I'm Back and ready to roll! New art too!

Yay! I am back in the saddle again. Hubby and I went out and got a new PC friday afternoon.
I LOVE IT. Of course I really wanted a laptop but we settled for a new desktop and maybe by Christmas I will get a laptop. But wow, this one is alot faster than the other one. I just wish all my old stuff was on it. Daniel worked all day on it yesterday getting alot of our programs back on it. Of course this new one has Windows Vista which I thought would be hard but its really not much difference as XP just a few more bells and whistles. But naturally it didn't like our Cannon printer so we had to get new drivers for it on line. And it didn't like my old version of Paint shop Pro so I am using a trial version until I can get the newest version. But I am just thrilled to be back on line.
I have been working on quite a few swaps lately. And most of them are fall and halloween themed as I wrote about earlier in the week. I have some more to work on today and tomorrow and then I should be caught up. Below are pictures of my Vintage Halloween Postcard Swap.

I am also in a Vintage Halloween Chunky page swap. These are the pictures of them below.




Next pictures are from a "Fall themed chunky pages" swap.


I don't know why but I always LOVE doing Fall and Halloween art. I guess its because Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.

I do want to say that my Prayers and Thoughts are with all people in the Gulf states today. From Mobile, Alabama to Texas. And espiecally the people in New Orleans. Gustav is the last thing they need right now. But they do seem more prepared this time around. I hope Gus slows down and doesn't hit them as hard as they are predicting.
I also want to Thank all my friends who sent me wonderful messages when my old computer died. I am still going to try to retrieve some of my data from my old hard drive.
Hope every one has a wonderful Holiday Week-end.
xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxo

Another disaster!

Just when I thought life was getting a little bit smoother for me I got zapped again. It seems that something caused a power surge at my house and I am thinking it was as storm that passed through on Monday night, courtesy of Hurricane Faye which has been lingering around too long.
So with the power surge came two, yes, not one, but TWO dead computers. The hubbys will not even do one single thing and my hard drive on my computer is totally gone. Its very sickening for me because I have not backed up any thing in the past year due to all the stuff that has been going on in my life. Now I deeply regret it. All of my pictures are gone from the past year.
I am filing a claim with my insurance company and hoping they will help us but after a $500 deductible it won't be alot. But one way or another I will have another computer by this week-end.
I truly keep asking myself why my luck is so bad lately. Has someone put a curse on me or what? Hubby keeps telling me that we will get by and that its not so bad and when I say "whats next?' he tells me to ssshhhhhhhhh. So I try not to say that.
So,,,I may not be around till the week-end. I am taking a vacation day on friday so I can have a nice long Labor day week-end,,,4 wonderful days off,,,yes, that is if nothing,,oopsss,,,promised not to say it,ha! So right now I just have online access at work or if I go next door to Moms house.
I miss You all!!!! And send me some rabbit foots or fourleaf clovers or something,,,PLEASE!!!!
Just Kidding!
Hugs!
oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Mondays, Butterflys, and Art!

So I am back from a little blogging break and feeling a little more relaxed and less stressed. I had a very enjoyable week-end at home and loved it. Saturday morning, Daniel and I got out early and went to get some tires on his company truck. While we were waiting on it we took my car and went down to my favorite Junk/Antique store, Yesterdays Treasures". Daniel spoiled me with a few things he bought for me there. I will post pictures of them later this week. But it was so nice not having to go work on the other house and just getting to spend a little fun time together.
When I got back to the house I spotted a pretty butterfly on flittering around on some of my flowers in the front bed. So I chased him down and took some pictures of him.
Of course I had to do a little bit of house cleaning but it didn't take long and then the rest of the day I worked on some art projects.
I owed a few of my friends some goodies. One friend has sent me so many goodies that I just wanted to send her something back in return. Below is what I made to send to her.

I used the peeled paint technique on this collage. It was hard to get a good picture of it so I used different backgrounds when I took pictures of it. Then I made a ATC and a necklace for her too.
The picture is a little dark but these were fun to make. I also made some more goodies for my blogger friend Jill because she was one of the winners of my buggy contest a couple of weeks ago. But I am not going to spoil her surprise. Jill, I mailed it out this morning so be watching for it.
Later on saturday afternoon I went over and picked up Mom and she and made some fall and halloween chunky pages, post cards and ATCs. That was fun too. We also worked on more of them on Sunday afternoon.
It really felt like fall yesterday. We openned the windows again and there was a nice breeze and it was overcast and leaves flying around. Just a very fallish feeling day which helped when creating Fall art.
Today, the remenants of Hurricane Faye has hit us. I rode into work in some very hard rain. Its still raining. But we sure do need the rain so I am not complaining. Its suppose to rain the next couple of days so that will be a nice change, not to have to water my flowers every day.
I hope everyone had a great week-end and hope you all have a great week. I will being posting a little more often this week.
Hugs to you all!
xoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxox

Home at last!

