Where does the time go?

OMG, I could have sworn I posted in September, but nope. Wow, I'm horrible. Things have been so busy. My grand-daughters asked for lots of Barbie clothes and furniture for Christmas so I decided that the price of Barbie items is disgusting and why don't I make them? So guess what I've been doing?

I did find a few little things on ebay. Honestly, I swear you can find anything from China for a cheap price and often free shipping. Takes a little while, but it does come in more often than not. So I have some things that are here already. Then I figured I'd supplement with things I make. Still making stuff. But lots and lots done already.

"Gramma, can you make us some pretend Barbie food?" Why sure I can! That took days. Still have more to make. I didn't want them to get it all right away. This much they got now so they can "feed" their Barbies.  Working on beds now. I crocheted blankets, and will be making mattresses. I've spent a good $50 in craft wood sticks, and they are definitely coming in handy. None are long enough for the beds so I'm looking for some thin soft wood to easily cut and carve.

A friend of mine is getting married this weekend. It was a quick decision after years with the guy she's marrying. So, as a wedding gift, I made her a beautiful Fall headdress. She's coming to pick it up later today. It will look amazing with her beautiful gown.

So I also made this lemon-gingerbread cheesecake. It turned out amazing! So good that my eldest grand-daughter asked to have one made as her birthday cake in November. I'll post the recipe tomorrow. I'll get it together with a photo. I'm sure you'll love it.

So for now I'll end here. I have two very energetic grandchildren here who are ruining my bedroom. Sigh.

Well, things were insane....

Had so much going on! Didn't have time to come on here and do much. I was volunteering at a little boutique, but am not anymore.  The owner and I were good friends, but suddenly we are not. It happens. People come and go in our lives. It doesn't do to cling to them when they don't want to be there.

I went to a festival. Kaleidoscope Gathering at Raven's Knoll in Eganville, Ontario. I had the best time of my life. I felt like I came home. It's a community of pagans with different faith beliefs, and yet... they are tolerant, accepting, and caring. Something people of other faiths can learn from. They are a community with a common core and love is one of them. Why is it so hard for the rest of the world to be this way?

I made some amazing friends. Had some fun moments, great laughs, spiritual experiences, and I plan to return next year. I learned about henna while there. And now I'm considering getting into henna. I really enjoyed it and when I came home with the small tube from the workshop, I did some henna on my sister and niece and my eldest grand-daughter. Turned out not too bad.

I don't plan to stop making crafts. One of the vendors told me that they know someone who might want to buy my dragon eyes. I paint them myself. I also have some cute amulets I made and other jewelry. Trying to find a way to sell them.

I love this photo of myself with the Vikings. I'd met them at a Meet, Meat and Mead. Which means they had this huge fire pit with lots of meat roasting and they offered mead to drink. You get to chat and meet people, eat good food, and have a few good laughs. I'd never tried mead before that evening, and it was really good.

Drinking water from a horn. That was quite the experience. But I remember the rule, "Point down, you don't drown."

My good friend and I at our sleeping tent on the first day, just chilling before it gets dark.

My grand-daughters came out for a day. After a swim in the river, we had some lunch.

Then the girls got to model someone's beautiful flower head-piece. It was gorgeous.

My little cat ears! Love them!

Someone did soem beautiful henna on me. It looked great, didn't it?

Well, that's it for today. I still have so much to do. I'm finally watching The Walking Dead. On season 5. My bestie got me hooked on it.

Wow, where did the time go?

Things have been so busy that I realized I haven't posted. I'm so horrible. I need to remind myself to take slow down and take some time to do the things I have been putting on the back-burner.

So I met this lady who owns this boutique and we struck up an immediate friendship. I started to go to the boutique more often, then helping out to move things and when it was really busy, and then watching the boutique when she had appointments. Now, I'm manager. It's mostly volunteer. The boutique is new, she's still trying to make ends meet with it. So instead of money for payment, I get things from the boutique that I fall in love with, or deals when it's several things at once. I do research on the stones and crystals, or other things that come in, I open and close on Sundays and will add Mondays to that now, and when she can't be in. I love it.

In the boutique I met many different people. We are in a small, Christian country village. So I was startled at the amount of people who came to us asking help with metaphysical things, and how many of them are Wiccan or pagan. But it's brought in business. Business is business, and it's good for the boutique.

All of this has brought out my more creative side. I've started to work with clay. I also ordered some things to make some jewelry and I want to get more painting supplies. All of my creations will be featured in the boutique. I'm excited. Here are a few things I'm working on.

Works in progress. I'm awaiting supplies to make glass dragon eyes for jewelry. I can't wait to get started on them. The boutique will travel to a few festivals and have a booth to sell items. I'll be on the road as manager while the owner stays behind at the shop. Should be fun!

Anyway, I'll be on more often. For now it's late and bedtime for me. Good night, everyone. 

