Moved

I'm moved it. Only a few things are left at the old house and then I need to clean it up. It's amazing how dusty the house is when you move all the large furniture out! School starts tomorrow; the class I'm taking also starts tomorrow night, and the class I'm teaching on Saturdays begins this weekend. If I can make it through the week without pulling out my hair, I'm home free. The tidbits left to do before Friday's close on the house are small, but it's just squeezing the time into the evenings to ensure it all gets done! The art room is set up, too. I haven't had time to use it yet, but next week, I'll be in there, gathering some sanity back and doing something fun!

Last Piece of Art from "Home"

Today, I'll be moving my art room to Eric's. Yesterday was my last day working in my space here at "home". I started with the Something to Crow About weekly challenge, and that final product was not very nice, but it got those creative juices flowing, and after I did it, I created this piece. I like it a lot. Over the last month, I've been allowing myself to layer, layer, layer. Before this, I had great fear of that. Part of the fear, I'm sure, comes from my elementary art classes. Although we were taught all those shading techniques, we weren't allowed to change what we had set out to do. If we planned on painting a tree, that's what we needed to do. It couldn't change. My middle school art teacher wasn't quite so bad, but there was a right and a wrong, and we were so caught up in learning primary, secondary, tertiary, etc, that we didn't have fun. High school was a bit better, but by that point, I just really wanted to make clay "sculptures" I could then use as ashtrays. Of course, ashtrays weren't "legal" projects in high school, so you had to be real creative, knowing full well once it left school it would have to become something else.

So this layering thing is new to me, and I cannot believe I've never allowed myself to do it! I love it. With this one, I painted the page, added pages from a book, then started adding more and more layers. I like including a drawing, too. I liked how the last one turned out, which I think will now be named Cassandra, which was a name submitted once on the blog and then someone dittoed that in an email.

So layering is fun and exciting and you can make mistakes (which I do constantly), but that's okay because you can just add another layer and ultimately there is really nice texture.

It's kind of like the texture being added to my own life now that I'm deciding to get married, move out of my house and start a new life. True, I'm nearing a panic attack--no kidding, I've been fighting it for a couple of days! But that panic is based on the upheaval of my house. It's a wreck, and I don't much care for my house being this disgusting. Don't get me wrong, during the school year, it can get pretty messy--enough that I'll stop you at the front door and say you can't come any further, but right this minute, it's horrid. I mean there are boxes, and things strewn on the floor that I'm not sure what to do with, and trash bags filled with crap I didn't know I had and wonder why on earth I kept it, etc. It's more than the "house is a mess today, let's sit on the front porch." Trying to meld my household goods with Eric's is also hard, but bless his heart, he's letting me bring as much as I can to his house so that I have enough of my "stuff" to feel like I'm at home. His backporch will be my new art space. It's not very extravagant or "classy" ....or.....well.. it is after all a backporch, but it's a space, and that's all I need. When we put his house on the market, and buy a new house that we choose together, I'll have a better space, but for now, I can make do with what we have. After all, it's kind of like that ceramic ashtray I made in high school--it had to be whatever the rules allowed at that moment.

Update

Okay, I'm still moving, which is why it's been almost a week since I posted. Yes, it's a slow process--slower than any other move. We are doing it in little trips so that we don't have to get a U-haul. Plus, the way our schedules are working out, there isn't a full day that we could move everything to every place it belongs. So as I speak, I have no dining room furniture, my kitchen looks like it's been ransacked, the only things in my living room are the tv, couch and boxes and boxes of things that need to be taken to various and sundry locations for storage.

But no worries. I have been in the art room today. I had to complete the Something to Crow About weekly challenge, and although that journal page stinks, it did get the creative juices flowing and I am in the process of completing a couple of other things I really like. I'll get them done by tomorrow (Saturday) because I'm moving the art room tomorrow. I hope to have it ready to go, though, by Saturday evening. I'll need some down time after moving it, I'm sure, so a glass of wine in one hand and a paint brush in the other will be a nice distraction from the lengthy day of moving stuff.

More later!

She Needs a Name!

In addition to finishing the Something to Crow About weekly challenge, I also had some time to draw this woman--who needs a name. Suggestions? I also used some of the fantabulous papers I received in a grab back from Kelly Kilmer this last week. I had never bought a grab bag on line before, and let me tell you if Kelly ever sells more, I will buy them. What's great is that she lives in California and well, here in ol' St. Joe MO I don't have a lot of paper varieties, so opening her package and finding such wonderful Asian influenced papers was heavenly. I really wanted to roll around in the papers. Yes, I have issues, but I'm such a tactile person, that I just wanted to feel all the textures and stare at the vivid colors. I used the papers to create this drawing's clothing (no really she needs a name). I really enjoyed incorporating the colors and textures for her blouse.

