I cannot believe it's been one month...

In the month that I haven't posted anything I actually did several things.  I went to see Bobby in Virginia Beach (Kid Rock and the Twisted Brown Trucker Band). They have Foreigner as the opening act and I would have driven to the beach just to see them. Always been a fan... 

We started off eating and pretty much either ate or drank our way through the weekend...

We were on the next to the top floor of the hotel...

and the pool was on the top floor...

I took flat Bobby to the beach...

Yes, I wore a bathing suit in public, and if there is anyone out there that thinks I'm too fat to do this, boo hoo hoo, I hate you.  But I digress...

Anyway, Foreigner was awesome and I really enjoyed them. I was close enough to flirt with them while they were playing and in a crowd of 15,000...they noticed and flirted back.

They were energetic and the lead singer has such great vocals and the entire band is just awesome.

But I do have to admit, I'm not really a shrinking violet, and I was rocking out...here I am meeting another KR fan in person that I had only seen on Facebook...

 Horrible camera angle, I am not that chubby faced in real life, but once again who cares???

This was my first Kid Rock show and I am so glad that we had good seats.  I missed a lot of what was going on the screen, because I was so close to Bob that he was all I watched, for the most part. There was always something being shown there, but I didn't see much of that. I didn't even know that my picture flashed up briefly, I was too into the show.

 Bob's shirt says "F--ks given, 00...

As you can tell from the pictures, we stayed in an ocean front hotel. We went down a day before the concert and had another day to play afterward.  I took flat Bobby with me, of course, and Chelsie and Jordan were good sports about him, too.

 My bracelets say "Redneck Paradise" and "Let's Get $hitfaced"...always the lady, right?

Here I am hanging on to Bobby for dear life, don't want to lose him...

We even went to a video arcade...

and jewelry shopping at Pandora...

We had a great time while we were there and didn't have any problems with traffic or parking or any of the headaches that one might experience while at the beach.

Since we came back I cleaned up the studio and tried to work on making some new jewelry...

this copper bead and bluish green bead necklace turned out so pretty. I really like it a lot.  Then I practiced some bead weaving...

I made the one on the right...I used the black and white one for a "go-by"...

I  freaked slam out over a crop of mushrooms that sprang up overnight and didn't last much longer than a day...

and I had six bucks visit me all at once, several times...here is one...

It's really hard to sneak outside to take their picture, so this is through a screen in the window...

I did some other stuff, but most recently I got on a kick to make some wire flowers and this is what I ended up with on that...

So, that's it for now. More to come later. I'll try not to wait an entire month to post this time. Hope you enjoyed all the pictures. Take care and remember that life is just "a walk in the park"...

I'm having a shiny moment...

My sister taught me this term.  It's when you are distracted by something that looks much more interesting than what you were just doing or thinking.  It's like one of those moments that Dug the Talking Dog has in the movie UP.  Anyway, I have been having a morning like that this morning.

It all started out after I ate my breakfast and was going to work a crossword puzzle in the magazine that I was reading while I ate. Yes, I still read while I eat, but only when I'm alone. I believe it's very rude to read or text or whatever when you are in the company of someone else.  I have seen people in social situations reading when...Squirrel!!! 

Sorry...as I was saying, I have been flitting  from one thing to another this morning. I came in to get a pencil for the puzzle and ended up doing my hair  and make up and checking facebook before I finally made it back out to the puzzle.  Sigh. 

I did work a bit of the puzzle before I popped up like a jack-in-the-box and came back in to check my Pinterest page.  You would think that I would only weigh 85 pounds if popping up from a sitting position was considered exercise...OMG, I'm going it again...anyway while I was on Pinterest I saw a beautiful painting of an eclair...

The artist is Mary Ellen Johnson and she does hyper-realism paintings. This is something that I really want to try and looking at her page, I see that she works on large canvases and I think I just might make something like this one of my next projects.

Seeing this painting reminded me of sitting in the driveway yesterday evening, listening to a comedy routine by Jim Gaffigan that was on Siriusxm...

Jim was always one of our favorite comedians and Timbo and I would laugh until the tears ran down our faces watching him and listening to his silliness.  In fact, if you have some free time, I think you can watch the entire routine here on youtube. 

He makes a lot of jokes about food. Part of this routine was about donuts versus fruit. How still life paintings always include bowls of fruit because an artist can walk away from a bowl of fruit and come back and continue painting...because no one has taken any of the fruit. He says he doubts if there are any paintings of donuts because every time you walk away from your donuts someone steals them.  It's a funny routine.

So now I don't know if I want to finish the crossword puzzle, go clean the studio in preparation for doing a painting, or get in the car and go get an eclair...

What was your shiny moment today?

No we don't work for Kid Rock, we are fans...

In the last year, I have been fortunate enough to meet some wonderful people. People that I have something in common with. Like-minded people...We are fans of Bob Ritchie, also known as Kid Rock.

