Three weeks from today I go under the knife for a myomectomy (removal of a uterine fibroid) and I should be out of commission for a few weeks.  Mom flies in on the 28th of May and the following day we are headed to L.A. for a rocking art retreat before surgery.

I am so excited!  I have heard such amazing things about Kim’s events and now I get to be a part of one.  Mom and I will be staying at the Bissell House in Pasadena and we are going to have such a girly, decadent weekend!  It should be a nice prequel to my recovery.

Our room is finally painted and I’ve been working on some new tableaus.

For as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed rearranging my stuff into various pictures.

This was my first venture into distressing a piece of furniture.  I was pretty anxious about the whole process, but between coaching from my mother and reassurance from Chuck, I was pretty pleased with the final product.  I love the shabbiness of it.

Happy Hump Day!  Go vote for all of Chucklebutt’s endeavors.  He’s admitted to using me as his media outlet — sheesh!

“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed.  Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?”

As a seventeen year old, I couldn’t fully appreciate the meaning behind the words.  As I’ve grown older (and experienced the loss of my father), I try my darndest to enjoy the day to day.  Sometimes it’s super boring and I feel like a rat running the race, but other days I simply enjoy the routine.  I told Chucklebutt yesterday that while I love our adventures, I love our ordinary moments even more.  The waking up next to each other, the goofy goodbyes each morning, the mid-afternoon phone calls, the lazy nights watching trash tv.  Good times.

With that said, not too much has been going on at our household.  We’ve just been living the day to day and enjoying it.  We’ve seen some good movies (Ghost Town) and some not-so-good movies (Special).   We ate smothered fries at Denny’s this afternoon and we took a 45 minute nap which turned into three hours.  He had a production meeting for a show that opens next weekend and I went antiquing and didn’t buy a thing (shocking yes?!).  Oh, and last night we tormented our girls with crafty bits.  Witness:

Will we be able to do this with human babies?  FYI- Chuck and I are both only children and our animals have always been our playmates.  Mom says that we didn’t have brothers and sisters to aggravate so we take it out on the kitties. 

We wore them out.  Awwww…

Today was the first Saturday I have had off in three weeks.  I had plans to weed our yard and spray paint some pieces that I want to submit to Somerset.  We live in Arizona, and 99% of the time we have beautiful sunny weather.  The day that I wanted to work outdoors, I awoke to this:

The entrance to the Mines of Moria has got to be around here somewhere.

You can’t tell from the pic, but it was pouring rain!  So no weeding or painting was accomplished.

I love our flowers right now!  The yard is out of control, but the wildlife are loving it.

Yesterday was my first venture into the world of ribbon embroidery.  One of my residents is teaching me and I am loving it!  The ribbon is silk and a bit of a pain to work with.  Next week we’ll do the leaves and add some centers to the flowers.

Finally, I wanted to show everyone what I found at Goodwill yesterday.  Isn’t she amazing?!!?!?!?!?!  It’s a perfume bottle.  Guess how much I paid for it?  Oh yeah, a buck 99.  The thrift store gods were shining down on me that day.  Squeal!!  I’m still on cloud nine for the find.

Oh one more thing — Chuck has been getting quite a few texts lately.  Who are they from?  Work?  Friends?  Girlfriends?  Apparently he has discovered Twitter and has a bromance going on with quite a few fellows.  Dr. Drew, Kevin Smith, Brent Spiner and Weird Al Yankovich.  Everytime they update their account, he gets notification.  Chucklebutt is such a goof — but I love him!

Anyway, the check-in is a chance for the kids to let each of us know where they are at the moment. (Life is great.  I broke up with my boyfriend.  I failed my math test.  She loves me.  Etc.)  With my younger students, I do something called “Rose & Thorn.”  They can tell us one good thing — a rose– and one bad thing — a thorn.  Today,  my rose was life is going great.  I really have no complaints and at the moment am drama free.  We dyed Easter Eggs at work and I had a kick-ass sandwich from Crazy Subs.  A good hoagie can make everything okay. 

As far as my thorn is concerned, I discovered a most disturbing article on Jezebel at the beginning of the week.  Incidentally, Jezebel is my all time favorite blog that I love to decompress to.  Their byline is “Celebrity, Sex and Fashion for Women.  Without Airbrushing.”  It’s a riot, and for the most part is fodder for the brain.  However, occasionally, they have some pretty interesting articles.  Take for intstance, the fact that Joann’s Fabric Store is refusing to carry the latest issue of Quilter’s Home.  Now to be honest, I have never even heard of Quilter’s Home — I’m a Quilting Arts gal — but I couldn’t believe why they were censoring this magazine.

Just like the cover says, there was “controversial patchwork.”  According to the article, Quilter’s Home offered to wrap the issue in a brown bag — just like a girlie magazine– in order to protect all those naive crafters.  Hah!

So what did the quilts look like?  See for yourself:

This one is titled “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”

In my opinion, this was the most intense piece.  It is a response to the state flag of  Mississippi.  It definitely evokes some strong emotions.

Yeah, those little blue pills are Viagra.  If you look closer, you can see floating peni.  I think this one is hilarious!  What’s wrong with Joann’s?  If you want to check out the article, click here.

Finally, who’s to say crafting can’t be something more than eye candy?  These quilters have definitely given me something to think about.

At the moment, I’m watching "Hamlet 2."  The opening sequence begins when a Peter O’Toolesque voice over saying, "Where do dreams go to die?"  The next shot is of Tuscon, Arizona.  Bwahaahahahahahahaha!  It’s gonna be a great movie!   I also picked up "Repo! The Genetic Opera."  The only thing better than Anthony Steward Head, is Anthony Stewart Head singing about organ transplants, wearing black pleather and wielding a knife.  Righteous!  It’s from the producers of Saw and I am such a sucker for those gorey movies.  Mind you I can’t watch any of the new horror flicks that came out this week cause I’m also a big chicken.  I’ll have to wait until Chuck gets home and he can tell me what’s going on while I cover my eyes and plug my ears. 

