Closet Before- View 2

Today is day 4 of snow days and my being pretty much stuck in the house ( except for my lovely excursion to the beach yesterday- see the previous post) and I decided to cull my closet of all of the unworn clothes and rearrange it. I usually keep my closet organized in a certain way that is logical( probably to my mind only) I like to have the tank tops and sleeveless tops first , then short sleeved tops and then long sleeved tops, sweaters and jackets, skirts, dresses and winter coats. I have a hanging bar on the bottom where I keep all of my pajamas and jeans/pants. I don’t have a dresser where I keep clothing, just a chest where I keep my underthings, so the closet works best when it’s organized. I am probably one of the least organized people in the world, but my environment has to fit the way my mind works, or it’s a complete disaster. Besides having so many clothes in my closet that I didn’t know what I even had, everything was out of order and I couldn’t find things when I needed them.

I started the whole process by taking everything out of the closet and laying it on my bed in piles -each pile was a category of things ( see above). Once everything was out of the closet and sorted ( I make another pile of clothes I no longer wanted as I was removing things from the closet) I started putting them back in the correct order. I even got a little carried away and organized them by color in each category. I learned this years ago when I was working in retail, and it pleases me to see things that way- it seems more orderly.I Made a huge pile of clothes to give away. I’m going to check with the homeless shelter where I will be volunteering beginning this month and see if they can use them. I know that the women there are required to get a job and there are some nice work type clothing that would even be good for a job interview. I still have to do the top shelf of the closet and I want to hammer some nails into the wall to hang belts and purses, but  I feel a great sense of accomplishment that I finished the whole thing in just a short time today!

This is the finished product- it doesn't look so great in the picture, but it's so much better than it was!

It’s a rare occasion that we get snow in Virginia Beach. I’ve lived here since 1978 and can probably count on one hand the number of major snowstorms that we’ve had here. On Friday, there was a threat of snow and Saturday morning we woke up to actual snow on the ground, and it was still snowing.  ( most of the time the predictions fall through and we have no snow) on the ground and it was still snowing. Since we aren’t used to having snow, the the Virginia Dept of Transportation does a great job clearing the main interstate roads, but the side roads have to fend for themselves. Most people who live here aren’t used to driving in the snow and disaster usually ensues when they do drive, so everyone is warned to keep off of the roads. Even when the snow and ice start to melt during the day, once the sun sets and the temperature goes down, everything freezes again and the roads are impassable, so school has been closed yesterday and today and I didn’t go to my part-time  job on Saturday because of the weather. Sunday I was sick with a migraine so I stayed home then too. I’ve had a mini vacation – which I’ve really enjoyed, considering that I usually work 7 days a week. Yesterday the roads were clearer in the afternoon, so we took a little trip to check out what the beach looked like in the snow. Above is a picture of a snowman that someone had built on the beach- I love the juxtaposition of the snowman with the ocean behind him. Hopefully tomorrow will be a regular day,because as nice as it is to have a little vacation, I keep thinking of all of the things that need to be done at school ( work) and it’s time to go back!

This is a song that we used to sing in the mother’s group that I started 16 years ago, when my kids were small and I felt like a weirdo; all alone in my parenting style. I sought out other moms that were attachment parenting/breastfeeding/vegetarian/tree huggers like me. Let me tell  you that in Virginia Beach in the early 90′s they were few and far between. It wasn’t so cool to be “crunch granola” back then. But, through my search, I found my lovely Mothering Friends! After our children grew older, some of us moms decided that we wanted to keep in touch with each other and have time for ourselves without  the kids- time to address the things that were important to us as women. We’ve discussed religion and sex and parenting and food and family and just about anything that you could ever imagine. Well, it’s been 7 years now and we’ve taken  trips together , we’ve consoled each other, we’ve cried together and we’ve laughed together( a lot!).  We’ve seen each other through births and deaths and divorce(mine) and all the other life issues that came along the way. We’ve nourished each other, body and soul. I really don’t know how I would have survived these past 7 years without my women of Motherpeace being there for me. These are the 6 women that I know will be there for me 24 hours of the day ( and they have been) no questions asked if and when I need them. That is a rare and beautiful gift to have in ones life and I see us together as the Mothepeace Crones years down the line .  Maybe we’ll move, or maybe someone will leave the group for reasons of their own, but we will always be together in spirit. I am so thankful for these women and find myself blessed with their presence every week. Every week for 7 years! We may miss a week here and there, but for the most part we’ve been together the entire time. I don’t know if that’s called committment or co-dependency ! I jest, because if anything, I would call it symbiotic- we coexist one evening a week and are strengthened by each other until next we meet. I love my Motherpeace nights and no matter how exhausted I am, try to push myself to get it together and make the meeting. It is so worth it when we say good bye at the end of the evening!

