He's driving me crazy!

A husband home due to lack of work available is not a good thing. The kids aren't driving me any crazier than usual, but with hubby home it somehow seems worse. I understand he is depressed and anxious, but my daily schedule of what I do is all messed up so I'm on edge myself. Not to mention, I sort of expect him to help some with the kids since he is home and all but unless I directly ask him to do something or give him the eye when he talks about a dirty diaper they are not his problem. I did have a talk to him about that this afternoon so I hope tomorrow is better. Ashley is coming over tonight so I'm just a little vexed about the next few days. Between Andy not working and Ashley until Sunday evening I am going to have to work at not being in a complete snit about all this.

Anyway, tomorrow there is a rummage sale at a nearby church. I have been combing the classifieds for weeks looking for one and finally I have one to go to! They open at 7am to I was planning to get out there pretty early. I scoped it out on the way to my sister's farmers market, since it was on the way. They were even setting it up already when I passed today, but their sign said it was for Saturday only so I shouldn't be missing anything. I am hoping to find some good jewelry, maybe some clothes for myself, work pants for Andy and clothes and perhaps a toy or two for the kids. It is half-price day at Goodwill tomorrow too, so it should be a good day in that regard. I have to get some unbreakable dishware for the kids; Tommy shattered a little vintage glass bowl I gave him breakfast in this morning. He was just so fast! I just turned my back for a second, and crash! I was bummed, but I paid half of 35 cents for it from a now closed thrift store so it wasn't a big loss, but I liked it. I think it was a dessert bowl; it had a pedestal and a cut glass design all around and held about half a cup. Oh well, I've memorialized it, now it's time to move on.

My garden is still growing nicely. We didn't get the predicted rain so I've had to water it. I'm trying to not over water it, but it has been warmer and I don't want it to dry out too much. It seems to be growing maddeningly slow. The volunteer tomato in my potted plant is about to flower already! I guess it's been growing about two months now. Both seem to be okay but I think I need to take a cutting, just in case.

I finally finished going through all the junk jewelry I got from eBay; I should be able to make a bunch of stuff out of it. My first projects will be what I've had in mind since I got it- Gypsy treasure necklaces. I only need to sell 4 of them at $15.00 each to recoup my cost for the stuff I got. I even found some sterling, but I had to keep a real eye pealed for those. Some wasn't marked, like the sterling beads. I know they are sterling because my silver polish worked on them and the way the tarnish came off was exactly like sterling. I've tried that silver polish on junk jewelry that fooled me with it's tarnished look, but the polish doesn't work on that stuff at all. It's the chemical reaction that takes off the tarnish, so when it works, I figure it must be sterling. I got some real vintage sterling box clasps from some of the old strands of pearls, so that was nice. I also have a bunch of old glass vintage pearls that I am going to remove the pearl finish so I will then have a rather huge collection of milky and bluish milky glass beads. They look rather exotic once the finish is off of them. Czech glass, Indian glass, lampwork glass, a ton of findings, and some nice interesting plastic beads I kept for jewelry was recovered. I also collected two full big jars of beads I will give to Tabitha when she is old enough for them. I need to get to work on that jewelry, hopefully tomorrow but more than likely after Ashley leaves on Sunday. Tonight I just need to rest a bit, but tomorrow, who knows?

Weekend Update

Well, I just wanted to give a quick update on how things are progressing. I finished my advent tree, yay! Today's picture is of the finished tree, because I'm proud of making all the ornaments and especially the top star which I hand formed and decorated in a star shape. Wouldn't you know it about 10 minutes after taking that picture I was putting away the Christmas decorations and knocked it off the table which broke 3 numbered doors off the base. At least I have the rest of the year to contemplate how to fix those before next season. I was thinking some sort of tape from the inside since replacing the little dowel hinges requires taking the base completely apart.

My garden is growing nicely, apart from the forays by the twins into it. I hope the seedlings weren't too crushed. They are actually growing a little too close together and perhaps the kids stepping in the garden will do the thinning work I just can't bring myself to do. I'll post a picture next time to show the weekly progress.

