pretty in pink...and cranberry!

hello all!

i was hoping to wake up to snow today...but no.  just rain.  freezy cold rain SUCKS!!!  snow is so much better!

so yesterday was tech fail day for me :P  my camera is broke...just broke.  it has been having trouble for a few weeks but i thought i had discovered a work around.  however, yesterday it completely refused to cooperate.  it cannot detect the batteries.  i tried messing with the connectors and it is still not working.  after a little research on the interweb it appears to be pretty common with the canon powershot cameras. it is only a few years old and hubby insists it should not be time to get a new camera already...which unfortunately does not make the camera magically spring back to life.  so now what to do?  there is NO line item called camera in our budget so that sucks.  but i need one.  so do i go out and get the cheapest i can get so i can still take pics or do i step into the world of DSLR and get a really good camera like i have been wanting since my brother got his and began taunting me with stunning pics...?

so what else happened?  well within 5 minutes of the camera breathing it's last breathe my laptop became unable to connect to the internet for no apparent reason and my cell phone died and was not reviving or charging when i plugged it in.  i am like an electronics death trap.  i suck the life right out of anything that runs on a battery.  it has baffled my brilliant electrical engineer father since childhood and my extremely tech savvy engineer hubby for our entire marriage.  i kill watches, cell phones, cordless phones, cameras, everything.  my cell phone will quit working and hubby has to switch out my battery with his.  then my phone works again and my battery works just fine in his phone.  after a few months we have to do it again.  my dad once bought me a watch for christmas when i was a teen.  i would wear it for awhile and it would quit working.  i would give it to him (i was at a boarding school) to take home and repair and after a day or two away from me it would start working again.  we did this cycle a dozen times and then just gave up.

i rebooted my laptop and got the internet working again and finally got my phone to charge but no luck with the camera.  dslr - leaning towards the nikon d3100.  cheapy point n shoot - i don't know yet.  i tried taking pics with my phone but then when i hooked it up to my laptop and pezza's there was something wrong with the drivers and i couldn't get the pics onto the computer.  next i tried pics with my video camera - wow did those turn out BAD!!!!  finally i sat down with my phone and emailed the pics as attachments to myself so i have something to show you today!!! i  am thinking the phone camera is probably about as good as a cheapy point n shoot anyway :P

my project today stems from the challenge on Art Journal Cafe - it is a color challenge from Design Seeds:

so pretty i couldn't resist!

my page also comes with a fun announcement - i have been chosen to be on the design team for a long time friend, Della, at I Brake For Stamps!!!!  i have loved and used her stamps for years and they are right up my mixed media alley!

after i wet my page and added swaths of Twinkling H2Os and some saran wrap stamped Silver Silks to the background i was ready for some stamping.  i used several different stamps from the Floral and Leaves Plate.  want to order these and more fab stamps for your collection?  Use the code SAVE10MARTI and you will get 10% off of your order!

i supplemented with a few scratchy flowers of my own and then i added some grungeboard flowers i painted with the same Silver Silks.

i just love all of that gorgeous luminarte shimmer!

the page is for pezza - i posted awhile back about my battle with depression and about trying to get off the meds i had been on because i was tired of feeling nothing.  the road has been quite rough but i think it is finally leveling out and i am enjoying pezza so much more!  i continue to be amazed at the problems that are disappearing too - healthwise.  unbelievable!

let it SNOW!

hello!

did everyone stuff themselves?  brave crazy shopping mobs friday?  i did not go out friday for the first time in i don't know how long.  mostly my heart just wasn't in it.  i don't like how it starts on thursday now.  plus i did not see anything i needed or wanted EVEN AT MICHAELS!  so i stayed home and then ended up being sick all day - even had a low fever!  but today i feel ok - just kind of tired.  had to take hubby to the airport.  work figured since he had some days off for thanksgiving he didn't really need his weekend off too.  so he will be gone for SEVEN days...IN A ROW...EGADS!

after the airport we went to target and pezza did some shopping with her birthday money.  she got some great stuff (and i haven't heard from her since we got home an HOUR AGO!  of course she wanted more than she could afford (don't we ALL!?!?!?) so i made a xmas wish list for her.  we already got her christmas shopping from us and santa done so these are additional items since family always asks what she wants.  my mind always goes totally blank whenever someone asks what she wants.  like i have never met her before and have no idea :P  of course making wish lists like this is always tricky business - some people think it is very offensive but i am not sure why.  i WISH more people had them.  i love giving gifts but i am a horrible gift getter - i NEVER know what would be good.  ever.  i would much rather be able to go look up someone's wish list and buy from that.  i sent the wish list to my family - hubby handles his family.  so i guess we'll see if i make anyone mad :P  i sure hope not!

today's project is for the coloring challenge over on Color Me Creative - here are the deets:

NEW CHALLENGE #57 will run until Dec 7th!