So, today, the plan is to organize my art room and get it ready for the move. I am trying to decide if it should be the first room to be moved or the last. Later today, I'm helping Eric move some of his kitchen stuff around and out to make room for my new dining room table, which means that the first room to be moved from my house will likely be my dining room. Eric doesn't have a dining room--just a large kitchen, so we are going to have to do some shifting. All of my dining room furniture must move with me and not go to storage--to much monetary and emotional value in them to trust them to the dreaded storage unit!

Something To Crow About

If you haven't visited Something to Crow About, you must. There is a great weekly "project" taking shape there. That's what I'm working on right now. Each week, the group (I think there are over 70 now) receives a set of images that we can use in our collages, journal pages, ATC's, etc. What's great is to see how these images take shape in our own minds and how they land on the page. Mine isn't very good this week, but that's okay. I have been swamped with the whole idea of moving. If you haven't read my last post, you should and you'll get an idea of how freaked out I was earlier in the week! Goodness. Anyhow, the weekly images are such a great way for us to get thinking about creating something. Sharing ideas and inspiration and encouragement is what it's all about.

My journal page connects the images given to us along with my own. I found a photo of my grandma in a swimsuit--which wasn't hard since she had no issues with her body. She loved her body and was proud of it. I wish some of that had rubbed off on me! I also used an image of the Ford Fairlane that was from the front of my grandpa's stash of owner's manuals. He bought a new car every 2 years and kept a chunk of the manuals that I'm now copying and using for my collages. Then I found the image of Marilyn and it juxtaposed nicely with my grandma, who was playing with the strings of her swimsuit. I put all of it together with the images from the "project" and tada. Not the best in the world, but like I said....

Oh, and please stop by Collage Contessa. She, too, is awesome, and I love the work she's doing. She's the one who awarded me the BFF, so I need to give her a shout out!

Holy Moley Quacamole!

Holy moly guacamole! (the phrase that drives my students crazy, I must say!) Let me say, I hate moving. The last time I moved I SWORE it was THE last time, but then I fell in love and decided to get married (silly me), so here I am moving again. Good grief. My house sold on Monday--yeah!

In this market, I thought it would take months and months, maybe a year. It didn't. Good news. Yes! However, could it have come at a busier time? I mean I had June and July that was totally flexible. August means getting ready for school and with the change in schools this year, that means extra work. I had to move all my junk from one building to another, and I'm having to set up a new classroom and learn a new curriculum and get training, and write everything from scratch and read all the new books and stories, and whoa! Now, I have to move my house, too!

So, the new owners take possession of this house on Aug. 29; Jake leaves for college on the 20th, and I am on contract hours---no flex time in the daily schedule on the 18th. School actually starts on the 25th. Can you say NERVOUS BREAKDOWN?

At this moment, I should be doing something else. But, I'm blogging to get away, to channel the anxiety of having Rubbermaid containers in my living room, stacks of things pulled from the shelves and scattered on the floor and every flat surface in my house. I'm trying to decide what I'll be taking with me to Eric's house, which is already fully furnished, but I NEED some of my own things there to make it feel like home; what do I put in the storage unit, knowing full well it could be broken in to (not likely, but it's possible, isn't it?) and what about vermin? Don't wild creatures find their way into storage units? Thank heaven my mom lives close. I'm taking all my photos, yearbooks, my childhood toys and baby "stuff" along with Jake's baby clothes and collectibles, etc. to her house where she has a nice carpeted basement with a corner (very large corner!) I can stack these containers into.

Okay. I feel better. Getting all that out was cathartic! So, needless to say, the next few weeks will be hellish for me. My nice, neat, organized world is no more (I have to have organization outside because as you can see what rattles around IN my head is whacko--outside organization means I can function with the chaos internally :) Art will be scheduled in. Eric, bless his heart, has made it a priority for me to have space at his house for my art work. He has a back porch that's three times larger than mine. It's a bit hot here in Missouri right now, but with a fan and a few open windows I'll make do--for Eric, I can make do.

All this being said, we'll put his house on the market in April and likely find ourselves in this situation at this same time next year--moving two households into our newly chosen home. God wants me to learn something from this experience, I just don't know what. If you have a clue, tell me! I told myself the other day the house would sell when it was suppose to; at the time, it was my rationale for if it took a year to sell; then, it sold and now I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out why now. There is a lesson here. Maybe that life isn't always so neat and organized? Hmm.... Any thoughts?

Award

Yeah, it's my day! My house sold, and Collage Contessa, gave me the Blogging Friends Forever Award. Yeah!! I will have to follow the rules of the award tomorrow, though. I'm off to get a storage unit, to check out the room my son will be moving into at my fiance's and to have dinner with my future mother-in-law to celebrate the sale of my house. But I wanted to take a minute to say a big thank you!!