Our smokin' dog :(

look closely...yes that is kiwi smoking away..naughty dog! (really we don't condone this, I just had to get one pic to remember her silliness!)

Close-up on kiwi's newest vice!

nicotine fit

No, no we didn't start smoking, but our dog seems to have an affinity for the nicotine. You all remember Kiwi, our cute little three month old pug in all of her early innocence...here is a picture of her just to jar your memory :)


That innocence has been shattered. Her sole purpose on her walks is to find any and every discarded cigarette on the road. Then she walks around with it in her mouth. If you could only imagine a pug with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. I think she actually craves it, she is obsessed. I will take it out of her mouth and throw it as far away as possible only for her to find another. (the road next to us is the drop-off and pick-up point for a private school, I think the parents throw out the old cigarettes when they are done while sitting in line) Now, in California, only an idiot throws their cigarettes because you can start a wildfire, but here in Michigan this seems to be a very common practice that drives me bonkers! Now my dog is an addict ;) Gee, I wish I had a picture to show you all, I'll try and snap one later!

On another tragic note, I have had a highlighting accident with my hair and am on my way to an emergency hair appointment. Wish me luck! Paul has been sweet, we are down to one car (another emergency) and he has postponed a meeting so we don't have to look at my formerly blonde, now orange, hair. The Wagon has a problem and the mechanic has had it for two days and we have yet to know what is wrong..something engine related UGH! If it is not one thing it is another!

This, people, is our frantic life! Wish us luck!

word verification

I had to put word verification on my commenting. Sorry, I know it is an annoying extra step, but I was getting way too much spam.

Pier pictures

I thought I would share some pictures from our walk on the beach last week while grandpa was visiting.


Caden and Grandpa


cruising the sand


Kiwi, intrigued by fresh water mussels


the pier, quite a breazy day!


Caden trying to chase the waves.

Cute bears..

I found this link via
mollychicken's blog. Here are a few samples of cuteness...


holiday bear


adorable hedgehog


bunnies

Speaking of cuteness, I must get this book


I love love love what momo has been doing with the patterns in the book. So cute!

I was, however, very fortunate to get this book:
Because I was drooling over the cute little puppy and bird patterns. No..I do not knit..but I figured I could use some of my home-made felt in place of the knitted pieces and use the pattern. I wish I could learn to knit..but there are so many other things on the list of things to do before that:)

In other news...it looks like we have the house! 99.9% sure that we will be moving into our very first home of our own mid November! Yahoo! (please continue to pray if you can..we can still use the extra thoughts!, this has been so stressful)

Grandpa is going home tomorrow morning. We had a nice family get-together last night. It is nice seeing family that live so close, but we never see because everyone is busy in their everyday lives.

How did Dad get in the Radio?

My husband has been working insane hours for the past few months. We all know it is the choice you make when you start a small business, so we have been dealing. Sometimes we don't deal all that well and it gets overwhelming. One fact of this situations is that I haven't had the time to work on my art. Well, yesterday morning, I was driving Caden to preschool at 7:30, and we here Paul on the radio. It was a good thing we were listening to that station because he did the sweetest thing. He just called (as the DJ said, he was having a sensitive man moment) to say how much he realizes this is hard on our family and how he is doing it all for us. Caden knew it was daddy. He didn't think it was at all unusual. Caden just asked me, "mommy...how did daddy get in the radio?" He really wanted to know if there was somewhere we could go to get in the radio with Dad...which, in a way is true...you drive to the radio station (but Paul was on the phone) Very perceptive little gut we have. And how loved we are by his daddy. :)

Oh, on another note, this is my new and (hopefully) improved logo. I finally got my acorn right! (I will get illustrator under my belt one day!!)


now i want to make a rubber stamp out of it and a separate acorn stamp, I wonder if I will accomplish this before the end of the year? haha..

more crafty goodness

more Japanese crafting sites

pochikonome This site has needle felted goodness..
cute needle cushions and pins..




chiko-no-me This one has clay modeling....




but I really love what Laurie has been doing lately over a Mod Dots..
you can follow the link if you have no clue what I am talking about..I wasn't sure about using her images :)

crafty goodness

Thank you all for your thoughts and wishes on my birthday, I felt very loved. We had a small get-together at a local woodfired pizzeria. It was nice. I am not adapting well to this new decade..the big 3-0.