On the kid front, the kids have officially left their highchairs behind and are now sitting on booster seats at the table. I am going through a lot of paper plates now, so I better get some more. Walgreens has a good coupon for those this week. Tabitha thought it was special that I was sitting right next to her for supper the other night for the first time. She gave me a big smile and patted my shoulder like she couldn't believe it was real. Just too damn cute! They are using spoons and forks better also. Now if only I could get them to start talking more. I am sure they could, but they just don't seem to see the need right now. Sigh.

And that big box of jewelry I got from eBay is going to take me a long time to go through. I have already spent several hours on sorting and have only gone through maybe a fifth of the box. I have found some sterling beads, charms and clasps and a little bit of scrap; a nice collection of vintage Austrian crystal and a ton of glass rhinestones pryed from old jewelry. I have definite plans for those involving stained glass kaleidoscopes in the future, for both decorating the outside and for use in the object container. They will be very cool! Well, I have tried to make this quick, and now I'm off to sort through some more of those beads and stuff.

Potpourri Thursday

A little bit of this, a little bit of that to write about today. My tomato seeds in the garden have sprouted, yay! The rest of it is growing nicely, and we had some rain last night, so that was a plus. I hadn't watered it yesterday because I was banking on that, and I'd like to work on the roots getting deeper and stronger in preparation for the heat that will come. I went to Goodwill yesterday and found some awesome stuff! I found an E.T. Journey to the Green Planet electronic solar system toy for only $2.99, and it even came with batteries so I knew it worked before I bought it. It is very cool, it is like an interactive electronic encyclopedia all about the planets in our solar system with the voices of Eliot and E.T. telling you all about the facts. I looked it up on ebay and found only two, listed for $9.99 and $21.99, not including shipping so I think I got a pretty good deal. The kids get to play with it when they are a little older. Now all I have to do is get a copy of the E.T. movie so the kids will know who the heck E.T. is. I also found a sterling silver and rainbow moonstone bracelet for the excellent price of only $3.99. Boy, I don't hink they knew what they had. It is clearly marked .925 on the clasp, and on a couple of the moonstone links. I found it was marked $40.00 with permanent marker on the back of one of the links, which is what I told Andy was how much I would have paid new for it. I originally wanted to buy it for the parts, but it is beautiful and fits perfectly so I think I will wear it for a while until inspiration strikes to make something out of it. Which reminds me, I really need to post something on my site here to lead to all the pictures of my jewelry. I also need to get back on track with making some more. I was able to buy this stuff yesterday just because I sold two cellphone charms last weekend at the farmers market. I couldn't even have bought one rainbow moonstone link from a jewelry supply store for what I paid for the bracelet; I think I'm going to be pretty proud of this purchase for a while! Relatedly, I received my huge lot of "junk" jewelry and beads from ebay on Tuesday and I need to start to sort through it. I gave it a quick looksie and I think I paid about what it was worth, just for the beads. It came with a lot of vintage glass pearls and a bunch of other stuff. This was a good thing for me, it makes me do stuff I wouldn't normally make because individually I wouldn't have bought these beads myself from the bead store. It certainly fits the bill for making a ton of gypsy treasure jewelry and such. I found some sterling in there too. Well, I hear the kids sqawking in their room so they must be done with their nap so I better get going.

