Holiday

Well, we are almost ready for our BIG holiday celebration. Molly and Jim are coming out to spend the night and start the day early tomorrow. I still have a bike to put together and am afraid I have left it too long and will not get it done today...: ( Roy is b-b-qing a turkey leg and I have rum and Absolute Vodka so whatever we have I will enjoy it, probably go to sleep after the first cocktail. lol

We closed on our new building, I am still scared about it but now know there is no turning back. I think it is going to be fine, even if I only use it as a studio it will improve our lives a LOT. Getting all this stuff out of the house is going to open up a lot of space around here and help me to keep this place clean, maybe, I hope. I am also looking forward to having teaching space and room to have really big workshops, this is something that is needed in this area, since the closest place for that is Halcyon. Artist in residence programs will be wonderful too. Gallery space, retail...the possibilities are mind boggling but I plan to start really small and slow...make it all work eventually and have some peace and fulfillment in my work. Tall orders but totally do able, I think.

So I'm off to the dump, to the store, to the barn, to put together a bike... no rest for the wicked.
Next; clean out a building, move my crap in and get back to work...see above statement.lol

Nose to the grindstone, hands upon the wheel...

Well, I spent the day being responsible, studying for my final in computer tools. It shouldn't be too bad, no worse than the mid term, or so I keep telling myself. But, there seem to be a LOT more terms to look up, 60 and we have several diagrams to draw...I may be getting myself all worked up for nothing.
The power point presentation went well. I was impressed with how many good ones there were. There were a couple of real stinkers too. But the good out weighed the bad by FAR. That was nice. The BEST part? I made an A for AWEsome! I will post it on here when I am somewhere I can use a real internet connection and not the play baby one I have at home.
I am posting a picture of Dahoy, she has been asking me to get her face out there so she will be noticed. She is very quiet and I am kind of surprised that she even spoke up. Just between you and me; Dahoy isn't the brightest one around but she is VERY sweet and since she asked so nicely I thought the last photo I took of her when we were out and about would do nicely.
Dahoy is the first in a series of felted dolls. She is wet felted and has needle felted detailing. She has substantial weighting in her legs so she feels "real" when held. I was inspired by a puppet I saw on Etsy and just had to try my hand at a character doll, Dahoy was born.
There will be baby dolls and some more beauties like Dahoy in this series. It should be a lot of fun. : )

Friday, finally

So here we are at the end of another week...finally. Is it just me or does everything seem to be rolling downhill...right onto my head?
The fence is almost complete and we should be closing on the building really soon. It will be nice to start moving all this business stuff out of my house and into the new studio space. SO MUCH ROOM! and light and well, an emoticon is in order : )
Stay tuned for updates on that situation and for new workshops etc. It will ALL be possible once I have the space, again : )

Great walking weather

So Mr Zig and I went for a LONG walk this morning on Kenebunk Beach. I LOVE that beach as does the Zig man. It was high tide so we only actually walked on the beach for a few hundred feet. But the sea wall was really empty and we had fun. We did meet a couple of new dogs, one was a HUGE, I mean really huge Great Dane. He was all white with black spots. When he approached us he crouched down like a cat going to spring. His owner said he was trying to be inconspicuous...not gonna happen I'm afraid. But it was so cute. Ziggy didn't know what to thing of him, he towered over Zig but was really friendly.
Then we met a tiny Sheltie, so sweet and mild, Now that is the size dog Zig likes to play with, smaller than he is so he can have the upper hand. He is funny.
Zig decided to race the waves today, he ran out toward to water and when the waves came at him he acted as though they were really after him and he tore all over the beach like a crazy person. It was quite funny, I wished I could have taken his leash off so he could really RUN, but with the road right there I didn't dare...just couldn't have him run out onto a busy street, nope.
Anyway, it was a nice morning and the cool breeze felt so good and smelled good too. I enjoyed watching the waves roll up along the sea wall and spit straight up into the air as it hit.
At one point Ziggy jumped down over the sea wall onto the tiny bit of beach that wasn't under water yet. Then when he tried to et back UP, he remembered he can't jump, I mean the can't jump AT ALL, so we had to get to a place where the beach was higher and the wall lower, then I hauled him up over the wall...he didn't do it again, I think he was scared when he realized he couldn't get back up to where I was. Poor Zig.
But alls well that ends well and we had a great walk and he is napping in the car waiting for the long ride home after we get Cari.