If you don't know who Kid Rock is, I'm OK with that. Shoot, I'm even OK with it if you know him, but just don't like his body of work.  He has been around for a long time and has fans of all ages and types.  If you want to learn more about him, feel free to click on any of the links that I am supplying.

I have listened to him since the early 90's but for various reasons I never got to see him in concert. He has reinvented his look several times since he was a young rapper, as you can see here...

When my husband died, some of Bob's songs seemed like they were meant for me.  He uses rap, as well as rock, with a little country or Southern rock tossed in. There was always something I could listen to to help me make my way through my new life.

He puts himself into his music, writing from his heart and from his own experiences.

After listening to nothing but Kid for almost a year, I started branching out...trying to learn more about him. I could tell from listening to him that he is a really smart guy and I wanted to find out more than the incident at Waffle House, or his short and stormy marriage to a diva actress.  I knew he was so much more than that, so I started researching him.  That's what a fan does anyway. Fan is short for fanatic and yes, I am a bit fanatic about Bob.

In my search for all things Kid, I started out with Pinterest and started collecting pictures  that other fans had pinned to their boards.  I started my own boards... gathering pictures of KR, his family and his concerts.

I started following Kid Rock on twitter, and I even got an instagram account to keep up with him.

I purchased a membership from his website...Kid Rock.com and I even considered going on the Kid Rock Cruise..."chillin' the most".

I have since met some wonderful people that love Bob as much, or even more than me.  People that have met him and his girlfriend, Audrey. People that followed him from city to city, on tours back in the earlier days.  People that know the band members. Good people.

Through some my new contacts and new friends I was given what I feel is an awesome opportunity. I was asked to be one of the administrators of the main/private Kid Rock Fan Group on Facebook.  It was something I was honored to be a part of.  This is simply a Facebook group, and although secret with approximately 500 members, it take three other chicks and me to monitor the page, post pictures and videos and add and delete members.  We do this daily and have a blast doing it.

The special thing about this group is that his band, Twisted Brown Truckers, reads our posts and sometimes even contribute.

Well, with all this being said, the main reason for this post is Flat Bobby.  Recently in the newest edition of Cowboys and Indians magazine, Bob was the cover story.  Inside the mag, there was an awesome picture of him...

Well, we loved this picture and decide to make copies of it and laminate them and send them to a few (we thought) people to have a Flat Bobby to take on adventures.

The main administrator, in fact she's the one who started the group, used her own money to have copies made, laminate them and cut them out in the shape of Bob. We asked on the page if anyone wanted one and the response was way more than we expected.  She ended up making and sending out at least 100 of these laminated Flat Bobby's. 

Today, on the page, someone commented that we should make enough to give to all Bobby's fans.  I'm not sure if she didn't realize that Mary Kay has already sent out one hundred of them at her own expense or what, but enough is enough.

Fans have been taking Flat Bobby everywhere with them. I've done it...

Here you see me kissing Flat Bobby to make him come alive after being cooped up in an envelope for the trip to Virginia...

I even took him to Waffle House...

So the actual reason for this post is to let folks know, especially the ones from Facebook, that we don't work for Kid Rock, we don't get paid and the fun things that we do like Flat Bobby and giving away prizes for contests...all of this is done voluntarily and with our own money. So don't act so put out when we finally have to call it quits on the freebies.  Just because we figured out a way to put "Executive at Kid Rock" on our Facebook pages, we're no one special. We're just like you. We are fans.

I am human...

Hey y'all, this isn't really a rant, but it is my view on several things going on in the world.  I love to read. I started out reading Dick and Jane in the first grade, then quickly was able to actually read the back of the cereal box, instead of just looking at the graphics.  I was always in the library and when I wasn't playing with my Barbies, I always asked for something to read. I had comics books with characters like Little Dot, Little Lotta and Baby Huey. I not only loved to read, but I loved to hear someone read out loud. I was read to as a child, which created a bonding experience for all involved and for just for fun, even as adults, my mother, sister and I read out loud to each other. (My brother was somewhere being...himself, but that's another column for another day). Anyway, before I digress completely, I wanted to let you know how much I love to read.

These days I not only read the newspaper, (yes the actual paper one), I read novels and magazines and "how-to-books".  When I'm not creating something in my art studio, I enjoy reading or writing.  I belong to an awesome online community, some folks that I know, some I will surely meet one day.  We communicate back and forth with text messages and private messages and even in comments on our favorite FB pages.  FB stands for Facebook , which, as most of you now know, is one of the remaining social media sites that lots of us are a part of.

There are so many places online that people leave comments. Comments...news stories, social media such as FB, Instagram and Twitter are all places where people can voice their opinions. Some of these sites are personal pages and some are public and some are even private or secret.  With all these websites out there, I can see where some folks may forget that their comments are being read by humans.  There are people that comment that are very young and have little life experience and some that are well more experienced and want you to know how knowledgeable they are.  There are some people that comment that are just plain mean and hateful.  There are so many commenters our there.  Some aren't even who they say they are, but for their own reasons they want you to think they are your friend, or a friend of your cause, or just like-minded.

