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Showing posts from October, 2009

Walking the Walk

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A few posts back , I talked about the woe I felt over not being able to have another baby. Instead of just clucking her tongue, a friend of mine, Holly , did this... All the way from Hawaii, a package was delivered to my doorstep. I opened it to see this. Then I unzipped it... ooo... suspense... Ta da! Kid, that little thing spells your doom. Doom, I say! Bring on the baby sister! BTW, Holly will be selling these pouches in her etsy shop as soon as she gets a move on and OPENS IT! (Not that I'm being anything but lovingly encouraging, eh?)

Books, Books Everywhere and Not a Word to Read

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This is the wall in my dining room. I've sorted my 100+ Readers Digest books into color groups. Now if I'm in the mood for a certain color, I can... Oh, who am I kidding? I just pick from the top.

I Like Bakersfield Today

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My hubby would die if he could read this post because he has known that it was a true sacrifice for me to move to Bakersfield after we got married. I had always heard jokes that started: "If Stockton is the armpit of California, Bakersfield is the..." Yeah. Anyway, I love rocks. I briefly considered geology in college. Bakersfield is close to a few places where you can find fossils and stuff. When I was at work on Saturday (*sigh*), Brian went with his brother and family to go fossil-hunting. I wanted to go so bad that I asked him to take me where they went [ but I won't do any digging because it's Sunday... ] so I could, uh, look. So we went just outside of town, about five miles ( that's all! ), drove off the road to this dirt-moguled area by the bike path and parked. We three (Kiff, Brian and me), got out and walked up the bike path about 2/3 mile before we got to this steep trail that led up the side of the hill. We don't have mountains here in Bako -

Ooh... hooked on motifs

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Have you seen this book ? It's AMAZING! If I had time to crochet, I'd be making tons of these! This is one of the problems of working at a library. It's all "free" so you end up getting greedy with all the books you can check out. Then you have a billion types of crafts you want to learn ALL AT ONCE and then you don't have time to do any of them because you are drooling over all the books. *sigh* Okay, in my next life, I will have more time. Yeah, right.

Last Day

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Today was my last day at the Southwest Branch. Every few years they like to shake us up a bit and have us get experience at another branch. And yes, keep us from getting territorial at "our" branches. I start tomorrow. I have a key and an alarm code. I don't know where the branch is very well, so I need to get directions. I don't know where the staff entrance is, so I'll have to wait for a co-worker to show up. I hope they like me.

Literary Boy

The other day I was talking to Kiff, trying to use my time as a Mommy wisely by having a teaching moment. "What sound does a doggie make?" I asked. "Ruff ruff!" Kiff answered. "What sound does a kitty make?" He hesitated, although I know he knows what sound a kitty makes. "Meow," I prompted. "Meow! Meow!" Kiff chimed. Thinking that I had to help now, I said, "What sound does a cow make?" and said, "Moo-ooo!" with him. "What sound does a pig make? Oink oink!" "NO Mommy! Pigs say, Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!"

Humility

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I am at the main library today where I work one day a week to fulfill my 40 hours. There are often down times at the desk when I don't have patrons to help and I have a few minutes to explore things. I am working on a tutorial for my folded books. In order to make this, I asked Odile from woollyfabulous for pointers. She kindly obliged, showing me the layout for her tutorial and giving me ideas. One suggestion was that I use Microsoft Publisher for my layout. We have this program here at work and I decided to try it. I'm pretty good at Word, but Publisher, not so much. While I was playing around with it, a colleague of mine came over and sat on the desk, watching me work. He then gave some suggestions. I listened patiently although what he was telling me, I already knew. This went on for a while and I wondered if he would just leave me alone. It was then that I let him guide me through a series of steps to make a text box. Text boxes are duh-easy. Well, guess what. He tau

Needs vs. Wants

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Brian asked if we could buy a new camera. I need one for Etsy, so I wanted to get one, too. Men have very different ideas about "needs" vs. "wants". I buckled and we bought the one that Brian said we "needed" but I insisted was a "want." I will be paying it off forever. Still, the quality of pictures is amazing!

If Wishes Were Fishes

Yesterday I had a long-overdue girly-appointment with my OB/GYN. I've been avoiding this appointment for about a year and a half, always hoping to return, not for a check-up, but because I was pregnant. It's been more than two years and nothing has happened. I have baby fever and see pregnant women everywhere. I talk about having a baby sometimes with Brian. Although he says he wants another baby, I don't hear the longing in his voice and I wonder if he really is glad we don't have another. He has two from a previous marriage and I worry that he feels "full" enough already. I love Alex and Kenzie and Kiff, but I want another of my own. I want to feel pregnancy one more time, to experience the wonder again. The weight in my chest got heavier the closer I drove to the doctor's office. I parked and sat in the car for a few minutes, composing my thoughts. I walked in the doors and the smell was overwhelmingly familiar - it reminded me of anticipation and giddy

Late Night

Last night I had to work on grading my papers before I had a mental breakdown. It's like in those dreams you have where you've signed up for a class and you either can't find the classroom or it's the final before you've even attended. And either way, you're not prepared. That's what it's felt like for the past two weeks. I forgot that it's the final this week for the class I didn't get the last set of papers graded and feedback back to the students. Some of them need a LOT of feedback. How did they get into college in the first place, I wonder? Anyway, after getting most of the papers in order (there is always one more you've forgotten to do), I went to bed and started reading Catching Fire by Susan Collins. Oh. My. Gosh. I stayed up way too late reading because I wanted to know what came next. I shouldn't plow through this one too fast because it's only the second in a trilogy...

Self-Conscious

Sometimes when I do my blog, I am so self-conscious that I have trouble forming my words. It's like I know I'm speaking to an audience and I wish I could speak like I'm talking to myself. Or maybe I'm self-conscious because I'm speaking to myself and that is how I understand. Or maybe I'm crazy. That is possible. Last night Brian helped me bring in my Readers Digests that I've had outside for a week or so. They are piled up and are a reminder of all the wonderful things I could be doing if I wasn't doing whatever it is that I have to do. I also have boxes of neat looking books that I want to make purses out of. Ugh. No time! In my spare moments at work, I pull out my yellow paper that I've been keeping my ideas for my book origami how-to book. I wonder if I can make a PDF that I can sell on my etsy site. I read about this woman on etsy who crocheted pomegranates out of wire and no one bought them because they were so expensive. Then she made up a pat

End of the weekend

I have Sundays and Mondays off. Today is the last day of my weekend and I did so much today that it might be restful to go back to work tomorrow... Behind me are Readers Digests stacked on the floor half way up the wall. I had sorted them according to color/design last week out on a table on the patio. It's supposed to rain tomorrow (yay!) so I brought them in. Now they will stare at me mockingly. To sleep, perchance to dream...

Dry Riverbed

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Shadows

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Circles Within Circles Book Art

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I am proud to present my latest creation: Circles Within Circles. I am very pleased with how it turned out. It took forever to figure out how to make the design, but I'm happy with the result. I've listed it in my Etsy shop ...

Ups and Downs and Sinister Mermaids

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I mentioned in my last post that my friend Holly and I had done a swap. I'm not really into sewing and am more than happy to let someone else stab themselves with needles while I fold books. I made her a "wanton" book and she made me a sinister mermaid bag. She stenciled the mermaid and sewed a front and a back picture. Here's the back. See why it's sinister? And I've been working on more books. I'm trying to finish up the hundreds of in-progress ones I've got laying around the house. I call this one Ups and Downs.