holiday check-in

Wow, things have been crazy around here. My surgery was cancelled and now is resceduled for December 27th. Good thing though, because we spent all of the day Saturday in the ER with Paul. We were getting ready to go see a movie and as his was walking upstairs he pulled something in his back and couldn't move his arms or left leg and it hurt to breathe. Panic set in....we were thinking, ok he pulled a muscle or a rib popped out, no problem, it will pop back in in a couple of minutes. Nope...so I had to put his shoes on him and help him hobble down two flight of stairs to the car and off the the ER, no Chipmunk movie for us. Because of Paul's cancer history, they took tons of tests. Thankfully, no cancer spots on his lungs or any problem with his bloodwork. Just excrutiating pain. Caden was an angel throughout the whole ordeal. The doctors do think that it is a soft tissue issue, but we are going to be on the safe side and Paul is seeing the family doctor today to schedule an MRI to rule out any herniation. It is a very high place to be herniated, so I have been hoping and praying it is a rib out and will heal and that will be that. Rib injuries are really painful. I have had a laminotomy at the T10 area and I know kinda what it feels like to have a disc problem up there...I hope he heals fast and doesn't turn chronic.







Ok, in happier news, I finished the ornaments I was working on for the 2007 Ornament Swap.

I made ceramic snowflakes, with holiday sentiments like "joy", "sparkle", "ho, ho, ho" hand embossed and glitter snow imbedded in the glaze.



here is an example:





and wrapped them all up like this:



I sent them off to locations from Hong Kong, Australia, and all over the United States. I have received some beautiful ornaments in exchange. I really enjoy doing this exchange!



I made 25 more snowflakes and a red-nosed reindeer that are in the kiln right now for the bisque fire. I numbered them 1 through 25 and I plan on making them into an advent garland for Caden where he would move the red-nosed reindeer each day to countdown the Christmas. I know, I am pretty far behind for it to work for this year :) but he will enjoy it next year! Maybe he will be able to countdown from 24 to 25!



Caden had his first stage performance last Wednesday. He and his first grade class sang a rap song called "Ribbons and Bows" in the school Christmas program. He hammed it up!





the pre-requisite goofy pose pre-performance! Like any six year old would want to have a plain smile for the camera!



He really really wanted a tie, he was the only one with a tie, but he loves wearing ties like daddy does. I had to pry it off twice before school, he insisted he needed to wear it to school, with a turtleneck, quite a style. That is Caden though, our little style maker.



Because it was a rap song, they put sunglasses on during the performance. Caden insisted on wearing my sunglasses, so they kept slipping down his face! Here he is, isn't he cute!







I was also the lucky winner of some beautiful ceramic loot from Linda at little flower designs



so so very cute, she is very talented:



(this is her picture, but it is the stuff she sent me, it is too dark today to take a decent pic!)

The little scoop with the bird face on it is adorable! I have the wee vase by my sink with a flower in it, it is perfect for that! And the ornament, oh so cute! So well made, and packaged with such love and care! I love to see what methods other ceramic artists use. She is very prolific and creative! Thank you Linda!

updates...

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa-lini's house. We left Oregon feeling very full and satiated. It is nice being closer to family, we have spent so few holidays together.

Posting may be a bit more sporadic here...I have just found out that I need to have surgery on December 13th, which also means at least 4 doctors appointments in between now and then. On top of that I am participating in the ornament swap that I did last year. I signed up before I knew I had to have said surgery. I am finishing up 10 ceramic ornaments that need to be shipped by the 10th. I love this swap. It is the one and only swap I have ever participated in.


On the 19th, I finally get to see a local neuro here about my spinal disease issues. I haven't had a nerve block for over eight months, so I am moving slowly around here. I usually get injections at least every 6-8 weeks. Hopefully they can do the injections in office like my last physician could. It would be so nice to be out of my flare before Christmas.

Boy, this is a downer post, but I just thought I would let everyone know what is up. We have settled in quite nicely here in California, we just have to get the health issues in check and start being more productive! I wish my body would accomplish one tenth of the things I sketch out and aspire to make. I have made a new mold for a 6 inch bowl and also a smaller mold for a tea cup or small bowl. My next task is making a mold of a vintage child's bowling pin. I love the shape, I think it would make a cool vase. This mold will be my first attempt at a slip-mold (a two part mold, much more technically difficult).

