Just Too Busy For My Other Life

Hey folks,

Just a very short check in. I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger! My brother from DC is here for a couple of weeks for my Dad's 94th birthday, and I am still working everyday.

But I am a little better on the day job thing as Friday was my last audit for 2012. YIPPEE!! I am still running like crazy, but at least, that worry is over.

The best part of my crazee life right now is getting to see a long lost nephew yesterday that I have not seen in over 30 years. When we (myself and Brother) were young, we were renegades. Ya know, the usual drinking, carousing, etc. Well my brother got married, had a little boy, wanted to run around with other women and eventually, his young wife killed herself. His son then lived with his Grandparents on his Mom's side.

I in the meantime, drank all of the time, had a son and got estanged from my folks for years. Yes, lots of Drama in my past life. That is why I don't do Drama today.

Well,  my Brother eventually died from the Big C and we all lost track of my nephew. So just a few months ago, my folks and sister went driving on a Sunday afternoon and ended up in the town where my nephew lived when he was a kid. They stopped at a Stop & Rob to get soda's and when Daddy was in there, he asked a guy in line if he lived there and if he knew my nephew and gave him his name. Well as luck would have it, he was my nephew's Uncle. So to make a long story short, they exchanged phone numbers and yesterday, my long lost nephew came down and we all got reaquainted. It was great, to see him again and meet his young family and Grands that my poor brother will never know.

Yes, I am pooped and now today everybody is coming over to my house for a spaghetti feed tonight. So I had better get busy quick!

Have a great week!!

Drama Time

Hey, I almost forgot to do this. But I did remember in the nick of time! Lucky You!

Just so busy all of the time, I let things slip past until I am behind more. Grrr!

Not too much going on the arty side of me. But I did purchase a journal from Kelly Kilmer when she sold some on her blog week before last.

Here are some pics:

The front cover

 Some inside spreads:

 Check out that cool pic of Kelly herself, when she was a kid! WOW! She hasn't changed a bit! She still looks just like this.

 And it is bound so cool. Love it!

And this is a secret....shhhhh! Hee Hee!

Oh and by the way, I think it has been 4 weeks and still no art supply buying has taken place!! Maybe I will be rich and can quit my job someday! Hahahhahhaha, but fun to think about. I will be happy just to have enough extra to go see my kids again soon. That's the plan anyway.

I gotta go and get ready for another fun week of traveling and also getting ready for Daddy's 94th and my brother's yearly visit. Can't wait for this drama to begin! LOL!

Have a safe arty week, my friends.

Still Running Wild

But,  I am still not buying arty supplies:) I am so proud of me!

Just got back late Friday night from my week in Whittier teaching. I saw Michael's there and never even had the inclination to darken their door.

I have had the entire weekend to myself because Hubs and Room Mate went to a Motorcycle swap meet up by Sacramento all weekend. It has been nice. They will be home soon, and I am leaving again tonight to travel down south so I will already be there in the morning. I have a every Monday morning at 7:00 conference call I must be on and I have to have my computer on and I can't do that while driving, so I either leave very early in the morning and make the 2.5 hour drive to be down there at 7:00 or just go tonight and already be there at 7:00 in the morning. I vote for the latter. So I will leave here about 4 ish, stop and see the folks on the way out and I am good to go.

On the art side, I have not been busy. But I plan on doing some art on Wednesday the 4th since I plan on taking it easy that day, and then I will be leaving to San Francisco early Thursday to come home on Friday night.

So that is all I have today except to tell you I bought 2 journals from Kelly Kilmer when she had her journal sale last week! Cool!

OK, so I am off and running again. everyone have a safe week.

Oh by the way, this is what I was driving all week in Whitter:

Sweet!!

Just a Short Shout

I am on the run again. So this is just a very short shout out to tell you all that I am in week 3 and still have not bought any arty supplies!! I am stoked!

Did not get home until 4:30pm yesterday, have a ton to do today, and then when most normal folks are sleeping in on Sunday morning, I will be trekking toward the Sacramento Airport to catch an early flight down to Whittier CA in So Cal to teach a work class for a week. I will not be home until next Friday night around 8:00pm. Yep, color me busy! It pays the bills, but.....

My new gig in San Francisco will get me I am sure. It is taking time to get the folks who work there to come around to my way of thinking. UGH!

And let's see what else is going on. Oh yea, my Brother from DC will be in town on the 10th for a couple of weeks for my Daddy's 94th birthday. I will be working while he is here, but will visit in the evenings when I am home. I am trying to schedule myself closer to home that 2 weeks, but got word on Monday I may be back in Dallas for another meeting the week of the 23rd. Yikes! That can't be good since we just had a meeting there in March. But the March meeting was for the GM's (General Managers) and this one in July will only be for the ASD's (Area Safety Directors).

Anyway, you can understand why I am like I am.

I apologize to everyone that come's here and reads my blog, and know that I read their blogs as well, because I have been visiting but not taking the time to comment on the post's.

I am too hyper, or ADD,or HDD or whatever they call it, now a days*wink*.

Gotta run and get a haircut, visit the parents, do laundry, pack, go to bed early, and get up at 3:30am and start tomorrow!

YIKES!

