Yayyyy! Trader Joe's has finally come to Spokane. It was scheduled for last summer, and now it's December, but everyone was SO happy to be shopping. The Two-Buck-Chuck (which is now Two-Buck-and-Fortynine-Cents-Chuck) sold out in the first two hours, it was an hour wait in line to check out, and almost impossible to get through the aisles, but nobody minded. We just slowly shuffled with the crowd, aimlessly reading nutritional information on the labels and spending way too much money...but no one was grumpy. What a fun shopping day!

Socks for special friends....and yes, Batman has a mowhawk LOL He's a much happier dog since his dental work this year, but that's a story for another day.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Hope you all got to spend Thursday doing something you enjoyed. I was quasimoto-ed over my digitizer pad most of the day, but I had the last season of The Sopranos running in a split screen, so I was a happy camper (BTW, noon on Thanksgiving in NOT a fortuitous time to shop for a turkey breast). For some unknown reason, Dish blessed me with 3 months of free HBO, so I'm frantically DVR'ing anything that's currently playing (True Blood YAYYY!), and now that I'm home, marathoning through the older serieses(seria, serea?). Today is Season 3 of Deadwood. I am seriously going to miss www.hbogo.com when my 3 months are up, but I do not see Premium Channels in my crystal ball.
Here's a pic of my first felting -- first felting with the fuzzy bits, anyway, not crocheted or knitted. Mira showed me how to do it when I was in Finland, and it was so easy having her take me through the process step-by-step. The written directions always look to daunting for me to follow, and I never would have tackled felting without her help.

Three weeks and 4 shows since my last post, and I'm finally home for the Christmas break, looking forward to cleaning the house, working on new designs, developing some new classes, and spending quality time with Creighton and the Critters. Our planned trip down to Fort Bragg has been cancelled due to lack of funds. We'll try again in a few months. Disappointing, but I'm also glad to be staying home. Here's our booth from a huge Holiday Festival last weekend. I shared it with Melinda Melvin, another local artist.

This is one of my favorite pieces, but I have to give credit to Melinda. I did the design, but she did most of the work. Not only did she share her technique of gluing and varnishing, but she also completed most of my panels while I was globe-hopping the previous week. My half of the booth would have been pretty empty without her generosity. I'm a lucky girl.

I'm sure some of you wonder how anyone can tolerate those long hours in an airport. Well, sometimes we do this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNYSYR2LVPs I'm pretty sure this one was at Heathrow. Something has changed on blogspot, and I can't upload a video, so I put it on YouTube. It doesn't appear to be an active link, so my apologies that you'll have to cut and paste it in the URL line. If anyone knows how to make this more seamless, please let me know.

I know you've already seen Batman in many poses, including in a suitcase, but tonight as we're frantically pressing rubber and packing, he made me smile. Tomorrow I head to the UK for a show, and Creighton is driving to Fort Bragg to deal with the mess our tenants made of our house. I'll be back in the cheap seats for many hours, and he's going to have a nasty mess on his hands....so yes, it's another picture of Batman. I hope he brings a smile to you, too.
Little does he know that a visit to the groomer is in his near future...that's another pic for next week :-)

It's been a long 6 months since my last post, and thanks to all of you that were concerned and wrote to check on me. I hit a rough patch on the Road of Life shortly after the returning from Amsterdam. I thought that if I just got through that crisis, everything would be fine, and I'd get back to posting funny pictures and stories...but it didn't work out that way; the rough bumps continue, and the light at the end of the tunnel is very dim....but I really enjoyed blogging, and want to get back to it, so I'm putting on my Big Girl Panties and will pick up from where we left off...on a happy day in Amsterdam with our friend, Jorgan (whose name must be spelled wrong because there is no "I", "U", and only one "J"). He treated us to a wine and cheese tour of the Amsterdam canals on his boat. What a very special day that was.

I leave in the morning for Art & Soul in Portland, but promise to post again next week before I head for a show in the UK.

