nuts

Posting from state of mayhem.

Installing wood flooring in living room. Contents of living room now in dining room and office.

One hundred antique quilts and quilt tops stacked on one desk cannot find other desk. Hoping to find chihuahuas soon.

Making progress on the hooked rug seats for dining room chairs.

The floor is almost done, son number two and I will do the trim work and hopefully it will be done BEFORE I go totally nuts.

Some would argue its too late for that.

Finally

Obviously I have not been posting.

I have not been doing any art work either. Not only has my leg been messed up but I have a nasty bit of tendinitis in my right arm. So I thought if maybe I changed up my arm movements a little bit the pain would ease. It didn't work. My arm is worse but I am getting some old projects done!

For years now I have had antique dining room chairs with no seat pads because I could not make up my mind what to do with them, I had considered needle point but decided to hook some wool "rugs" as pads. Two seats done two to go, and I have also re-addressed the hooked rugs I started a loooooong time ago.

As soon as I got the wool box out, the cats took over. It must be wool fumes or something, they just love the stuff.

Lynx made a nice nest under the hoop with the rug in it and Yoda (queen of the world) took over the box of wool fabric and cut strips.

As you can see she is pretty darn relaxed.

The other day I was reading a blog and the writer had posted darling pics of the doll house she had been making for her daughters. So cute. I had three sons and my totally un-biased opinion is that they are pretty stinking wonderful young men.

But. Little boys did not want a doll house so when they were little I made them a toy ship.

There are three little sailors, and the deck opens up on leather hinges as a "hold" for all their little sailor stuff. The sails are handmade heavy paper.

There is a chest with tiny gold coins and a treasure map, buckets and little mops for swabbing the deck, a chest with plates an minuscule silverware, pots and pans, a bird in a cage, tiny ham slices and slices of bread for sandwiches, bottles of rootbeer, carrots, sacks of flour and grain, apples, tiny oil lamps and a ships log.

One thing my youngest son always wanted and I never got around to doing was a sea serpent.

This week I got the stuff together and after all these years I am finally going to do the "monster".

It will be on wheels and have a spring in the tail so the tail moves.

Finally.

Now the big question is, what if I made a couple more of these and put them on Etsy. They would be several hundred dollars and not really a toy but a piece of folk art.

Any opinions? Anybody? What do you think?

July 3

Round little Yoda loves the warmth from the computer. She looks a bit like a football don't you think?

Precious tiny duckling with a splint on it's little deformed foot. It is straightened out a bit, hopefully we can get it more functional.

Lynx, by the way cannot seem to keep her nose out of others business.

"Like" letter.

Dear Janet,

Though we have never met I consider you a friend. Your comments make my day and I appreciate you more than you can know.

Please send me your address so I can send you a "little something", I think you need a present.

Hugs,

Maren

Thinking

It is nearly two in the morning. Once again I accomplished nothing today other than a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

My much loved daughter/friend came by to "hang out" she left around eleven tonight. Husbutt breezed in a round six announced he had a pre-sentence report the judge needed asap and he was going back to work. He grabbed a cookie changed clothes and left.

Son number two and daughter/friend and I went to McDonald's for dinner, son number one was at work, son number three, gone all day with friends.

Though I am still supposed to be off the broken leg and ankle nothing is getting done around here, so I have decided it's all better, I am just going to do what needs to be done, it might take me a bit longer since I still hobble with a confining boot-cast, and I look like a decrepit ninety year old, but oh well, "poof" all better.

Anyway, I have been thinking tonight about how I thought as the kids got older I would have more creative time, and in a way I do but also as old as they are, they still consume a great deal of time and energy, surprisingly so, I did not expect it. In fact now they are older I cannot send them to bed and have the nights to create, they are up all night too!

Sometimes I have to remember it is the people who matter, they are the priority. My wonderful sons will not always be here, they will marry and have families of their own, Husbutt will always be addicted to his work and I will have time and more time.

Perhaps it is an excuse for being profoundly lazy, maybe I am more lazy than I thought, but there are an awful lot of demands on me, Husbutt, three sons, five dogs, six cats a couple dozen chickens and ducks, an amazingly demanding Starling, the house and yard, hmmm the fact that I am seriously handicapped in the organization dept might be problem too. How do other people do it all? Its a serious question I really want to know.

There is a time and a season for everything. Perhaps it is a matter of patience.

Once upon a time.....

Illustration done in prismacolor pencils.

Tigger

Wow. I cannot believe I am putting pictures of Tiggers garbage on the Internet, but here it is.

Little stinker sleeps in one bed and keeps his toys, bits of stolen garbage and pilfered cat food cans in the other.
Sometimes he sleeps with his toys and tucks his cat food cans around him. It's hysterical, we think it is so funny!

See the one can with the holes in it? it looks like it was shot up and used for target practice? that is the one Rogue chewed on. Her huge canines go through the tin like it was paper.

They are so naughty about stealing garbage.

Haven't been getting much art work done, it is difficult to work at my desk and keep my broken leg elevated. I have had a lot of nerve pain in the ankle where it is broken on both sides, it has been distressing to say the least.
Hopefully I will have some new work to show soon.

Also I need to get out in the garden to take pictures of the six teeny tiny new ducklings!