Living In A Fog!

I have been feeling very disconnected the past several days - I blame it on hormones, but who knows? I had 3 days last week without my little Monkey. I knew I would miss having her with me those days, but I assumed and planned on getting lots done during those 3 days. This is when I realized how disconnected I really am. I would start one project or task and find myself unable to focus, so I would move on to the next task. I would soon find myself moving onto yet another, and then another. Leaving a trail of unfinished projects and a mess behind me! That is one of the most frustrating feelings ever! I did manage to get out and get my hair cut and take about 100 bad photos during those 3 days!

Friday evening I went out with a couple of girlfriends. This is something I have not done in several years! It really was fun to just hang out with the girls and talk and laugh. One of my friends was a BIG hit with our waitress. It appears she (the waitress) was wanting to have a threesome with one of my friends and her (the waitress) boyfriend! YUCK!!!!! But what the heck, it gave us even more to laugh about while we were out. We all live in the same community and had just gotten an alert the day before that we have a child sex offender in our neighborhood. So, once we left the grille we went on a little covert mission. The alert came with the offender's picture and address so we went and found his house. Surprise of all surprises he lives right by the school and had a white panel van in his drive with no side or rear windows! We were all surprised that he lived so close to the school - we all thought there was some law against that?

Saturday I woke up and felt the fog clearing and thought "TODAY I will get some things accomplished". I was going to work on some Christmas presents I am making. Instead I ended up having a lengthy conversation with my youngest. After that conversation I felt the fog moving back in. Maybe a shower would help? Nope. I did finally manage to get a little bit done on one of my Christmas presents, then I ran out of some of my supplies. So I did a little more cleaning and organizing in my studio. Maybe someday I will finish in here and post some photos?

Sunday finally rolls around and this is the day we are celebrating my Mother's 73rd birthday (her actual Bday was on Thursday). She requested spaghetti for dinner. Kind of a boring Bday dinner so I decided to perk t up a bit by setting the dinning room table with my good china and goldware, even Monkey got a place setting of the "good" stuff. The table looked beautiful, the spaghetti, salad and homemade cherry pie were all ready for evryone to arrive and enjoy. As you can see in the photo below Monkey really enjoyed her spaghetti! She did really well with the good dishes too, I am happy to announce that I still have a full set and nothing but a few noodles ended up on the floor.

We got to keep Monkey overnight Sunday - I love a sleepover with her! Unfortunately all of the spaghetti and garlic toast gave her a tummy ache and she was up at 3am! After a little lovin' and some gas drops she was ready to go back to bed until Grandpa got up for work. I am NOT a morning person but he is, so he always gets up in the morning with her when she sleeps over. He truly enjoys their alone time together.

Once I got up I got started on fixing up this vintage doll highchair I bout her at a flea market in San Diego a few months back. I was feeling pretty good about actually finishing this project! I had gotten Bryanna's Madame Alexander doll down for Monkey to play with on Sunday night and now she had a highchair to put her in.

This dolly is in desperate need of a new dress! But I guess it doesn't look too bad after 20+ years!

She looks very sweet and maternal here in this picture, but trust me that's not the case at all! Poor dolly was drug across the floor by her arm, her leg and by the hem of her dress most of the time. The rest of the time there was some tossing and throwing of poor dolly. Bryanna has decided after seeing this that Monkey is NOT ready to have another baby in the house!

I was on a roll today!!!!!! After getting the highchair finished, and while Monkey napped I made this super cute door hanger. Everyone in our house uses the door from the garage to come into the house. That door is super noisey and slams on it's own when you come in. And of course it is right down the hall from where Monkey naps. So when anyone comes in (and doesn't take the time to hold the door until it closes softly) the noise wakes her up . Used to be when I heard someone approaching the door I would run like crazy to warn them that she was napping. Then I hung a recycled flyer bag on the door with a note that said "Baby Sleeping". That bag has now seen better days and quite frankly never was that attractive! So I had this plain, wooden door hanger and these cute little mouse stickers in my studio and now we have a cute door hanger to warn everyone when Monkey is sleeping.

Maybe now that I successfully completed two projects in one day, cleaned up after them made dinner and did the dishes, it means my fog is lifting? Let's hope so!!!

Side note:
It's not until you start to write a journal entry of what you've been up to for the past few days that you realize how hum-drum your life really is. Thanks for bearing with me as I rambled on.

