonite to work on and a big jar of elmer's glue connected them just fine. I used my bread knife to chop the tubes apart. I could sand the little tidbits off. I got some of those battery powered tealights at Walgreens and they look kinda neat hiding inside the tubes. I probably won't leave them in there. My house is all about throwing things together these days. And when I slow down a smidge maybe my posts here will be less of a to-do list and more thoughtful.
fine art | By | 9:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 4, 2007
Safety Dance
You have those moments in the repetition of family life that make you identify with your clever somewhat intellegent side, or maybe it's just funny to have a joke that's random.
Josiah was spinning around the kitchen floor and loving it. Eden was upset that she didn't get a 2nd cookie and was plopped on her bottom primed to fuss about everything that moved. And her brother was moving alot. "Josiah!!! Don't dance! Don't dance!" In typical mommie mode I said, "Eden, Josiah can dance when he wants to" and my husband standing casually at the sink blowing on his hot lentils says, "He can leave his friends behind". Joel got a knowing glance from me and a good giggle.
But anyway, I'm finally feeling relaxed. I taught my last pre-Christmas, pre-final project class yesterday and now I'm just thinking of how to make as many art buyers as possible come to my show. I'm hoping to get just a few more watercolor/gouache pieces done before Saturday. Thinking about what I will wear, who'll watch the kids and when, the Clothesline Show, taking a tour of Battle Academy...
I should stop! Happy Holidays everyone! I hope to make cookies today.
family | By | 9:44 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 3, 2007
Oh to be published
I was in the Chattanooga News Free Press today. I stumbled into Niedlov's with the 2 kids after a not so smooth bike ride there, and Jeff Canon roped me into an interview. I'm so not complaining! I got some free advertizing! I just happened to be there.
community | By | 12:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 1, 2007
the new and familiar
I'm watching Ani Difranco on Conan and I forgot how nice her song Both Hands is. I still know most of the words. And she's a tiny tiny woman next to Conan!
And I'm recording our history now on the bedroom wall, and when we leave the landlord will come and paint over it all.
So long ago, so familiar.
the spirit within | By | 1:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack