Pretty Girls Dancing (all in a row)

At Sierra's wedding a couple weeks ago, my mother took down the house with her Saturday Night moves.

My mother, who in her later years is a more reserved woman than I knew her to be when I was a child, told me once that if she could do what she wanted, she would like to sing and play (guitar, piano, mandolin... many instruments -- she can play them all) on stage. She and her family -- all musicians and singers -- are all quite entertaining people and they often get together and have what they call music parties.

Isn't it the truth that sometimes a person wishes she could have an admirer...? Someone could admire how you do this or that and what you say and think. Someone could be looking at you with wonder all the time. And it would just be honest astonishment at how great you are all the time. They would completely overlook you when you were ignorant or stupid or slow or incapable or nonsensical or hysterical or ugly or awkward or just plain wrong-wrong-wrong.

But the truth is no one really gives much thought to another person. Not really. There isn't time. There isn't energy to go around all the time admiring someone. It's too exhausting. It's too much effort. It's too taxing. It's too boring.

It's not out of meanness that we don't pay enough attention to our friends and family and those we love. It's not even out of apathy. It's just because we're too exhausted with having to get up and go and come back and get ready to get up again.

That being said: I liked seeing my mother in such a joyful state. I liked seeing her two-stepping and people admiring and seeing her as she is: cool. I liked seeing her jig for a group of 20-somethings who cheered her to high heaven. I liked seeing her dancing and then worrying if she "needed to go up front at church tomorrow because I'm dancing, ha ha ha!"

I say, if you're gonna go up front, do it when you're dancing and let everybody see. Same thing, even if you're at church.

Love, d.

A Snotty Little Display

These shots are from a couple weeks ago at the shop as we began making our Hot Snots display in the gallery.

We made our own card display racks (well, actually, we've only completed one so far... there are four, but it's been too hot to paint) because we couldn't find anything on the market that we liked that was affordable. Because our line is at 140 designs now, the wire racks aren't ideal, but we may eventually have to go with them... I do think the wire racks are ugly.

I made a few Lil' Snot cards and like the translucent envelopes we bought for them. I think they are pretty cute and retail for only a buck each.

Our prototype bags turned out nicely but are made from a thinner material than I would like to ultimately use. I only bought enough material for about 40 of these so, hopefully, we will use them quickly and move onto more suitable fabric.

I finished several pendant necklaces last week but haven't photographed them yet. I had lost my camera (which turned out to be buried in my purse!) and so maybe I can get that done today.

Sadly, I woke this morning thinking about Christmas in the gallery and wondering what in this world I am going to do. I have one idea for a tree but, like last year, I feel some apathy about it. I am NOT into the discount Christmas market and refuse to go there. So, basically, what that means is a lot of work and a lot of imagination but nobody wants to buy until everything is at least half-price. I guess we could do a "Hobby-Lobby" and make a fake price to begin with, so that when it's half-price it's really full-price, but something about that seems deeply unethical to me and I won't do it.

Who knows. I might start on a snotty tree this week!

Love to all and especially to new bride, Sierra. Welcome home! d.

Girls coming home... leaving home...

Tomorrow, my girls, Ashley and Alicia, will be coming home for younger niece Sierra's wedding on Saturday. My girls are coming home - just for a couple days. My sisters little girl is leaving.

All these girls - my two and my sister's Savannah and Sierra - have been away from home for years now -- all in college, some of them married. Both my sister Linda and I are left with only little lap dogs for our babies (and recently, my sister acquired an inquisitive peacock who according to her possibly lying husband decided on his own to leave in a day or two... do you really believe that?) but we don't have any real babies anymore.

As I got dressed for work this morning I looked at my old fat head in the steamed-up mirror and said to myself, "I will never be young again." This is still coming as a revelation to me. I will never be young again. Wonder what that even means.

My husband called the other night from work just to tell me the news that the son of friends of ours just turned 30. We were both astounded by this. Little Brian was 3 years old when David and I got married. THREE YEARS OLD! And he's 30 now! HE'S THIRTY!

No wonder I will never be young again. You can't still be young when you got married nearly 30 years ago.