Your challenge this time is all about

**Non-Traditional Holiday Colors**

color ANY image ANY way you like

but there CAN BE NO RED-GREEN HOLIDAY COLORS USED, WE WANT TO SEE NON-TRADITIONAL COLORS USEDin the image somewhere!!

We want to see you use YOUR COPICS, ProMarkers, other alcohol markers or Colored Pencils!!

*******************

CHALLENGE RULES

-Use any image you want BUT MAKE SURE YOU LINK BACK TO THE CMC CHALLENGE in your blog post!!

-ALL PROJECTS MUST BE NEW & NOT BACK-LINKED!!

-Image MUST be colored with Copics, ProMarkers, other alcohol markers or Colored Pencils!

-NO more than 3 projects may be entered

UPLOAD YOUR ENTRIES to the Photo Gallery and TAG them with the word NONTRAD so they can be seen easily!

**IF you post your project in your blog MAKE SURE TO LINK BACK TO THE CMC CHALLENGE **

Entries MUST be tagged and uploaded to the photo gallery by Dec 7th at 8:00 pm EST!

PLEASE ALSO PUT YOUR PROJECT IN THE LINK SYSTEM BELOW THE PRIZE INFO AS WELL SO WE CAN SEE THEM ALL!

********************************

OUR SPONSOR FOR THIS CHALLENGE IS:

Digi My World

and the prize is

A Digi Set of their choice from Digi My World

(Remember winners for prizes are randomly chosen)

and here is my entry - though it is not a card but a journal page

a journal page wishing for SNOW!  this one was super quick and easy to put together.  the background is just strips of green patterned paper (on the bottom), blue patterned paper (on the top), mixed with music sheet strips.  then i "snowed" on the page with white paint and a sponge.

i used two cute little images from our challenge sponsor, Digi My World, and colored them with prisma pencils.  i cut them out and glued them down to the page.

next i used a snowflake stencil with clear heavy gel medium.  BEFORE i lifted the stencil up i quickly dipped a paint brush in Blue Flame and Sky Blue Luminarte Primary Elements pigment powders and gently tapped it from high above to sort of dust it across the gel snowflakes.  then I sprinkled on silver microbeads and finally crystal ultrafine glitter and THEN i lifted the stencil.  but you have to work fast!  i REALLY like this look and want to experiment with it some more - like maybe as a background not through a stencil. or on a chipboard cut out shape...the gel dries clear and starts off pretty wet so that means the pigments sort of melt into it and each other rather than staying distinctly sprinkled PLUS dries clear.  i wonder how it would look using modeling cream which is opaque and not quite so wet....if only i could spend all day every day in my studio!  but NOPE!  it is time to pack up the fall and bring out the christmas around here!

super quick and simple fall wreath

happy turkey day cooking day!

hahaha!  i bet i am not the only one getting busy cooking and cleaning today!  i am having a dessert conundrum though.  MIL is bringing a pumpkin pie and i know i am making bread pudding.  i was also going to make pumpkin cupcakes but then i thought maybe too much pumpkin so i want to do something else.  pezza picked raspberry lemonade cake, i considered cake topped with cheesecake and fruit with glaze but both those seem a bit summery.  then my buddy heather had to post about red velvet cake - and i do make a killer homemade red velvet cake with the traditional crisco pudding based frosting......mmmmmmm....but it always seems when i make red velvet cake outside of the south it freaks people out and no one eats it.  of course trev and kevin will be more than happy to have it all to themselves.....

i spent a good part of yesterday cleaning up in the basement to make the pool table available.  and then i decided i was going to make the fall wreath i intended to make months ago and never got to.  it will only be up for two days but next year it will get a long display time right?!

i have had these straw wreaths laying around for ages so i used one of those and some felt flowers - i was going for simple and i am pleased with the results

 and it took less than 1 1/2 hours to do start to finish!  SO easy!  especially since i used spellbinders dies to cut the felt - tracing circles and cutting by hand would have made it take WAY longer!

