Can't keep up....

I feel like I'm so behind on everything. My intentions are to keep up my blog but I just seems to be way behind. I'm really trying to make an effort to keep it updated.

I have found us a house to rent!!! I'm so unbelievably excited to be moving into something that can be a home. By that, I mean not living in my studio! Most of my apartment is studio with pieces of furniture thrown in. I always had a romantic notion of such but when it became my day to day reality, I realized that because of all the vast number of art supplies and mess that happens when I create, I don't really have a place to rest my eyes... there is too much clutter in art studio stuff for me to function living in it, cooking in it, etc... 24/7. Our new home is close by.. .less than a mile. It is a 3 bedroom so the boys can have their own rooms. Sam is very excited as Max is the messy one and Sam can't stand it. The house also has an extra room for my studio! I'll actually have a living room! The kitchen is more than double the size I'm in now and Glory, Hallelujah, I will have a dishwasher and washer/dryer! Even now, as I'm washing dishes by hand, I stand there chanting... one more month, one more month.... I am giving my 30 day notice to my apartment manager with my July rent tomorrow. Ok, so as wonderful and exciting as this is, the timing is crazy making. First of all, it's summer and blazing hot here right now. A really icky time to move. But, an even bigger issue is that I'll be moving the week before Art Unraveled starts! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, as I have already stated in previous posts, July is my crunch month with a ton of deadlines, which now have to be crammed into the first two weeks of the month since the last two weeks will be packing and moving! I'm under major pressure while taking care of my kids 24/7. It would be so nice to have a break and get a couple of days completely alone to work uninterrupted but I don't foresee that happening. Their dad had originally planned to take them on vacation to Cleveland to visit family and I thought those couple of weeks were going to save me. But, the trip didn't happen so now I have to do all this stuff with kids under foot whining at me what a boring summer it is. I just can't help it though. I make time to do things with them but I just can't drop everything and have 'fun' days every day as they'd like.

Anyway, the home owners of my new rental said they may have the house ready a bit early and I could start moving things in. I think I'm going to tell them to get the art studio room ready first so I can start lugging things over. The reality is that at least half of everything in my apartment is stuff for my studio. Thankfully, much of it is in 12 gallon plastic bins or iris cart type storage. So I can load up the back of my van with a bunch of them and take a load over pretty quickly.

So, as my life is now thrown into a frenzy, I've been working hard. I've gotten a ton of stuff packaged and priced for vending at AU. I finished a class sample for a local class and will take it in to The Creative Quest on Saturday. I also finished binding a fabric journal to sell. I call it the "Wonky journal" because it's very wonky with odd pages, fold outs, varying sizes, etc...
back of journal:

journal opened:

I'm now working out an idea for a class proposal. I'm already seeing I need to make a couple of variations to see which is going to best exemplify my idea for this project. And no, I'm not telling anything about it!

I've got a book class open to home school kids in a couple of weeks. Hope I get some sign ups. This is the graffiti journal I want to make with them. Fun painting and basic book binding for 5th graders and up.
Today, Sam has a doctor's appt. for a 3 month follow up with his developmental pediatrician, the Dr. who gave his diagnosis for High Functioning Autism. Then, this afternoon, he has an orthodontic appointment to have his palette expander put in. He's not a happy camper today.

Well, Max just gave his breakfast order of 3 pieces of toast and 2 poached eggs so guess I better get crackin'.... Sam is already on the phone with one of his best friends, who is also a Sam. I swear, the phone may attach permanently to his ear one day due to the amount of time the two boys stay on the phone. It's so funny! They are worse than girls! Shhhh, don't tell him I said that! ;)

Mega bead giveaway!

If you love beads at all, you must check out this give away!
http://deniseyezbakmoore.blogspot.com

Yowza!!!!!

Art Unraveled

As most of you know, I will be teaching again this year at Art Unraveled held here in Phoenix in August. I'll be teaching a class learning Dimensional Watercolor. However, a new development has occurred in the past couple of days and I'm so pleased to announce I will now be teaching an additional class! Many of you are familiar with the work of Tracie Lyn Huskamp and her mother-in-law Marilyn Huskamp. They have team taught at AU several years now as well as many other venues. Unfortunately, they are not able to come teach at AU this year as expected and I have been asked to step in and teach one of the classes they were to teach so the class won't have to be canceled and students disappointed. I am incredible honored and excited to be teaching their workshop titled :Pressed Botanical Journal. I'm so sad for them that they cannot come out to teach after all but am very grateful for the opportunity to be their substitute. If you have not checked out the website for the retreat, I invite you to do so. There are so many classes to choose from!

On another note, just a quick catch up before I hit the sack for the night..... if you haven't seen the new Karate Kid movie, go see it! Jaden Smith is great in it! This kid's got a serious future ahead. He even did some of the music for the movie! I loved this one better than the originals. Loved the setting being in China. Marmaduke is pretty cute too.

Been trying to focus on things I have to get done. Spent some time yesterday pricing things to sell at Art Unraveled's Vendor day. I also taught two 4th grade girls a private painting class three mornings this week.... so I got to paint too! :) Ahhhhhh.....

