WTF???

My hubby found this while surfing the net... all I can say is WTF!!!

Longing for Peace

I've got my day cut out for me today and I'm not ready for it. I feel tense and stressed, overworked and unappreciated these days, I really need to recharge but I can't see that possiblity for the coming weeks from here.

Today I need to clean and organize like a mad woman for my 10 year olds sleepover birthday party. We'll be taking 8 boys to Shrek 3 and then home here for pizza and a sleep over but... after months of him moving to his new room, the former occupant of the room (it was Mr Gas' office before) has STILL not removed his stuff. I plan on the boys all sleeping in there because my own boys have anhilated the playroom once again and it's going to take hours to sort it and organize it all again which I just don't have in me right now. The family room: they have not been kind to that room either and after daily nagging and redestruction of it, it never gets nice again, there's even a mass of sand that one of the boys thought to empty their shoe of in there today. and yes... they aren't supposed to wear shoes in the house so go figure. Everywhere I turn there's work and more work and as fast as I do it, it seems it gets undone just as fast.

I'm not having any fun lately. I never get time to play with the kids cause I'm always in nag mode or cleaning mode or laundry mode and there's no time to have fun cause I can't keep up with the work part of motherhood. If I'm not doing that I'm refereeing the nitpicking, the bickering, the tattling, the arguing and the disagreements that go on about seemingly everything sucking all my energy away and leaving me with an aching back from tension. This isn't what kind of motherhood I imagined for myself. I'm a fun Mom but I can't get to that part of it cause the moment I put the work aside to have fun, they take advantage of the lapse and make another disaster.

I'm told this is the hard part and it's like this right now cause I have 3 boys. I regularly meet people that will say 'oh you have 3 boys, yeah, that's alot of work'. They aren't kidding. Where's the fun time. I miss having fun! They tell me that it will get easier when they become teenagers and that they will always have a special spot for their Mom so I'm holding on to that.

Grocery shopping was a trial yesterday. I decided to go after school so Birthday Boy could pick out a few things for his party. A grand thought that turned into punishment for that said thought. I spent half the time trying to stop them from fighting over who got to ride in the car buggy that I chose cause the youngest fell asleep on the way there and I though it would be good for him since he was obviously tired. Then there was the hopping on the tile squares up and down the aisle, then more bickering cause one of them is irritating another then the middle gets all upset cause Birthday boy picked chips he didn't like, then this, then that, then we get to the till and the can I haves start and Oops, with all the distractions I forgot green onions - will BB go get them for me. Off he goes as I'm unloading the cart and trying to save food damage from the help I'm getting. He comes back and just as the last of the groceries are getting rung up he makes some comment to question him on the onions I sent him for only to find out did he not only not get them but didn't bother to tell me so now I have to leave all the kids and run off to get them. The check out lady told me to go home and have a big glass of wine as I paid. I screamed into the air, going down the hwy with the windows open on the drive home. It didn't help. Do they even know I feel tag teamed at times?

I know they love me, my 4 year old even told me yesterday out of the blue that he will always love me which hit me as a very deep thing for a 4 year old to say. I will hold on to that. I just wish I knew the magic words or could twitch my nose right to have them stop their disaster making, put their apple cores in the garbage, leave the sand outside, use the water in the toilet bowl as a target to aim at, get toothpaste spit in the sink, capture the clothes goblins that strew their clothes EVERYWHERE every day, pick up their toys so I don't impale my foot when I picking up their dishes they promise to put back if only I let them eat 'here'. I could go on and on but you get the point.

I'm tired. One day I know I will be looking back missing this constant caos I call my life right now, I know I will, I'm certain I will. I'll be desperate to have all this back again but right now, I would just love a little help, a little appreciation for all I do. I love them deep deep deep into my core, I just want the work to lessen so I can enjoy this all more. It's not always like this, it comes in waves and right now I'm on a big one and lost my surfboard.

Tomorrow my 7 year old and I are going to Beaver camp. Starts at 2 and check out time is 8:30 Sunday morning. That tells me to expect to be up very early. I'm not a morning person, I admit it, not at all! I should be looking forward to this, happy to have some one on one time with my middle son but I'm so drained it just seems like more work at this vantage. I hope that view will change when I get there, I really do. I want to enjoy all the good parts but the hard parts are sucking me dry right now.

It's true, just like the cartoon says Motherhood is definitely not for wimps!