My Dad got to come home yesterday from the Rehab. He is still on Oxygen and pretty weak but we are expecting a ful recovery for him. He was so glad to be home after being gone for a month. And his sweet little Bichon doggie was thrilled to have him home too. Thanks for all the prayers and positive thoughts that were sent our way, they really do help so much!
I haven't been posting much lately but life has been hectic and stressful and I am tired of whining about it,,ha!
Hope to post some more positive thoughts soon. I miss you all but I am still visiting your blogs as much as I can.
Have a wonderful rest of the week!
xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

After a very long and busy day at work yesterday, I sure was glad that I had a nice week-end at home. It was a beautiful and cool week-end. Looking back at last year, we were stuck in the upper 90s and 100s at this time. This week-end we were able to keep the windows open and it felt like fall outside. Above is a picture of my moonflower arch. I can look right out my bedroom window and see and smell the beautiful moonies. I got up and walked around the yard on saturday morning taking some pictures of all the flowers. They were loving the nice cool temps and I was loving drinking my coffee and snapping pics of them.




I also went down to the fruit orchard which is on the extra lot we have by our house. We have alot of grapes that are ready to pick and an apple tree full of apples.



Look at that beautiful blue sky, it was a wonderful morning. I enjoyed being home this past week-end. I was able to work on alot of Art projects and a few surprise packages for friends. I hope to finish them all up by next week-end.
I didn't get a chance to post yesterday as I was so busy at work with the first day of school. Its always so crazy the first day that students return to school. But when I got off it was still such a beautiful day and came home to just sit on the deck and relax for a while.
I wanted to wish my dear friend Jeanie from the Marmelade Gypsy a "Happy Birthday", it was her birthday yesterday! I didn't forget you, Jeanie. I hope you had a wonderful day!
Hope everyone had a great weekend and have a wonderful week too!!!
xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo

Finally Friday!!!

I have said it before and I will say it again, Friday is my favortie day of the week. And its been a lonnnnnnnnnnngggggggg week. We have had registration at school all week and thats all I have been doing. I worked a little over every day and I hope I can leave a few hours early today. We had a nice front come through yesterday, no rain in my part of the state, but it sure has cooled down the scorching temps we have had all week. The week-end is suppose to be very nice and not hot at all, looking forward to that.
The picture above is from my Art Journal. I have tried to work in it for a few brief minutes every night the past several weeks. It helps to keep my creative juices flowing even when I don't have much time to do any thing at all.
Last week I recieved a wonderful package in the mail from one of my close friends and very creative blogger bud Jeanie. She sent me a great book called "Caring for your parents". I have been reading on it and it does have some wonderful info in it. She also sent me the cutest ATC below.
I Love them both, Jeanie! Thank you for always brightening my day with your wonderful packages that you send to me. Next week you will be getting package from me for your birthday.
Yesterday I came home to a wonderful package in the mail. It was from the incredibily artistic blogger bud Shelley. She sent me a RAK(random act of kindness). Inside was 2 very wonderful ATCs. I LOVED them both. Below are pics of them.

I Love both of them! Thanks Shelley for making my day yesterday!!!
I also recieved some RAKS from another friend of mine who is in one of my Yahoo ATC groups. Her name is Susan and she also makes some incredible ATCS as you can see below.


I feel so lucky to have such Loving and Thoughtful friends in my life. Some of them I have never met in person but yet I feel like I have known them forever. They have touched my life with so much kindness and have sent such love and support to me through this very rough time have had this year. It brings tears to my eyes when I think about how much your Love has meant to me.
I have been wanting to post some of my Art Journal pictures lately so I will load up a few more of them. They are just so random and I just go with what I like at the time. I don't have to put alot of thought into the pages and thats a good thing because when I get a free moment or two my brain is pretty scrambled, I guess thats why I like doing the journal pages. Below are a few more of them.