Garden Update

Ahh...naptime! For the kids, anyway. I have increasingly come to mentally refer to it as "breaktime" in my busy workday. Not that work stops, per se, but I can unwind a little and catch my breath. It gives me a chance to work on things I just can't when the kids are up, like write my blog.
My garden is really sprouting now! As you can see from my picture, it doesn't look like much now, but I am proud of the bed I prepared and I think it looks pretty good. I can identify a few different flowers already: Bachelor Buttons, Calendulas, Marigolds and California Poppies. Yesterday I planted seeds for cherry tomatoes in the area I ran out of wildflower seeds and had a very low density of sprouts. At least the little footprints turned out useful after all; I planted the seeds in those depressions because they hold the water in a little puddle and stay wet long after the high spots dry out in this warm weather. We are now in the mid to upper 70's, with lows about 50. It shouldn't take long for those tomatoes to sprout. I found I have a tomato volunteer in my potted plant I received as a gift from Cassie's funeral. It is one of those green leaf plants that make those runners down the side and are near impossible to kill. I just can't remember what those plants are called. My tomato volunteer may do the trick, however; it is thriving in that pot while the plant looks like it is struggling. I thought that it was a marigold at first, but I smelled the familiar aroma of the tomato plant the last time I watered it. I have no idea how that got there; I give the kids a lot of cherry tomatoes from the farmers market and a seed from one of those must have somehow got in there either from their grubby little hands or one of the times I had to sweep up the dirt from one of the many times they pulled it onto the floor. I guess I'll see when it flowers and sets fruit if it is a cherry tomato or a full size tomato plant. I am in a quandry about it though since the tomato loves sun, and the green leafy plant gets burned pretty easily with a lot of sun so I need to make a decision as to which I want nurture. I suppose I can make a cutting from it since those plants are famous for being able to root easily from a cutting and start a whole new pot once it roots. That way I can feel I've kept it. Anyway, I hope that planting the tomatoes in with the wildflowers will help the pollination of the tomatoes; last year I had a lot of flowers, but very few set into fruits. If I still have a problem with pollination, I will put out a few old cans of Coke; the bees seem conditioned to be attracted to those judging from the swarms around my bags of cans for recycling, and the fact I cannot bring a can out without attracting a few even for a few minutes. My sister suggested last year a lack of bees might have been my problem.
Yesterday, I finally took down the outside Christmas lights from the back porch (it's the only place actually visible from the street, since I live in the back of a duplex) and I am getting mentally prepared to pack away Christmas until next season. Losing my mother just a few months ago really took the shine off the season for me, but I did persevere and did bake cookies and decorate. Now I have to psych myself up to take it all down, even though it took halfway into December to put it all up. Declaring Christmas officially over was always a little sad for me, but this year it is a little extra sad because it was the first without my mom and I will think about that while I put it all away. I promised a picture of the advent tree when I was done; all I have left to do is finish making the star for the top. I made the star shaped frame and support, and right after I finish this post I will go finish it; it is the very last thing I need to do before I have run out of excuses for not putting away the Christmas stuff. I'm planning on doing that tomorrow, while having Pres-Elect Barack Obama (woo hoo!) on TV for his inauguration ceremony. I have the pre-inauguration festivities on TV right now, to capture the ambient joyfulness of the occasion. Go Obama!

Yay, my garden is growing!

It's been about a week since I sprinkled the seeds, and I finally have some seedlings poking their new leaves above the soil. Notwithstanding the frequent trampling by the kids I am thrilled to see the start of germination. I can't identify what they are going to be yet since it was a wildflower mix of seeds, but I am sure none of the bachelor buttons or marigolds have yet germinated. I have hope that I am going to get something growing out there now that I have something. I'll have to post a picture of how it looks now, and then post periodic updates as it grows. It makes me pretty darn happy!
On an unrelated note, the kids both came down with colds as usual after Megan watches the kids. I needed her to watch them while I went to the doctor last week for my tri-monthly depo-prevara shot. I am sure it is just a thing about not exposing the kids to much since I keep them home most of the time and Megan has a pretty active social life and a baby niece at home she helps take care of. Funny, the last time the baby, Mariah, was with my kids, all the babies came down with a cold. My kids gave her something, and she gave mine something. Not a big deal, but I get real tired of wiping snotty noses when the twins get a cold. Tommy came down with it later than Tabitha, but Tabitha is not showing any signs hers is going to be over with any time soon. Meanwhile, they are both extra cranky and clingier than usual. I think I am trying to fight it off myself as I have been achy and sneezy and a lot more tired than usual.
My last thing for tonight, I have a Christmas project I need to finish tonight. Last year, I bought an advent calender from my local thrift store. It was exactly what I was looking for as a little thing to do with the kids counting down the days til Christmas. It is a 3-D tree made of two interlocking cut-outs. The sides have circles cut out with tiny jump rings hanging on them that you attach a tiny ornament to each day as you count down to Christmas. It fits into a base which can be wound up and plays "O Christmas Tree" fittingly enough. And the base also has 6 little numbered doors on each side that houses each ornament to be hung on the tree. The only problem is that it came with no tiny ornaments to hang, so I have been collecting for two years now tiny ornaments and now I have to fashion teeny tiny hooks and attach these ornaments to them so they can be hung on the tree. I also have to fabricate the star for the top, which I assume is supposed to be the one for day 24 since there are only 23 circles cut out on the tree, and on the top is a hole that seems to be for a topper. This little project wasn't a priority to be done, but this next Christmas in 2009 the kids will be almost three and old enough to participate in such a nice little daily ritual. I refuse to put away the Christmas stuff until this is done as added incentive. When I finish this little project, hopefully tonight, I will post a picture on my next entry so you all can see what I mean about how cute it is. Then I can start making some Valentines Day jewelry for my sister to sell before it is too late. I already have an idea or two....