I have perusing the wonderful internet and found neat site... poppet It has cool felted animals and figures including...









I absolutely Camilla's new babies...
especially the coco colored one, named "chestnut" He is already sold! Her talent abounds! It would be so wonderful to learn how to crochet little creatures!

sick-day

Caden is sick...Grandma-lini is recovering from a hip replacement, and Grandpa California is visiting us for two weeks. Last night was Grandpa's birthday, Sunday is mine. Caden's head hurts, he must have a sinus headache or allergies, but my very active child is reduced to a mopey child laying on the couch with his head on my lap. Oh, how I wish I could "fix" him. It is sad to see your kids get sick.

Good Mail!

I was the lucky winner over at Maize's blog! I am so lucky. This has been my first ever piece of "crafty" mail..cannot wait for more. Thanks Maize!


the loot!


Me wearing my new lariat necklace from Maize Hutton!

Horsing Around...

Caden found his Halloween costume...a horse. He wanted to be a magician, so I was dreaming up a whole bunch of cute ideas like a rabbit in a hat etc....but he fell in love with this horse costume. Isn't he cute? He insisted we blog this immediately! Ironically, this costume matches his rocking horse in his room, I need to get a picture of them together!




stirrups?


the "kids"


horse down!

Can't wait for Halloween...

Some pictures...

from our garden

another garden beauty

the sun hitting our woven trunk...

musings...

Here are some of the ceramic 'embossing stamps' that I have been working on...









Just some of my doodles, to come to life in this...
my new tiny kiln, delayed by Katrina..but safely home now!

Self-portrait Tuesdays...Wounded

see more SPT here.


This is an image of my injured right hand, my dominant hand. I was gardening to the point of blisters. (Well, actually "ungardening"-getting my bulbs up to bring to our new house!) A good reminder that we all need to listen to our physical cues.


On another note...the reason why this post is late is that I went in for my quarterly SI nerve blocks. This was with my new neuro, and these blocks really knocked me out. Apparently this will be a lifetime routine, unless they come up with some sort of cure for a fusion that fused in the nerve canal. Oh well, that is life, err at least mine anyways. I really do not like to write about it, but it is a big part of our lives in that it has majorly altered our way of life and choices.

Ok, enough of that...

Caden has been the sweetest little guy lately. When I got my blister, he went inside and got warm water running to rinse it out and then brought two ice packs. One for his bruises (he is so active he is like one big bruise on his legs) and one for my blister. He was such a good little helper. He is really empathetic to everyone and tries to soothe anyone that is upset or hurt. So sweet.

Today, Grandma picked him up from preschool because she was helping us out (it was during my nerve blocks). (Thanks Grandma) Caden very seriously said, "oh no grandma, I forgot my lawnmower". You see, we always tell him that when he gets older he can cut grandma's grass. Well, he is older, by a couple of days at least! Hey that is a long time in a child's eyes! How blessed are we!

house update...looking good, paperwork to the mortgage company and rate locked in...we will see, we still are in disbelief, we have been leasing for so long!

Dare to Dream

Dare to dream...

That is what my motto is today...we have made an offer on a house, we will see how it works out. If it does, we will be in November 1st. I never, ever believed we could get a house of our very own. Wow... Caden would have so much space to run and other little boys to play with in the neighborhood. Wonderful neighborhood and location...And as Grandma always said, the least expensive house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

Trust me, we have looked and looked. We looked in a very low price range and decided that we really could not find the right neighborhood or enough space. One house we looked at was purple and green and yellow and teal and that was the least of its problems...

Dare to dream.

It finally rained here!

