Wake me when the week is over.

Hello everyone,

Life is a strange place for an anal retentive, detail oriented, obsessive person, like myself - who also has a proclivity for procrastination.
I just love sitting in my studio, messing and creating all kinds of things. And I do losing track of time, forgetting to eat; but happy as a lark.
On the other hand - I love a clean house - A place for everything and everything in its place; That's my motto. I love dusting, vacuuming, ironing - the whole idea of house cleaning.
In an ideal world - I would have the brains and warewithal to be able to harmoniously mix and combine these two obsessions; so that my life runs oh so smoothly.
In my world however - these two obsessions seem to be in a constant state of up heavel and working against each other. When I'm busy creating - dishes sit in the sink, laundry stacks up, Genghis shed's enough hair to stuff a pillow- the dust can become thick enough to write a novel in and the silver tarnishes before my very eyes - Yet I notice nothing.
But as soon as my project is done I become a women possessed; the great Banshee has nothing on me, I wail and moan as I notice all the things that happened while I was creating and I immediately go into house cleaning mode. I can not even begin to think of beginning another project - while my house is such a wreck.
So on and on it goes - a circle of creating - than house cleaning - than creating, and so on as if in a hall of mirrors looking in and seeing that moment in endless repetition.
So what phase am I in now? Well I finished up my trading cards and other misc projects, and have been in cleaning mode ever since.
I was ready to start into my next project on Monday - but I decided to take a day off and go to Bingo with my son and his fiance.
And so started the week from he**.
Didn't win at bingo - but didn't really expect to.
Discussions during bingo lead my son to believe that my Frankenputer had a computer virus or something, so when they brought me home - they went at my computer and all the computers in this house.
Mine seemed to be the only one infected - and they took quite a while to remove them. But I am now clean; and up and running. Yea!!!!!


When they left - I was going to start sewing on my new projects, outfits for my class I will do for the high school students -Shakespeare's England. And guess what? My sewing machine was not in working order. So that project which needs to be done by April 15th is on hold, while I wait for my machine to be repaired.
To make matters worse - I got a whopper of a case of the stomach flu Monday after my son left - so I haven't even taken the machine in yet.

I am stressed to the max and it's only Wed.


Hugs,
Penny

Trading, Trading Cards

Hello everyone,

Wow! this is strange. Penny posting twice in one week much less twice in one day. Is she sick???

Nope, just wanted to keep the last post from getting too long and/or this post getting over looked.

Dana over at:

Sinderella Studio Designs

and I decided to do a Trading Card Swap. Since I'm getting old and a bit arthritic we decided that the standard 2x3 size was a bit more challenging than I could do so we decided to break rules ( breaking rules does come natural for me) and do ours Post Card size. We decided on three different themes which we made pretty broad so our muses had wide berth in the inspiration department. Those themes were: 1) historical 2) fantasy and 3) potpouri . For the first one, Historical, my mind was all over the place trying to figure out where I wanted to go. Being a real fan of RenFaires and the Renaissance in general -I tried to envision something appropriate from this time period; but I kept drawing a blank.

So I moved on up a few years to Dumas's France and his much loved character, - a Musketeer, sword drawn in defense of his King and castle. But no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't bring it to fulfillment without it looking like a 3rd graders work. So I did what any good procrastinator would do - I let it sit and went on to #2 Fantasy.

With the help of a few of my Learn to draw books I found a couple characters that spoke to me and so I kept practicing drawing them - till I felt they were presentable. So I colored them and scanned then into my computer. And with a rather primordial looking forest picture I had found I started to do some picture manipulation in Photo Shop. It was a start but I didn't care for the flat look to it - so guess what. Yep you've got it - I let that sit as well.

For #3 I knew I wanted to express friendship, but how! Hmmmmmmmm tough question. Time was getting short and I was really beginning to feel like a dunce for agreeing to do this swap, I mean Dana is a real artist - and me - well, I'm just a crazy crafter, who in her old age has taken one drawing class and is by no means proficient at it. MUSE I need Help.

That night my shy little muse paid me a nocturnal visit, and I woke up energized and filled with some new ideas.