I am giving you all this background simply to share with you something I knew, but was reminded of yesterday.  I read what I considered an unsolicited lengthy comment on someone's page and it kind of ticked me off.  I even went to bed thinking about it.

This morning I was feeling differently about it.  The person, someone I know, didn't mean anything by it, they just wanted to be part of the conversation.  Maybe they were feeling neglected that day, or maybe they were remembering some time from their past when their opinion wasn't taken seriously, but whatever the reason they were trying to educate others.  I learned from this. I learned to remember that there are real people behind those comments. I was reminded that long unsolicited comments don't have a place on someone else's page, they are for your own page.  I was reminded that the things that bug me about people are the things I do not want to do.  Maybe I'm turning it all back around to be about me, but it's what I need to do to keep from throwing my arms in the air and screaming "what the hell is wrong with you?"

I want to be kind and thoughtful and insightful.  If your life is different from mine, sometimes I want to know what it's like to be you. Unless you are a mean, crazy bitch...then you know what, I don't want to be anything like that.

I am human and I certainly hope that all of you are also.  Be reminded... when someone says something hateful,  be reminded, "I don't want to be like that".  Be reminded when someone tells you something that you should do, but don't do themselves,  be reminded, "I don't want people to see me the way they see you, when you act like that".  Take the opportunity to use the negative comments and the unsolicited advice, and the requests for pity and money and who knows what else...take these as an opportunity to be selfish...use what you see out there, not to get mad about it, but to make yourself a better person.  A better human.

You'll feel better in the morning, I know I always do.

So commenters, give it your best shot. Bitch and moan, tell me lies and beg for money, post pictures that aren't real, give out your unsolicited and boring opinions. Bring it on, because you know what???  I'm a better person for it. Bet you didn't count on that, did you?

And a good time was had by all...

I was chatting with a few friends about the adventure I had this weekend and they said I should blog about it.  I have several friends that have a place "over on the creek".  In the past, this place has consisted of a campsite that included tents and a "bucket shower". Well, you can be sure that is not my cup of tea, so I have graciously declined numerous invitations over the past several years. This year, they acquired a camper, and while it is not the most expensive trailer out there, it serves the purpose...

That purpose being, the fact that it has three (what they call) beds in it.  I suppose compared to sleeping in a tent or a car on air mattresses, these so called beds are the height of luxury.

While the camper does have a fridge and stove and even a terr-let...they cook outside on the grill, use a cooler and have a portapotty. nuff said.

It really is a nice area, especially if you like doing nothing...

It was a bit buggy so they kept a fire going for smoke all day. 95 degrees and two fires going all day, but I digress.  One of the guys, Bless His Heart, only has a handful of teeth left and keeps a cigarette in his mouth most of the time. This, to me, makes him a bit hard to understand. I mention his teeth not to be mean, but to justify my not being able to understand him. Soooo, while he messing around in the weeds looking for wood, I thought, honestly I did, that he said he had "found us a cobra".  I do have to admit, I was partaking of an adult beverage (or two) and I'm the one that started yelling "cobra, he's found a cobra".  Well, what he had actually said was he had found us a "smoker", meaning a large gnarly stump of wood that would smoke the bugs away when placed oh-so-gently (not) into the fire pit.  So that was pretty funny.  The fact that no one ran to help him deal with the cobra was telling, I suppose. The day continued in this vein.

Chelsie and I had already been laying in the sun for several hours...

 I was completely unable to get out of this chair without help

plus it whacked me in the head when I sat in it...

I eventually moved to the covered area to observe the baby, while watching, what must be their usual routine while "over on the creek".  The baby was good. She did what newborns do. They had a nice covered area and a fan blowing on her and everyone was having a very nice time...

There were five barking dogs...the three small black dogs, Bubba, Maddy Girl and Baby
Girl...the blond German shepherd named Boscoe and now added to the mix, a husky named Dakota. Boscoe almost knocked me down with the rope to which he was tied, as he bolted when Dakota first showed up. Bruised leg, first injury.

 Dakota

So they got all the dogs either tied up, or put in a pen or placed in a truck with the a/c running.

Folks fished and threw back their catches and fished some more.  I took pictures of the baby and sang to the Kid Rock music that we had blaring at top volume.

They fished some more. Chelsie wears rubber boots to get in the creek as it's cold and has critters in it. We saw a snake. Yikes...

Chelsie put Dakota on a lead and tried to introduce him to the water, but he wasn't having it...