i used three sizes of the scalloped circle die and fall colored felt.  the small one took 6 circles for each flower and the larger two took 7 each.  for instructions you can go HERE - sort of.  that's the tutorial i used except i didn't follow directions very well :P  kind of a pattern with me!  So i folded the petals the way it says and then i stitched each one with three or four stitches onto the base but the did not lay flat - they poofed and i liked it so there ya have it!  a little hot glue to stick them on the wreath and TA-DA!

one last thing - my buddy Suzanne is having a black friday sale on Color Me Creative so go check it out ok?!?!

i hope y'all all have a fab thanksgiving and stuff yourselves silly!!!

art journalabella & tutorial

T minus 2 days and counting!  i made my last grocery run for turkey day cooking yesterday.  today - massive housecleaning and wednesday the cooking begins!  today is also pezza's last day of school and hubby's last day of work before a 5 day weekend.

we had Daisies yesterday and i discovered that a number of the girls in her troop actually live in our neighborhood!  i see future playdates!  our neighborhood is huge and has a shocking number of kids in it - we have 4 school buses for our neighborhood alone :P

i have a fun post for you today - at least i hope you'll think it's fun!  i mentioned yesterday i would be doing an art journal tutorial for my stamping bella challenge journal page.  i based my page on a meme floating around on facebook recently that is so totally where i am at on most days:

the stamping bella stamp is an oldie but goodie - stamping bellas were some of the very first stamps i ever got!

i stamped the image on a page in my sketchbook and colored it with Prisma pencils.  i added some final sparkly touches with my Spica pens because Bellas simply MUST sparkle 

My background includes layers of yummy sparkle too - so lets see how to do this page!

The key to art journal/mixed media is in the layering.  but staring at a blank page can be intimidating!  so i started with some pages from a music book and a french book

I use matte medium as a glue and i love it.  i put some on my journal page, lay the book page down and then brush another thin layer over the top.  this also helps seal your page so wet media doesn't soak through.  whether you completely cover the whole page with matte medium or not is up to you.  if your page was gesso'd first then it is already sealed.  but know that your next layer of color will look different over the matte medium covered areas and the areas with none.  and that can be perfectly fine - just adds interest!  i covered mine completely for this page.

next we need to add some color - but what colors?  color choice is critical because it can make or break your page.  i have some color scheme references in another journal so i referred to those.  a FABULOUS place for color scheme ideas - Design Seeds.  I will often print out ones I like and then experiment with different mediums to replicate the colors for future reference.  Another great source - your patterned papers which is what I used here

my sample splotches were done with Twinks but in this piece i decided to use something kinda new to me - Neocolor II artist's crayons - i grabbed a bunch that looked like they would work for my color scheme and then scribbled a bit on scratch paper to make my final choices

then i simply scribbled big patches of color over my book pages

 they are water soluable and some are even metallic.  they are a quick easy way to get some color onto your page.  Next i just dipped my finger tip in a bit of water and smeared the color (Em's challenge on stamping bella was to use your fingers!) 

 
i did each color seperately and just blended the edges a bit - otherwise i would have ended up with a page that was all one color and quite possibly the color would have been mud

so we now have TWO layers on our page!  but we need more!

I have added TWO more layers here.  I like a page with a bit of texture BUT anything you do after that will be lumpy and bumpy so on this page i did one more flat layer first - the larger sort of glowing circles.  SUPER easy - bubble wrap stamping with Nutmeg Silks acrylic glaze.  to do this I just cut a piece of bubble wrap about the size i want.  then i put a bit of Silks glaze right on my craft sheet and spread it out a bit - you want a thin layer, not to thick.  now press your bubble wrap into the paint - you may need to press, lift, move a couple times to get it on all the areas you want.  then just lay it onto your page and press gently then lift off.

My final layer is the raised burgandy metallic tiny dots.

i NEVER get tired of that!  it is Viva Decor Modeling Cream in burgandy.  those crisp raised edges just make me happy!  so how do you use it?  easy actually!  in this case i wanted tinier dots than my bubble wrap so i dug up some sequin waste and used it as a stencil but ANY stencil will work.  Next I placed the sequin waste on my project and used a plastic pallette knife (or you can use an old gift card) to smooth on the modeling cream.  this can be a bit tricky at first so you may want to practice but you will pick it up in NO time!  really the less you mess with it during the smoothing on process the better!  i did place my image and wording on the paper before doing the modeling cream so i could be sure i did not put it where i was going to glue those things on or they would be lumpy and difficult to glue.

