not sure what to put here just yet, but it is part 1 of 2

this is how my main studio table looks today.  it is exactly how i left it may 31st, 2014 at 8:30 am.  about 10 months ago.  

the last couple of blog posts i had hinted that i was working on something big and exciting and that i would soon be letting you know what i had been up to.

well, back in april of last year my sister, mom, and i had gone to paducah, kentucky for a quilt show.  we went to a gallery in the art district and my sister and i had been approached by the gallery director to sell our jewelry.    i had planned to share the exciting news with photos of the completed pieces on the 2nd of june, after they were in the mail and on their way to the gallery.

i finally, after some deep soul searching figured out i was afraid of success, figured out why i was afraid of success, and found the courage to kick that fear in the ever lovin a@@ and put myself out there and go for it!  i was so proud of myself and excited and felt that now our 'luck' was changing for the better.  life was going to be better.   who knew what else i could accomplish.   and.....i was running down to the wire, but i was going to make my deadline on time.   the procrastination gene runs in our family, big time.   i may not have kicked that in the butt.....but i had given it a good shove.

on the morning of may 31st my hubby and i were going to a artist/teacher recycle shop.  i was really hoping to find some vintage blanket binding.  the kind that crinkles when you wash and dry it.   i had found some there a few months earlier.  i needed it for the project i was sending to the gallery.

i was so proud of myself that morning.   i use to tell my kids that we were part vampire, since some of my ancestors did come from what was transylvania....and were are night owls.   my norm is to stay up till 3 am or later and sleep until 11 or noon.   i had been working for months on becoming somewhat normal.   on may 31st i woke up and most importantly got up at 7:30am.......and was functional.  

when getting ready, i only put some blush and mascara on....was in too much of a hurry to get all dressed up, because i was on a mission.  i was excited!  normally when i only do the basics i dont wear my jewelry.   for some reason i grabbed a necklace i had not worn in over 10 years.   the first piece i had ever soldered.   a bottle broke off the bottom that needed to be replaced was my excuse for not wearing it.   it was a reliquary in tribute to my dad who passed unexpectedly i 2004.   i had a strong urge to wear it.  weird....but i am weird, so i did not give it much more thought.   and put it on. the chain broke in the accident.   i believe my daddy was our angel that day.  

i putzed in my studio for about an hour, ran upstairs to take a shower and the hubby and i were off to leftovers....the recycle shop.   on the way there were a handful of subdivisions around ours having garage sales.   the hubby insisted on going even though we did not really have money to buy anything...money still being very tight since he was forced to retire 3 years earlier.   we stopped at one house that had some really really reasonably priced antiques....it still makes me sad we could not buy anything.   the couple happened to be very, very christian. we began talking about and sharing out experiences with the tornado that had hit our homes exactly one year prior.   my hubby is not a faith filled person and is not comfortable having conversations of such and was getting antsy.   i was enjoying sharing stories, but all of the sudden this smell almost made me sick.   it was suppose to be sage, the wife had begun to burn, but it smelled bad, not the normal smell of sage.   at that point i got a bit uncomfortable and we left.   we hit leftovers and then headed for home to take our middle guy to work and then hit another store or two to find the blanket binding i needed for my project.  

we never made it home, that day.  

just about 2 miles from home we were hit head on by a woman who ran a red light.    it was only at 34 miles per hour....my hubby and i had been discussing the speed about a minute earlier and both saw the display on the dash.  

i was in the process of texting our son to tell him we would be home in about 5 minutes or so and i heard my husband scream that she was pulling out and he could not stop.   i am thankful i did not see anything until the moment of impact.  

i had chosen not to wear my hearing aids that day.   the noise i did hear was horrifying.   if i hear a noise that is similiar to this day, i find myself right back at the accident, trying to catch my breath, shaking for a couple of hours and in tears.   it can be quite embarrassing if out in public when this happens.

i later remembered that i had blacked out right after impact.  when i came to, it was foggy and took a bit for me to focus my eyes.  later we would see in photos where my head hit the windshield and broke the glass....even though i was wearing my seatbelt and there were air bags.  

as i was coming to, the first thought i had was 'wow, this is what slugs feel like when they have salt dumped on them'    don't ask me why.   my grandpa showed me this when i was much younger.  it was awful to watch them suffer.  

my hubby and i reached for each other to see if we were ok.   he jumped out of the car and came to my side to check on me.   i felt like someone had shoved a pillow up under my rib cage and i could breathe, but could not expand my ribs or lungs to get much air in.   the left side of my body hurt beyond words.   my right arm hurt.   my crutch was on the right side between me and the door and left quite a bruise.   my knees were instantly swollen and i was worried there had been some major damage done to them.  

my hubby took photos of her car vs our car....we learned to do this after an accident our daughter was involved in a year earlier.  the woman that my daughter hit caused more damage on her car after the accident to get a larger claim check, and it was our word against hers.  so lesson learned.

we were in our daughters car because ours was having some mechanical issues.   she had not even made the second payment on her car.   it was totaled.   the woman who hit us, a dent and a few scratches.   someone at the scene had to cut the wire to her horn because it would not stop blaring.  


