ART IN A CARTON IS HERE!

well! it took me a week to get pictures of my Art in a Carton, and then another week to get them off the camera and onto the computer (It's a new computer and i'm just learning how to use the darn thing!) and now finally i have a moment to post about it and add pics! thank you so much susan for allowing me to participate in this wonderful project!

here are a couple pics of the lovely package and it's contents!

The carton itself came wrapped in brown paper with the lovely and recognizable "Art in a Carton" logo on it... i was so excited to see it finally in my mailbox! when i unwrapped it, i found wonderful stamps decorating the carton itself along with these very regal and majestic elephants. wonderful!
but that was only the beginning! this little carton was filled with artsy treasures galore! pink tissue paper (I love pink! lol) was snuggled inside along with a delicious bunch of fibers/ribbons/yarn that i absolutely cannot wait to use in a project! they are soooooo soft!!! there was also a bunch of small colored foam pieces that will come in handy many times in future projects! there is a clear glass piece that has an image on the flat back of it, it's quite beautiful. the picture that was taken of it close up didn't turn out, so i'll have to try again. also included was a very pretty peach colored accordian book that was tied with a wonderful peach colored ribbon, and what looks like an altered water color box (??? am i right susan? is that what it was in it's former life?) and i just love it! it is going in the lap drawer of my desk for me to put my tiny treasures in! and it was all capped off with a handmade paper lid that fit snuggly inside the top of the carton. it is made of black embossed paper and is lovely in and of itself!

i am busily getting thing gathered and inserted into the cartons that will soon fly out of my studio and into someone else's home. hopefully they will make someone smile as much as i did! what a day brightener! what a wonderful fun project! thanks again susan! awesome idea!

if you've never heard of "Art in a Carton" before, feel free to visit the site http://art-in-a-carton.blogspot.com/ and find out more. the spots are all filled up (52 of them!) but you can check in to see what others have received by participating in this activity/project. every time i see the contents of another carton taht has been received, i get new idea for doing stuff! i love the inspiration it sparks!

what a week...

well, it's been a wierd week, productive in some ways, but definately not in others, and all around totally frustrating. *sigh* we'll see if the weekend holds any answers/solutions for issues we're dealing with so that next week will be better. i haven't worked on any art at all. which is definately disheartening to me because it always boosts my spirits and has kind of a relaxing and calming affect on me when everything around me is in chaos. the next three weeks (the time between now and my upcoming back surgery) is going to be full of preparations, lots of activity going on here! hopefully there will also be alot of creativity going on also. i have several projects that i am working on that i would like to complete or at least have nearly completed before i go in for surgery. we'll see how the upcoming week unfolds!

three bright spots in my week were receiving my first "art in a carton" pkg, a "a message in a bottle", and a box of altered art "treasures" from a fellow artist that decided to share with the other members of our small altered book RR group. i have gotten pics of the art in a carton and the message in a bottle, but not the shared treasures yet. i'll get pics taken of the shared treasures tomorrow and get the other pics off of the camera they are on and make sure i post them here to share. fun stuff! can't wait to get my hands into some new projects in which i can use some of the really neat stuff i've recieved! aren't artists super?! i think so!

for now, i'm off to finish email, look through some of our sons school stuff, feed the furbabies, and then i'm off to bed. and tomorrow is saturday! that means i don't have to wake up to an alarm! yay!!! that's just awesome. *sigh* i'll be back to share pics and stuff sometime tomorrow... until then, happy creating!

update on my back...

ok guys and gals! here's the latest and greatest with me and my back. i went for a consultation with my ortho/back doctor yesterday. to talk about what we've done so far and what the results show, etc. basically they narrowed down the source of my problem and it is not just the one blown disc pressing on nerves. it is a combination of things, but mostly what they consider to be a "mechanical" issue with my back. the actual vertibrae (L4/L5 and L5/S1) levels are really messed up and are not going to get better, they will only degenerate more. which i cannot even imagine at this point! i have already been in so much pain. i've dealt with this in some way shape or form since 1999. now it's at a point where i had to make a decision to keep going the way i am, or do something to help stabalize the whole situation and hopefully provide me with a change in my pain level and be able to function better from day to day. i do not want to take pain meds every single day/night. tentatively, i have a date of oct 17th set for surgery. it's tentative because there will be two surgeons working on me at once, so the second surgeon has to have that date open too! lol they said that the surgery will last approximately 7 hours and i will be in the hospital for approx 5 days. afterwards i will have 3 months of extremely limited activity while my back is healing (i'll be able to get up and go to the bathroom, go to the dinner table, watch tv, read, etc.), and then physical therapy to help strengthen my back and stomach muscles to help achieve a better mobility and support. the overall recuperation time is somewhere between 6-9 months. di'm not even nervous about having the surgery, i've just been in pain for so long... i can't live like that... the pain is so bad that i can't do normal everyday things. and if i take the pain meds to alleviate the pain, it does take away the pain, but it also knocks me out as well... and i end up sleeping my days and nights away and the times that i am up and awake, i lose alot of that, actually forgetting alot of stuff because i've been out of it so much. so, that's what's going on. i'll make sure to let everybody know if this becomes a definate date and all. i wanted to let you all know. ok, i'm out of here for now! lol i'll quit rambling! lol

what to do, what to do, what to do....

