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Happy end of Summer. Well, to me it seems that Summer is winding down as school has started this week & then soccer practice is in the evenings. How am I aware of all of this when I don't have any children? Our back yard faces the Worthington Park Elementary school. There is a walk way between my house and the neighbor's next door as entry to the school playground. When we bought this property 22 years ago, we got $1000 knocked off the price of the lot because of the "annoyance" of the school or so the realtor said. Hey, I was all for bargains back then so I said no problem, and after all these years it actually is no problem. I love watching the neighborhood children grown up each year walking down the sidewalk pulling on the ivy that has taken over the chain link fence. I hear them all excited about new school year and hear all the buzz about who likes who and who hates who and what teacher is mean or what teacher is nice or questions about what is going to be for lunch. Then during the Fall and Spring it is soccer time. Worthington spent tons of money to have the field behind the school cleaned and made into soccer field for practice and play offs in the elementary age group. It is sometimes fun to hear all the roar in the evenings, but I sometimes can live without the early early Saturday morning screaming & crying.



Now what else about all this is so worth telling you about? All of this is the greatest entertainment to all my Scotties. They adore running up and down the fence barking their fool little heads off at anything or anybody using the sidewalk. Long time ago, when we had our first Scottie FalaPink and the ivy hadn't covered the fence, FalaPink would hide behind the house. Just as someone would come right next to where he was hiding he would jump out and bark the big gigantic Scottie bark he was known for. Or he'd run the fence barking merrily along. I caught two little kids throwing rocks at him and had to stop them before this got all out of hand. One kids said Fala was a "mean bad" dog. I asked him why he thought that. He said because Fala barked at him all the time. I told the two kids that is how dogs laugh. When he is playing chase with you, he's so happy that he is laughing all the way up and down the fence. You know what? That was back in 1990 and to this day when new children walk down the fence with new school age children I hear "don't worry about them barking, they are just having fun laughing at us". It worked. So to modern day...Frodo and Arwen love to run that fence barking. It is also a very good training ground for new dogs to learn "avoidance". Duo purpose here!



I haven't been beading or making many dolls lately. I've been having a problem with my elbow for the past three months that was progressively getting worse. My Family Practice said it was "tennis elbow" and gave me oral steroids that did work for a few days, but then I realized I had to go to a specialist. So Wednesday morning bright and early, I went in and got two shots in my elbow. OUCH! The first one finally started to work yesterday & the other will slowly take affect. Interesting to find out that the real problem isn't my elbow that is aching, but that I have a weak left wrist and hand. So now I have a set of exercises to do with weights so my left hand can become just as strong as my right. Most of the damage is due to repetitive work which I work in a hospital & I guess the years are taking their toll. But all is getting better. I actually gave all three a bath yesterday when I got up! Yeah for clean Scotties! AND I can rotate my arm without much pain. So I'm wanting to get back downstairs & get some projects completed. Can't wait.

Hope you enjoy these two pictures of me and Fiona. You can't tell from the picture, but Fiona's eyes are all white from the blindness due to her Diabetes. I need to hunt for my pictures of Fala. He was such a big boy and the king of the fortress for many years. I can't believe he died 11 years ago. I miss my big goofy boy.

Getting a few things done.

Yeah! Post office chore was accomplished & everything is out the door including my entry for the Illustrative Beader for Land of Odds. Sorry, but can't show any of that until I find out if my piece gets into the challenge. Also send out my beads to Gaea. We decided to take a tiny ride out of town & found a place with CORN! Fresh picked Ohio corn! I can't wait until dinner tonight.

This week, I was able to finish up some of the kits that I bought at B&B. One was Melanie Potter's Petalicious. It took me forever to get it done. One thing I'd like to say about Melanie's kits is that they have plenty of beads, and the instructions are just awesome. I had no problem following the thread paths or how things fit together...it just took forever to complete. Here is also a picture of Marcia DeCoster's Rising Sun from the class I took at B&B. I have it mostly done. I have to sew a couple more snaps onto it, and though Marcia has a step to connect the bumps together, I think I like it better without the connections, but maybe I'll change my mind once I once try to wear it.


