Thank You, Sweet Kitty...
Free Bling Friday Number 40!
Natural Historie's Natural Beauties
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iCraft is Looking Great!
ICraft is a new online venue for selling handmade goods, and I think I’m going to like it! I loaded just a few items on to my iCraft page Friday and checked on some things late this afternoon. When I took a look at the "Browse Products" page, lo and behold, what did I see? My Mariposa bracelet featured! I had to do a screen shot to show you. Top picture is the home page; picture below is the Browse Products page. Pretty cool, huh? Hopefully that’s a good sign for my success on this site. It’s just getting started but there are currently 572 artists and fine craftsmen participating. And they picked my bracelet to go on the browse page out of 572 artists! Can you tell I’m a little excited!?!
And just a follow up to my Easter post below for those you of waiting anxiously to hear about the prize egg... After quite a bit of searching and digging (DH's cousin Chris buried the prize egg about 3 inches deep so it took a lot of "You're hot! You're on fire! The worms are burning!" kind of clues to find it), it was unearthed by DH's 11-year-old cousin Brian. He happily accepted his egg on the head for the $192 pot. Though Sarah was watching from the sidelines with me and Granddad by that point, Livvie was frantically digging with DH right next to Brian and three other kids. She almost had it but the bigger kid won out! Not to worry.....even if she had found it, DH would have taken the egg on the head for her. :-) I hate to admit that in the rush to get out the door this morning, I forgot my camera... Very bummed about that. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend with family.
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A Child's Look at Easter
DH’s extended family has a big Easter gathering down at their lake house in Keystone Heights every year, so we’re looking forward to that. Lots of food, fun, visiting with family, and a very large Easter egg hunt. The property sits on about 20 acres, and every family brings at least two dozen eggs to hide. We usually have about 30 kids participating, with an area of easier to find eggs roped off for the four-and-under bunch. We also do a "prize egg", which is raw and hidden in the big kids section. Everyone puts money in the prize egg pot, and whoever finds the prize egg gets all the money in the pot....right after they get the egg broken over their head! The Granddad (my dad) is even coming up from South Florida for the weekend and going with us! Enjoy your weekend with your families.
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Rock-a-Bye Billy and Quick Tip
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Dogs, Dogs Everywhere!--Krajewski and Ives
...Because it will go so nicely with this dashing little beagle! He's a 10 x 10 original done in acrylics and oils. You see I really do have an addiction! I’ve been collecting Rebecca Ives’ ACEO’s for over a year now and every now and then she’ll post a larger original painting (what's an ACEO?). When this arrived at our door, DH asked when I had ever owned a Beagle, knowing the answer was never. So what, I had to have him anyway. DH and I have been planning on doing some redecorating for a while now…just as soon as we can agree on which couch we like and what color we are going to paint the walls (this discussion has been ongoing for three months now). So as soon as we solve that dilemma, I plan on having a dog art corner where all my lovely little two-dimensional furballs will live. It’s going to be marvelous!
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Thank You for Being a Friend...
Remember that old song? This post has been rattling around in my head for three days now, so I guess I better get it done so I can start sleeping again! I tend to suffer from the opposite of writer’s block…we’ll call it writer’s gush. I had a dream the other night about my dear friend Dennis. (This picture left to right is Susy, Dennis, Lisa and me at one of our state conferences.) The dream was about saying goodbye since he’ll soon be leaving the position he’s in, and we won’t be working together anymore; we’ve worked together for ten years and have become very close friends. It got me thinking about all the great friends I’ve made through my career and the importance of friendships in general. You’ve seen those emails come around, the ones about taking the time to connect with a friend? It really is true, and the older I get, the more important I realize it is.
I think it takes a particular type of person to truly be successful in the work that Dennis and I do. We have to be a little crazy, fairly outgoing, unafraid to get up in front of a large group of people yet still be a very effective counselor one-on-one, and be able to do it all while juggling eight different tasks at the same time…from serving as a shoulder to cry on for a student who’s just broken up with her boyfriend (or just had sex for the first time—I’ve had that conversation half a dozen times now) to explaining yet again to campus administration why you must break fire codes and leave the door to the weight room propped open for the sake of student safety. We are stand-in moms, dads, sisters, brothers, counselors, teachers, mentors, encouragers and rule enforcers all at once. The most successful of us do all that well, and because of our unique line of work, we tend to make some pretty tight bonds. I’ve often heard you make some of your closest, life-long friends in college because that’s a time of such tremendous growth, with new experiences and new responsibilities combined in many cases with being away from Mom and Dad for the first time. I do have several very close friends from college that I still talk to on a very regular basis, now nearly twenty years later. This group that I’ve grown to love from work is much like that….maybe because we were still in that college environment, but as staff rather than students.
