Has the whole world gone MAD???

If you live in Michigan, I'm sorry... hey, i live here & wonder why i do everyday except for the 6 sunny days we have a year! Hawaii- where were you when i was graduating from college & NOT thinking about my future happiness? I digress... I was starting to say: if you live in Michigan surely you're seen the following picture & blurb out of the Grand Rapids Press. For those of you lucky enough to live somewhere else: this woman, out of the kindness of her heart, was watching the neighbor kids before the bus came so their moms could get to work (yeah, some people still have jobs here in Michigan) on time in the morning & now they want to throw the poor woman in JAIL! Someone in my life (past life) owes me around $30,000, was court ordered to pay & hasn't paid one cent of it.... is he headed for jail?? HECK NO, they've got to make way for nice mommy's who help other mommy's!

Lisa Snyder, left, watches kids play at their bus stop, which is also her driveway, Friday, Sept. 25, 2009 with other neighborhood mothers Francie Brummel, back left, and Mindy Rose, back right, in Middleville, Mich. Snyder has been notified by State of Michigan that she is breaking the law because she watches her neighbors' children each morning before they get on the school bus. State Department of Human Services officials told her last week that she was operating an illegal day care.

(AP Photo/The Grand Rapids Press, Katy Batdorff)

Is that the DUMBEST thing you've seen in a long time, or what? Middleville, MI is this tiny little town south of Grand Rapids- the kind of town that stays out of the news for the most part. This story was on the TODAY show yesterday & today it's on the front page of YAHOO! Geesh i only dream on this kind of fame & attention! Personally, if it was me gettin' all this prime time, i would have been sure to put on my "1st Dibs on the Hottie" tube top & girl.... you KNOW i have one!!

I've been in my studio quite a bit this week even though i am fighting off the swine flu, no really... i'm sure i have it! I'm going to try & get some pictures of the goodies i've been working on. Have a GREAT day!

~m

PS: a special thanks to little miss crafty for showing me how to cut & paste on my mac!! Go check her out, she is one talented chickie!!

Art Prize- it was art-licious!

Oh my gosh is my computer connection S~L~O~W today.... since i started to download these pictures, i've done 2 loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, raised some chickens & taken the bar exam... geesh! Anyway this weekend was the start of ART PRIZE in Grand Rapids, MI. Google it for more info! We headed down there Sunday & WOW, was it a gorgeous day!! The weather was PERFECT... I guess that's why there were 9 bazillion people down there!

This is my view for a large portion of the day....

Here are darling & i standing by a giant wall of plastic garbage! See the legs in the top rt portion of the picture? yeah- there was a section where you could crawl up on this thing & right at that "step" was written in giant letters "DO NOT CLIMB ON ARTWORK"... see how well people listen?! All kinds of parents were helping their kids up there so they could have their picture taken... Does no one think rules apply to them anymore, seriously? The Mr. & I are "rules people" & that just drives us nuts. I think partly because we have people that are in our life (unfortunately) that do NOT follow rules & the rest of us pay for it... Ok, Sister Me is gonna get down off my soap box & quit my preachin' now!

Yeah, i had a jacket, you never know when you;re going to get cold in MI & that purse... or small piece of luggage i feel the need to lug everywhere! Bee sting? I've got an epi pen, dirty hands? i've got wipes, 4 sticks of lip gloss, pictures of my daughter as a baby, pens, camera, blackberry, a can opener, inflatable pillow, and the kitchen sink. If we suddenly became homeless darling daughter & i could live in it too!

there was a giant send off of thousands? hundreds? of paper airplanes in rainbow colors & darling was so excited to find one! We missed the actual take-off, but there were airplanes ALL over! Don't you love how her plane coordinates with her outfit?

A waterfall of melted glass- prettier in person! of course some boys were picking up pieces of it & poking each other with the shards 'cause 12 year old boys are smart like that!

Here are darling & i sitting on some crazy fabric mushroom thingy....

then we ate lunch with Stevie Wonder....

then back out for some more sculptures along the Grand River:

The Loc Ness monster:

a GIANT table & chairs made by the artist that founded "sticks" furniture. Do you know of sticks furniture? If not, google it, such cool art-furniture!!!

This stuff was HUGE, it was raised by a crane on top of a bridge downtown! As we were walking under it I heard some little girl saying "mommy if that falls it's gonna fall right on us"- oh NO, a child after my artsy-brother's heart! I have a brother that suffers from anxiety disorder & this girl was speaking his language!

Some funny faces on the side of a building:

There was a lot of art & it was FABULOUS to see how many people came downtown to support this incredible event, but the crowds made it hard to see everything, that & the fact i didn't grab a map or decide ahead of time what i'd like to see... planning isn't really my thing! :) If you're in the area- head down & check it out, if you're not: google it & see it online without the crowds! i would post more pictures, but i don't have another 9 hours to load 6 more pictures...

