Happy Birthday Dana! July 31, 2009

So today is Dana’s birthday and she had one simple little request. She wanted some linky love- not a big thing to ask for so I’m doing just that. I also thought that since I haven’t gotten around to making her a card (mostly because I just feel that cards are not my forte and quite frankly if cards are not your forte you shouldn’t send one to the queen of cards) I would make her a collage. But I couldn’t come up with a subject and being the procrastinator that I am I was short on time. And so I decided to just share one of my favorite shots of Dana.

Looks pretty good for her age doesn’t she?

Happy birthday July 1, 2009

So today is my baby brother’s 18th birthday. I remember the day my mom went to the doctor to take a pregnancy test. I remember even better the night when my little brother made his appearance. At home. An hour or so before the midwife arrived because my mom had had several false labors already and didn’t want her to have to make the long drive to our home for no reason. I remember my other brother wanting a lollipop while there was so much drama going on around him. Clifford has been surrounded by drama ever since.

As a birthday present I wanted to give him something that is a little bit from me and also a little bit from Kevin, my other brother (the middle child). Enter Kevin’s remarkable artistic talent. The picture below is his creation and a rather simple picture compared to some of his amazing work because I needed to be able to change it into a simplified line drawing so I could use it as an embroidery pattern. Slowly but surely I did just that.

Ever so carefully I painstakingly embroidered the frog and his shroom seat onto some plain white fabric to make a patch. The picture below is an in progress shot.

Finally I finished (actually it only took me two or three hours) I sewed it to a plain white t-shirt et voila.

The project was enough to inspire me to buy some more embroidery floss to replenish my dwindling supply. As you can see below I found a nice batch of color and I plan to do some more embroidery from other pictures that my brother has drawn. Who knows where I’ll go with it.

Oh and Clifford, if you’re reading this, you just spoiled  your birthday present surprise….. shame on you

Happy Birthday 2009 January 1, 2009

Its an odd thing for me sharing a birthday with the year. I have long taken it for granted, but it occured to me this morning that while I am anticipating my next birthday, the old year is dying out for good. How odd is that? Slightly morbid too.

I’m starting this year out tired hoping thats not a precedent for the whole year. I feel odd- not older, just tired. I’m only 23, but I’ve been such an old lady all my life that I even think of my physical age as just a baby.

We celebrated 2008’s last rights with a ritual movie watching. This year it was Stardust and I have to say it was quite enjoyable. We switched gears just in time to watch Dick Clark start the final countdown. I was amazed at how old he’s gotten, but then again everyone ages even the Hollywood types. My mom called from Washington, then my baby brother texted me from home and finally the older one called from a party with his friends and girlfriend in California. It was so very nice- a wonderful way to start my birthday. We won’t be celebrating today because of the whole still broke from Christmas, all our bills are due on the first, pay day is tomorrow thing, but probably tomorrow or Saturday night instead which is okay. I’ve gotten to the point where birthdays aren’t quite as big a deal as they used to be.

I’m sorry if this is not the happy birthday post you all would expect from me, but its hard to get excited about something when no one else is even when its your own birthday. Yesterday I found out that my MIL thought I would be 25, 2 years older than Jarell, rather than 23, 4 months older than him and not till the 5th. Could explain why she is so often opposed to me and him I guess. No one else really knew when my birthday was because I’m the one that keeps track of all that stuff and makes sure that everyone else knows and remembers to say something. What do you do when you’re the planner in the family? I don’t want to plan it myself because that feels forced and boring, but the other option is to be forgotten. Oh well thats life. At least I don’t have kids yet. I’ll try and come back later with some funny pictures and a  story but for now Spore is my destiny and its calling me.

2 weeks December 18, 2008

It doesn’t seem even the least bit possible that there are only two weeks left in this year. However as unlikely as that seems, even more unbelievable (for me) is the fact that theres also only 2 weeks left in my 22 year. This year has literally flown by and I don’t know where it went.

We’re finished with all of our Christmas shopping and I’m nearly done with all my Christmas crafting. There will probably be a large section of time after this coming Thursday when I won’t want to even set foot in my craft room- thats how sick of all this work I am. However I still need to finish 1 purse, 1 crayon/colored pencil carrier, and about 50 bajillion of those silly picture ornaments. I had been sewing them by hand in the evenings while watching tv but I was watching my little stash of embroidery thread diminish at an alarming rate not to mention that I would only finish about 4 each night before saying Screw it I don’t want to do this anymore. So today I broke down and started using the machine.

I walked into a shelf this morning. I was coming out of my husband’s game room and he has some display shelves on the wall and I happened to be just the right height to narrowly miss my eye and hit my eyebrow instead and now I have a big old bump. We have a family Christmas get together on Saturday and I’m just praying that it doesn’t bruise too badly because its actually step family and I don’t want them leaping to the worst possible conclusion. Seriously who’s going to believe I actually ran into a shelf? My husband tried so hard not to laugh when I told him. Especially because when I walked out of the room after telling him, I ran into our bathroom door. Can we say accident prone?

Speaking of Jarell, he got me Christmas and Birthday presents this year which may not sound like much, but usually in all the rush of Christmas he has a hard time remembering my birthday because his family doesn’t celebrate due to the whole Jehovah’s witness thing. This year he got it all done ahead of time and I have no clue what I got and I’m ecstatic. I’ve always been good at guessing gifts and always considered it a curse. For me theres nothing worse than looking at the present and knowing what it is, especially if I know I won’t like it, and having to still act surprised and happy when I open it. One notable exception being when he got me my sewing machine for Christmas last year because I just couldn’t wait to get it open and start playing with it.

I guess thats enough random babble for today. If I can get the internet to function again tomorrow, I’ll try to post again, but we’ll see.

Happy Holidays folks!

Strange Contemplations April 7, 2008

Ok this post may fall a bit under TMI, but for reasons unknown I found myself contemplating the toilet paper this morning and realized that it really has a very pretty butterfly pattern on it. (we use Angel Soft) I had to marvel yet again at a country where even the butt wipes are beautiful. Sorry but I felt I had to share that no matter how risque it may sound.
In other news, I’m getting ready to work some more on my swap item when I get off the computer and I found out who my partner would be today. I’m really looking forward to this whole deal and of course I ran right over to my partner’s blog. I smiled when I saw she was the same zodiac year as I am and I really love her items.
Yesterday was gorgeous and we had a barbecue for Jarell’s birthday. (He caught up with me today and is now 22) We had a lot of fun and it was a nice $40 get together thanks to stuff we already had on hand. This is a good thing as he spent most of his last paycheck bailing his brother out for the umteen millionth time. Actually our house was bought on one of those bail outs. Somehow J5 seems to get into debt quicker than you can say, “would you like fries with that?” and my darling dearest helps him despite the fact that he is public enemy number one in this household. Sorry if that sounds cranky but I have never genuinely hated anyone. Until I met J5. I am by most accounts a very sweet person. Inside my head I believe differently but I worked as a suprervisor at a small retail store and my cashiers often told me they were amazed at how nice I always was to people when from my point of view I had been the meanest of mean. (go figure– no one ever takes me serious when I’m mad) I guess this is probably a good thing since I like to be thought of as nice, but its weird to sometimes.