suffocating

Ever have one of those days when you feel like you are suffocating in the open air? I am having one today. Feeling a bit panic-y, a bit trapped. To pass the time, I got out of the house and just drove. I haven't been many places here, No good reason, just haven't. It's too easy to get stuck in this house and let the days RUN by me. Here it is May and I have made a couple of friends, but I haven't explored my new home at all. So today I drove to Elysian Fields, then to Marshall Pottery. While I Marshall, I met a man who is a member of some Cattlemen's group out on tours of ranches all over the state. He was nice, we sat and visited while watching a potter at work. It was calming, I feel much better.

I had a whole big post typed out, then decided now is a good time to use my filter, what little I have. While I want to share, I don't know that I want to share that much with so many. It is the internet, once you post it, you cant take it back.

I did scrap today, I will post that sometime soon. Just need to shoot it. Feeling a bit BLAH right now, no telling what those photos would look like. Off to the end of the driveway to check the mail. Tomorrow is the kids' field day and I have to attend. Not happy about that because I was supposed to be working. oh well, I really didn't want to have to miss it, just don't like being told by the teacher that I need to be there. Don't they know that people have jobs? Really. Guess I am just on one today, maybe that is the problem!

coming to the end

of my temp position. The girl I am replacing is supposedly coming back tomorrow. they ahve asked me to stay on "through the middle of the month" but i think they will see once she is back that there really is nothing for me to do. So I will be able to get back to my old antics.

I keep going to sit down at my craft desk, but there is either limited mojo, or too mmuch that needs to get done. I applaud you working moms who keep a clean house and still have time to craft. I just don't have the time management skills or energy to do it.

Working has been a very good thing for me. I have made a new friend. I have met new people who, although I don't see myself hanging out with, have made my day a bit brighter and more fun. I am useful again, for something other than housework and babysitting. I know, I know, it's an important job, blah blah blah. But when i tell people I am a stay at home mom, they look at me like "oh, wow. so you aren't smart enough or ambitious enough to have a real job." the conversation slows, like i wouldnt be able to hold my own because i take care of my kids. If you aren't a SAHM, you can't possibly understand. Just trust me when I say that it's not a good feeling.

It's been nice to earn a little money in my own name for once. Not that I make enough to make a dent, but enough to feel like my days have been of use. My first pay check I took out, bought groceries, a birthday gift, and some stuff at sams club and came home with $60. A whole weeks work, chaos at home, and I made grocery money! but in the grand scheme of things, we all have to eat right.

So consider this my salute to you women who work full time jobs. It's difficult, and I am looking forward to going back to simpler times. being able to just pick up and meet luke for lunch, going to the school for things like eater egg hunts and christmas parties... I am going to miss the kids' field day later this week and that makes me sad. very sad. But it's worth an extra couple hundred bucks if it's the only chance I have to make it for a long time.

Well, all things considered, it's been a good experience. got me out, got me moving, made me realize that although my situation isn't ideal, it could be much worse. I do need a vacation from my kids. I haven't been without them for longer than they are in school since last june when i came down here to look at houses with luke. we need another getaway. I NEED ANOTHER GETAWAY! when we lived in Wyoming, I got to go to Salt Lake once a month and got out of the house for at least 18-36 hours. I miss that very much. I miss my sanity breaks.

Maybe again someday. Maybe I can talk luke into letting me take a solo road trip around the south soon for photos and junking.

Will try to play again soon, I was doing so good with this blog for a long time, and now I am a bad bad blogger. Remind me, i'll try!

Some People...

I really really want to just vent, but knowing the internet, I don't need anymore drama. So instead, I will share good things. I scrapped! Only one page, but I did it. Gotta start somewhere eh? It's trent's turtle shell. And some glimmer mist, and new webster's pages, primas, a bingo card from my friend Jamie, and graphic 45 ruler strip. It came together fairly well, I had fun doing it, but I am uninspired again.

After that, there hasn't been much in my world. Looking for a job, avoiding the reality of our new situation. Dealing with drama from people who profess NOT to be that kind, but in reality are the epitome of "that kind." I am realizing that I surround myself with people who never grew up, never want to grow up. Maybe it's because I don't want to grow up. I DO, however, expect a certain level of maturity in someone of my age. One day I hope to find people who can match wits with me AND stand by their word. Until then, more dissapointment is on my horizon I am afraid. So I will plug along with one less friend, adding that person to the "acquaintance" column. And I will shed a tear in my beer, wait I won't. Job interview tomorrow for a temp job. here's hoping.