This Friday: the movie "Whip It", can't wait for that!! The mister & I watched: "Changeling" with Angelina Jolie & John Malkovich on DVD. I LOVED it, it's a true story & i almost always love those. It's a dark & sad story, but Angie (she told me i could call her that" did a great job as a mother!

Ok, It's now 12:20 & i have got stuff to do... Have a great day & i'll be back tomorrow with some bad egg salad...

Hey Lady where'd ya get that bird?

As i was sitting in my 16 year old Volvo the other day outside my daughters school, i began to wonder how long it would be before this car would embarrass her. I mean i love the beast, i think it's cool, it's vintage, it's the color of a tomato and has leather- what's NOT to love? Perhaps my parents thought the same of their hideous rides we were forced to be seen in as children. Now I'm not sure I have these in order, but let me give you the low down on some of the pieces of embarrassing crap we were forced to be seen in:

• Vega- the color of a school bus (literally the same orange/yellow!). Most vivid memory of this car- sitting in the hatchback with the neighbor girl while our moms picked blueberries. A stray dog came around the car & the neighbor girl pulled the hatchback down as my finger was on the little metal thingy that held the door up & split my finger! (just spend 15 min. on flickr trying to grab some pics, but still haven't figured out how to cut & paste a pic to my blog from the web on my mac... anyone? anyone?)
• Chevy Lemans- bright red, power seats & fins... I think it had fins, in my memory it does! My mom LOVED this car & was so proud that she paid CASH for it. It had white leather/pleather? seats that were power & was "quite a car in it's day" according to mom. My memory of it, i actually have 3. 1- being dropped off at school & all the kids making fun of it & how old it was, vintage was NOT cool back then! i remember just wanting to walk to school even during a downpour so i didn't have to withstand the humiliation. Memory 2- my mom's watch chain getting stuck in the horn & blowing that baby like a trumpet all the way home from downtown! Thankfully we didn't get behind a motorcycle gang! Memory 3- In it's later years that car started to chirp, chirp like a rooster not a parakeet! One day my mom was slowing down to take a corner & the car is screeching like we're choking an eagle & some guy yells "HEY LADY, WHERE'D YA GET YOUR BIRD?". At that moment i think my mom wanted to crawl in a hole, she lost all love for ol' red at that moment & soon it was sold for $300 i believe. My brothers could die now thinking of that "cool" car sold for a mere $300!
• Now i know i've mentioned our PIMP van before, but lets recap: Custom full sized Van (in the day before the now "glamorous" (cough, cough) "mini van".) White exterior with the words "BLUE JEANS" on the side!! Blue shag carpet, blue pleather seats with blue burlap fabric, blue dash, blue steering wheel, blue couch in the back.... yeah it was BLUE jeans all right & they didn't disappoint! My most vivid memory in this, thankfully is NOT eating a magic mushroom... We took this baby cross country to California (go back & look- i already posted this story) with 2 parents, 2 Grandparents, 3 kids & a plastic banjo! Yee-haw!
• Dad's blue truck. I always think of that line from the movies "Planes, trains, and automobiles" : "Do you feel this vehicle is safe for highway travel?" "yes, i do, yes, i do" This truck was beyond nasty! At one time in history it was blue (long before we were the lucky owners) but somehow was peeling in a way that left giant purple circles on it! Yep, paint that peeled in circles.... The sides of the truck bed were loose so my Dad just yanked 'em off & made it a flatbed. Now i'm sure you're picturing my dad at this point with a front tooth missing, a coon-skin cap, and bib overalls with one strap missing, but NO... he had a great job, a job that required a suit everyday! Don't ask me what his problem was... I had to ride with him in this piece of crap to school for early morning band practice (don't even get me started on BAND... marching band outfits are NOT made for 68 lb girls that aren't even close to being 5' tall! we'll discuss this later!). I would sit on the floor on the passenger side amongst the 15 basketballs. Yeah, he stored them on the floor because he was the girls BB coach. i was MORTIFIED! To those of you that had to park next to this piece of crap over at the Kalamazoo Country Club... I apologize for him!

Honestly, this is only the tip of the ice berg of mortifying things i had to experience as a child. My mom likes to call them "memories" and yes, yes they are!

Ok, let's end this with cuteness:

Darling Daughter & her baby: Teddy in a tu-tu

Tell me I'm not alone... did your parents drive a freak show? Go ahead, share, you're amongst friends!