We are taking our kitty Suki to the vet tomorrow to see if they can do anything about her allergies, she has been sneezing up a storm. Poor thing....

That is it for now, Paul is on his way home and Caden is starving (as usual), time to make dinner!

I will try to post soon, but don't worry if I don't! Take care!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Wishing you a very happy birthday, Mom! We miss you so much! Hope the weather is nice in Michigan so you can go to Saugatauk! Talk to you soon!

thank's mom!

this is one of the reason's why I miss Michigan...









my mom sent me pictures of a big storm blowing in off from Lake Michigan. Thanks mom, I miss you!



California is treating us well, though. The weather has been beautiful (as usual).



Caden is making new friends...





and joined the Boyscouts....





and we have been enjoying the nice weather, these pics are from a trip to a pumpkin patch with Caden's first grade class...



the corn maze, Caden towers over all of his class mates, he is not the oldest by far, but he is just so very tall....





sunflowers surrounding the pumpkin patch and corn fields.





a rooster that escaped his coop and followed us around for a while.





and a last shot of some more sunflowers...



I have been working in the studio, I made a few ornaments and a bowl. They are still drying, but I will take some pictures soon! Thanks for stopping by!

happy halloween!

pictures as promised...

caden in his bat costume, wings made from a broken umbrella (armature taken out because I was too worried that someone would poke their eye out-I am just no fun!)


a close-up on his ears and the mask that I felted extra fur into the ears and on the sides of the mask.


boo! I tried to carve the word boo into one of our small pumpkins...it didn't really work out.


Paul always has to something different to his pumpkins, so he painted it black this year.


this is my pumpkin, Caden said it wasn't scary enough, so I gave it a skull and bones "tattoo"



Caden designed and cut his pumpkin all by himself. He even crafted a hole to light it with a flashlight. Apparently they are teaching him in school that it isn't safe to use a tealight to light your pumpkin (perhaps they are not safe only if you leave them unattended).

flashlight hole.

Well we are off for the first trick or treating adventure right now-downtown Auburn is hosting trick or treating iin the afternoon. We will venture out later tonight too!

Well, I have been waiting to post until I had some new pictures to share, but that isn't going to cut it. The hard drive is on order for my regular laptop which has a card reader for our camera. I cannot find out portable card reader right now so I thought I would just pop in to say "hi" and let you know that I have started Caden's Christmas list on the side of the blog.

Caden is going to be a bat for Halloween. I made his wings out of an old umbrella for his wings and made felt ears and a mask. To make it more realistic looking I needle felted "fur" in the ears and on the sides of his mask. I have pictures to share, but they will need to wait until I can upload them to the computer...sorry :(.
This picture was my jumping off point....
which is from the craft queen herself, I ended up taking all of the metal parts out of the umbrella because I just didn't trust Caden not to poke his eye or someone else's eye out. Better to be safe than sorry is my motto.

This weekend was full of jack-o-lantern creating. Our cat Suki really wanted to help us out, she kept stealing the tools and trying to take the smoochy innards out of the pumpkin and spread them throughout the house.

We are pretty much settled into our house. Paul even surprised me by setting up my crafting studio in the corner of our garage. I have been excited to get back to creating. We need to get some shelving for me to use to dry green ware and for display. We also need one more table for me to use to roll out clay. A trip to Ikea may be in order for this next weekend.

happy birthday to me

all I want for my birthday is our house to sell :) .....
I am one year older today!

update

Caden says the funniest things. This weekend we went to the Auburn Home Show and we got to pick up baby chickens. He just loved them. We went back twice. He was able to feed them and pick them up. He told me that "chicks love him".... It is funny because it is true for both baby fowl and girls. He is already quite a popular little guy at school too!
------------------------------------

We have settled into a rhythm here. Staying with my dad has gone a lot better than we expected. We have found a condo to lease, it will be ready this week, but we are waiting until mid-October to move, hoping that finances will smooth out. Paul is enjoying working with the American Red Cross again. We had found a new (to us) car to buy, did all of the financing etc and got in to drive it home and the "check engine" light went on. Isn't that just our luck? After waiting a week for the dealer to fix it or even call and let us know what was happening, we got our deposit back and are on the lookout for a reliable car again.

