August 05, 2007

yes, we do still live here...

we had a wonderful time on our long-weekend Wisconsin vacation in the woods. We met Mom, Dad, and Judy for lunch, and hung out in the woods with Tom's family, relaxing and reminiscing. We made it back with only one travel casualty, Tom's leather hat (left it in the rental car, and the rental car agency never got back to us about it).

after yet another week on the road in California, Tom's actually working in the office for the next few weeks! A well-deserved rest (of sorts) for him; the luxury to actually drive home after work instead of to a hotel!

we've been having some monsoon storms periodically, which sometimes involve lots of wind, dust, and quite impressive thunder and lightning. There's nothing quite like driving through a dust storm while it sprinkles, which only serves to turn the dust into mud on the windshield! There are some flooded washes in town, but now that the bridge by our subdivision is complete, we're not cut off from town no matter how much water there is, thank goodness.

I bought (and finished, finally) the last Harry Potter book. I had been putting off reading it, because I know it's the last one ever, and knew I would feel let down by that. It was a great book, although it had some unexpected twists, I am quite happy with how it turned out- lots of stuff got explained, and right triumphed over evil, as we wish would always happen. I do miss Hogwarts School and the wizarding world already, though...

the next week is going to be busy for me:

Art Unraveled starts tonight with Meet the Artists, where I will get the chance to see and actually meet some of the people whose work I ogle on the internet and in books and magazines!

Monday evening I'm taking Monochromatic Collage, which involves found objects, small tins, collage images, and E6000 adhesive- sounds like fun! (click here for an example project from the instructor.)

Friday I'm taking a personal day from work to take a mixed media collage class titled Off the Wall with Kelly Kilmer... this class involves watercolor paper, stamping, collage images, paint, and requires bringing entire rolls of both paper towels and waxed paper- should be lots of fun, and will probably be messy! (here are some of her projects, posted on Flickr.)

Saturday is our very first Phoenix Craft Mafia Trunk Show!! I'm sure I won't be ready, no matter how much more work I do, so the only thing left to do is just put the stuff out there and see if anyone likes it, I guess. Craft Mafia members have been doing lots of promoting, so there should be quite a few shoppers attending (I hope!)... I'll let you know how it goes!

Sunday, I'm taking one more class at Art Unraveled, a class on Altered Trading Cards with Bernie Berlin, an artist, author, and also animal rescuer extraordinare... this one was a great deal, because I got it for about 1/2 price from another attendee who got the chance to take a different class, so she needed to sell her ticket... this class also involves lots of gluing, cutting, and probably also will be messy, but I'll learn tons of new techniques!

Monday, I will be going back to work, and probably will be half-asleep at my desk by 8 am!

2 comments:

Felicia said...

Sounds like you will be busy! I felt a bittersweetness about reading the last HP book too. Overall I was pleased with the way things turned out.

crimsoncat05 said...

Felicia- glad to hear others feel the same way about HP. I loved it, but am still sad it's over! I'll probably read it again soon.