springtime poodle and sweet birdies

Have fun with these in your personal art endeavors. Fun to use as a gift card tag too!!
I believe the poodle is from the 1950's.

birds

More of my birdie doodles

in colored pencils.

They really are doodles,

as I never plan them,

they just happen.

dust bunnies and cob webs are a decorator's friend

Do you ever use the excuse that you need to rearrange absolutely everything to dust properly? Ok so maybe I'm just weird that way. I have been told I am weird for many reasons, but we won't go into that just now.

Yesterday the sun was shining and I love that. But that happy bright sun has an evil side. It shows all the cob webs and dust bunnies. You don't have those? I'm happy for you --now go away! Just kidding.



I love to rearrange things. Furniture and "stuff".
"Blame it on the doll house that Santa brought", my mom always said. I got one when I was in 1st grade. You know, metal with plastic colored furniture? I was constantly changing it all around. Even putting the kitchen in the bathroom and the bathroom in the living room. Now that's weird for sure. But fun, admit it! I can't be that creative in real life but I can change lots of other things around my real house without someone calling for the men in white coats to take me away.

This sewing machine went to live at my brother's house for a while. When I was about 9, Santa brought me a mini, real working sewing machine. Good grief... my smile wrapped around the back of my head that year  when the wrapping paper was torn off !

So now there is a new arrangement and a few less dust bunnies and cob webs about.

Good thing they come back. Good, you say? Yes. That way I can change things yet again!

How often do you rearrange "stuff" and make new vignettes?

Post note: The things shown were given to me and nearly all of it has subsequently gone on to live at someone else's house (my brothers and I trade things back and forth), or they have been sold off. The old books were my great grandmother's (I still have those) and have her name handwritten inside the cover with the dates they were received. looking at them is kind of like a time capsule of a simpler time before all our connectedness to so much technology. I have a fondness for old thread spools that are wood and for old sewing books. One year for Christmastime I took all the red and green wooden spools of thread and piled them inside a clear glass canning jar with hinged lid...I had more positive comments on the uniqueness factor of that, than on the beauty of the live Christmas tree.

ups and downs

Well, I've done it again. Tucked away all the posts about my daughter that tell of her challenges in life. I sometimes feel like I need to put them away and keep them- and her-safe.

Safe.

Safe from the world.

Safe from judgement.

She is a good girl. She tries hard everyday to be her best.

It's been a journey of life handing her ups and downs, since the day she was born.

My blog is a place where I wanted to feel free to journal my life and journey with my daughter and share with family and friends who "get" things, and understand. You know what I mean? I also have always felt that sharing her struggles and triumphs would serve to help someone else. That was always my goal.

I count as one of the best days in her lifetime the day that she told me that she would do anything medically to help herself and in turn help someone else. I was so proud and that same feeling of pride rushes over me each and every time I recall her saying that.

More and more I hear about how personal sites are used to seek out info to harm someone. I feel protective of what the "world" may judge.

As she tries to transition to adulthood and what that may or may not mean for her future, I would not want my journaling to hold her back from an opportunity.

A mother's blog is not a daughter's resume. When did it begin to be so?