Sunday, February 26, 2012

self improvement, vacations and randomness

i have been remiss of late, not writing here more than anything. 
my head is not in the game.
it may simply be my annual case of mid-February doldrums in play.
by March, you could kick me to the curb. 
lucky for me, someone who is a little hysterical and extra, over the top 
will be turning 15 on March 1. 
OH mY GooDNeSS.
yes indeedy. my baby. she is all kinds of excited about that.

also, it is that special time of year for one of the many run-on school vacations ... 
first the almost 15 year old is sleeping towards the last 
Sunday of her break. 
{i will say it succinctly, her teachers really are not very good. }
too much homework for any vacation ever!!!!
{latin homework.}
{ math homework.}
{ read a book for english. write an essay on book for english. make poster board project for book. }
{read 40 pages of history. write essay on 40 pages of history. }
this is a lot for a kid to do when they are trying to get caught up on their body and mind building sleep deficits from regular school days. 
i am 100% on the kids' side in this argument. 
*
the boy comes home tomorrow. 
school let out on friday, so he went to "meet the fockers".
his girlfriend's family included him in the exit from school for dinner and a night at their home.
he was given a lift to the bus station and travelled south to boston. 
where he hooked up with his older sister and stayed overnight with her. 
he will be rolling into the 401 around 1pm tomorrow.
this will be just in time to see his baby sister, ms.weisenheimer extraordinaire, play her hockey game. 
i believe he will be here for two weeks. 
{cooking and food bill induced hand wringing here.}
*
finally the eldest will be rolling in for a week. 
a full house for one week!!!
squeals of joy!!!
yes, that is possible in the light of virtual cohabitation. 
reality will naturally offer many more challenges...
i am gonna try to keep it together though. 
***
anyways...
back to my little world.
this blog needs some TLC.
i love the various flowery things that compose the header, the background and the side areas. 
the colors are totally me. 
unfortunately, the conventional looks of sides that are evident on most other folks' blogs are missing. 
when i downloaded a few things to try to get the colors and patterns right, 
i lost my mind trying to get the rest of it just so. 
fixing these issues takes a lot more energy than my yelling at my poor computer. 
it takes someone with skills. 
i have friends who can do these things but they seem way too busy. 
also, my daughter, who is a digital art major at college... 
is doing her college related stuff and i can't get her to help while she is doing her own work. 
so i am bumping along with something that is not what is up to grade. 
i am going to hold steady for a while longer so that i can find someone who gets 'me'
and that can help put what i want back into proper focus. 

this is concurrent with the miserableness of the server that holds all of the contents of my website being so dead, a doornail struck through it, would only make it look good. 
"and darling, to look good is to feel good.'

so i got me some things to take care of. more soon than not.
how this will be possible with a full house... it is beyond me. 
so i am going to simply sweep it to the side for now. 
forgive me please?

***

the reason i decided to write something tonight is that i have a bone to pick with some people. 
i read a lot of magazines. 
i love magazines. 
i find them inspiring. 
the photography, the text, the ideas shared...
they all come together leaving me wanting more. 
and more and more and more. 
my dream is of no obesity, in spite of unstoppable gluttony. 
yes, this is not real, but it is a dream. 
the closest achievement of this, is pinning like an insane person on pinterest. 

back to my point. 
recycling in the conventional manner of putting lightly rinsed cans and bottles, 
poorly corralled newspapers and cardboard carton into recycling bins is hard to fulfill around here. 
my daughter has this as one of her chores. usually, it is more of one of my chores. 
nagging and other such inspirational tones are used to get it accomplished. 
my kind of recycling is more along the lines of how i can transform junk. 
the stuff no one really wants anymore can be repurposed into very lovable stuff. 
also it can be remarkably gratifying personally. 