Bad, Bad, Bad, blogger.

I know. I have been busy, but not. Mostly I have been uninspired or inspired at the wrong time to post it. I have done NO scrapping. I bought a bunch of stuff from Blue Moon, then mom and dad came for a visit. So it is still in the box, although thoroughly rifled through. I did, however, make this page for the True xoxo girls blog. You should go. do the challenge. win a prize if you're lucky!

I have, however, been posting photos on facebook. So if you are not my friend already and you are reading this blog, you should become my friend so you can see what I am working on. And I promise to try to get back int he habit of blogging. It's so easy when you do it all the time to keep doing it. But once you stop, you are screwed! this photo I took and LOVED. It's my duck shoes in the permanent swamp that is my front yard. I messed with the saturations a little to get the color I wanted, but I just love the way my flash shimmers and sparkles off the water. Yep, I'm a photo geek.

And one more photo. this is from a few months ago but I don't know if I shared it. It is now framed 8x10 in my living room, along with the boots, the shot of my neck, some new flowers, the coke series posted on facebook under midgets and random shiz, and a few others. Maybe I will take a picture and show that some day. But a tiny frog somehow got on my kitchen window and hopped along and left these SUPER cool prints on the outside. I love it. LOVE it. All time top 10 photos.

Other things of significance in my life... Luke blew out his knee once and for all. We already knew he would need surgery, but it looks as if the time has come. He has been off work several days now and his boss said don't come back till it's fixed. That has left me scrambling for a job. I have appointments with temp agencies monday. Pray for our marriage. With Luke at home, things will be rough for a spell. We've been through rough patches before, but this will rival them. Luke with no income and at home all day is more than he can handle. Guess we will see how the cards fall. I will have to just get some pretty thick skin.

Well, that's it for tonight. See everyone later! Sooner than later I hope!

Happy Monday!

Yep, It is. I got almost no sleep last night, and yet, here I am blogging away! I made this card this morning for the tuesday trigger over at Moxie Fab World. If you are reading MY blog and NOT Moxie Fab, you need to be! So here my take on this past tuesday's trigger...

I used a bunch of Sassafras (my FAVORITE!) Hog Heaven stuff I had left over, Prima flowers and E-line gems/pearls, a Maya Road branch, and a piece of Jenni Bowlin music paper, and some glimmer mist, of course! From the Trigger, I just really loved the candy pink and that's what really stuck with me!

I also decided why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone. So Becky Fleck is having a Sassafrass Nerdy Bird (which I MUST have and have already ordered some of it) contest over at the Page Maps Blog. I liked the sketch, so I molested it and here ya go!



And these are just some random junk jewlery pieces I found at the flea market yesterday! That broach is missing the center, so I figured I would doctor it up! And I found a meat picket! Luke had no idea what it was! So funny! And that heart has a mermaid riding a seahorse! SO COOL!

BONUS post!

It's been a GORGEOUS day. 70 degrees, perfect humidity, not a cloud in the sky. Julia had a friend over last night and I decided after she went home, we needed to take a couple photos. Of course nothing really struck my fancy. But the COOELST things happened today!

1. We found balloons in the woods! Remember when we were kids and our classes would release piles and piles of balloons into the air with our names and addresses on them hoping SOMEONE would find them in like Egypt and send us a letter? Well, we got to be those people today! A kindergarten class in Big Sandy, Texas (about 75 miles away) released these on their 100th day of school! I think I was more excited about it than the kids because they don't do that much anymore. it's TERRIBLE for the environment. Basically it's school sanctioned littering and animals get tangled in the mess or eat the balloons. But it is really cool in theory! So we brought the whole stash of balloons, strings, and tags home. We took this photo of Julia and will send a copy along wih a map of our road and where the balloons were found to the school on monday.

2. The kids found a turtle shell in the woods! We have seen ONE turtle across the street a while back, Luke messed with it a bit. Bit the kids were making "forts" in the woods and ran across this shell. Julia's friend took the green shell off the boney part (grrrrrrr.) but they kept it, so right now it's being held on by Glue Dots! SO cool. OK, score one small one for the south.