It finally drizzled here this week, which means....


and then...

frumpy frog.."mom, no more pictures please!" :)

We

♥
Caden

self portrait tuesday

This is my self portrait tuesday entry. You can click the above link to see others!

label

Imaginary friends...

Well, Caden has entered the realm of imaginary friends, although, his "friend" is quite unique. Apparently Caden has a truck which happens to be black, blue and red that follows us wherever we go. It backs up when we back up, parks when we parks. But this truck is very special, it carries any item you have ever desired. Caden says, "my truck has that, in my truck there is a saw-chain (chainsaw in cadenese) for daddy" Well, Paul has never mentioned he needed said chainsaw, nor do we need one, but Caden believes there is a great need for one and his "truck" has it in the back. His truck has toys, food, lots of engines, always has its lights on. It is very unique and so cute.

If only this truck could find us the right home to buy, we seem to fall in love quick and out of love in a couple of days. Our conservative budget makes competition in the market. We found a beautiful small bungalow, and we completely remodeled it in our head without much thought that, yes Paul works ninety hours a week, and he would be the one to do much of the work. Hmmm, we have never been patient people and living in a complete mess is too much for my neat-freak tendencies. While we have found perfectly adequate houses, the price has either been too high or the school system is wrong. There is hope, we just need to practice patience. Ah, patience, not my best quality.


a little kiwi cuteness, still cute, still learning the rules...

house hunting

I haven't been posting much around here much because the house hunting has reached a fevered pitch. Last night we viewed five. One we would only dream to have, but is at the top end of our budget. We need to be conservative, so that one is out, although I so so love it. One was ok. Another was a no way. And one was just right, same lay out as the one we liked, closer to town. It was just right, but we are not sure that our financing is completely done and we need 20% down. So, Paul has tons of equipment up on ebay to raise some more money. Still thay won't be enough. We were planning on 10% down, but our financing rate would would beome so much better with 20% down. So hopefully the soft housing market will keep that one available and give us more time. It had a big fenced in back yard, it was really nice. We did look at one that you could see the lake at the end of the driveway, but it needed a total rehaul in the inside and with Paul working 90+ hours at work, there would be no way because of my disability. This has been quite a trial for us.

Kiwi is slowly becoming potty trained, but she is a pug and only 8 weeks old, so not so easy on that front. She has turned out to be a nice calm dog who can just as happily lay on my lap or play with Caden. She has started this cute thing where she runs as fast as she can, dips her head down, and do a sommersault. So cute.



Caden started his second year of preschool and loving it! The first day he had to sit in the "green chair", which is the naughty chair and he was not too happy about that. It has seemed to straighten out the problem. He is a full head taller than any one else in his class. Whew, cannot keep shoes and clothes on that kid! He is growing like a weed! I like summer because shorts are supposed to be short and he fits in them a lot longer because he is long and lean.


kiwi licking her chops!

new design

i have been practicing with Adobe Illustrator, this is what I have come up with so far....






I like the last one, more simple.

I am working on one similar to a pendant I designed with a flying bird...it is looking like this so far....

I can tell, however that the pixels need to be adjusted for a larger size to increase clarity.

Catastrophic Katrina

Like everyone out there, we are so horrified by the devastation down south. My husband has worked with The American Red Cross as a disaster relief manager, and with FEMA. Now, with this new business, it is taking him everything to not go down and help. He has been asked by the Red Cross, but there is no possibility of him leaving us because without him, there is no business and his family and his employee's family couldn't make it. So, like most everyone, we sit up late at night watching the devastation and praying for as quick and painless of recovery as possible. So, from very personal experience, I know that The American Red Cross is a wonderful institution to have in place, they are planning on serving over 500,000 meals a day, they have care packages, grief counselors, and they know how to work their way through the government for assistance. So if you feel so inclined, they would be a wonderful place to donate time and money.
Donate to the American Red Cross
There is also a wonderful conglomeration of crafters who have donated their crafts so all proceeds can go to the relief efforts check out Crafters United for hurricane Katrina Relief