Dreamland

These are pictures of the view from our cottage - back and front. Yesterday it started snowing in the morning and everything looked so pristine and beautiful. Unlike at home in the city where soon after the snow falls, it starts to look dirty and slushy. Things stay pure and white for a much longer time out in the country. We spent the weekend painting again. All doors and trimwork are finished now - on the first floor at least. Next time we will be staining the railing and newel post. We also now have a bed! No more sleeping on the floor on air mattresses. That is a HUGE improvement. The place is starting to look more like a home everyday. Sometimes it is hard to leave and go back to our home to our other house. It still is hard for me to believe this dream has actually come to fruition. What seemed like such an impossible dream, one that would never actually become a reality, has now been attained. The lesson here is to never give up on your hopes and dreams...when the time is right, everything will fall into place.

Getting To Know You...and Me!

A friend of mine sent me this "Getting To Know You" survey to fill out, so I thought I would share it with all of you. Maybe you'll want to try it too. If you do then post your link in the comment section at the bottom of this post. I'd love to see how other people answer these questions.

1. What is your occupation? Full Time Artist/Designer, Part Time Office Manager
2. What color are your socks right now? Navy Blue
3. What are you listening to right now? The Dr. Phil Show
4. What was the last thing that you ate? A Granola Bar
5. Can you drive a stick shift? No. My husband tried to teach me when we were dating and I've never tried it again.
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Any shade of green
7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My Friend, Sybil
8. What is your favorite drink? Starbuck's Caramel Macchiato
9. What is your favorite sport to watch? At the moment, football....Go Bears!
10. Have you ever dyed your hair? I have added highlights to cover the gray!
11. Pets? A 13 yr. old black cat named Midnight. We've found him by a loading dock when he was a few days old and abandoned by his mother.
12. Favorite food? Stuffed French Toast
13. What was the last movie you watched? It's been a while....But I think it was Little Miss Sunshine.
14. Favorite day of the year? The First Day of Spring.
15. What do you do to vent anger? Clean the House...Weird, I Know.
16. Your favorite toy as a child? Barbie Dolls
17. What is your favorite Season? Definitely Spring.
18. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
19. Favorite Meal? Breakfast
20. Living arrangements? House on a half-acre in suburbia
21. When was the last time you cried? During the Christmas Program at Church.
22. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes
23. Who is the friend you have had the longest. Nancy - We've known each other for 47 years....Yikes!
24. What did you do last night? Watched the State of the Union speech on TV.
25. Favorite smells? Freshly mown grass and new born babies.
26. What inspires you? Books, Magazines, Nature, Fashion, Other Artist's Work, Quotations - I could go on and on.
27. What are you most afraid of? Failure.
28. What country you would most like to visit? France
29. Favorite dog breed? Beagle
30. Number of keys on your key ring? Six
31. States you have lived in? So far only one - Illinois
32. Favorite holiday? Christmas
33. Ever driven a Motorcycle? No, but I rode on the back of one when I was in college.
34. Where do you work on your art? In a spare bedroom dedicated for all things creative.
35. Favorite Artist? Monet

Weekend Work Zone

We went up to the cottage for a long weekend and spent our first nights there. How exciting! What wasn't so exciting was sleeping on the floor on air mattresses. I have come to the conclusion that we are way too old for that kind of discomfort! After spending one night on the floor, we made a beeline to the mattress store and ordered one to be delivered this Friday. I can't wait! We had hoped to wait a bit on any big purchases until we replenished our savings account a bit after building the cottage, but we both gave in and agreed that a bed is sort of a necessity.
We spent most of of time at the cottage working. I made a simple crisp white curtain to hang in the bathoom window for a little privacy. My DH cleaned out the crawl space as he wasn't too impressed with the builder's quality of cleaning. I also put down shelf liner in all the kitchen cupboards. For a tiny kitchen it certainly needed an awful lot of shelf liner! I ran out once and had to go buy more and that still wasn't enough! We hung a bamboo blind in the kitchen window. I like how the wood adds a little warmth to the room. Then we started to fill nail holes, sand and repaint all the wood trim in the house. The carpenter installed the wood trim, but we elected to do all the painting in the house to cut down on costs. What seemed like a good idea back when we began this process, has turned into somewhat of a boring chore now. But if I think of all the $$$$ we saved, it makes the whole thing a lot less painful.