I have been working on my design ideas for "buggabu studio". Paul surprised me and updated the website a little and set up an etsy account for me. For those of you who don't know what etsy is, it is an online community for handmade goods sorta like ebay, but so so much better! There are so many talented artists who sell their work on the etsy website. I am excited to get back to the production phase, but we need to complete our move first. Once we are settled in our new place, I can get the studio set up and get to work!

The update on the moving truck (penske) situation is not good. They have not been communicating with us unless we call and call them. The truck cost was not refunded as promised, nor was our extra hotel and gas costs. That was supposed to be handled right away. The damaged furniture, etc (about 80-90% of all of our stuff was damaged or destroyed in the move) is being handled by Penke's insurance company. We have jumped through so many hoops we feel like we have joined the circus. We had to unload the storage unit for their agent to re-take pictures of all of the damage. This took them a week to decide, it has been such a waste of time and energy. Now they say it will take another two weeks for them to "research" the products damaged. It has been a very trying experience.

Other than that, Caden is doing great in school. I have been volunteering in his classroom every Thursday. Caden loves to have me in his class, it is so cute. In other news, he wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween. He is growing like a weed. None of his pants fit him. He is so tall. He towers over all of his classmates. Also, he is now a cub scout. His second meeting is next week. He is very excited!

Please continue to pray for our house to sell. We really need this additional stressors out of our life. We just want to be able to try to "start over". The economy is so bad in Michigan that we really just want out of our mortgage, we don't care if we lose our initial down payment. It is such a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. We miss it dearly. We miss our family and friends in Michigan too. But we feel blessed to be able to come "home" to where we grew up in California to raise Caden and be able to have more financial stability. It is also nice to be close to our west coast family and catch up with some old friends.

art sale

one of my absolute favorite artists, Amy Ruppel, is having a big sale of her newest works...
you can check it out here here.






oh I cannot wait until we find our own place and I can set my studio back up and start creating and carving into ceramic.

We have found a condo close to Caden's school with a couple of openings in mid October. We are hoping and praying that one of those will work out for us. It has a small one car garage that I can convert into my studio. Who knows what furniture we will have to move there, though, since every single piece of our furniture was damaged or destroyed when the movers transferred our property from the broken down moving truck. It has taken us weeks to finally get the correct information to the correct people (we hope) so that they can take care of this for us. It is so sad to tell Caden that he cannot play with his bike because the wheel has been bent or his favorite truck is "missing" because it really is shattered to pieces. It is just stuff, though. That is why Amy's work above ("portable home") really speaks to me. My home is wherever my family is. Our "stuff" makes us more comfortable, but I am thankful for our love.

9000 miles in 30 days or less

Well hello there! The title sums up the last month of our life. South Carolina to California, California to South Carolina and then back to California with our moving truck. Yep, we did it. We are crazy and we know it. Visiting California and our family made us miss being near to family. Going back to South Carolina in the hottest summer in over 100 years made us miss it even more. We love our house, friends and family in Michigan, but have found that in the past 5 years the economy makes it quite difficult to survive. Within two days of our decision to move back "home" (where we grew up) in Northern California, Paul was offered a job with the American Red Cross (going back to his roots in disaster services) and we were able to get out of our lease. The house we were leasing was nice, but would not cool below 93 degrees when it was hot and humid outside and the pool had broken once again. We had fixed it once already on our own just waiting for them to have a pool service come, which they never did. But the icing on the cake was Caden's first day of school. The school actually lost our kid for over an hour and would not let us go back to try to find him. Paul had to go to the police officer in the parking lot to get anyone to listen to him. Caden was so traumatized. I had never seen him like that. They discouraged parental involvement because of security concerns. That was the final straw. Caden only missed two days of school when we made the big move, which included three broken moving trucks. But that is another story in itself, lets just wait to see if Penske actually lives up to their promises.