The View from my torch

This is the view from behind my torch. These guys make me smile and stir creative inspiration while I sit out in the garage melting glass. I painted my walls and ceiling a few weeks ago to help inspiration. After all, bare plywood and cement really do suck all the creativity out of your hide!

I ended up painting my hair a couple times when I bumped my head on the beams but what the heck, I have pink hair now, I had blue hair after bumping... it's all good!

This is my work area. I need to put more inspiration and decor in there but at least it's better than it was. What you see there is my working pile of glass. In the drawer of the desk is my stash which works okay for storage but I end up having to empty out a section each time I am looking for a specific colour since they are all just in colour groups. I bought some old apple crates at auction a couple months ago that I am going to anchor some pvc pipe in and stack them on their sides so I can sort it a bit better and actually see how much of what colour I actually have left. I went to use a certain colour tonight only to find out I had none of it, but when I was at the glass shop a week ago I was sure I had that colour so didn't get any. Being able to know at a glance if I have something would be much easier on my hands too. Have to watch those ends, even though they aren't jagged, you do have to pick up the glass gingerly when it's just dumped in a drawer.

Now these guys. These guys are fun! This is Mr. Gosh, Lenore, Ragamuffin and Pooty. These guys are from the imagination of Roman Dirge. Lenore is the main character of this group. Shhh, she's not really aware of it, but she's dead and yet she's still cute. Yup, she's the cute little dead girl. Lenore is comic book hero of a different kind, well, hero isn't really right but she is a character and that you can't deny. ;) She now has been animated and what a treat that is!
I also have his book 'Something At The Window Is Scratching: Children's tales for disurbed children' which is full of fun drawings and darkly silly stories. Nor for everyone (my MIL wouldn't even look at the book) but I certainly enjoy it! Here's his blog if you want to keep up to date with all things Dirge.

Stay tuned, tomorrow I will share the beads I created today (they are in the kiln annealing right now). I think I made the most beautiful bead I've ever created tonight, we'll see if I think the same in the morn!

Beauty in Age

I love old barns. There's something so timeless and beautiful about them with the weathered patina and whispers of sweat and muscles and strain. Ghosts of chores done so many times before but sitting silent as I observe this moment in time.

Artist Connections

When I was a Collectible Teddy Bear artist I found it to be no problem to connect with other artists, even made one of the small handful of most significant friendships of my life so far with one of those artists. But, now I'm doing glass and mixed media. In my everyday life I know no other artists, I haven't found any ongoing connections in person or online and I certainly haven't found anyone who actually *Gets* my work in my limited encounters. Now I know the latter of the two is much harder to come by, I mean, not that many people actually get me so it's no surprise that my work be considered 'out there' too, but I do feel a disparate need to connect with other artists.

I am a bohemian at heart. I'm a non-conformist by nature-I am irritated by rules that stifle rather than guide, I dislike the clock setting limits on my life, and I embrace all that is original, thought provoking and artful in life. Growing up my Dad told me all the time that I was a hippie which he meant as a derrogetory label but it's something I've always embraced. I know he'd have a problem with the fact that for my 38th birthday last month a friend of mine dyed my hair pink. Fortunately, the man I married loves my quirkiness and my off the beaten path tastes, he accepts me and revels in the fact that I'm not ordinary. I'm not mainstream, I am bothered by the hypocrisies of daily life and my ability to see two sides of the proverbial coin at the same time has gotten me into trouble at times. I'm a person who gets riled up by current events, media, politics, religion and injustice to the point that sometimes I have to push them aside to embrace happiness because the depths of my soul feels the damages they all invoke on humanity. I feel.. I feel deeply for the smallest ant I may accidentally step on to the latest genocide humanity sits aside, witnessing and is unresposive to once again. It's recently come to light that my oldest son and I are gifted learners which does explain so much about how I think and why close friendships have always been difficult for me to find but that doesn't satisfy a fact I've always lived with-that sometimes I feel so lonely for someone to just 'get' me. I must say I am sad that I have given my son (and possibly the other 2 too) this legacy but they'll know that I 'get' them and that's more than I had growing up.

Reading others blog posts out there, I have a few rays of hope that there are others out there that will 'get' my work and possibly even me! I want to meet them, I want to chat and laugh with them and get to know them but how. I'm emotionally starved for intellectual conversation, art talk and exchanges of ideas. I need to connect with those that live and breathe art as I do, but don't know how that will/can happen sitting here infront of my laptop. I don't want to send someone an email via their blog and sound like a needy groupie. When I was a bear artist it was easy, I joined mailing lists and just emailed but that was before the birth of blogs. Maybe someone will find my blog and say 'hey, I know her, she's me!'. I won't hold my breath though.

