baby, i'm back...

i am back among the "normal". i have spent the last two months traveling with my hubby in his big rig. we spent a lot of time sweating down in Kentucky. but, today i am back in raining Maine. all is well however. i am moving into a new place in a couple days in preparation of heading back to school at the end of august. i am very much looking forward to getting into some new projects. i've missed my power tools!

i am planning to build a kitchen table with chairs, a couple stands, maybe a coffee table... my head is spinning :)

i can't wait to get started...

who am i...

i am back on the genealogy trail! i have been interested in tracking my roots for several years and have made some very interesting discoveries along the way. i found three siblings that my dad didn't know he had...imagine that conversation! we have since met two of the three. i am most amazed at how nature not nuture has affected the personalities of these siblings. although some of them were not raised by their mutual father, some show amazing similarities to that man. i so wish my grandmother had still be alive when i made this discovery. i would love to have asked her if she knew about the other children of her husband...perhaps that was the reason for their short marriage all those years ago.

i have hit a road block with my father's line. they settled quite close to where i live now...just a couple towns away, in fact. i have found a few pictures and have seen pictures of some of the family plots. last night i started to pull up my mom's line on ancestry.com and was thrilled to find that someone has done it for me! they had traced the line back to Canada and England. my father's family came from Ireland. I now want to know where my paternal grandmother's line came from. i was always told she was Scottish, but a quick search didn't pull up anything. i guess i'll have to do actual research to figure her out...library bound!

no better than yesterday...

i posted somewhat of a rant yesterday. well, today was worse. my eyes are red and puffy and my outlook is quite dim to say the least. i really don't want to be a whiner, but i'm about at the end of my proverbial rope.

job prospects did not pan out today as we had hoped they would. we are now packing up our apartment because we can't afford it. tomorrow we will put it all in storage and have no where to go...and no job to get us anywhere. bank account is way in the red due to my hubby's last employer's paycheck bouncing. i guess when we run out of gas money (this weekend) we will be sitting wherever we stop, staring at each other!

i'm praying for a miracle...

my american dream…

I was one of those people who once bought into the “american dream.” then I realized it was all a crock of crap that the government has been trying to tie us down with since the beginning. Is it really our dream to be in debt to mortgage companies, credit card companies, landlords, tax collectors, etc? I think NOT. even if you buy your house and are fortunate enough to pay it off before you die, you never really own it. try not paying your property taxes and you will quickly find out who really owns “your” house!

when the bottom fell out of my hubby’s industry a few years ago I decided it was time for me to go back to school. I have completed 3 years now with 2 years to go. now, almost on a daily basis we remind ourselves that our situation will be better….someday. I am so damned tired of waiting for someday.

when will it ever be our turn? I mean I’m not asking for much. i want a steady job for both of us, a decent place to live where I can build projects and plant flowers. I want my kids to be able to come for dinner on sundays and sit around the table laughing and loving each others company. I want to be able to afford gas for my car, food in the fridge and the occasional date night. THAT IS MY AMERICAN DREAM!!

pallet scrap tray…

hubby and i tore apart an old pallet project today and i was left with a small pile of scrap wood. so, as i was standing there looking over my junk pile i recalled a tray that i had seen somewhere and decided to make a cute little accent piece. i dragged the branches out of our brush pile to make the handles. i need to find some thicker chunks for attaching the handles to the tray, but in the mean time, i think it's pretty cool :)

 

 

on the road…

well, we set out last monday for a road trip. it has now been eight days out and I have to say that I am anxious to get back home. I used to really enjoy these trips but the glossiness seems to have worn off…

I do enjoy heading southwest though. we originally were thinking we’d be going to north carolina and heading back to maine. however, as often happens, we were redirected to laredo, tx. I haven’t been to texas in quite awhile so I was looking forward to it.