I edged the pieces with distress ink so they wouldn't be stark white against the backgroun but distress ink is water soluable so when i used the matte medium to glue them down i had to be careful not to get it on the front.  of course i could have also sprayed them with Workable Fixative which would have sealed them and that is a great trick to use anytime you have a water soluable layer and you want to work on top of it without messing it up!  i wanted to set the image and words off a bit more so i used a black pen and just drew lines around the wording and doodles around the image.

so what do y'all think?  who is ready to dive into their art journal?  and though I don't have any (yet) Em at Stamping Bella has added some great art journaling stamps to her vast array of stamps - you should check them out!

bright birthday plaques for SCS!

turkey day count down!  and a super short week for pezza and hubby too! 

i am cooking here - after a particularly BAD thanksgiving meal at someone else's house when the boys were young they made me promise to never EVER make them eat tday dinner somewhere else so i have been making it ever since - even years when it was just me and the 2 kids i made the whole nine yards!  this year my MIL, FIL and 1 BIL will be coming also.  no drake though BOO!!!!  him and GF both work at Best Buy and will be doing the crushing black friday retail gig.

i did a big batch of cooking this weekend too - split pea soup with sausage and carrots, chicken, rice and gravy, and meatballs with sauce - i made enough for meals now plus 8 full meals and 8 individual sized meals in the freezer!  so nice having back up meals for days when i just can't get to it or when me and pez just feel like having cereal - hubby can't do cereal for dinner.  even better - we are 95% done with our christmas shopping!  i just have two items to make and a few things to get for pezza and a friend's kids.  my kitchen looks like a bomb went off though so i will be working on that this morning when i finish this post!

so i have been feeling a bit lonely in my art journaling/mixed media switch-over lately.  the card making world is so HUGE!  i always participated in the card challenges on SCS and i asked over there about other folks who like this stuff.  well they said card challenges don't really have to be cards!  so i jumped into the challenge that day (friday) and lo and behold it was PERFECT for mixed media (and even hosted by my sweet friend wendybell) - she challenged everyone to use newsprint on their projects.  AWESOME!  i have been wanting to do that for ages and just hadn't gotten around to it.  not only that but i had the perfect thing for it!  I had created some foundations on MDF awhile back and was trying to finish them but i did not like the papers i had tried so far.  turns out newsprint along with some music pages was EXACTLY what i needed to use!

now when i posted these on SCS folks mostly just looked at the pics and didn't read (like i do) and thought they were cards anyway!  one person even thought the party hat was a christmas tree and that i had made a very unconventional christmas card!  but they are actually wood plaques.

i began by painting both boards with pink acrylic paint (gesso first!).  Next i used a sponge to lightly dab on more acrylic paint and Luminarte Silks acrylic glaze (to give them some shimmer!)

Nwxt i took some foam squares from pezza's foam shapes stash and stuck them onto my tack n peel block in a checkerboard pattern and stamped with a bright pink Silks glaze - foam shapes and paint are FAB!  I drew my hat and cupcake and cut them out of the newsprint and music sheets.  i edged them in bright pink and orange Brilliance metallic inksa nd then doodled a bit with a black pen.

i added a bit of a shadow around the edges of the images using my charcoal pencil and a blending stump to smudge it out.

as a finishing touch i added some luscious shimmering orange swirls!  I mixed a bit of Ginger Peach Luminarte Primary Elements into my heavy gel medium and smoothed it on through a stencil.  Some large orange pez-a-bling completed them! 

i still have two more boards to do - i think one will have a pennant banner and the other one a bunch of balloons.  i DO think these would be fun cards - maybe have these pics printed onto card fronts and make like a card collection...?  what do y'all think???

i also discovered something else with my post on SCS - Em over at stamping bella has been getting into art journaling - she has some great stamps out for it and issues a challenge on her blog every tuesday - then she posts the entries on her blog the following tuesday.  the current one is to use your fingers on an art journal page so i have an entry done for that that i will be posting tomorrow along with a tutorial for folks who may want to get into the art journaling thing but have no idea how to start!

goldilocks...?

happy saturday!

i think we finally have a weekend of limited running around.  hubby is going to fix the gaping hole in the dining room ceiling so we can host turkey day dinner without it - a plus we are thinking...i have just my usual cat duties - i go to petsmart saturday morning and take care of the cats in the cat center and then i will bring my three foster babies in sunday afternoon for adoption.

