Getting It Cleaned Out!

My morning mug is my favorite Paris scene. Works for me no matter what. A little street, a little bistro, an enormous croissant. Not time to pull out the snowflakes yet. (After last winter that is a terrifying statement!)(Must buy a new snow blower..the blizzard of 2013 took care of the little snow blower that could..and did for about 20 years!). So I start the day with the best of intentions. We all  know where those intentions usually get us. Well, I know where they get me: avoidance, avoidance, avoidance!

Local SB store is having a "tag sale". Due to being educamated by the staff there, I have found out that I can sell my krap gently used paper crafting supplies BUT I get a store credit and not the show me the money thing. I get to show THEM the money when I return to the store with my earnings and buy even more krap, newer, recently on the market stuff! After thinking about it-it works for me. Until I went down to the basement lower level and started to haul my massive pile of go aways out! With some herniated disks working against me I have had great fun looking at all the things I bought at the beginning of this journey to create and make believe I am an artiste. What the beginner doesn't know is a lot. A lot means buying stuff you will never use and really don't like and you stand there screaming -why did I buy this shit- and feel the true meaning of the word ADDICTION.  So my take to the tag sale pile is a mountain and is using up all my space so I can't do a thing but price today. HA! Do I want it to sell? Yes! Do I want to give it away? No! So is there a happy place where I can feel mentally healthy about this? Hell No! But I have to be ruthless. Ruthless! So I will pull my little stickers out and write a low number on them and hope that it all goes. Why? So I can make room, of course, for everything that has arrived this week! Like the squirrels and other animals (Note: I live on shaky ground with nature. Trees and grass? Butterflies and humming birds? That I can do. Moose, deer, snakes, bears, coyote, strange looking alien bugs from a black hole somewhere and mice all fall into the I hate nature category. Just being honest. After hearing a friend say that snakes were LIVING in their daughter's car which is parked in their driveway I am quickly falling into the give me your trees, your grasses but take your freaking critters and go far, far away.....) who get ready for winter by hoarding, I am doing the same. Distress acrylic paints, Distress embossing powders, Claudine Helmouth paints, stamps, stamps, stamps from Stampin' Up, Memory Box, Hero Arts, and my new favorite Gina K Stamp TV Kit! There were inks and the odd small tool and embossing folders. Spellbinders for cutting (will someone PLEASE help me set up my Cameo? Please??) It was a magnificent week of deliveries with me checking hour upon hour for the UPS officer who piles my boxes at the garage door directly behind the bay where my car blasts out whenever I go out to forage for food and friends. For this reason alone I have developed OCDelivery. I can never catch this guy to ask him to please put my packages on the front steps. Do I have to lure him with sweets like I lure my dogs with doggie dots? A trail left from the driveway up the little walkway to the front door where NORMAL delivery officers leave their goodies? If I put a sign out there he will probably deliver my stuff to the guy next door who is cranky and crabby and never says hello but just stares at you as in -why did you move in next door to me-I liked the empty house because then I didn't have to see PEOPLE- (yup, he's nuts). So instead, I run out with my bare feet and PJ's if I think I hear a truck approaching. Like a kid at Christmas you think? Nothing so innocent. It's a craving that has a heartbeat of it's own. Bam, Bam, Bam.  Must to get the box. Must to get the stuff in the box. It's a sickness and no insurance company will cover it. 

I have the little stickers to price my sale krap stuff. I WILL not put anything back. I will not! I will tie one hand behind my back and write with my feet if I have to. It's not going to happen. I need this. I need it bad! I need it so my husband does not choke me when he sees one more little envelope (OK it is bigger than little. OK, I admit it so zip it!) or box arrive. And he will torture me while I try to sleep whispering things like -the asylum is going to haul you away today so pack your bags-.  Another reason I am an insomniac. Last night he asked me if he could help me price my stash and there was this gleam in his eye that looked a little bit like Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining. (HEERRREEE'S JOHNNY!) I have it all under control I say. Total lie. Horrific and complete falsehood. I am not allowing that. No way. Do I touch his RECORDS From 1966? Do I get a look on my face like Kathy Bates in Misery when I herniate another disk picking up the boxes of records that are hidden in the storage side of the basement? And YES, he wants a record player for Christmas. We, who have entered the ipod era (kicking, screaming and trying to remember our itunes password) now will purchase a turntable so that we can listen to that scratchy, swirling dark disk of decades our recent past. And he listens to jazz which is a noble musical art form but makes me twitch and blink too much after a riff or two on a wind instrument that takes his breath away but renders me writhing with pain. And the hours of each piece. We could spend the entire winter waiting for one of those records to get to the last note. Then, instead of just using my finger to slide to the next song I have to heave my herniated disks to the record player and smash change the big, giant, could kill an entire village of moles  RECORD. Oh, the things I have to put up with for my own weakness! It's a lifestyle. It's not a choice.

