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Life on St. Martin's Hill * Winter 2009*
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29 January 2010
Two Thousand, Ten? What?
The radical sabbatical is over, and we're making our first treks out to welcome the new season! Painting, drawing, stitching, laughing, writing, photo-ing, eating, sleeping; Snuggling & shoveling.
But today, today it is bitter outside, and the floors in this house are like an ice rink.
Fire to start roaring later this afternoon. Must amass piles of wood first.
And new beads making a debut this weekend.
Welcome back.
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6 December 2009
Got Christmas Spirit?
No?
How about now?
(Sure, bunnies work for all seasons.)
That's better.
We would love to help your trim your tree this year.
Want more?
Visit our ebay store.
The link is over there, to the left!
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27 November 2009
And Like Everything Else. . .
. . .it was Beautiful.
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20 November 2009
Getting Ready
Sometimes I just can't stand it.
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in other news: we are still working on orders and should have the remainder of them caught up and shipped by Monday (23 November 2009). New beads for sale to post Monday evening. Working on our Thanksgiving invitations and Menu. Working on our homemade holiday gifts, and trying to visualize the decorating scheme before the chaos of hundreds of ornaments and boughs.
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9 November 2009
It Was a Terrible Story
(or so He said)
The shorter days make for quicker bedtimes, even for the setters. They tromp upstairs on their own and hit the hay at 6pm.
And sadly, the time change affects us the same way, too.
We fight to stay awake past 8pm.
So there we are, all snuggled in, with the dogs in our bed, each getting their own dose of head petting, and baby talk.
Out of the blue, I started talking out loud about all the pets I had while growing up.
Let's see. . .we had cats, lots of cats. Some of them had names, and some of them didn't. At one point I counted 18 cats. Most lived outside, but gosh, seeing them swarming and sleeping all over the porch, well let's just say that I was slightly embarrassed that we were beyond feline capacity. Then we had some baby chicks for Easter, and they grew into three hens and a rooster. And we got in trouble with the city because we weren't supposed to have livestock in the city which was fine with me because they pooped everywhere and made playing in the backyard nearly impossible.
I had a stray cat named Buttons. She was mean. Really mean. Then she had kittens under our bathtub. We couldn't get to them because she had crawled thru a hole in my closet to get to the underside of the tub, so my dad had to smash out a larger hole. I don't remember what happened after that. I ended up getting rid of Buttons after she had pooped all
over my school clothes for the enty-ith time. I ended up really hating that cat.
Then we had two dogs. A stray named Duffy, and a border collie named Butch. Butch was cute. Duffy wasn't. I don't even know what kind of dog Duffy was, but he always looked like a mess with his tangled black hair, you could never see his eyes or his face so the back end always looked exactly like the front end, and he was always getting us kids in trouble with his incessant barking. And his name was dumb, too. Duffy. Who names anything Duffy? Maybe it was just too close to the word Duff, which my parents always used when talking about 'get off your lazy duff'. Duff was just kind of an embarrassing word to use in our house, because it was talking about your bum. Duffy, duff, bum= messy dog. It all just fit together in my mind. Plus, Duffy was just really kinda ugly.
He never really had anything going for him.
Then we had a rabbit, then another rabbit, and then another rabbit after that. One of the rabbits bit my finger and made it bleed, and it really hurt.
I still have the scar.
But nothing hurts more than a hamster's bite, and I still have those scars, too. We got two hamsters and before we knew it, we had like two or three dozen hamsters. It was really hard to know the exact count because they slept in piles on top of each other, and then they covered themselves with cedar shavings, and if you dared to put your hand in their cage to try and count them, well. . .you didn't dare put your hand in their cage.
Then we had turtles. They smelled. Their tank smelled.
And I gagged a lot around them.
Then we had some birds. One thing I learned about having pet birds is that they die fairly easily. Seemed like my mom was always picking up a dead bird from the bottom of the cage. She eventually gave up trying to replace them. If you ask me, she shoulda gotten a duck.
Throughtout all my storytelling, I thought Andrew was really enjoying my verbal memoirs. Imagine my surprise when he interrupted me with, Wow! That is the dumbest story ever!
What do you mean, I'm telling you all about my pets, I countered indignantly.
He continued unbroken, and in a high-pitched female voice:
Well, we had some cats, and some of them had names, and some of them didn't. . .
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28 October 2009
SWAPPED!
Oh goody! Oh joy!
What a heck of a time!
Opening this package,
from my swap-partner divine.
The tote was loaded and filled to the brim,
with goodies some scary,
with goodies some grim.
A fantasy witch, and one made of wood,
a smiling Jack'Lantern
with a stem for a hood.
The creepy, the scary, an orange delight,
all given to celebrate
one wicked night.
Skellys dressed fine, and dancing with glee,
knowing that someday
one will be me.
These colored confetti,
black cats on a stick
a witch stirs a potion
'till its nice, green & thick.
