some fun listening

so i was reading the post yesterday (i read the washington post everyday - as if you didn't figure that out already) and there was a review of a concert The Nellie McKay Show
here's the link to the review
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802217.html
they made it sound like so much fun. It was being recorded by NPR so i thought why not hop on over to NPR and see if i could listen.
If you don't mind some bad words :-) and like some clever song writing and a little bit of crazy thrown in you might just enjoy the show. I found it extremely entertaining (and it was great accompaniment whilst i was working on some pages). Here's a link to the NPR site
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9044009
You can listen in Real Audio or Windows Media. I tried the download but it didn't seem to work.
Enjoy!

Sanjaya - cut, fold, crumple and squash

I enjoy American Idol. I love Melinda - she's my favorite although I wonder if she can win - a discussion for another day. But Sanjaya. This strangeness needs to leave the show. Of course if he leaves then there is little to make fun of - but i digress.
Yesterday, the Washington Post had a hilarious article in their Style section. I meant to post this yesterday and forgot. So for your amusement please visit
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/daily/graphics/sanjaya_032707/sanjaya.html
At the end of the article you'll see a link to print and fold your own Sanjaya paper doll. This is what they had in the paper - i plan to crumple and squash mine tonite as i watch him survive yet another elimination. When i watched last night i wondered which worthy contestant (who won't win but should have had a few more weeks in them) will be sacrificed in his place. The last 2 weeks i felt bad for Brandon and Stephanie. Apparently when you are in the top 10 you get to go on the road for the American Idol tour - those 2 won't have their chance at a years worth of work because this kid made it into the top 10. Whether its that votefortheworst.com or Howard Stern urging his listeners to vote for Sanjaya - it still is a shame.

DANG - the stamp

My friend Annie needed a stamp.

Well need is a strong word

She thought she had a stamp that said dang

But it said bang

So she was dang-less

I felt it my responsibility to fill that dang need

so I carved her a dang stamp

here's a dang sample

of her dang stamp

furniture and margaritas and partially seen movies

ok so this weekend we got a huge thing out of the way. The husband had finally painted the office a few weeks ago. This room had been the daughters place of business for quite a while (did homework there, her computer was there etc) but the husband wanted to reclaim it for his own. Before he painted he and she moved all her things down to the rec room. The stage was set for him to finally paint which he did and now it needed furnishing.
A few years back we'd looked at furniture for the room - came up empty - which is how it ended up not becoming his office but our daughter's. :-)
So this weekend our mission was to find him a desk at minimum. We ended up doing much better. A whole L-shaped office thingy. Lovely cherry desk with hutch. Should fit perfectly and will be delivered on Thursday. He can't stand it he's so pleased. I'm happy 'cos its done and now i don't have to hear about it anymore.
On Saturday night the daughter went with a friend and his father down into DC to hear some jazz. This left us, the parents, delightfully free to do as we pleased. We picked a Mexican restaurant as the daughter isn't fond of that cuisine, she was busy otherwise, and we could do whatever we wanted - so there! :-)
I made the mistake of having a Margarita - at my husband's urging. Mistake for me as all beverages of this kind will put me in a very sleepy mode. We had a delicious dinner - and on home to watch a movie- Video on Demand is what they call it. The movie was Hollywoodland (about George Reeves - the actor who played Superman in my youth) with Diane Lane and Ben Affleck. Anyway i had really been looking forward to seeing it - and after the movie started we realized we could not DVR it. Bummer because i had a sneaking suspicion the margarita would kick in just after the movie did. Next thing i know the daughter is coming in the door and i realized the movie was long over.
Perhaps we should just do a good old-fashioned rental from the video store (and no margaritas)?

wanna read a good book?

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
its just a great read. I picked it up from the library on Monday and have been reading it all week - finally last night i couldn't stand it any longer
( i was trying to stretch it out - the reading - i tend to read fast)
and i finished it.
If you liked Steel Magnolias or any other books that focus on women - this is the book for you.

