I made a new necklace last night! I fell instantly in love with this mouse/midnight charm. It's the "Fairy Tale" brand which can be found at Hobby Lobby. I think I'm going to re-create one to sell to my sister's Teacher friend's come Christmastime.
I wanted to add chain to this one, but the chain I have didn't quite match the gold.
My mother and I also made some tote bags yesterday. Mine is the rabbit and hers is the Yorkie pup. I LOVE the bling we put on Mom's bag. I put a small crystal on my bag, too, but it doesn't show up well in these photos. I really should have taken better photos, but who am I kidding? The lighting is always a problem so these pics are what they are. I'll take better pictures whenever we get a new camera. (In the very least, I need to find some pretty lace to set my necklaces on when taking photos of them).
Oops. I forgot to mention that the graphics we got from an Etsy store.... http://www.etsy.com/shop/Graphique .... and they were only $1 a piece! We got 11 of them, but are going to add at least 2 more soon. I think this means we're going to be making a lot of canvas bags, for ourselves and even as Christmas presents.
As everyone knows, today is a sad day for a lot of families. Every year people ask the question: "Where were you when 911 happened?"
When 911 happened, I was subbing for a 7th grade Texas History class. It was the same junior high I attended, and this was even my old classroom.
A student came in at the start of second period and shouted that a terrorist flew a plane into one of the towers. That early on, it was a break in an otherwise monotonous school day, so all the kids were a little... excited, for lack of a better term. It hadn't hit home to anyone yet just how serious this was. Even I had no clue. I really thought this boy was over-exaggerating, and that it was only a small plane that hit the tower by some freak accident.
Soon after, kids kept getting called to the office to be picked up early by their parents. The office was just across the hall from me, and at lunchtime I went to the teacher's lounge to get a coke. Along the way I noticed the tv's switched on in all the classrooms, and inside the office it was PANDEMONIUM, so that's when I went back to the classroom. I turned on the tv, and that's when I saw how devastating it really was.
Some teachers allowed their students to watch the news while all this was happening. I just couldn't though. Whenever I had a class and the kids kept asking to watch the news, I turned off the television. I knew there would be some students not comfortable seeing it. For all I knew, some of them had family or friends in NYC. (If someone with family there outright asked to watch the news, I would have allowed it. Otherwise, that tv stayed off so there would be at least a small sense of normalcy for that class period).
For the rest of the day, students were constantly being sent home. I'm not exaggerating when I say that in our classroom alone, about every five minutes... usually less than even that... a child was picked up by their parent. A lot of people were afraid of the schools being targeted next.
I think every American remembers where they were on 9/11, and what they were doing. And whether you're a conspiracy theorist or not... I bring this up because there have been A LOT of those shows on lately... let's not get so caught up in those debates that we forget the victims themselves. My thoughts are with those who lost loved one's that day.
~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~
Last year I read THIS blog post from Tales From an OC Cottage. It's always stuck with me, and the list of names at the end of the post really sticks with you. It's all just so tragic.
Confession:
For me, this quote doesn't just apply to people and pets. It also applies to arriving and leaving Walt Disney World.
And EVERY hardcore Disney fan on the planet knows what I'm talking about!
The day you leave The Happiest Place on Earth is a depressing day... which is why bringing souvenirs home are so important, am I right?
Yes, I know. I HAVE to mention Disney at least once or twice a week else I'll spontaneously combust. It's who I am and I'm running on the last of my Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah fumes from my last WDW trip back in October... 2009 was it?
Made a new necklace over the weekend. It really could have been made a lot prettier, but I'm in desperate need of just some simple necklaces that will match more of my work clothes. And while this isn't my best necklace, it does look better than the photo. Sorry it's so dark.
Also, these cameo charms are the one's I took off of the larger charms a while back. I have so many of them and it'd be a shame to waste them all. I might add a little draping chain to the center of it sometime. I haven't really decided yet. I do think I'll make another one with the blue beads though (pictured below). I might as well since I have enough of those beads and so many of that one little charm.
More photos are on my Crafty Emporium blog listed in the sidebar. One of these days I'm really going to try to take better photos of my necklaces. I'm really having a lot of trouble taking a good picture with this camera. It's rather frustrating.
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A couple months ago I told my niece that one movie she simply has to see is "Love in The Afternoon" with Audrey Hepburn. I almost texted her about it again last night, and lo and behold a few minutes ago my mother tells me that it's coming on tv right now.
See? I told ya I wasn't just weather and Disney World psychic. I'm also MOVIE psychic. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my other movie classic recommendation I had for my niece - "Lilies of the Field" with Sidney Poiter - comes on tv soon as well.
I hope my sister got our message and DVR's it. I LOVE this movie. The only scenes I can't watch is whenever that mean old biddy slaps her dog. That's always bothered me.
WARNING:
I beg you to please NOT watch the second clip if you've never seen the movie before.
Abby's birthday is coming up, so Mom made all the girls some homemade vanilla ice cream. We gotta celebrate somehow, ya know!
The girls loooove it. I even have proof, in the photo below, of just how fond Abby is of ice cream. The evidence is marking her mouth and brow, literally.