*stuff*

i totally feel out of my blogging groove, it was there & then.... the computer took a crap & it was gone.... Hmmm, i feel like i need to hang out at Goodwill or downtown on skid row to get a good story, notice i did not say i should hang out at the MTV awards or something glamorous for a good story- i find celebrity's BORING! Ok, shut up, i do watch Entertainment Tonight, but i find a good bum more interesting than Brittany or Lindsay any day! Yesterday i went to lunch with friends, which was great! Summer was so weird, we were so busy doing nothing that we didn't have time for anything! Darling daughter just wanted to sleep in, hang out, play with the mother slut's kittens & jump on the trampoline. There was no schedule & i couldn't get anything done. I'm totally artsy fartsy & like to fly by the seat of my pants but i do need some type of schedule or i'm just a total slacker! Now that school is back in session i have put myself on a strict schedule:

• 7:00 am get up
• fix breakfast
• start yelling at darling daughter to EAT!
• get her clothes ready & check her back pack, tell her to hurry & finish EATING!
• yell at her that she just doesn't understand what hurry means
• make sure she is getting dressed, brushing hair & teeth, and going potty
• 7:58 yell for her & Teddy to get IN the car
• 8:00 back out of the garage like a bat outta hell & fly over to the bus stop
• she gets out into the swarm of mosquito's that are literally eating everyone they can because being 1st in line for the bus is a HUGE deal when you are 6 & in the 1st grade!
• i sit in the tank & wrestle the dog (dear Teddy, our Yorkie) off me
• 8:14 back at home, sit at computer & pretend this blog is a real job :)
• my goal is to be dressed & down in my studio by 10 am.... somedays are better than others & besides, i'm JUST getting back on my schedule, right?

Now, if you've been reading a while, you know of darling daughter, if not, here is a re-cap: i adopted her from China by CHOICE (childbirth freaks me out &, in my opinion, is NOT natural- although many like to point out giving birth is the MOST natural thing you can do.... ok, a person coming out of your JJ...? go right ahead!) anyway, she is very stoic, an old soul, serious, shy in public & LOVES to do math workbooks for fun- got the picture? She is the daughter of a full on right brained artsy type that does not mind being the center of attention "Hey y'all, have YOU SEEN ME YET?". Yesterday i made a stop at Target to grab a few things & saw this cute hat. I thought maybe she would want to work it into her Halloween costume since she wants to be "a ghost without a sheet on my face"... a ghost? REALLY?? Geesh, doesn't she realize that she has an artist at her disposal that can not only make a costume but can think up ALL kinds of cool stuff?! A ghost... I'm all about letting her be what she is comfortable in & making certain choices on her own, so i decide to go with it, but of course i'm going to have to go all Martha Steward - Betsy Johnson on that outfit! Visions of white tulle & glitter are running through my head. I see this scully hat with pink interior & long braids & think maybe, just maybe we can work with this. Well, when i get home & show her the hat i get a flashback to frosty the snowman "there must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found for when they put it on his head he began to dance around...". She wasn't dancing, but she transformed into a goof ball!!! Who loves her some Billy-Bob Teeth??? Yeah, she's purty....

i love it!!

Anyway, it's now 10 am & here i still am in my PJ's.... behind schedule already!

a post about nothing...

Now if that title doesn't draw 'em in, i don't know what will!

TWENTY years ago today, Baywatch debuted... and 15 years ago Friends debuted... Like my title says: a post about nothing. Seriously, i was going to post yesterday but i thought - what the heck do i have to say, i'm neck deep in laundry & who CARES... i've got nothin', i couldn't even make laundry funny & believe me doing laundry till 10:30 at night is NOT FUNNY! A giant squid found in the gulf of Mexico (yes, i did have to change the spelling of golf to gUlf) - 103 lbs and 19 ft long! Ok, i have the morning shows on, can you tell?! As darling daughter was getting ready for school that Snuggie commercial came on & let's just say "Put on your Snuggie" will NOT stop going through my head & yes, i did sing it till she was begging me to stop. Kanye has been offered 10 million by the WWE to wrestle "lightly"...

**~**You're welcome for your morning news update!**~~**

I got this new mac & honestly, i'm going to blame it for the lack of posts, that & the fact nothing exciting has been going on. The mac.... i'm still learning & i can't figure out how to cut & paste so i use my excuse of "i have no pictures to post" as my out. If anyone knows how to cut & paste pictures off the Internet so i can post them on here, please: LET ME KNOW!

I'm headed to lunch with a friend, i'll make sure to take my camera in case something exciting happens...

i've also been in the art room quite a bit with the girls back in school, so i'll have some goodies to show soon: new button rings, OOAK (one of a kind) painted clipboards, funky kawaii jewelry...

Have a great day and check out artprize in Grand Rapids, MI! I'll have more on that tomorrow! It's going to be something to see....

Whew... it's been Too long...