And so our littlest niece will marry and my girls are already married and, no doubt, Savannah will be married before we know it and one thing's for sure: Christmas will never be the same!

When I grow old I shall wear purple?

I ain't gonna wear purple. Nobody cares if you wear purple. That's no big fa-looten deal. That's not like it's some wild thing just because you stick on some absurd stupid red hat. Purple sucks. That whole idea sucks.

When I get old I'm just gonna go around with no pants. That'll make somebody remember me. And even if they don't remember me, they'll at least say, "what was that old thing that just run by here with no pants? Did you see that?"

Nobody will believe their eyes. And it'll be me that done it! It'll be all about me-me-me!

Sierra, the Bride

I took down our old hammock today, put up its replacement, then stood there for several minutes and just looked.

The trees in this old yard are huge. The trees we planted for the girls when they were babies now tower above the house and the limbs have to be cut back every few summer weeks because they brush against the roof. The other trees that my own father planted are all over 50 years old now and there's too much shade. The grass doesn't grow and flowers don't grow and the house is dark. But it stays cool all day long without air conditioning.

The wind always moves in the trees here. Our elevation is high enough for a breeze to stir almost constantly. When you lay on the hammock, it never stops moving. The breeze lifts you like a gentle, soothing hand.

It's never quiet here. The wind chimes move. There is wind in the leaves. There are locust in the heat of the day; frogs and crickets at night.

It's always quiet here. The wind chimes move and there is wind in the leaves and the singing of locust and frogs and crickets.

And so it's how we look at our life.

Our baby Sierra, my youngest niece (I only have two) and the youngest of the four (my two girls and my sister's two daughters), will marry next Saturday and change will come. Such is how life is lived.

All in all, though the days are filled with racket and worry, when the days become years, we find it's made for a quiet life of enduring meaning.

God's blessings on our little baby Sierra. We are so happy for you. What a beautiful bride you will be.

Love and more love to our Princess Sierra,

Princess Aunt Donna

Storms and Stuff

Lots of storms around and more coming.

Dogs are worried. Lucy is 10 1/2 and just stretches herself out to relax but Frankie is still young and he wonders what to do.

Lots of turkey and deer crossing the road where they have for decades (on the treeline in the picture above)... I saw some almost every night this past week coming home from work. Later someone ran over a raccoon right there where all the critters cross. Guess raccoons got someplace to go too. They should look both ways first, even at night when you could be fairly sure no car is coming.

There were snails in the cat's metal food bowl yesterday out on the deck. I left them there and fed the cats in something else. They were gone this morning. And, noticed that Gandolf the Grey Cat, a stray that has lived here for years, is really a pretty ugly, rangy old cat. I had been defending him to my daughter Ashley when she laughed at him and asked, "WHAT is THAT?" but now I think he's ugly too. He was all the uglier because he was wet. Poor Gandolf the Grey Cat. He is the ugliest cat we have.

Grass needs cut again and it was just cut Saturday. Trees are growing over the roof of the house again.

Bird baths are full of rainwater. Never saw a bird in one yet. Whoever thought of a bird bath? I like the idea of a bird taking a bath and splashing around all happy and singing and being cute like a cartoon. To an ordinary real-live bird I suppose it has no appeal or they would be taking baths hundreds of times a day.

Hammock is all wet.

Last night after it rained steady and long the sun came out one last time and the woods went wild. Squirrels were chirping. Birds were calling. Locusts were humming. Woodpeckers were pecking. It sounded like a classroom of naughty kids who'd been pent up all day.

I bought my wiener dogs a pool. It's a one-ring, 3 feet around and cost five dollars. Husband says it's stupid. I wish it had only cost three dollars.

Snotty Birthday Greetings

Inside: Any girl can look glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid. Hedy Lamarr

Inside: Aren't the 'good things that come to those who wait' just the leftovers from the people that got there first?

So, here are the beginnings of the birthday collections. I'm fairly happy with these two and I did have a third one posted but I have just pooh-poohed it off the collection. I just hate it too much.