Dakota and Chelsie

Speaking of getting introduced to the water.  After sitting for several hours and being hot and needing to pee, they finally convinced me that the water would feel good.   "All you have to do is wade out in it".  I had hiking sandals on and thought it would be a breeze.  It was not.  I somehow ended up falling in the water, floundering around, looking like a giant turtle that was flipped over and couldn't get up.  I could hear them laughing at me, but I still couldn't figure out how to get up.  This seems to be a recurring problem for me.  Remember that time I got stuck in the tub at Williamsburg?  Well, it was much like that.

I finally got someone to come get me up and help me out into the creek and back to the bank. Enough creek for me.

Well, of course now I have to pee. I made it to the portapotty and got my wet spandex short down far enough to do my thang, and of course, I could hardly get them back up.  It was a bit frustrating, but made for laughter back down at the fire pit.

Hot dogs were cooked and since I had eaten fried chicken a while before I chose not to eat at hot dog at that time.  After what I certainly thought was a long time, I went to the grill to pick up what I was sure would be a cool hot dog.  It was not. It was blazing hot and it burned the finger and thumb on my right hand, so instead of dropping it...I transferred it to my left hand and burned finger and thumb of that hand.  By this time, I cut myself off from any more alcohol. Damn hot dog was too burned to eat after all.

Finally, we had real food. Chicken cooked on the grill along with potatoes. We only had one dull knife so I  sliced using a tiny knife on a Leatherman type tool. Oh for pity's sake. Chelsie wrapped the potatoes in  foil and put them in the campfire.  Same with a foil pack of onions. They were done after about 20 minutes and the onions would have been great if one of the dudes hadn't torn the foil digging them out of the fire, causing him to burn his hand and lose most of the onions. 2nd burn of the day.

We went inside the trailer to make our plates,sharing space with the little black dogs, finally got our food and went back outside.  Gradually after eating, people began to leave.  All the families with kids packed up and went on to other things. Derrik and Dakota took off and the host, apparently had to hit the bed in the trailer.  I was not the only one that had more than one beer.

Chelsie and Jordan cleaned up, making it easier for them to leave early in the morning, and me, I decided that I would be miserable trying to get any sleep there.  So I came home.

All in all, it was a very interesting day.  I'm just not very outdoorsy, but I think I had fun.  I might do it again. Maybe.

So that is my adventure from over on the creek. Hope you enjoyed hearing about it. Next time something fun happens, I'll tell you all about it. Until then, stay cool and let those you care about know just how much you do care.

Day 3...

Today is pretty much just a visual...

living room wall board up...

Inside view of bathroom framing.

It may be hard to visualize, so here is something similar...

My tile will not stop at the shower, as shown here, I'm also having them run it all the way around the room at a height of about four feet with a decorative topper/chair rail type thingy. I'm thinking that will give me a bit of a backsplash look for the vanity and leave plenty of wall space for the paint.  I think I'm going with my favorite pinkish white/rose beige, but wont know for sure until the tiles are up. I am only going with one shower head and a hand-held unit on the wall that makes up part of the linen shelves. I'm having them build a triangular seat in the far corner that will act as a seat/foot rest. There will be grab bars and towel hooks, as well as niches for shampoo and other goodies. My color scheme will be light were this is dark and I'm going with a brownish wood vanity and a dark granite top. Go tomorrow to pick that out.  All is coming together, here on the hill.

Talk soon. xoxo

It's day 2 of the remodel

Yes, it's day two of the remodel. These guys start work early, so I'm changing things up just a bit.  Had to go downstairs in the basement to use the other shower this morning, so I wasn't quite ready when the guys rang my doorbell this morning.  If fact, I was wet-headed and still buttoning my shirt. All of this was noticed and laughed about by all.

The electricians came today and did all kinds of piddly stuff. My contractor said it was bizarre that I didn't have a ceiling light in my basement rec room so he had them put one in. Fine by me.  The folks that originally built this house cut corners wherever they could and at the time the house was being built, our local electric company was giving much better rates if new house were built with the heat in the ceilings.

Heat in the ceilings meant no lights in the ceilings, so there you go.  All that has changed over the years with heat pumps and electric baseboard heat, but the ceiling lights were never added. I'm taking care of that.

Well, the new wall has been framed up, as well as my new smaller closet.  I may have inspectors tomorrow or the next day.  This is really going quite smoothly.  My contractor had me do a "virtual" shower today to show where I wanted my corner bench and how high it should be for me and such.  "OK, now squat like you are going to sit down and let me measure you".  I did as he asked, but in order to keep my balance I automatically put my hands out in front of me like doing a squat at the gym. They said this made me look like I was drive a Harley, so we laughed about that.

Anyway, here is the shot from day 2...if you look closely at today's versus yesterday's shot, you will see how far the new wall comes out into the living room. 

I really like watching what's going on, but I'm staying out of the way as much as possible.  Don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I'll try to document things, as often as they change considerably.

Thanks for staying tuned!

Bathroom demolished

The dust has settled, the main bath has been demolished, the closet is gone and the living room wall is gone. For those of you that aren't on my FB page, I'll try to keep you up to date on the photos here...