I saw lots of prickly pear cactus, which are my favorite cactuses :) I also saw an oil pump which is always kinda cool. the weather was super hot and very different from maine! we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, although I did see a poor little armadillo dead on the side of the road. come to think of it, I’ve never seen a live armadillo.

we took our cat, princess fiona, with us. she found cozy little spots in the truck to hide away. occasionally she graced us with her presence by sitting on the dash while we were driving.

oh, I have to tell you about the restaurant we stopped at in louisiana! they had the usual burgers and steaks and whatnot, then I noticed a card on the table advertising the special of the day…GATOR BURGERS! now I am aware that people in different parts of the country eat local delicacies, but alligator? I wasn’t have any part of it. I had the chicken fingers :)

we are now in louisville, ky heading back north. I’m ready to get home and start building lots of stuff to sell at the flea market!

Head on over and "like" me on Facebook :)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Cherry-Blossom-Kind-of-Life/248855805155399

sunshine & valium…

finally, some nice weather has graced us here in coastal maine! been a blah week; I didn’t get any new projects done. I am planning to set up a booth at the flea market in a couple weeks so I need to get my buns in gear and get some things built. it will be my first time selling my creations in person so

I’m sure I will feel inadequate and unworthy of sales… however, my darling husband has offered to do the market with me. whew! he’s terrific help with everything I do so it should go well.

school is now done for the summer. I’m super excited to be done. this last semester kicked my *ss. back in the fall. to celebrate my achievement I impulsively decided to color my hair…pink :) I’m not certain that I love it, but I definitely stand out! it works out well because I am going to a concert tomorrow night (godsmack & staind) so the pink hair should work. I’ll let you know how it goes…I’m hoping not to find myself in any mosh pits.

whew...

wow, i am tired! today has been a super busy day and i'm so looking forward to bedtime :) the day started with an early visit from my mother-in-law, my daughter and my sweet little granddaughter. it was a nice visit. after they left around 11am my husband started packing up getting ready to leave for his week on the road. off he went at noon :'(

then after all the excitement i was alone...so, i started working. i have been a little busy in my etsy store in the last couple weeks (yay). i had to finish sanding and painting three step stools, then i scrubbed labels off wine bottles and painted one set

black and, just for kicks, painted another set green white and orange to show my Irish pride. i updated my etsy account, made dinner, ate and now here i am!

shower and pj's are next on my to do list. i have to try to wash some of this paint off my hands, and forarms, and toes...lol

shutter fun...

i recently mentioned some old red shutters that i planned on working with soon...well i finally did something with them :) Four of them got painted light pink and went up on the wall behind our bed as a headboard...love it.

i had two more so i decided to pull out my ever favorite chalkboard paint and have a go at it. as you can see, i painted the border white and used the chalkboard paint in the middle. i like it. i'm putting in in my etsy shop and see if anyone else likes it too :)

my favorite obsession...

i have had a pretty good day today all-in-all. i miss my other half; he is away :( i had a crappy night sleep last night. i tossed and turned and woke up sweaty. gross, i know :) anyway, i got up and got motivated! i went to the post office and mailed out an etsy order then i came home and started building two new step stools. i felt good being out in the sun with my power tools. things have been very stressful around here lately and i needed to feel better.

see those red shutters in the back? those are a project in waiting. i am going to paint them pale pink and hang them above my bed. by the way...i have the best husband for lots of reasons but, he is awesome because he doesn't care that our bedroom is all pink and girlie :) thank you honey!

in the middle of my stool project my daughter and granddaughter dropped in. my granddaughter is my favorite obsession :) i adore that child so much it hurts (but in a good way)! she is such an amazing kid. i suppose we all say that about ours but i'm positive she is pretty much the smartest two year old in the history of two year olds :) they stopped at the mall today and visited the easter bunny and brought me a pic...love it. she's being a little goofy, but he is a really big bunny to a little bitty girl!

life is hard, but i'm focusing on the sweets bits...

foot prettiness...

is prettiness a word? i think not, but that's what i'm going with anyway! i recently thought it would be fun to try my hand at a little jewelry making. i am a barefoot kina girl so naturally i thought a pretty little foot jewelry was just the ticket. what i found out...

