holding down the fort

while the i like you girls are in chicago for the renegade craft fair, i'm minding the store.

yesterday was an OK sales day, someone bought one of my birds so that was fun! most of the day i sit on the internet and think about how much stuff i need to make for my sales, coming up just one month from now!

i've been invited to participate in a group show out in san fran, so i'm SUPER excited about it. more details as i know about them, i promise! i went garage saling this AM and found a mini-cuckoo clock, which i think may become a necklace for a flavor-flav inspired wall mounted cuckoo bird! the guts of the clock are intact, but apparently not working, so i'll also have some gears and other interesting bits to play with.

i'm also going to make some shadow boxes, like these oldies-but-goodies, but glassless, so that people can interact with them as they wish. i made those in late 2006 for a holiday sale, and most of them sold before i took photos (dummy!) but they combined collage, railroad figures, and beads. i really dug them, and i haven't made many more since. but dude, i think it's time!

day two....

day two of my new job @ the children's theatre and it's awesome. i didn't sleep a wink last night, unfortunately, as i was thinking about how excited i was to go back! yay!

i made a delish soup with some turkey sausages my dad cooked up..here's the basics! gonna eat lunch with sara again tomorrow, we like gawking at the kewl kids at mcad.

turkey snausage soup

take two turkey bratwurst and cook them with 1 T of oil and 1/2 a small chopped onion, and crumble the cooked bratwurst, removing casing. do not drain off the fat. you're gonna want it!
add 3 large chopped cooked and peeled potatoes, and one large chopped tomato (or two small ones). throw in a few cups of water, and a small can of tomato paste. pepper and salt and some mrs. dash don't hurt either.

cake-filled weekend

i left thursday evening for a wedding in devil's lake, north dakota. two of my favorite students got hitched, and i got to help them out by doing the flowers for the ceremony and reception. i had to thumb a ride with two of my other former students and go back with a different group, because the dude i was going to drive with backed out a few days before the wedding....i wouldn't have been able to drive anyway because my cold was just starting to turn nasty. but this post isn't about my cold, or how i am constantly amazed by the volume of dirty kleenex i can generate in one 6 hour period, or by how much sleep i need when i'm sick.
anyway.....


i can't tell you how happy i am for the bride and groom, and how honored i was to be able to help them celebrate their marriage!


everyone in her church pitched in, and they had friends and family do the music for the ceremony, a big group of school friends came to set up the tables for the reception and help me with the flowers, her mom grew almost all the flowers we used, and baked the bread and made the pickles for dinner. it truly was a celebration where everyone had a role. they will always be surrounded by the people who were there to witness their wedding. folks who want them to succeed. what an amazing way to start out a life.

after getting back late last night, i slept all day and then went to a surprise dinner/birthday roast for a friend i've known since we were both 5. another super fun gathering of friends, telling stories, laughing at old photos and videos. and he was totally surprised!

gonna do a shot of nyquil and drift off to dreamland now. tomorrow i have to clean my room (it only took 9 days for my parents to insist i should do it, i got a pass today because i was alseep) AND the studio, AND, pick out my outfit for the first day of work on tuesday! yay!

Feelin' Owly....

Made up a bunch of Owls from some newly felted sweaters. It's hard to let them go sometimes!

The pink one with green tummy is going to go to a store, the rest are on my etsy shop now!

clean sweep

i finished cleaning my apartment and set the keys inside a cupboard, shut off the lights, and left. closing a door on living in st. paul, for now, and i'm getting more settled in hugo. the drive doesn't seem so bad anymore, but i have been gassing up a whole lot more than i used to. i am going to try to use a bike for short runs to town and to white bear, at least when i can.

my sister and her new hubby are in town, they rented a truck up in forest lake to take back a lot of her memorabilia, and some furniture. however....

apparently folks have been stealing catalytic converters to sell for drug money. seriously. so the first truck they tried to rent, they had to REPLACE THE CONVERTER while they waited. and when david drove it, the transmission was wonkified. a guy came out to look at it, and said, you're gonna need a new truck. so we are still waiting, (after being on hold for what seemed like days) to find out if they can get another truck on the busiest moving weekend of the year, or if they're going to have to delay their trip back.


raja is going with them. i'm so happy she's going to be getting the love and attention of my sister again, raj has gotten used to the other cats but she's always trying to escape!

betsy and i have been going through all these boxes in the garage, divvying up ancient family linens, dishes, etc. we poured through 3-4 boxes of our childhood clothes and had some great laughs. discarded a lot of things. and i got some great fabric for use in upcoming projects. betsy is 7 years older than me, and my cousins are another 2-3 years older than her, so some of the hand-me-downs were first worn in the late 60's/early 70's so you can imagine the fantastic patterns (including many rainbows, accurate and not so much), styles, and materials we're coming across. my sister's favorite phrase was 'that's horrifying'.

dinner last night was salmon my brother caught in alaska (not so local, but better than farmed salmon!) , and potatoes, tomatoes (with basil and mozzarella), corn, and salad from my parents' own garden. everyone was so impressed by the delish grub, and i am SO happy they've been reading animal, vegetable, miracle! if you haven't read it, it will change your life.