Ok, I cannot resist. The first truck made it halfway to our house before the engine light began to blink and screech something awful. The second truck, which Paul meticulously packed made it about 15 miles until the lights started to flash along with loud, strange sounds. Sixty miles later we were directed to a shop that found the front tires to be unsafe and stripped, but they had no idea why we were having the other problems. So we were sent on our way with a hope and a prayer. The truck made it to a rest stop in Tennessee. We waited three hours in the middle of the night for a mechanic to come, he couldn't help. Two hours later a tow truck showed up, but was unprepared for a 26 foot truck, apparently he was told it was a 16 foot truck. We arrived at a cheap dive in Morristown, Tennessee at three thirty in the morning. Paul was told to meet the "movers" at eight the next morning to transfer our worldly possessions from one truck to another. The next truck lasted until Nevada...but 95% of our possessions are scratched, cracked, damaged, ruined etc. Now, we are basically storing our broken stuff in a storage unit and staying with my dad until we find a place to lease in South Auburn. At least we arrived safe and sound, stuff is just stuff. A lot of it is not replaceable, but at least we have the memories. I can only imagine what people feel when they lose their homes to fire or flood.

My laptop was one of the things destroyed in the move...so I will try my best to post pictures and update the blog. Thanks for stopping by and for all of your prayers and help in this last bump in our path. We hope we are "home" and Caden will go to the same schools we did, we feel safe here and that is what matters.

California ahoy!

After nearly 2800 long long long miles we made it to California last night at around 11pm local time. We did stop for less than 10 hours at a hotel somewhere between Denver, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We saw antelope in Wyoming and counted 72 oil rigs from Kansas through Wyoming. Caden watched his favorite movie "Twister" literally 18 times and was obsessed with tornado's the whole time. Caden called Kansas "tornado world" and Nevada "desert land". We are all glad to get out of the car, though. We have been taking a lot of pictures, so eventually, I will update the blog with scenery pics etc. It looks like I have an Internet connection here, so I can update this week with all of our action and adventures!

the adventure is on...

Caden and I were supposed to be catching an airplane tomorrow. Instead we are driving to California. It seems out wonderful credit card flagged our ticket purchase as possible fraud (because we rarely use the card) but neglected to notify us until Sunday night. Now the flight are outrageously expensive...so...our option? Drive! Woo hoo, Caden shed a few tears because he really loves flying and we just drove from Michigan to South Carolina like three times in the last few months. But all is well now, the contract Paul is working on is in its initial stages so he has two weeks he can work from phone/computer etc, so it seemed that it was go now or never.
We are planning on possibly camping or just driving mostly straight through. We will see.

We gave Caden a digital camera so he can document the drive and we will print pics and put it in a scrapbook when we get home, that idea dried up his tears.

So posting may be sketchy for the next two weeks, depending on connection and time. Hope you have a great two weeks! See you soon!

A busy week!

This has been a very busy week for us....lets start from the top.....


Introducing Poppy, the third (and hopefully final!) in the succession of replacement gold fish since the unfortunate demise of Bob. Apparently the chlorine in the water was killing them. We did not have city water in Michigan, so that must have prolonged Bob's life. These weeks of dying fish has made us leery of the water but, in a strange bit of coincidence the "Today Show" had a city water contest where critics judged various water from cities around the United States and Columbia was in the top 3! I was shocked.

Tuesday was Paul's 31st birthday!



Caden and I decorated the house. Paul was really touched, he doesn't like people making a big deal for his birthday. We usually do something low-key, but we changed things up this year and I think we all had a good time.



The cake matched the wrapping paper, it was a little feminine for Paul but, hey, it was summery and cheerful!


Caden helped his dad blow out the candles!

all and all it was a good day.

Ok...lets see....every day this week Caden has been attending VBS at the church that we have been trying out for the last two weeks. He has had a lot of fun and has made some friends. He even has a "girlfriend" named Marissa. She turns six today. They are really cute together. I had to go over some "rules" with Caden...like no kissing! They would hold each other's hands and sneak away from the group. When I asked Caden what he likes about her he said she has a beautiful name and that she likes what he likes. Hey, what more in life do you need? The following day after they announced that they were boyfriend and girlfriend Caden wanted to bring her a dollar so she could "get something for herself that she likes". Thankfully he forgot about his plans before we went to VBS. We will be ending this grand adventure by going to a small water park with the church tonight for the VBS finally.

Last but not least, yesterday was our tenth anniversary! Ten years...wow. We have been through so much. He is still my best friend and all that I could ever ask for. God has blessed our lives. We found each other young, and we have grown so much, gone through cancer twice, eight back surgeries, 4 cross country moves, and one Caden! I am thankful for each and every day we have had together and I look forward to many many many more years, and hopefully decades together.





