Moving to a New House & a New Blog

While it's been nearly a year since my last post, life kinda just happened and I didn't take the time to blog. I've missed it greatly and have decided that it's time to move back to it...only it won't be from Mt. Vernon St. After 34 years of living in this house off and on, I'm moving to a new house...my own house.

Musings from Mt. Vernon St. has served me well (401 posts and several years), but since I'm starting fresh in a new place, I thought that it would be a good time to start fresh with a new blog.

So I must say goodbye to Mt. Vernon St. and hello to the country. You can find the ramblings of a new homeowner over here at Home...where my thoughts escaping.

Resurrecting the Friday 5

So I went back to the beginning, 2006 - the first year of Musings from Mt. Vernon St. - and looked up the posts for this week. One of them was the Friday Five. I totally forgot about the Friday Five and thought that now would be the time to bring it back...so here goes:

Hearing: the quiet sounds of morning...birdsong outside, the gurgling of the coffee maker, the cat eating breakfast, the occassional car
Seeing: piles of yard sale stuff, newly priced and ready to go
Smelling: coffee - luscious, glorious, nectar of the gods, motivator of my day...and cinnamon buns
Tasting: cinnamon buns started in my NEW bread machine, as the old one crapped out on me and baked in the oven
Feeling: ready to sell stuff and make a little extra cash to pay for the repairs to my truck

Bring on the yard salers - come buy my stuff!

I hope it's sunny where you are - enjoy the day!

Boothbay Harbor Maine

During vacation, we took a quick trip back to the harbor where I worked for 5 summers.

Maine Quilts 2009

Alas, the quilt show has come and gone, but a fun time was had by all. Well, I don't know about my cousin Kelly. She kinda got dragged to it and she's not a quilter.

There were soooo many beautiful quilts on display and as always, it got the creative juices flowing! Here are just a few awe inspiring quilts:

Ursula by Michele Scott

Transitions by Carol Taylor
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Karen Veiga

Luminous Trees by Mary McFarland

Darwin's Diamonds and Flowers by Rhonda Kay Beyer

The rest are over on my flickr page: FaeryTreeCreations

a tisket, a tasket

So much going on every day - the quilt show has come and gone (and I'm still trying to get my photos of that cleaned up and posted); my family from Maryland came for a visit; a trip to Boothbay Harbor ensued; and a quilt room has been made over. All pictures will be posted...as soon as I can get them posted.

Until then, here is a fabric basket that I have started making to sell once I update my Etsy shop and get my Bonanzle shop up and running. Have you heard of Bonanzle yet? It's kinda neat, but not as clean as Etsy - I'm still going to try it out.

8th Grade Promotion

And to think, it seems like only yesterday my neice was two and coloring her legs with a red marker, "cause Elmo's red!" like that was most obvious explanation...now she'll be a freshman!

I feel old.

Driving pictures

Last night of session::18 1/2 hour work day::coming home in the fog at 2:30 am

Brain slowly ceasing to function

Need more sleep

Night Session

Wish I was sitting here right now, on a sunny day...rather than at my computer, still at work at 9:31 pm.

It's been a very long day (13 1/2 and counting). Getting tired and though we all know that they aren't going to finish their work tonight, they persist!

Praying for 10:00 pm to be "going home" time!

Memorial Day Weekend

Ah, a sunny Memorial Day weekend (save for an incredible thunderstorm overnight on Saturday).

I managed to rip up the kitchen floor (so gross, 40 year old +/- linoleum...now I have figure out how to get the blue paper off the subfloor).

Weeded, mulched and planted here: and here:

and here:

noticed that I have strawberries starting to form on the tower:

and I went to see this:
soooooo very good!!

Now we start "Hell Week" at work...or rather "Hell Weeks" - as the next few weeks will be fast paced and crazy!

NEW FAVORITE SONGS

Around the Bend by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

I love this song! I even downloaded it as a ringtone.

Okay, so my favorite new song isn’t new (which I was aware of), but I guess it was in an iPod touch commercial, too. I don’t remember it. I just randomly found it on iTunes. I like a few of their other songs too, but I don’t think I could listen to them nonstop…except for this one song.



The other is Teddybears featuring Mad Cobra: Cobra Style

This song just makes me move!

Long weekend ahead - looking to get some gardening done and a few indoor projects, hopefully take some pictures and a bike ride!

Okay, so I suck

Keeping up with my blog apparently hasn’t been a priority. It’s been a long while since I’ve been here (FEBRUARY!). I’m trying to remedy that.

Since before Christmas, I’ve been feeling very out of touch with my creativity. It’s been so long since I’ve been inspired to take out the camera. I haven’t really played much with fabric. I have started getting back into a painting mood, but even that is sporadic.

I long for a life that allows me to be creative when the mood strikes, not just when I can fit it in. Where I am debt free and with a substantial, steady income from a career that doesn’t require me to leave my house everyday and spend 9 or 10 hours running like a crazy woman, doing work for someone else. I’m not saying I don’t like my job, but I’ve become increasingly distant from doing the things that make me happy.

I know that come June this craziness will all be over and I’ll have more than enough time on my hands to enjoy my artistic endeavors, but right now I think I have cabin fever and the spring itch (sounds like an indie-folk-rock band).

Though things are sporadic right now, I still have done a few things, started a new quilt and painted a mini picture.

I’ve also been craving different music…like Al Green. Why? I don’t know, but I’ve been groovin’ it to the man for the past month and I just can’t get enough!

I’ve taken to writing unstructured journal entries as well…it’s rather freeing. No dates, times, names, places, just random thoughts. I found a great little journal with the artwork of Susie Ghahremani. LOVE!

Anyhoo, I leave you with the mini Easter basket that I made for my mother (made another one for my aunt) and a link to pictures that I took at Easter while visiting the
Fish Ladder in Damariscotta…it was cold and rainy, I was bored at my folks and decided to take a drive.