Heading back to #1 historical - I moved to Ancient Egypt. Egyptology was always my first love; and visiting the pyramids is on my bucket list. Ideas flowed and I crafted my way to completed card. A Pharaoh's Death mask meticulously cut from cardstock and a quilled Dung Beetle, on a map of the upper and lower kingdoms. I loved it and so did Sir Knight.




My friendship question for card #3 was answered in the shape of a quilt, which took shape as I painted each of my individual shapes on my card. Decorative stitching was the last thing to be added and I was surprised at how pretty my little crazy quilt was.

Yea!! I was now glad I hadn't e-mailed Dana to beg out. I was in my groove.

Back to #2 Fantasy - I decided to make my little Troll as my main character and make him a bit more 3- D. The pretty tree dryad and the wood sprites played happily on the page. I added little leaves in almost the same color as the sprites outfits, to emphasize that what our minds see as falling leaves may in fact be wood sprites playing- we just need to open our imagination and see what is out there. Good so far. When I added my troll I was a bit upset- my drawing skill are really not up to par, to make him look real - even though I mounted him on cardboard to gave him depth - he still is lacking. Some quilled ferns made the postcard a bit better . Sir Knight thought every thing looked cute, but then he would, He is always there to tell me things are ok, and I love him for that. So the card was sent off as is.

This is all a learning and perfecting process - so I must learn to be patient with myself and keep practicing drawing.

So I want to Thank you Dana for your support by even asking me to swap with you.

These are the cards I received from Dana; aren't they great? I just love them.



Now if you visit Dana's blog and you should you know, just hit on my big blue link above. You will see that between Dana and I, there is an "I get her" bond. They always say that Great Minds think alike and we do.
While I thought about France and landed up in Egypt; she thought of Cleopatra (Egypt) and landed up with Joan of Arc (France) and We both made friendship as our theme for the third card. Uncanny huh?

They say friends are sisters of the Heart, and my heart is happy to have you as a sister Dana.


Hugs,
Penny


Hey everyone, I don't know what is wrong with blogger; when I look at my unpublished post it certainly does not have all these different font changes and when I try to correct - well it just doesn't change, so please forgive me, I am not computer literate enough to figure this out.

Pay It Forward and Happy First Day of Spring

Hello everyone,
Happy First day of Spring. While today was balmy - we are suppose to have the dreaded S word, SNOW, again this weekend. Argh!!!! I am so ready for spring.

This post is a little overdue - I had intended to post about all this on Thursday - but a splitting headache kept me off the computer.

First of all i want to show you all the sweet stuff I sent out to the only person brave enough to sign up for my pay it forward. Thanks for being brave Dana. Genghis and I would have felt pretty darn silly if we got no takers.



When I received a box from Dana with her Trading Cards for our swap I was so supprised to find she sent me some sweet goodies in return; Paying it back at me.

Thank you Dana, it was not necessary. However, I must say you really touched me to the core with your generosity.


Hugs,
Penny

I finally paid it forward.

Hey effuryone.
It me Genghis. Pellie is sound asleep by the desk, and she didn't shut down the computer - so I get time to do a post. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to pay it forward - as soon as I had someone to get stuff for, but Pellie said I'd have to wait till she finished up her swap stuff - so we'd only have to mail one box. It seemed like a terribly long time, I waited. But I made use of the time by using my laser eyes and a purring spell on her to make a puppy journal thingy for my new friend Sophie. I snoopervised through the whole process insisting on what papers to use with what stickers and stuff.
Any whoo last Thursday I was told the time had come and I needed to wrap my stuff up - no easy job without those opposable thumbs I had dreamed, I mean thought about. But I managed. On Friday night Sir Knight gathered up all my stuff and Pellie's stuff and packed it all up in a box for mailing. It was so exciting.


Here is a picture of the cool stuff I sent to Sophie. Never shopped for a woofie that wasn't family before - so I sure hoped she would like it.


Guess what - when the box arrived from her Human for the swap; there were prezzies from Sophie - for me too. How cool is that? I must be pretty special, to get a prezzie when I'm the one suppose to send. Too cool!!! Hah!!!!!

Well I got to make this fast - I still want to do some vising to all your blogs.
Happy St. Patty's Day

Purrs.
Genghis

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Hello everyone,

We just stopped in for a real short post to wish you the Luck of the Irish today and every day.