Due to our trip to the cottage, I am now two days behind on the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities challenge I signed up for. Yikes! Sorry Kari and Bonnie....I have lots of catching up to do now! But check out their websites to see what truly amazing work they have done for the first two prompts.

Show and Tell

Thought I would share this collage I did in a shadow box frame for my soon to be 95 year old aunt. That is her in the photograph along with my uncle who passed away several years ago. She misses him a lot and I thought this would be a nice remembrance for her to look at. They were married in 1938 and the white card in the lower left side is their wedding invitation (back when the bride sent engraved invitations to their wedding).

Here is another shadow box frame that I did for a baby shower gift. Simple and sweet. I love making things like this to give as gifts, but sometimes I hate parting with them. After creating them they become almost like offspring. But just like children, eventually you must set them free.

The Door to a New Challenge

I am so excited about a new challenge that I am going to participate in starting January 18th. Kari and Bonnie are hosting it and you can read about it here and here. If you are like me and need to jump start your creative juices you may want to join in on the fun!

Just a Quick Hello

Gee, it's been a while since I sat down at my computer. So this morning I took my cup of coffee and forced myself to fire up the laptop and check my email. Wowee!! It's amazing how much stuff accumulates in your "inbox" when you haven't been online for a while. So after I answered all the email (and deleted all the spam) I thought I would enter a post here just to say howdy! We have been so busy with the cottage - closing with the builder, shopping for essentials, on the phone setting up accounts for electric and gas service and homeowner's insurance - plus my DH has taken some vacation days and my daughter is on break from school, so my normal schedule has been totally out the window. I haven't even had time to work on any artwork since the new year began. Yikes! So thought I would let you peek at some of my favorite places to get inspired...like here and here and here. Oh and here too. And I can't forget my all-time favorite here.

Nearing Completion

It's almost finished! Hard to believe that soon we will have a place to go to recharge, relax and maybe retire to. A dream brought to fruition. Somebody pinch me!!

Happy New Year!

DREAM BIG!!! I have decided that this will be my motto for the new year. I hope all of your dreams come true in 2007!!!

Three More Days - Part 2

Blogger is giving me grief this morning and wouldn't let me type anything to go along with the pictures below, so I had to post them separately. Three more days until Christmas and here are three more pages to my Christmas Journal. The Perfect Gift page was a previous prompt that I skipped a while back. The other two are Lists and Photograph Your Home. I stayed up late to complete these pages. I think I must be a little nuts to be working on the journal when I have so many things to do to before Christmas. How is everybody else's preparations coming along?

Three More Days

Christmas Journal {Days 17-20}

I just completed four more pages of my Christmas Journal....Gratitude, The Christmas Table, Letters to Santa, Mail. They all have been in various stages of incompletion the past few days, but I finally was able to get them finished in between Christmas shopping and baking.

Counter Stool Update

Well, I struck out on my search for counter stools at Homegoods. Could only find one and I need two. Bought two other stools that look similar to these, but with cleaner, straighter lines than those pictured and a lot less expensive. We will give them a try and see how they look. If they don't work out, I found some like my original choice on this website at a reasonable price and with free shipping and no tax to boot!

The Hunt

I am been running around all over going to every TJ Maxx/Homegoods store within driving distance looking for a pair of counter stools for our cottage. I am obsessed with finding them, but so far I have only been able to find one in good condition. The stools are exactly like these from Pottery Barn, except instead of being $129, they are $49. I just can't bring myself to paying $129 for something that I know is out there for $49. Am I weird? Anyway, I really shouldn't be spending so much time on something so ridiculous when I have a million and one things to do before Christmas Eve, which by the way is only 5 days away. But then I think that is a common trait of a procrastinator isn't it? Anyway, no time to work on my Christmas Journal as I am flying out the door to go to one more Homegoods Store!!! Wish me luck! : )

Tree is Done!

After looking a bit sad and bare for almost two weeks, I finally found time to decorate the tree. Everyone in the family is happy. The tree is happy. And I am happy too....happy that I can finally cross this off my To Do list! Yipee!

Christmas Journal {Day 15}

Shimelle's prompt for today was "Visitors" and she advised us to keep it simple. Hmmm...not sure if I am capable of the simplistic style. And no, that is not my front door. It is from my collection of front door photographs I took a couple years ago.

