beautiful

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

have resolve, will resolve.

I challenged sister Jessy to blog it up with me in the new year. So, Jessy, here goes!

Holy mackerel, it's been a while. So long, in fact, that I had given up on this here blog in favor of a shiny new one out there in cyberspace. But, after struggling to set up the new one I thought - why reinvent the wheel? Part of what made me want to ditch this one for keeps (I was going to delete or cancel or edit or something) was my initial theme here ~ Baby or Bust! I'm much more Busted than Babied lately, and feeling like I don't even want to think about it, let alone pour out my guts to no one in particular. So, guess what? I'm not dwelling on it. I will be in over my head eventually, but not today.

Today is for getting back into this. Not just this, but this is it - what a goofy name. I couldn't think of anything better back then. Ah well.

I'm loving this artist, Charley Harper. For Christmas, I got a memory game with his awesome images as a gift for my nephew... and another as a gift for myself. It's more fun than it sounds, and I see something new every time I look at it. Here are the pictures from a few of my favorite memory tiles:

March: Lion or Lamb?

Uh oh - I've been caught sewing when I should be knitting! Sorry, babymakers! What a great example of me getting fired up for something.... and then something else... and then something else... and then on to the next big thing! Story of my life.

Here's my new project: staying warm. We've got house heating issues again. Danny and I went away for the weekend and came home to a cold house. Long story short - a new boiler system is being installed today. When you add in pimping my ride last month, that's more than $6k in gotta-do-it emergency fixes! What's going on here? It's a hard lesson in home economics. Thank you Danny for being so great with money!

At least the sun is free - and we've got lots of it right now. It's gorgeous out today - and so warm! We've been spoiled by an early spring here. I found pussy willows outside my office last week. I've got them in a canning jar on my desk. Over the weekend they burst into little pincushions, covered in pollen.

Outside we still have lots of snow and too much ice, but the roads are clearing up and the temps are above freezing. I think it's a trick, though. My mother in law reminded me of the 3 feet of snow we got on St. Patrick's Day a few years back. If spring is here, let it be. If not, bring on the snow. I like it. But I'm glad it's warm out today so Danny's not freezing in a house without heat.

fuel

My sewing fire has been stoked by... a customer! The first official customer (the kind that pays money).
I can't say it enough, I just love this sewing thing. Making something cool & functional out of what was once a pile of fabric... how sweet is that?! I did make a total dud this weekend, though. It's so predictable and boring looking - but I did spend ages and ages sewing it perfectly. Or nearly perfectly. I'm sure it has a potential owner out there in the world, somewhere.

That's all for now - just thought I'd write a little. I'm trying to get better at this.

Actually, I have plenty of real news, too. More on that later.

another attempt

Could I be worse at this blogging stuff? Seems pretty simple - but I haven't been very good at finding the time to do it lately. Actually, I've found plenty of time but have chosen to do things other than blog. Imagine that. So, what have I been up to since December 14, 2007? Not a whole hell of a lot, but here's a taste:

-Christmas was fun & wonderful, as always
-New Year's was terribly depressing, but who cares
-Still not smoking (almost 5 months, yeah!)
-Back on the WW - have lost 10.2 lbs to date
-I'm finally kicking some booty at work (it's taken a year to fix what my predecessors left me)
-My honeypie is now Officer Kelly... Anchorage Jail's finest
-My ride and I have been through a lot, financially speaking - but now I can drive again

But the most exciting development? I'm finally sewing! And sewing pretty well! And loving it! And wanting to teach the world my limited bag of tricks! I've already spread the joy to a couple of friends - uh oh, now I have competition. But, since my home computer has pretty much shit the bed, I won't be posting any photos any time soon. I'd love to, becuase I've made some really cool bags and pillows. Yes, basic stuff - but my own designs. My next projects (well, not necessarily immediately) are a robe and a chair slipcover.



Thanks for bugging me about blogging, Bee's Knees! There ya go. And now I know that a mulva is not a dog's crotch.

Money & Stuff

Ok, so I screwed up. Repeatedly. I've never been great with money, but not what I'd call terrible, either. Ok, maybe bad? But I have no credit card debt and I'm proud of that fact.

Let me back up a bit. I am now on a Danny Designed budget after severely injuring my bank account over vacation. Today is the first pay day since the new budget was installed. I have set amounts of money for every comitment, including 'fun' money. It looks totally do-able and it's funny how the control is somehow liberating. I know that doesn't really make sense, but it has helped the nagging worries pipe down a bit.

The bummer is that all of this happened during The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Christmas is all about the big bucks, right? Alright, I know it isn't, technically. But I want to get a kick-ass holiday going and that involves spending the dough. So, I've toned down my plans quite a bit. Thankfully I'm just about done Christmas shopping - that's part of what landed me here in the first place! Nice going, Faith.

yikes

Geez, Louise, there is so much weird stuff going on in Anchorage lately. For example, in the past week there have been 2 unrelated machete attacks. I've heard that we have one of the highest crime rates in the country. True? Hmm... lemme do a little research.

I don't know if that helped much. I poked around a little more and found that Alaska is the 7th most dangerous state in the country, based on reported crimes.

For more on the machete madness, click here for the first one and here for the latest.