Zumba

I remember about twelve-seventeen years ago that line dancing was all the rage. People went to clubs to learn to line dance. We had line dancing instruction at church functions. We all danced to Boot Scootin Boogie. During this time I realized that I have NO natural dancing rhythm or ability.


Enter children. When my now sixteen year old daughter was five years old I enrolled her in clogging. I wasn't a fan of jazz dancing or the little drill teams. My neighbors family was big into clogging(now known as The Fab Five from America's Got Talent) so I thought that it would be a good fit.

We now have two daughters that clog. They are really very good. They have rhythm and can learn complicated steps. They compete and are always rated very high. My girls can dance!!!

Me? I am still a bundle of two left feet. Our little gym has recently been purchased by a new owner so we have undergone quite a change of schedule. One of those recent changes is the introduction of Zumba. What is Zumba? It is a crazy exercise dance class that has some of the most fun music. There is an entire wave of Zumba classes popping up around the world. The theory is to make working out more fun by incorporating different moves and rhythms. There is salsa moves, hip hop , American hoe down , Calypso and a variety of others.

My friend made me go last week. She told me we had to try it at least once. I was not excited. Not even interested. In fact, if she weren't such a good friend to me I would have never gone. Well, I went and actually enjoyed it! We went again this morning. I sweat in this class as much as a spinning bike class! I am dripping wet when we are finished.

Guess what? I still can't dance!!!

This is life.

I am always saying that I am busy. However, I never really seem to get much accomplished. My dishes are always in need of attention, my counters need wiped clean-again. My toilets need scrubbed(thanks to a little five year old boy), there are Lego's on the floor, there is laundry to do(someday I am going to make everyone go around naked for an entire day so that I can have everything washed at one time!!!), homework to check, bills to pay, pictures to print and put in albums, walls to paint, closets to organize, baseboards to scrub. The list never really ever changes.

I am trying to accept that THIS IS LIFE! It seems that it totally stresses me out because I am constantly in motion but the messes and chaos are always still around. I need to get to where I know that as long as we are moving forward and we don't need an industrial sized dumpster(very often) that I am doing alright. Life is full of messes, we eat everyday, we wear clothes everyday. My little five year old boy will soon grow up and not have Lego's, shoes, coats, bears, swords and fish spread across my floor. I will always have dust and dirt that comes into my house. It is all PART OF LIFE. I need to accept that the messes that come because we are living are not because I am not doing my part. My part it to keep it to a dull roar. As long as we can walk and are trying faithfully every single day to teach our children to work and to be kind we are doing what we need to be doing.

Will someone please remind me of this when I am complaining again?

Tidbits of Information

(Mr. Sweetness and I on top of Chich'en-Itza-2003)

MissE brought home a Weekly Reader magazine. I have always loved Weekly Reader. I am an information junkie. I love to read articles about people and places, ideas and philosophies. I am one of those annoying people that will be able to tell you something about almost anything--at least that is what my husband and children think. In reality, I know a smidgen of information about a million different things. Jack of all trades, Master of none---as my Mom always tells me!

In this Weekly Reader magazine there was an article about the Mayan Indians and their way of life. It had pictures and descriptions of Chich'en-Itza'(Mayan pyramid) ---I have personally been there! I climbed up the ninety two itty bitty steps. I felt an actual earthquake while I was on the top of that pyramid! (I was the only one that felt it--it was reported about two hundred miles away) I was so excited to pull out a book that my parents bought thirty years ago when they went and share it with MissE. I opened up this book and had to look for a few minutes. There is more information than I can absorb in that book. However, knowledge grows knowledge. I have been to the top of Chich'en-Itza but I know so little about the culture and life. One more thing to add to my bucket list. I want to go on a Mayan Ruin Tour.

So, I will continue to be an information junkie. Perhaps someday I will actually learn enough about a few subjects that I can talk about them for more than two minutes---or I might become a master at something!!!

Where I sit

Been up since 4:30 am. Have been to the gym where I sweat like a gorilla(do gorilla's really sweat?). I have made breakfast for three, lunch for one, changed laundry( need to fold mt. washmore), showered, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, checked email, read blog reader---

Now I sit here with wet hair half dressed. I still have a list a mile long-it is Monday(although my list is long on Wednesday and Thursday as well).

What do I want to do? Crochet or read my photography book!!

I better get moving on that Mt. Washmore!!

More hats!

Here is my cute darling model-showing of the latest hats that her obsessed mother has created!

I just LOVE the added pearls. These will be on their way to a new home tomorrow.

Any questions or requests just email me.