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got new hearing aids. My others were my first ever and the life expectancy for a pair is about 10 years. I have had mine for 13. I was afraid if I didn't get new ones before the others completely died on me, I'd be up a creek. These new ones are definitely taking some time of adjustment. I've hated them. The new technology for them actually converts the high pitch sounds I no longer hear, into lower tones so that I can hear them. Well, it took at least a week for me to not be jumping out of my skin at the sound of my own voice. And it sounded like everyone was talking into a microphone... Breaker, Breaker 1-9..... I was hatin' these things and determined to return them and exchange them for different ones. However, I went back today and the audiologist was able to adjust the sounds to make them more tolerable for me to get use to as well as some other things bothering me about them. They feel better. I will give them another couple of weeks to see if I adjust to them. They are a major purchase as insurance does not cover them, and it's something you wear every day, all day, for years...so you better be in love, I'm tellin' ya'. I'm not in love yet. Not quite in like yet either. But moving out of outright hate. Hey, I'm not crying over them anymore. That's progress.

I also FINALLY got my glasses adjusted so I can wear them now! All the time! I can see, people! I do find, however, that I'd actually prefer just reading glasses for my computer. I have a large computer screen and the bifocals either make me need to get too close or back up too far... no in between. I also find that doing art work, I'd rather have on reading glasses as well because I have a bigger, magnified lense. I'm learning what works for me. But, at least right now, I'm wearing my glasses all day and getting use to them.

In the next couple of weeks, I have a ton of stuff going on. One of which is Sam will be going into braces. We have several preliminary appts. for x-rays, spacers, molds, etc... and putting in a palette expander. In about 3-6 months, he will then move to head gear to be worn only at night for quite a while. Then, we'll be on hold for all the rest of his permanent teeth to come in to go into full braces. Right now, it will just be bands on the back teeth and braces on the front four on top. Eventually, it will be the whole mouth but the Dr. estimated that he'd probably be about 14. Geez, by then, it may be time to be doing preliminary work on Max's. EEK! Two in braces at once! That bites! However, I don't think Max will require two different phases of treatment as Sam does. Sam has such a severe overbite. It's gonna' take some commitment and real work on both his and the Dr.'s part to get his teeth moved. And even then, there is no guarantee that they will be able to get a really ideal bite for him without surgery. I'm praying it will be enough movement that we can all be pleased and his bite will allow for better function. I'm not expecting perfection.

I haven't shared any pictures in a long time so I'll leave you with a couple I snapped this past week. One of Max and Kenzy and one I love of just Kenzy. I need to get some new ones of Bob and Marvin! I love my fur boys... my human ones too!

Lazy day

After church today, the boys and I came home and I did a bit of cleaning, some work on the computer, a haircut for a friend, and I'm craving chicken tortilla roll ups with spicy avocado salsa from El Pollo Loco.

It's roasting hot here in Phoenix today. About 110. YUK! It is suppose to cool back off to the low hundreds in a few days though. My boys have been enjoying the pool every evening at dusk. I hate swimming and haven't put my suit on yet but tonight, well... it just might be too hot even at that time of day, to sit and not get in. As silly as it sounds, I spent time blow drying my hair out straight this morning and if I get in the pool, well, all that time was wasted. If I don't get in, I won't have to do my hair tomorrow. Gosh, I'm lazy when it comes to stuff like that!

Max has been one happy camper this afternoon. He built himself a cross bow out of two rulers and a rubber band. I gave him a piece of foam core on which he drew a target. He's had a bag of skewers for his arrows and has been shooting sticks into his target ALL afternoon, I kid you not. HOURS this has provided entertainment. Sam has had moments in the act too. It's been pretty quiet here with the exception of the sound of the skewers hitting the target.

Yesterday, I started working on a book idea. I painted the cover and now need to tear down my paper to bind it into a book. I'm trying to decide if the cover is finished or not.

Night before last, I took a sketch book and an Avon book to the pool with me and sketched faces of models while the boys swam. Now to have time to paint them. Too many other things have to take priority though. Lots to do.... lots to do.... It feels good to paint though.

Well, I have boys anxious to go swimming so I guess I'll go.

cleaning binge

Well, today I was on a cleaning binge. It wasn't what I decided to do today but it just turned out that way... and I'm so glad! I got a lot done! And I have TWO clean art tables! Yes folks, both of my art tables are ready to get messed up again! :) I haven't seen the tops of these tables for MONTHS!

Max started his summer school program today. He was invited to a special class for mostly gifted kids for science and spanish. He had a great day and was speaking spanish phrases to me when I picked him up today! Without Sam having someone to fight with, it was a pretty peaceful morning!

On a bad note, this is not the time of year you want your air conditioning to go out in your apartment! It was over 100 today. In the morning, because of a breeze, I could have the doors and windows open with just ceiling fans on and it was comfortable. But as the day went on, I turned the air on and it just wasn't doing anything. When it hit about 90 in the house, I realized there was a problem. A repairman got here at 4:30 and spent almost 2 hours here. Apparently, from the sound of it, the a/c on my apartment hasn't had any sort of maintenance in a coon's age. He said the coils were so clogged up with dirt... it took him almost the whole two hours just cleaning them. BUT, he said he'll be back in the morning with a new compressor. That's the main problem. However, cleaning the coils did at least get some cool air back in here. It's comfortable now. I'm glad to get it fixed so quickly as it's suppose to reach 107 by Saturday. UGH! Summer is here, that's for sure. So far though, the heat hasn't been that bad. I didn't turn on my a/c until last week, I think. And I don't run it all day. Early mornings and evenings are very pleasant outside.

The boys went to a friend's house swimming today. Max showed me how he was doing diving off the diving board. That kid is a natural diver. He amazes me. He dives beautifully. Swimming in the afternoon or evening sure makes them go to sleep better at night!

Well, I'm pretty pooped out with all my cleaning today. Gonna' hit the sack.