Handmade and hands-down
my ultimate fave,
a glittery witch
turned into a slave.
Last, but not least,
the Devil in Hat.
Modeling nicely,
But I'm so scared of THAT!
What a lovely and fun box of goodies! I just loved everything!
Now I'm hooked on swaps, of course!
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17 October 2009
Beware & Enjoy!
Swap Photos
This is the first swap that I've ever participated in.
And let me tell you, it is F*U*N*!
Because I was not concentrating on making things for myself, it kind of forced me to think (and hope I'm right!) about what my partner might like, simply by reading her blog.
My package went out this morning, nine pounds of spooky goodness, and these are teaser photos from that shipment.
Sharing part of my beloved vintage Holiday collection because she loves vintage about as much as I do!
Making art bits.
Adding sparkle in one form or another to just about everything.
And just so you know, my tomato plants are now covered with orange, black, and purple glitter!
The newest table accessory! I so wanted to make this last year, and the idea never left me!
More vintage elements. What is it?
And no, it's not a piece of wood from Switzerland!
What is this, you ask?
It's tidy mess!
There you have it!
I hope you enjoy your goodies, Miss Shara!
Have a loverly, spookily, glittery Season!
:)
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15 October 2009
On & On & On
[not] Utopia
Yes, the saga continues. A broken kiln, a dozen and a half phone calls to get replacement parts one-by-one with a night of firing following each successive install only to find the next morning with a kiln full of broken glass.
Heartbreaking.
(no pun intended).
And keeping every broken bead because I fully believe that I will use all of them in some really cool art project way off in the future, but it's just a way for me to escape acceptance of the waste of time & materials so instead of throwing them right into the garbage I put them in this old metal Jello mold and every time I'm working on another firing I tip the darn thing over and all the contents and shards of glass go flying to which I dutifully pick up each and every piece.
But wanting to keep everyone up on the news that we're still not up and running, and not wanting to send out bulk emails 'cause they're so impersonal, so emailing faraway places like Singapore and Australia, and the UK and the USA to tell the same story over and over and over again, and to be so sick of repeating myself so many times that I'm exhausted with hearing my own inner voice and trying to silence it even in the dead of night and all the while I'm thinking when will this all end, when a sleeping dog kicks me square in the back and creates a national blanket shortage.
And wishing with all my might that I had a personality that would just call it quits and walk away but I don't because I am always at war with myself, and myself is bound & determined that I shall lose each and every battle.
Including this one.
[deep breath]
So I continue every day, the same story, the same routine, the same belief that '. . .this remedy will work THIS time. . .' and I'm so caught up in the folly of it all that I seem to neglect everything else except candy bars which I am munching on right now but they're so tiny that I keep leaving my post here and run to the candy bowl to retrieve another handful with the open declaration that there is just no satisfaction to be had.
And the weather is so dry, yet it's been snowing nearly every day since last Saturday and my allergies are full-ahead, and we haven't been getting any mail, nor can we park at our house because our streets are all torn up so every single little task seems magnified and dreadful, and the furnace isn't working properly and my feet feel like concrete blocks and Andrew did not like the sauce I made last night for the rigatoni.
And dear Wenda I know I've been neglecting you, too, and I have things that I need to send to you but I keep my focus directed on making everything perfect, and therefore, nothing is perfect, and therefore nothing is done.
Everything is creeky-croc-eyed here.
I wish I had a fresh box of crayons to work with, all the mixture of lovely colors, all neat and straight, unbroken and all of the same length, each one beckoning to me with a hey, I'm next! and to revel in the delicious task of simply choosing one and letting it direct me rather than worry about the art's outcome whether it breaks or not.
But instead, for now I have a life like this old paint box, everything intact but somewhat muddy, cracked and peeling. Colors overlapping each other mingling with their neighbors and making everything look like poo even though it isn't, splatters everywhere, broken crayons without a spirit or a will of function.
But then upon closer inspection, I see the most royal of colors has gone unused.
Deep breath.
And another candy bar.
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6 October 2009
A Romance with Canning
I've told everyone in town about this. I've told my whole family about this.
I'm going to learn to can this year.
I picked 20lbs of apples.
Bought a box of canning jars.
Washed & peeled dozens.
Added some sugar, water, cinnamon, and a half lemon.
Cooked them into applesauce. Removed the lemon.
Tasted it.
Oh my gosh, it's good.
Even Andrew swooned over it.
Then the orchestra of boiling pots.
One with the applesauce. Another pan keeping the jars hot.
And a third, the canning bath.
Put them all together, and Voila!
I am now the proud owner of three jars of applesauce.
Next time (aka tomorrow!) I am going to double the recipe!
oh my gosh, I can't stand it!
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1 October 2009
Old Advertising in a New Season
Old stuff to cure-all forms of malady.
Read on.
Hmmm.
*Female Infirmities*.
Looks like they thought of everything back then.
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