Monday, March 23, 2009

What's wrong with you people?

Seriously! I know you all have talent, you're just hiding behind your blogs, aren't you.
I know you all really want me to share one of mine with you.
Since I am such an amazingly nice, caring, giving (not to mention modest),person I've decided to share even if you don't!
So, new rule! My very own. Leave me a comment, first three for sure (if I'm feeling really generous I just might do more). I will then send you one of my super cute tea towel aprons.

Here you can see Crissie wearing the one I gave her at Christmas. Try not to be distracted by the flash of her wedding bling!
Choose to pay it forward or not. (See post below) It's up to you.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Pay It Forward

I am such a lucky girl!
I happened to catch this on a fiends blog AND be the third person to comment! So now she is going to share her amazing talent with me.
In turn, I agree to "pay it forward". This means you have the opportunity to receive something wonderful from me!

The rules

1. Be one of the first Three (3) bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me.
2. Winners, you must post this challenge on your blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift for the first 3 bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!
3. The gift that you send to your three Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Counts!
4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love! If you are not one of the 1st Three Commenters on this post, you can still play along. Post it on your blog; start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same!

Hmm... what am I going to make I hear you asking yourselves.
Something fun! Something useful! Something super cute! Just wait and see.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Margaret!

March 14th!
Today we celebrate the birth and life and of my sister Margaret.
Will she be happy that I cared enough to post a blog entry all about her on her birthday!
Perhaps NOT!
I will do it any way and call it GIFT!
Margaret entered this world as the second little girl born to Ron and Holly.


Little did she know that she would, in rather quick succession, share her world with two more little sisters. Sixteen months would see the arrival of the first of them.

Followed fourteen months later by the second.

She had many great adventures growing up with so many sisters. Not to mention the excitement of having an insane mother!

She always marched to her own beat. While she participated in playing dolls and barbies with us, she took much more delight in cutting their hair and making them over. For example, I had a Marie Osmond barbie type doll that she buried in the garden once. When spring arrived, Dad got out the rototiller to turn the earth for that years planting. Not only dirt turned up that year. Soon arriving on the surface was a mutilated Marie. All was not lost! Margaret quickly removed her head and attached it to the body of a perfectly fine barbie. However, Marie was not a regular barbie. She was larger. So this was now a big head on a small body. Not to worry! Margaret quickly fixed that as well. She cut off all her hair and tied a homemade kerchief around her head. I think she may have wrapped her body with rags to give her a thick appearance. Next, a calico dress belonging to a small baby doll was confiscated and reassigned to the barbie now renamed "Aunt Jemimah".

Margaret also had toys that most girls don't play with. She had all kinds of Fisher Price safari toys. Jeeps, animals, hunters and the like. She would often be in the large garden (big, square area of dirt) creating roads and having adventures. Truthfully, we all enjoyed playing with her toys in that dirt.By the time we were all in high school her creativity was quite evident. Margaret became quite the writer and artist. Let me prove it to you! One time she and her friend Keli wrote their own tongue twister. How can I possibly remember this so many years later? Why, she used my name in it of course. I shall now share it with you. Please do not be offended, for I assure you, I wasn't.

"Sleazy Suzee sells herself on South Seventh Street singing songs that sometimes sound sour."

She often drew me pictures and left them in my room to find. Oh yes! I saved them! Who could possibly know that someday this public medium we know as the Internet would be available, making it possible for me to upload and share them with all of you. These things have been stored in my cedar chest for more than 20 years now. I am so excited to use this public forum to display them.

How exciting that she actually signed this one so she can never deny that it is her work. Now, let me explain this picture and tell you what is written at the top. This is me and my best friend Loraine. Perhaps you can not see the ribs sticking out. How emaciated we look, or the fact that we have IV's in our arms. Also, there is some great underarm hair on me. I guess she thought I was too thin back then. I had a thing for Neil Schon, the lead guitarist for Journey. In this picture we are at a Journey concert with a nurse. The writing across the top reads, "Look Loraine, it's Neil Schon! And he's looking right at us!" From Loraine "Oh look at that guy over there by the south exit!" And from the nurse "Ok let's get back into the ambulances!"