(if you look at the windshield on the passenger side, you can see where my head broke the glass, and again, this was with both a seatbelt and airbag.)

after several hours in the hospital, xrays and such,  we were both sent home with pain pills, muscle relaxers....etc.  

the hospital experience was  awful.   just because i did not have guts or bones hanging out of my body did not mean i was not in the worst pain i had ever experienced in my life.  but that is a long story.  the staff was awful.  a turd has more compassion than the majority of the staff of that hospital.  (saint joseph's, if you were wondering the name)

i hurt so bad that for the first couple of days i had to have someone pull my pants up and down so i could pee.   all i kept thinking was thank God i was not on my period.   i found a way after the first couple of days to get my own pants up and down because i felt bad having to wake my hubby up, who was in pain, to help me.  it took several minutes and the pain was awful.....the worst i have ever felt.    after several days i took my first shower.....now that was some awful pain.  

5 weeks i was in bed full time.  only on occasion getting my own refill on water to make sure i moved a bit here and there.   by the 6th week i forced myself to move because the next week my mom was going in for back surgery and i knew i needed to be mobile for that.

a couple of days after the accident i ended up back in the e.r.   i was having pain in my shoulder when i tried to breath, and since i nearly died of a p.e. from a dvt in 2003, they did a ct scan to make sure there were no blood clots in my lungs.  

over the next few months the hubby and i healed.   to this day he has back spasms and pain almost every day, sometimes every day.    we had been helping my mom take care of her house and cats since the beginning of may, and the hubby was still taking care of her house and pets 2 - 3 times a week with only a few weeks off.  

i sleep mostly on my left side.   it took over 3 months before i could tolerate short bits on my left side.  i still wake up sore if i sleep more than an hour on my left side.  

it took months for me to start feeling normal, as far as my energy went.   the pain lessened, but even as i type this i still hurt.   my knees have not quit hurting.  in october i saw an orthopedist and he sent me for an mri.   they sent me with the films on disk to take to my next appointment.   i decided it would be neat to look at my knee guts, so i popped the disks in my computer and....i am not doctor or nurse, but i have seen enough medical shows, real and not, to know that the black mass i found in my left thigh bone was a tumor.    the next day i grew a pair and called the mri center and asked for the written report on the findings.   when i got the report my heart sunk.  one of the possibilities was  a tumor found in patients with m.s.    i have not had m.s. ruled out, but in my heart i truly feel my meniere's is just that, meniere's and not m.s., even though eventually i will have to have m.s. ruled out.   so good news/bad news.    the tumor was one that is benign.  whew!    and not m.s. related, bigger whew!   but none of the expected damage was found.   i was terrified surgery was in my future.  thank goodness i dodged that bullet.   (later i would not be so lucky)    the conclusion is permanent nerve damage to both knees, but sometimes weakend muscles can cause pain and since i was in bed for so long, and my muscles were still weak the doctor wanted me to go for physical therapy before a final decision of permanent damage was officially documents.

i also, within the first couple of months after the accident, began noticing i had pain that seems to not be appropriate for the activity i had done, or pain that was in a place i did not think the accident affected.   i shrugged it off as just pain from the accident.  did not mention it to any of the doctors because i did not want to sound whiny.    after a couple more months i was about to bring it up to the orthopedist.   my notes in my planner read:  ask doctor about pain.  seems to be like what my friends describe  as their fibromyalgia pain.   just as i was getting ready to ask him about this mystery pain, he mentioned that there is a syndrome like fibromyalgia, that happens to victims of high impact incidents.  one of the things we need to talk about in further detail at my next visit.  

well, that was october.   i ended up with a booger of a yeast infection, then a respiratory virus that lasted for 2 months, then 1, maybe 2 broken toes on my left foot.   the next week i jammed a toe on the other foot, so i was hobbling around in december.   then all hell broke loose again on the first of january.   and that will be the part 2.  

