I bought this for myself in January, after I signed with my literary agent:
Aren’t they cute? I’d had my eye on them — these little glass balls that look like Bingo balls — for a couple of years, actually. I finally treated myself, and put them in this glass vase in my den to inspire me to use my letters wisely. …
My cousin Darlene, who is very creative and a big part of the Sipka Family Craft Exchange, made these adorable (can I emphasize “adorable” enough??) paper daffodils and sent one to me and a couple of the “Sipka” family crafters.
I put my fingers in the picture so you can see how small it is, and see the level of detail. The leaves, petals and stem are separate tiny pieces of paper, seemingly inked at the edges and then glued together in the daffodil shape. The pot is a sweet oragami structure, and crimped paper provides the “dirt.”
Omg, so cute.
I put it on my desk so I can stare at it all day throughout spring! 🙂
The den’s been in a bit of chaos. It’s looked like this since last Thursday:
Yeah, that’s right. No room for chairs. No room to walk. Papers all over. Cords a-tangled. Chaos reigns. … The desk is normally right under that window, but it’s been pulled out like that mostly because I wanted to replace this window:
Not sure if you can tell there, but the window is completely warped along the bottom and wouldn’t shut. Not that that’s a problem in the summer months, but as soon as December hit, and we got some temps in the 30s and 40s (whaaa?), it became very, very difficult to sit here at my desk and finish my manuscript late at night. Or early in the morning. Or during rainy weekends. Or anytime at all, really. … Cold wind would come straight down the street, under that little window opening, and right over my hands! If I didn’t have deadlines, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been in there. (As it was, I was in there with sweaters on and blankets pulled down over my wrists.)
(No laptop, you ask? Nah. That’s what normal people would do. But those laptop keyboards kill me when I’m writing more than 1,000 words in a sitting.)
ANY-way. …
We got our new window in! Yippee! It’s here:
Isn’t she pretty? (And clean! And white!)
Tonight I’ll push my desk back, try to clean up the desktop a little, and then I’ve got to get some nice window coverings (I have a valance, but looking for some kind of roller shade). Suggestions welcome! Balloon-y Roman shade? Natural reedy roller shade? Hmmm …
So while I was racing to get my manuscript done, and taking my kids to San Francisco, I was also scrambling to get my “Sipka Family Holiday Craft” completed and mailed.
I tell about the Helen Sipka Family Craft Exchange, and how it works, here. And I also have a picture of last year’s mass-produced craft, Santa lollipops, at the end of that post. (They were pretty darned cute, now that I look at them again. And compare them to this year’s fiasco…)
Anyway, this year, Rene and I were both so busy that we didn’t really plan our craft until the last possible minute. She has so much going on at school — she volunteers at a million places, does videotaping for her church, watches kids at church, does so much homework every night, works out every night at the gym, AND manages to have a boyfriend and friends, so I felt bad asking her to help with the craft, too.
And me … well, there was that pesky book deadline of Nov. 30. And my craft needed to be done on … you guessed it. Nov. 30! So I was sweatin’ it out. … Continue reading
1. Your kids and their friends are making s’mores in your backyard (with real wire hangers, of course — old school).
2. You come downstairs to random children “sleeping over” on your family room floor.
3. Clutter starts to consist of towels, flip-flops, and tubes of sunscreen.
4. There is sand underneath your desk-chair wheels.
5. Your fridge is filled with watermelon, frozen grapes, and cherries.
6. You hardly ever have to wash socks.
7. You don’t think to eat dinner until 8 p.m., when it finally gets dark.
8. The sound of baseball is drifts through the house from the TV all weekend.
9. Even though you still have to go to work, mornings are relaxed and peaceful as you tip-toe past sleeping teenagers.
10. Sunday morning breakfasts include sausage outside on the grill.
What are your favorite signs of summer?