I have lofty aspirations this weekend.  I plan on painting our entire bedroom.  We bought the paint in October, and I figure this would be a perfect time to start.  Realistically, I’m sure I won’t finish, and I’ll leave all the intricate stuff for you-know-who.  He’s pretty meticulous when it comes to projects and I’m of the half-ass mindset.  I also have started on the Sookie Stackhouse series.  They’re like cheese whiz — not good for you, but enjoyable going down.  Mom has read them all and she has a crush on Eric.  That probably means nothing to anyone except for Maja and she doesn’t read my blog.  Eric is a Viking vampire — in case you were wondering.

Before Chuck left for Daytona, he took some nice pics of my recent treasure hunting.  Check it out:

These were the two boxes that my swap partners gave me.  They are chocked full of all sorts of goodies.  Thanks Lisa and Rosalyn-Sue!  You ladies Rock!  The linens I found at Goodwill for dirt cheap.  Gosh I’m such a sucker for all things embroidered.

See I told you I can’t resist.  Who would give away such beauties?  I guess it’s my fortune.

This too cute teacup I got from the gals at Mystic Paper.  A few weeks ago they invited everyone over to the shop for a tea party.  We got to keep our cups.

I also have a little button problem.  You can never have too many buttons.  Well maybe you can, but I haven’t reached that point quite yet.  A few weeks ago, I took some of my residents to the AZ Quit Show.  There were tons of vendors and I was like a kid in a candy store.  I found one booth filled with vintage Czech glass buttons.  Holy Cow!  They were/are gorgeous!  The gal was from Venice Beach and her stock was very reasonably priced.

Then there was the vendor out of Connecticut.  She was *not* reasonably priced, but I couldn’t resist the above buttons.  The red ones look art deco to me and the ones beside them look like cameos.

The above is not a button, but I thought it was gorgeous.

I found this creepy, cutie and just had to have her.  I realize that she looks like something that might be used in voodoo, but she’s got some awesome shoes.

One of my residents gave me this sheet of music.  It used to be her mother’s so that can give you an idea how old it is.

What’s this you may ask?  This is what happens when Scout is bored and takes it upon herself to shake things up a bit.  Let me just say that it is really difficult to salvage such a mess.  Try wiping with those bits.

Finally, since Chuck has been gone, I have had the daunting task of taking care of all his fish tanks — eight in all!  Scout likes to help with the tank in my craft room.  I hope that she doesn’t slip, because that would be one heck of a mess.

Enjoy the weekend! 
Watch "Hamlet 2"  then you too can sing, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus!" 

It’s full of vintage pink ornaments and a couple newer ones as well.  This was my first venture into using E6000 glue.  Holy Cow!  That stuff really packs a punch and can give you a crazy high if you’re not careful.

Let me just say that spary painting a fake evergreen wreath is a royal pain in the tush.  It took several coats, and as you can see it could probably use a couple more.  Both Chuck and I took turns spraying and finally gave up.  I interwove the feathers to distract from the not-so-good paint job.

I love the pink reindeer in the middle.  She’s vintage as well.  Vanessa (my boss) loved it and I must say I was really pleased with it myself.  Jan at Honeysuckle Hollow was my inspiration.  She does some amazing wreaths and I’ve been wanting to make one for over a year.

I also have to give credit to Cathy Scalise.  Her amazing home and artwork were featured in the December issue of Romantic Homes.  She gave me the idea for pink.

This picture was taken at our dear friend’s Shirley’s house.  Every Christmas Eve she hosts an open house.  We all got dolled up and headed over to her house for good eats and good company.

I love this photo of mom and me.

Once we got home, all three of us got to wrapping each other’s gifts.  We bought no new wrapping paper this season and recycled everything.

I love my mother’s tree.  We put it up on Saturday and by the following Sunday it was taken down.  She wants to get rid of it, but I won’t let her.  I’m a sentimental fool.

It was great having a fire in the fireplace.  Mind you, it was warmer in Asheville than it was in the Junction.  Crazy weather patterns.  I was actually looking forward to some cold weather.  No such luck.

When Mom and I came downstairs Christmas morning, we were greeted by some amazing cards.  Chucklebutt had been up all night working on his crafty skills.

This was Mom’s card.  The Scrabble pieces were a nice touch.  Mom was really impressed.

He even has his own set of inks and stamps.  Chucklebutt calls it his “stash.”  My baby has mad skills!

The sharing of stockings is my favorite thing to do on Christmas morning.

While we had originally agreed to take it easy this Christmas, Chucklebutt spoiled Mom and I per usual.  I told him he did way too much and he jokingly said, “Yeah, imagine what I could do when I have some real money.”  Me, I got him underwear, socks that were too big and pants that didn’t fit.  I am the lamest wife ever.  I have some serious making up to do.

We were totally pooped after all the gift-giving.

I can’t remember if this was before or after dinner, but I think it’s super cute.

This was our table setting.  Mom made a yummy roast with horseradish sauce.  Deeelish!

Of all my mother’s decorations, this is my favorite.  She has had it for years and I think my grandmother (her mother-in-law) gave it to her before I was born.  It comes from a florist shop in Waynesville.  Chuck says the gnomes creep him out.  He’s a freak!

I think this is my favorite picture we took over the holidays.  It has all of us including demon kitty in the back ground.  Faith was looking out the window just as the camera went off.

It was a wonderful holiday and we were both sad to leave Asheville.  Nothing beats home!  I still have a few more pics to share from our vacation and I’ll post them in the next few days.