Have lots to do today. I have to make a run to the mall to return some gifts that I bought and have since changed my mind about. Also have to go to Target to get an adjustment on something that I bought that is on sale now. I have to make a dessert for a party I am attending and also wrap 8 little gifts to give out there as well. And my goal is to have the Christmas tree totally decorated by this afternoon. The family is getting tired of looking at the three lonely ornaments that I stuck on there when we first put the tree and lights up. Correction...there are now FOUR ornaments as I bought a cute little one yesterday. But after today there will be too many ornaments to count....I promise!

To Die For...

FROZEN TIRAMISU

Made with Kahlúa, DiSaronno Amaretto, Tuaca (an Italian vanilla liqueur) and ice cream.

I had one of these at The Olive Garden yesterday. All I can say is YUM-O! I highly recommend trying one, just not at the Indianapolis location. It is to die for!!!

Christmas Journal {Days 11,12, 13, 14}

Trying not to get too far behind on my Christmas Journal. There is so much going on right now that keeping up sometimes means staying up until the wee hours of the morning to finish a page. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love doing this kind of thing. It clears my mind, it gives me some "me" time, it feels good to preserve these thoughts this way...it's all good!

Had some disappointing news about the cottage we are building the other day. We were supposed to close today, but got a call saying it will have to be rescheduled. We are a bit frustrated by the whole thing because we believe they have been slacking off lately and feel that is the reason for the delay. Unfortunately we aren't building a big, huge house nor have we been very demanding throughout the process, so I am thinking that is probably the reason they aren't finishing on time. I guess you live and learn with things like this. Oh well, I suppose it will be finished someday.

Christmas Journal {Days 8, 9 10}

I had some time to work on my Christmas Journal again as I feverishly try to get caught up. I am enjoying the time I spend on it. The only negative is that I much rather work on the journal than on other chores that are more pressing. It's that procrastinator thing going on again. It is so difficult to change old habits. Day #8's prompt was to journal about the Signs of Christmas and for me the first sign is when Starbucks brings out their Holiday drink line...Peppermint Mocha, Eggnog and Gingerbread Lattes, etc. Yummy! Holiday Traditions was Day #9, so I wrote about a Scandinavian tradition that we always serve for our first course at Christmas Eve dinner. Finally, on Day #10 we were to wrap our page as if it was a gift. I just so happened to be wrapping gifts to send to relatives in Dallas that day, so I chose to use the same wrapping paper on my page. This was the simplest page to create so far! To check out some of my favorite artists who are also making Christmas Journals, click here, and here and here!

How Christmassy Are You?

I found this on here and thought it would be fun to play along!

You know the drill. Don't be a scrooge!!!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg nog
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? She wraps them
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No
5. When do you put your decorations up? Whenever I can find the time...no set date
6. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Going downtown in Chicago, eating lunch at the Walnut Room in Marshall Field's by the big Christmas tree and looking at the Christmas windows afterwards.
7. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Can't remember, but we were pretty old. Guess we didn't want to give up on the magic of it all.
8. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve? Yes, with our extended family. We save our immdiate family gifts to open on Christmas Day.
9. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? One ornament at a time!
10. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love new fallen snow....but hate driving in it.
11. Do you know how to ice skate? I used too, but haven't tried it lately
12. Do you remember your favorite gift? A Barbie Dream House from my Aunt and Uncle
13. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being with family
14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Christmas cookies
15. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Opening the package my Aunt sends from Texas
16. What tops your tree? A big snowflake
17. Which do you prefer - giving or receiving? Giving mostly, but the receiving is fun too.
18. What is your favorite Christmas Song? O Holy Night
19. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yuck by themselves, but as an ingredient in a recipe - YUM-O

Playing Catch Up

You know, once I miss a day on these projects, I seem to get further and further behind. Not to worry though..we will just say I am progressing at my own pace so that I can enjoy the process. The prompt for Day #7 was Holiday Gifts. Since I have gifts bought but not actually wrapped yet, I thought I would just photograph them in their original shopping bags to illustrate the chaos in my art room as I mentioned in the previous post. Would you believe I still only have three ornaments on my Christmas tree...so sad! Looking ahead on the prompts for my Christmas Journal, I see Day #11 is the Christmas Tree, so I guess I'd better get crackin' and get those ornament boxes down. Why am I such a procrastinator???