First Fire, Now Rain

If the fires weren't bad enough, now it's raining. It's been raining since about 5am. I just checked and so far, we've gotten 2.54" since then. It's raining at about the rate of .13" per hour. See here's the thing... First the fires burn all the plants, leaving the hillsides and mountains bare, and now the rain comes and causes mudslides. Fantastic. I have no problems at my house. This rain will actually be beneficial since the ground in my yard is very hard. Now I can pull all those weeds I've been meaning to get to but never wanted to because it was too much work. It'll be easy peasy now. If it stops raining enough tomorrow, I'll be outside in the mud. YAY! I bought some Peeps today.

What's that chicken noise?

Okay. Confession time. I have a hard time getting up in the morning. I always have. I am a night owl, and the thought of getting up before 6am just makes me cringe, but I have to do it if I want to keep my day job. I thought the time change would be great since my morning clock would be an hour earlier, but no, it adjusted better to the night and now I just stay up later. This is how bad it is with the alarm clock.... I have this cat, Gizmo. He is a Bengal and he has been declawed. Now wait, don't go all PETA on me because he's declawed. I didn't do it. I inherited the cat and it was done to him before I got him. Calm down. So when my alarm would go off in the mornings, he would paw at my face and the blankets around my face and I would wake up enough to put him under the covers. He was bugging me. He didn't really want to go under the covers and I realized the alarm was going off and that was the reason why he was pawing at the covers. So I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to Gizmo and he gave up. Then Frankie, my littlest orange tabby, took over. Except she has nails. She sticks one of her sharp little nails into whatever body part is sticking out of the covers when the alarm goes off. That wakes me up and then I hear the alarm. Well, after finding all these little red poke holes all over my body, I decided enough was enough. I had to get a different alarm. I bought a cheapie little electric alarm clock at Longs this weekend. Just your basic plug-it-in-and-go model. So last night at 10:00, I set my old clock to 5:30am and the new clock to 5:45am, brushed my teeth, took my pills and went to bed. I woke up hearing my regular alarm at 5:35am. I hit the snooze. Then I felt Frankie snuggle in next to me on the bed. Then the 5:45am alarm clock went off and I got out of bed, did a few shoulder stretches and got in the shower. Gizmo loves to sit on the toilet and watch the water in the shower. Don't get all weird on me again, he is not watching ME, he is watching the WATER! Bengals love water. So I'm done with my shower and I'm squeegee-ing the shower door, when I hear "cock-a-doodle-doo", only in the real bird sound and kind of soft-like. Ok, that was weird, I think to myself. I wonder who got a rooster? So as I'm getting out of the shower, I grab my towel and start to dry off with Gizmo watching me (ok he is watching ME at this point), and I hear "cock-a-doodle-doo" again, only louder. Hmm, I say to myself and to Gizmo, what the heck is that? "Cock-a-doodle-doo!!" went the rooster again! This time, Gizmo's eyes get really big and he is looking into the bedroom. I walk into the bedroom and hear "Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!" again and look towards the sound, thinking it's going to be a rooster in my bedroom, but nope. It was my cell phone!! I guess in a senior moment, I set it to go off at 6am with the rooster sound. I've always said I could sleep through a tornado or a supernova explosion, and now you know. I need 3 alarms to get my butt out of bed in the mornings. I wonder if I could sleep through the rooster? Thank god for Saturdays. I can sleep in!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family. I am fortunate to have each and every one of you in my life. You inspire me, encourage me and keep me down to earth when I tend to fly off on my tangents. Thank you for your compassion, your caring and your love. I send it all right back at ya 200%. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. I love you all.

So many projects, so little time

My blog needs updating. My house needs to be cleaned. My taxes need to be done. I need to balance my checkbook. Phone calls to make. Designs to finish, stamps to be made. Painting to be done. Closets to clean.

I totally missed Mercury. Jupiter is in my house and I don't feel it. Not yet. Just go with the flow. One project at a time. Don't stress.

What's with the Christmas carols already??