There are six of us that became particularly close, and now with Dennis leaving for an entirely different field (he’s getting his doctorate in natural health), I am becoming the Last of the Mohicans. The first four scattered for various reasons….more money, pursuing a doctorate, children. (In this picture, that's me and Jim on the far right with a group of students at Coney Island in New York City.) I’ve shared here before that I’ve been considering a shift over to teaching full-time should the opportunity arise. This is part of the reason. Yes, for the most part, I truly love what I do. I spent Friday writing awards nominations for my students and was reminded why I do what I do; I have a really great group of students this year. Yet I can’t imagine doing this work without this particular group of friends. We’ve grown so much together and shared so much together. We’ve been the perfect sounding boards to share new ideas and vent about frustrations as we’ve all been in the same spot; we’ve helped each other through personal issues and the loss of parents; and we’ve cried together over the loss of a dear friend in a car accident. We’ve even had children about the same time. Like me, Dennis has a little girl who will start kindergarten this fall; Susy has twin boys, born just six months after Sarah and Olivia. Doug has a one-year-old baby girl. Jim’s kids are 9 and 12, and Lisa’s “kids” are all of the feline variety. And we have played together…my, how we have played together. Lots of summer out and abouts and many late night poker games. One night, the six of us were playing poker, and Susy, Lisa and I were all sitting on the couch. It took the guys a good hour to realize the three of us were sharing our cards so one of us could always come up with the best hand and take all their money. We called it “strateegery”. Not “strategy” but “strateegery”. Of course, the guys just called it cheating. I think they were just jealous they didn’t think of it first.
Dennis and I will stay in touch, there’s no question about that, just as all of us still do. (Dennis and Doug in this picture at one of our putt-putt tournaments in Destin.) Susy and I have been on vacation together with our families; I still have hour long phone conversations with both Lisa and Jim, and Doug and I email each other often. But those student government conferences just won’t be the same without Dennis, just as he and I have already been missing the rest of the gang these past two years. There’s an old poem that talks about people coming into your lives for various things…some for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime. I truly hope these five are in that last category for me. We've gained so much from each other and have made some great memories. Now that our paths are moving in separate directions, I pray that our bond will be strong enough to create more great memories to come. Now go call all your old friends!
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The Ultimate Blog Party 2008
I heard about the Ultimate Blog Party 2008 over on Meg's Brassy Apple blog. Meg's the woman behind Flat Betty, who Happy Shack Designs has been sponsoring for the first quarter of 2008. The UBP looks like fun! Given that I'm a bit "partied" out after battling the winds at the Bartow Bloomin's Arts Festival this past weekend, not sure how big of a partier I'll be this week, but here's a big shout out and welcome to all those participating. Come on in, make yourself at home and do a little shopping while you are here!
So, a little about me for the new visitors....I'm a full-time working mom of twin four and a half year old girls...wonderful little blue-eyed red heads, so scroll down for pics of them! I am also the designer/owner of Happy Shack Designs, a jewelry and accessories design company in Jacksonville, Florida. I blog about great Etsy finds as well as the going's on around the Happy Shack and life with twins. And....I give away a free pair of earrings every other Friday, so be sure to scroll down to Free Bling Friday to enter this week's drawing while you are here!
The Ultimate Blog Party is sponsored by the 5 Minutes for Mom site, which is run by twin sisters Janice and Susan. I looked at the list of those participating and as of this moment, it's already up to 1,016 moms who blog. Yikes! Come join the party here! There are contest giveaways and all kinds of fun stuff going on over there. Go check it out!
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Free Bling Friday Number 39!
To be eligible to win this pair, simply email me by midnight Thursday, March 27, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. The next winner will be drawn Friday, March 28. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders. Click here for the Happy Shack Designs website!
Wuvin' these Wee Woods....
Argentinian Mauro Torriggiani and Alabamian Lisa Tune began making wee woods when a small, discarded triangle of wood (an end-cut from a 1x4) called out to be rescued from a kindling bin. They felt it paired beautifully with a scruffy little square of pine - and the first "wee wood house" was born. Some of their wee wood materials were unwanted scraps salvaged from construction sites and their neighbor's kindling bin. Others were abandoned in backyards and along roadsides...but the most precious pieces of all are cast-offs from century (plus) old barns and homes. Giving these little scraps a second life makes them very happy.
Mauro and Lisa have been making art together practically since the day they met. Their first official play date, on a wildly rainy winter weekend, turned into an all-day mini art marathon...