Last night was our yearly Christmas celebration and we had wonderful food ( which I post about later) and beautiful, thoughtful gifts. It was such a wonderful night and made me reflect on how much I love these women and how truly fortunate I am to have them sharing my life with me!

My gift to all of you is sharing my love for you with the world!

May you be happy and healthy and wise throughout the next year!

I wish everyone may have wonderful friends in their life like mine!

I love you women!

While I should have been out looking for Christmas gifts for other people, I selfishly went thrift shopping yesterday after work. I know I have a little thrifting addiction and I promised  myself this would be the last time I go again before Christmas, but oh ,was it worth it! I found a brown brocade Anthropologie swing coat for $25. I didn’t know it was Anthropologie because the brand name was Elevenses ( a brand made specifically for Anthropologie. ) but I could tell it was a really good quality coat. The biggest giveaway was the sizing. It was a size 2 and very roomy on me ( I probably wear a 4 or a 6 in a coat). I guess if you’re rich and can afford to spend lots of money on clothing, you’re able to fool yourself into believing that you’re a smaller size than you really are. Anyway, I fell in love with the cut of the coat. It’s a 3/4 length swing coat with 3/4 length leg o’ mutton sleeves. The picture above showing it on the hanger doesn’t do it justice- it looks much better on. It was really hard for me to justify paying $25 for a coat at the thrift store ( the cashier even read the price out loud to make sure I knew how much I was paying for it) but I knew it was a good quality coat and I loved it, so I consider it my Christmas gift to myself. I looked it up online and while I couldn’t find the exact same coat, I figured the original price was somewhere around $160- so not bad for $25 after all! I also bought a vintage pitcher  that I put back on the shelf twice, but finally decided that I couldn’t live without it. It has a mark on the bottom, but it’s sort of faded away and hard to read. I think it might be Fransiscan ware, but I can’t find it online anywhere. I’m still researching to find out what it is. Regardless of it’s origin, I just love it and it matches my kitchen so well. I’m not really a horse lover, but the colors and the shape of the pitcher really spoke to me. I’ll probably use it  as a vase to put flowers in. I bought a baby blue velvet dress that I had seen in my last few trips to this thrift store. It was new with tags, but sort of pricey. It was finally marked down to $1.98 so I bought it. I didn’t try it on in the store, but did try it on when I got home. That’s when I realized that there was a hole in the seam under the bust. Hopefully, it’s something that my mom will be able to fix for me. The only reason I wanted the dress was because it reminded me of a blue velvet dress my mom made for me when I was a little girl. It’s sort of plain, but the velvet is luxurious and it will look cute with a short jacket and some silver accessories. I also bought a brand new in the package Santa Claus beard for my dad. He is going to be Santa at the school where I work again this year, but is sort of squeamish about wearing a beard that someone else wore before him. For .99 I figured it was worth the investment for his peace of mind! I also bought a pair of bronzed baby shoes on a stand with a picture frame for $1.98. I wanted a pair of these because I saw an art piece that someone had done in a magazine and it gave me an idea. Now, of course, I can’t remember what the idea was, but at least I’ll have the shoes when I remember. They’re really cute little girl shoes and right now they make a good accompaniment to my creepy baby doll heads in my art room! I’ll post pictures another day. To justify the $40 that I spent at the thrift store, I didn’t take myself out to dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant like I had planned. Instead, I went home and had a bowl of pasta with olive oil and cheese. Well worth the trade off!