There will quickly come a point where you wont be able to see any difference daily, but in the very beginning it's always fun to see the "during", as well as the before and afters.

More soon.

A new record for me...

Can you believe it's only been four days since my last post. (hmm, that sounded vaguely like the beginning of confession, but I digress) anyway, I really do want to write more and while I'm dragging my feet on the next chapter of Lammy's World, I can certainly hit the keyboard here and let some of the words that crowd up my brain spill out on paper, so to speak.

Tomorrow begins, hopefully, the start of another house beautification project. My lovely ranch style home was built in 1969, and while bell bottoms and other retro and vintage fashions are cool again, an avocado-colored tiled bathroom is just not hitting on much anymore. I've remodeled the rest of the house except for the main bath...

I am showing this view, so you will see where the bathroom/living room wall is now.  Note the positioning of the red sofa. That is where the wall will be upon completion of the remodel. My contractor and I (in our combined brilliance) decided that moving the furniture before-hand would help me get a feel for the smaller size of my living room. The wall will be removed, and rebuilt three feet out, to allow for the larger floor plan of the new bath.

Since I think big, I am also taking part of my bedroom closet (it extends out to the left of the door jamb on this shot about 24 inches) to make the bath even larger. Yes, you heard me right. I'm willing to sacrifice accessory space for this new bathroom.  Here you see the emptied (sort of) closet.

 Here are several more views of the main bath as it currently looks...

As you can see, green tile and a yellow tub make for a very dated look.  I am removing the tub completely, as I never use it. I just prefer to shower, so the new bathroom will be dominated by a very large shower.

Now, about that half-bath off the guest room...

 It is so quaint, and I like it, but it really is time for a change...

It is still in it's original wrappings, so to speak. I will only be doing a face lift here. I'll be replacing the red vanity with a modern version. We will be stripping the old wallpaper and painting the walls a soft white called Polite White, which I have throughout my entire house...

We will be replacing this old vinyl flooring, which I actually like, as it brings to mind my Mom's kitchen floor from back in the old days, with the same wood that was used in my hallway...

I actually planned ahead and had the contractor order extra wood to do the bathroom, thinking that I would use it in the main bath. That idea changed, leaving lots of flooring for the half-bath. 

With most remodeling projects, like I mentioned above, things are often subject to change and one has to be flexible. Case in point...the original tile that I chose for the bath was Travertine, a natural stone that has lovely pastel coloring, which I currently have in my kitchen, using as the backsplash. Well, I didn't take into consideration that this stone would have to be sealed, because it is being used in the bathroom, where the moisture level is much higher that that of a kitchen. Sealing this type of stone changes the color drastically, so it was back to the tile showroom for me. After much consideration, I chose a porcelain tile by Fontana in a color called Marini Grey, as seen here...

This comes in small, medium and large tiles with a lovely random pattern.  All three sizes will be used in the new bath, making for plenty of visual interest.  Most of the bath will be devoted to the shower, with a custom-built vanity and a matching linen cabinet.  There will be plenty of room for an accent table to hold decorative items and perhaps a book or two.  I will be installing a white rectangular sink and high arc faucet, in brushed nickle.

Well, I suppose that's it for now.  I do hope you have enjoyed this portion of the Remodeling with Susan show.  Stay tuned for the next episode, which may be titled, "cough, cough, why is there so much dust?"

Virgin Progress

Yes, it says virgin progress.  If you keep up with my blog, and I KNOW it's the most important part of your web surfing, you will remember that I'm trying the Virgin Diet for food intolerances. I'm on day 17 and I am astounded at how much better I feel. I stay on this part of the plan for 21 days, then each week for the next four weeks, I re-introduce certain foods to see just how intolerant my system is to these foods. There are some foods that are so toxic to someone like me that they suggest not reintroducing them. And the foods that you do reintroduce are only to be done in certain amounts. It's not "well, you feel good now let's load you back up with poisons again because you think you miss them".  No it's a gradual thing to make sure that if you do want to periodically eat something that you have a problem with, you will know (from how your body reacts) just how much or how often you can do so.  Basically so if you inadvertently eat something from YOUR list of FI (food intolerances) you'll know what to expect and how to deal with it.

One of the things that surprised me is how much I like the protein shakes and smoothies that I'm eating.  I'm tossing in fruit that I normally wouldn't eat, I'm learning as I go, which items I like best to be blended together. I'm not interested in drinking or eating something that I just don't like, because for me, that is a recipe (pardon the pun) for failure.

Well not much going on other than that, so I'll leave you with this picture of a blueberry, strawberry, chia seed smoothie. I use vanilla coconut milk for my liquid and two scoops of beef based protein powder.

I'll be back soon when I have more interesting things to report.  Hope no one April Fooled you today.
Take care and ta ta for now.