Farmers Market Friday

It's Friday, and my sister has her Farmers Market in Mesa today. I try to go every Friday with the kids, because most of the time it is the only way we get to see each other. It's a good opportunity also for me to get some fruits and veggies for the family, organic no less! The kids always get some tomatoes to munch on, and the occasional seasonal fruit. Today it was a sweet little tangerine- boy did they like that! Having a sister involved in the local farmers market scene, and her having her own farm plot is like having an ace in the hole in this economy. I go there because it is certified for accepting food stamps and at the same time I get to support her. I sell my jewelry out at her booth on Saturday and Sunday in the Phoenix and Ahwatukee markets; at least my jewelry is out there, sales not so much these days. I did sell a nice southwestern style necklace and earrings set before Christmas, which gave me $60.00 to spend on gifts. It felt like quite the windfall, and payed for the Christmas Eve gifts for our side for everybody and I was able to purchase stocking stuffers (helped with judicious use of Walgreen's coupons for their candy) for everyone. Right now, my sister's booth out at the market has a lot of really good stuff. I'm sure she is happy our growing season turned cool for a lot of root vegetables and greens to ripen. One day me and the kids will be helping her out at the farm when the kids are old enough, you know like when they can talk and are potty trained and can follow directions. On a related note, I finished my little garden plot about 2 weeks after my mom passed away, but then it laid fallow about two months because I just couldn't get motivated to do anything with it. Depression kinda sucks that way. Anyway, a few days ago I decided I had to do something with it, so I sprinkled it with a bunch of wildflower seeds. I'm still waiting for germination but I have hope I'll have something grow, daytime temps in the low 70's, nighttime in low 40's, high 30's. Now all I have to do is keep it wet, and keep the kids from trampling all over it. Their trampling, plant-yanking ways also curtailed me from planting something serious there right now. Why set myself up for getting upset at the kids when they really don't yet understand they are ruining my veggies? Better to save that when they can understand to stay out of the garden, cause right now they are too little to understand threats. Anyway, I figured I wound up between growing intervals, too late for winter crops, too early for summer (but it is time to start tomatoes here in a few weeks) so I just did the flower thing. I'll let it go when it gets too hot, and revive it for a real fall planting. It's time for me to start planting the sunflowers out and about also- I hope they survive the kids but I'm not going to hold my breath. I always have next year to try again. Andy is getting hours at work again, thank goodness. Check 'n Go contract got literally screwed up when another guard was sexually harrassing one of the Check 'n Go employees, and also took out a payday loan and hadn't paid it back. The manager at Andy's regular Check 'n Go put her foot down and demanded her guard back; Andy is courteous and professional and made her feel a lot safer; those places get robbed all the time without a security presence. Now all we need is the Chevron to need Andy back for weekend late nights. The management over there are such morons; they need to get robbed first before they get security. Then they keep the security for a few weeks, until the management decides it is not "cost effective" so they cancel the contract. Then they get robbed again, and call out the security guard for a few weeks. Wash and repeat. The last time they were robbed, the assailant took the whole damn cash register! An employee quit over that also. Over a year ago, I told Andy that the coming recession would be great for the security industry, robberies and property crime would go up as the economy gets worse. It is getting worse, and I don't think there is a real end in sight for a while. Right now, security guard certification is job security. Well, the kids will be up soon so I gotta go get their lunch prepped and the house secured(check for stuff I carelessly left about when they were napping, like magazines and soda cans in reach, bathroom door shut- that sort of thing) before I get them up for the afternoon marathon of twin toddlers on the go. Their naptime helps keep me relatively sane.