I've also been playing with sculpting heads out of paper clay. The two classes I've had, we actually have used foil as the base of the head, but I was going through the basement trying to find something & I came across some styrofoam eggs that were suppose to be ornaments. I looked at them & thought what great heads they would be. So out came the tools, the paper clay, and paints. Now, I know it is going to take me a very long time before I can do sculpting that actually looks like a real or pretty head, but I just had a ball making these troll heads. I'd get the noses right & the next day I would work on the ears. It was fun. Then....paint! I tried to remember what I've learned about painting and thought to myself to just paint and see what happens. So here are two troll heads I've made. One keeps telling me he is H'dor and the other is S'leas. I'm working on the bodies right now. Now that is even more investigation. I had many members of Doll Street Dreamers giving me suggestions about how to proportion a pattern for the cloth body, and let me tell you that it is not easy! I have pencils, rulers, and you name it out along with fabric and Hal (my sewing machine). It is going to be a struggle, but I'm beginning to see how this pieces to that, and that goes with this, and all go on that...on and on...and on...



Also, while taking pictures, Chris grabbed this picture of me & Fiona outside after she got "lost". Since being diagnosed with Diabetes last Summer, I've seen her slowly slide into a canine dementia. I know her age & being blind has something to do with it, but I truly think she is getting a little senile too. She gets turned around and stuck by the door or gate & doesn't realize that she only needs to turn around. The relief of her face when we call to her to for guidance or actually go & pick her up & swing her into our loving arms is just something only another person with an old ill dog can understand. So here I am with my sweet old girl.

Bead Soup Blog Hop Partner

This is my first time for Lori's amazing Bead Soup Blog Hop. Click on the link to the right to get flown away to Lori's blog to find out all about this great trip around the globe.

My partner is Gaea Cannaday. She has the most amazing Ceramic Beads. I spent my whole dinner break last night looking at her blog, her website, her Etsy shop. Everything is just wonderful and wow! those Day of the Dead pieces are just my cup of tea. All the Earthy tone colors, but still I keep wandering back to those Ceramic Sugar Skulls!

The one thing that we had to have for this Blog Hop was a nice clasp. OMG, I don't use clasp unless I make them with seed beads, so I had to go through all my boxes of things all over the studio, because I didn't want to send her the ugly lobster claws that I have rusting away in a box from when I first started to bead. Imagine me going through tray after tray looking, contemplating, discarding, then looking more. Finally, I found something nice enough that will match the focal piece that I picked for her along with some other things that will match. I saw she doesn't do seed beads, so I decided to not add them to the stash as I don't want to make someone go blind with all those size 11/15s I usually use. Then I saw she likes fiber, so I found a nice piece of fiber from my doll making stash that will work well. Now, the deadline to mail is the 17th. Do you think I really sent them out today knowing my "allergy" of post office? No, but I swear swear swear, that tomorrow they are going out with a few other things that I NEED to get mailed.

Here is a little sneak of what I'm sending:




So, what did I get in the mail today...my Bead Soup Blog Hop package from Gaea. Look at this beautiful acorn pendent & the matching beads to go with it...and I love the hand made clasp. Now the hard part! I have until September 17th to construct something with these treasures before the actually Blog Hop will start. My problem...I don't string so I'm going to have to figure out how to use these lovelies with bead weaving. I've been practicing doing RAW after taking classes with Marcia & Carol, but woo! I'm going to have to do some major jewelry design here. But isn't that what a Challenge is all about.




Also going in the mail tomorrow: Land of Odds Illustrative Tapestry package with all the pictures, story, information (whew, I was tired just doing it all). Gilbert Hippo is going to a new home. I'm hoping to find the pictures I took for BFAC so I can send that to Kate (or will have to take more pictures), and then a few other little things that need to get mailed!

Well, off to do more packing. We are getting new laminate floors next month for the whole downstairs & I have to take all my Scottie stuff & Doll stuff & jewelry stuff & just about everything else out of the china cabinets so they won't get damaged when the floors get installed. I'm not even half done & already got 8 boxes. I can see a nice adult beverage calling my name later.