1. it is very tedious
2. i don't have very good lighting in my kitchen
3. not as fun as it looks

while i think the foot thingy is pretty i will NOT be making another one any time soon. it was too time consuming to be fun for my instant gratification self. i am working on a bracelt though, which is going much quicker. the stretch cord that i used on the foot thing was too hard for me to work with, but the bracelet wire is much easier.

dry sink...

hubby and i recently picked up a dry sink. i've been wanting one for a long time, but never came across one for a cheap good price. i found this one on craigslist and really like it. it is painted white at the moment so i think i will be repainting is to match better in our kitchen. not sure if i will go with a nice primitive red or primitive green.

i have a shoe box half full of wine corks and i thought they would like pretty darn cool as a surface cover on the dry sink. i glued the corks (cut in half) onto sheets of cork then set the sheets onto the surface. i didn't want to permanently adhere the corks to the dry sink as this would be a nightmare if i changed my mind later (which i often do).
i love how it came out :) we are now using it as a liquor cabinet so the wine corks seem ever more appropriate!

a love story...

hmmm...letting some personal thoughts spill out today because i need a little self therapy.

my adorable hubby and i have been together almost nine years. we both feel absolutely blessed to have found each other. we are a perfect match. but, i realized today that we have become very comfortable in our relationship. comfort is not a bad thing. it is a really nice warm feeling to be comfortable but...

i suddenly realize that i don't do the little thing i used to do to make him feel special. i used to leave him little notes, pick him up little gifts so he would know that i was thinking of him even when we weren't together, etc. a couple months ago i made an I love you because... frame. i hung it in the bathroom and we used it a lot. i love the little notes that he leaves me and i love it when he takes the time to leave a thought for me.

as of today, i don't think i'm doing enough. as many couples in todays economic world we have tons to worry about and lots on our minds. i want to get back to where i am fully aware of how lucky i am, in spite of our worries, to be married to my best friend.

ahhh spring...

it has been an amazingly warm winter here in maine and spring is no exception. we had highs in the 70's this week, which is unheard of. i am absolutely loving it! our summer's are so short here that i will take every single extra nice day we can get.

we really enjoy like sitting outside around a crackling fire. we moved to our current place in october which usually would not have stopped us from burning as we usually burn year round. but, for some reason we didn't bother setting up a fire pit...until today!

hubby and i bought one of those bowl pits from walmart then we took a ride down to a local gravel pit and found some perfect rocks for our project.

after we hauled a few home, hubby started to surround the hole he dug with the rocks. after surrounding the hole he poured some smaller rocks into the pit.

the only thing left to do was to set the pit into the hole, sit back and enjoy!

bring on the fire...

more pallet furniture...

i woke feeling a bit crabby this morning. my hubby did something that caused me to cringe...it happens. i got up made some coffee and decided that i wasn't going to waste my day brooding over something that i can't change.

so, i grabbed some tools and heading into the back yard to build myself a new bench for the yard. i've made a couple others and sold them leaving us nothing to sit on! i started by tearing apart my pallets and sorting the usable wood. then me and hubby went to work on the bench.

it really was just one of those days...first the screw heads kept breaking so i decided to pre-drill the holes. then the bit broke...errr 1st trip to the hardware store i bought some wood screws that were more heavy duty than the ones i had been using. came home, started to screw in the new screw and it broke!! what the @#$%^?

next trip to the lumber yard. i bought eight 2x4 studs. brought the studs home and started the whole project over again. We cut the 2x4's and started assembling again. this worked much better. within a little while the frame was made and we started on the seat and back. i adapted my design for this bench making it lower to the ground. i also went with a staggered height for the back. i really, really like this design.

when the bench was done hubby went in because he's been sick with a cold and needed to lay down. i started to pick up the tools when hubby told me not to leave 2x4's outside. hmmmm, idea...

i decided that since everything was already out i would build a table to sit in front of the bench. yay! it worked up super fast and i had just enough scraps to cover the top. i love it and am thrilled to have a seat in the yard again!

toy box...

i have been wanting to build a wooden toy box for my grandbaby for quite awhile now. her toys have been piled up in the corner of my livingroom for months, yuck. so i thought about what style of box i wanted... i didn't want something plastic or press wood. i decided on using pallet wood...just because i love pallet wood!

my hubby did most of the work on this project, which was pretty nice actually. i told him what i was thinking and he did it; imagine that?!

well, now the box is done and loaded with toys. it is a bit bigger than i had imagined and hubby didn't want to put a cover on it cuz he though she might get hurt on it. i plan on looking at it for awhile and then deciding if it will be re-purposed into a fire wood bin :)

i'll post pics soon.