Presenting. . .

Zachery Allen Mikeska!

My great-Nephew was born on Friday at 8:43am.

I can barely nelieve that my little nephew "Ally-BaBa" is a father for the 3rd time. My how time flies! I really wish I could be with them all right now, but sadly they live in Texas and I do not. At least I get to see the pictures.

Congratulations Allen & Jackie! I am so thrilled for you both.

Thank you for making me a part of this special day by sending me pictures so fast.

Love you both - give ZAM a big kiss from me.

Follow the Beenz. . .

Just to get an idea of who's reading the Beenz regularly, I've added the new "Follow" option from blogger. I'd love to know if you are following along on my ramblings. You could even have your picture right here on my blog and I can see that you are a "Follow the Beenz"! You will find this new addition on the right, in the sidebar. It is titled Friends Of The Beenz. You can just click on the "follow this blog" link to get added as one of my friends.

Did you also know that you can post comments to this blog? After each post you will see in smaller letters the word "comments" - just click and you can leave me a message. I would love to hear what you have to say.

Thanks Friends!

A Never Ending Battle!

That is what it is like trying to keep my studio clean and organized!!!!!

I am an organizing and netness freak and this is the one room that always seems to elude my efforts and my need for order. Since things are all different sizes, shapes and mediums, there is not one type of organizer that works for all things. And even with all of my labeled plastic bins and drawers, the visual clutter tends to make me a little crazy. So today I started at 11am to clean and organize again (I try to do it quarterly). Here I am at 1am, FORTEEN HOURS later and I am not even close to being done!!! I did manage to get most of my embellishment, stamp and supply drawers cleaned out and reorganized. In fact I even covered the fronts of them so that you can no longer see through the clear drawers at all of their organized, but cluttered contents. I think I like how they look, but we will know for sure when I get up in the morning if I am still happy with my efforts. Hopefully I will get this all finished this week and maybe I will post some photos of my studio?

Well, I am heading to bed - I have Monkey in the morning! I hope you all had a terrific weekend and spent your time with people you love, doing things that make you happy! Have a great week!!!!

I am Officially OLD!

I just wanted to let you all know this - I became painfully aware of this fact today! No, I am doing just fine without my AOL software. Here is the problem(s). . .

I got new glasses today - Bifocals!!!!! Yes, that's right, BIFOCALS! What an interesting concept - 2 glasses in one. When I manage to look through them the right way I am amazed at how well I see. I have not been able to read without a magnifying glass for a couple of years now and basically have learned how to "guess" at what I was seeing. Now things are much clearer - that is when I am looking through the rght spot at the right time. When I am not, it is as if I have a big smudge on my glasses that I cannot wipe clean. I amnot he most coordinated person so I am hoping I get better at using these soon!

So if that wasn't enough to solidify my placement in the "old age" category, I was doing some stuff online when I took a quick break to take a Dr Oz BMI (Body Mass Index) test. Of course I knew that this would be a test I could not fail and that it would only pump me up. Well, I was halfway right. Sure enough I have a low BMI. They tell me I need to gain 12lbs to get into the normal range. Then they tell me, gotta love this. . .Because you're so underwight your "real age" is much older than your chronilogical age". You have to love hearing that! Then they have a link to take another test to see what your "Real Age" is. Of course I click on the link and take the test. I answered very honestly all of the questions and then waited the 1 - 2 hours they said it would take to get back my results. When I finally got my results back I found that instead of being the almost 45 year old woman I thought I was, I am actually a 57.5 year old woman. I lost 12 years of my life during the reading of an email!

Well it is now 4am and I guess tis old girl should be in bed. If any of you want to take this Real Age test online I have the link for you HERE. Good luck! I hope you all do better than I did. My 72 year old Mother and my 44 year old husband took the test too. I can't wait to hear what their ages actually are. I just hope my Mother does not end up being "younger" than me!!!!
Good night friends!

Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks???

I sure hope so! Today I was informed by my 19 year old daughter that I was "too old to learn new things". That I have "gone past my learning curve". Imagine my surprise! I was taught by my father that if you didn't learn something NEW everyday that it was a waste of a day, and that your life was over. So, finding out that a few months shy of being 45 years old my life is over, was quite the shock to me!

Here is what happened that prompted this declaration from my oh-so-wise 19 year old daughter. . .

