creations!

i've done it! i've been creative! :)

my first attempt to be creative came in the form of these cute little baby booties. :) found this pattern and decided i wanted to try it... if they came out well, i'd make some for my cousin's baby, and maybe even baby nora, and any other babies that might be coming... lots of babies in my world. so... here are the results...

first attempt, red felt with white buttons. I think they came out super cute. slightly elfish, but i still enjoy them :)

for my second attempt, i used a cotton fabric, with red felt bottoms. i modified the pattern a little, and added a little wrap to the toe part of the shoe, opened the opening up a little more. very hippy-esque, and i love them... so little, so perfect, so cute. :)

next time around i will try lining them with a sturdier fabric (like the felt), and finish off the edges so they're slightly more polished. *and* i will make the overlap go to the outside instead of to the inside like this pair. still figuring out directions when you've got things inside out. i'm too much of a visual person that it takes me a while to figure out which side goes where.

my next attempts at being creative were directed towards flowers. yo-yos were the first ones, and somehow in transporting them from one place to another, i have misplaced the one with the cute green buttons. it will turn up, and when it does i will post them. the other one is a larger flower, with a slightly different pattern... i just wanted to see what it looked like. i need to make adjustments the next time i make it, but i think it came out whimsically. :)

i even set up my enlarger in the spare bedroom at beau's house, and unpacked my darkroom equipment. just need some tables, some water, and to mix my chemicals, darken the room, and we'll be in business! :) yippee!!!

new leaf

it's the new year. i don't want to be like everyone else and post a list of things i will resolve to do this year, because i know myself, i will not meet them. however, after a heated discussion the other day with the love of my life, i realized there's a lot of things in my life i need to work on... mainly interpersonal relationships and internal stuff. so... this is the new leaf, or new leaves, i look to turn over.

1. growing with God. i've fallen a lot in this area lately. discouraged with some stuff, overwhelmed with other stuff, whatever it may be, whatever the excuse, it's no excuse. and this has affected all other areas of my life. SO... to get back into it, i am going to break open my new bible that beau gave me for christmas, and i'm going to study study study.

2. tap into my creativity. beau promised to set up my darkroom stuff. i've also happened upon many many blogs that have crafty, do-it-yourself projects that seem so cute and so fun. soooo... i hope to destroy some old clothing and other fabric things, and create new items from them. :) look for posts with fun pictures of what i've done. sadly, i didn't take a picture of my pine cone ribbon hanging i made for christmas... but i'll post it next year... :)

3. prepare for teaching. yup. well. it's a good thing im in school again this semester. and it's great that i'm only working part-time and taking three classes, because these three classes are TRULY going to kick my butt. yup. so much for having a little more time on my hands.

4. getting together with people. i want to have some friends over on fridays for a couple hours where we can hang out, make goodies, and be girls. :) there are specific people i want to get closer to, and i think this will be a great way to do it.

SO... this is where life gets tricky. all of these things require time. not that i don't have the time, but that i am a poooooooor time manager. if you know me at all, you know i am not organized at all. so this is the challenge... to improve in all these areas at the same time, without compromising on all my other responsibilities. :)

oh...

and with the creativity stuff, i want to blog more. i have enjoyed reading the blogs i've come across, and while they're not incredibly personal, i've had a snippet of what life is like for other people. i am slightly jealous of the people who can stay at home and do crafts with (or without) their children all day long... or ... ok, i know they're not just doing crafts all day, they have lives too... but working on projects each day is pretty cool. :) sooooooo... that is what im striving for. :)

el Gato...

My cat, lovingly named "Cat" or "El Gato" by Everly and Beau, respectively, thinks he owns the

world. Really. The Christmas tree was his home, his own private hideout, and if you came near it, he would attack you. You should have seen him the day we took the tree down. He mourned it. Literally. He attacked me the whole time i took the ornaments off the tree, and then the lights... and then with Beau holding the tree steady, I crawled under and unscrewed it from the stand... all the while, Cat was gnawing on my hands. We put him in the room while Beau took the tree out, and when we let him out again, he was so confused, and so sad. He found another hiding place in the room off the living room (previously called the "manroom" but will soon be the "workout room")... and then got upset when I cleaned that room to make room for the weight bench that will soon move in there. He was just distraught. He laid around the house the rest of the day, just not himself. Poor guy.

The other day, I was sitting on the couch, reading, and I heard Cat hitting something around the floor. Happy he found a new toy to play with, I looked to see what it was. As I looked over my shoulder, he came zooming by, batting a fortune cookie around in front of him. We'd had Chinese food the night before and have given up on eating the stale cookies. He found one (either got on the table--a big no-no, or it'd fallen off the table and he found it) and was fascinated by the noise it made and how it flew across the floor. He hit it across the room, and it started to go under the couch, so he grabbed it in his mouth and carried it, like a prize, like he was bigtime, back to the front room. Hilarious!! So cute!

I grabbed my camera and started to take pictures. He saw that and wanted the camera instead, so he came running toward me and started biting and swatting at me... oh little one... :) I just laugh at him, he's a sweetie, but can be rough... my hands have the marks to prove it. But when he gets what's he's trying to get (fortune cookie, his fuzzy toys, even clothes that have been left on the floor), he carries it across the floor like he's the King and he's come back from his latest hunt... makes me laugh.

Yesterday, Beau came to me with Cat tucked in one arm and what looked like a claw (with a bloody end (not pointy end, the other end)... Both of us thought he must have ripped a claw out somehow... but I checked, and he had the claws he is supposed to have (he's had the front claws removed). We looked closer, and Beau said, "maybe it's a tooth..." and sure enough, his bottom left fang was missing... turns out kittens lose their baby teeth like little kids do! So... His bites don't hurt as bad right now, which is nice...