Check it out on Amazon or at either of the two related websites.
http://www.fridaynightknittingclub.com/
http://www.walkeranddaughter.com
Oh i hope they do a movie about it!

the birthday queen is here

to say Happy Birthday miss Kerilou

hope its an extra special day!

visit keri at http://a-country-life.blogspot.com/

what i been makin

okay so i've been making things and not posting them cos they were presents. so now that the recipient has received them i can post away. (Actually i did attempt a post of this yesterday but it disappeared into the cyber void. whatchagonnado)

So here's a card i made using some new stamps from www.characterconstructions.com The alpha stamps are Lizziebelle from www.purpleoniondesigns.com . And btw, birthday girl, the th is like that - linked together. the Lizziebelle alpha comes with a number of letters linked together (tt, th, ff). Lizziebelle is a clever girl you know so her alpha should be that way too. Anyhow, I used some acrylic paint, ink, colored pencils to color her in. Used some skinny black rickrack. The background is a paper bag - yes, i have issues throwing pretty things away but it worked out well in this case. You can't tell here but its a large birthday card - 6x12 - but sometimes it's fun to do something a little different, right?

The other thing i made is a felted purse. I fell in love with a cute purse I saw at http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/index.html - check the February 14th posting. I am rather new to this knitting thing but figured the directions didn't look too complicated. I am a good direction follower - so good that i ignored her notes that she was running out of yarn so she did less rounds of knitting. This made the purse a little shorter and perhaps cuter when it was smaller. However........ you live and learn. Regardless, i was quite pleased with my results. Here are the before and after (felting) pictures:

I wanna make myself one of these so I've already ordered the yarn - in a most dee-luxe shade of periwinkle (which is out of stock at the moment - sigh) I made this purse black as that is what the birthday girl wanted. Me - normally I'd probably pick black as its more practical but i'm just throwing caution to the wind - wild thing that I am. (ok... you can stop laughing now)

i definitely encourage anyone to try knitting one of these purses. It is so very easy. You need to know only one stitch. Yes, you make it on circular needles but i'm telling you - if i can do it - you can too.

Well, i'm going back to doing some cleaning now. I am surrounded and its gettin me down. i cannot function in this mess.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

when i went up the road last week to the Old Lucketts store this is the postcard i found. isn't it just great? It's postmarked on the back (wish the Post Office had spared the front) Feb. 19th, 1910. I just love the idea that this postcard is almost 100 years old. isn't that something? It's addressed to a lady in Indiana named Pauline. The writer asks Pauline if she had a nice time at the automobile show in Chicago. don't you just love it? Oh and the stamp is one cent.

I hope you are having a great St. Paddy's day. We had our soda bread with coffee this morning and it was, if i do say so myself, dee-lish.

oh and i'm posting another link for this wonderful countdown calendar http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/

there are just so many wonderful images and isn't she so kind to post them all?

Freaky Friday

so the last few days we've been having unusual weather here in the Northern Virginia area. It was in the 70's. My daffodils went shooting up and the hyacinths are not far behind. I enjoy the thought of spring approaching but knew that Mother Nature had something else in store - one last hurrah for Winter was on the schedule - at least that is what the weather guy said. And this time he was correct. Yesterday the temperature started dropping and the wind whipped up and by night fall it was close to the mid 30's. Nice. A 40 degree drop almost. Oh did i mention the rain? Well its been doin that too - until it decided to start snowing. We'll have 2-4 inches by the time it ceases to flake outside.

Anyhow the long and short of this is that my daughter left school 2 hours early. They decided to send them home and that is really a good thing. There is nothing quite like Northern VA traffic and bad weather mixed together to cause havoc - at rush hour - which begins here at around 3pm and runs through 7pm - it is a nightmare. So better to have my kid back on this side of the world before the real fun begins. She travels an hour each way to school - it may as well be in another country some days.

I just got back from retrieving the daughter from her bus stop. It's about 10 minutes from the house. I stopped on the way to drop off some Irish Soda Bread to my mom. Her place is 5 minutes from here. It took almost 15 minutes to get there as i had to sit thru 2 cycles of the #2 Punishment Light in town. We chatted for a few minutes until daughter texted me from a stop along the way so i knew where she was and how long i had to get there. So i headed out to the bus stop (which is at an elementary school). I sat at the number #1 Punishment Light in Leesburg through two cycles. Always a treat. Then to the school. Waited about 3 minutes and the bus arrived. Then we headed out into the gridlock that the traffic had become. Sat at the #3 Punishment light through only one cycle and then worked our way back thru #1 light, once again - 2 cycles long. All in all the entire trip took 1-1/2 hours. In non-snowing conditions (its reallly coming down out there) it would probably take me 45 minutes all tolled.

