Creative Chaos

Soup, Sniffles and Storms.........

A peek at the big storm of 2008 from my studio window......

Brrrr.....A big cold storm is moving through San Diego. Baton Down the Hatches and grab your thermal blanket....because it's cold and wet, baby!!! Of course, this is the top news of the day since we don't get much of a change in weather here.  Anyone from the Midwest would crack up at our rain reports.  What garners a "top of the news" story here wouldn't even get as much as a glance in the weather segment there.  But, here in San Diego we get "team coverage" in all parts of the county with reporters telling us breaking news like...."Well, Hal, it's pretty wet over here."......."the rain is still coming down, Kimberly." ....."Stan, I've got rain falling on top of me"......

Flowers doing their best to stay warm and dry from the ferocious elements outside......

It's so ridiculous......Anyway, since it's been so rainy and cold (relatively speaking of course for all my Midwestern and east coast friends...) and since we have all been sick with various colds and coughs here, I've been in the mood for some chicken soup.   When it comes to my chicken soup, I can be pretty much of a snob.  It has to be homemade.  Not "taste like homemade."  But, a real homemade chicken stock.

Edited to add......Although I wish I could say this was my picture of my homemade soup, it's the photo from the book....However, if I were to use my own picture, I'm sure it would look exactly like that......down to the perfectly placed limes and cilantro..... :) 

I have a wonderful recipe that I use from recipe book "A Gringo's Guide to Authentic Mexican Cooking" by Mad Coyote Joe .  I bought the book about a year ago in hopes of improving the Mexican flavor of my cooking for my husband. (That's a whole other post...) Although there are many great recipes to be had in the book, the "Sopa de Limon Y Cilantro" is my favorite.  I made it the other night and it was soooo good.  I do a couple variations on it, like I substitute Chipolte chili peppers for the poblano chile or sometimes I leave out the lime and put a bit of sour cream in it to cut the heat of the chili.  Perfect for cold, blustery weather.  I was going to put the recipe up for you but I had a feeling that's probably against some sort of blogging, internet copyright rules......

Since I still don't have anything crafty of my own to post, I took some more pictures of my recipe book to share......Enjoy!

This is from Phyllis of Shabby in the City........

This is from Deb Hardy of Deliciously Evil .........

   

The next one is from Cheryl at From the Pines ........

Panama Canal is from Pinky Denise of Pink Pomegranate ......

Cherries on a Cloud from Barbara Burkard.......

This one is from Kris Malone........

Strawberry Spinach Salad is from Betty at She's Sew Pretty.........

Self-reflection amongst the gluesticks........

I did a bit of thinking the other day and came to the conclusion as to what kind of crafter I am.  Mixed-media, you say......Paper Artiste?....... Paint by numbers? possibly.......Maybe, crafter extraordinaire?  ......Well, it's none of the above.  I came to the stark cold realization that I am what you call a "Beat the Clock" crafter.  As in, I only have so much time on the clock for creating, sooooooo I better make good use of it.  Plus, I'm lazy....but more on that later......

(Sad, lonely, in progress, valentines that never made it out the door)

Anyway, I realized this the other week as I had a couple luxurious hours to myself.  And, after I talked myself out of some mundane, yet, much needed to be done tasks, such as catching up on the laundry, cleaning the moldy leftovers out of the refrigerator, or wading through a stack of bills that needed to be entered into Quicken, I decided to treat myself to some creative time.   But, for some reason, this time it didn't feel like a "treat"....I felt more like a deadline. A deadline with no actual goal. And, no idea when I would have time like this again. I needed to accomplish an entire month's worth of crafting into 3 precious hours.  I felt pressure between getting things I needed to get done....with things I wanted to get done, such as the journal I've been dying to get started on.   As I sat at my desk staring at my supplies for a good 30 minutes dealing with the never ending struggle between starting a "just because I'm in the mood for it" tussie mussie..........or, working on items to sell in my long neglected Etsy shop that for all I know has been shut down and reopened as a Buddy's Bar & Grill......and, finishing the valentine hearts I started a week ago (that at this writing still haven't been finished), I realized with so little time comes so much self-imposed pressure to not waste any of it. 