so, i have not yet made it to physical therapy.  

the accident still has had a huge impact on our lives.   to this day i can not crawl in to bed on my knees like i use to.   i have to use a step stool to get in to bed.   getting on my knees for anything is a no-no. and the hubby has back pain and spasms almost daily, sometimes daily.    sex....was not going to bring that up when we went to meet with the lawyers to discuss settlement,  that is private and personal.   well, let me tell you.....this girl likes, no loves, her sex.   we had none for months, and now in the heat of the moment i yell out, the hubby thinks he is bringing it home, he is the man, but no....... my hip, or knee, or ribs are killing me and finally i can get words out to say it hurts we have to move..... and now.   or the same for him.  the back starts to hurt.   or spasms.   i can not imagine the rest of my life having to get my thrills by leaning on the washer during the spin cycle.    the hubby has aged and seems content since the accident with a bowl of cookies, glass of milk and an ncis marathon.   it sucks.  i learned with the meniere's to let go of sadness, and anger.  when i have a bad menieres day i give myself ten minutes to cry or be angry.  but there are days when i am pissed about this accident.    i am pissed that this happened when i thought life was finally coming together.   i am pissed that we are constantly in pain.   i am pissed that my husband has turned in to an old man.   i am pissed that the woman who made a really bad choice probably has not given much thought about us or the accident.  in fact, rumor had it she was taking US to small claims court, probably to get her deductible back.  we never were served, so don't know for sure.  she ran the light.   we had the right of way.  i am pissed that i lost my entire summer because of this.  i am pissed because all the plans i had to do projects outside never got done.   lots of artsy stuff that needed to be done outdoors i was not able to do.    and i let myself be pissed.....and let it go.   10 minute rule.   sometimes it is 2 five minute sessions.  sometimes it is 10 one minute sessions.   then i adjust my big girl panties and go about my day.  

i know His plans are not our plans.   my hope is that we will see the awesome at the end of this very soon.  our family has lived through some hell in the last 4 years.   i am done.   i am tired of feeling like i deserve all of this as some sort of punishment.   i ready for the good.  

so ends part 1.  i know i have left out a ton of stuff i had planned on sharing.   but this is the gist of it.

just when i was had decided to get back to my studio, and blogging....part 2 began.   i will be back with that in the next day or two.  

busy girl, happy girl, grateful girl

the past few days ended up being busy days.   i thought i had an extra week until mother's day.    not a good thing to discover when you are making you mom, sister.....and yourself a mother's day gift on a much larger scale than you have ever done before.  

april 23rd through the 25th i went out of town with my mom and sister to the quilt show in paducah, kentucky.   on the way home we stopped in a small town, germantown, to visit the tiny cemetery where 2 of my mom's ancestors, august tunze who was born in 1826 and died in 1906, and his son who died at the age of 8.    the headstones were mostly over a hundred years old and were deteriorated, and had deteriorated so much over the last couple of years since my mom's last visit, we were not able to locate august's son's headstone.

thankfully 'tunze' was boldy carved at the bottom of august's headstone, so we were able to do a rubbing for each of us.

we did a rubbing of the entire headstone.   the top part we did separate from the bottom.

i decided that i would solder the rubbing we did of the bottom of the headstone that has 'tunze' on it, since it is my mom's maiden name, as a mother's day gift for each of us...and also as a way for each of us to save a memory from our trip.

i needed to cut glass that was 17" long and my glass cutting table is not set up to cut glass that size, so it was a challenge.  i have also never had to tape and solder anything near this size either.   i really wanted to just give up after the first piece of glass i cut was a mess....but i decided failure was not an option, and giving up would mean failure.

i backed the glass with copper flashing.   the copper flashing is cheaper than going to an art supply store and buys pieces of copper.  the flashing has a not-so-sticky-sticky-backing to it.   nail polish remover would not unsticky it, so i figured i could remove the sticky and give the copper a nice patina all at once by taking the torch to it.   

during the soldering process.....the piece had to hang off the end of my soldering table at times so i could reach the middle section to solder.   a couple of times beads of molten hot solder bounced off my thigh.   ouch.

the next steps were to patina the solder, rub off some patina off the raised areas to give it a nice aged look, and then add polish to clean it up.

the chain was added and done.   i was able to get all three done and have plenty of time to make homemade cheese crackers, sugar cookies, gooey butter cake, and yeast rolls.  