Wow....

You don't realize how much time goes by until you're so busy and look back and see that months have gone by without a post. I'm so sorry! With birthdays, Thanksgiving, Halloween, more birthdays, the Holidays and dealing with elderly parents' problems and sickness... before I knew it we hit a new year and I hadn't posted in five months! I feel horrible.

It's not so much big things, though there have been a few of those, but sometimes we get overwhelmed with a mountain of little things and they just take over and we get so busy trying to deal with them and getting our life back in order that we forget to do other little things that keep us healthy, happy and going strong.

It's too easy to become overly stressed and start to suffer anxiety or panic attacks or depression. And it's sad to say that that's how things are now. More and more people are so frazzled by trying to survive that they forget how to live. We don't eat right, we don't sleep right, we don't remember how to just chill and take it easy. More and more of us are medicated, over-worked, about to burn out and it's not right. Even kids are now suffering depression and anxiety. Suicide rates are up, everyone is on some kind of medication for some problem and families can't get time or energy to get together like they used to.

Is this really how we wanted it? Is this really what we envisioned for our children and their children? I don't know about any of you, but I wanted my children to not have to suffer the difficulties I had, to have a good life where they were secure and happy and healthy. And I wanted their children to have even better than that if it was possible. Instead, it's like I set them on a collision course with hell in a hand basket that has holes in it! And it's not necessarily my doing.

Higher costs for rents, utilities, food, healthcare, etc... and less jobs, less pay, more taxes.... People working 60 or more hours a week who can barely make a living. New math and new ways schools are trying to educate where now kids cannot even turn to their parents to help them understand when the teachers are too busy to do so. Not everyone learns at the same speed or level. But they expect them to, and if they don't and act out from frustration and stress they want them medicated because obviously they're a problem. Most college grads can't use proper grammar or spelling anymore. Hell, most people can't write cursive anymore because no one wants to try to decipher their writing. "Who cares about knowing grammar and spelling, spellcheck will do that for me." I remember being told by the principal of the school that if my children couldn't use the computer to do their homework they'd fail. I had rules. They had to earn their computer time, and they only got an hour. I didn't want them dependent on the computer to do it. But the school had other thoughts. Instead of homework where they had to look in a book for the answers they were expected to go online to find it. I refused. The principal gave me that speech. I told him they'd fail then. I had rules for a reason and I refused to bend them for a school system too lazy to teach them properly.

Parents stressing over how to pay bills and keep food on the table and dammit, suddenly Charlie needs braces and Pamela's school is demanding she get new indoor shoes with white soles so they don't leave marks on the floor. And don't forget to pay their school fees and you haven't gotten all their supplies yet. Pamela is upset because she has to still wear some of the clothes she wore last year so other students are bullying her for it, and Charlie's friends are trying to push him into using weed because it's not as bad as other drugs and everyone does it. Grades are going down and kids are getting attitude because they're only kids and it's not supposed to be THAT stressful and parents are getting warnings and the boss is getting fed up because they had to miss work due to problems with kids and....

Is it any wonder we're all worn out and so uncaring of what the hell goes on in the world anymore? "I have my own problems." So we don't care about the big things that we should be outraged about. I've said it many times; that leaders were changing laws and using media to dumb down the populace because if you're worn out and can't think for yourself then you can't oppose them when they oppress you.

Don't believe me? Talk to people. See how much they understand. See how much they give a crap about real issues. See how dumbed down they sound when they talk or in their beliefs. It's sad. It's scary. It's real. It's happening all around us, but we're too busy being worried about how to survive to really notice.

Pumpkins and Painting Oh My!

We had horrible weather nearly all summer. It was first week of June or so before I could put my herbs out and plant in the garden because we were still having frost overnight. Then out of nowhere ~ BOOM! ~ summer hit with a vengeance. No in-between. We had extreme heat and humidity. So bad that it was like how my friend described it, "like being in a dryer with wet clothes." Very apt description. I would go out very early in the morning to weed the garden and since it was so dry despite all the humidity... (How the hell can it be 85% humidity with 0% chance of rain?! Aish! ),.. I would go out just as it was starting to get dark and hopefully was cooler to water the garden. And since we have no hose hookup, it was several trips around the house with a big watering can.

Things are starting to finally really grow. It took two months for my carrots to look like carrot tops and not weeds! My onions are still looking like chives, though. The lettuce did fine, but... I think my pumpkin plants ate my spinach.

So bear with me for a moment here. I've never grown pumpkins before. I should have researched it like I do anything else. I never would have put them in the garden. I'd have put them closer to the rhubarb. We had to build, what I now affectionately call The Trump Wall to try to contain them! They're mutants!

Tiny garden with huge pumpkin plants. 

 The Trump Wall. But the plants will not be contained.

The flowers are closed due to rain, but look at the size next to my grand-daughters!