J.J. Virgin

Hello all.  I have known for some time now that I have gradually developed specific food intolerances.  They are not really allergies, where your throat swells shut and you have to seek medical attention, they are symptoms that develop more slowly, for the most part. When I say slowly, think 30 minutes after a meal and you realize that you just don't feel good. It may be a headache, but more often for me, it is usually more "gut" related.  Either I have to sit in the throne room for the rest of the night (often the case if I consume certain artificial sweeteners), or it can be me realizing that I am clearing my throat constantly.  The most frequent symptom for me is acid reflux.  You know that joke "I just threw up a little bit in my mouth", well when it happens repeatedly from something that you ate, it just isn't very funny. It can cause permanent damage to your throat, as well.

I am (for all any of you know) a highly intelligent person and I am also a (once again, you have to rely on my telling of this saga) diligent researcher.  I know enough about  allergies and such to know that the proven way to find out what your system cannot tolerate is to eliminate the suspicious food from your routine completely and then add it back... to see how your body reacts.

Recently I have done this with milk and sugar and artificial sweeteners.  I started my personal research with my favorite desert-like, sometimes chemically flavored coffee.  I found that, often, before drinking the entire cup,  I will feel the liquid wanting to basically come back up. "So stop drinking that you dummy." Duh. OK, that 2 X 4 to the head worked...so I did quit drinking that.  I have been doing other experiments on various foods that were causing me problems and I am finding out that I am intolerant of several...well, let's call them food types that I know of. This sent me off on another research binge.

While at the bookstore looking for diet books. (I have an ongoing problem losing weight, in addition to my food intolerances) I picked out five books by authors that I had not read yet and brought them home.

Imagine my surprise when the first one I delved into because of the "drop 7 foods for 7 days and lose 7 pounds" on the cover was a book about food intolerances.  It's called The Virgin Diet, by J.J. Virgin and in it she explains, sounding like she has my case file in front of her, the reasons I'm not feeling good, as well as my inability to lose weight, is caused by these intolerances.  In addition to the the dairy and sugars that I had already figured out, I am thinking that based on the symptom guidelines that she presents, I may also be intolerant to soy, peanuts, gluten, eggs and, of all things, corn.

DO NOT GET ME WRONG HERE...I am not blogging about this for anyone but myself. I'm not jumping on any bandwagon, I'm just saying that the information as she presents it, really seems to be what I am dealing with. In addition to her book, I am going to her website and continue researching and who knows, I just may have found someone who knows more about dieting than I do. Some of the things she writes about are not the norm for a weight loss diet book, so I like that.  I've been doing everything "the experts" have been telling me to do for years and it hasn't worked, so finally something different that doesn't sound like something a hippie/vegan/mountain top guru is trying to push down my gullet.

I'll keep you posted.  Well, that's it for me today. The house in Buchanan is done and I'm making plans to remodel my bathroom and will be busy with that for a few weeks.

Remember to enjoy life and if you don't feel good and don't know why... do some damn research, you just might learn something.

The Virgin Diet by J.J. Virgin...

I'm snow blind...

I know that's not a very good excuse for not keeping my blog current, but I am so sick of snow that I just didn't want to do anything except "veg out" on the couch, watching the tube and crocheting.  In between those two activities I did some other things, but not much.

One of the things I did was wait patiently for my Kid Rock First Kiss promo pre-sale pack to arrive, which it did - on time and in good shape...

Even though the tee-shirt fit, I'm just not crazy about how t-shirts look on me.  I usually "flash dance" them. I cut the necks off so they won't choke me and I cut the bottoms off so they don't look like a dress and sometimes I even alter the sleeves.

I decided to remake my First Kiss tee.  I wanted to use pink fabric for the remake, but I couldn't find any.
I was then going to use black fabric, but couldn't find any that matched either.  Finally, I went to Michaels to get a pink tee and use it, but once again, nothing matched. I finally decided on a red shirt to match the fire on the hottie's cigarette.

Now, lets get started.  I have one particular top that I wear all the time, so I decided to use it as my "go by".  This is it...

It's cute and swingy and keeps me from looking so much like the Pillsbury Doughboy.  I placed the black tee on top of this shirt to see what the difference was...

 As you can see, there was a big difference. The next thing I had to do was cut out a pattern for the side pieces which I would later add to the black tee, to make it flare...

I knew the top would be too long, but length can be adjusted at the final step. I then took the tissue paper pattern that I created (see above) and cut four (4) triangles from the red shirt for the side inserts...

The red shirt was large enough to supply four triangles pieces.  I simply flipped the pattern piece to the other side of the shirt for the remaining two triangles...

And now, making this sound incredibly easy, I sewed the triangles pieces together, making new side seams. Then I sewed the straight edges of the triangles, to the straight edges of tee shirt (which I had opened at the side-seams).  After I did that, I tried it on several times so I could decide about the length of the shirt and how far I wanted to scoop out the neck,  and through the magic of modern technology (i.e. my super duper fantastic Bernina sewing machine) I ended up  with this...

I like the make over immensely.  It is extremely comfy, but I'm not sure about the red. I thought about adding red trim to the neck, or maybe just ordering another shirt and making black inserts. Black is really hard to match, but as my family used to say..."it will never be noticed on a galloping horse".

So in between staying in touch with all my new KR friends on facebook, hanging with my homies and whining about the snow, and of course, keeping up with my shows, this is what I did.

As I always have a project going, I think my next project is to re-learn how  to use my embroidery module, on my machine, so I can monogram some baby blankets and other stuff for my friend's baby that will be delivered in April or May. 

Hopefully, my best friend (aka my sister) will also be here this spring and I can post some pictures of the fun we have, and of the finished house that you've all been watching as it's been remodeled this last year.

Well, that's all from Planet Keene.  Stay cool, (but stay warm) and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Happy Birthday Bob!

I know, I know...not everyone gets my old lady crush on Bob Ritchie, aka Kid Rock, but at this stage of the game a gal needs some eye candy any way she can get it.  Anyway today is KR's 44th birthday and I'm saying happy birthday to him here, just for fun.

Speaking of birthdays, I am never quite certain what to get my sisters for their birthdays, but one is already taken care of.  I painted a landscape this week and my sister loved it...

It's ok to post that I'm sending it to her, she already knows.  This painting is a bit of a reach for me.  I sometimes like to do things a bit differently and she and I had been talking about this painting as I did it.  It  only took two nights, which is a new thing for me, as a painting may take me several weeks to complete.

I began by doing an underpainting on a 11 x 14 canvas panel.  This probably wasn't necessary, but I normally don't do an underpainting and I was just experimenting.  After the underpainting, I covered the panel in matte medium and laid a piece of crumpled and smoothed out tissue paper over the panel.  I didn't really try to create any special texture, I just let it happen.  I let it dry and did another coat of medium to protect the tissue paper.  For me this was a necessary step, as I did get a bit rough with the application of paints, pencils and texture medium and didn't want to tear the paper off.

Anyway, I just messed around with it until I got what I wanted and here you see the result.

I don't have much more to say today, except Sister Peri did send me a camera lucida  (as seen here),
which is an interesting artist tool.  There is a strong learning curve... on the webpage they call this "a bit of practice"...but I am trying it out.

Sorry there isn't much else to talk about today.  Just popping in to say hey and remind you to wish Kid Rock happy birthday!

We'll talk soon. :)

Hey Ya'll...

I'm putting this everywhere today.  Maybe it'll explain some things and get some views...

For all of my real friends and family that I ignored while I was under the influence of you know who, I apologize and wanted the world to know it.

Love ya bunches...

2015

My first selfie of the year...for those of you who don't see my Facebook page (friend request me, I'll answer, I'm not mad at you) this is how I rang in the new year. 

Yep, that's me rolling around in the floor with Kid Rock and Foreigner. They are touring together this coming year.  I took this for a "First Kiss" contest for Kid Rock's new album, by the same name, that is to be released in February.  They are going to put all kinds of first kiss photos in a video and let the winner use their Twitter account to do something with the video for First Kiss.

Since kissing doesn't seem to be an option for me, I fell back on my old favorite, the selfie.  Isn't is wild how laying down and taking the shot from arm's length is like an automatic wrinkle eraser?

Well, 2015 is here and I'm not much older, but sooooo much wiser. Hope everyone out there is having a great week.  My resolutions this year are to drink more water (i.e. pee more), not care about what people think (i.e. leave my mini blinds open more) and to work more on my art and writing.  If that doesn't keep me busy and out of trouble, I don't know what will.

With all that being said, I'll close and go work on Monica's portrait.  I'm almost done.  I'll show you the finished product soon.  TTFN (that's Ta Ta For Now for you oldsters) and we'll talk soon.

What I did the rest of the year...

Since the new year is rapidly approaching, I thought this would be a good title.  Even if it is not, here are a few things that I'm sharing with you. As you all know I have spent the past year or so remodeling my home.  Timbo and I had done so much to the house with the carpet being one my favorite things.

After our last kitty had died, Timbo and I decided it was time for new carpet.  I had always wanted a light color carpet and we found just what we wanted.  He worked very hard getting ready for the new carpet and we loved it.  Right after he died, I took up all the rugs and carpet remnants that he had used to keep the high traffic areas from turning black, got new furniture, had all the dark trim painted white and was quite pleased.

Before

After about sixteen months, I realized that the carpet was extremely dingy in the entry way and no amount of steam cleaning was taking care of it.  I asked our friend TD what to do about it and he suggested hardwood.  I'm not a big fan of hardwood floors through out, so I came up with the idea of replacing the carpet AND adding wood flooring for the high traffic area...Taa Daa!!!

After

I never did like the half wall in the hall and hubby and I were taking it down gradually.  He took the spindles off years ago and painted the top white, but we just never got around to removing the rest of the wall and basically used it as a catch all/room divider.  It was also the main reason that the rescue squad had to take Timbo out the window in the office when he had his heart attack, but I digress. I was ready for it to be g.o.n.e.

The whole process only took eight days and my guys tried to make it as stress free as possible, but still having all my furniture jammed into my studio for a week was a bit disconcerting.

The noise and dust that were byproducts of the remodel were a hassle, but they tried to clean and dust everything as they put it back.

All in all, I would have to say it was extremely successful and now the only rooms left to do are the bathrooms.  Who knows maybe I'll do them in 2015.

One thing I am going to try to do is write more.  Blog more and work on my novel which is tentatively titled "Lammy's World".  Hopefully there will be lots of art going on and jewelry being made and books being read.  Looks like it will be a year full of hope and happiness.  That's my plan...how about you?

Well, until next time, take care and remember to have fun and love as much as you can.  It's easier than you think.

Still not finished...

Not only is the portrait not finished, I haven't done any more on it.  I told him he'd better have a good back up gift because I wasn't going to complete it for Christmas. 

One of the main reasons I haven't had time to work on it is that I started attending a two week real estate seminar.  I wanted to take some classes that were not art related, as I tend to do more art during the warmer months.  So I had been thinking about doing something fun, but something totally different.  The course is actually an accelerated course so you can get your sales license. The first week was quite interesting and I enjoyed everything I was learning.  The first weekend is what really got me.  I had to study all week end for a test and it reminded me quite firmly that I was STUDYING.  I don't want to study.  I don't need to pass a test so I can become employed.  I quit work eight years ago because I wanted out of the rat race.  Anyhoo, we had a test yesterday and a substitute instructor.  I did not like him at all and he kept hammering away at the point that this course is so you can get your license, get your license, get your license...I just wanted to learn something new and I did.  I learned that real estate is never for fun, even if you can afford for it to be.  It is work and I don't want or need to go back to work. I would be great at the real estate game, if all you had to do was meet people and show them houses, but it's so much more than that.  I have a new found respect for anyone that has to make their living in this way.  You have to love it to do it and I say, if this is your thing, go for it! 

So from now on the classes that I take will most likely be hobby related.  I don't want want to change my life, that will happen no matter what I do.  I don't really know if I want to do anything different right now.  I may take some art classes if I feel the need to get out and socialize, otherwise for now I'm going to concentrate on having the inside of my house painted and having new flooring put in and just doing my thing.

Taking classes is really nothing new for me, over my lifetime I have taken:

Ballroom dancing

Baton twirling

Belly Dancing

Sewing classes

Key punch classes

Speed writing

Photography

Cake Decorating

 Glass Bead Making

Precous Metal Clay

Chain Maille

I know just enough to be dangerous in things like:

 Ceramics

Polymer Clay 

Sculpting

Crocheting

Painting 

Drawing

Interior Decorating 

 Jewelry making

Wire Working

Metal Working

Just enough to be dangerous...herein lies the key.  I don't want to be totally proficient at anything.  I don't want to be an expert or a master.  I just want to learn enough to see if I like it and if I will be good at it.  Take gardening for instance.  Don't care for digging in the dirt, planting stuff and weeding out in the yard.  Don't like it at all.  I have several house plants that I haven't killed, but please don't suggest "Garden Club".  Everyone is different, I don't like to do things that I'm not good at immediately.  I give up too quickly if I feel like a failure from day one.  No one wants to feel like a failure, and they deal with it in different ways.  My late husband was much more of a perfectionist than I and would delve into something with everything he had.  He would become fixated on whatever it was that he was doing and he didn't understand by casual attitude to learning things.  My attitude has always been, "looks good enough to me" and I seldom pull out a seam that's not completely straight (that's why quilting didn't work for me) and if I'm three feet into a knitted afghan and see a dropped stitch, it's "oh, well, whatever".  I would not frog (you know, rip-it, rip-it) unless it was a really bad mistake, and then chances are that I ball it up in a Kroger bag and eventually give it and the yarn to the Goodwill.  

Perhaps it comes from my mother.  She would say things like "it will never be noticed on a galloping horse" which meant "you're a kid, who's going to notice or care if that hem is straight".  I took this to heart.  That is probably why when we painted our living room, we used masking tape to repair the wallpaper before painting over it, and why she and I removed a corner cabinet with a claw hammer and dry-walled our kitchen using a butcher knife AND probably why I have a partially finished nightstand in my guest room.  Seriously, who cares?  Not me.  All those things worked for what we needed. 

Now, know that when I've done something well, I'm properly proud of it, but I'm just as proud of the not so perfect things that I have created, also.  After all, as Peri the Great knows and says...

"That's how we role in The Shire"

So,in closing this post, I'd like to say, if you don't like the way I do stuff, then you can just kiss my @$$ and stay home.  Ohhh, I do so hope you're not offended, if you are, please see previous sentence.

xoxo

Susan