Here's a picture of my pear tree out front right now

delightful huh? Those are my daffodils that just pushed up in the last 3 days.

Okay so what else is going on -
Miss Holly - an endless source of love and amusement for me. She is the smartest cat on the planet and funny to boot. Here she is doing her daily reminder to me that it's-dinner-time-so-fill-that-food-bowl-please. She will arrive in the kitchen at approximately 6:25. I normally feed them some dinner at 6:30. She will go from the bowl - where she'll sit - as she is sitting here - just as a reminder - hey-Mom- it's-time-to-eat! If i don't get the message she'll go over to the pantry (where her food is) and sit there. If that doesn't do it she'll return to the food bowl and wait. ....And look at me.

Could YOU resist that face? Not easily.

She's is just adorable isn't she?

Now here's is a picture of Frankie

Actually that is Frankie's busy butt and his tail there on the left. Their food dish is right below the island in the kitchen. What is that big flower doing there? Hmmmmm - that's my little secret for right now :-) More on that soon.

Okay and here is the Irish Soda Bread i made this morning:

One loaf for us, the other one for my Mom. She was so happy. She'll have it for breakfast and is making the corned beef and cabbage for dinner for herself tomorrow. Me - i don't like CB&C. Some good irish girl i am huh? oh well.

One last picture then i'm off to do various and sundry things (maybe start shoveling - yuck)

I was fooling around yesterday with acrylic paint to transfer images. I had this notion it should work with newsprint - so i set out trying my theory - it works. pretty darn cool i must say. I want to play some more with it. Some images didnt work at all - i think it had to do with the amount of paint and the actual picture. You need a really good contrast it seems. But that was fun. i really enjoyed the process. I need to work on it some more.

peek at the birdie

here's a little peek at a card i did for a friend who has been very busy and hasn't come out to play much. i thought she needed something cute to pick up her spirits. i'll post the whole card after she's received it. That's one of the little birdie stamps i carved not long ago. i thought he looked kinda cute on the patterned paper with a little colored pencil mcpt'd. And the alpha stamps are Purple Onion Designs - Submarine.
Last nite we rented the movie Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. I love Emma Thompson but that movie - i just had a tough time staying awake. It was entertaining but - well there was a beginning, middle and end but no excitement. nothing to distinguish one moment from the next.. monotone. I cannot describe adequately what was wrong with it other than to say I think it would have been a better book. Interesting premise but thats it.
ok i'm off - things to do. Clean up the mess i made attempting to do some St. Patrick's Day cards. i did not like what i came up with. i may or may not post in the near future.

Irish Alert

being that i'm the daughter of a first generation Irish American I am attuned to all things St. Patrick's Day at this time of year - and most of the rest of the year.

I've posted my grandmother's Irish Soda Bread in the past - check my March 2005 post, Will.

I was thinking I'd like to try and make some cards this year - hopefully later today. I have some stamps, some buttons. Also just found some images that might come in handy.
Check this out:
St. Patrick's Day Countdown Calendar
http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/

Friday Fluff

its that alliteration thing again

- plus this is a bit of fluff - literally and figuratively.

Holly is a bit of a fluffy thing wouldn't you agree? I'm sure all cats seek out the laundry basket but this cat will seek out anything that is mine - if it is my clothes in the basket, she is sure to find her way into said basket. If i leave a pair of my socks on the floor, she will sit on them. She loves me and I, her. And how could you resist this cuteness, I ask you?

Since i'm on the subject of cats, I thought i'd post this card i made for my nephew and his girlfriend who visited recently. They have 2 kids of their own - furry kids i should say. And Frankie and Holly took to the girlfriend right away. So she is a keeper we think. I know they'll appreciate the card. Thats a Cats Life Press stamp.