3. Julie FINALLY learned to ride her bike consistently! She has been so afraid of falling that she never would even try without Luke holding on. Not only is she now riding, but steering on gravel! She decided she needed to ride up and down our road, which I didn't agree with. Not that it's busy by ANY stretch of the imagination, but the traffic that does make it down here is often oil field equipment. Not a match for a girl on a bike.

4. While I don't have flowers or green grass or anything spring like, we do have these TINY little purple flowers. They are so tiny and delicate and the bees were all over them. So I stopped the car at the end of the driveway when we came home, broke out my camera, and caught this bee. I HATE bees. The end of the driveway is a good place for them.

Well, that's it for this evening. Hopefully something worth blogging about will happen tomorrow! See you then! I think I will try the flea market!

Are there really more than one way to skin a cat?

Crafty I have not been. I pulled out my new CC Earth Love kit I just got in the mail from PC magazine (I won it from their blog!) and cut all the strips and journaling cards apart with the intention of using them. Yeah, that's as far as I got. It's not even 7:30 am on Saturday and the kids have been up for an hour already! Why is it that on week days when they have to go to school, 6:30 seems like the beginning of time. They have such a horrible time getting up. we made bed time earlier (7:30) to help them get more sleep, but the morning still eludes us. So when they have a friend over, they stay up past 11 and are up 5 minutes earlier than the regular school day alarm?

So I am laying in bed and my cats decide its time for Kitty Smackdown. This is a regular occurrence in our house and occassionally includes Napoleon as well. I like watching smackdown, it's entertaining. I do not, however, like smackdown ON ME AT 6:30 AM ON A SATURDAY! Then, one of them calls time out to go take a giant crap in the litter box, which is in my bathroom. YUMMO! End result is scratches all down my arms and a room that smells like pumpkin spice.

Complaints over. I got a ton of photos scanned yesterday from a million years ago. That was fun. I have about 50 more to scan but am going to do many of them collage style because they are all cut up so small. Why did I do that? I ruined pictures by cutting people out of them, cutting them in stupid shapes, cutting them to fit in my magnetic album, which is now in the rubbish. Had a very enlightening chat with Vicki. She is such a kick. Love that girl. I also got to talk to Scott for a bit, which was wonderful. I miss him. I was sooooooo in high school love with him! And he's every bit as awesome now as I thought he was then, probably more. Shana is a lucky woman, hope she knows that.

This weekend is debate national qualifying for the Wind River district of Wyoming. I have my fingers crossed. I have so many kids there that I am still very much attached too (Not not mention my very best friend in the whole wide world) that I am queitly rooting for. I don't know how the standings are after last night. This tourney is different than regular meets. Instead of going to semis (after 4 rounds) and finals based on your record and power of op, you get an "UP" or a "DOWN" every round. Two downs and you are out. So you can be down and out by round 3, making your tourney VERY VERY VERY long while you sit for another day and a half waiting for the rest of the team. It's a very inspiring tourney, very emotional, very intense as both a kid and a coach. I miss debate with every cell in my body. Maybe when the kids hit high school I can coach again. Maybe if I am lucky, I will find a junior team for Julia and she can start in middle school!

Kitty smackdown has relocated to my legs, and now includes only Black and Napoleon. Tan is asleep on the other side of the bed. I have no plans for the day except to wash the supper dishes from last night. Dishwasher is running right now, just need to wash the pans. I made chicken enchilada soup. If you are one of the lucky few to have had it, you know how happy of a night it was last night! If not, just know that right now you should be drooling. Yep, it's that good. Good enough to brave an ulcer for. I was pretty uncomfortable last night, but man was it worth it!

Here is a photo from the WAY back machine. This is from Triangle Lake. Not the camp, the community. It's hard sometimes for people who only know one side of my life to distinguish! My grandparents LIVED there, so I have friends and family FROM there, as well as all my years as a camper. So this is from vacation bible school, I am going to guess in 1987 or 1988. From left to right- Chrissy Mac Farland, Jenny Applegate, Karey Larsen, me, Sarah Goetsch. Then there is a picture of Scott Donaldson and I. Sigh... Aren't we a cute couple? "low" and "kneehigh", those were our camp names. And lastly, this was part of our loyal group. Me, kate Schori, Jason Asher(not always with us), Kyle Phillips, Jennifer Souka, and David Otterman. We ended up together more often than not, insert about 30 others. This photo was intentional mouths full... crazy how we all ended up together all the time! Miss those kids so much! Thank God for Facebook. Moving so much, I lost touch with many of them.