still feeling lucky

Okay, the feeling sorry for myself has passed. Two more hours until the kids come home, and I got a lot done. I had a nice Sunday with Scott. Breakfast at the tea room with Laurel and Andy, who are home from India at long last, a walk over to see the artwork without the crowds at Boomerang. Drew told me that my "Together Forever" painting sold to people at Industrial Light and Magic, which is quite cool, I think.

I finished my homework, and then got all sleepy. Scott and I watched a documentary about Ancient Egypt, and were out cold by 9:30, which made the Sunday go by way too quickly for my taste.

Today I did more listings and more thrift shopping and got groceries and cleaned the kitchen. I found a super soft Italian cashmere sweater today, and I listed it for cheap, and then I found out that it was probably $800 new! It's still just like new, so maybe it will sell for lots. The designer is Cividini, never heard of them before, but the sweater feels incredible. I bought it to make something out of, but instead I guess I'll see if I can make a couple hundred dollars off it. Hell, I'd be happy with $30 or $40.

I also found some more Bebe stuff, more Hanna Anderson and Banana Republic, and all that kind of stuff. It's funny, I don't wear that kind of stuff, I usually only wear the plainest of plain black clothing. Maybe I'll branch out some this spring and summer. As long as I don't have to pay more than $4.00 for anything.

things aren't stopping

Z woke up with a really sore throat and nasty cough and is all limp and sick and quiet. Damn. I hate to send them to their dad's house when they're sick. I kind of don't trust him to take care of them as well as I would. But I have to. Plus I have no groceries and no one to stay with sick kids while I go get groceries, and I have two papers due for school, and if she's sick that means no school for them this week, which means no time to concentrate on work for me. Which means I really have to send them to their dad's house today.

I'll just have to tell him to watch for high fever and painful cough and stuff, in case she is getting the bacterial lung infection that Scott had.

sorry about the complaining

What a blur of a weekend. Blurry because I've woken up twice with horrible crushing headaches and pain in my neck. It makes it really hard to get up and make breakfast for the kids and do everything that we need to do.

It feels like I never have enough time and focus to accomplish anything. Sometimes I wish that I could just put things on pause (kids, money concerns, worry), and sit in a quiet room for a month so that I can figure out what I am supposed to be doing with my life, and also how to make the best of things for my kids.

I have lots to think about and do on my days off this week. Two papers to turn in, work on my business, my house, setting up my studio space, more ebay listings to do. No more headaches please!!

digital tragedy

I don't think I've written about this yet, but it's been really bugging me lately. I lost my entire collection of music ( a few thousand hours of it) and photos! All of my music!!! All of the pictures of my kids and everything that I'd taken in the past two years. It was all on a portable hard drive that decided to break all of a sudden, so now the only music I really have is Le Tigre, Joanna Newsom, and MC Frontalot.

Meredith (the other Meredith) asked me to dj this Sunday, and part of me wanted to, because it's almost been long enough for me to forget how stressful it is, but no, I can't because I have no music any more. I haven't even been out dancing in ages.

doll heads in the window next to Moxie 

Very Cool Web Drawing Thing

I found this through Meggiecat, and it's great! Typedrawing.

watching the watchers

All of my auctions have multiple watchers already, except for one item. This bodes well, especially since they have 5 and 6 days to go. Three things have bids already! Today I found more goodies, so I still have plenty more stuff to list, and something cute to wear to the art show at Atlas Cafe.

I can't stop checking my auctions...part of the strange joy of making a living on ebay. It's kind of like gambling; how much can I make from the now $60 I've spent on items this week? Will I find anything good next week?

another to do list

take kids to school (1/2 hr each way)
clean house
6 more listings
turn in photography homework (overdue damnit)
tea with Lacey
finish reading for small bus. class
pick up kids (1/2 hr each way again!)
speech therapy for S
babysit Madi (overnight)
maybe take all the kids to Larissa's for a visit.

thank you, overly affluent wasteful society!

After weeks of bad luck, I scored mightily at every thrift store I visited today. I'm so excited about the stuff I found. Most of it is to sell on ebay, two things are for me! A cute black skirt and some hanna anderson jammie pants.