this past thursday night pezza and i went to a girl scout fundraiser - they put on a showing of the movie Brave in her school cafeteria.  i was SO excited because i have really been wanting to see it since i am obssessed with all things ancient ireland/celtic/scotland/etc. and this looked right up my alley!  pezza, however is completely anti princess and had no desire whatsoever to see the movie AT ALL.  she did want to go see her friends though so off we went.  and once again, i felt the benefits of both living in a small town AND living somewhere for eight years IN A ROW.  we knew quite alot of the folks there and i even got to see and hang out with my buddy amy sheffer (pickled paper) whom i love and do not get to see nearly enough.  it's a running joke that we live off the same road but we don't see each other until CHA in anaheim!  her youngest, gabe, is the same age as pez and they get along great.  he is also in my kids mixed media class at pez's school. as for the movie - hilarious, somewhat violent (ok quite violent) and i liked it sort of.  i was expecting a bit more from the storyline but oh well.

and did you hear about hostess?  holy cupcakes!  no more dolly madison cinnamon rolls SAY IT ISN'T SO!  my buddy Suzanne went out on a search last night for some goodies for us both - sure hope she found some cinnamon rolls!  though i have heard the stores have been out for awhile now due to nothing being made OR shipped.  and all those poor people out of a job - horrible!

ok onto why you are really here right?!  some sort of artsy craftsy something or other.  i have a mixed media board for you again - i am supposed to be filming my next class which is mixed media canvases/boards and i keep making things but not filming them EGADS!  this one sort of came together with very little of a plan - it was actually too different ones that i decided worked better as one.

I started on the background using a free tutorial  from Christy Tomlinson - the tutorial is wonderful and i encourage you all to check it out!  i did not have her kit of stuff she was working with and i didn't want to do something christmas-y so....can you tell i don't follow direction well?  i wonder where pezza gets it.....anyway i started with a book page, music page and polka dot page as my base.  then i misted some Luminarte radiant rain shimmering mist through a stencil.  now this is water-soluable which means anything i did over the stenciling would re-wet the mist and i would lose my design so i sprayed it with a light layer of workable fixative to set it.  next i added the green ground - in the tutorial she does it with a brayer but i didn't like the look i was getting so i did it with a sponge and a couple different shades of green.  next i made my tree - i just drew it it freehand - it's pretty basic but i like how it turned out.  i used some bo bunny papers i have had forever.  i thought i needed a little something more and i had my twinkling H2Os out from a previous project so i added some shimmery green goodness to the treetop. at this point i was stuck and had NO idea what i would do next.  in Christy's piece the tree is a christmas tree and it IS the focal point.  in my piece it was looking more like a background element with NO focal point...and so it sat for a couple days...lonely on my work table...then i grabbed my girl i had been working on from a Suzi Blu online class called Petite Dolls.  she was going to be marie antionette but i had changed my mind....so she needed a new "environment" and then it hit me - she could be hanging out under my tree!   i thought i should add a little pink to the background to tie in my girl's dress color.

and then i added her on.  i drew her and colored her with colored pencils.  i did her in a couple of layers - which seemed like a good idea at the time but between her and the layers on my tree things are kinda thick on this one :P  i gave her pink outer layer a coat of Apple Blossom Twinks for shimmer and then stenciled on it using yummy Viva Decor modeling cream in champagne - my FAVE! and added gel pen dots.  i also dabbed it on the book page layer of her dress and then sprinkled glitter on top while it was wet.  the viva decor modeling cream shimmers too.  finally i took more modeling cream and mixed some Primary Elements into it so i got a golden shimmering yellow which i dabbed on for her hair - LOVE!!!!  it just SHINES!  i sprinkled in a bit of micro beads too...because i love micro beads....  the bird has been on my desk for AGES and was a perfect addition.  some doodling around the edges and the tree finished it off!  so what do y'all think? a keeper?

mixing it up - challenge 11!

seriously? i didn't write a single blog post last week????  EGADS!

last week was busy busy!  i started my after school mixed media class with some kids at pezza's school - CRAZINESS and MESS!  i am having them work on three boards over the course of 6 weeks.  we have 2 kindergartners, 2 first graders, 2 third graders and 1 fifth grader - 3 are boys and the rest girls plus pezza.  thank goodness we are having class in the art room BUT the art teacher was LESS than thrilled about us being in her space so i try very hard to make sure we leave no sign of ourselves after class!  if the class goes well i may do more.