Well, so much has happened during that time that my computer took a big crap on us, i'm going to give you a quick re-cap & then we can move on... Look at me all "everyone hangs on every moment of my life like i'm Lindsay Lohan or Kanye West"

The Mister has been a gardening fool this summer! He's like a love child born of Martha Steward & June Cleaver! Growing, hoeing, and canning- that's what his summer has consisted of! Here's our little munchkin with a load of potatoes!

yeah, that's a glow stick in the freezer... don't you have one in yours?

Look at the mister all organized... did he grow up in Idaho? look how he loves those potatoes & groups them with their own kind! Don't you like how he draws a line with the gourds? and speaking of those gourds... he tried to feed us one! I kept saying "isn't that a gourd?" oh no, he was convinced it was some kind of squash... You don't even want to know how hard the skin on that baby was! YUCK! The bumpy texture is FAR from appetizing, that's for sure!

then of course was our "camping in a hotel" trip. While our poor friends sat around the lake-sized puddle in their campsite, we went to the hotel pool! And who loves them some 1980's style airbrushed dolphins? Why, i do, that's who!

Then it was time to get those girls off to school: 1st grade & a Jr. in HS!

and... if you're from the Grand Rapids, MI area you may have been lucky enough to see this roving piece of... ART?? It's often at Hobby Lobby where he's buying more supplies to pimp his ride! The day I saw it here, he was painting something about the New England Patriots on one side and the other side said "Bi-polar happens" & had a picture of Brittany Spears modge podged to the front fender. FYI: darling daughter was in the back seat snapping the pics for me since the owner was right there "working" on his car- don't you love how i have her going all "secret squirrel" for me? I saw the car again this past week & the New England Patriots had been painted over & MSU was having homage paid to them...

and since we now have a 16 year old, my VW bug changed hands & off we went to look for a "family car". We looked at a couple SUV's, but when i saw this big tomato red momma mobile, i knew she had to be mine! It's like driving a tank after zipping around in my bug for the past 6 years! It's a 1993 & runs like a top. It even has camel colored leather which has been something i put on my "must have" list. One night after we brought the ol gal home, the mister says "so how does it feel to get the vehicle you wanted?" The vehicle i WANTED?? I then had to remind him the vehicle i WANTED was the $83,000 white Range Rover that was still sitting on the lot teasing me with it's butter soft camel leather interior trimmed in black. Don't get me wrong, i love my volvo, but obviously the Mister was a bit confused... God love him though...

well, that's it for now! have a great day & i'm SOOO glad to be back... Ahhhh, i missed you!

I'm BACKKKKKKKKKK!!!

Seriously, did you think a bear ate me in the woods while i was on our "camping trip"? IF you know me, you know i never even went near the woods! Get this though: I went on a canoe trip down the river & even i find that hard to believe. i have NO pictures ON the water because "someone" convinced me we would PROBABLY end up in the water... We didn't, and i was so sad i missed all the photo opportunities... My friend & i paddled that canoe for 3 1/2 hours... my arms were ready to FALL OFF!

Here i am at our friends camp site... you do realize i stayed at a hotel, right? Notice i'm wearing a big fluffy fleece hoodie?! It was FREEZING!! I felt so bad for our friends, it's was COLD and rainy except for the day we left... of course! See those folks behind me? The guy in the yellow... well by the next afternoon he was standing on that picnic table to wash his dishes, the table was pretty much an island in the middle of a huge puddle! Yep- their site was totally flooded, fun, hun??

The Mister brought his tent (not the kind you sleep in, the one over my head in this picture) & i thought that was weird, but apparently it often rains while one is trying to camp... which goes back to my initial reaction of this whole camping thing.... WHY?????????????? The tent behind me was our friends sisters and because it also ended up in the middle of a lake, they got a whirl pool suite at the local Days Inn!

The little fire that could... it was giving us everything it could despite the downpour...

The next day we went bowling... not my fave sport, and nothing i am good at!!! I've bowled a 38 as an adult... It was fun though and who doesn't love the shoes that strangers with foot funk have also worn? and the carpet in bowling ally's- always SO pretty... who wouldn't want "firework" carpet in their formal dining room??

When we got back from our trip our computer started acting funny- as in: shutting down every time you tried to turn it on... that's not frustrating at all! Turns out it had 17 viruses and 2 of them were impossible to remove. Did i save anything?? No, no, of course not! The guy working on it was able to get to my pictures- WHEWWW! i had thousands on there that i hadn't saved to disk or printed, smart, i know! So... now we have a new MAC and let me just say: GO GET ONE! My friends were telling me a mac was the ONLY option & within moments of walking into the apple store & talking with one of their self proclaimed "nerds", i KNEW i had to have one!! I'm NO computer genius and the fact these babies don't get viruses was almost reason enough to get it!!

Ok, that's it for today & i am SOOOOOO glad to be back!! I'm off to play with this mac & try & figure it all out :)

Have a great day friends, i've missed you!

~m