Somewhere under the house, that's where you'll find me-today. Not like The Wizard of Oz under the house when it flies through the air and lands on the bad witch, but in the lower level cave room the dear one built for me to be locked away escape to and imagine I am artistic and creative and logical. These are all delusions, but some things are allowed in your own home. Just look away! Look.Away. By evening I will have it all packed in boxes, labeled, priced and ready to go to the next sucker crafter who will laugh all the way to their car because I under priced every freaking thing. May they enjoy pricing it next October for the 2014 tag sale..hehehe.

In other news, I have finished a book this week and started another one. See? I CAN read. Just like Maria in My Big Fat Greek Wedding "SEE? I KNOW!" (re Bundt cake) (you had to be there.) This Kindle thing is growing on me. I have 6 books on it and not one spot on my night stand, bookshelves or floor are taken up by them. I watched very little TV but caught Hostages, Boardwalk Empire, Revenge, The Paradise and I snuck in super trashy Real Housewives of New Jersey (I will not snark as I do not want to find a horse's head in my bed tonight) (shut up). Love me some trash TV at the end of the long day. Thus the Bravo TV diversion but only in the dark and with headphones on so nobody knows..NO.BODY. Also caught up with Survivor. ( I think I will make my own buff that says Woman Warrior on it. The show inspired me to try to move again.)  I went to a meeting and played nice and made pals and did not guffaw when the dog walked into the meeting and peed on the floor and then simply turned around and walked out. I was very polite. I think they will invite me back. I had people over for dinner and laughed and talked and cooked (filled my quota for 2013). It was a productive week. See? I know! I have a life. Herniated, heaving and quaking at nature life on the shoreline where the boats are nifty and the basements by the water get flooded. A real, honest to fertilizer life. 

Wine glass tonight. Fingers covered with ink and stickers, but I'll manage to lift it anyway. 

There's No Place Like Home

I'm back!  I have been in so many places since my last blog posting that it would be cruel to drag you through the map. Let's just say I bought a house, sold a house and landed back in Connecticut, my home state. We live on the Shoreline now, only a 5 minute ride from the beach and Long Island Sound. After being land locked in Maryland for 9 years I finally feel as if I can sail away on any given day if I feel like it.  I don't own a boat but if I feel like it I could. I don't feel like it. I just enjoy having options. And so, I need to get to it here. It has been far too long.

The new house has a special something wonderful. There is a room in the basement lower level just for paper crafting! My wonderful, thoughtful, charming, full of dignity husband built it for me. Although I don't have matchy matchy pieces for it, I have gathered tables and shelving and drawers from all over the place to hold my junk supplies. This includes a large, very tall bookcase that belonged to my father-in-law, cubes and drawers from Oriental Trading, storage pieces from Ikea, work tables from Pottery Barn and Costco, a much sat in desk chair that now only holds things as I stand when I work these days, book cases from various places that sat in several rooms in our prior homes and now hold all manner of essentials and non-essentials for creating a mess masterpiece of my choosing. The only downside is that it doesn't have any windows so I put in a small TV and hung a painting that has a frame that looks like a window with a beach scene behind it. When I find it there will be more. Said wonderful husband also had a half bath put in (bless him) and an amazing hand built double closet full of shelves sturdy enough to hold anything I could dream of jamming into it! This is big folks. Huge. Monumental.  It may not be a studio but it is my space and I have claimed it.  I even put my treadmill in there to remind me that woman does not live by sitting on her arse or standing in one place for a very long time. Guilt works no matter who tells you it doesn't.

I discovered a rubber stamping store and scrapbook shop, conveniently standing next to each other about 20 minutes away.  Far enough so that I don't spend hundreds of dollars per week but close enough to take classes and buy the absolute must haves after those classes. Still not as dangerous as the internet for buying more supplies but when the impossible to squelch urge to purchase becomes anxiety, I can still make the trip and satisfy the craving.  I also joined Stampin' Up last year as a hobby demo.  I knew that with the introduction of their new ink pads I would be buying enough to keep my status as a demonstrator even though the only thing I demonstrated was emptying boxes that arrived and putting all the supplies in their place! I am done now, after much monetary damage, but a woman needs what a woman needs and it's better than liquor and diamonds-for the budget that is.