Paul sent me the most beautiful flower arrangement. Sunflowers + aubergine lilies = one happy girl. In addition he purchased the last band for my wedding ring. I got him a digital picture frame to record our memories past, present and future. We went out for a really nice dinner while Caden was at VBS. (It was the best week for Caden to go to VBS, we really lucked out!...being new to the area and all, we do not have a baby sitter yet!) After Caden went to bed we took a dip in the pool.

So that is our week thus far...we also have made arrangements to go out to California to visit family in August. My dad paid for Caden and my plane tickets (for my birthday gift) which enabled Paul to come out for one of the weeks. Things are tight here with owning two houses right now. Caden and I will spend a week with my dad and when Paul flies out, we will be going on his family's annual camping trip for five days up in Trinity National Forest. It will be the first time in three years for Paul to see his family. Caden hasn't seen Paul's family for two years, and the last time we saw them it was only for a couple of hours.

The real estate sales in Michigan are scary right now. My uncle has had a beautiful new house for sale for over three years and they had an open house last weekend and no one attended. Our house has had a lot of action on the website, lots of people viewing it online and at the open houses, which is good, but no offers yet. We do have one very good possibility but it depends on things working out right on their end too, so, if you can, please pray for things to work out and the house to sell very soon. We had a two hundred dollar electricity bill for our Michigan house and no one is living there (the pool and maybe ac for the open houses)....I have no idea what is up with that...hopefully that will be taken care of for next month-it is ridiculous...I think someone left the pool running or something. It is hard not to have any control over you own house. So, once again, if you can, any prayers for a fast sale on the house would be so appreciated, we need this stress to be taken out of our lives!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a lovely weekend!

proof!

Remember months and months ago I posted about making a quilt? And then a few months later I said I finished it? Well, now I finally uploaded some proof!



I sewed yards and yards of patchwork, and then more and more yards of linen strips. Then sewed and sewed some more. Once it was all pieced together I quilted it all together. I made it into a duvet cover, and it was ready right in time to move to South Carolina, whew! You know how much we needed a hot quilt right in the middle of summer in the south! We still use it, just turn the air conditioner down and pretend! Caden has decided that he doesn't get enough use of it, so he wants one of his own!
indulge me with viewing some more pics!






The back and quilted front are attached together with printed twill tape that I had collected.



This pic is of the back, sear sucker fabric with rivets on top and natural linen separated by a strip of patchwork!

hooray!!!








...ok the fireworks weren't for me....but we didn't even have to leave our house for the 4th of July, our neighbors had dueling firework displays, I guess there are no illegal fireworks in South

Carolina! It was beautiful!

We have been getting spoiled by going to the movies a lot. We have seen more movies this week than we have seen all of last year. We went to Evan Almighty, Ratatouille and Transformers. It is nice and cool inside there! It is nice that Caden is getting to an age that he can enjoy a movie and sit still long enough that others can enjoy as well.

This is a big week for our family. Tomorrow is Paul's birthday and Thursday will be our tenth anniversary. Caden will be attending VBS this week at a church that we have been trying out. He is excited!

Ok, I better go, Caden is waiting for me to finish so we can go swimming in the pool.

The move is over!

the hammock is hung, we are home....

Well, we are mostly settled into our new home in Northeast Columbia, South Carolina. It was a long move, one thousand miles on the dot, but not our first long move, just the first in a long while. Many of you know our moving history, but for the rest, let's recap...we moved from California to Oregon 1998, then Oregon to Michigan 2001, Michigan to Oregon 2002, Oregon to Michigan 2003, and now this move. The Michigan to Oregon move in the middle was us running back to be with family after Paul's first battle with cancer. He got cancer again in Oregon and we decided that cancer sucks anywhere, so we might as well live where we feel at home. We loved living on the shores of Lake Michigan, but the economy was tough on us. South Carolina brings us new prospects and hopefully more stability. If anyone wants to experience the beauty of Michigan we still have our three bedroom, two bath ranch with 2200 square feet, in ground pool set on a half acre lot backed by the wooded section of a golf course :) It is for sale... (hint, hint)we decided not to lease it out. We just have too much on our plates to keep up with two properties. Our realtor and some good friends are helping to take care of the property until it sells.