(Tussie Mussie....trying to break free)

So, therefore, by demanding of myself not to waste one precious moment of those hours, I managed to waste every single second of them.  Every. Single. One.  I got nothing done except to hop from project to project starting one thing and then deciding 5 minutes into it my time would be better spent on something else.  Before I knew it, the boys were home. My time was up. And I got nothing done. Arrrrgggg.....

On the same note, I found the blog of Rebecca Sower whose work I adore.  She wrote a post about "disconnecting" everything and just getting to work.  It sounded all well and good. However, my dilemma was trying to figure out where the on/off switch was on my children.  I haven't been able to find it as of yet.  So what I did was the opposite of her suggestion, and plug back in the DVD player and put in another round of Thomas the Train's Milk Shake Muddle.......sigh....

Since I obviously don't have anything of my own to share let me show you some of the wonderful things that I have received in the mail.......

Mary from Oh Merci sent this to me just because!  It was such a wonderful surprise and so heartwarming to find a little something in the mail just for me!  I just adore Mary and everything she creates!!!

And I also got a valentine from Jeanne of Dream Create Inspire......She is one of the sweetest bloggers out there!  I've been lucky enough to be involved with some swaps with Jeanne and so glad that I've gotten to know her!!!

Again, it's so nice to find a little something that is addressed in handwriting to me that doesn't include the words "date due"......

Also, here is the cover of my Sweet Treat Recipe Book from the swap I did hosted by Karla and Beth......

You have to understand that both Beth and Karla made ALL the book covers.  I feel as though I am in possession of an art piece that will be handed down the generations.  It contains 40 pages of recipes that were contributed by various artists and bloggers.  The tag was made by Lolly of Lollynestegg.  Isn't it adorable!?!? If you want a chance to see more you can go to the Flickr site. All the covers are pictured as well as the recipe cards.

Here are a few more pictures from the book.....

Beth's page.....

Karla's page....

Tamy's page..... The page has actual glass glitter on it.....

Sarah's page

Karla from Sugar Bear.......

Lolly's page and tag.....

Look at this one from Adeline Country Cottage.....

I'll be posting more pictures soon! 

First things first.....

I have to show you this photo I snapped last night.   This picture is titled "A Slave to his Art" or "Sleep will not stop me from coloring and creating a future where trains will be the main mode of transportation" or, more apropos..... "I didn't take a nap today so I fell asleep on my sticker book at 6:50 pm while mommy was checking her emails and asking big brother what I was doing to which he answered "coloring" even though my head was face down on on the page and the marker was in the carpet."

I swear I'm going to do a whole scrapbook on places where he falls asleep.  As you can see I already predicted an early bedtime because pajamas were already in place for both him and Carlos by 6:30.  And, I was in bed by 8:15.  It was an early night for all of us.

So I wanted to finally finish my story about Jury Duty or otherwise know as "A Day off for Mommy." I'll just intersperse it with some fun pictures that I did for a Winter Bella and Sweet Bella projects, so that if you get bored with my blathering of "Jury Duty....a tale of relaxation" you have something fun to look at. 

So, it all begins with receiving the Jury Duty Notice in the mail. Very, very exciting day for me. It's  letter for which I've been waiting for a looong time.  The problem earlier was that I could never do it because of childcare issues.  But now that my mom is retired, I can actually serve on a jury.  I was so ready.  I cleared my calendar.  Canceled all important business meetings (which was fairly easy as I had no important business meetings to cancel).  Told the head of Chaos Industries that he would be in charge for an indefinite amount of time. He then in turn immediately started planning the in-house work parties.

Told everybody within earshot to not depend on me on that day.......They said they weren't anyway.  Marked the day with lots of stars, arrows and happy faces and impatiently waited until the 5th of February arrived.

It finally did.  I hopped out of bed and got ready for my important social and community obligation.  The County of San Diego was depending on me and my extensive knowledge of legal issues based on my years of watching Judge Judy and Law & Order.    I knew, as they would soon know, that if there were ANY cases involving broken apartment leases, unpaid cell phone bills, car loans that had been defaulted by ex-boyfriend who broke up with girlfriend whose name was on documents,  neighbors who have bratty kids next door whose parents are clueless,  girlfriend loaning money to boyfriend who moved in with her after only knowing her for two weeks who said it was a gift, women with 7 kids by six fathers, and last but not least, people who have never had a checking account in their life and pay only in cash whereby making it impossible to show proof of payment........Well, I'm their gal!  I know the law back and forth on all these cases.  They may even want me to do more than one jury case.....I could possibly be asked to be put on the Grand Jury......

