A sun, a car and aging woes.

First of all, thanks to everybody who sent me a personal email complementing my latest decoupage. I feel so special! And I would feel hesitant to continue posting pictures of my latest projects (I really am obsessed) except that I truly believe anybody can do it! I'm not interested in making pictures to sell right now, as I would rather teach others how to do this so that I'm not alone in my obsession. I already have a domain name as well as a web-service to try and accomplish this via a web-site yet will have to soon undergo the huge task of trying to figure out how to build the actual web-site. It may take years. But what I would love to do is have lots of examples posted, instructions on how to make these pictures and then have tons of napkins available for the public to purchase individually. This would be so that one who may become obsessed like me does not have to go out and buy 100 napkins to do a project that only requires 5 napkins total.

Here is a picture of my sun, as it is....for now.

This is not the finished product. Actually, I'm half tempted to paint over it with white and start all over, which is the beauty of decoupage! I may try to touch it up a bit and see but...it's just not what I had envisioned.

We're still trying to sell our house back in Brazil. We were assured by the real estate agent that it would sell BEFORE we had to leave. Here we are a few months later and it still has not sold! It is hard not to get totally discouraged because even if it were to sell today it would be another 2-3 months before getting the money...and that means being in debt that much longer to those who so generously gave us loans. I cannot WAIT to be out of debt. You will read one bold and italicized YIPPEE when these things happen (notice this example was not italicized.)

So our plans to get a family mini-van are put on hold. But God is SO good and provided an unexpected opportunity to spend $500 and get something that will work just fine until then! Take a look....


I do need to brag on my husband just a bit. Did you know he can work on or fix anything? Really, anything. I am SO spoiled to always have decent running vehicles and a home that gets repaired quickly and efficiently (sure hope the next lucky homeowners appreciate that when they buy our house!) And I hope I don't make a lot of women sick by saying this but that so called honey-to-do list is pretty much non-existent in our home. I don't think I've ever made a list for him. And that is because he notices AND fixes the problems before I am aware of the problem in the first place. This could be part of the reason I'm so unappreciative sometimes. He'll be like "hey hun, I fixed the leaky faucet." and I'll be thinking "Leaky faucet? Was it leaking? Which one?" but I've learned the best response is..."wow, great...thanks!" But when I sit back and ponder how spoiled I am in this area I am all the more grateful. Which brings me to the point of this paragraph. I love that we can buy a $500 vehicle because my oh-so-talented husband can fix it up for next to nothing! And this one is a 1997 Land Rover. I've never even been inside a Land Rover before but this one is cool. And it will be really cool when it's all fixed up. For next to nothing. By my wonderful hubby.

There are just two quick things I want to mention before closing this post.

1.) Karis has said so many funny things lately and I can't remember any of them, except one. It was a short conversation between her and her cousin Jagger. It went like this....

Karis: Jagger, are you firsty? (thirsty)
Jagger: No.
Karis: Well, then you can't be my friend.

I have no idea why she said this but it got a few silent chuckles out of me. Although I do hope that she doesn't continue to base her friendships on the apparent thirst of others!

2.) I have 7 months to remain in my 20's. That is it...7 months. So the only thing I can do to truly console myself is to make a resolution that by my 30th birthday I am going to be in better shape and feeling better than I have in 5 years! Which will be fairly easy as I've let things go for...er, 5 years. I have been without my favorite drug sugar for 6 weeks as well as exercised a few times and stayed away from lots of unhealthy carbs. I do plan to bump up the exercise routine a bit as well as contemplate giving up my #2 favorite drug....caffeine.

3.) ok, just one more! I found this site and am still reading this article but I'm very inspired! Once we're settled in our own home I'm going to start trying some of these things out. I would love to have a chemical-free home. So check out this post!

http://backtobasicsbylivinggreen.blogspot.com/2007/09/cleaning-natural-way.html

Addictions.

There are three things I remember being disciplined for as a teenager.

1.) Jumping off of the roof onto our trampoline.

2.) Sneaking out in the middle of the night with friends to T.P. my Aunt's house around the block.

3.) Doodling all over paper while talking on the telephone.

I am sure there are more of them to list but I just don't remember. Events #1 and #2 were one time occurrences. However, event #3 (or should I say eventS) was a normal part of my life. In some ways I take pride in how few times I made my mom cry growing up. But maybe I shouldn't be prideful as the times I did make her cry were usually due to doodling all over an important document that was so conveniently placed on the end table next to the phone. And this happened at least once a week. Why she didn't force me to have my hands strapped down while talking on the telephone I'll never know.

I say that because one of my favorite things to doodle was (and is) pictures of the sun. I really love the sun! I love what it symbolizes. I love what it does. I love how all you have to do is draw a circle with squigglies around it and voila...you have a sun.

And I say that because I also love decoupaging. I thought I was addicted to decoupage while living in Brazil but I've now realized that I only had what some would call a mild case. After finally settling down a bit this week and getting to use some of the 500 napkins I've accumulated in 7 weeks I see that this addiction will hold much more power over me! There are SO many neat tools and napkins to work with here! To keep myself controlled somewhat I am now setting the timer to where I only spend 15 minute increments on a picture at a time. This helps me be a good girl and do the laundry, dishes and play play-dough with my cutie-patootie in-between decoupaging sessions.

And SO I say that because I combined the two aforementioned loves of mine and began a decoupage OF a sun today. It's going to be really cool. Why I used 7 paragraphs to share that bit of information...I don't know. But I'm really excited about my sun decoupage.

Onto a new and off-the-subject subject. I will confess that I've been rather alarmed at how some people stay on facebook ALL DAY LONG. All. Day. Long. How do you do that? And why? What is there to get addicted to?

Lest you think I'm about to bash facebook I will assure you, I am not. I really like facebook (don't love it, mind you, but I do like it). I really enjoy keeping in touch with people that I never would if there wasn't facebook. I think it's awesome to to know who is chatting with who and be able to add a comment to their conversation. It's great! But I still didn't understand (until today) why some people had status updates several times a day. Now I do. And that is because since we have had the most NORMAL week this week than we have in 5 months I've had more time to walk by and glance at the computer. Because of THIS I have left facebook up all day (but showing me as logged out so that other people don't think of me what I previously thought of other people who stayed logged in all day). When I get an extra minute I go hit refresh and read all of the new status updates. It really is cool!

How else would I know that my cousin fell asleep on the couch forgetting her weener dog locked in a crate? Or that my friends in Brazil are battling the thousands of beetles this month? Or that Kimmy beat my mom in scrabble? (way to go Kimbosha!) Please don't think less of me after reading this.

I'm going to interupt this post for about 15 minutes now. brb.

Done with the jabbering for now. Here are a few pictures...

This is the decoupage I did during Karis' nap yesterday. And part of today. Having stencils for the lettering sure does speed up the process!

And here is my sun so far. Sorry that I'm not taking the time to rotate it, save it and then re-upload it.

Uh....I had to take the picture of the potential sun off as two people wrote me and told me that it resembled something different. Something very, very different.

And I have been doing some other things the past few days, which is nice for Karis.