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! ;)