Tortilla Flat, AZ

Yesterday, hubby suggested we go to Tortilla Flat up in the Superstition Mountains. He was off and thought I could use a day out of the house. I jumped at the chance. It was a perfect day, sunny with temps in the low 70's. It had been a long time since we had been there, before the twins were born and I was eager to try out our new Dodge Caravan on one of the funnest roads to drive arguably in the whole country. Oh, I had great fun yesterday! Andy white-knuckled most of the drive, with him looking down the sheer drop on the side. The desert was beautiful, just starting to green up after the December rain we had. Canyon Lake was sapphire blue, but I bet it was cold! I can't wait for the kids to be old enough to take there swimming, and have a barbecue lakeside just like my mom used to take me when I was little. I loved the drive through the mountains, steep and twisty with hill crests that make you think that your about to drive right off the top of the mountain. We made it to Tortilla Flat just before the lunch rush, and we all had some great burgers and fries. Tortilla Flat has a tradition of hanging dollar bills that people have written a message on, and they cover every square inch of the walls and are now creeping across the wooden rafters on the ceiling. There is a lot of foreign bills also; a lot of tourists from Europe especially like to come to Tortilla Flat. We even saw a bill posted on the wall from Zimbabwe; it had a denomination of 250,000,000! There was no message written on it, but that sort of spoke for itself. Tabitha and Tommy had a good time and were very well-behaved, except when we parked them in their strollers too close to the wall and they were ripping the dollars off the wall. We tucked them back behind other dollars because we think it is bad luck to take them. After lunch, we took a stroll to Tortilla Creek, which was still flowing over the road from the rainfall a couple of weeks ago. It is fed from natural springs, and snowmelt from the north. By the time we went back to the car, I heard them calling parties at the restaurant so there must have been quite a wait to eat. We arrived at the perfect time; no waiting for a table, and the service was fast! After we did Tortilla Flat we decided to go on to Fish Creek Hill, some 7 miles further down the road. I found that since I had last driven there the road had been paved most of the way there now. Still, the last 2 miles were still dirt, and at some points so narrow only one car at a time can drive on those parts so that makes it extra exciting. You have to try to keep a lookout for traffic coming and plan accordingly to be able to pass on the wider parts, and some of those other drivers are noobs at windy mountainous dirt roads and they drive without planning about those things. I'd rather stop at a wide point when I see them coming and wait for them to go by, than have to back up on a narrow blind curve with a straight drop down on the side. That's a little too exciting even for me! The best part of going to Tortilla Flat is after the excellent drive there, is the equally excellent drive back. It was the best time I have had in a long time!

Happy New Year!

Long time, no blog. I'm still working my way through my depression of losing my mom. My mother-in-law also died of her pancreatic cancer on November 6th, within the week of my mother passing. She was also a wonderful woman who I also miss terribly. I have been avoiding blogging because I haven't been up to holding up and examining my thoughts and feelings through this holiday season. I have just been forging on through the Holidays in hopes that just keeping busy might help. Since losing my 13 year old daughter to suicide in February 2006 I had been slowly trying to bring myself back up to a productive level. I gave birth to my wonderful twins in April 2007. They have filled my life and helped immensely to soften my sadness in losing Cassie. The Holidays in 2007 were really happy for me. I had adjusted to the new normal and embraced it with gusto. The Holidays 2008 were different again. Our family all felt a little hollow without Mom, she was the glue, our Matron who while not directly fully participating in the Holiday preparations as she used to due to her health, always was planning and directing the production. We had become her hands to make the dinner, the desserts, the Christmas cookies and the inspiration to decorate just to mirror her joy of bringing the family together again. We all were looking forward this year to the Holidays with her after her operation because we believed she would be getting better and have one of her best holiday seasons since Cassie passed. Instead, we tried our best this year to honor her memory with our celebrations done as she would have liked. I still made the cookies she always made for us. I even took the time to make the ones that were her favorite even though she wasn't here to have them, and I made sure I gave some of those to everyone. Damn it, the tears I held back working my way through are coming now, as I feared. One of the reasons I was avoiding blogging, I knew the tears would flow. I made sure Dad found and distributed the stocking-stuffers Mom had already bought for this Christmas. We worked really hard this year to make it feel O.K. for us, but it was really hard for all of us. My brother moved to Chicago on December 1st which didn't make this year any easier but that had been in the works for over a year. At least he was here for his birthday, and Thanksgiving. I sent him a gift and a whole bunch of cookies. I hear the kids right now, and they are not happy so I have to sign off for now. Now that I've broken the ice so to speak on blogging again I will try to post on a more regular basis. I think it will help me find my zest for life again.