Cheers and hopefully I’ll be back here soon with another update before the month is out!

A real post

Holy cow, it's been forever since I really, actually posted! I blame the job - after running around for every day or being glued to the computer, writing newspaper columns, doing research, writing letters, answering emails and a million other things...by the end of the day, my brain is moosh and the thought of getting on the computer at home is torture.

But I have pictures and video and projects that I just haven't had a moment to share...and unfortunately, can't do it now because I dumped them from my camera yet! I know, I'm a slacker!

I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things with posting and pictures, but it will depend on how the work days go and how much energy I have at the end of the day.

Anyhoo, for now this is just a quick hi...so "hi"

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve!

One more day! Yippeee!!

I'm excited...if you couldn't tell. We have a half day today and Friday off (Christmas gifts from our fearless leaders, the wonderfulwonderfulwonderful leaders that they are)! I have one gift left to buy (online), 3 gifts left to make (super simple) and a teensy tiny bit of wrapping left. And then, I will sit and do NOTHING! Nothing but relax and enjoy the evening with family. And tomorrow, I will dig into presents and breakfast with my folks and my brother, then presents and dinner with the whole family, then presents and munchies with my other family (my friends - Fran, Juli, John and Maddie).

It will be present and food mayhem!!

And on the 26th - I will again resort to doing NOTHING! I love it!

Here are some pictures of how I decorated for Christmas this year:

The dining room

The tree, all lit up

The tree, all unlit up

The little tree in the upstairs hallway (someday, I will have a tree in every room - well, maybe not the bathroom)

The kitchen

And my newly completed...uh, I don't know what to call it. It's not a table runner, it's more of a table pad. The center is a panel that my mother gave me and then I added numerous borders to it in coordinating fabric. My curtains, that I made...um...last year...maybe the year before? Not sure.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Snow

Snow
Snow

Snow

And more snow!

Now it's beginning to feel like Christmas!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Oh, how I love snow...well, not when it's 10 below zero with a wind chill of -15˚F...but when it's gentle and pretty, like this morning.

It really makes it feel like Christmas!

A few things

A have a brief moment to share....

Gone is Blue Beard the Pirate Tree Topper, replaced with this:

My little cutie playing on the stairs:
And an almost finished birthday present for a friend: (created this using Triangulations, soooo easy to use)

That's it for me...man, I hope every Friday is this quiet from now on!

4 vs. 1

Holy crud - busy busy busy, let me tell you!

Yesterday was officially day one of my new job (technically its day 5 as I moved to the new office last Tuesday and Thursday and Friday were considered a holiday), and I’m already wiped out. Before, I worked for one person; one easy going, super, never demanding woman. In my new job, it’s 4 men; 4 completely different men with 4 completely different view points, 4 completely different areas of interest and 4 completely different writing styles/voices.

OH. MY. GOD! I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions that my head is spinning. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into with this job. I mean, come on - how hard could it be? Wasn't I already a legislative aide?

TOTALLY. NOT. THE. SAME. JOB!

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I've come to realize just how much I took my old job for granted; how many others were there supporting me and I, them. Now it's all on me, times 4. And all I can say is, "gulp."

I know it will get better, it always does.

But for the moment, it's just crazy and when I go home at night, I can't even think about a computer, let alone get on it to read blogs or write in my own. So I may be running a little silent here again, at least until I get into the swing of things and learn how to organize my time properly so I'm not exhausted when I get home at night.

(though hopefully soon I will be able to post pictures of the holiday decorating that's been happening at my house, and of the quilt I've been working on...soon, very soon!)

Peacock Tree

Two years ago, as I was perusing Bloggedy Blog Blog, I stumbled upon one of Saucy's theme trees and inspiration struck!

"A peacock tree - what a fantastic idea! I'm going to make one! I have mardi gras lights and...nothing else." - of course, Saucy's post was Dec. 19th and there was no way in hell I was going to pull together the decorations for this tree. So I got it into my head to start scouting out peacock themed decorations (I even had my mother looking). I hit the craft stores after Christmas that year and found 4 peacocks! Perfect, I was on my way. I found some glittery fern looking things...not exactly peacock, but they might work. Then I found some light blue and purple ball things that looked like grapes but not really...ah hell, they're only 25 cents, get them anyway.

So little by little, I found this and that and packed them away for the future peacock tree. Last year, I opened up the box that I had them in and..."ugh...what the hell is that god awful stench...oh, wait...it's...no, it couldn't be...IT IS! IT'S THE PEACOCK TREE STUFF! I can't put that stuff on a tree...it smells like the cat had diarrhea in this bag!"

It was the combination of plastic bags and plastic ornaments (the cat really didn't have diarrhea in the bad, don't worry...but it really did smell that way). I was tempted to just throw everything away, how was I ever going to get rid of that smell?

But I couldn't bring myself to chuck the lot, so I packed it in a new box, threw a dozen cinnamon sticks into it and prayed. On Sunday, I opened up the box and did a little dance - the cinnamon sticks worked! Everything smells like it just came out of the oven!

So without further ado (because I've spouted on long enough), here is my peacock tree inspired by that creative genius Saucy!

(my camera doesn't take the best night shots -forgive)

(oh, if you click on the pictures, you'll make them bigger and see everything close up!)


My mother found me this fabric when she went to Maryland this summer
I'm not so enamoured with the mask - it's the fuzzy blue thing...it looks like Blue Beard the Pirate went to Mardi Gras...I may have to adjust that.
Thank you so much, Saucy for your wonderous idea about a peacock tree. I've turned my little tree on every night since Sunday and it sparkles and the cat hasn't tried to eat or scale it (bonus)!! I love it!