This next one is an artists rendition (Margaret's) of our backyard. I am sunning myself by the pool. There is the son of a family friend who spent a summer with us (drove us all crazy cuz we were not used to teenage boys in our house) floating, deceased, in the pool. And the dog known as the poopy puppy, along with all the glorious messes he made, is next to the pool.

One night I arrived home and found a lovely story, handwritten (2 pages), taped to my bedroom door.

Let me give you a brief summary of The Smell. This is a little ditty about the stink that was my room. How scientist gathered to find the source. Neighbors moved away, etc. Did my room smell, I hear you asking yourselves. No. Was my room a teenage pigsty? Probably. This was Margaret's way of lovingly letting me know that it was time to clean my room. By the way, this story is signed at the end with a paw print and a signature that reads THE WHIP. In reference to my cat's tail, I can only assume after all these years.

All these things might sound mean to you, but I assure you they were done with love and a twisted sense of humor. Right, Margaret? Unlike our oldest sister Bev, Margaret was nice most of the time. Her first car was a lovely kelly green thing. The license plate had the alphabet characters TRD, so it was lovingly called the Turd. She would happily allow her younger sisters to borrow her car to run errands and go to dances on the weekends. Bev would never allow us to drive her crappy Nova.

Happy Birthday Mugzy! Thanks for the fun memories from our childhood! I love you!

Ode to my HOA

Oh HOA!
So wrongly despised by all
Judging what may be displayed
what color or how tall.
As I made a short drive
just one neighborhood over
discovering grass is not really so green
and neither is the clover.

My thanks I gave for sameness
tho' some may call it Art
If I were to say what I think of this...
No, I'm not sure where I should even start!


Yes folks, this is for real!
Today I went to see a friend. Upon parking the truck, I stopped to gather my things and when I looked up...Well Holy Cow! There is a GIANT head in that yard! I made sure to leave part of this person's truck in the photo so you could see just how large the head was.

But WAIT!

This is not all!

This is just the side of the yard!
No I was only momentarily stunned by the enormity of this piece of sculpture.

At last I turned my head to view the front of the house.




Yes, Art takes on many forms.

Does it all have to reside together in ONE yard?

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Oh yes! Definitely!
I believe these are Siamese twins who have given birth. Oh No! Stop them! They're multiplying!



Talking with my friend who lives across the street from all this culture, I was able to get her interpretation of this this piece. Now, maybe it comes from the role of woman and mother, but she believes this is a baby emerging from the birth canal. Hmm...? Perhaps she is correct.

Ah yes! Another disturbing piece. I wonder if this isn't an interpretive version of "The Blob". Do you see it? The light gray represents The Blob. We can clearly see that it has consumed a small child and half of a black Jesus.

Oh, I am definitely going to hell now.

Next!

This represents each of us. Notice the tilt of the head. This is the same tilt you make while viewing this yard.

The puzzled expression. Also made by you, the viewer, in response to this display.

Lastly

Lest you imagine that the enormous head resides by his self, a social pariah, cast out because of his size.

Not so! He has company! Another misfit.

I believe he comes from a small tribe of warriors that resides somewhere far far away. No you have never heard of this place. From infancy they place weights on the end of their noses in order to stretch them. Thereby ensuring the ability to place the end of your nose on the top of your head. Animal tusks are later inserted into the the cheek bones to complete the look.

Although they run around naked, this guy is clearly modest. He works hard at keeping his hand carefully placed over his junk so as not to frighten small children, or offend the neighbors!

For all of you who have ever complained about the neighbors who reside around you... Remember It can always be worse!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

SUPERSTAR!

Yes! I am a SUPERSTAR!
Can I tell you that I am the last person in the world to finally play Rock Band?
Don't laugh.
I'm just a bit of a late bloomer is all.

Started out on guitar.

Not bad...

Then, I am THE lead singer in a rock band!

Woo Hoo!

Can I even remotely carry a tune you ask...

Not at all!

I was awesome! I was embarrassing. (Good thing my children weren't there.) I was a superstar!
I can't wait to get my hands on that mike again.

Suddenly, I will be be transformed once more. Fulfilling that tiny hidden desire that lies dormant in all grown ups. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't try and pretend you don't.

That little flame burning in the cellar of your soul.
I am a SUPERSTAR!