Teeny tiny itty bitty baby hats

Here are the darling hats I promised! I had to go borrow a baby doll to take the pictures--then I found a real baby down the street. Meet Angle face--she is seven months old---I had to make a different hat for her than the one pictured--it was a bit tight on her sweet head. However, I did adjust the pattern and did make one that will fit sweet Angel face perfectly. There is a big difference between a newborn-3 months and seven months!

Cute little blue baby bear on his way to Sawyer. My little guy want me to put ears on his hat now!

Darling--coming

I have the cutest hats finished!!! I am so excited about them---I just have to photograph them. I need a little babies head to take some cute shots!!!!

Stay tuned for some seriously darlingness!!!!

Hats available

If anyone is interested in purchasing any hats the prices are as follows

Teen/adult womens--$27 + $3 shipping

toddler $17 + $3 shipping

newborn/infant $14 +$3 shipping

I will have new pictures soon--hats are available with or without flowers(flowers $2) Flowers can be a contrasting color, eg. brown hat with a pink flower or with a flower from the same color, eg. pink on pink.

right now the colors available are soft baby pink, dusty blue, cream, dark lavendar, dusty green and dark brown.

I am still setting up an etsy shoppe--in the mean time please contact me through my email on the side bar.

Craziness

Note to self: Walmart SuperCenters are crazy on a Saturday afternoon---avoid at all costs!

Teeny tiny itty bitty

I am just loving yarn!!! Last night I made the most darling newborn hat! Look at that tiny itty hat!! Now look at it next to the pink one--which is a full size hat for an adult woman's head. I just want to make more little ones--anyone have any little tiny babies in need of hats?

The little green hat is for a larger baby up to about a three year old. I haven't embellished these yet. I am so excited to begin, I actually bought some beads and sparkles that I am going to add to the flowers.

Sparkly Sparkly

More Sparkly Goodness!! Yesterday I got to go and visit my bff and finish our "Inspiration necklaces" that we started at Spark! It was so much fun. I have never done any jewelry work so it was a totally new experience for me.

The premise of this piece is for us to make a memento that reaches us, touches us, expresses us. I am so excited about the result. It is definitely a unique piece---I think that it will be quite a conversation piece when worn. I just love all the little hanging things, the pictures, beads, words. A very different approach to expressing who we are.

(if you want to read about Spark! the event---read here)

Yarn, yarn and more yarn.

I think that I have gone mad. Mad Hatter type of mad! I just returned from Joann's craft store with SIXTEEN skeins of yarn!!! I have no desire to read my book for book club--I have barely gotten into it and just can't seem to put down the hook and yarn!!!

I still wonder if anyone would purchase a hat if I opened an etsy shoppe. I have just been having loads of fun making them. It took me almost 20 hats to really understand what I was doing incorrect to the pattern!!!

I will survive!

Monday morning---I may survive! My nose is raw, grossly so. I am still stuffy but not nearly as much. So--I may live.

Sick

I have a cold--a really awful cold. However, noone seems to notice when the Momma is sick!

Lotioned Kleenex,anyone?

Endless pit!

Socks!

I remember when I was first married. We went to visit our friends who were some years older. Their children were young teens at the time. We had no children. Their 13 year old daughter had been hired by a neighbor to help with laundry. They explained that the Mom had gone back to school and had four children at home. She was drowning in her laundry. So, enter Stephanie. Her Dad drove to the laundry room door and they loaded loads and loads of laundry into the pick-up and headed home to start washing, drying, ironing and folding. Kent( the dad) was sitting there in his big recliner with a large upright laundry basket---full of folded socks. Overflowing---with socks. I couldn't imagine actually having that many socks for one family!

I am now that Mom that can't fold her own socks! We have had two round baskets overflowing with socks for --well, much too long---having to dump and dig every single day to find a pair of socks. Repeat this by six people and there were constantly stray socks spread around the room.

Folding socks is at the very, very bottom of my priority list. It is far below cleaning toilets, wiping fan blades, baseboards, or digging weeds. I just do not like to fold socks.

The problem comes because no one else in my house has the capacity to look at two socks and tell if they match if they are both whitish. They fold two pair and walk away.

Today was the day. I sat on my living room floor and folded socks. And folded, and folded and folded.

Anyone want to take over this job?

Imperfectly Perfect

Wow-it is already January 6, 2010 TWENTY TEN---doesn't that just sound so cool? A new year, a new decade, a new start.

I have been really trying to formulate a plan in my mind. I know things that I want to work on. The problem for me is that I struggle with the whole New Year's Resolution thing. Shouldn't we start working on things whenever we feel we need to? Having said that I still feel the draw of the New Year. I just want to improve my life--improve myself.