So Berry Sweet

These stamps are some recent additions to the justjohanna line. I love strawberries and I love these stamps. I think the strawberry topiary is just the cutest! Well, not the cutest of all justjohanna stamps, but it rates right up there! I colored this stamp with Prismacolor pencils. Some day I will write down all the colors I use. Actually, the list would probably be shorter if I wrote down the colors I did NOT use. I just love using lots of colors and blending, blending, blending. I hand drew the scallopy edge on the topiary section. This card is A2 size. This next card was done using a 2x2 piece of Stampbord. First, I stamped the images on the blank Stampbord and then I inked up the Stampbord with various Versamark Chalk inks in the colors I wanted in the particular areas: red & green. Then I used a stamp positioner to stamp the images again over the top of the previous image. I used a fine point black pen to draw the lines around the images. After it dried, I used the scratch knife to scratch out the white areas on the Stampbord. I drew the scallopy edge. This card is 4x4.

It's Peep-a-lishus!

Look what I found at the Goodwill yesterday. Peep candles!

These will go into the Peep shrine. I may share a photo of the shrine sometime, but right now it is in a secret place. Only the Peeps know where to go.

Peeps are tasty, marshmallow goodness.

It's about time

This was my grandfather's watch. His name was Sidney and he died back in 1977, and of his treasures, I received his pocket watch. I know, that seems like a strange thing to pass down to a granddaughter, but I will tell you why I got his watch.

I remember my parents buying me watches and a month or so later the watch would stop working. These were wind-up watches, so they thought I was overwinding them, but I wasn't. Watch after watch the same thing would happen, so when the battery operated watches became available, I'd buy those, but within months, the watch would die. Time after time this happened so I just quit wearing watches. I have a drawer full of watches I've bought because they were beautiful or trendy, but the same thing happens to all watches on me.

Then I found out that that was the reason Grandpa wore a pocket watch. Wrist watches stopped working when he wore them, too. I did a little research a while back, and it turns out we have some magnetic or electrical "thing" in our bodies that interferes with the workings of the watch.

This was the last watch Grandpa Sid owned before he died. It isn't an expensive watch nor is it very pretty, but it was Grandpa's and I feel the connection to him every time I look at it on my dresser.

Christmas Cards - justjohanna style

Did you know that justjohanna has a new holiday supplement out now? You MUST check it out. There are some very cool stamps there. I LOVE the new 12 day of Christmas stamps. They are so creative! For this first card, I've used the two Baby Dango Reindeer, the Tree Whimsey, the Gingerbread Star and the Rockin' sentiment. I colored the images with Prismacolor pencils. I just love those reindeer, don't you? I wanted to make a card that said it came from a warm location, so I chose to do this card. I think the colors even make it look tropical, don't you? For this card I used the Holiday Palm and the Warm Wishes sentiment. That's it. I colored the tree with the Prismas. I color everything with Prismas. I just got an order from Dick Blick with some Prismas in it, but I found out that I didn't order enough, so I guess I'm ordering again. Darn!

This last card was fun to make. I used the Holly Sleigh, Annabelle Birthday Left, Claude Turtledove Left, Mouse Reindeer Left and the Loot sentiment. I drew in the reins and colored all the images with my Prismas.

You can find all these great images AND MORE on the justjohanna website in the new holiday supplement. If you would like to order some stamps, you'll have to go here. Start making a list, you'll want lots of them.

Sunday afternoon

I've been working hard on some southwestern cards for a magazine. I'll post some cards later today, but right now I'm off to The Pink Pineapple for a photography class. See you later, alligators!

Oh happy craft supplies day

Oh happy day! I got my Dick Blick order today. I got the oh-so-tempting-sale flyer last week and couldn't resist stocking up on a few things.

As you can see here, I got a crapload of canvas boards. Hey, the smallest ones were only 34 cents each! Here's what I got: six 4x4 panels, four 6x6, four 8x8, six 4x6, two 5x7, four 6x12 and two 8x10 panels. That's 28 fantastic panels to paint on and goof around with. The total? A whopping $13.74. Oh and I got some of those cool white Sharpie pens; two each of the broad and thin tips. And I got 38 replacement Prismacolor pencils and 4 replacement black Verithin pencils. I feel like it's my birthday!

Next step: put some paint on those canvases. Hooray. I'm planning on making some Christmas present with these. I'll post what I can. My sister looks at my blog all the time and I don't know about my nieces or my mom, so I won't be posting their stuff. I will have stuff to post in the next week. You can see my practice stuff. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your traffic.

Happy Halloweener!

Happy Halloweener, everyone! This is my favorite holiday of the YEAR!!

Isn't this little guy so cute? I borrowed him from this website of weiner dog art.