Most of the things to sell are designer clothes and they're all in incredible condition:

• Betsey Johnson suit
• bebe formal skirt
• Juicy Couture hoodie
• Oilily Pants
• Sweet Pea shirt from Anthropologie
• Hanna Anderson baby pants
• BCBG jeans
• kick ass shoes made by Hans Behr (they're black with a red heart on them)
• two pieces of Heath pottery
• 11 skiens of super soft wool yarn that I'm gonna dye
• beautiful wedding dress that my friends at Moxie gave me to sell
• a neat record holder
• a yoga suit

I spent a total of $40.00....I wonder how much I'll make.

excited

I'm all excited because I am surprising Scott with hotel reservations for today. The hotel is just down the street, but it's a nice historic building, and we both love hotels and have never stayed in one together. We were both so wiped out by this week, that a day at a hotel sounded like the perfect thing to do.

We'll take photos for our new project, the Bathroom Blog. I know that sounds weird, but it's a photoblog that's all pictures of bathrooms. We've both taken pictures of bathrooms that we've liked a lot, so....um...yeah. There's not much there yet, but soon there will be. We just started it last night. Scott invited Miles and Laurel to join too. Maybe Laurel has some photos of bathrooms in India.

power user

My name is Meredith, and I'm a power user. That's what Scott calls my level of computer usage. I am on the computer all the time, I check my email an embarrassing number of times each day. I sleep with my computer next to my bed so I can listen to audio books. I'm reading blogs and looking at other people's art and craft more than I am doing my own. I love my little computer.

This is beginning to be a problem I think. I need to set some limits for myself. I need to work on my own work.

Yep, just thought you all should know.

rainy day

I'm enjoying the rain and the view of the blossoming apricot tree outside my window. My sweetheart is feeling better, thank goodness! I was so worried! Now I am just hoping that he will follow up and see the neurologist.

I have been waiting an waiting for my wholesale license to come through, and I called the BOE today, and they were very helpful. My license will be mailed out on Tuesday, and they will also call me this afternoon and tell me my number. Then I can get moving with the business....hopefully I still have money left. My plan was to have the license before I got my tax refund, so that I wouldn't foolishly spend it all. But beauracracy can be slow.

The kids are at toobtown today with some friends, for a few hours. I wish that I had some energy. I pretty much haven't worked in two weeks, with the kids having last week off of school, and this week with Scott's sickness, and now I'm not feeling that great. I'm tired and probably coming down with a cold.

I have some papers to write for my small business class, and one is quite late, but I just got my textbook in the mail yesterday, so now I'll curl up on the couch and read about the exciting world of small business management.

Outside the show-by Zelia. You can see the backsides of Brian and Sim. 

Scott was wearing a spiffy suit.  

another one by Zelia 

Pretty rockabilly girl, suprised by Zelia's flash. 

Here's Heidi. Zelia said "I took this one and she's beautiful." 

view into the shop from the gallery 

Sylvan's favorite piece in the show. 

The rest of these photos are ones the kids took at the art show. I love the pictures they take, and it's neat to see how things look from a kid's point of view. This is Zelia, photographed by Sylvan. 

My friend Heidi made this cool giant free-form knitted heart. Knitted! It's so cool! 

yay!

Spring just called and told me that both of my pieces sold! Yay!

terrible

Valentine's Day has never been good for me. I think I will pointedly ignore it from now on.

My sweetheart got hit with pneumonia today. Hit all of a sudden, and hit hard. I kissed him goodbye at the cafe at 8 am, and he said that he had a sore throat, but no big deal.

Around 11 I got a call from him saying that he was on his way to the emergency room. And sure enough, pneumonia. God damnit!! He was so so sick and miserable. They gave him antibiotics and tylenol with codeine and sent him home.

The doctor said that anyone who was with him in the last 36-72 hours could get it. That means me and the kids. I spent Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday night with him. The kids were with him Saturday night and Sunday morning. And frankly, hearing how he sounded, I'm terrified. If I'm majorly sick like he is, how can I take care of my kids?