No mug this morning. I gave away many of them before leaving the Mid-Atlantic but still have more than my kitchen cabinets can hold. Instead I have a lovely light blue tinted glass with fruits and vines, bubbles and baubles embossed on it filled with water to drink and not just any water. My beloved Fiji water (a splurge) which I buy by the case from Trader Joe's. Sweet and full of body. That's how I like my clear, clean water!  And yes, there are drops of ink here and there during the day that end up on the outside of the glass. Careful not to drink any of that. Not recommended for that kind of consumption!

So what have I created lately? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A kitchen re-model, some baths redone and others brought into this decade. There are still curtains (the young and restless here would call them window treatments. I prefer curtains. Worked when I was a little girl and works for me now) to purchase, purchased curtains to hang and still some boxes to unpack; each one like a Christmas gift filled with surprises. Some of those surprises elicit remarks that are the real me. "Why the hell did I buy that? Who the hell thought that was great? What the hell is it?" .  There are piles in the storage areas that hold chandeliers and lights that we took down as soon as we moved in, cans of paint that we used to cover the green, the brown, the green, the brown and the green and the brown that filled this place when we unlocked the front door and some very strange golden sconces that look as if they should be hanging in a facility for wedding receptions created by wedding ripoff planners.  Me no like. There are still paintings and photos to be hung and one large bathroom to be remodeled but the paintings will go up before the re-model. I need space away from strange people in my house each day playing radios of fiddles and banjos singing about smoking CEE-GARS and riding in trucks with MY WOMAN while I hunkered down in an upstairs family room and watched and re-watched Downton Abbey in order to keep sane.  No offense to the people who crafted a great kitchen but their taste in music just didn't match their talents. Still smarting over the painters who burned popcorn in my brand new, unused by any of us, micro wave oven and stunk up the place for 3 days.  Why does burned pop corn stink-forevah?? 1 year later I still tremble when someone pops a bag of Newman's popcorn in said micro-wave, waiting for the blast of stink aroma as it wanders through the house and finds my nostrils even if I have gone into my closet, shut the door and sat in my chair. YES! My closet has a window and is large enough for a chair that matched nothing in this new house of ours. It's amazing!  Built in to keep our minds off the ugly master bath no doubt. But....everyone has different taste and one person's ugly is another person's masterpiece. (This can't be possible in the case of said bath but I am feeling generous this morning. Must look at the bright side. There is a bath. Just don't turn on the lights and get in and out as fast as you can.)
Of course not creating did not stop me from massive collecting of new Stampin' Up products. I needed them!!! Yes, you know, if you have this same addiction, that I truly, really, brutally did!  And recently, after watching the Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry classes on-line, I have ordered Distress products and paints and tags and tools and I have no idea what the hell will arrive in the boxes too! Budget for paper craft is officially cut off for 2013 but we only have 3 more months in this year so I know I can hold out at least for that much time. If you have not gone to Jennifer Mcguire's blog to find the amazing organizers she is sharing and graciously giving us a 13% discount she encouraged the manufacturer to give her followers, make sure that you do! That is the last thing I purchased with my addiction dollars. They make things to hold just about any type of often used item that you usually stick in drawers or baskets or have thrown around your space. In my case after packing and unpacking I am now the proud owner of a very hurt and very painful lower back. My purchase was a necessity. I am sticking to that no matter what anyone else says.

With Christmas not too far away I know that it's time to disappear into the downstairs space, crank up the music and start some gifts and Christmas cards. I will slap on a pain patch and remember to bend at the creaky knees and not use my back when foraging for products. If only I had wall cabinets (Tempting, very tempting.) so  I was always standing on my trusty 2 step stool to find my good stuff.  I admire the ladies who have the built- ins but hey, I have a room of my own now! I'm not greedy, just jealous envious. It has been far too long since I have made a massive mess and covered my hands with ink and stuck my home made cards to the scrap paper and ruined a finished product with an ink smear that could not be covered with a phrase banner no matter how large I made it. I cringe when I think of looking at the unfinished scrapbooks that hold old techniques that I barely knew how to do but I'll just change gears right in the middle of it and the family will think I sent them out to be finished by someone who knew what they were doing. It's the things with this calling. New products, new techniques, new tools all the time. That's the hook and the rub.

