Happy Labor Day!

I have no idea who this cat is. But I like his bandanna. And, I like the look of murderous intent he has on his face.

I started to write some long drawn out thing about service men and women and misguided wars and all that, but then I remembered that Memorial Day is the one in May! Durr. I am so dumb sometimes.

Eat a pound of potato salad at your respective cook outs this weekend, or leave this blog in shame.

Over the River and Through the Woods

to Grandma's house Maya goes.

I need a change of scenery and I need to be babied and I need to learn how to sew. Therefore, I spend Labor Day weekend at my mom's house in Wilmington, NC. I am looking forward to this quite a bit.

There is nothing like going to visit your mom as an adult. I love it! It's worth putting up with the concern over my weight, the mentions of my ill fitting wardrobe and the very vocal hopes for grandbabies. Mom will cook for me. Mom will bring me a drink if I ask for one, and Mom will be sure the covers are pulled all the way up to my chin before bed. No matter how old you are, sometimes it is nice to have your mommy.

Maya is excited too! Well, that's a lie because she does not know what's going on. She is coming with me of course, and that is great because my mother has never met her. To know Maya is to love her, and so I am doubly happy that the two will be meeting finally because my mother was VERY opposed to Maya's arrival at first. So it's great that just a few months later she is welcoming Maya to her house with no problems what so ever. Happy sigh. This will be a nice trip to have her along on as well, we can try to go for walks, she can play in the fenced in yard, and she can be out of her comfort zone, but still with me somewhere that is relatively quiet with limited strangers.

And oh joy for the sewing part! My mom knows how, and so I will be dragging my machine up there with me for the weekend. Mom can help me and give me tips and stuff, and we can FINALLY finish with my couch recovering mission that began in April. It is the final thing to be done here in the house, besides the office. It will be SO NICE to finally have the living room done, and no longer see this odd purple couch amidst all the blue and green loveliness.

Whole Lotta Paper

At long last!
My Etsy shop has finally been updated, and this time I added all those millions and millions of random and pretty awesome bits of paper. There are five lots, and you can have a peek at them right here. This post is now littered with pics of a few of the lots that are for sale.

I am feeling like I will be sticking with the selling things in lots approach. That way I can just get rid of stuff. It's tedious to list things like supplies otherwise- I mean when you are selling beads and cabs and such for half of what you pay for them and hoping someone is willing to take them off your hands, well who wants to be in front of the computer for hours on end listing things? Not me, especially when I still need to be spending time weeding through things. I think that at this point I still have a few more books to list, some tools, one lot of random odd things, and then it's down to beads. I have been dreading the beads.

Things I Painted and A Point of Clarification- and a Maya Story Too

I painted these old ceiling tiles the other day during my surprise day off work. I think they look fantastic, and the color, which I acheived from mixing like 4 different colors layered on top of another color, is just right. they are going in my room. Originally there was a third, done in a rusty red, and it really just looked like dried blood or something, and so I am just going to stick with the two green panels.

Also a point of clarification based on Nancy's previous comment. The destashing is intense. This is true. And I am really consolidating, and it isn't as painful as I thought it would be. I am not getting rid of everything, but I am getting rid of a lot. But, you see, I am restashing. I am afraid that I am re-stashing in a different way, and buying it faster than I can use it. I want to try to quit that, but it's tough. Yarn is so pretty, and so is fabric. I swear, I just HATE having impeccable taste sometimes. It can be SUCH a burden.

Now, like the title suggests I have a Maya story for you- something I have not shared in quite some time. While I have come to realize that she may just be bat shit crazy, tonight she did demonstrate that there is a normal, obedient dog inside her. We are in the midst of a three day torrential downpour here, so my umbrella has taken up residence outside. When it is fully opened, but not held over my head (and thus out of her line of sight), it is terrifying to her. The more it hangs out on the porch, the more scared she gets. I guess she tells it to go away, and when it doesn't it scares her more, I dunno. Any way, she scrambled past me this evening to get away from The Umbrella of Doom and yanked her leash out of my hands. She ran all the way down the stairs, and took off down the street! I think that she was also spooked by the little canister of Poop Bags that hangs on her leash- it was dragging behind her. So I am then running after her terrified that she will get hit by a car and yell at her to SIT. I yelled it just like that, all big and bad. And she did! Right there in the road on the first try. She took off again, but when I told her to SIT AND STAY, she really did it! she sat right there in the middle of the road and waited for me to grab the leash and then off we went to the grassy place where we pee. Well, where she pees and I turn away and look for the moon so she can have the illusion of privacy. So yeah, proof of her training paying off and proof of her being a very good girl underneath all the anxiety.

And now, a picture of her in the tub, looking indignant. She hates baths, but loves being towel dried. Sorry it's blurry. I was giggling uncontrollably and couldn't use flash- it makes her eyes do the crazy thing they do with flash photos and she is far too sweet for that.

The Spoils of Internet Fasting

Okay so I know that picture does not look very interesting to you.

But. BUT! Guess what is in those giant envelopes. Just guess! You'll never guess, so I will tell you- there inside those bubble mailers is roughly 7 pounds or so, give or take, of paper.

All kinds of paper.

There are Chinese papers, pages from books written in foreign languages, hand made papers, old pictures, religious ephemera, National Geographic pictures, labels, image transfers, transparencies, blank jigsaw puzzles, game boards, postcards, ads, snippets of random things, you name it. It's all there, and it's going up in my ETSY shop. I am hoping that someone wants to buy nice cheapo packs of really awesome stuff for collages, mixed media stuff, ACEOs, ATCs and random altered art fun. I am hoping to get it listed tonight.

I hope for beads and some random tools and MORE BOOKS to be listed soon.

Sewing Update

In case you were wondering, yes I have played with my sewing machine.

It has been interesting to say the very least. I have an incredibly huge amount of stuff to learn, and I think that I may break my long held tradition of teaching myself to do everything and I may just suck it up and sign up for a class. It has become terribly apparent to me that I am not naturally good at this, and also that I really want to be. Further I have learned that I love nice fabrics, and that I want to not waste a bunch of money and time learning how to do things.

Therefore, I am online looking at my county's community ed site. Holy smokes. the good thing I can say about it is that it is apparent that the cost of classes does not go to upkeep of the website. Wow. I have also accomplished a great many things while looking at it, or attempting to. I re-started the laundry I left in the wash two days ago (I hate when I do that) and I also started dinner and wrote the drafts of like three blog posts- all while waiting to see if there is a sewing class to take somewhere. I sure hope so. For god's sake the only class that has loaded so far is beginning floral design.

Okay it finally loaded and YAY! There is a class and it starts in October. Hmmmm. Perhaps I will check somewhere else. I don't wanna wait a month to learn how to use my sewing machine. I could teach myself by then.

And This, My Dears, Is What We Call Fail

So today was another surprise day off, and I thought that I might get a few things done while I had this most glorious time. One of those was the uber bright idea to paint the interior of my bookshelf a fun color. Like this odd lime greenish color. The good thing is that more than likely, this bookshelf will not be going when I move out of this place. The bookshelf is one of those Target things, made of compressed cardboard or something. So, what happened is not exactly a huge loss because it isn't like the damn thing is a family heirloom or something.

Obligatory Before Photo

And I don't knwo what the hell possessed me to do this but I used spray paint inside. Yeah I know, stupid. Do as I say, not as I do. Well, don't even do as I do. Here's a somewhat in progress shot:

And then finally, what it looks like with a box of books taken out for the thrift store:


And now, let's all say it together:

Meh.

It actually looks better in the picture than in real life. Not sure what I was thinking. They can't all be winners, I guess.