These are really hard to photograph because of the glare, but this is what I’ve been making for Christmas gifts for my girlfriends. We’re having a gift exchange tomorrow night and for the first time in forever, I’m done with time to spare! I just have to add the cords, which will take about five minutes and then wrap them up. I made these charms for myself originally, and was surprised when people liked them when I wore them. I thought maybe they were just to my liking, but other people wouldn’t “get it”. I got lots of compliments when I wore mine to work at Trader Joe’s, so  I know I’m not the only one who liked them. I know that they aren’t everyone’s taste and won’t be insulted if any of  my friends don’t want to wear them either. The basic design is a washer( rusty) with a bead in the middle and a saying from an old book glued to the front ( and in some cases on the back as well) and wrapped with wire. There is no adhesive involved in holding all of the pieces together, which was part of my  challenge to myself, but turned out to be very easy. I did seal them with something to prevent the rust from rubbing off onto clothing and that caused some of the pictures to have glare.I know it’s hard to read from the picture but they say things like “a little thing and easy to fix” “the goal has meaning” ” I received a message”- and on the reverse “it was a shock” also “I have my heart set” and on the reverse “on keeping you here” “Our Voices would reach someone” and something on the reverse that I can’t recall right now. The little one is different, with a transparency of a child’s face in the center. I wanted to do all of them this way, but I was having a hard time with the logistics and since time was an issue, I went with the easier version. Now, all I have to figure out is whom will receive which necklace. I may just wrap them up and let each person choose one without looking. They could always swap with each other if they want to. I hope they’re well received!

Yesterday, after work I decided to stop in to the Habitat for Humanity thrift store because they usually have a 50% off sale on the weekends. I only found a couple of paperback books, but what I overheard was priceless. There was a family shopping one aisle over from where I was. At first, it was just the Dad and two boys, around 8 and 10 yrs old. I overheard one son ask the dad if he could buy “Jesus” I have no idea what form Jesus was in ( maybe a doll, since they were on the toy aisle). I moved over to their aisle because the books were there too. While I was looking at the books the older sister came down the aisle whining that she wanted a toy because Tommy got a toy. The older  brother  said “Jesus isn’t a toy, Jesus is….Jesus is Love!” I thought that was a very sweet thing for him to say and figured he had probably been to church that day. Then the illusion was shattered- the mom came into the aisle screeching at the father because he was looking at a bicycle helmet for one of the boys and he already had that same helmet. Then she started bitching and moaning because the store had no children’s coats at all. Over and over again. She was shrieking at her husband and he was just standing there, taking it. Meanwhile, I was standing in the aisle right in the middle of them, feeling very uncomfortable, and the mom never even modified her tone of voice. I think that Jesus’ message of love didn’t make it to mom. It was really kind of pathetic. But at least I got a new catch phrase out of it! Jesus is not a toy!

Another Bird picture- totally unrelated to this post

Earlier in the month I decided that to get further inspired in working on some art, I was going to start a mixed media art group. I have already done this in the past with my wonderful friends Christina and Verna, with the Women’s Art Co-operative( or WACO for short). The only problem is that I work every single weekend and the WACO meetings are always on a Sunday. I missed the camaraderie, and wanted something to do on weeknights after work ( because I’ve found that if I’m not working, I don’t really know what to do with myself). I was already a member of Meetup.com but had never actually attended any of the groups that I signed up for because the meeting times didn’t work for me. So, I figured that if I started my own group, I could make it to the meetings

I posted the group on meetup and had members almost immediately! It was pretty exciting. We had our first meeting on December 3. Only three of us showed up, but I considered it a success. I don’t expect too many people to get involved in something new like this during the holiday season- especially artists who are probably trying to sell their wares for the Christmas season. The next meeting is scheduled for December 30th at the Virginia Beach Central Library ( or the Meyera Obendorf library as it is now called) at 7 pm. Hopefully there will  be an even better turn out and the group will grow exponentially. We’re already up to 17 members!I don’t really have an agenda for the group, except for getting together with like-minded people and getting inspired to actually work or continue to work on my art. I do have hopes that the group will be a little “edgy” and not so mainstream, but that’s pretty much my hope for everything in my life!

Fair Trade Festival at Waterside in Norfolk 2009

This past weekend I went to the Fair Trade Festival in Norfolk with my niece. We go every year for her birthday and this year we went to Ghent to have lunch at the No Frill Grill(I love their Veggie Ruebens!). It was a really nice day, despite the rain and wind. On the way back to the car from the restaurant we passed a tree that was full of robins just singing their hearts out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many robins in one spot. The tree was right next to the parking lot where we were parked, so I ran and got my camera from the car and took some pictures of the birds. This is my favorite one- I edited it a little in Picnik and I really like the way it turned out.So, hopefully I’m off to a good start and will keep my resolution! I have some artsy news to share and I’ll write about it in a separate post. That will make two posts in one day! I think I’ll be ahead of the game!