"it was raining cats and dogs
and we didn't know what to do
so we stayed inside the whole day
and we drew...and drew...and drew!"
They discovered they liked many things in common, like drawing, inclement weather, play dates, little wooden houses...and much, much, much, much more (Kelly suspects a romance here….. :-). Lisa and Mauro and the Wee Wood shop are in Pescadero, a tiny coastal town an hour south of San Francisco, California. Check out their Wee Woods here. They are happy to do custom orders as well!
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Victoria Usova's Chest of Fairy Tales
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Bracing for Bartow....
Thankfully, if we make it through Saturday, Sunday’s forecast looks much better. Just 8-10 mph winds, sunny and high of 62. A little chilly for my Florida born and bred bones, but at least we won’t be battling rain and high winds. Poor Patty...I’m sure she’ll have nightmares tonight. She had to purchase a new tent in November because her tent literally blew away, and I mean blew away tumbling across a parking lot, during the Ponte Vedra show last fall. Keep us in your prayers!
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Behind the Camera: Maybe Not?
Mariposa, Mariposa
So, if you don't have little girlies, you may have no clue what Mariposa is. I have little girlies, but I didn't have a clue until last week. For two week's Livvie's been telling me, "Mama, we have to get Mariposa! We have to get Mariposa" and I reply, "What?" and she replies, "Mariposa, Mama! Like at Ms. Shirley's house!" Okay, so at this point, I'm thinking maybe Mariposa is some new flower or something that Shirley, our neighbor the Queen Mermaid, has. Then the other night as DH and I were unwinding with a little Animal Planet, there on the screen it appeared: the advertisement for Mariposa, the new Barbie Fairytopia movie coming out soon. The light came on and I said to DH, "So that's what Livvie's been talking about!" and he responds, "Um, duh. Where have you been?" Hate it when that happens. He's not supposed to know about that stuff...
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Elegant Snobbery
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Behind the Camera: I'm Gonna Miss This
Now, this is not by Mama’s choice, mind you. This is just life in general here in the Happy Shack. If I am home, they are glued to my hip. Luckily this is getting a little easier to manage now that they are getting a little older. They have their own little bead stations set up next to me in my workshop now, and they’ve started making lovely little necklaces and bracelets for their teachers and friends at school. Of course, we are still only using large hole beads, but we have at least graduated from pipe cleaners to stretchy string. They also have a large family of Pez people who get married and then unmarried and then married to someone else. Wow…shockingly real life stuff going on here, unfortunately! Sleeping Beauty and Batman seem to have some staying power, though. Batman goes on trips and then comes home yelling, “Beauty! I’m home!” and then Beauty answers, “Oh, Batman, I’ve missed you so….” with an audible sigh. Geez. They are 4 ½! We don’t have a Prince Charming Pez, so Cinderella has shacked up with Yoda. I told Sarah that even though Yoda wasn’t nearly as handsome as Prince Charming, he was very wise and very dependable and would take great care of Cinderella. There’s something to be said for that, right!?!?
We have now also hit the stage in which they prefer to dress themselves. This, of course, is rarely suitable for hitting the mall. But I did let them dress themselves for the zoo yesterday, as you see here. DH was not pleased with the sparkly red shoes for the zoo, but what the heck, if you are going to wear your beach cover up over a long sleeve t-shirt and jeans (Livvie) or tights (Sarah), you simply must wear your sparkly red shoes. They were the hit of the zoo. There’s a new Trace Adkins song out that rings so true for me. I’m a Trace fan in general, primarily because I think he’s one of the sexiest men on the face on the planet, but I truly like his music too. But this new song really hit home. It’s called “You’re Gonna Miss This” and it’s basically about the little things in life that may drive us crazy about our kids now, but we’ll really miss later on down the road. Having had my girls a little later in life (I was 37 when they were born), I really do try to relish every second. They are such blessings. And as I’ve heard so many times, yes, they really do grow up so fast. It seems they’ve become little people overnight. Just yesterday they were tiny babies sleeping in Daddy’s hammock…and now they are out fishing, with their own fishing poles…I really am going to miss this.
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Coming Home to Roost--Beautifully Strange
Now they won't all be birds, but they will all be coming to live here at the Shack. :-) Of course, now I'll have to go back through all my blog postings and fess up to what truly did come home to roost. This cute little guy is actually a card, one of four in a fun little bird set by Kathleen Hendrix of Beautifully Strange. Kathleen has all sorts of fun stuff, and she promised to post another set of these cards after I purchased mine last night so go check her out here!
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