Phew! 2012 Recap!

If you feel like you haven't accomplished much in the last year...

 just do a recap of your blog posts each month, and you might feel like you actually did lots of things!

Lets see, i just showed you my new coffee table for December

i'm trading that for a painting

more about that later....  

so lets see what else happened in December....

Oh yeah, i painted pink and white stripes on my bedroom dresser!

that was fun!

 November

Found these cute and comfortable little Kooboo chairs and put them in my little art room, and finally got rid of the random assortment of chairs i had been meaning to recover for 3 years!

Plus Marian's "Miss Mustard Seed'" incredible new book was released and two of my paintings were in it!!

"Eulalie" the cow

and a little meadow scene that i painted !

The book is amazing, and i am sooooooo proud to have my work in there...

 

 my painting, the little meadow is in the upper left corner, high up over the desk...

see it?  it is one of my favorite paintings...

October

Finished up this painting of a cluster of roses !

"The Unfurling"

September

Traded my friend for this amazing architectural piece and drug it home...

surprise mr. fracturedfairytale !

you didn't know something with broken glass in it was so wonderful, did you!

August

Finished several paintings and loaded up my kitchen cupboard with every white dish i could find!

 

July

painted a lady with pink hair, (that was fun)

pulled up the yucky carpet in my bathroom and painted the plywood floors

and took a plain old basket and made it a "French Market" basket

June

Did a painting of a sweet sleepy Sheep... twice! 

on big and one small

and picked an amazing bouquet out of my yard...

May

I painted my bright green bathroom, Pink!

and picked more yummy bouquets from the yard...

April

I was featured in the premier of Romantic Prairie Magazine!!!

now that blew my mind - i NEVER imagined being in a magazine!

and "Romantic Prairie"  was sooo pretty too...

Thanks Fifi! 

I also made a pretty little birthday cake covered in pansies for my daughter!

 March

Finished more paintings 

and had a giveaway of a painting of some white hydrangeas...

February

Painted this big rose painting...

getting ready for Spring, YAY!

January

Finished more paintings and made a lacy jewelry holder...

In the meantime lots of other things happened of course, kid stuff, work stuff, i picked lots more bouquets, gardened, moved furniture around, discovered and played on Pinterest, obsessed about random other things...decided to get a tattoo and then didn't, and let's see, the latest was to die the tips of my hair pink...

I mean, i'm 59 years old... WHY NOT!!?? If i'm gonna be old and kooky, might as well be old and kooky with pink hair!

  and I blathered on with you guys about this and that...

And you were all so awesome and supportive and funny

You guys rock!

so, whaddya say, let's blow out the candle on 2012 and say come on in 2013, we're ready!

I hope you all have a happy New Year all year long!

(or at least get some good sleep!)

...the end...   

 

New Coffee Table...

Have you ever bought a piece of furniture and then worried that someone might die moving it because it was so heavy?  

Or at least end up with a serious injury!?

This coffee table was like that

My friend had this at her shop, and i decided i would "Try it Out" 

...to see if i liked it...

ok, so some advice here

disrupting a whole shop, 

dragging guys over to help you load something that weighs a ton into your car, 

just to "Try Something Out",

will not make you alot of friends

and, you better give your guy at home lots of kisses too

ok, LOTS of kisses

you might even want to make some lasagna and give kisses  

in fact, probably better wear something sexy too

 

  you can see part of the rough old wood here...

It is a furniture factory cart...

and it weighs eleventy billion tons

It soon became apparent to me, 

as i was carefully driving home with it...

 after risking some helpers life and limbs loading it in my car

and hoping it didn't roll back and take out the whole back door

That i better damn well like it

uh oh

when i arrived home with this big old heavy leviathan

 i told mr. fractured

uhhhhh,  i'm just going to try it out

 really?