Whew...

School is now in session! I just started my spring semester and I'm digging in with determination. I'm taking a class that I am intimidated by...microbiology. I am also taking pharmacology which I think will be very interesting. I suppose bio will be too, but much more complicated.

I have also started a new job. I am working overnights so it doesn't mess with my school schedule. So the crazy schedule begins! But I'm not complaining. Life is good; I adore my little family, paychecks are coming and Im enjoying school.

But, right now I need to do homework so I gotta run!

wow that was scary...

okay i pride myself on software knowledge but i really have no idea about the guts that reside in my laptop. recently, my laptop starting overheating and shutting down. well, i can't have that. my plan was to take it to the geek squad tomorrow and have them check it out. however, i am a very impatient person and like to solve problems on my own so...

i googled it! so i got a diagram of how to dig deep and get to the fan. i was able to get it all apart, i cleaned a big lint ball out of the fan and put her all back together. it turns on! success. i'll have to wait a little while to see if the fan kicks in or if it shuts down but i'm proud of myself for taking on the challenge. so now, if it doesn't work, i can tell the geek squad that i already cleaned the fan and they will be so impressed...right?!!

i love an irish pub...

hubby and i had a blast the other night! we stopped at our favorite local pub feile here in wells. i love the building this restaurant/pub is in. it was built approx 1800. i love old buildings they have so much character.

i wore my best pirate boots (yes, i said pirate! i bought these in the clearance halloween section. i often shop in the halloween section) and braved the wind and snow...perhaps not the best combo but i do have a goal of wearing heels more often :) so off we went.

our friend tom was bartending and he's an excellent bartender; always suggesting great new beers plus he makes kickass cosmos.

we had some irish nachos which were amazingly delicious. then we made some new friends while we listen to silly people do karaoke. now i have been known to partake in the karaoke, but luckily i didn't go that way friday night. believe me, it isn't pretty!

so anyway, i highly recommend stopping in feile's if you are in the area.

brrrr....

it's getting pretty cold up here in the northeast and i've been needing a scarf so i took a swing into michael's crafts and found some beautiful chunky soft yarn that was perfect for a scarf. i also grabbed a size K crochet hook. i brought it all home and sat in from of the TV tuned my favorite afternoon past time...judge judy :)

i worked this scarf up in just a few short hours and i absolutely love it. it is super soft and warm. my daughter saw it today and loved it so i will be back at michael's tomorrow for another batch of yarn.

list of lists

i have decided that there is way too more about me than simply crafts. i have lots of facets and i've decided to change the blog to reflect many of the things that bring beauty and happiness into my life.

in my pursuit to change things up here at the blog i have added a page called list of lists. i have started the page by creating a list of goals for the new year. i'm not big into resolutions so that's not what its about. it is about living the fullest life i can with what i've been blessed with.

so, check it and leave a comment on your goals for the year. i'd love to hear from you!

i'm loving feedback...

cough...

i had such high hopes for this past week. i wanted to create some new projects, pack away the christmas decorations, get the tree outside and the like. then i got sick :( i was able to get a couple things done. i made a step stool so i can climb up into our awesome bed (check out the post on the new bedframe). I got the tree outside and vacuumed needles out of the rug multiple times :) i had my beautiful, amazing, and brilliant granddaughter over for a night. then it happened...i developed a horrendous cold/flu and was down for the next three days. i was completely miserable, but i'm finally over the hump and getting better. although i did think i was going to puke in walmart today :b thankfully that didn't happen. i'm looking forward to a new year...i'm looking forward to an adventurous year! peace & love