~~ Shame ~~ Shame ~~ Shame ~~ Everybody knows yer name...

Well...tha's one of the sayings that I often heard when trying to explain away some event that I'd somehow over looked, or blew off -- or jus' flat out forgot...

It isn't that I forgot to get something on this blog for OVER A WEEK -- it's jus' that there have been -- les' see....24,596 other things that have come up -- happened -- occured -- all that and more. Then -- out of the blue, one of our "friends" suddenly popped up with a new girlfriend, never mind about the wife back home an' all of that...jus'came over to the house with new "friend" like there was nothing out of the ordinary...got to admit, a lawyer would have a field day with that lil' occurance...I'd just come in the door from retrieving something that I'd left at the grocery store, in the shopping cart, so I was already NOT in a good mood...an' the WIND was blowing me all over the place...so my temper was less than short...my mood matched the black-inky dark night (it was after 8 p.m. at this point) and then there were probably 2,890 bad drivers on the road in the short mile-and-a-half from the grocery store to my house...an' I drive up to see this CAR in my driveway, an' my mind is sudenly a whirling dervish...Walk in the house an' WHAM -- see all this nonsense at my dining room table...

Well -- there have been so terribly much more THANGS happening around here, but this is not the afternoon to rant....I'm trying to limit the rant-ness to less than 4 times a week around the house, an' figure that the rant-less I am in the house, then by all that's right an'; spiffy, there sh0uld be less on my blog, too -- SO -- that being said...I've gotten a LOT more accomplished on the ART side of life...I'm thinkin' that there must be some kind of muse that's set up shop jus' over my right side, who's gettin' me into the creative drive that I'm sure has never occured before. I got up the nerve to finally get some of my work framed...I've applied hanging wire to the back of all my collage pieces to this point, but recently I'd taken pieces of my work to a local shop, an' the shop owner wants them in her place (!!) but I have to frame them. I'd been afraid to do this...why, I've no idea, but when I realized that there are frames deep enuf to gather all my piece an' extra goodies on them, then it jus' came down to what size I needed to get . A quick drive to the art/craft store was the EASY part...the hardest part was gettin the frame that I thot would look best for each piece...so they aren' t cookie-cutter looking. And once I got the first frame, then it seemed that all this NEW stuff has suddenly jus' started bubblin' up from somewhere that I didn't even know existed...SO -- the finished pieces will go into the newly bought frames, then the works in progress will get finished over the weekend, an' framed probably by the first part of next week!! That's so much fun!!

I'm also gettin' the vibe for SPRING!!! -- While I work on my various pieces..there is sometimes out of the BLUE one of the Surf Tunes poppin' up in my head...usually when Istart to gather pieces of collage paper that happen to have water designs, or if I gather some pieces of Shells, Fish...whatever the piece seems to call for...In the last month or so, one of the Beach Boy's songs was floating around in my head..."We've Been Havin' Fun all Summer Long..." -- this while I was trimming some blue shaded pieces of cardstock...I usually have some music playin' in the studio, but it seems when the radio isn't on, then these ol 60's songs jus' come floating back to me. An' especially when the Mermaids start to get more developed while I'm sketching them out ~~ WHOA!! ~~ Then the Beach Music really kicks in... An' the weather man sayin' that the temps are "suppossed" to be warming up "like just before the spring temps will arrive" -- Ohh...I'm all about the SPRING happening here!! An' with the new work gettin' underway...well..Naturally I'm all about finding some t-shirts in the storage basket...An' if some of those winter pounds have gotten in the way of the t-shirts fittin' like they did last year..well then, that jus' calls for another trip to the thrift store!! HA!! None of that going-to-the-new-store- business...NO!! I'll gladly let some other sap pay the high price for some thing that was sold for over $20....I'll pay the $1.99 thank you VERY much!!

Some craft items have also found there way into the studio in the last couple weeks...I'd tried not to let some lil' items get into the shopping cart not too long ago. But they looked so forlorn jus' sittin' there on the shelf...an' I truly do not like to see SAD things on the shelves of any, an' I mean ANY art/craft store, so NATURALLY they had to come home with me..They will behave nicely an' join in with the other pieces in a collage gettin' together on my lil' craft table -- an' before ya know it ~~ WHAM!! ~~ A whole new piece, filled with joyful happy craft pieces, swayin' to the Surf Music an' havin' a good time lookin' forward to Spring!! Bright colors of BLue paint..some clever cardstock pieces of squares, triangles, rectangles...an' of course, some Fish stamps!! Les' hear it for the arrival of SPRING!! WHOO-HOOO!!

Lady of The Tulips -- who was all about diggin' out last years flip-flops...but had to make a sad face when she realized that she literally "Blew out my flip-flop..." -- the bottom of my most favorite pair of flip-flops came apart one afternoon jus' when I got back home, and realized they were Deader than a Door-nail....very, very sad...