Oh i forgot to mention we rented The Departed last weekend. Rent it. It is just the best movie I've seen in ages. Yes, it's violent and they swear a lot - but both make sense in the plot line and OH what a story. Just the best story. Keeps you glued to your seat for the entire what - 150 minutes. Normally, that long a movie would be rough for me to sit through - but i swear it was over before i knew it.

This weekend the son is returning to school. The week really flew. I'm gonna miss that funny kid a whole lot.

thursday thoughts

don't you just love a little alliteration in the morning?

ok i decided i'd post a few random things

i love dictionary.com : it stems from that annoying habit my mom had, all the while we were growing up, to say "why don't we look it up?" if we had a question on spelling or about a topic -we had a nice dictionary at home and 2 different encyclopedias that got a lot of use. nowadays kids (and grownups like me) just go online. But when i was a kid i would always wonder - how can i look up a word if i don't know how to spell it?

i love my rapidograph and my kneaded eraser: both of which can be seen in the picture below. for that matter i love my mechanical pencil. how does one love a pencil, mechanical or otherwise - a musing for another day.

i love american idol on thursday nites: hopefully that new jersey girl (antonella) will bid a fond farewell. normally i'd be a new jersey girl's biggest fan but this one needs to go home.

i love that i got some more scrapbooking done: i'm picking things from my ready-to-go file (its a plastic milk crate filled with very large ziplocs that have pictures etc in each one. when i have the makings of a page, i put them in a bag and put the bag into the crate til i have time to do the page. i have oooscoobs* of bags in that crate - its about time i'm getting going on them. The page i did is about my daughter and her braces. duh....She has had the first stage of her braces on for months now. During her spring break they're going to put on the front braces. I had the pic i took the day she got the braces and i had the paper - so i decided to set up the layout with the picture i have and leave spaces for the other 2 pics i know i'll take. No fancy page with a bunch of embellishments. I did however use my favorite Purple Onion Designs stamps - Garamouche - for the titles. taking a picture was a whole lot faster than all that scanning and merging blah blah.

i love seeing pictures of peoples desks/creating spaces - whatever you wannacallit:take a look at donna's blog - a link is on your right. Care to share a pic of yours?

blogger is giving me a fit right now so i'll go gold some laundry (that, for the record is something i don't love)

***oooscoobs - i read that word in a book i'm reading - very descriptive isn't it?

Eloise philosophy and Crusade #6

First i should say i'm enjoying the challenges on the GPP Street Team http://michelleward.typepad.com/how_cool_is_that/ and this newest one - about collections.

i have a few things i collect. Ok i have a lot of things i collect. For today i'll admit to my love of eggcups.

When i was a little girl it seemed everyone owned eggcups. i think people ate more eggs. Maybe they still do, but not soft boiled eggs- who knows. But eggcups are just this wonderful little thing for me - brings on a wave of nostaliga i suppose? Sweet simple times? I can remember my mother and me having breakfast by ourselves (or maybe it just seemed that way as my younger sister was just a baby -she's almost 6 years younger than me). My mom would put that egg in the eggcup in front of me, crack off the top, add a little scrap of butter and a sprinkle of salt - it was just delicious. And we'd sit and talk and eat our eggs and it was a nice little mom/daughter time. My little sister was too good of a baby to interrupt us. Yup, those eggcups bring back lovely memories. And they made the breakfast seem just oh-so-special. I wish i knew what happened to those eggcups. They no longer exist. So i look for eggcups when i am out and about - usually when i'm in an antique store, the china department of various stores or even gift shops. Over the years i have found a few that i've bought (translation: within my means $ wise) and i've been given a few. here are a few pics:

