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.

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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?