I have more pages but alot of them I have actually put some of my private thoughts on and I will keep them private as I was going through some rough times and needed to write about it.
I sure hope every one has had a wonderful week. And I do hope you all have a great week-end.
I know I will because I will not have to go work on the other house. I talked to my realtor yesterday and she is going to be showing it to several potential buyers this week-end. Wish us Luck! Much Love to you all!
xoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo

Rat Terriers and Harleys don't mix well !!!!

So sorry I didn't get to post this week-end as I promised. But I have decided that I am going to say that Jess, Jill, and Flower are winners! I have Jess and Jill's addy and I am hoping to get Flowers this week. You all will be sent some surprises in the mail,,guaranteed to make you happy. Thanks to all for the wonderful comments.
So this week-end we spent it down at the old house trying to make it shine. Our realtor is bringing in the potential buyers this week. We have reduced the price so we do not have to put in new carpet and other small items. But we are tired of working on it as our jobs are pretty intense right now and with my parents not being in very good health its just becoming a big burden on us, especially financially. So we may not make much off of it but at least it will be off our backs. Please send prayers and positive thoughts that it will sell.
While we were down there working Saturday, we took our baby Brat Terrier, Little Lady. She has a runner in the front yard there and loves to go down there with us. She is inside all week when we are at work, so on the week-ends I want her to be outside as much as possible as she loves being outside.
Well we were inside working and she was suppose to be on her runner. The runner is a necessity because that road is extremely busy. Daniel heard something at the front door and when he opened it there was Lady. She came in and didn't have her collar on. Her collar was a little old but a good one that I had bought at the vets and was guaranteed for life. I told Daniel that I was going to run down the hill to our vets and buy her another one.
When I got back Daniel was on the front porch having a melt down. When I got to the porch he told me that a man had just stopped by to bring him her collar and tell us that he had hit her with his Harley Davidson Motorcycle. He told Daniel that he wasn't going very fast but that she ran right out in front of him. Well its a known fact that Ms. Lady doesn't like motorcycles at all, period!!! I was so thankful that the man had returned and told us or we wouldn't have known what happened to her. By that point she was starting to bleed from a cut on her face that we had not noticed until the man stopped by with the collar. So down we go again to the Vets with a wounded Lady dog.
They had to put her asleep and stitch her face and also 3 of her little teeth in the front of her mouth were pushed up into her gums and they had to pull them out too. Lesson to be learned,,,you don't try to bite big Motorcycles! I had to pick a very groggy Brat Terrier at 4:30 that afternoon. And pay the vet $333 because Ms. Lady just had to have a go at it with the Harley. But she is alive and is going to be fine and that's worth any amount of money to us!
So this was just another chapter in our "Year from H***" I have finally figured out to not say
"whats going to happen next?",,,because something probably will. But my attitude is that next year is going to be a lot better, at least that's the prayer for now.
Step-dad is doing much better and is getting a little more coherent now. We have much hope that he will be back home with us soon. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for him.
I also hope everyone had a great week-end and hope you have a wonderful week ahead!
xoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoox

The answer is ?????

Katydid is the correct answer for my visiting friend on the previous post. Three of my wonderful blogger buds guessed it correct. Jess, Jill, and Flower. Tomorrow I will anounce the winner and show what I am sending to the winner! But you got to know these girls are country girls and know their bugs!!!
We had a sad disappointment yesterday. My nephew, Seth, who is a Famous BMX bike professional, placed 6th in the world famous X-games sponsered by ESPN, but while qualifying for the event he managed to hurt his wrist and was not able to be in the event. He has been in alot of X-games for the last 10 years or more. He is the youngest son of my Brother who lives in Alabama. When Seth and his brother were young, my brother made a hugh wooden ramp that curled on both ends, like the pros use to do tricks. Most of the boys in their small town practically lived at their farm doing their tricks and stunts on that ramp. Thats where Seth learned to do his Bike tricks and was discovered at a young age. He has traveled all over the world doing events on his bike and is sponsered by Hoffman bikes. He is a grown into a very sweet young man and I got to see him and his new wife this past Christmas. He also had a Heavy Metal Christian Rock band that was famous for several years too, Mortal Treason.
I am at work and can't post a link to some of his famous bike stunts that are all over youtube. But type in Seth Kimbrough in google and it will take you to his videos,,he is amazing and I am so proud of him, even if he didn't get to be in the finals.
I hope every has a great week-end! I will be posting tomorrow.
xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo