So I Was Just Thinking

I know it's only September, but October is one week away. The city of Lee's Summit decided to welcome the autumn season in with an Oktoberfest celebration. Although I am not a beer drinker, the festivities were not lost on me. My husband and I took the kids to the street fair, looked at the vendors, and of course ate some fair food. (Once again, the food pics were blurry.) James - Enjoying a Funnel Cake It seems the entire town had the same idea. There were the usual jewelry and clothing vendors. I saw some very talented people. We came across a unique booth with an interesting tool that I bet you never knew you needed. Can you figure out what it's for?? It's a paint can shaker. All you do is attach a standard drill to the back. It was the funniest thing I ever did see. I also took a moment to snap some pics of the kids down at the old train depot. Along the way I snapped some various points of interest and unique architecture.  Window at the United Metho...

Well it was. The day started with an early tailgate party at my son's school. Let me preface this with a step back to the beginning. Everyday my son brings home a pile of papers. Some are graded papers, some are notes about upcoming events. It's hard to keep up with everything, but I am pretty good at filing things to check out later. (When I say "file" I mean stick in a pile on the buffet.) I do read them from time to time to make sure I am not missing something important. However, I NEVER saw a note home requesting we send in items for a Tailgate Party. Every time I saw "tailgate party" on the calendar I thought they were referring to the Fall Carnival which is next week. Then I get a note from the teacher on Friday saying, "Don't forget the Tailgate Party next Friday. Please send in what you agreed to donate." Now I am really confused. Monday morning I went into the school and asked James' teacher what she was talking about. Come to f...

I didn't find this on my own. Amanda at Kind Over Matter shared it and it spoke to me. Enjoy AND don't forget to go over and visit their site. It is quite inspirational. [Oh and don't forget to turn off the playlist if you are going to watch this. :-) ]

They call me: Mom Mommy Annemarie Teacher Facebook Addict Online Gamer TV Watcher Unemployed Blogger and I am sure a lot more, but the one thing I can't bring myself to call myself is an Artist. For some reason there is a formality that comes to mind when I hear the word "artist." It seems that it is what you call people whose work hangs in art galleries. All of my work stays in my journals. Don't get me wrong, I love art. I go to lots of art shows, but I don't have anything that I would call a work of art. Everything always just seems like practice. The question is, what will it take to get my work out of a book and onto a canvas or some other concrete object worth displaying or sharing. I feel comfortable sharing with my Sketchbook and Blogger friends, but beyond that corner of my world I do not stray. How does one come to the point where she say, my work is worth sharing with world? How do I come to believe that my work has more value than just t...

or two. There is a new inkblot prompt . I saw two different images in the inkblot. The first is a strange little renaissance man. There is a local faire going on. If we ever make it there maybe we will meet him. The next is an old fashioned kind of girl. I imagine that she spends her afternoons sipping tea with her cat Princess hoping her beau will drop in for a visit. Head on over to see the inkblot creations and maybe make one of your own.

...for our children. Today is the Blue Springs Fall Festival. Caitlin's band marched in the parade. It didn't start until 10, but she had to be at the high school, in her place by 8 a.m. So on a Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:45 to make sure she was fed, dressed and out the door by 7:30. Gas is not cheap. Caitlin's school is over 10 miles away. Parking at festivals and parades is in short supply. With these givens, it was decided that the entire family would load up into the car and drive together and stay in Blue Springs (we don't live in Blue Springs) until the parade started. This meant hanging around for 2 hours. Normally this would not be a bad thing. You can wander around, look at booths, admire the town and do a little exploring. Unfortunately, this morning it was 45F and misty. What does one do when she is from a warmer clime and ill prepared clothing-wise? You sit in the car for two hours. The time was not wasted, however. We ate breakfast. We listened ...

I found something new to do. It's the Inkblot Challenge . They gave the following inkblot as an inspiration. Readers of the blog then draw an image based on the inkblot.   Here is what I came up with: While I had the black pens out I drew some cute little characters. Earlier this month, I divided the back of my calendar journal into 30 squares. I decided to draw one letter of the alphabet in each square. Then I turned each letter into an object that begins with that letter (i.e. A-angel, B-butterfly.) Some letters were really hard to think of a picture, but I finally finished it. It was a joint effort between my daughter and myself. After drawing the object, I got out the water colors and worked on a few letters a day. It is finally done.   You might notice that my alphabet goes "L,M,O,P" It wasn't until near the end of drawing that I realized I had left out "N." I have been busy drawing and painting and living. I will be back soon to share some of t...

Time to eliminate the things that are holding me back. Let's start on the artistic front. I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day. I was telling him about my creative endeavours. He asked if I would send him a sample of what I have been doing. I laughed because my friend is interested in clean lines, modern Scandinavian furniture and somewhat masculine art. The only curves you will really find are of nudes hanging on his wall. I explained that I have only been drawing flowers and cutesy things. He agreed that cutesy was not his thing. But the conversation got me to thinking. Why can't I draw other subjects? So I got out a notepad and started drawing curved lines. (I hate drawing really bad work in my sketchbook.) I tried several times and then realized I needed to switch from pen to pencil if I was going to get the effect I wanted. After a little experimenting, I felt confident enough to pull out my pocket sketchbook. Here is the final result. Much different ...

So this month at Sketchbook Challenge the theme is Unfurled . When I first read it, all that came to mind were flags unfurling. I couldn't get my mind unwrapped from that idea. Then it hit me -- FLOWERS. So here are my latest in my flower series. They are sort of "tulipy." When I finished the three, I was then inspired to start a line of flower fairies based on those flowers. Here is the first one. She is just a trial. There are things I don't like, but that is my self critic. It just means that I have to make more opportunities to make her better. When you work on a project, whether it be art, or written, or whatever, how long do fiddle with it? When do you leave well enough alone? Today's Music Note: You are listening to DANCE OF THE SUGARPLUM FAIRY from the Nutcracker. The Nutcracker is my all time favorite ballet. I loved when band directors would chose selections from The Nutcracker's score. It is usually associated with the Christmas season, bu...

Today was Labor Day. It was supposed be the day we drove back from Texas after fixing up the house to sell it. Unfortunately, my husband said he had to work today so we didn't make the trip at all. I began the morning sitting around pouting and then put on my big girl panties and got on the internet to find something to do. That's when I found the SantaCaliGon Days Fair in Independence MO. Little Man didn't want to go. He decided to stay home with the daddy who DIDN'T go to work. :-( So Cait and I took off for an outing on a beautiful not quite fall day. I had Googled how to get there but didn't write it down so there was a lot of "is it this street? No" action going on but we made it there with few detours. The biggest problem when we arrived was the parking situation. All of the public parking was taken and people were selling out their driveways and private parking lots for $5. (Normally, this not a big deal, but to the unemployed, $5 is not desirable...