NEW Widget!

Hey! How do you like my new widget? I think it is pretty cool! Tran showed me how to paste it in and I am lovin it.
Thought while I was at it I would show everyone one of my Santa ornaments. This time we find Santa running around with too much to do. After all it is just 5 weeks before Christmas! He hasn't even had time to get dressed, just threw on his vest and hit the ground running.
Santa is made of a wool/mohair blend needle felted over a wire armature. He can be posed differently if you so choose. He comes ready to hang with a mono-filament strand already attached. This ornament may be hung on just about any tiny or light weight branch as it weighs but a scant portion of an ounce. He will be posted on Etsy this afternoon so you may see him in my widget too : )

Felted Wool Wild Things Once Mild, Now Wild

Felted Wool Wild Things Once Mild, Now Wild

YIKES!

So sorry to have been absent for SO LONG! I forgot about this blog, honestly. Life has been moving pretty fast and I have been busy.
Been going to school still. I've done ok, with all A's so far. Not taking a lot of classes but have been trying to do well with each of them.
I transfered to Granite State College, the Conway campus. I really like it, they take a personal approach to school and my advisor knows me and emails me with reminders and questions and attaboys. I like that.

Onward and upward, success and happiness

So I was online looking at the Conway Area Humane Society site checking out doggies that were available (because we don't have enough dogs around here)since the little pup we were waiting for happily turned out to be a girl (If it turned out to be a girl Kim will have her be a wonderful show dog, if it was a boy she was going to place it and we asked if we could get him). Anyhoo, I saw this little "poodle" girl listed and man, was she cute. But there was also a Chihua puppy/baby up for adoption along with a couple of other chihuas. Upon arival at the shelter the little girl dog was on a leash walking and playing with two guys that I know from the Fryeburg area. I figured they were adopting her, but when I went to pet her she jumped into my arms and started snuggling with me. From what the staff said the guys are regulars there but don't adopt (they have a little poodle at home). So after finding out that the shelter lost my application that I sent last summer, I filled out another one, got approved and brought the little princess home.
Issabelle is wonderful. From what we can figure she is either a poodle/bichon or a poodle/maltese. Either way she is such a good little dog. Izzy is two and a half years old, weighs about 3 or 4 pounds and is a total love bug. She is totally housebroken, only one tiny accident, she knows her commands, and obeys them. She already knows some tricks and she is sweet with the big dogs, they were a bit aprehensive about her at first but... Kelly has tried to roll her out in the snow, Jazz thinks she is a squeeky toy and Sophie, well, is Sophie. She snuggles and sleeps on the back of the sofa. We have her in Jazz's old crate at night and she is quiet and good. I think we hit the doggie jackpot with this little girl. : ) Obviously someone loved her and spent a LOT of time with her and trained her well. The story at the shelter was that she was a beloved family dog and then they had a baby. Izzy didn't like the baby. They tried for 8 months and sadly (I'm sure) took her to the shelter. So sad for them as I'm sure they are missing her very badly, but happy for us as I am so won over by her sweet ways and cute face. She loves to go in the car and is very good. JACKPOT! And the best part is; I don't have to house train a puppy! Booyah!

On another note; we went to get an internet card at Verizon, similar to what Tran has. Got home, it wouldn't work. Damn! Took it back, they said it should work something went wrong with the installation. So home again and re install, it worked, then it wouldn't. Finally figured it out; put the card in AFTER starting Vzam. Duh. Now it works like a charm and I am loving having internet access. So, spread the word, these little things work out here and now I can dump the satelite internet thing that is so expensive and works intermittently. Yay! Onward and upward!