So I've been really wanting to get back into painting. I enjoyed it when I did it years ago. So I got some supplies. I'd lost many of them over the years. My kids borrowing brushes for projects, some lost in a move, etc... I still have more to get, but I'm really excited about getting to it again.

I had already bought a portable easel during the winter. Comes in a case and everything. Today some more supplies came in.

Yes, those are Bob Ross paints. I like them.

 This little bit was almost $200 with the shipping.

So now I need paint knives, more brushes, a big clear palette, more canvases, and a few more colours I forgot to get, and odourless turpenoid.

I want to play with them now, but I'm not ready supply-wise. So it's killing me to look at them and not touch them. 

Living With Stickers.

I feel like this is going to be a post about some incurable disease and how I've learned to live with it or am trying to live with it. It's not. But it is something I've learned to live with.

Stickers.

If you have young children or young grandchildren then you may know what I'm talking about.

Stickers.

Everywhere.

On everything.

Little kids' way of 'blinging' up normal everyday things so no one can deny you have young children or grandchildren around.

The signs are unmistakable. Sudden appearance of colour on things that didn't really have pops of colour before.

On what used to be a pristine white tower fan.

On an HP printer.

On and inside a laptop.

On a mobile phone case.

The stickers can appear at any time when you are not looking, and even, in the rare occasion, when you are.

The stickers are unmistakable: bright, in several shades of colour, more times than not can ruin your adult reputation with other adults who grin and comment on the stickers. 

Removing them can lead to questions of  "Why did you take my stickers off?", disappointment, and in a few rare cases tears and the re-appearance of more stickers. So tread lightly. I've learned to leave them there until a day they fall off or I can sneak them off, but they often are replaced by new stickers who bring all their friends to the sticker party so there is less chance of them being kidnapped and their bodies dumped in the trash.

They may clash with your decor and are prone to bring on chuckles from other adults. Men can also suffer from stickers. 

Stickers can last years until the child(ren) is old enough to understand that not everything should be 'blinged' up. Oftentimes this will happen naturally as they age and want to appear cooler and more mature in front of their schoolmates.

Note: though some stickers are easy to remove, there can be those who would survive a nuclear bombing and any attempt to remove them could prove challenging. They are especially stubborn to remove from dressers, refrigerators and desks. Proceed with caution.

This has been a public announcement on living with stickers. 

To Touch Or Not To Touch... That Is The Question.

I have a touch-screen laptop, a nice little Lenovo Flex that I love. My grand-children love it too. They love that they can play games on kids' sites and just touch the screen rather than try to use the mouse. So I'm often cleaning fingerprints off the screen. Some of those have been rather sticky. Sigh.

Sorry the screen is so bright. I did that on purpose because I was replying to a private email. Notice the pretty stickers my grand-daughter put on? Yes, it's a thing. You have to pretty up stuff with stickers. 

My eldest grand-daughter playing Nick Jr games on my pretty laptop. She still doesn't like using the mouse, and prefers just touching the screen. 

There are so many reasons to like touchscreens. Batteries in mouse died? No problem! Touch the screen until you change the batteries. This is particularly useful if you're in a game in the middle of a battle or something or doing something that is timed. In an awkward spot with the laptop and nowhere to use the mouse? No problem! Fingers on screen or touch pad (I don't really like the touch pad myself, I can't use it right). Dropped the mouse and too lazy to pick it up? No problem! Finger on screen... You get the picture.

Now here are the drawbacks. You get used to it. You get really used to it. My sister asked me to help fix her laptop, and she watched me try several times to swipe on the screen or touch something to make it work. "You can't do that on that one." Crap!

Trying to do something on a desktop for someone (I'm the family techie so everyone comes to me to fix things or do things on computers for them) and start cursing because nothing happens when I try to poke at the monitor screen! "What the hell are you doing? You're going to put a damn hole in that!" Crap!

Any screen becomes fair game for touching. I've tried pausing a movie in my blu-ray player not by the remote, but by walking up to the TV and touching the screen. "Was there a bug?" my sister asks. "I didn't see one." Crap! Of course I'm not going to admit to anything she could laugh at. "I got it. It was annoying me." Use remote to pause movie. "Be right back, gotta go bathroom."

I touch the screen on my smart phone, my laptop, my tablet. I go to the store and many of the debit machines ask you to touch the screen. Bank machines do as well. My HP printer has touchscreen. Is it any wonder my brain thinks all screens are touch? Sheesh! I'm just waiting for the day I got to Best Buy or something and stop to admire the TVs and just reach out a finger and start jabbing at the screen. "Ma'am? You break it you buy it." Crap! Then again, they may soon have touchscreen TVs. You never know.

My lovely printer. I have grand-daughters so they like to put stickers on things to pretty them up. I don't mind. Whoa, I need to dust!

I know there are others out there who are like me. There have to be. I can't be the only one. Can I?