I am a die-hard AOL user - yes that is right - I know I am one of the few left out there in the world. And until today I was just fine with that! When I first started using the computer and the internet, I was an AOL subscriber. In fact until just 2 years ago, I was still on dial-up by choice(insert gasp here!). AOL is the only internet I have ever used. I love how "friendly" it is. I love how it welcomes me every time I sign on, how it lets me know I have mail. I love my M&M candies wallpaper and all of my cute little picture icons I can attach to my favorite places and my favorite IM buddies.

It does not bother me at all that I have to sign on and wait for all of my welcome screen stuff to load up. It does not bother me that everything is on my screen as I surf the web, read my mail, and visit different web sites. Just the contrary - I rather like all of the colorful stuff, and find comfort in the fact that the things I do the most online are all right there handy for me. But apparently, this is all "old-school" and lame. It has apparently become the topic of discussion more than once for my daughter, her and her "geek" boyfriend, and is the unspoken opinion of my son-in-law.

My daughter informed me today that she wanted to delete my AOL software from my computer and break my AOL CD so that I could not load it back on my computer. She figured if she did this that I would be forced to join the rest of the world in using the "real internet". This is where she informed me that I was past my time to be able to learn anything new and that is why she took pity on me and did not delete my beloved AOL. She figures I can no longer learn the tough stuff like Internet Explorer.

Well, tonight I am posting to my blog via the "real internet"! I have vowed that I will give this a try for a whole week and see if I can enjoy my internet experience as much without all of my M&M's and other fun icons that I have grown to love and depend on so much. So far it is okay. I can still get done what I need to, there is just a level of fun that is missing from it.

What my darling daughter does not understand is that at this point in my life, it is not that I cannot learn new things, it's just that I want to enjoy my life. I am not using the internet for school or for work. I am using it for my own personal enjoyment. I use it to reseach things I am interested in learning. I use it to keep in touch with friends and family. I use it to explore new avenues of creativity for myself. I am past the point in my life where I care what others think of me, and I don't have to "keep up" to feel important. I love this age - feeling comfortable in my own skin and not really caring what others think about me. But I do love a good challenge! I still have a little bit of a competative spirit in me. So if giving up my AOL for a week. . .or longer is the challenge I have in front of me now - so be it!

One More Thing. . .

During my computer problems I lost ALL of my email addresses and favorite links! This makes me very sad! But at least I was able to save 90% of my photos and all of my written documents. You gotta love the computer when it is working. . . but when it isn't. . . EEKS!!!!
So, any of my friends and family that read this, if you would kindly email me so that I will have your addresses again, I would appreciate it!

OOPS!!!

Don't adjust your screen - these are not "bad" photos - it is SMOKE!!!!!!

Remember awhile back I flodded my new house (TWICE)! Well, today I almost burned it down! I do not know what is wrong with me lately - I seem to be so careless anymore. I never used to do things like this!

Today we got a new freezer delivered - our other one died 3 days before Christmas. I was so excited to be able to cook in bulk again that I decided that I would make some homemade chicken pot pies to put up in the freezer. I got all of the chicken breasts cleaned and on the stove to cook, when I realized I was out of a few things. So I headed down the road to Safeway to pick up a few things I needed. No big deal, it was a BIG pot and there was a lot of chicken in it so it would take awhile to cook. I had plenty of time to run just down the street.

Apparently NOT!!!!! When I arrived home I was greeted by a wall of white smoke! Thankfully it was only smoke and not fire! Thankfully also, none of the chicken was burned. I was also glad that Gary had purchased some big industrial fans for his work-out room.

After removing the offending pot from the stove, I started all of the fans in the house, opened the arcadia door, lit some candles and brought in Gary's big fans to blow the smoke out. I was go glad that no one else was home to see the mess I had made! I figured I could get it all cleaned up and smelling pretty before everyone got home. Just then I heard a car pull up! Oh No - who could it be? Whew! It was only Liz! I thought she was never going to stop laughing at me. She grabbed my camera and started shooting. So here are the pictures of my mess. . .

On an up note - I got 7 family sized pot pies done, got the stove cleaned up and the smoke cleared out of the house. Mom and Gary neither one asked why the big fans were in the house. They never mentioned any smell and they really enjoyed the pot pie we had for dinner tonight!

So, what did you do on your Labor Day Monday???????