Finally finishing something!

I have been working in the sewing room , but just today finished something:

3 pear postcards. A seckel pear and 2 bartletts. Really.

They are placed in my etsy shop

Eco Puppy

This is my newest puppy. He's really The Love Puppy, but since he's green, this time around (he's had several lives), he's the Eco Puppy. I do occasionally make things!

My twinkies are graduating next week. Wow.

I think it hurts my eyes...

And the colors aren't very true. It is lime green and very bright orange - not that burnt orange. The flowers are based on a drawing Anna did in Kindergarten. I love them. Anna calls them 'alien flowers'. I'm not sure what to do with them at this point.

I finished a couple of things for my shop at Etsy. I made a journal cover for one of my sisters at Christmas:

And it was so much fun that I decided to do a couple more:

Actually, the flowers for the journal covers come from leftover bits of the Alien Flowers. Both the journal covers can fit either a composition notebook or a Moleskine notebook. I'm not sure why the pictures are cockeyed.

Lots of catch up

I'm having a rough week. I am NOT 'getting' my wonderful embroidery class from Joggles. I think it's the hand embroidery thing (hey, I love my machine!), but it could also be the fact that I am trying to do hand embroidery with a broken finger (again). I working with Susan's style is a definite stretch for me. That's a good thing.

Two starts on my first lesson.

I also had a good friend ask me to never contact her again. While this is because of her personal issues, it is still a hole in my heart. I have been journaling this , and it's amazing how cathartic it is to put 3 layers of black Sharpie (c) on a page! I might go throw some things as well. In Mississippi, we used to take the bad eggs that happened when making Pysanky and throw them at trees. We had almost 2 acres, so the smell didn't reach the house. With our tiny lot here, our neighbors would hate us, so perhaps I won't throw eggs.

This wonderful picture is one of Bekah's self-portraits. She is such an amazing artist! This portrait will be in a Houston art exhibition called "Young at Art" and may go on a nation-wide year-long tour. I'm not sure I want to let it out of my hands. She better give it to me or I will just plain steal it. She can have it after I am dead and gone!

It is really a professional quality portrait.

She will be going to Mississippi University for Women in the fall, with a major planned in Creative Writing (and I'm sure she'll stick some art in there somewhere).

I have been working on some ATCs for my art bee. Some I like, some look unfinished to me. Arg.

Poor Tim has been waiting for so long (25 years) for his quilt. I am almost (I think) done with it. I have most of the center quilted and then the final border to do. Do not try to quilt a king-size quilt under a home machine, unless you like lots of frustration. My humble opinion.

This is a very lame post. I am taking an online course from Susan Sorrell - on embroidery, of all things - hand work? me? And this is my first project. Kiwi, then adding the 'stained glass' filter in Photoshop. I like hot pink and lime green just fine.
I have two soon-to-be high school graduates! And it looks like both will be going back to Mississippi for college. But not to the same university!

I guess I should update more often!

We've been home 2 weeks. The destruction is amazing. We have minimal damage to our house - some ceiling repairs, our roof needs replacing, and our fence.

The girls are back in school and life is slowly returning to normal. Most of the traffic lights are working and most of the debris on the roads is cleaned up, though I got a huge scratch down the side of my car driving down Bay Area Blvd from a tree limb sticking into the road. The traffic lights seem to take turns working. If Space Center/NASA 1 is working, then Saturn/NASA 1 isn't. If the light at Bay Area Blvd/I45 is working, the light in front of the mall doesn't. or vice versa.

There are still so many boats left to clean up. The marinas and docks are a tangled, cockeyed mess of tilting masts and lines. There's a barge with a crane down at Clear Lake - it seems to be lifting up the boats from the bottom of the lake.

I have so many customers who have lost everything.

Now evacuated to Birmingham...

Since my home in Seabrook still has no sewer, power, or water, we've decided to stay with my brother and sister-in-law in Birmingham, AL. We have such awesome friends and family!

The girls' schools are closed until further notice, the sewer facility in Seabrook is on the verge of failing (according to the city website), and Tim said to PLEASE not come home yet! We are blessed, truly, to have minimal damage. Water through the roof (so, ceilings upstairs have problems), water through the front door, and our fence took a trip elsewhere. Seabrook east of hwy 146 is pretty much underwater(we live 100 yds west of 146). CNN showed one view of 146 in Seabrook with boats in the road. Tim said that's pretty much what the Fire Department has been working through. We were lucky in that we didn't get storm surge to the 24 feet expected, so our house did not flood. I'm taking a crash course in insurance claim filing. Too bad my van didn't get trashed - I need a new car!

There's no reason to go home, but I am so sad not to be there. Being displaced, even though in a place I'm happy to be, is a lot of stress. Not to mention the stupid things one forgets to pack - like nightgowns!

While driving north, I was so amazed and grateful to pass convoy after convoy of electric and phone trucks heading to Houston, as well as convoys of military trucks with supplies. How wonderful people are to help us out!

the psalm for Saturday's Mass was 'offering a sacrifice of praise'. You know, sometimes praise can truly be a sacrifice. It was more so then, when Tim hadn't been allowed in to see the neighborhood. It is still so, since there are so many who have lost it all.