I'm not feeling particularly festive today. I didn't even dress up like I usually do. Honestly, I'm having a very hard time with the devastation from these fires. The fires did not burn my house, my property or even anywhere near me, but I am very bothered by what has happened. I just feel unsettled and anxious and sad. I can't imagine what other people have gone through. Tami was evacuated from her home and by some luck in the universe, her home was still standing when she was allowed back home. I'm very grateful for that. I can't really put my finger on what is really bothering me, but something is and I need to get to the crux of it because it is making me nuts.

Those scary little trick-or-treaters will have to get candy somewhere else tonight, because I'm locking the door and turning off the light. I'm just not in the mood.

Tomorrow will be a better day. Oh, yeah, Oct 31-Nov 2 is Dia de los Muertos. I wish we'd celebrate that day, too.

Monday is officially "Recycling Monday"

Since the big Blog Action Day events about global warming and such, I've been thinking a lot about my part in the whole thing. As one person, I can't do it all, but I can do my part. If we all did our part, it could be amazing. So I've committed myself (no not like to an institution) to doing a new earth-friendly thing each week. I will post on Mondays and you can comment on the new thing that you've done to not contribute to pollution, global warming, etc. It can be a simple as walking to the post office, starting to recycle cardboard, cans, etc. You get the idea.

So, what did I do today? Well, when I went to Sprouts to get my teas and veggies, I picked up some of those canvas shopping bags. They were on sale for 99 cents each. I bought 12 of them. These are big green tote bags with the Sprouts logo on them. You take them into the store and you have the bagger put your groceries in them instead of paper or plastic. You can get more groceries into each bag and they are sturdier than paper or plastic, too. So, head out to your local farmers marketplace or local produce store and pick up some canvas bags.

Here is a link I found for some of the bags: BAGS. Hey, you could even make your own bags, how about that?

Also, if you have some recycling hints, post in the comments section. And don't forget to post what you've done to help the environment this week.

I made a thing

Yeah, so I made this thing.

When Julie made us (haha) make these Christmas ornaments last weekend, it got me to thinking about making personalized ornaments. This isn't an ornament. It's just a thing.

I picked up a few of these paper mache heart things at Michael's. I first painted the whole thing with Mod Podge. I did that because, as Julie explained about the Gesso, if I didn't put down a base coat first, the paint would just soak up into the thing and get all yucky. I used the matte finish Mod Podge. Then I got out some of my cheapo acrylic paints and painted in the colors I liked. I chose a couple of pinks and painted them all messy-like all over front, sides and back. While that was drying, I picked out the stamps I was going to use. I picked the old ladies stamp by River City Rubber Works and the sentiment by Stampabilities.

After the pink paints dried, I painted on some green and some blue. I let that dry just a little, and then I took a damp paper towel and rubbed some of the paint off so the pink would show through. I let that dry. I dipped a dry paintbrush into the apricot paint and lightly tapped it onto the front, sides and back of the thing.

Then I inked the old ladies up with black StazOn ink and stamped it on the thing. It didn't stamp well so I got my StazOn stamp cleaner out and rubbed off the icky image. I knew it wouldn't bother the acrylic paint because the StazOn cleaner is not water-based. Then I decided to stamp with the StazOn on vellum. I cut out the image and then Mod Podged it on to the heart thing. That worked really well, except I really had to watch for wrinkles and bubbles in the vellum. I had to lift the vellum and do a bit of adjusting. I put lots and lots of Mod Podge on top of the vellum.

I stamped the sentiment on striped paper and then cut out each word. I Mod Podged each word onto the thing where I wanted them and the put more Mod Podge over the whole ornament again. I let it dry in front of the fan and then I got out a regular old black sharpie and made dots all around the edges of the thing and around the image. I signed the back. The thing is done.

It felt good to craft again after being glued to the fire coverage on tv all week. I have another thing in the works. Stay tuned.