I always want to improve myself, I am often feeling a bit out of sorts. Like I am watching the merry-go round go around and around with everyone on it and I just can't seem to get the timing right to jump on. I felt this way profoundly last winter. I have struggled with Seasonal Affective Disorder for years. This is a mildly depressing condition that is totally brought on by lack of sunlight in the winter time. Last winter was the longest darkest winter of my life. I was not depressed in the typical sense. It was as if there was a huge dark blanket over me that I couldn't free myself from. I couldn't make myself get out of bed any earlier than absolutely necessary. Once I was freed from the beds clutches I was fine, boring, but fine. I taught preschool, took care of my family--but I clearly felt that something was missing.


It is January 6, 2010 and I have been getting out of bed at 4:30 AM three times a week for a few months! Me, the person who's bed sucks them in and wraps them up and throws away the key! Me! I have been getting up and exercising. Last year, my bed grabbed me about Thanksgiving and didn't let go until about April.

Thanks to some friends who are going at the crazy early hour we are going. I told my friend that I needed her to continue to come and be at my house at early o'clock, so that my bed didn't suck my back in. She told me that she would keep coming, it helps her too.

Why all the information about my crazy exercise schedule? I have realized what was missing
in my life. It is not exercise. Exercising has made it possible for me to KNOW what is missing.
Exercising regularly has helped me figure out what was missing. Last summer I started trying to run. I ran very regularly all summer. I got up to four miles. It was hard every single time, although it did get easier. When school started I started back to the gym taking lots of different types of classes. Then I started to notice something. It wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting to get a smaller rear end. What I noticed was entirely different.

I noticed that I wanted to make things. I pulled out my sewing machine. I pulled out fabric that I had bought a year earlier. I started cutting, sewing, creating. My dining room table was a mound of fabric for weeks. I made a Halloween wall hanging, I bought more fabric, I made Christmas banners--mine first and then six more. I made a Thanksgiving banner, a table runner and then two Christmas wall hangings.

During this time I was also lucky enough to win tickets to Spark! I started reading about the event and the show and tell artists. One of them made darling crocheted hats, scarves and flowers. I wanted to try to crochet again. I hadn't done it for years. I made myself a hat that I took and wore to Spark!! Spark was magical. It is hard for me to put into words what happened at Spark! To a bystander it would have appeared like a crafting event. A bunch of women pulling suitcases around from place to place making things.

It was so much more than a big craft party. Yes, we did learn new processes. Yes, we did make things. But the magic happened because we were able to find our voices. I don't mean that we were all able to suddenly sing like angels(I would love that). I mean that we were able to just remember that we all are creative beings. I have always known this. I have always liked to create fun pretty things. However, in the last ten years I have been stunted in my creativity. I thought that I was stunted because I have been so busy raising my family. That is in part true. I thought that I was stunted because I had mild winter depression. That is in part true as well.

What I realized at Spark! was that I was stunted because I was comparing my creations to other people. I have been subscribing to scrapbook magazines since the very first issue. I have been following scrapbooking "celebrities" for years. I have always been aware of the new styles and new products available. I have been a very busy Mom, so I didn't have much time, however, the deeper story is that I felt like what I was making was not valuable because I was not part of a design team. I was not being published in "the" magazines. I felt overwhelmed because I couldn't keep up with all the changing trends.

So what did I do? I stopped being the creative person that I have always been. I stopped learning new processes because why bother if I wasn't going to be published or if I wasn't going to have a booth to sell what I made.

What I remembered at Spark! was that we are all creative. Some of us use words, some of us design paper, some of us are gifted with a camera,flowers or fabric. There are still others that for some reason are in the "industry" and have lots and lots of companies and people that know who they are and like what they produce. Does this mean that they are of more value than the person that hasn't been published? No, it only means that they have been given a different road to travel. Is one road more important than another? Absolutely not.

When I first read about Spark! I was shocked to find one of the main quotes was from a talk that I have listened to over and over again. Deiter F. Uchtdorf sums up the creative spirit more perfectly than I have ever heard it described:

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of
the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds or abilities we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. Everyone can create. What you create doesn't have to be perfect. Don't let fear of failure discourage you. Don't let the voice of critics paralyze you--whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside." D.F. Uchtdorf

What was missing in my life last year while my bed had its clutches around me was my creative spirit. I had allowed the voice of critics--my own--to discourage me. I had allowed myself to forget that I love to make things, learn new processes and make my own world a more delightful place.

I am so glad that I had to opportunity to attend Spark! and remember what I had known all along.

I am a creative soul, and any way that I create is imperfectly perfect.

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year 2010!!!!

We are enjoying a couple of days in the extra frozen north country.

Trying to formulate in my head where my new year, and new decade is going to take me.