debor026

Day 28/31: This costume takes about 10 minutes and about $2.50. I went to the thrift store and bought a pair of jeans that were large enough to fit over another pair of pants and I bought a army-ish jacket. They each cost me $1.25. The condition of the clothes as far as tears really doesn't matter when you buy them, and being a little worn out is actually good. I used a pair of scissors to liberally shred the clothes, enough so there were lots of holes but not enough it would fall off as the kids ran around playing. Then I rubbed black and brown crayons all over the shirt and pants to give them a dirty look. We added a little blood with Halloween makeup to the front but that part is really optional. For his hair I filled it with hairspray and ratted it up a bunch. His eyes have just a little black Halloween makeup crayon and that's it. And in 10 minutes and for next to no money it's now a child's zombie costume. This was the picture the kids took right as they ...

I cannot express enough how important I think art is to children. Even the littlest of projects may stay in a child's mind forever and help shape the person that they will become. My grandmother was a very artistic and creative woman and started in early teaching us kids to love it too. She enrolled me in my first sewing class, helped us make enamels, taught me how to twist wire for jewelry and make coils (like this ) and was always such an inspiration. Her home was very colorful and expressive and filled with interesting things for the kids and adults to find fascination in. She also gave me my first copy of Anne of Green Gables and helped cement my love of reading. I can only hope to instill in my children all of the gifts that she gave to me. Below are a couple of the projects she helped me with. They created memories that I will never forget and, while they just seemed like fun at the time, it started a love of art that I'll always have. Age 11: (I wasn't really ...

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! We spent the weekend working on backyard projects (hopefully to share really soon) and at the annual neighborhood BBQ for the 4th. Did you do something special this weekend? Did you go somewhere or stay close to home?

Once upon a time, a daddy built his girls a dollhouse. It was a very nice dollhouse, solidly built, with 8 rooms and a staircase. It had a front door and a garage door and a nice little patio. The house was lovingly painted in bright colors left over from building the real house. The dollhouse was played with often and was very happy. Years went by as the 3 girls grew. 2 more girls were added and all 5 of them had played with this house. The girls painted the house new colors. Some of the floors started to give way but were temporarily replaced with cardboard. They painted it again. And again. The garage door became stuck with layers of paint. The front door was lost and a replacement was stapled in place. Part of the roof came off, and only a hinge was left to remember where it had once been. It was painted again. More years went by and all of the girls were grown and gone. The house was moved to a storage area and forgotten. For several years the rains came and often s...

Back in 1998 I was walking around the Saturday Market and there on the grass was a couple of hippies with a box of puppies. They were all crawling over the top of each other and stepping on heads and tails. And in the middle was a beautiful golden puppy who didn't really look like his half pit-bull litter-mates (we never did know what the other half was). I was instantly in love and, though I had no plans for a dog, he came home with us. We brought him home and we had trouble picking out a name. He was a very lazy puppy but he was half pit-bull so we knew he might not always be so lazy. We needed a name that would suit him either way. A friend jokingly suggested that if he was so lazy he should be named Thorazine and I said that Thor could work if he grew out of the lazy (he didn't) and he was so named. When he was a few months old he accidentally knocked my small niece down and got a scolding and ever since that day he scaled his playing to the human's size. He woul...

This Sunday, I was a 10-10-10 bride. A little over a year ago we were deciding on dates when hubby, being a computer geek, noticed that the date was all 1s and 0s and could be a binary number. Since he was sitting at the computer anyway he converted it to decimal and behold, it was 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything At least, it is according to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but maybe there is something to it because it sure felt like a great day to me. Our ceremony was in a casino since I do live in Reno after all. And I must say if you are getting married in Reno, the Atlantis really was beautiful. We looked at several of the chapels here and considered the possibility of an outdoor wedding. Unfortunately, the weather in mid October is a little too unpredictable to guarantee good outdoor weather (though it did turn out to be a beautiful day) and all of the chapels we saw looked like they might have been decorated in the 80's and then forgotten. I want...

I found an album of love letters to my grandmother from her husband. 20 years of love letters just sitting among the photo albums in their cardboard boxes (treasure troves, I tell ya). They're in a yellowing album that smells like old books (Which, by the way, is such a fantastic smell and until the Kindle can include that I can't imagine why I'd ever buy one. Psh!). Anyway, I can't believe that nobody jumped to claim the albums and I'm so glad that I did. Since there is a LOT of family history to catalogue and share (and hopefully my family will contribute more) I have started a seperate blog for all the loveliness. Come take a peek if you like over at Og The Little Frog .

I've been looking back through childhood pictures and came across these two next to one another. They are my grandfathers and I think the two very different pictures say something about just how different the two sides of my family are. Louie Glenn, my mother's father, was a farmer (I've written about him before ). He almost always wore blue and white striped "farmer" overalls and smelled like a combination of vegetables, fertilizer, and tractor oil. He played a lot of games with us children, he usually had pink snowballs in the bread box, and the candy he gave us most often was the neapolitans (I still love those!). After he passed away I inherited some of his furniture. I was in middle school and I put his banquet cabinet (from the dining room) in my room and didn't keep a thing in there. When I missed him I would crawl inside and shut the doors and breathe in the smell of vegetables, fertilizer and tractor oil. Every now and then I pass an aging gent...

7 years ago there was a baby Who got annoyed with picture taking for a while Until he realized there were worse ways to get attention My small but mighty little man With all the youthful spirit a mother could ask for And last Thursday (the 10th) my beautiful boy turned 7. And on Saturday in the midst of this: There was a party for the little artist. And the presents were opened And wishes were made And a good time was had by all. (Though daddy needs to practice his party face) Happy Birthday, Glenn!