I consistently mess up about one-third of my drawings. Not really. But I do mess up about 10% or I pooh-pooh them because I hate something about them. The one I hated of these three had a weird shaped ugly face. I'm always cutting those chins short and this one I cut until it looked like some stupid little goldfish. I just couldn't stand it. After all, even though I have very little pride, I do have some standards.

These cards will have humorous quotes inside and sell in packets or individually. I wish you'd buy some and buy some right quick before I get desperate and get that goldfish out of the trash!

A cleaner, safer studio... !?!

David (my hubby) got home much earlier than usual last night because all the games around here were rained out (he's a sports reporter as well as about a hundred-ca-billion other things) and he got his pages done earlier than ever.

I was working like a dog in my little studio trying to quickly put together a 10-card line of birthday Hot Snots before I send out catalog requests from the NSS. He comes in and says something like, "well, you look happy out here surrounded by all your stuff." And I says, "what do you mean? I can't even get the dogs to stay out here with me. I'm mad at them." And he says, "I mean all your stuff. It's all around you."

Well, like every other woman on the planet, I was really offended. I said how dare he and stuff like that and said I needed help to clean up my studio because it was too crowded and I made a lot of nonsensical accusations.

This morning, I went back out to finish the first phase of my drawings and I had never seen such a mess in my life. Nothing had changed. I just hadn't looked at it. Every nook and cranny was piled with VERY IMPORTANT projects I had abandoned at one point or another. Even my sister's birthday present which I started about two years ago and never finished (it was just TOOO hard!) was still laying there. Good night America.

So, instead of working on my drawings and doing what I said I would do, I spent the morning and all afternoon cleaning and throwing away. I even threw away some of my big projects that I know I'll never complete. As my little friend Lynne knows, that is VERY hard for me to do... I always think I'm going to rescue some abandoned thing but I guess, unless it's a dadgum cat, I never do.


During the course of my cleaning, I decided to put a few little abandoned cards into little abandoned frames and I think I kind of like them. I'm going to take them to the shop and incorporate them into our display for Hot Snot cards.

We spent yesterday working on the layout for the display at the shop... and as usual, we made everything harder than it needed to be because we refuse to spend money on anything. We are making the display racks (I am NOT going to pay two- or three-hundred dollars for stupid display pieces from China!) and so now that will take me at least a week because everything has turned out to be harder than I bargained for. I get so sick of me I could vomit almost all the time.

Anyway, it was Erica's idea about how to do the birthday cards. Actually, she had a more elaborate concept than I am willing to bang out in time for the catalog, but she had the idea about the little birthday hats. All the Hot Snot dolls wear things on their heads so I didn't know what it would be like, but now that they are well on their way to being ready for drawing, I pretty much think they are cute. If they dry thoroughly this afternoon, I will try to finish one and post it to see what you think.

Lastly, I am really grateful to have everything I need, to do everything I need to do with my Snots. Many times in my life (and still many times now in other areas), I feel I struggle against not having the resources I need to adequately do what I want to do or need to do. When I was little, we had a series of Childcraft books and, as I have told my daughters to their eye-rolling laughter several times, BOOK NUMBER NINE was my favorite. Book Number Nine was the Craft book and BOY! Did I ever want to make EVERYTHING in that book! It all looked so premium.

Alas, I never had the supplies. We had the standard things a kid should have: notebook paper, glue, scissors, crayons, pencils. But that was it. I wanted real bad to make a cardboard hide-out like in the book out of big appliance boxes. But nobody ever brought big appliances in boxes to our house. And I REALLY wanted to make a pair of sandals for school. I did make them too. But notebook paper sandals that are glued together (we didn't have fancy tape to waste on our crap... that was for my mom!) won't even hold up all the way from one side of the living room to the other.

I would always plan out my projects in my head before I made them too. So, after looking in the Childcraft and seeing how good it all looked, I was always so surprised that MY sandals were pieces of crap when I was done with them. I just KNEW they were going to be beautiful leather sandals when I was done. But they never were. Not even once. I always lived with a series of letdowns. Nothing ever matched my imagination.

Thank you to my hubby and to my God for giving me what I need to make my pretties. Now, if only one or the other of you would help me kind of keep that stuff cleaned up, I would be mighty appreciative. After all, I can't do everything around here.

Love, d.