I just got home last night from the Netherlands show, and leave for Kansas to help move Creighton's parents tomorrow morning, but I wanted to at least post this peculiar way to display childrens' hoodies at the Amsterdam open market.

The stamping world has said good-bye to Norm of Polly's Pals. Norm had been one of the "regulars" at the stamp shows for many years, and was on the road to the Portland show when it was time to leave us. His smile and kindness will not be forgotten. Norm, I wish you a safe journey to your next destination.

Our condolences to Norm's family.

Another quick entry. I got back from Portland late last night and have been frantically packing for the next shows. I don't know why I thought that 7 shows in 4 weeks was a Good Idea, and many thanks to Tami (Allentown, PA), Adrien (Sacramento, CA), and Sandi(Ocean City, MD) for all their help.
Backing up a bit....I was in Albuquerque two weekends ago for the stamp show, and stayed a couple extra days to teach a Visual Journaling class at China Phoenix 2.
That's owner, Nancy, and resident cat, in the back row.
The class was more successful than I'd dared hope, and I'm planning a repeat performance at China Phoenix 2 maybe in October.
And I got to spend some quality time with my BFs, Paula and Teresa (www.paulabest.com). YAYYY!! Paula even was at my class for the first day, but the pic is from Day Two.
I'm at the Coeur d'Alene show this weekend, but will also have a booth at the show, so stop by and say Hi to me, or Sandi in Ocean City.

More on Indy...We're trying to eat healthier so hitting the better grocery stores rather than fast food. I spotted this

Sounds healthy, and should be good on a salad....but this is what's inside.....


CAT FOOD!!! I would have been better off, certainly cheaper, to have just gone straight for the Fancy Feast. YUCK!!

I'[ve gotten seriously behind in my blogging (again). well, I've been to Indianapolis for a show. Remember this pic? Well, I did it again. Indianapolis is like part of the Bermuda Triangle. I think they move or rename the streets every year, and my GPS squawks useful directions "Get in the left land and turn right" and "Sharp right turn" when I'm on the freeway. I'd only gotten a couple of miles away from the airport and was already lost, it was after midnight, cold and rainy, and I noticed the rental gas gauge wasn't full. There was no way I could get back to the airport car rental lot, so I took this video of the gas gauge the odometer and the clock. The next morning I called the car rental Customer Support with my story. They thought it was very funny, and didn't charge me for the missing gas. I was so very proud of myself. Well, this gets me caught up a bit. I'll try to write more before I head for Portland this weekend.
...Hours later....Shit! I've tried 4 times to get the video to load. It's only 5 seconds long, and I don't know what the problem is, so I'm going to bed.

I was packing for the two shows next weekend, and was completely out of any horizontal space in the house...until I remember the obsolete ironing board. Luckily we could still find it.

Well, I'm back from the San Jose show, with a side trip to see Adrien, Dakota and my mother. I thought I'd dispense a couple of mini Darwin awards this week. The first one goes to Adrien, who had somehow tipped a hot serving spoon onto his arm.
It had a hole in the center, giving him this goofy circular burn, which he slightly humorously calls his "third eye".
The other award goes to myself, but you're spared a pic. My lips are chapped from the cold weather, and when I was packing up the boxes after the show, I bit off the end of the packing tape with my teeth, but the tape stuck to my lip and pulled off the chapped layer....duh...and OUCH! Almost as stupid as licking a cold telephone pole LOL
The weather's kinda icky for a few days, but we plan another ski day later this week, and I hope to get some funny video.

Happy Valentine's Day!
Roses, Reeses peanutbutter cups, and chocolatechip cookie dough!

And he's up!!!
We've recently taken 3 play afternoons to go cross-country skiing. The picture is not good because I was so clumsey with the gloves -- couldn't really see the viewfinder. Actually took several pics of my palm, one of my ski tips, and even a 1/2 second video (NO idea how that happened LOL). It's crappy weather this week, so we're back to the usual work schedule, but will be back on the mountain after the San Jose show next weekend.

I guess it's time to bring an end to our sad little tale of injustice and conspiracy inside the Nevada Highway Patrol. Briefly, Mary Kay and I were rear-ended in a hit-and-run accident on our way to the Las Vegas show a couple of months ago. We called the Nevada Highway Patrol, had the car towed, and completed our part of the report, including the license number. Meanwhile, another officer further down the road stopped by and told us he'd had two witnesses stop him with information on our accident, and from both, he read the same license number and car description from his notes. He also mentioned a call to 911. The trooper told me he'd get right on the case (hit-and-run IS a felony!), and would call me in a couple of days, and to expect the completed accident report in 10 days. Here we are, riding to the venue in the back of the NHP car, absolutely clueless on how badly things are going to get.

Well, no call from the trooper, and he doesn't return my calls. Days and weeks pass, and there's no completed accident report. I talk to the trooper's sargent, who says he'll get right back to me, but then also never returns my calls. Finally, more than 6 weeks after the accident, the trooper finally looks at the car that at least 3 of us have identified. There's evidence of front-end damage and repair, but the owner says that this is from a previous un-reported accident....and those two eye-witness reports? They're gone. Now the trooper claims that the witnesses just said "there's an accident back there", and kept on going. And the dispatch call has disappeared. My cousin, who's an accident lawyer, concludes that we had the bad luck to be hit by a girlfriend or relative of the Highway Patrol. He was only surprised that it happened at a State level. Apparently this type of coverup is more common at the City level. Bottom line -- my word against the NHP, so guess who lost. The moral of the story is that just because they wear a uniform, have shiny shoes, and call you "ma'am" doesn't mean they can be trusted. I doubt I'll be contribuing to any future Policemens' Benefits.

Batman: "I believe it is a good day to chew a foam pillow. Do you think anyone will notice?"

Back from Mesquite. Great to see friends after the holiday break, but on Friday I had a feeling that the show was going to be good, which unfortunately turned out to be gas. LOL ...And now after 4 days of trimming and packaging orders, I'm back to having fun with projects. Here's some of what I started during the holiday, and sometimes completed....

The styrofoam balls have their first coat, and are successfully stuck on the bed posts. They need something else, but I'm going to live with then for now, and wait for an inspiration. I tried striping the posts with electrical tape, but it's not too interesting, so I might try black polka dots next. The wierd thing behind the crow is a bunch of yarn.

I hung most of my stamp shelves. The doll is almost finished. It was harder that I expected to draw on the raised surfaces of the doll's face, so I might gesso it again and start over. The Ikea drawer thingies are painted, and one has new drawer pulls.
Later tonight it's back to the cards project.

I'm back from Grapevine (Dallas), the first show of the year. As usual, it was not a clean start out of the shoot. The Mystery of the Whimsical Inventory continues to hang like an albatross around my neck. Just WHAT was I thinking as I packed? Or had the last functioning braincell decided to take a holiday? Fortunately, I'm returning the Dallas area for the Mesquite show next weekend, so I'm regarding it as the Redemption Round to get my product to the venue.
Grapevine did have it's light moments....several of the Marcos' folks and I all needed to be at the airport PDQ, and Mary Kay volunteered to take us all in her 4-seater van, so off we went with 2 booths of boxes, and 4 peoples' luggage jammed in the back, and Marco's Karen wedged on the floor between the seats. Pics were taken, and I'll post if anyone ever sends me one.
Other exciting news is that my BFF Melinda in Spokane saw my journals, and has graciously invited me to share her display space at a couple of local galleries, so I'm making my journal pages into cards. Here's one page before it's put on the card...

It's not a card yet because I, of course, made it the wrong size, and need to re-do them next week.
I'm truly honored and flabbergasted that she would be so generous. I'm a very lucky person.