 

at this point i was pretty much thinking

i can't take this back to the shop now!

everyone will hate me!

i was just going to have to suck it up if i didn't like it 

what was i thinking!?

ok so, it was going to take two strong men to get it out of the car

and all we had was ted and i

           So while we were standing there trying to figure out how to get this thing out of the car and into the house

 

my poor unsuspecting neighbor walked by!

 so i captured him!

he was nice enough to help

 i'm pretty sure if he sees me standing out by my car again he will turn around and run!

Anyway ... I like it!

Thank Goodness!

Phew! 

The rustic vibe is cool with all the cottagy stuff in the house

I kinda "get it" now about adding this primitive rustic element to all the fluffy girly stuff...

and the next day 

I took my neighbor a pie...

...the end... 

        

    

Twinkle Twinkle Little Tree...

You know what i found out

It's really hard to photograph a Christmas tree!  

Especially when it's at it's prettiest, at night with the lights on!

 

 

 here is my tree without ornaments... 

actually, i like it just fine with only the lights

doesn't it look like i just wadded up the tree skirt and stuffed it under the tree..?

not a detail person, nope...

 I have a faux flocked frazier fur tree... i'm so tempted to add more f's 

like fabulous fancy faux flocked frazier fur

or

fantastic freaking fluffy faux flocked frazier fur

or 

even worse as you can probably imagine

I get the same way with words with people who call on the phone, and are spelling the name of something so you'll get the letters right, 

and they say something like:  it's "f" as in fred, and "d" as in dog, and '"b" as in bed

and i ALWAYS can only think of bad words to substitute  when i'm spelling something for someone on the phone !

it's almost an irresistible force beyond my control which drives me  to want do that, until i can't even speak because i can't think of a single normal word to substitute... 

am i the only one??? ?

  

 Ok... fine... this is not the season to be talking about bad words... why did i have to go there?

so, let me move on from my disturbing train of free flowing thought patterns, 

and show you guys some sparkly things around the house...

my friend calls me a racoon, she says if it's sparkly and shiny i'll go right for it, and she's right!

Little white thrift shop wreath on the front door....

pink  glittery bow added of course....

some beautiful apples left as a gift by my sweet neighbor, are as pretty as any ornaments grouped with a tarnished silver tray and some clippings from a fur tree

 a little open urn with some christmas balls...

pink packages tied up with a big fat white bow...

i think i told you guys that i save pretty tags... so here is a little pink one... 

and on the tree it goes!

my rusty iron angel statue with a "Merry Christmas" blingy necklace and a pink rose with diamonds on it tucked near her wing.....

she's really a garden statue, but she lives in my house right on the kitchen counter....

So that's a little peek at some of the decorations going up around our house...

And as we decorate and share our Holiday stories and spend time with our families, i feel i need to talk about the  

incomprehensible thing that happened this last week...

I find myself, and no doubt you do too, thinking about it as i drive, when i'm brushing my teeth, when i'm washing dishes...

Nothing can fix this, nothing can console the families of the victims, they will suffer long, and they will suffer hard...

I want to do something, to make it better, make it so it didn't happen
i know we all do...

but we can't

so we feel helpless
 
The one and only thing i can come up with, to actually do...
 

to help myself, to help shift the energy in the world
 to offset this, in any way, if that's even possible
 

is to commit random acts of kindness

it's sounds so cliche

i know you've seen this saying on bumper stickers
but, it's true!  it's really good! and it helps...

   
I decided what i did could be anything, no matter how small, anything that will add a positive loving energy to the world

   I know during the holidays we're all giving and doing for others... but i'm thinking of adding something else above what I'm already doing

  even if it is very small

even if it is just something silly that will make someone, maybe a child laugh
 
even if it's just dropping a quarter where someone will find it...
   

Like today i gave cookies to the girls at fast food place where i get drink on the way to work in the morning... 

And i've been trying to think of what i can do to make someone smile tomorrow,

 

 you know...it's weird,  it helps me feel better, i guess because i have some control over it, over what i do in response

and it is kind of fun trying to come up with something different to make someone happy

 I bet you guys could think of a million cool things to do!

and so, really,  for dealing with it all... 

just sendin out some love and light, the best way i can, 
is really all i've got 

...the end...