i was so very grateful the meniere's beast was behaving, but the rocks in my ears have been out of whack, which causes positional vertigo and that can be scary while holding a hot soldering iron in your hand.   i have never had vertigo attacks from the positional vertigo this intense before, and i am so very grateful that these attacks last no longer than a couple of minutes.    

kind of felt like i conquered another mountain with this project.  

i managed to do all of this without even so much as a broken finger nail....then while putting foil on a cookie sheet i nearly cut my finger off....ok...not totally off...2 hours later it was still bleeding.   

during the week i also got myself back in the habit of making art as soon as inspiration hits and not saving a tab on the computer to do later or jotting down notes and a sketch.   

inspiration hit and i did this

i love all things science related.   i love the look of old museum mounts.   someday i am going to have a cabinet of curiosities.   i just need that bigger house first so i have room.   

when a combination of stress and menopausal pms hit hard....a bit of zentangling was in order to calm the nerves and get my mind centered again.

i am also getting ready to assemble some bits to make what i am thinking will be called the birds and the bees.....i emptied and cleaned a chicken egg and one of my african grey's, jilly, eggs.

felt someone, or something staring at me as i was getting dressed after my shower.....found we have a peeping tom....or peeping squirrel!

saturday night my hubby came home with these for me for mother's day.   they are so beautiful.   i am trying to decide if i am going to hang them to dry in a day or so, or make beads from them.   i have been wanting to give that a try for years and just recently came across the recipe again.

yesterday we went to my sister's home for mother's day.   i rarely drink alcohol.   i figured i had done enough of that in my younger days.    i had my first mimosa.   i am hooked.   now i know why my daughter was able to down 6 of these last week at a wedding reception.  

i have been saving bottles to make a bottle tree.   i want to save blue and green bottles.   up until yesterday i had a whopping 2 bottles.   green....from my olive oil.    now i know how i am going to get some of the blue bottles.....the muscato used for the mimosas.   i am thinking once a month we can play mother's day and have a mimosa or two.

my mom brought over files she has from doing research on our ancestory.   my aunt had started doing this years before she passed away.   it was so exciting to learn about who and where we came from.
we found out we might be related to people down the street from us we have known for almost 20 years.  small world, huh?  i can not wait to learn more.  

we had lots of cranky, and scary looking,  people in our family tree....this guy looked like he would have been an awesome grandpa type guy.

i am getting ready to start a big and exciting project that i will tell you about next post.    the hubby just got home, so i gotta run....and i need to start on my big project.    

have a beautiful day.....lots of love to you.  

a post with no name.....

i know, i know....i have been gone for a long time.    we had some really really rough months there during the winter and i just could not find the umph to put on the happy face and stop by to visit.

last  month i woke up all gung-ho to blog and went through my photos, like over a thousand of them, and could not figure out where to start.   so today, i decided to just start with the last 24 hours and work in the other 5 months a bit at a time.....or not at all.  i am happy to be back....little squeeeees!

standing outside yesterday, as the sun hit my face, the birds were chirping and singing,  and i was surrounded by trees and plants...and even weeds, that had all come back to life and were green  again,  made me happy, and if all of these living bits of nature could survive their wintery hell, then it renewed my hope that our family will survive, thrive and someday, hopefully soon, be in our 'spring'.  

there is a meme/e-card thingy that says you either see a weed, or a wish.  i have always seen a wish.....

so yesterday, i walked through a field of newly born wishes and collected them.....

today, i collected more.......

....and i put them here....in one of these very old, uber huge, ball jars.   i was a lucky girl and came across a few of these many years ago at a garage sale for a couple of bucks a piece.   i had to pick my jaw up off the floor when i found out how much these sold for at antique malls.    don't let that dandelion fool you in to thinking the jar is small.....we just grow some huge dandelions, and my youngest just mowed 2 days ago.....

i plan on making a tag to tie around the neck of the jar...free wishes, take one as needed.   maybe?   not sure yet.

i have been playing with all things rusty for the last couple of months....i have tons of rusted fabric photos to play show and tell with, but i can't find the photos at the moment, but as soon as i do i will share.

yesterday i was sorting through my recently rusted stash of fabric to begin stitching in the style of Jude Hill and Junko Oki.... i love, love, love their style...anyway the piece i wanted to use was only rusted, i had not tea dyed it, and i thought it looked too orangey in some areas...where the rust had not left an imprint, but had dyed the fabric.   so i put the rusted fabric in a tea dye bath for about an hour, and because it was a good hunk of fabric....i had to wad it up when i put it in the container that held the ferrous sulfate solution.    i think, because this is the first time this has happened, it happened because i  had to wad the fabric up tightly that i ended up with this!!!!!.....big squeeeees.....