The book buying saga

So I figured it was a fairly straight forward thing, I am taking such and such class so I need such and such book. Right? Go to the bookstore in Gorham, well, they have one of the books, or I guess I should say book bundles I need. The math class is taught at Gorham. BUT the psych class is taught in Portland and I had to go to the Portland campus bookstore to get that book. Plus there is more than one Psy 101J class and the teacher for each class decides which book will be used in that class. I guess I lucked out, I only needed a $40 book instead of the$120 book AND the $40 book. The bookstores are tiny all a jumble and I had to ask for help in each of them. They list Physics AND Psychology under Phy, oh good, no confusion there. The guy kept trying to find Phy 101J at the Gorham campus and I could see that he was looking at physics books. Holy Crap on a cracker! If HE was confused what are the rest of us supposed to do?
The good news is I got a used set of books for the math class but they look brand new, score! The bad news is it isn't PRE algebra as the class title is, NO, it is beginning algebra and intermediate algebra. Don't know if I am splitting hairs or if these titles coincide with the reality of Pre and beginning... maybe I just don't know enough about either to know the difference. I am so afraid I am going to go in and sit down and be totally LOST for the whole semester. That is my usual procedure. I guess I have to have faith in the USM system of testing and that I am in the RIGHT class for MY abilities... after all they have everything else together, right? Right?

I'm screwed.

Welcome to Monday...

Went looking for some stuff on Ebay for my booth and found some awesome Pashminas for incredible prices. I LOVE these things and what's not to love, cashmere, soft, fine, warm, beautiful. Some of them are even in animal print. Does it get any better? This is a great start to the week and bodes well for the remainder.

On a different note...
Has anyone out there heard about the Tear Drop 9/11 monument given to this country by a Russian artist and the Russian people? You can see it at this link;

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/tributes/teardrop.asp

It is a truely beautiful work and an incredible gift. I can't believe I NEVER heard of it before. Check it out, it is beautiful.

Now I am trying to convince myself that running at 9 at night is a wonderful idea. It is taking a LOT of persuasion BUT I think I may have won. Gotta go put on the shorts, shoes etc. guess I'm gonna run... yay.

...and we ALL had fun.

Took our youngest to a sledding party today. They made icecream and went sledding, they even got snow mobile rides up the hill. So much fun. Well, my good friend, Jen and I high tailed it to Sacopee Valley House O Pizza and had some lunch. We eventually found something to talk about (LOL) and got back to pick up the kids around 2:30. oops. It was nice to have a quiet relaxing time together as we only get to see each other every week day and hardly ever on the weekends.
While we were out Roy got to watch the football on tv and Jerry caught up on his sleep from his all night shift at work, so you can reference the title to this entry. : )

Tran, Sam and Mr. Piggy made an appearance downstairs today and helped me to take down the Christmas tree. Thanks Tran and Sam, That was really nice, the only discouraging word was Tran fussing at Mr Pig for peeing under the tree. BUT, Holy Cow! We got the tree down before the end of January! before February! before July! Before 2011! Its gonna be a good year.

Mobile Post

I just found this app and want to see if I can do it without messing it up. This is try # 3. lol

--
Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

Roy and Julie Yarbrough
kickthemoonfarm@gmail.com
kick-the-moon-farm.com

Time well spent, well, sort of.

So, after sliding back and forth between facebook and gmail for about an hour I realized NOTHING new was going to come through, except for the receipt for my silk painting supplies. So I decided to get up and participate in a life well lived. I scrubbed the bathroom to within an inch of its life. Satisfaction with small things is all part of becoming a happy person... that is what I am telling myself with the smell of organic, biodegradable cleaner hanging in the air.

Speaking of blessings, I read somewhere that each of us should list 5 things each day for which we are thankful. This is such a great idea I gave it a go and stuck with it for a whole week. Then I forgot to list. Does that make me a bad person? An ungrateful person who takes her good fortune for granted as though I really deserve it all and more? Hmmm. Well, I think what it makes me is forgetful. Which, by the way, a good memory is NOT on my list. lol

Prepping for summer

I spent the bulk of the day getting ready for my summer workshops. I am, for sure, teaching silk painting at two different workshops. One at Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts and the other at Saco Valley Fiber Arts/Shearbrooke Farm. I will most likely teach needle felting at Shearbrook Farm also, not sure about PMFA.