Meanwhile, I sit and wish, hoping to connect with other artists...

Okay, so I haven't been very good about writing regularly. I've written so many posts in my mind while trying to fall asleep but that's where they stayed. I took a fantastic class with Sherry Bellamy last weekend at Glass-Smith in Victoria. I learned more from her than I have in any class before and I came home completely inspired. My glass work has a whole new life to it now and I have so many ideas I'm looking forward to trying. I made a bead I'm very happy with, I will take a picture soon as Mr Helium comes home with my camera.

My oldest and Mr Helium are off at a Cub Scouts camp for the weekend. Yet again, rain has been called for camp. I think we'll all fall over if a camp ever falls on a weekend that it *doesn't* rain! They went to a fun little island where there's no cars and took their bicycles. I wish my other boys and I could have gone with them but the youngest and I don't have sleeping bags so home we stay. I did all the food for the weekend. Oh how I hope I didn't screw up cause there's no whipping out to the store if something is missing.

I am going to make a necklace with my middle guy tomorrow, and make some polymer clay props with both my middle and littlest for their playmobile stories. They love to play with that together so it will be great fun to make up some tangible things that they have been trying to enact in their imaginations. Maybe I'll be able to sneak in some PMC work while we're into it and I hope to get them to bed on time so I can play with some glass tomorrow night. I have a painting I've been working on for some time too, so that would be nice to get to too. I should post a pic of it in progress but again, my digital is off camping and my film has a dead battery.

Well, uploading some pics has all miserably failed so I will head off to bed and try again another time. Enjoy your weekend, where ever you are.

New Beads

Darn it! These pictures really don't do these beads justice at all! Need to work on that before I put them up for sale. The Goddess has so many different tones and is much more shapely than the picture shows. She has a beautiful figure with a bit of a womanly pooch tummy. She feels wonderful in your hand and I'm sure that if she was hung from a neck, the wearer couldn't help but unconsciencely feel her all the time. It's the angle she was taken at on the front facing picture that throws her looks off I think. I couldn't wait to put her up her though.

The Man in the Moon bead is a single hole bead so that it will hang nicely as a pendant. Again, the angle the photos were taken from aren't working in his favour but I just couldn't wait. I really like his strong facial features. He's made from opal yellow which gives many different colours depending on how long it's worked in the flame. That's why I chose the colour for him cause it adds interest beyond the shape and features.

Well that's it for now kids, my kiln is fired up and I'm going to go turn the torch on for a bit before bed. I pulled some stringers just before I went to the gym tonight cause I couldn't wait to play. Tomorrow I hope to paint, alter and paint. I am going to fool around with some vintage bodybuilder photos for the gym I go to. The people that own it are so special, such nice people. I think some altered photos would be right up their alley for the gym.

Spring is almost here!

I saw my first Robin today! That can only be Spring is on it's way and after a long stormy winter with barely not a glimpse of sunshine, it can't happen too soon for me. Sunshine makes me feel so much better, and much more alive. I do love a good rainy day, but sunshine keeps the doubting demons and SADness away. Good to know spring is on it's way, good to see that lone Robin in my garden. Sending Spring wishes your way too.

Coulda been an Art Day

Well, today was going to be an Art day but so far I haven't gotten enough chores done to give myself permission to do my other work. I'm not sure why I feel I have to accomplish a certain amount of housework before I can create when Art is equally important to our house as vacuumed stairs. Art not only makes for a happier Alpha Female but it adds to the income of our home which makes for a happier Papa Bear! When he bid me adieu to me this morning I told him I was going to have an Art day and he was happy about it but still I struggle to allow myself the time before the house is spic and span. What's with that? I know he would have no qualms about it if the role was reversed. He'd leave the chores for the fun in a heartbeat, so why do I feel so different? Whatever the reason, I sure wish I could get over it!

Tonight will be fun. We are going out to one of my favorite local places and having appies and bevvies with people from my hubby's business group. One of the ladies is interested in carrying my lampwork glass jewelry in her day spa. I just need to allow myself the time now that the weather is warmer. Glass rods are too shocky in the cold of winter since I work in the garage and when I do brave the hot flying glass, I get a chill I can't shake so for the 2nd year, I all but stop melting glass in the winter. That will hopefully be soon remedied... just in time for nie warm spring.. Anyway, back to what I was saying, I'm looking forward to going out. Nights out are few and far between plus there are some people I really enjoy in this group. I usually get some nice stimulating conversation and lots of laughs. Should be fun.

