A checkers game!

After our Thanksgiving meal, 5 year old grandson announced to me that he wanted to play Checkers! Not having a board, we decided to make one! It turned out so cutely! I took a peice of green and red construction paper. We looked online to see how many squares we needed on our board, and how many playing peices. I looked through my Christmas scrapbooking supplies and found a few sheets of printed papers (one had snowflakes inside of circles, and one peice was a red and white teenie tiny checked pattern. Donovan had wanted to have candy cane and some other Christmas item for playing peices...so we went with these. I hand cut the canes, and cut out the circles of snowflakes and I attached them to the top of pennies (for weight). He applied some alien/rocket/UFO/stars stickers to the end parts of the "board", and we were ready to play. He creamed me. I had to take a picture of the board. Tonight I realized how much I love creating things out of paper. So sweet. Of course, the sweetest thing here was Donovan (I can say that cause Emily was asleep at that time...they are both of equal sweetness)!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am sitting outside in the cool breeze while watching Emily play on her little pink ride-on toy...and thinking of how I don't have much to show or tell today because I spent a bit of the day yesterday cleaning out my pantry! My DIL was the one who did most of the work, cleaning and arranging...I was outside throwing stuff away and gathering up a total of two bags of stuff for the Goodwill. It is amazing how much gets stored in the pantry and NEVER used. I just decided if I hadn't touched it for a year or longer, I probably never would. I'm ashamed to say we found things that had expired as far back as 2005. Scary...but then again, it was things we would never eat anyway.

I am thankful for many things...mostly my family, the roof over my head, good food to eat, and all of you, my blogger friends! Thanks for aways being there, and I hope your Thanksgiving is wonderful! See ya again soon!
xoxo- Julie

An artist's date, this morning...for Cactus Monday!

With me, myself and I. It was wonderful. I made my coffee (note to self: bigger mug next time)...took my sketch pad, pens, pencil, and my copy of The Artist's Way, and sat in my little seating area I arranged on the side of the house, overlooking my flower/vegie garden. I'm not sure if I've ever had such a luxurious space all to myself before. There's not much to it...but there is just something about it. It is a place I can go all alone, and not be seen by anyone inside, or out. I can stare at the plants, bees, lizards, and birds and butterflies...all by myself. WOW. Oh, and not to mention, in silence as well. Are you feeling it??? Oh, yes, it is sweet.

Here are the views I saw from my adirondack chair, focusing on floral views.
ONE OF MY NEW GERANIUMS

THE BLOOMING TOP OF THE MEXICAN SUNFLOWER

BUDDHA WATCHING OVER EVERYTHING IN THE TIRES







AND 2 OF THE SUCCULENT TIRES FOR CACTUS MONDAY!



I read up to chapter 5 in the book. Tomorrow morning will be my first Morning Pages. I am looking forward to it. THere are fun activities to do along the way...some are hard, for sure, and others just really get you thinking. The author is amazing. I need to look for her other books.

I did do a little sketch but it was fairly lame...I want to have a series of three and maybe I will show them later, we shall see. My timid self says no, but in my trying to be gutsy and self confidant artsy way, I want to say yes. Hmmmmm. Thankyou, Messyfish for your comments regarding the Artist's Way...it is encouraging. I think it would be fun to do with an artist friend, but I guess I need to make a few (locally)! Nobody I know will own up to it!!! Hehehehe.

Happy Cactus Monday to all, and a marvelous start to the week ahead!!!
xoxo- Julie

Consumed by life!

I am so glad I walked to a garage sale down from my house today. I came upon a book that I had heard about and thought I should read. It is called The Artist's Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron. I know many of you have read it, and even taken courses on it. I am up to chapter 2. She is talking about writing Morning Pages each day...writing 3 pages about anything that comes to mind. I have a problem with putting on paper something that could ever be read by another person (personal feelings, etc)...so I'm not sure how I would do it. Maybe a private blog...although she says to do it the old fashioned way...with pen and paper!

I am feeling the creative side of me being lost. Life is very busy and I never seem to have time. But is it just an excuse??? I'm not sure.

Well, I am hoping for a resurgance of it.

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. My DIL and the grands were here and my daughter too, so we figured it was a good time...and we would have it ready for Thanksgiving. I am thinking tomorrow night I may get the lights on the house outside as well. I want to be prepared this year...not late (usually more like it).

One thing I think that has changed recently is that the more focused I am on having things perfect, the less likely I am to be creative. I want things clean and in their place. Never a dirty dish in the sink. No dirty clothes in the baskets, no toys on floor, tables cleaned off. I'm becoming what I believe they call...ANAL!

I am even cleaning out and organizing my entertainment center (huge), my secretary (disaster), and my crafting area (sheles upon shelves of crap). Oh, and not to forget the pantry is gonna get a clean out as well. Hopefully all before Thanksgiving!

Maybe it is just Fall cleaning...is there such a thing? Or maybe I'm prgnant??? At 54??? Let's pray not! Hehehe. Well...maybe it will stop after the holidays and I can go back to being just plain old me, dirty house and all!

Hey...good news...I saw out my kitchen window yesterday morning...a beautiful red cardinal, here for the winter!!! I was so excited. He stayed in the Mexican Sunflower for about 5 whole minutes and I stood, fixated on it...not even saying a word to share the occasion...being very selfish. Anyway...Mr. Cardinal was very bright red, and sitting amongst the brown stems and bright yellow flowers there, I could not take my eyes off of him. I was thanking God for these miraculous moments, when you can stop and really appreciate something.

I think I shall have about 9 giant okra on the counter in the next 4 days! I will be happy...we can make a whole side dish with that many due to their size. Hubby is looking forward to it as well.

I found two red geranium plants at Lowes last week for 50 cents each and added them to my flower tires for the winter...everyting looks so good this time of year...our best growing season!

I am doing my best to try and think of something creative to contribute to Cactus MOnday this week...I've been absent the past few weeks, being my new anal self, I guess. Where has the real Julie disappered to?? If anyone sees her, would you send her back? Thanks in advance!

Weirdness

Every day is an adventure around here! I had a funny thing happen when I was in an office the other day. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop...I was there an hour and not one phone call came in, and barely a voice spoke during that time. Well, at some point a person there decided to call someone, and they did it while having the phone on speaker. They tried three times to call the same person, and after the third call, I thought I might be in another universe! Here's how it went:

Sound of dialing the phone (remember it is all on speaker now, OK)...
Sound on other end when it picks up: FAX MACHINE BEEPING.

2nd try:
Sound of dialing (still on speaker)...
Hello?
I am trying to reach "so and so"
You have the wrong number! (Spoken quiet loudly and clearly as I could hear all of this very well from the next room over).

No, I'm trying to reach "so and so".
As I said, you have the wrong number.
Oh, I have the wrong number, I'm sorry.
Hangs up.

3rd try:
Sound of dialing again...
When phone picks up it is the melodic sounds of la, la, la...this number is no longer in service, please hang up and try again!!!!!

Now, I ask you, was this person on crack, or what? It's not bad enough that you can dial the supposed same number three times and end up calling something or someone different each of the three times, BUT....YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT ON SPEAKER SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR HOW STUPID YOU ARE!!!

Several other weird happenings occured during my visit to this particular office, and I felt I should get up and run away as fast as possible. I did escape there fairly quickly, and I was so relieved to get back out in the fresh air and sunshine!
YIKES!