So, I began to get ready.  I tried to figure out which outfit would convey....I'm on top of all legal issues and here to serve you, yet didn't scream...."I'm a mom who doesn't get out much and way overdressed for the occasion."   I decided on a pair of jeans and black top from Target.  I felt it made a statement.  Plus, it's my only "going out in the public" outfit I own.   Anyway, I packed my bag full of books, magazines, notebook (for great blog stories that would plop down next to me while I waited), sketchbook, cellphone and snacks (which currently is still melted at the bottom of my purse. Don't, and, I repeat, don't put an open box of Jr. Mints in your purse and forget about them. It's not pretty...it's sticky).  I also seriously considered how they would feel about me setting up a little craft table with all my supplies so I could get my Hippity Hop Swap items done.  However, figured that it would probably be considered a security issue and nixed the idea.  I also tried to convince my husband that the summons was actually for an overnight case and I would be spending the night, and possibly the week, at the Sheraton downtown. He didn't believe me. 

So, off I went. Sat there all day. Read an entire Michael Connelly book. And never got called to a courtroom.

End of story.

It's a tragedy really....for both the community and the legal system. 10 years of watching Judge Judy down the drain. Not to mention all those nights I could have gone to bed early but stayed up to find out the final twist on Law & Order SVU. I was resentful all evening.  I told my husband they lost out on the best juror they would ever have.  He told me jury service is random.  I looked at him like he was an idiot and said I was the most qualified....He told me I need to get a life..... whatever. Civilian. 

I was so ready to serve on a case and never even got the opportunity.  Oh, well. Maybe it's for the best.  I probably would have gotten carried away with myself and yelled "You're an idiot" to the defendant.  Or, second guessed the judge by telling him "that's not what Judge Judy would have done." 

The good thing is I did have time to get some projects done and Carlos ended up having an ear infection this week.  So I guess it all worked out for the best....Talk to you soon!! Karin

A little slice of heaven..........

better known as Jury Duty for the day.   

But first, let me explain where I've been since last Thursday.  The internet connection has been playing nice since what is now known as  "LOST internet connection Thursday".  Which is good since I wasn't able to go out and get a modem because of still sick kids, sick husband, sick me, gifts that needed to be created, sleep that needed to be had, wash that needed to be done, and, most importantly, desk that need to be cleared off since before Christmas because of impending doom and inevitable crash according to person who built it that I so happen to live with.

So......Now you see it......

Now you don't......

He blathered on about having to attach some supports because, apparently, after whipping out his tape measure, he discovered that the center of the table had fallen by 1 1/4 inches.  I then had to listen to a (might I add rather boring) speech about tables crashing.....people injured.....OSHA regulations, compulsive hoarding and complete and utter mayhem that was in my immediate future if I was not to clean this table off immediately.  I said....fine.  Frankly, I needed an excuse to clean it anyway.  Because it was still in the same state of a complete disaster as when I first showed you the picture back in mid Janury. 

So I cleaned......

And I organized....

And I organized some more.....

Children tried to escape having to be put to work citing Child Labor Laws....

I refused to listen to his complaints, told him to write it up in triplicate and put him back to work.

And then I sorted silk ribbon by color.....

And, arranged flowers on top of shelves......

And when all that was over and done with, I felt a renewed sense of motivation from organizing and cleaning everything.  And, most importantly, it felt good having a space on the table in which to work.  oh, and, finding almost all of my scissors!!!

So here are some of the things I worked on over the weekend.......

I made this for a friend whose daughter is having a baby girl.

 

The fabric on the bottom is some new fabric I got last week......

In order to make these for my cabinetdoorless bottom shelves in the kitchen.....

I am almost finished with this winterbella project........that looks nothing like the project presented.  I'm such a crafting rebel.

In the back you can see the beginnings of some little fabric projects that I started but haven't even come close to finishing......

Hopefully, I will have all my Valentine projects done by Easter.

Ok.....I think I will do my Jury Duty experience tomorrow.  I'm feeling rather motivated to get that Valentine project done so I can post it.....Talk to you soon!  Karin