Well the chores are still calling me, so no more fun here... off to fold!

Tend those short and curlies Mr. Attendant!

So here I am... Making my first blog post and although I have a thousand different ideas of what to write about, I'm going to write about nose hairs. *GASP* It is an important issue even if it is bordering on taboo, but it's an issue that still does affect (afflict?) many. What brought this to my attention today was my trip to gas up my vehicle. Now, most of the time, when one thinks of nose hairs one thinks of some old man with eyebrows and ear hairs with pronunciation to match. One does not think of a man of maybe 40 at the most, to alert you to check your own the next time you see a mirror. I went to pay for my gas and a car wash and there they were! I couldn't avert my eyes from them so to save myself the embarrassment of being caught looking, I stood inspecting the handcrafted dog treat tree with square treats with round holes to fill it. His nose hairs may have well have been square blocks trying to fit in his round nostrils cause they were *trying* to fit! Bushes of follicles curling out and suspending in the air being exhaled. The stray few didn't know what to do and curled around, attempting to cling to the outside of said nostrils. And Ear hair, insulating and comb worthy, possibly providing a sound barrier. At what point does one say, "hey, they gotta be free, no need to cultivated the shrubbery anymore".
I for one am acutely aware of my aging hairs and not just the odd grey that pops out of my mane, shinning at me, reminding me I'm not as young as I think I am. One in particular poked rebelliously out of my widows peak today. As I was looking in the mirror while getting ready to go on one of my numerous runs for the kids today it broke free of my other curls and waved as if it was alive, waved with a backbone that refusing to conform, waved as if taunting me to yank it out but I did not give in. That rogue grey is my medal of honor. I earned it. 3 young boys and moving from a reliable pay cheque to the unpredictability of Self employment -it's earned - it's mine. But, all the other hairs... now that's another matter!
Children don't have visible nose hairs. I guess that's one of the glorious things puberty brings. As a child without nose hairs, I was grossed out as my Dad perched on his stool, going through his evening phone calls while mindlessly yanking out his nose hairs. Now that I am roughly the age he was then, I realize it wasn't mindless, it was a necessity. A grooming need to avoid the follicle people from trying to emerge from their cavern to check out life on the outside. And yes, like him, I now yank them out without regard to the imminent pain and sneezes. Yes, I pinch several of them and pull for all I'm worth. The quicker and the more at once the better. It speeds up the process and the pain. I've developed a little technique now though - my nose hair yanking, I find that funny but it's true. I'll share it in case it helps someone else tame the haircicles. Wrinkle up your nose as if you have some horribly foul smell swirling to your sinuses, pinch a clump and yank. It's the wrinkling that numbs up the pain.
Why is it with age that we don't only get the skin starting to droop and the greys starting to sprout but we also get random hairs that decide to step out from the crowd and reach for the sky? Suddenly hairs that used to have growth limits now grow with abandon to all former laws of nature. What court changed these laws! I want to petition the court for an injunction! I have eyebrow hairs that I have to watch for so I can yank them out before they have to be combed into a ponytail with my locks. I have a fine hair on the edge of my ear that grows even longer before I notice it to evict it. I have a fine blonde hair on the back of one of my arms that grows several inches long till it tickles me to realize that I'm growing the start of a wing! I have a fine pore hair on my nose that FOR THE LOVE OF CHOCOLATE will tickle the tip if I don't look close enough and realize it's there for me to pluck! What the heck! Again I want an appeal!!!
Now my husband on the other hand, keeps trying to embrace his new found eyebrow length. I have to threaten to pluck them (which the big baby can't take) before he will cut them. Once he trimmed them himself way too short. His eyebrows endured a brush cut. They looked crazy. Stubble above AND below his eyes! Now he saves it up for haircut time and has the stylist do it for him. Doesn't trust me, but he will let a stranger do it. But at least he takes care of it. He keeps threatening that when he's old he's just going to let them go wild and if he had ear hair, he's going to let that go too. He has a goal in mind to be able to hold a pencil on the ledge the rebels will form. Myself, I have much grandeur wishes for my old age, holding a pencil on my eyebrows isn't one of them. But this brings us back to my original quandary...
At what point do you say to hell with it, let 'em grow, let 'em grow, let 'em grow. Please people, Just say NO!!