So short on humor this morning but catching up is hard to do. I will say that it is much more silent 
quiet here. Life is different. Do you remember that 1990's movie about a high powered executive that inherited a baby (how bizarre) and left her Manhattan life and moved to Vermont where she finally made a fortune on organic baby food with apples grown on her property? Uh-huh.  Former owners planted a few apple trees along the driveway  and we picked some and made a crock pot applesauce that is incredible. I have entered a new arena.  Who knew if you plant the tree the apples WILL come! And who knew there would never be enough time or apple recipes to use them all. There is a plum tree by the mailbox.  Not a fan but the former owner (lives across the street and I say NOTHING bad..NOTHING) has been given carte blanche to raid it and use them all up.  Paper crafting budget is smaller now since we need a new snow blower, riding mower and co-pays for back injuries after saving money doing our own snow removal and lawn mowing. We have already lived through a hurricane and a blizzard and the only reason I wasn't ascared was that we put in a whole house generator so that when the power goes out we can still warm up our creaky joints after the snow removal, tree limb clean up and whatever else lands in our vicinity after the sounds of the apocalypse have passed.

Water glass is empty. Time to head out and find food. (Just kidding. Big Y and Stop and Shop supply much of it with Trader Joe's and Costco and apple trees fulfilling all of my foraging needs. Stamp yourself crazy, buy some products from your favorite place and get your fingernails inked up and join me as we go through this crazy world called "CREATIVITY".  It's better than dumpster diving.  Big Brother sucked this year. Watched Big Brother Australia on youtube and the people were much nicer less disgusting and I enjoy their speech pattern (notice I did not say accent. They do not have an accent. No, no, no.), Real Housewives becoming too scripted but I still tune in so I can cringe and snark. Watching series TV on HBO and Showtime for the incredible writers who produce Dexter, Homeland, Boardwalk Empire.  Great stuff. And public TV for my British series desires (they don't have an accent either. No, no, no!). Will Teresa go to jail? Will Juicy Joe send his brother in his place? Will Bates and Anna have a baby? Will Nucky Thompson notice his butler/man of all trades jumped out the window last week? Do you think Dexter should have just sailed into the storm instead of surviving and showing up as a logger? The things to ponder.

I Woke Up And It's July!

Soup. Thick, dark, made with sour cream soup. That's the weather in MD these days.  I spend most of my daylight time inside. Even going to the pool is better after 5.  If I had a pool of my own I would just sit in it all day on a HUGE raft under a floating umbrella and I would read and listen to my Ipod and drift away these ridiculous summer days. But no-oo--oo!  We have no pool! We have trees! We have woods!  We  have a sloping lawn!  So we pay for the privilege to swim (or hang on the side) of an over chlorinated pool.   Who invented humidity?  Which fool thought it was a good idea to put WATER in the air?  Someone should kick his ass good.  I say this because it must have been a man.  In the pre everything days they never listened to women. That's why we have WATER IN THE AIR! A woman would have said "do you want to drown on land" if the men had bothered to ask!


Deep breath. (Gurgling sounds coming from the lungs.)


There are no mugs these days. Just glasses and bottles of water. Water with ice. Water without ice. Water in a blue, decorated sweating glass.  I do my best thinking with a glass of water in my hand.
And I have been thinking a lot these past few weeks.  My mind is where so much of life takes place.
Come in, and I'll share.  It is soup out there!