I went on a little road trip on Monday morning - up the road to the little (self-described) hamlet of Lucketts. Don't you just love how that sounds - Lucketts. Anyway, therein lies The Old Lucketts Store. Big old house with all kinds of rooms stuffed with all kinds of things. This trip i wasn't as enamored with the store as i'd been on previous visits. It's gotten too hip - its got loud music playing, cool tags on the merchandise, and well - one lovely tallboy dresser was painted pink. see what i mean? too hip. too now. i like the shabby stuff but not when its manufactured ok? i like it to be more "found" if you will. However, i did indeed come home with 2 treasures. A postcard (i'll post at another time) and an eggcup. i was playing in my sketchbook yesterday. I painted with acrylics and watercolor crayons and prismacolors and the receipt from the store and i printed off a scan from one of my favorite childrens books "Eloise". Eloise holds a special place in my heart and for that of my sisters. We first came to know Eloise in the early 1970's when my baby sister received the book as a gift from my cousin. She also sent my sister an Eloise postcard from The Plaza. We lived in New Jersey and my cousin lived in NY. Although as a child I'd been all over NYC I had never been to The Plaza. Anyway, when I included a scan of the drawing from the book as it says "an eggcup makes a very good hat". I've been thinking on that a lot - i need a little more Eloise thinking in my work.

I'm not obsessing - I'm scrapbooking

I really wish I could display these better ie side by side. In real life they look so much nicer and the color isn't quite right however - you get the idea.

My mother recently gave me the original professional portraits of me as a baby. I was wanting to get started on this mile high pile of stuff i want to scrapbook and this was on top of the pile. Along with it i decided to include a photo of me and my Dad as well as the label card that was on my basinette in the hospital nursery. Isn't that card the most wonderful thing? Of course my mom had saved it and knew i would want it. I hope you can see that my last name, Fisher, was rubber stamped on the card. Makes you think i was destined to rubber stamp right from the start huh?

In case you were wondering the paper is Anna Griffen - i have had it forever and when i looked at the nursery card i thought "i know that color pink". I went to my paper stash and sure enough, it was the same pink as the AG paper. The AG paper is an unusual shade of pink. Not a traditional pink - more of a vintage pink is the best way i can describe it. Anyway a little cardstock, some grosgrain ribbon and my sewing machine and i was done.

I'm keeping to a promise made to myself - i'm not going to obsess - i'm going to scrapbook. The journaling is addressed to my children. While i am saving the memories for them, the actual activity of scrapbooking is for me. But i want to enjoy myself instead of making myself nuts. And i am happy to say this was pure fun for me.

there should be a law & theresa anne

the day finally came - i cleaned my refrigerator. it isn't that i hadn't noticed it was dur-tee.
its one of those jobs that takes all morning.
or in this case, part o'the mornin and part o'this afternoon.
baruther
to even bother with it - its gotta be dirty in the first place - check.
then it has to be saturday - check
(why saturday? for some strange reason it was the day my mom always gottaroundtuit - so i guess it just sorta is our thing - we theresa's - more on that in a minute)
this is not a fancy refrigerator. i was looking through a magazine of my mom's recently and saw some lovely refrigerators in some ad and thought now would i want that? hmmm. No, she replied. i guess not. for various and sundry reasons it wasn't for me but it sure was purty.
Back to the cleaning - it you're gonna bother you have to take the whole thing apart. Of course, one wipes up the spills as they happen but to really clean it - you gotta disassemble. hence the all morning event.
there should be some kind of law about not cleaning on saturday is all i was thinking. course, no one made me. just the filth in the bottom of the refrigerator screaming my name is all.
I'm telling you -- you can eat off the thing now, its so shiney.
Now Theresa Anne - i'm a junior. Really. Actually once in school, for Valentine's Day a boy addressed my Valentine that way. Theresa Jr. bee-zar huh? Anyway, i'm named after my mother and i suppose it fits. When you name your children you just never know do you - if their name will really suit them. In this case, however, i'm as nuts as my mom. who knew? Now i'm happy to report i'm workin on the crazee everyday. Being a little less anal retentive as the days go by. Perhaps its my age or my exhaustion or my laziness finally coming to the fore. Whatever - i'm not quite so nuts about every little thing and that is something for which i'm grateful. I was working on a scrapbook page yesterday and decided i'd like to use some of my lovely Purple Onion designs stamps - the Great Circus ones. So beautiful and i thought they'd look just perfect on the pages. I stamped them and it's not quite perfect but you know, it looks good - see what i'm talking about:

There was a time when the lack of perfection woulda driven me up the proverbial wall and back again but not anymore. Aren't they just the prettiest stamps ever? I will finish up the layout and post it shortly.

