It's been too long

It has been too long since I took time to blog. After the election and my guy won I got busy with Christmas and health issues and just didn't have interest in doing the blog. I apologize to those who have asked me to start again. To update you - I had surgery in December to fix my aneurism with coiling. It went well and I was on a plane flying to Denver 3 days later, to have Christmas with 3 generations of my family. It was wonderful and I'm back 100% again.

The financial crisis has slowly crept in to our lives - food costs are way higher than they used to be, property and 401K values have tanked and you pray every day that you hang on to your job. Savings? Right.

So - what to do? Get creative and stay on course trying to be Green and motivated. At least our President is on the same page as most of us and has done his best to ensure he never gets "bubbled" from what is really happening in the real world. As they speak of loans and budgets now in the $Trillions$$$ it just sounds like a number, but the other day I was listening to Marketplace on XM and they broke it all down - how many $10's it took to make a $1000 and then $1000's to get a $1M etc. Trillions is a LOT of $10.00's!! I keep wondering where the money is coming from? Do we just print more? Don't you need gold to back the money you print? Um, what's wrong with this picture? Everyone seems so confused and can't explain it easily.

When things get this complicated the human reaction seems to be to simplify the things one can control. Cut back on the "must do's" and take time to garden, sew, bake or have family time together. Movie attendance has been higher, television is a waste of time so read a book, scrapbook or write in your blog. Facebook and Twitter are an answer to something and we're all jumping on board. I really don't think it has so much to do with communication as it does with connecting. The world it tough right now so find a person - that is more real and there is comfort in it. Family seems more important now too. My kids and the grandchildren have always been my rock but I take time to really think about how much I appreciate what I have in my life and don't have the big wish list I used to. The babies are toddlers now and watching their discovering what they can do has been such a boost to my mood. It all looks so impossible and they nail it and make it look easy. Kids really are a wonder to behold.

Life is rough right now and finding that glimmer that makes you smile makes a much bigger impact now. Just today I got an email with a link to a beautiful photography site that offers inspiration for work I will do in digital scrap booking. It's http://www.thephotographicdictionary.org/home.html. Pick a word and think of how you could use it to make a picture . It can be used for much more than just photography. The pictures it shows for each word are beautiful by themselves though.

Hope this finds you well and thanks for stopping by.

Hannah

Dreaming in Colors

Hurry Spring -

Phoenix is in the midst of Spring weather - not too hot and not too cold. In fact...it's just right. We can leave the heat and AC off and have the doors and windows open to circulate air. This is the only time of year I can say anything nice about living here. Come May it will be a different story.

We had heavy rains in February and early March and the weeds have been prolific all over the valley. I went to several stores looking for extended weed killer (very un-Green of me I know)and all of them were sold out. The stores just couldn't keep up. Now I admit to using chemicals SPARINGLY only where I can't get to the weeds (rock riverbeds, pathways and under cacti) and the weeds were smart and grew where they thought I couldn't get to them. Ha! I hate weeds more than I hate weed killer so they lose! They were strong little buggers though. It took me digging the majority of them up, followed by some spray followed by more digging a week later. Once I get them out of there I can use Amaze granuals and keep them at bay the whole season. The really great garden news is my orange tree has blossoms and I just hope the bees find it and pollinate. My first citrus - how exciting.

Besides the yard, I have been a busy bee in my craft shop. I made Elsie a dress and a vest/pant outfit that took so much work and looks so bad on her. I can't help but crack up when I see her in them. It was so bad I deleted the pictures of her in the pants and the dress made her look like a bag lady, and the vest fit, but the pants look like parachute pants on MC Hammer. It was pitiful. I'm better off sticking with tag blankets and burp cloths. My etsy shop is getting stocked and I have been buying fabric like I used to buy shoes. It's important to get designer fabrics not available at the local Joann's so things are unique. It all started with Funky Monkey and has gone uphill from there. I've had to organize in bins all the fabric I have now. Be sure to check out my esty site dreamingincolors.etsy.com)

I haven't seen my new boy Atticus since the first week of February but he's growing fast and has the cutest grump faces. We kid his daddy that Atty picked that up from him. Jason jokes all the time about hating people so we blame it all on him. I can't wait to hold him again before he gets too big. They are small so short a time. I plan to go up North for tulip season in April, again in June and in August for the birth of our second grandson to Javan and Terina. 2008 is proving to be baby explosive. Enough!

Hope this finds you happy and well. Thanks for stopping by,

Hannah

Always, Dreaming....in colors.

Welcome to 2008 - Hope it's a great year

We have survived the holidays and are pretty much back to normal again. The freeways starting this week made that abundantly clear - gridlock has fully returned. It was nice for the past two weeks to only take 30 minutes to get to and from work instead of the usual 1 hr. and 15 min. Urghhh

The kids in Seattle and Bellingham had really nice Christmas days - with little ones around, the spirit of the holiday really blooms. Elsie Quinn was totally amazed when she came downstairs and saw the tree had exploded with presents. She got lots of goodies - Santa thought she had been a very good girl her first year. He gave her a baby doll and stroller, a huge Elmo and small Grover, a vacuum cleaner so she can clean when Mommy does, and daddy gave her a computer (of course). She got crayons and loves to sit at the dining room table drawing. I guess she's become quite the little Mommy with her baby doll and carries the moses basket and strolls with her baby all through the house. With a new baby brother coming this month those skills will come in very handy!

Santa was good to me too this year. I have struggled along using a very worn Singer sewing machine which for basic hemming and scrapbooking worked fine, but for anything more than that it would fizzle. Santa brought me a wonderful new one - top of the line computerized Singer that sews, hems, button holes, sews on buttons and self-threads! Wow - have I been having fun. I had planned to make a flannel quilt for Atticus with a pirate theme and did it over the weekend in less than 2 days. I am now making 'tag-blankets' with cowboys and indians in a retro print. I have lots of material so plan on making extras and selling them on my Etsy shop site.

I will be heading to Seattle on the 25th to help out when Atticus joins the family. It should be fun. I miss Reyna so much and enjoy just having her in the same house with me.

I guess the other big news would be the elections going on in Iowa and New Hampshire. I was really not concentrating on the candidates very much - Louie watches Fox News every day he's home so I had seen a few of the Republican debates but none of the candidates spoke to me and how I felt about things. I knew Hillary wasn't my type either. One day I heard a bit of a speech Obama gave and it stopped me in my tracks. I knew of him but not where he stood on any issues. I didn't like that Oprah was so involved and had ignored him up until I heard that speech. I checked his website and fell in love with his honesty and "upfrontness" (new word) about every issue imaginable. It was awesome. I pledged some pocket change to his cause and volunteered for the Arizona Obama Coalition and that gets us to today. I am hoping the trend continues for him and he has a big win in New Hampshire today. It sounds good so far.

Hope you have a great month.

Hannah

DreamingInColors.etsy.com