What the hell am I going to do?  The new Stampin' Up catalog arrived and I want about $300 worth of product. I was a little disappointed in the selection of stamps this year, but it's growing on me. I think they have some of the best cardstock around and the new In Colors are so much better this year. Must to have them, I tell you!  First order goes in tonight and I'm light headed.  I need a kick in the ass to craft make art again. I need to force myself to go to the basement lower level and put on some loud Lady Antebellum and pull out every stamp, paper pack, embellishment and photo that I have at my fingertips. I have to make the kind of mess that makes my husband ask if we have been robbed.  That is usually reserved for my closet which most often appears as if it has been ransacked.  Three different sizes of clothes, handbags, shoes, the master bedroom handset (lost for 1 year and when I found it I quietly put it back and nested it in its charger), and my reading glasses.  Yes, the reading glasses that I have looked all over the freaking house for; gone out to the car twice where I tore apart the seats convinced they had nested in some crack or the 1,000 pieces that make up the console. I check the top of my head 2 or 50 times and then recall I had dressed in the closet that morning after checking e-mail on my I-pad (device made by Apple to drive you crazy and make you broke) leaving my glasses on a shelf with shoes.  Infuriating.  I have been emancipated by having a separate closet from the husband in this house. I no longer have to hear the heavy sighs while he tries to find his clothes and shoes because the poor thing has to get dressed to go to work to pay for my krap art supplies.  He is not even allowed to peek in there.  Not his business! If I didn't have to go into his closet to forage for his dirty laundry to do the wash, I wouldn't even darken the door!  Since my closet is now my private humiliation, he has moved on to my  "I make art" area for his criticism.  Do I enter his disgrace of a utility room in the garage?  Do I?  Only in an emergency! Only when I need a nail or screw or hammer and don't let me tell you what I find when I open that door!  It's like the apocalypse.  It's like the Denzel Washington movie when the world has ended and he is traveling to the West Coast to deliver a Bible.  Scraps of metal everywhere, piles of debris, things hiding in other things to scare me and hurt my feelings.  I am embarrassed when I scream in there after putting my hand high up on a shelf and having it stick to something wet and thick.  Is he Dexter?  Does he saw through humans out there?  Turns out to be some hardware store bought gorp in a can that fixes something in the house when it's not just leaking out onto the surface of a 20 year old metal shelving unit.  Yes, people, it's true. The man is not perfect but he delivers the art supplies like a warrior who wants to impress his Queen.  Poor bastard.


So where was I?  New supplies.  This illness; this never ending yearning to purchase paper and ink and stamps and dies is the monkey on my back. I am terrified of going to the Ellen Huston site because I know there are new Memory box stamps there!  God help me I don't know what I'll do. Simonsaysstamp?  They must laugh when they see my order and immediately book a trip to Paris. My newest love is Tim Holtz. Not the man (although I'm sure he is very nice) but the product line. My hands shake when I check for the latest stamps and dies and the newest Ranger products.  Only a fellow paper artist would understand.  I will argue, when my warrior sees the charge, that I needed a muse (an army of them) to kick start my creative energy which will, in turn, heal my spirit and body which have taken a beating this year.  That will work.  I'm not above using my recent misfortunes to get what I want.  This is the hallmark of a desperately addicted individual and I will stand up in any A.C. Moore or Michael's and proudly proclaim what I am.  With a 40% off coupon, of course.


Until my new goods arrive, I'm using the TV to pass the time. BravoTV has gone from high brow to huber plucked.  What the hell do they put in the air in NYC to have these housewives behaving like middle school, PMSing girls? And New Jersey?  Was there a tsunami and did it leave behind only Italians who are always fighting with their in-laws? And now we have Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.  I fell asleep last night to Bai Ling climbing the roof of the rehab facility.  I dreamed I was eating sushi and wearing Maryjanes, by the way. Very disturbing.  Anyway, she claims she is allergic to alcohol but she drinks it anyway and acts like a maniac in public places.  (I know some people who would look at me out of the corner of their eye if they knew I was making that statement. What? WHAT? The guy cut me off and gave me the finger!  Almost killed us.  I had to get out of the car at the red light and "talk" to him. In his BMW.  With his stupid Blue Tooth ear piece sticking out of the side of his head.  What? It was in his ear already!  So now it's permanent!  He'll never lose the damned thing! I am sober when I do these things.  Is that better or worse?) But the Golden Goose, the ChristmasBirthdayAnniversaryWeddingGetWell gift is arriving on Thursday. Big Brother 13 for my guilty summer TV pleasure.  Talk about fast heartbeats!  I wait all year for July and BB to arrive. It's just another sickness like the I am an artist supply mania but oh, so sweet.  In between scrapbook pages and boxes of hand made cards I'll be bitching giving my impressions of each house guest as they claw their way to $500,000.  (How cheap is CBS? Can't they make it a million?  What can you do with $500K these days?  After taxes?  Get out of here!)  Oh, so sweet.