I've been taking Airborne all day. Please please please don't let me get sick. And I hope my love gets better immediately. I'm going to drive down to his place and leave some soup and tea and stuff on his porch.

today's project

Living room fixing. I've decided that my living room needs a major re-doing. It's a big space, long and narrow like a hallway, with three doors and three windows. It's a rented house, so I can't do anything major, but the kids and I are going to totally clean it out and move stuff around. Currently it's pretty cluttered and the furniture is mostly up against the walls, enhancing the hallway feeling of it.

I've decided to try to divide it into two spaces, a living room/tv/play area, and a studio/art/study space.

I'll post photos if I can get it to look okay. I'm going to try not to really buy anything except shelving and possibly a rug. My furniture is kinda icky, but oh well. I've got a loveseat from the thrift store that's pretty nice, and one overstuffed chair that was a hand-me-down, the upholstery is all ripped and I have a pottery barn slipcover on it right now, I might reupholster it if I feel ambitious. I have a teak coffee table and a cool piece of art/table that my friend Art made for me.

okay...back to work

"Brian is Confused about Love" 

dear me...

Now I'm all lightly freaked out about the show tonight. I just read the press release and it says something about seeing how the artists have interpreted the theme of "hearts". My paintings are not on the theme of hearts.

Oh dear oh dear, will my already not satisfactory paintings stick out because they are not properly on theme? Crumb!

This is one of the paintings in the show. It's on a really deep canvas, like a box. I think it's a funny painting, I'll tell the story some time. I was disappointed in the lettering but oh well. 

I've got two paintings in this show tomorrow night at Boomerang in Petaluma. I'm excited to see all of the other work in it. 

Look at what I bought! The awesomest curtain ever, by Tord Boontje. It's made from laser cut Tyvek and it's so beautiful.  

so tired now

I've noticed that when I have lots and lots to do, I get really really sleepy. So sleepy that it's not worth working on what I need to work on because I'd mess it up. I finished one painting today, but it's not the more important one, it was the easier one.

If I can make it through this sleepy patch, I'll stay up late working.

ummm...

hey, where did I put my paint box???

crap!

frantic painting

It's frantic painting day here . I get to put something in a show that hangs on Friday, and I totally procrastinated. I have a painting or two lying around that would work, but I want to do something special. I also have a painting promised to a friend that I need to deliver today or tomorrow.

I have 6 packages to ship today, because my ebay listings went well this week. I got an A on my first photography class assignmnent, but I'm still waiting for my text books to get here for my other class, so that I can do the reading.

So far, online college feels a bit weird and dangerously easy to forget about.

S is trying to advise me against flaking out and jumping into a different project, right when I have my woolly empire starting. But a friend hired me, this week to photograph a house she has for sale, and it was fun and it paid very well, and she was super happy with my work.

I've been doing a bit of research and it seems like a neat little niche market, especially since so much of the real estate photography is godawful. And if I measure the two business ideas in how much work it is to make...oh, say $1,000 per month. The photography would take something like three clients and the feltmaking business would take selling nearly 200 kits to make $1,000 profit. Which is less likely and a lot more labor intensive.

So anyway, I'm thinking that I'll keep working on starting my wool-centered business, but keep looking into the photography stuff. It would just take the money from 5 or 6 clients (if S would let me use his camera that much or I could rent equipment) to be able to afford my own super sweet Nikon.

I'll get business plans down on paper....after I'm finished painting that is!

and look, here they are again!! 

Carey's boobies enhanced by her I heart Meredith t-shit 

silly

I haven't been able to write much this week because I foolishly hurt my fingers doing this. And I didn't have much luck at it either! Why I go off on tangents like that and do those things, I'll never know.

In other less foolish news, I'm busily working on business starting stuff. I hope to be in business by March or April at the latest. And I should be painting, because supposedly I can put some stuff in a rapidly approaching group show on Feb. 12! The show is love themed of course.

Also the strange fur thing sold for $250, so I can pay my rent, and I got a little freelance photography job for this week too. So I should be able to buy the text books I need for my classes before I get too far behind.

Yep, I started school this week! I haven't been in college since my son was a baby, and he's almost eleven!

I'm starting with just two classes, photography and small business management, and I'm also taking two exams for credit. I hope that I do okay.