well, the affects of the last epidural injection (sept 3rd) gradually wore off every day untill i was back in constant pain 2-3 days before i went to get this second one. i had it done yesterday morning and they decided to do two injections so they could "bathe the root endings for my legs" since i was having pain down into both legs. ok, not a problem. and they even got the IV in with only one stick! yay! but i really didn't get any relief from the pain at all yesterday, i actually had to walk with my moms walker! i took some meds and went to bed and slept until 10:30pm, much longer than i intended to! but then i got a few things done and was up when ann got up at 1:30am to go to work. i've just been putzing around for a bit with emails and stuff. now i'm due for more meds, so i'll take them and go back to bed now. this morning there wasn't any difference in my pain level, so i may be calling them once it's late enough for them to be open. ugh. i am so tired of this.

i have a "TO DO" list that is several pages long.... NOT all of it for just ME to do!lol but there's alot of stuff. alot of it i want to get done before winter sets in. AND before the holidays get here! i cannot believe that september is nearly at an end! halloween in oct, thanksgiving in nov, christmas in dec, new years in jan, valentines day in feb.... omg, makes me tired just thinking about it! lol it's not that i HAVE to do something special for all those holidays... but i LIKE to. it feels good to me. if that makes any sense! lol

tomorrow i go in to have the color touch-ups done on my fairy tattoo! i'm so excited! i know, it's going to hurt again! lol but not as bad... so i'm ok with it. and believe it or not, i already have an image that i want to use to put on the back of the OTHER calf! lol i think they will complement each other. but i have no idea when i will get that one done. we'll just wait and see.

well, i'm falling asleep at here at the computer, so i'll say good bye for now. see ya'll later!

shot didn't last more than a week... but getting another one...

well, the epidural injection i got on sept 3rd lasted for a few days before wearing off... i'm back in pain again, which i don't like, but they're planning on doing another injection this coming wednesday. i'm not so apprehensive of this one, and i really do hope that it helps longer than the first one. even if i am eventually going to have the surgery, i'll welcome any pain relief i an until then!

i have a few art projects in the works. i sent in some fatbook pages for a vintage halloween fatbook project that one of my groups is doing. i can't wait to get the finished project! i forgot to take pics of the pages i did before i mailed them. i am so made at myself! but i'll take pics when i get mine back and i promise to post them! i am working on an alphabet fatbook with my RR group, it's still in the planning stages, but i'm still excited to be working on it. i'm also TRYING to work on an altered cigarbox shadow box project but it's moving so slowly. i'm sure it will "click" sometime soon (it always does)and i'll be able to finish it. i also have the latest RR book to work on, suppose to mail that out next thursday! yikes! but it's moving along. oh, and i have an a-z happiness fatbook project that i am working on, it's not due till nov 1st i think, so there's plenty of time for that one. anyway, i'm keeping quite busy along with the usual day to day tasks and all the dr's appts and stuff to deal with. i don't mind being busy with the art stuff... it keeps me calm and stable when everything else makes me totally insane! today i'm pretty much relaxing and taking a break from the busy week. i might even take a nap! what a thought!

what a difference a shot makes...

no, not a shot of tequila! lol an epidural shot. oh how i dreaded it! but it did make a little bit of difference in the amount of pain i have, so that's a good thing! before i was in pain ALL the time. now, i'm only in some pain when i move certain ways or if i do a bit too much. at least i'm not having to take pain meds every 4 hours around the darn clock! there is no way to accomplish much of anything that way! so now, i have to carefully play "catch up" with all the things that didn't get done while i was all loopy and sleeping most of the time! i don't quite know what to do with myself... i haven't done a bit of art in over two weeks! that's just wierd! but first, i have to catch up on household stuff... work before pleasure! tomorrow is cage cleaning day, i promised by little critters i would make them first priority on saturday. then the living room and the bathroom and... well, you know how the drill goes! lol at least one, possibly two, people are going to be out and about tomorrow so i can do things without trying to "do around", which suits me just fine! lol our son and i have been feverishly working on his high school courses that he started a few weeks ago. we've been up to our eyeballs in Civics and Literary Analysis and Composition! ack! i can't believe that high school is kicking my butt for the second time in my life! just doesn't seem fair now does it?! lol at least he's a whiz and ahead in geometry! cause i have not a clue where math is concerned! lol i'll take my blessings where i can get them! for now, i'm off to indulge in reading a book i started while waiting for my shot the other day. and then maybe a little tv. this week, although busy and having a busy weekend in front of me, still feels better than the previous weeks that have past, so i'm glad.