So tonights  wine glass has water in it.  It's still a wine glass.  It is the last glass from a set I purchased at Pottery Barn a thousand years ago.  Clunky, thick and slightly tinted green.  My husband hated them.  They are all smashed now but one.  This is a good summer, thick as sour cream soup, water in the air, glass.  It's heavy and easy to hold.  I lift it to my Stampin' Up Demo and the percentage she is going to get from my order tonight.  May she spend it wisely-mostly on other company's stamps and papers.  Poor thing. She has to support her own habit somehow.


Talk later?

OK, so I have been absent. Really absent. No swimming, not much crafting, no writing. Mostly hanging out. That's what happens when you get sick and have to have surgery. The interesting thing about me is that I have to worry for 4 weeks before I actually go the doctor and say : "HEY! You that I pay a freaking fortune to every year just for the privilege of being able to call your direct number? What the hell is wrong?" Then the visits to the specialists start and the daily thoughts that it's deadly-whatever the hell it is. But here I am after 4 weeks of recuperating (who DOES that?) and it's not deadly and I have just been hanging around in a medicated haze. I truly understand why people get hooked on pain killers. I get that isn't life great feeling from just taking one. ONE! How do people take 20 and still function? (Don't push me.) Enough explaining. I'm here now.

No morning mug. If I had had something to drink it would have been in my Citibank mug. Black with gold letters. They gave us 2 when we opened an account. I needed to feel rich this morning so I could imagine escaping Maryland and moving back to Connecticut. Those mugs make me feel rich. And cool. Only I know what's in that account! Let's just say I'm staying in Maryland a wee bit longer. BLAST! Instead of a mug, I'm using my wedding Waterford crystal to drink iced tea. Decaf no less. (Let's PARTY!) What good is wedding crystal if you never use it? Use the shit or your daughters or sons-in law will sell them when you're dead and your lips will have never even been on them!

On the craft front (my version of art which equals "I am an artist" in my mind) I just ordered the Tim Holtz birdcage/bird die cut. I'm a little behind the curve on this. I have been staring at it for so long I thought he would get my telepathic message that I wanted one and he would graciously send me one. Didn't happen. Then i splurged and bought the Pappillon stamp set of his that is too chic for words and goes well with my Waterford iced tea. When they arrive I will make art. Until then, I'm going to segue way into another area. We're going to "words" and dumping the ink for a bit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tell me how excited I am about Big Brother 13? Go ahead. Tell me! Like Halloween, Christmas, my Birthday and my goal weight all at once! YES! In 3 weeks I will be in BB heaven and watching Big Brother After Dark on Showtime. CAN.NOT. HELP. IT. It is the summer tradition and I refuse to give it up. Ever. If they take it off the air, I am holding BB in my house every July through September. I'll just choose the people, lock them up and walk around with my Flip Video 24 hours a day. Seriously, if you love to people watch and are curious about why they do the things they do; say the things they say you must watch Big Brother. It's an addiction like no other (Ok, well the pain killers but I digress). I hope they mix it up a wee bit and don't fill the house with zygotes. Can we have someone over 35 please? Please? That Agrodner person needs to hear me. I'll be including my Big Brother thrill here along with my scrap/stamp everything in the house as the summer arrives and progresses. Oh the joy!

In the meantime, I have had to make do with Bravo's Real Housewives of anywhere. Do I need to call them out (Tamara, Vicky, Peggy, Jill, Kelly, Luann and others who shall remain nameless)? These women make me love my life (except for that having to pretend about the wealth thing with the Citibank mugs). What cocoon have I lived in that has protected me from these..these..aliens? Orange County? I thought they made juice. I had no idea they were spending big bucks, leasing cars, short selling their mansions and creating clothing lines and writing books! I had no idea they were on Twitter talking to us daily. How did I live? How did I have any meaning to my life at all without their fabulous lives playing out on my TV and lulling me to sleep through my hypochondria and fear? Bravo just wrapped up RHOC with 2 reunion shows that were filled with snarling and snarking, yelling and swearing. I LOVED it! Everyone was dressed up like a wealthy escort (hooker) and they wore large jewelry. Seriously, the earrings looked as if they would stretch their ear lobes down to their shoulders and they could make the pages of National Geographic. We saw the bad, the ugly and the filthy, It was a go to hell moment when Tamara (mother of 4) got into a bathtub with her new, younger boyfriend and she's not even divorced yet (Yes, I am that dignified and old fashioned. Get the damned divorce before you get the boyfriend and take off your clothes!) and left a legacy for her children to watch long after her botox has worn off! Jayzuz but it was uncool! Now they are still running RHNJ and RHNY. That's New Jersey and New York to the virgins here. Oh Mama what a bonanza of back biting, $$$ envy, bitch slapping, family squabbling and inventing! Yes, inventing! See some of them have taken things they WEAR and have been on the market for years and re-invented (copied) them with slight changes like some lace here and a bow there.