FIRE - update 8:15am Chargers

Hi everyone. Thank you for your concern and attention to the tragedy that has hit southern California. It is really a mess down here. The wildfires have made their mark yet again, but fortunately, only a few lives have been lost. I believe 1 or 2 from San Diego County and maybe the same number in Orange County. So many people have been evacuated and displaced but things seems to be working out. There are lots of people at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. The Chargers are supposed to play Houston on Sunday, but that may or may not happen. When they thought the stadium would be full of people, they moved the Chargers to Phoenix for practice. They thought, well maybe we can just move the game to the Cardinals' stadium, but there is a motorcycle event there on Sunday. If the game was in Phoenix, many San Diegans would go because it's only an hour flight to Phoenix from here. Next thing I heard was that they would play in Dallas. Dallas?! Yes. We couldn't give the Texans the home field advantage because it was OUR home field advantage, so they picked Houston's rival, Dallas, for the home field. That really sucks. Ok, but NOW I heard on the radio this morning, that since so many of the fire evacuees have been allowed to return home, they may move the rest of them from Qualcomm to other shelters to that we can have the game at home. YIPPEE! It's up to Jerry Sanders now to make the decision. Keep your fingers crossed. I need a diversion from the fires. I know I haven't reported much on the fires in the past few days. Nothing much is happening in our area and I'm not glued to the television as in the beginning, so I've nothing really to report. I did see the news last night and saw some of the devastation. It just breaks your heart to see so many homes destroyed. The good thing is, they are just homes. Brick and mortar. No lives were lost. I saw one couple standing outside their home and they said they had lost their home in the Cedar fire of 2003, too. I hope they rebuild somewhere else now. I don't think that location is meant to have a house on it. Our Governator has been visiting the area. I'll bet he visited the Orange County fire area as well. He has been much more proactive with resources for us than Davis did. I won't go on and on about this. If you live here, you know. I heard Bush was supposed to be here yesterday or today or something. Oh great, a live speech from the President. What speech will he bumble through this time? I think he's been in office too long. He's used up all his words and can't put two words together that make sense. That's all for now. I may post later tonight and post some cards I've made. I'll leave you with this: do a RAK (Random Act of Kindness) today. What would the world be if everyone did a RAK every day? Wow. Oh, and recycle.

FIRE - update 9:00pm

Ok, here are some photos I took today after work. The first picture was taken from my back yard. It is looking west as the sun went down. It really was that orange outside. Kind of creepy, huh? It was smoky and there was a lot of ash in the air. These next two pictures are of one view of San Marcos, traveling north on Twin Oaks Valley Road. We live just up this road a bit further north than you can see in this picture. I wanted to show the smoke level over this part of San Marcos. Right at the bottom of this hill are a bunch of apartments and California State University San Marcos. The University (CSUSM) has been closed for this week. It's weird since there wasn't much traffic on the road when I was and it was even 5:30pm- rush hour. The Coronado Hills fire, the one that is now 100% contained, was up on the hill to the right in this picture. In the next picture, you can almost see the burnt areas near the road. Most of the fire was was up on the mountain. I couldn't stop to take a picture because the road is so steep and I didn't want to get in trouble with the Sheriff by being a looky-loo. This picture was taken looking west. I was at the top of the hill on Twin Oaks Valley Road. To the north (previous picture) is the City of San Marcos, and this picture is the community of San Elijo Hills, a community of about 3,000 homes on the south side of Mt. Whitney. No, not THE Mt. Whitney, the San Marcos Mt. Whitney. :) Anyhoo, this picture was enhanced. I used the sunset setting on my camera to bring out the colors of the hills and the sky. This sky is so smoky. I love how it makes for beautiful sunsets, but then again, it is smoke. Here is the road heading north on Twin Oaks Valley Road. The two hills that look like a part of a woman's anatomy (Did you know it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month? It was a cheap plug, but I'll take what I can get.) is where the Coronado Hills fire was. Parts of San Elijo Hills were evacuated because they were afraid the fire would jump the road and race through the canyon towards La Costa and on into Encinitas through San Elijo Hills. This is another view of the same mountains just to show the smoke coming from the east. Just beyond Coronado Hills to the east, is Harmony Grove. Harmony Grove is a very wooded homes area and the fire was very close when I took the picture. All the residents of Harmony Grove were evacuated. The next picture was taken in Escondido. I wanted to see if I could see the flames from the Witch Creek fire as it moved up Palomar Mountain but all I got was smoke. Palomar Mountain is east of San Marcos. Palomar has been the victim of many fires. It's just so sad to see it burning again. Tonight the fire is blazing on the mountain. The fire is on the ridge of the mountain and looks like a glowing snake. I can't resist taking pictures of the sun going down in all this haze. Such pretty colors. The last picture was taken while driving west on the 78 near the 15. You can see the smoke above and below the yellow haze. That's all I have for now. I don't think I will have any pictures of the actual fire. I hope I don't, anyways. If I get pictures of flames, it will because the Witch Creek fire has gone through Harmony Grove and up Coronado Hills again.