The first workshop is held in June the second in July. Both workshops have a number of different classes, mostly fiber related. For more information on either check with the associated web site which will be updated as the dates draw closer. I'm sure I will be writing more about each of these and any more that come into the mix as time goes by.

I had hoped to teach workshops here at my home but that space has been spoken for so that will be on hold indefinately. Plus, now that I'm going back to school I'm not sure WHAT I will be able to accomplish teaching wise. Summer should be ok though, we'll see.

Ok so you may be wondering why I am prepping for summer stuff now, in January. Does time ever slip up on you catching you unawares? It happens to me EVERY time I have something planned months in advance, I keep thinking it is way in the future even when it is only a little time away. So I figure if I get ready WAY ahead of time I will for sure be ready when the event actually does approach and then I'm not caught trying to collect all I need at the last minute. Always thinking, well, sometimes anyway. : )

Another day another plan

This is the latest addition to my web site offering. It is a Goddess mug made of stoneware clay glazed with unleaded glaze fired to cone 6. It is dishwasher and microwave safe.

This is from a line of different works I have made to honor Burkana, the Goddess. These mugs celebrate womanhood and the joys of femininity. Each one is hand thrown and sculpted and is therefore a unique one of a kind creation. Some are slimmer, some more voluptuous, I wll post them as I fire them and they are ready to go.

A New Year a New Thing

Today is January 4, 2010. Ok, raise your hand if ANY one out there thought we would still be around in 2010. My hand isn't raised. It isn't that I am a doom and gloomer, not at all. It is just that I am NOT a forward thinker nor a math person (duh) and didn't fathom still being alive into this century. Back when I was a kid people from the previous century were really, really OLD or dead. My grandparents were from the 1800's for christ's sake.
Anyhoo... This week marks the beginning of my return to college. Orientation is on Wednesday, I go for a math placement test tomorrow then school starts on the 19th. Holy Crap on a cracker, I am pretty scared about it all but realize it is Do-able as long as I don't get ahead of myself, if I stay calm and keep breathing etc. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with these entries and therefore have a record of my journey. Here goes...

Freaky Deaky Friday (musings of a tired mind)

OK, so I didn't make it back the next day, but I'm here now and boy have I been and done with the college thing. I went for my Math placement test and it was HARD. BUT, I passed the arithmetic part with an 83, yay ME! It was ALL fractions and percentages of fractions and percentages... I wasn't sure if I remembered all of that but I must have remembered something cuz I passed. The mathematics part was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay harder, I got a 38 on that... I didn't even recognize what they were asking me to do for the most part : (. I picked the answers that were the prettiest. LOL! BUT I did get at least one out of the 16 correct so... I am signed up for college readiness math which is pre-algebra/algebra and then I will be able to go on to statistics etc. of course that is IF I can pass the ding dong course. I'll keep you posted. la la la la la.

Oh, and I got a LAP TOP! My first. I figure that it is time for the next really big technological LEAP to come now that I have a laptop. Oh, I don't know, something that beams directly to your eyes or brain and runs on air current power, I'm NOT dissing laptops but, If I have one they must be on par with sticks and rocks, don't ya know!

The NCS skii program started today, it was so much fun! The kids are such good skiiers and they were ALL over that mountain. The adults sat in the lodge, drank coffee/cocoa and watched the kids go up on the lift and come down on the slopes. Well, Jerry skiied with the kids, he is a good skiier and a brave soul. They were all done by 12:30 and we had lunch and headed out. It was great. Who knows maybe I will brave the slopes at least once this winter... or maybe not. Yoga is more my speed, but I did notice today the road is clear enough to run outside : ), and snow shoeing is right up my alley. Cheers!