that all having been said, 
i read magazines about recycling junk. 
my home is a mess with all sorts of stuff transitioning from one thing into another. 
nothing here is free of dog hair. 
nor is there always dinner on the table at six o'clock. 
i gave that up for a Thursday about 7 years ago. 
no looking back on that front...
a rich and full fantasy life is in play here. 
it is better for rose colored glasses to be worn than slow down to keep cleaning things tidy. 
i just can't do that constant cleaning thing. 
my personal deal with myself is to clean one thing every day. if i should do more, that's great. 
if not, i know i will survive.
it is too great an uphill battle with all the other things that need to be attended to. 

we do not have the option really to vacation. 
too many things are pulling in too many directions. 
generally they are based on developing income. 
so i read my magazines and grow inspired, rested and rejuvenated.
not always does this translate into something that is functional or real. 
what becomes of my dreams is sometimes a mental filing cabinet full of goodies. 
things that  i can mull over and later possibly make real. 

 the meat and spuds of my life are devoted to 
making kind of mundane vintage metal pieces into more palatable components for my jewelry habit.
for example, some barrettes i made this week.  


or some flowers about to become a few necklaces.

or some flowers for a friend that makes other extra pretty jewelry.
(these still need their silver or gold trim and their rhinestone glories)



anyways, i have a pal in cyberspace. 
she is amazing. 
her name is Cathe Holden. 
her blog:

there is virtually nothing that she looks at that stays set. 
her mind is rolling around at a million revolutions a minute. 
her blogging was published in 
FLEA MARKET STYLE 2011

also in this same mag, were blogs from other very clever people.
i looked them all up and was taken in by 
Marion Parson's daily blog. 
she can be found at:

the incredible energy, vision and time spent by these two women is amazing. 
i follow them nearly daily... 
anyways, i have been so smitten with what they do, i
 sent each of them a piece i made of their choosing. 

Cathe's choice:
featuring her clever little penny pendant

and Marion's choice:
a brightly colored pink and green bracelet.

you must know how great the pleasure was to make stuff for folks i admired. 
so i was sucking up. 
 sadly, it is one of my great skills... to suck up. 
and i did get some very personal returns on one of these introductions. 
just saying. 
i met some absolutely darling women. 

anyways, i was looking at missmustardseed.com this evening. 
the friday link party was up. 
in other words, i was looking at the posting she had from this past friday. 
usually, it is filled with some of the most amazing transformative furniture makeovers ever. 
i love seeing what everyone is doing. 
all the stuff i seemingly have no time to do myself.

unfortunately i looked at a few random samples, not the usual high standard. 
i was crestfallen. 
sometimes a nice piece of furniture is in sore need of some love. 
it does not always need a combo of annie sloan chalk paint and some oops color paint. 
beautiful pieces of furniture are being repurposed. 
the things that are happening are taking a turn for the badly abused furniture society. 

i would like to say, if you see it on line, it is not always your best choice to try. 
some folks dive in without any of the skills needed to do a good job of things. 
not that i want to display my utter snobbishness, 
but some stuff just needs to be lightly sanded and richly waxed to bring out its original glory. 
it is not always the best case to paint everything turquoise. 
those who know me, must realize what personal sacrilege it is for me to say this. 
please... someone out there. ask folks to look at what they are doing. 
put a little buzz in their ears to ask,
 does this armoire really look better all decoupaged with upside down 
xeroxed copies of old sheet music?
should this piece of furniture truly benefit from unnatural wear patterns scratched into it
with a disc sander? 
would that solid oak, craftsman style dresser truly look nicer in all white?

i appeal to you folks... try to use some design sense. 
look at a magazine or catalog more carefully. 
please?
if not for you, then for me?

my wheels are grinding and slowing just looking at some of these efforts. 
i am sure that you have all the skills to mimic the mustard seed more elegantly. 
it takes looking at your potential with a more discerning eye.
i know later you will be more proud of your work if you do. 
sorry,  i just needed to share that. 
work at things to make a fantastic outcome, no matter what it is. 
mediocre will disappoint in the long run.
if you do enough of any stuff, growth will happen and you will see it. 
leap frog over your own crap to get to good stuff. 
pride in work is good. 
especially when it is well placed. 

time to stop being critical of others.
i have my own stuff to deal with, trying my own hand at doing something better. 


xoxo.w.

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