2 Weeks And Counting

OK, so for 2 weeks, I have not bought any art supplies. Wheee! Looks like I am on a roll. All coupons I get in the mail, I lose quickly and any I receive through the email are gone also, very quickly. I must be strong.  I did notice today that my adhesive tape runner is very low, so I might go to some wierd-o place to buy a replacement like the grocery store. They have small one's that I can get by with. I must stay away from the major art supply brick and mortar stores! I actually still had $300.00 in my checking acct when I got paid yesterday. Because I stayed away from temptations.

I recently found a great new "old" book for an art journal at a yard sale:

It is 11 X 8 and is an old RealEstate School text with 500 pages.. The paper feels cool and takes ink, watercolor, and Pitt Brush Pens without soaking through. Sharpies go right through and so do Copic's of course. I am happy. I have always wanted a "book" to make into an art journal. And this one was used, with a ton of notes written in the margin's and sentences underlined. So cool. Here is what it looks like after I threw some water color and ink spray's on it:

This will take me some major years to fill up. WOW!

My FREE 72 Art Bars Tin from Derwent arrived while I was gone last week. The tin container took some major hits and was very dinged up and a few of the bars were broken but that is OK. I straightened it out pretty good and I am excited to have won them!

They are very cool to work with. YAY!! And some time's buying an art supply brings a major dividend. This time it did for sure.

The day job side of my life just keeps getting rougher and rougher. Spent 3 days in San Francisco this week just trying to wrap my brain around the new division. It has some great dedicated folks working to make it better. Just hope that their driver's appreciate all that the management does behind the scene's for them. And it only took me 3 hours to get home on Wednesday afternoon/evening. UGH! I must leave earlier.

Next week I will be down south of home, where it will be hotter, ugh! Today and tomorrow Mr Weather said it would be 106, but it only got to 101 today, so hope 106 stay's away tomorrow also.

Well, I am off of here to get ready for Paula to Stream tonight. She says she will be there.  Happy Father's Day to all of the Dad's and all of the Single Mom's out there that are Dad also. My son will call me tomorrow to wish me a Happy Father's Day! He has since he could talk and he is 36.

Catch ya's later. Stay safe and hydrated.

Day Job Stress, But I Haven't Bought Any Art Supplies

OK, so I decided last weekend that I would not be buying any art supplies for a while, and now I am into mid Sunday and have kept that promise. I have not bought anything art supply related in a week, except for one book, that I had to have. This one:

This has got some great collages in it. So I could not refuse it. And it was $17.99 instead of the usual $24.99 that most art books cost.

I actually have tried to de stress this weekend by working in my craft cave. It is a diaster. But I only got as far as throwing away some old Tim Holtz Ranger Dabber paints that were dried up and keeping the dabber tops to put onto my craft paints, they fit = YAY!! New working dabber paints! Pretty slick, if I say so myself:

My day job is now causing me even more stress than normal. The company I work for, lost our 10 year contract with the division that I have worked at and for, for the last 22 years. We will close that door permanantly in September. So because of that, I have been "gifted" with another division, which is in San Francisco. I already know there are issues there, and I am suppose to go in and fix the boo boo's. Great! I just can't wait. And the drama begins tomorrow morning. I have to be up there for most of next week. And since I am not much excited about SF, I am not very happy about this. Just more stress that I did not need.

Please send your prayers to my good friend Kelly Kilmer who lost her Dad very unexpected yesterday. I know that most of art journal community know Kelly. I feel so sorry for her and her family.

I hope that everyone is being artful this weekend.

I am out!

And I Quote.....

"No more art supplies will be bought after today!"

It is over, I give up. I may write it out in long hand 500 times to make sure.

My friend Cheryl and I have talked about this and we both agree that buying stuff we don't need must stop and MUST Happen.

My biggest weakness of course is the coupons. Coupons do to me as they were intended when they were created. Offer a discount and entice the customer into the brick and mortar establishment so while shopping with the coupon for a % off of one item, they find lots more to buy NOT at a discount! Grrrrr! And after today, that is over! I am done.

So on to my last buying trip today. I received an email from a LSS having a buy one, get one free BOGO on any red rubber stamp set in the store. So OK I went and got 4 sets of Dylusions Rubber Stamp sets, paying for 2 and getting 2 free. I also bought 2 Dylusions stencils, that I didn't have. The stamps are over $20.00 each, so very hard to resist. I so wanted the girl stamp sets, but they didn't have any, so I got these 4 instead:

And these two stencils:

So I am happy now and really feel like I can stop buying stuff! It is very sad, when you have a 40% off and actually walk around the store for 45 minutes trying to find something to burn the coupon on, because you don't need anything more! So that is that! I vow to be strong.

Did you see the new button on top of my blog? Put It On Paper is a new art journal zine that my friend, Less Herger of artjournaling.ning.com and a friend of her's has created. Click on the button and you can learn all about it. It is great and thanx in advance for your support to a small business.

And another friend, Samantha Kira Harding has created a new Pay What You Can Art Journal class on her new ning site. Check it out here: http://journalgirl.ning.com.

So that is that.

Unfortunately, my day job is winding up to give me more stress it seems! Ugh! I willl talk at ya all next weekend.

Have fun, but always stay safe.