(Click HERE to visit Susan Branch's blog! It's a really uplifting place to visit)
Oh, how I wish this quote were true where I live! I am more than ready for cooler weather but we don't receive actual seasons here. Fall/Autumn this far south lasts only a few days a year and only on random mornings and evenings.
Still, I CANNOT WAIT to feast my eyes on all those pretty fall pictures people post when the leaves on the trees start changing color. I've always said I would love to visit Tennessee in the fall. I've never been there before and think the fall season would be the perfect time to visit.
Made a few more necklaces recently.
Please pardon the poor photo quality. The lighting isn't cooperating much, and I'm really growing tired of not having a nice backdrop for my necklaces. I plan on remedying that soon.
I wish I had a really good close-up picture of this one. I like the colors of the beads.
This fabric rose necklace my Mom wanted me to make for her. I wish I had gotten larger beads for it, but Mom wanted smaller ones and they didn't have the right shade of pink beads in the larger size anyway.
You work with what you can find, but I think I'll be adding to this necklace before too long. I might can compensate for the smaller beads if I add more chain and elements to it. As it is, this one feels incomplete.
I really need to take better photos of this necklace. I made it Tuesday night, and I like it a lot. Half the photos (including this one) turned out blurry so this will have to do for now.
No textures or anything here. I took these photos a loong time ago, and they are what they are.
I gotta say that I do miss that old garden. It's the only thing I miss about our old house.
Dear Maddie and Izzy,
You really don't have to bark/announce when the phone rings. We can hear it just fine, but thank you anyway.
Dear Neighbor,
Don't you know that it's considered rude when you're loudly hammering away outside at 10 o'clock at night?
Dear Bully-At-Work-Whom-Shall-Not-Be-Named,
Behave yourself in front of my big sister. If you don't, I'm afraid I'm going to have to smash you so far into the ground with my bare fists that come springtime you'll have daisies sprouting from your arse.
Dear Netflix,
It's time to add Season 2 of Downton Abbey to Instant Watch. PLEASE!!!!!! I've already bide my time watching "Upstairs, Downstairs" but now that's all over. I MUST see more of Anna and Mr. Bates. I miss them!
Dear Humidity,
Must you live here permanently, year after year and during every single month?
Dear Cable TV,
I have no idea why we even have you. Nothing good is ever on, and you keep playing the same new episodes of boring shows back-to-back. Why do you do this? Are you afraid people will forget what they watched only 2 seconds earlier? Do you think we've lost our short term memory? Please explain.
Dear Books,
I'm so sorry for neglecting you again. If it makes you feel any better, Books > Television.
This is the current gate up at our land. If we ever do build a house out there, we're definitely going to have one grand gate. In the meantime, however, it's as seen in the picture above. We found a few of those metal dogs in the barn, so we spray painted them black and placed one on the gate.
I'm pretty sure this is along one of my favorite country roads in the Brenham area; Old Tommelson Creek Road. I was so impressed with this area that I put it in the first book that I wrote. (A book in desperate need of editing I might add). I only wish this photo wasn't taken from inside a moving vehicle. I've always regretted that.
Believe it or not, this pic of a barn was taken from a gas station parking lot. This is also in Brenham.
And as you can see, Maddie LOVES the country! When she used to - very reluctantly - travel with us up to Austin, once we entered Brenham she'd immediately perk up and start sniffing the country air. She reacts the same way when entering Lago Vista, too.
Like Mom and myself, she's a country gal at heart.
I was looking through some older photographs, taken at our old house, when I found these of my little canary. I named him after "Westley" in The Princess Bride movie.
He looooved 'dancing' to music (especially to the Moulin Rouge and Phantom of the Opera soundtracks) and would sing so loudly that even with my bedroom door closed you could still hear him from downstairs. I often called him "My Sweet Little Westley Prince" because, well... he was a prince. To this day I miss him. I was obsessed with this little bird, seeing that he was happy and healthy. Because of this, I know I'll never get another canary. He was a sweetheart, and it really is too bad that I didn't have a digital camera back then. If I had, you could have heard how beautifully and how LOUDLY he sang his little heart out each and every single day.
And not only was he a sweetheart and a prince, but he never complained about living in a pink room and bathing and eating out of pink dishes.
1. The best thing to do on a hot day isstay indoors if at all possible. Heat stroke happens easily around here.
2. The best place to be on a hot day isstanding next to the opened freezer door, with your face resting against the ice box.
3. The best thing to eat on a hot day isJava Chip Frappuccino Ice Cream!
4. Hot dayscoupled with humidity are the norm around here, so there are no such things as heat waves in these parts. Even in October, it'll be in the 90's.
5. My go to uniform on a warm summer day isshort sleeves, sandals and an iced mocha in my hand. Don't ya know the outfit wouldn't be complete without one?
6. The scent that reminds me of summer isSweat? Okay, to be more poetic that would be jasmine and roses and freshly mowed grass.
7. My favorite thing about summer iswhen it ends and the triple digit heat index goes bye-bye.
I've been watching the behind-the-scenes of the LOTR Extended Edition, so this song has been on my mind. I think it's beautiful.
Translation:
From darkness I understand the night
dreams flow, a star shines
Ah! I desire Evenstar
Look! A star rises out of the darkness
The song of the star enchants my heart
Ah! I desire