He's growing so much right now. I was gone in California for only a weekend, and when I got back, he'd grown probably an inch or so. It's crazy. He takes up so much more space now. When he lays on me while I'm typing now, he makes it really difficult to type, because he likes the warmth of the keyboard, and likes to chew fingers, and he's just getting big... :) But I love him, the little rascal.

a christmas like never before...

while my family was scattered on the west coast and throughout the desert on christmas eve and christmas day, i spent my time with beau, enjoying his family and then quiet time with just him and the cat. it was very different, but i still enjoyed it. i missed my family, the loudness and laughter, and knowing the stories that were being told :) but i enjoyed the new stories, the new traditions, the laughter and busyness of it all. i was able to spend some time in california with my parents, my brother, sisinlaw and niece, which was great, and i wish they didn't live so far away.

since christmas beau and i have been sick at some level or another, he being the most sick with a respiratory ickiness that i think he's finally getting over. i had a stomach bug that lasted about a day, and have been battling the regular winter cold by staying inside most of the day... :) (except when i have to go to the grocery when it's raining cats and dogs).

so things in the south are going well... i'm looking forward to getting back to work so i can see my kiddos again and have a routine again. i'm looking forward to new years and fun with friends... i'm glad the rain hasn't been too bad since i've been home from california (we had an adventure with rain earlier this month).

i'm also looking forward to the cupcakes i'm about to bake...

i may not be able to cook wonderfully, but i am confident in my baking abilities. :)

funky baking

i've been in a funk the past couple days. wednesday i helped shauna with a catering job which was great, i only broke one glass. lol. really, i did. embarrassing to the core, but not horrible. i was exhausted after that though, and i don't know that i've fully recovered, in spite of sleeping until like 10 today, i'm still not completely recovered. emotions are shot, for some reason. and it's not the typical girl reason either, so i don't know what my deal is. sensitive and whiny, i hate being like this...

so... i decided to bake. i cleaned and now i'm baking. :) sugar cookies first cuz, well, they're delicious. :) i tried my hand at grandma's frosting... it's off just a smidge, but it still tastes good. i'm waiting impatiently for my cookies to cool so i can frost them. :) i might make banana bread again... i'm getting good at it... it might get put off til tomorrow though so the bananas are a wee bit riper. i like them mushygushy for banana bread. otherwise the flavor's not right.

anyways, i'm listening to christmas country music. love it. :) baking and feeling my spirits lift just a little bit... which is good.

im really bad at blogging, i've decided. not that i'm not whimsical and creative, just that it takes time... time i'd rather be investing in other things... like facebook? oh snap... ok... nevermind.

maybe i'm just bad at coming up with topics to write about. cuz my life isn't really all that interesting...

but today i will not give you the rundown of my life, because it's really not anything new. spent thanksgiving at beau's aunt's which is fun, and lots of good food, traditional southern thanksgiving dinner is much different than traditional yankee thanksgiving dinner, and while i missed some important ingredients from my previous thanksgivings, i was grateful for wonderful people and delicious food and feeling like a part of the family.

that was the only nutshell you are getting...

moving on...

yesterday at school, one of my little boys (xavier, 8), said he's decided my boyfriend is santa. or at least was the santa in their pictures. why? because he has a beard and he's big. ;) lol. oh kids... today, he reiterated the fact that he was positive beau is santa. i told beau, and he didn't seem as entertained by the idea as i was... i however think it's hilarious.

TODAY at school, one of my little girls told me that her family is not celebrating christmas this year. sad to hear, and curious, i asked her why, since i was pretty sure it wasn't a religious thing. sadly she told me it was because "christmas was too expensive". HOWEVER... and this made me really have to bite my tongue, her family was going to celebrate Hanukkah and Kwanzaa because those weren't as expensive. LOL. are you kidding me? really? instead of making christmas not about the presents, they decide to celebrate different holidays? really? how sad is that?

sunday night, beau and i started playing wii resort. we've learned i'm pretty good at bowling, archery, and i started out really good at swordfighting. but... alas... the second time around for every activity we did last night, beau beat me. and with a smile on his face, he ended the game a victorious. close games though, and soooo much fun!

well, it's time for lights out. i will share more 2nd grade wisdom as i come across it. :)

ida and the cat.

ida didn't touch us. i stayed home from school last monday night, and the storm never came. well, ok... it came, and if i lived down the road, would have been stuck, but... in chalmette, the winds came, some rain came, and that was it. now, i've heard ida became a wicked storm in the northeast, and i'm sad for those peeps... i'm glad that it didn't rip through here crazylike...

my kitty is at the vet still. i get to pick him up this afternoon. it's amazing how much i miss him. it was weird getting to beau's house yesterday afternoon and not have him (the kitty) run up and attack my legs... or climb up my leg while i was making dinner or ... anytime really. he's a climber. although, now, without any front claws, it'll be interesting to see how he gets around. he's really gonna have to learn to jump. anyways... i miss him. he still needs a name. everyone says it's sad for the kitty that he doesn't have a name. but i haven't come across anything that seems to fit him. the only thing that i think i like is Mac. because he likes my computer, but i don't think beau will go for that , cuz he's a PC.... it's the never-ending argument... mac vs. pc... those commercials don't help (i do love them though). soooooo... yeah... i don't know. maybe i can figure something out when he (the kitty) comes home today.

school is kicking my butt. i have to focus. i have no focusing ability these days, and i need some... a lot, really. the end of the semester is upon me and i have a LOT of work to do... but i can't seem to get anything done.

SIGH.

well. that's all for now... my head hurts. my leg hurts. my back hurts. old age setting in? maybe.