i ended up with a marble-y effect!    i am trying to duplicate what i did yesterday, but there are different types of fabric i am using, so we will see what happens.   fingers crossed.

i need to back up.    i have found out a ton of stuff, purely by accident over these last couple of months.  i feel like a mad scientist......but in that crazy artist kinda of way.  so it is all good.       if you tea dye a piece of fabric, preferably 100% cotton, then you rinse it a bit and put it in a ferrous sulfate solution....my fellow anemics will know what this is.....iron pills diluted in water.    i used about 8 pills of the cheapy cheap stuff.    you will end up with varying shades of greys and blacks.    the fabric looks very aged...and i love the colors.     the color is permanent.  

if you tea dye a piece of fabric, and then put it in contact with a rusty object you will end up with iron tannate.    this will also give you a black or grey tint to your fabric, but i found that it was not always permanent.   i think it has to do with whether or not  you wash and dry the fabric in between the two steps.    it will also keep your rusty things from being able to rust for days, or weeks.   this did not make me squeeeee at all.

i have been very impatiently waiting all day to run outside to check the other pieces of fabric to see if i got the same marble-y effect.    i do not know if the sun light plays a part in any of this....but i did let the fabric sit in the sun all day yesterday.   again, fingers crossed.  

i also stitched up this scarf last week, i think it was last week.   there was a lot of work in making this.  and i love it, and i can not wait until i can do bigger pieces or more stitching on a piece.......i did not want to booger this one up with too much.

these two photos, above and below, are the most accurate as far as color.

this piece of fabric was accordion folded and stitched, shibori style.   next it was put in a tea dye bath overnight.   the next day it sat outside all day until it dried.   to color rose to the top of the fabric, which gives the design or pattern.    next i washed the fabric and then removed the stitching, and dipped the ends of  the fabric in a ferrous sulfate solution .  washed and dried again.    then i hand stitched.

then next few pics have a yellowy tint to them, but that is the result of crummy lighting.   the lines you see are where the dye came to the top of the folded fabric and was darker.  

you know those tangled bits of  the threads you end up with when an edge is not finished and is all ravley?  i have been saving them.   i just knew i would use them.   you know how when the ends of your jeans get all tattered and you have this wadded mess of threads....i knew i could give a new piece of fabric an aged look by stitching the chunks in an artful way.   the next day on pinterest i found someone had beat me to it!

i placed a piece of patterned fabric underneath the chunky wad of threads and pulled them and moved them until i liked how it all looked and then began to hand stitch.    the intention is to make the section of fabric look frayed and worn.  

i did the same thing here on the other side of the scarf as well.  

on this side of the scarf i added a long strip of the rosey fabric.  i love how it becomes wavey and squished and wrinkly as you stitch.    the stitching is suppose to show, it is part of the style.

now, the weather decides to go from winter to summer, so i guess i will have to wait a few months to get to use it.    i love the aged-worn-torn-mended-loved look it has.    it must be an acquired taste....when i posted a photo to facebook, all i heard were crickets chirping.   it did better on instagram.    i moped for a minute or so at the end of the day....amazing how feeling rejected at 49 can make you feel like that picked last for the team 5 year old all over again!

yesterday i threw several different types of fabric in what was left of some pink dye.  love how different bits turn out different shades.

got the fabric all washed and dried.   love the rainbow of pinks i now have.   i fell in love with a pink draw string bag stitched by Junko Oki.....that is what fueled this need to dye!

while on pinterest i came across a weird fabric stitch.   i started to open yet another tab....something i do for stuff to do now...but later now, not now now.    right now....i have about 50 tabs open...49 if you don't count the one i am using to write on my blog.   so, we will say only 49!    anyway...i decided that instead of adding another tab for something quick and easy i would just doodle it and be done.

i have a ton of zentangles to play show-n- tell with, and i have taught myself to draw!    big squeeeeees!
i am trying to figure out a way to make links from my blog for the different types of art i have been making.   the hubby has been driving me crazy to put my art dolls on.  i want to share my zentangles.  if it weren't for others sharing, i would have never learned....or ended up in the oodles of doodles zentangle book!    we all learn from and get inspiration from each other.  

so, nothing fancy, but i like the look.  

i think that is about all for today.   i have a ton of stuff i want to get done for mother's day....and i have a new exciting project that i am beginning to work on that i will explain in my next post.

see you soon.....nighty night.