Sunday, May 18, 2008

garage sales and kitten tails


strange, my banner seems to be malfunctioning!

anyway-this is the little kitten who has gone to a new home.i had an amazing day of garage saling yesterday. i got pretty much everything i needed. while the umbrella was not free, it is sassy, red, and has tassles on it! and the woman assured me it's machine washable. which is good, because some birds have used it as target practice from the looks of it. contemplating sewing an alternate cover for it, red is one of my favorite decorating colors, but it's not part of my company's color scheme at all.

it needs a base, and as is, stands just about 6.5 feet tall, which is JUST a bit too short if i'm wearing any kind of shoe at all. gonna have to engineer some kind of a stand. i'm thinking a PVC pole in the ground, with a pin that i can use to secure it about 1-1.5 feet off the ground. that should work, right?

i also bought a gianormous basil plant at the farmer's market with sara in the am, and some yardage at my friend angela's garage sale; lovely lime green linen on a bolt and some fun prints and mohair scraps. found a few sweaters, and at the thrift store, some wooden blocks and another stripey GAP sweater. those puppies are getting harder to find!

quick nap at my house in st. paul, then dinner with old friends at a place down in bloomington. one girl is 9 months preggers and was having contractions at dinner, which she assured us was completely normal, but she looked very, very uncomfortable! i hope this babe comes out soon, for her sake!

i am still house sitting at my parent's farm, which is idyllic in the morning. tons of birds and other wildlife. they have eaten all the food from the feeders, and i have some friends coming out this afternoon to see the birds in action, so i better get out there and fill them up.
and feed the real live cats that live here too.

after church with my gram, i hope to get started on another round of paper mache birds, using the wood blocks as bases. if only there were enough hours in the day............

Friday, May 16, 2008

out tha door

i made some new animals, posted them this AM on etsy, and one has sold already! wow! the lighter, smaller kitten up there, is going to live with a new family.

begonia the bunny here is one of my favorite animals ever. it's gonna be hard to give her up, but i hope she finds a happy home too!

i have a backyard-garage sale next weekend, and an outdoor fair the weekend after. i'm looking for a more creative solution than the regular 10x10 pop-up display tent. in my mind, a fabulous fringed umbrella just shows up at my door. for free. wouldn't that be nice?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

denouement

webster's online sez;
Main Entry:
de·noue·ment
Variant(s):
also dé·noue·ment \ˌdā-ˌnü-ˈmäⁿ, dā-ˈnü-ˌ\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French dénouement, literally, untying, from Middle French desnouement, from desnouer to untie, from Old French desnoer, from des- de- + noer to tie, from Latin nodare, from nodus knot
Date:
1705
1 : the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work
2 : the outcome of a complex sequence of events


i am feeling a strong sense of the ending of a chapter of my life. school is letting out, and after last week's hellish 12-16 hour days getting ready for the department banquet, i'm ready to kiss it good bye.

i'm being told there may not be a need for me to return in the fall, nor any job for me to do over the summer. as you can imagine, i'm a little upset by this. i have to job hunt again. and i really hate job hunting.

there was a faint notion of me buying a house, but without a steady job and insurance, that's not going to happen.

on the craft front, i'm doing reasonably well at sales in real life and online. i do need to devote more time to updating my website and this blog though. i STILL don't have internet access at home, which, for a blogger, is ridiculous.

i have several house sitting gigs over the next few weeks, and sales as well. if i'm going to make a 'go' at being an artist, it's now or never. i guess.