It is beautiful here in South Carolina. Sometimes the weather reminds me of the feeling when you stick your head into a warm, moist dryer full of damp clothes, but I have heard that the rest of the year is quite seasonable. We sold our snow shovel and plow, now we have the pleasure of visiting the snow, or once in a while have an inch or two visit us oh so briefly.

Paul and I had pretty much decided on a house when Caden and I came down for our three week visit in May. But at the very last minute...literally Paul decided to visit a house that had just come onto the market. It has a pool and an overgrown, but beautifully landscaped yard. It is a three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a large bonus room and cathedral ceilings. It has windows everywhere and great light. It just spoke to him, and I trusted his judgement, so we decided to switch to this house. It is in a great, safe and quiet neighborhood, and in the best school district in the county. The pool looked like Shrek's swamp, but we were told it would be taken care of...more on that later.


the pool before---well midway, we had to drain it, it was full to the brim with green muck and leaves...no vermin though!

So the actual move was great, the gas prices had just gone down a bit, Caden was so well behaved and didn't complain at all. Even our cat, Suki-whose previous car rides were full of meowing and complaints, settled in and quietly enjoyed the long ride. Our beloved boogie eyed goldfish Bob even made it down here, but once we introduced him to fresh Columbia water, he passed on to the big fishbowl in the sky. He had a small, prayer filled service led by Caden and now is buried under the bird bath in the back yard. The little replacement "bob" we got even passed away (err..got a cold and had to be traded in, so Caden thinks, it was too much death too soon). Little "speck" is the newest replacement fish and is thriving. Fingers crossed, we will have this little fish for a long time. We have been drinking bottled water ever since just in case the water had anything to do with these fishy deaths....;)

We took the move slow...about three days to get down here as to try to not flare up my back anymore because I had to drive our SUV behind Paul who was driving the 26 foot rental moving truck. We sold half of our stuff in our yard sale, which was a good thing, because even at that we didn't have enough room for everything. We left behind our futon frame, all of the houseplants, the fridge, my slab roller ( :( ), and some other stuff, about a small trailer full. We will pick it up later in a month or so, or when the house sells.

Please pray for the house to sell soon, it would free up so much room of our minds that are currently full of stress.

Once we got here, well things stopped going so smoothly...The electricity wasn't on, which meant the pool hadn't been serviced and the house was like 140 degrees. (well it seemed like it anyway) It was unlivable.....when they turn things off down here, they turn everything off, the water, sewer, gas, electricity....everything. The house was filthy, the carpets were nasty. They hadn't done what was promised whatsoever. We ended up having to stay in a hotel three additional nights due to everything, which then messed up our help that was scheduled to help us move things in. Eventually, the house cleaned up beautifully. And we called the realtor to help us find professional movers, they cost us extra, but it was so hot and humid, I think Paul would have killed himself getting everything in.

So we are all moved in. We put the studio upstairs in a spare bedroom. We will need to go to ikea to get a couple of storage lockers and a large work table. But that will be later when we have a little more time and spare funds, for now, I am thankful for the folding tables. We have quite a few things to hang up on the studio walls, but after that is done, the studio will be ready to roll. Caden's room needs to be repainted as well as the master. His room is painted an awful teal sponge paint and ours is an ok green but also sponge painted. The rest of the house is a neutral light sand color, the dining room is a nice grey shade. I was excited about that because I have always wanted a grey room. I am thinking about a blue-grey for Caden's room (he has a red,white and blue quilt, denim suspender curtains, and a sorta retro camping theme). I really wanted to paint it navy blue, but I am worried it will be too dark. Target has the cutest red lanterns for $19.99 each, with a couple of those, his room would be so cute. Also at target, in the came Woolrich camping collection they have a tent bed topper for $29.99 that would really spruce it up. He doesn't have a bunk bed anymore because the ladder broke. Who knows, maybe on that trip to ikea in Atlanta, we will find some more bedding for him. I was looking at a number fabric collection in their catalog that looked cute. He has requested his own hand-made quilt now that I finished our quilt. That is -why I am thinking a blue-grey would be a lot more neutral for me to mix and match, because I like to change things up so much. I want to do a grass cloth affect in our room. We have vaulted ceilings in the master, and our bedding is red, so the light beige grass cloth paint job would be a great effect. Having a new house is exciting, it gives us so much opportunity for new dreams and projects. Like in the kitchen, it is fine now, but eventually I would love to paint the cabinets white with a little burnt umber rub to antique them a bit, install slate flooring and a dark granite counter top with a rich red wall. We have a small half bath on the main floor and I would love to paint it a shocking rich color like orange, or maybe a bright limey green. We also want to replace most of the lighting in time. We have so many ideas, we definitely won't be bored!