Or they write a book and travel the country hawking it as if they are Robert Crais or Jodi Picoult who actually write books that sell. A couple of them have genuine businesses and I happen to like those women. They are the cooler, snarky but human ones. The others? Meh. They don't scare me. Nor do they fool me. Watch for updates as the days go by. It's just too much for one person to delight in on one post!

As for my embarrassing (bare assed) hording of papers and inks, I splurged (again) and bought a Cricut Expression 2. I'm sorry. I had to have it. It's still in the box due to body letting me down but you can bet I'm going to whip that baby out and cut shapes and words and paste them into a book and hit the publishing circuit. If these housewife women can throw together recipes from their great grandmothers (who beat clothing against rocks to get them clean) and get them published then I should be able to Cricut my way onto the best seller list. It's only fair to a woman who has to settle for Maryland and dream about Connecticut. Never mind drink out of a free Citibank mug while wearing Nautica Pajamas, earrings and a watch! It's a sickness this crafting thing. A sickness I tell you!

The Art of the Stamp

The Christmas card travelled to Connecticut in a package filled with gifts for my son and his wife. That card has a long history which began 5 years ago when I decided to start making cards and scrapbooks. To know me is to love me. To love what I draw is to really love me because I can't draw, paint or do anything that doesn't use words to express myself in an artistic way. Until they placed a rubber stamp in front of me and said "just do it". Hands shook, sweat broke out and I wondered, as I sat around a table with 10 other women, what the hell we were doing playing with children's toys. I didn't know a single stamp could cost $15.00 or that all the additional stamping stuff existed in places I had never been, aisles I had never walked. Well, that's over.

After thousands of dollars, I can now call myself a stamper and a scrapbooker. Sounds like something only lonely old ladies would do but I'm here to tell you that isn't the case. It's not my case. I'm not really old and I'm certainly not lonely. Family, 2 dogs, a house and friends keep my phone ringing and my days interrupted, happily. Blogs on cardmaking and scrapbooking must be in the thousands and thousands. I can never keep track of any of them. But none of them tell you the fate that awaits once you pick up that first stamp. It's a sickness. Any stamper will tell you that as you expand your ability through classes, the internet and books, you become a crazed shopper who knows every brick and mortar store within 50 miles, peruses as many blogs and message boards as possible per week and discovers that catalog pusher of stamps and sundries: Stampin' Up! Once you have fallen for SU you are done. Finished. Over. Your credit card warps and turns into a pile of molten plastic. The local, privately owned stamp shop is rare but once discovered is one of the most dangerous places you will ever set foot in. There are stamps, inks, pens, books, papers, ribbons, glues, glitters, tools, embossing powders, embossing folders, and a list of classes to take that will feed your addiction and expand your basement until there is not one more inch of space left to stash even 1 slim piece of 12 X 12 paper. You learn to stamp for a card, use papers to make any manner of books and then you graduate to using giant clothespins to make a standing scrapbook. The mixed media class teaches you that you (the clueless, least artistic person in town) can use paint. That aisle in Michaels that you never bothered to go down because you, the untalented one, don't use paint of any kind? That special place with tubes and containers and brushes and jars was always so mysterious and a little sinister. What kind of odd sort would be into that stuff and what the hell do they do with it? That mixed media class teacher releases a monster that must have acrylics and watercolor crayons (again, why are we using kid's things to make art?), watercolor pencils and gesso and brushes. There are papers and canvases and you actually leave that mixed media class believing that you can create something without the teacher over your shoulder. Sort of. And each month there are new classes and professionals make appearances. Tim Holtz, Jennifer Mcguire, Claudine Helmouth, and many more that will be familiar only to stampers and paper lovers. They bring with them the projects and the lists that will keep you outside of any budget that you put on paper on January 1st. Actually, they will blow your budget so loud and so far that you will be in debt before you even begin to write the damn list on that first day of the year. Busted and beloved. That's how you feel.

It's early morning and my mug is a winter scene with the limbs of the pine trees on it covered with snow. I'll fill it with spiced apple tea and get the day started. What color is your mug this morning?