Equal time, photography and kids

okay so i mentioned my other furry child, Frankie, the other day and felt it only fair to show you his handsome self. He was helping me do some laundry (thankfully staying out of the dryer today) and he looked just too darn cute.

Frankie is difficult to photograph. I hold no special photography skills. Every now and again i wished i had taken photography in college. At the time i had too many other things i wanted to do - classes to take like every drawing class, every printmaking class, painting, and a class in ceramics (to further the skills i already learned in high school and at the kick wheel of a family friend) and a silver jewelry making class. i have to be honest here and say i don't really have a burning desire to take better pictures - i don't want to be a photographer. i do fine and isn't that what this lovely digital camera is for? I don't have any fancy schmancy camera. It is a HP R927. It does have a lovely large screen - i love that. gone are the days of squinting thru those little peep holes - now there are big screens on these wee cameras - its just so wonderful to see what you're capturing - and in an instant knowing if you got the picture. Call it instant gratification if you want - i call it - i got that picture. now in years to come i can look at this and remember this - how cool is that? The pictures are a reference point for me. The only reason i even floated the idea of taking the photography class way back then is that i like to have that reference point. I draw. Sometimes i see something and i want to remember it clearly. i want to recreate that moment in a drawing or use that picture as a stepping off point.

Now, when lizziebelle said she was interested in taking photography in school (she's a high school sophomore) my reaction was YES... DOIT. Interesting huh? But i see its potential for her. Lizziebelle did indeed take the class last semester and i have to admit i was fascinated by it. (Just as i was fascinated by it when my other art major friends in college took it - but life is about choices and i'd made other, happy ones.) The stuff Lizziebelle came home with - most cool. She even had her dad and me helping her - we were subject matter for her assignments on a number of occasions. The girl has not been without a camera around her neck since she started that class. Now that the photography class is over she has moved on to a graphic design class. This time she is borrowing a digital camera from school and that camera has taken permanent residence upon her neck. i really am in awe of her most days. She has so much talent and dedication. It is just something to see.

And speaking of kids - furry and non: my other non-furry child is coming home today for his spring break. We are so excited to see him. We miss him while he's at school. He is a funny one that joseph. We called him last night as we hadn't heard from him and were wondering: a. if he needed a ride home and b. was he still coming home for the break. He sounded so happy and was filled with tales of how he was "destroying" his classes this semester. Translation: he's doing really well. He had a rough semester in the fall so this was good to hear. He and the girlfriend (whom we adore) will be heading out around noon - they'll be back here mid-afternoon. Of course we know we'll see him only for small moments during the weekend. Home friends will get most of the attention - he'll run in and out - eat probably one meal with us and borrow my car a lot. But that's ok. We just want to hear his funny self (he has a most amazing perspective on things LOL) and see his face. I'll probably take a picture. Or two.

coffee with friends and crusade #5

When i'm feeling not the greatest, my usual modus operandi is to hide out. i don't like to inflict my moody behavior on people if at all possible. I've been sorta up and down the last few weeks. On one hand i'm enjoying some of the benefits of not working - on the other hand I'm feeling a little without direction. Not sure what i should be doing - what i want to do. That kind of thing. Its hard to go from being crazy busy to having time on your hands - and knowing you need to make a decision and get on with life. Anyhow... a few weeks ago i made a date to meet up with some friends. Last nite i was thinking - what was i thinking when i made that date. I wanted to see them but i didn't want to talk about whats going on with me. My mother has throughout my life always said - just go - you'll have a nice time. Of course she is always right in this regard. So i said to myself, go - you'll have a nice time. And of course this time, I was right. These are good friends. Friends who didn't grill me about what was i going to do now or what have i been doing. They just wanted to see me. Talk about nothing important. It was the nicest 2-1/2 hours i've spent in a while. And the coffee was pretty good. We made plans to do something next week and the week after. Which is good.
Yesterday when i was having a moment (or two) i hauled out my sketchbook which i've been lax about keeping lately and starting playing with some things. i had seen a challenge on Michelle Ward's website - http://michelleward.typepad.com/how_cool_is_that/
Crusade#5 and thought i'd work out some of what has been going on in my head and do that challenge. some stamps and some pearl ex and some tissue and some watercolor crayons. it felt good. not sure about the results but it was good to do.