we also had pezza's birthday party this weekend and i took her to the melting pot for dessert as her birthday treat.  melting pot did not impress me as much as i felt like it would - too much sweet i think!  i am not a huge chocolate person so that was my first problem BUT pez loved it and had lots of fun and it was a good mommy daughter outing.  then we had family and a few friends over for cake this weekend - of course i made her cake:

 our sunroom is a horrible setting for taking pictures - the cake was much brighter in person - just the thing for pezza!

daddy was in charge of balloons as usual and came back with a fabby bunch as usual!

now onto my projects for today - yep i have TWO!

we kick off a new challenge today on the mix it up group on Color Me Creative - we are using circles!  in addition i am entering this one in the Diva Zentangle challenge to do something mickey mouse/disney related.

i chose to use minnie mouse's bow to hold my doodles.  when i was done i used my twinkling H2Os to add some color and my charcoal pencil to add some shading.  i like doing the zentangles while i wait for pezza in gymnastics class - easily portable!  don't the twinks sparkle divinely?!?!?

this challenge pezza joined in too:

isn't it adorable!  she came up with this completely on her own!  we are going to use this for the front of her thank you cards :)

she began with some glass bead gel and green tea luminarte primary elements.  then she used some of her new fluorescent acrylic paints to paint the flowers on.  this is so HER!  in fact i may have to get some things made with this one over on Original Works!


we have THREE wonderful prizes up for grabs this month to one lucky winner!

 

$20 for Paper Temptress

 

gift certificate to Floppy Latte Digital Designs

 

FIVE jars of gorgeous shimmering Silks acrylic glaze paints from Dreaming In Color

ok now it's your turn!  what can YOU create using circles and more than one type of media?!?!!?  come join in the fun with us!

just be...but how?

hello all!

what a week! pezza turned SIX on thursday.  and we all made it this far alive!  there have been some moments along the way where i wasn't sure it would happen! hahhah!  in addition i had my very first kids mixed media art class at pezza's school.  it is a 6 week after school activity.  i have 7 kids in the class including my buddy Amy Sheffer's little boy Gabe - he and pez may have to be separated though.  together they get mischievous!  my goal is for them to have three completed mixed media pieces they can hang on a wall - class 1 was WILD but we accomplished what i wanted so that's good.  and we didn't do too much damage in the art room (though the art teacher was OBVIOUSLY displeased with us being in there :P)

i have an art journal page for y'all today.  and guess what - it has JOURNALING on it!  i have been working on more doodling and once i was done i felt it needed some wording in the doodles. 

i painted the picture with Twinkling H20s.  i'd really like to get better at both - the doodling AND the Twinks! I am usually better with the pics of the twinks but there is a fine line between capturing the shimmer and accidentally getting too much glare!

originally i was going to put blocks on the side with the colors i used to paint the picture but then i changed my mind

life has been extremely rough on me lately and i was thinking about it while painting.  many of you who follow my blog (or facebook) know i have been having quite a battle with health issues lately.  and it's been frustrating - an wide array of issues from annoyances to debilitating headaches to ulcers and a whole lot of pain.  my doctor has been NO help - just blows me off.  several specialists have gotten to the bottom of a few things but no widespread relief.

and then for other reasons i decided several months ago to stop taking the antidepressant i have been on since after pezza was born.  i was tired of feeling numb.  it takes away the depression and sadness but it also takes away all other emotions as well.  i tapered down slowly, went through the withdrawals and issues with that and i am finally OFF.  guess what.  EVERY single health issue i was having - large and small - GONE.  just gone.  things i would have NEVER connected to it.  how could my doctor have missed that?  isn't that why they are prescriptions - so they can monitor side effects?  so that is HUGE good news! 


however, it is rough - i have battled depression, HUGE depression problems since i was a kid.  and the adjustment to being off the meds is tough.  My coping skills are lacking.  so i have been thinking alot about how to get myself into a better place.  i do feel, in some ways, like i am coming out of a fog.  i am working on being kind to myself - it's hard. and on who i am.  and i was reminded of something a very smart woman told me once.  at the time she was talking about relationships but i am realizing it is applicable to more than that.  and simple - but not.  i just need to BE what i admire and perhaps i will begin to feel better.  instead of spending my time being/doing nothing and beating myself up for it.  not helpful at all!  or perhaps i am having a mid-life crisis?  i look in the mirror and it's like - wow!  who the heck is that old person?  maybe it's the fog of being home with a pre-schooler i am coming out of!

so that is my long ramble for today!  we are having a birthday party for pezza tomorrow - just a couple close friends and some of hubby's family. i hope you all have a wonderful weekend!