Snow, snow, glorious snow. What do I have? Heat, heat, heart-stopping heat. Geez. I gotta move further north....
And here she is, looking like a wise old Chinese man. (Confucius say....)
Now look at this face...she's finally got her eyes open in this one. I love that little smile. So sweet...
And then the eyes are shut again. It looks like she's saying "I'm done with you...go away now". (I'm thinking this little girl is going to develop into quite the diva one day.)
Awwww, here's my baby holding his baby. How sweet is this?
And now we come to the money shot. This is the picture that is truly earning her her nickname...Monkey.
She's making a bit of a monkey face and it's something she apparently does quite a bit. According to her very own mother, she also has "monkey hair" too. So there you go...we have a Maddy Moose (although I'll have to say up front that"Moose" wasn't decided on because Maddy made Moose faces, whatever those would look like! lol) and now a Monkey Baby. I told Nick that's what I was going to call her. He insists she doesn't look like a monkey. I told him to ask Jodie. lol And since Jodie came up with it originally, I'm not feeling too bad. Besides, she's the cutest monkey I've ever seen in all my born days. I can't wait to hold this little girl. Fingers crossed that we'll get to around Christmas!! 
And yeah, I do think she's smart enough to read already, but since we don't want her to develop eye strain at such a tender age, her Grandpa and I are going to record ourselves reading these books to her. Then we'll send the recordings to her Mommy and Daddy so they can play them for her at bedtime. Maybe that way, at least our voices will be familiar to her when we meet. (Fingers crossed for that, too!).
And these hats (were sunflowers really that big back then or what??):
And these wreaths:
'Course, looking at these things now, I'm kind of squirming in embarrassment. They look so...old fashioned and out-of-date. Which I guess they are, considering they were made about a decade and a half ago. (Geez, I'm getting old.)*smile* I did okay at it, meaning I always sold more than my booth rental. The problem was, I usually spent any profits shopping in other people's booths. Oh the talent those people had. I bought lots of rag dolls and ceramics and candles and wooden signs, etc. All the stuff I couldn't make myself. I still have quite a few of those things, come to think of it. I also did cross-stitching back in the day. Never to sell though. Cross-stitching is entirely too much work to try and make a profit at! I did this deer "head" for Randey's sister and her husband:
Then I did a stitching of 4 babies that represented my 4 babies (in the photo below). The original pattern actually had 7 babies and the words to this nursery rhyme:Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child works hard for a
living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and
blithe and good and gay.
Unfortunately, about 3 1/2 "babies" into this project, I got bored so I stopped at 4, stitched my kids names and birth dates in and called it done. Which is probably an indication of how short my attention span had gotten by that point. This is probably the last "big" thing I stitched. My eyesight's not what it used to be, nor is my patience. (In other words...another hobby fell by the wayside)
When we moved here to Texas, I got a wild hair and decided to try my hand at mosaic. I had done a few small pieces before. Susan (my BFF) and I had done a birdbath each (talk about a learning experience!) when I lived in Florida. And we'd done a couple of cement blocks that I'd found in my garage (that's a whole other story!). But now I wanted to do something big. I wanted to actually design something. So I did this table top:
I was so thrilled with my work (hey, I thought it was pretty good, being my first "designed" project! lol) that I decided to do some matching flower pots. Yeeeaaaahhhh. Those are still sitting in our garage, 3 years later, half finished. It's that short attention span thing again. I want to finish them. I just don't want to have to do the work required to finish them. I keep thinking that one of these days, I'll find THE hobby. The one that will capture my attention and hold it forever. As much as I love scrapbooking, I don't think it's the hobby to end all hobbies for me. I'm not good enough at it, it doesn't come naturally enough to me and sometimes I get downright frustrated because I can't think of a single creative thing to do with it. But one of these days, I just know I'm going to come across THE hobby - the one that I am really, really good at, the one that will hold my attention. The one with which I can actually create something stunning. Yeah, I said it...stunning. I want to create stunning things. lol How about you? What do you create? What hobby holds your heart? What are you good at? What do you do that's just plain fun? What would you like to do as a hobby? And does anybody else out there have this weird compulsion to try and make things? Or am I just an odd-ball, your basic Jill of all trades, master of none. And if I am your basic Jill, is that so bad? Is it okay to go through life without some creative passion being fulfilled? So many questions, so few answers. My creative spirit, like just about everything else these days, is in a state of flux.
So what brought this whole hobby post on? They've opened a new shop in a town nearby where you can do ceramics! Yeah. I've never done ceramics. I grabbed a flier from their store and have been studying it...could this be THE hobby? Or will it be another passing fancy for me? Who knows. Thank goodness I stopped smoking, eh? At least I won't be making ginormous, multi-colored, Star Trek badge shaped ashtrays while I test my skill at this obsession. (she said with a big grin on her face!)
