Confession Tuesday

I have to confess, I think I have been in a bit of a funk the past week and a half.  I am extremely UN-motivated.  I'm not sure what it is.  I'm trying to focus on positive things and find inspiration around me because otherwise it is too easy to continue the funk.  I think I need to get out of the house more often.

I am thinking that I am not going to be going to my residency in August.  That will postpone my degree for a few months.  That is frustrating.  I just received my "grades" for the last two modules.  One professor didn't give me a grade or credit for the January quarter.  I'm not sure what that is about, so I will have to find out what is going on and then get it taken care of.  I did the work, I deserve the credit.  Just because he didn't communicate with me, that isn't my issue.  I emailed him several times and never heard a peep.  That will mean that I will have to go back to England in January.  Now I know that seems like it isn't really a bad thing, and it isn't, but that wasn't in the plans.  But August just seems like it has had too many things against it all along.  I think that I was meant to go to England.  First it was my job stalling my August trip, and now this (combined with the lack of alternative childcare for little man and transportation issues). 

I got all teary-eyed today because little man is making his first foray into the crawling world.  He's been "practicing" his crawling posture the last couple of weeks.  He would get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth.  Then he would scoot his knees forward a bit, but didn't know what to do with his hands.  Today, he actually figured out how to move his hand forward, but couldn't get much farther because he still had his weight on his right hand.  It will come... soon.  Then there will be no stopping him.  He's just growing up so fast.  It is sad.  This week, he will be six months old.  The other day was his first experience with his pool.  :)

I've run across some amazing blogs lately.  Very inspiring.  I need to take all of that inspiration and use it to motivate myself to get things accomplished.  I think that I'm suffering from too much inspiration.  It is like I get over-stimulated in the creativity department and become immobilized.

We're going to be working on Tim's parents' house to get it ready to put on the market.  It is going to be a huge undertaking, but it is a necessity.  I got to pick paint colors and decide on what needs to be done to make it look better, so that was fun.  I felt like I was on a show from HGTV or DIY.  The realtor came in and looked around and agreed with most all of my ideas for changes.  The only thing he didn't agree with was putting a new counter and tile floor in the kitchen.  He thinks that we should just do vinyl flooring and then leave the countertop as it is so someonme can do their own thing.  I can kind of see his point, but there aren't a whole lot of selling points on the house (small rooms, outdated cabinets/tile/fixtures, yard that needs lots of TLC, etc.) that I thought it would be better.  We'll see how it all works out.  Jessica looked at it the other day and heard my ideas and now she wishes she could afford to buy it.  It is too bad something couldn't be worked out. 

Lots of things to do... I should stop wasting time writing this and get busy with a new project.  LOL.

Long Weekend?

How can a three-day weekend not be long enough?  In most respects, it wasn’t a 3-day weekend for me.  I had yesterday “off” as far as babysitting, and I have today “off” as well.  But the past week was a crazy busy one.  Poetry workshops, shift at Speakeasy, watching little man, cleanup at Speakeasy, a trip to the mall, a paper due, and some cleaning/organizing at home and in the craft room. 

At the very end of the weekend, we raced out and did a few errands.  I’ve been frustrated with our couch for a long time.  We bought it several years ago, and shortly after we got it, the back cushions became misshapen and would never stay in place.  It is also one of those couches where you sink into it and have a hard time getting up.  After having several hours of back-to-back episodes of DIY programming on in the background Sunday, I was ready to do something with our living room.  Yesterday, I finally just gave up.  We went to The Old Cannery and took a look around.  We have space issues in the living room, so it is always a challenge to find something that works, but we think we found it.  






It is a sectional, but a smaller one. It is firm, and the cushions are attached to the back so we won’t have the same problem we have with our current couch.  I’m excited to get it and see how it works out.  I have to call the delivery service this morning.  Yay.  Obviously it won’t exactly look like that in our house, but at least it is a step in the right direction.  Tim won’t let me repaint the living room, but I’m going to put up some new art, get a few throw pillows and clear out the old ottomans and that should refresh things a bit. 
I also found an amazing chair, but we didn’t get it.  I will just have to daydream about it for now…  



So now it is a new week and I’ve got lots to do.  There is still a lot of work to get the craft room organized.  I also have a ton of laundry to tackle today… AND I’m totally inspired to get some art done.  

How was your weekend?  Was it long enough for you? 

Weekend Forecast: Raining Creativity?

C’mon, you know that there is some project you have been thinking about… some little artsy thing that you’d like to tackle. Maybe it is an around-the-house project like painting the bathroom or putting up a new set of curtains in the living room.  Maybe it is sitting down to write a chapter (or outline) for your novel.  Maybe it is a poem?  Splashing some paint onto a canvas?  Sculpting?  Sketching?  Taking a new picture?  Jotting notes to a future song?  Collage?  Sewing? Designing your summer garden?

It is the last weekend in February.  We’re already at the two-months-invested-in-2010 mark, and if you haven’t done it already, you need to get started now! 

Take the challenge.  What will you do this weekend that will make a difference in your creative life? 

So many photos, so little time...

So I thought that my photo wall project would be way easier than it was in actuality.  Wait, let me take that back.  It wasn't that it was *difficult* it was really just time consuming.  I never really thought about what was going inside of the frames.  I just had focused on the layout of the frames on the walls and how it would all look once I got it up there.  But, alas, that was the easy part.  The tough part is finding the pictures to fit inside all of the frames and to try to balance it out.  I had a couple of pictures of Emily to frame, and then I realized that I only had one of Sam.  So I had to flip through (literally) thousands of pictures we have stored in photo boxes and then look through what is on my laptop.  During this time, I also realized that I've misplaced my external hard drive that also houses thousands of pictures.  And once you find the picture, you have to make sure it is the right size or the right orientation (portrait vs. landscape) so it adds another layer of complexity onto the already-time-consuming task. 


I got everything lined up, but then figured out that craft stores don't sell large wooden numbers (so we're going to have to make our own), and then I found other pictures that I felt needed to be out as well.  So then it was back to the store to get more frames.  And then a printing photos project, and then another trip yesterday to get more frames.  It is insane.  So now it has turned into more than one wall.  It will be one big wall and a smaller section of another wall.  And that doesn't even include any of our wedding photos (still not printed).  But I think I have a relative balance of photos between the kids (much harder to find pics of Tim's kids since it appears that Allison must have custody of those).  Then I had to balance out the pictures of Bobby and Kate, and then threw in some of the cats as well.  While I was at it, I found a couple cute pics of Tim's parents, which led me to looking for pics of my mom (hard to find) and my brother and grandma as well.  Now I have a nice mix, and once they are all up, it will be good. 

I'm posting a picture from phase 1 which is the rough draft of hanging stuff (before the photo printing and second/third trips for frames).