So now that things have settled down for us, I will be blogging at least once a week....please come back and check in often! I have missed you all, thank you for your emails and checking in on us! It sure made us feel loved!


the pool after four hard days of work.


caden jumpin' in and a tiny glimpse of me scrubbin'


our new home from the front. The lawn needs revitalizing and we have since done a lot of trimming of all of the overgrown shrubbery. I love the driveway-it provides a perfect place for a basketball hoop, eventually.


the living room fireplace


the living room looking from upstairs.


living room/dining area


the front door

we interrupt this lack of posting with....

a brief message...

We are visiting Paul in South Carolina. We found a house, but are not quite ready to financially support two homes. It is a scary thing...coming up with another down payment, moving to another state, changing everything...AGAIN...but also exciting. Seeing new places, visiting the Atlantic ocean and Charleston. Learning new things, meeting new people.

We miss our home, our kitties, our beds and our family and friends. But it is so nice to be together with my husband, even though we are camping out on airbeds in the spare bedroom of an apartment rented by a co-worker friend of Paul's. Life is an adventure.

I cannot wait to settle in and experience life in this new area, set my studio back up and start working on my art again. This will have to wait about one to two months.

Caden is taking a vacation from school and I am home schooling him with the work provided by his teacher. Caden misses school and his friends. He turns 6 on Thursday. He is so excited and the countdown to THE DAY is repeated over and over every day. He is very thrilled that we are swing set shopping for the new house (but has the understanding that the house has to be purchased, school needs to get out, and we need to move before we can purchase said swing set/fort contraption). Just something he can look forward to.

ok.. off to entertain one bored little guy who has been harassing me all day.....we both miss school!

photo free for all....

Well, the car lot has not come through for us, Caden and I are still car-less. The "rental" they had offered ended up to be broken. Just like a lot of promises....Luckily my mom was able to pick us up to get a couple of errands done and we were able to get a ride to Caden's school to go on the field trip that he has been looking forward to for days. Needless to say, our life has been filled to the brim with stress. Ok, enough of that ugly subject!

We were able to get away from the hustle and bustle and attend the spring kindergarten class field trip to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum and Frederick Meijer Gardens. I will let the pictures to most of the talking....

This week in pictures starts with April 15, the evening Caden lost his second tooth.

the tooth fairy left $1.50 in quarters which is burning a deep hole in Caden's pocket already!

Tuesday's field trip began with the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. Caden has been there two or three times. I think this will be the last, unless they do a major change up, it kinda gets redundant after so many trips.


domino stacking...

mirrored tunnel posing...(this is the only unsolicited pose I got, Caden bemoaned the fact that I was shooting so many pictures)


Caden particularly enjoyed working at the wee bank drive Thru window, and had his go at robbing the ATM also.

as always, the bubble area was a big hit.


such concentration!

and finally a little practice for backyard camping in the summertime..



Next it was time to go see the butterflies!

they set out nectar fulled sponges for the butterflies to feast upon. You can see the star of the show on the left, it is a clear wing butterfly. Beautiful!



views inside the butterfly incubator....


the moon moth, my favorite this year.



so pretty!

so many cocoons in various stages of development. What a wonderful sight!









and moments after:

it hopped onto my pant leg. We got it safely off the walkway.





a final close-up on another clear wing.

They also have a beautiful display of orchids...







and a family of flightless Japanese quail, but only one little guy kept following us around...


we finished up our day quickly observing some of the sculptures in the sculpture garden and playing in the playground.


sculpture made out of bicycle parts.

As you can see I got a lot of practice using the macro setting on the camera!

ps...Caden did his own hair, especially "spiked" to give the butterflies a place to land! so cute!