Hugs,
Penny & Sir Knight

Purrs,
Genghis

Celebrating Organize Your Home Office Day

Hello Everyone,

I was busy celebrating Organize Your Home Office Day today, all day. and what better way to accomplish that goal than to finish up a few half finished projects and then get pictures of what I could - so I could start getting things documented than put away.
So the first pile I reached for was this background which Gail over at Mind Wide Open gave us as the March challenge, the prompt word was Spring, so I thought maybe I'd give it a go. But then I have never really been a big fan of green so my first thought was to toss the page I printed to look at for inspiration in the recyclables container. Which is what I did, I was too busy to try to work on a challenge anyway I told myself. Part of my organization I felt was, that maybe it was about time to pack my snowman collection up till winter rolls around again. I do love their sweet snowy faces but I am so tired of winter- I need to think Spring. So up came my tub with my spring pretties and as I cleaned and rearranged my pretties I felt I need something new for the front door. But what? Nothing in particular came to mind and I didn't want to buy something. So I continued cleaning and arranging and all of a sudden that piece in the recycle bin started yelling to me, yes yelling, and then my muse bombarded my mind with a quick but pretty idea - I felt was doable.
So I headed to my desk and started working and in under 2 hours I created this. What do you think? I like it. It is hanging on my front door right now trying to coax Spring out of hiding, because I have so had it with winter.



So this evening when I got on the computer to do a little organizing there too, I sent it off to Gail at MWO. Tomorrow Gail should have all the entries up for your perusal. So make sure you head on over there to check out all the pretty entries.

Last week, I finished up this little project for my oldest granddaughter. At Christmas I made her the softest prettiest memory board with angel wings and a mate to this skull. This journal was to go with it but I never finished it. It was a chipboard set I bought at the scrapbook store but it only had 4 pages to it, not quite enough pages for an active teenage girl. I worked studiously for a couple days and with Sir Knight's help cutting the new cardboard pages we finally had enough pages made that we felt I could call her to come and get it. I kept a pattern for the main skull - so we could add to it as she needed.
Now all I have to do is finish up the pillow I wanted to make as part of the set. Maybe I'll finish that in time for her birthday. I can hope anyway.

I just added these photo to my creative journal for 2010 - so now that is done

Well I have more projects calling out for attention, so before they get too noisey and wake up Genghis, I best get busy.

Hugs,
Penny

Mancat Monday and Name Fun Facts

Hello effurryone,
It's Man cat Monday so I thought I'd show you guys this great picture of me and my favorite toy. Can you see it? It's the twisty tie thingy. I just love twisties they are light enough to carry around and fly across the floor pretty fast for the same reason. I try to find one to chase around daily - to keep me in my manly shape till I can start going back outside to play.

Since Pellie was posting about names - I have to say - I am very happy with my name. No other name would have fit me nearly as well.

Well I got to go before Pellie comes back and sits on me - she was here working before me

Purrs,
Genghis

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Hello everyone,

In case you didn’t know it this week is celebrated as Name Week. As Part of that week today is designated as Fun Facts About Names Day. So how could I pass up such a fun day - to pass on who know’s what kind of fun fact that I could find about names.

Using one of those silly online Name generator thingies, I filled in the required information and hit submit to see what they came up with.

They ask for:
First Name: Penelope
Middle Name: Ellen
Last Name: Plum
Mother’s MN: Lemon
First Pets Name: Quentin
Street on which you grew up: Lincoln Ave
City in which you were born: South Chicago

They gave me:
Your Jedi name is: Plupe Lesou
Your alt. Jedi name is: Plupe Lelin
Your soap opera name is: Ellen Lincoln ave
Your porn star name is: Quentin Lemon

Now seriously whoever the brain child was that though of these algorithms must be a few bricks short of a full load. Why would they use the first name of my first pet - who happen to be a male - as my porn star name. Really do I look like a Quentin? and if I did my ability to make it as a female porn star would certainly be compromised/hindered, to say the least. Not that I ever aspired to be one - I was just stating a fact. Tee Hee




It’s a good thing they didn’t have these things around when mom was naming me, I’d probably have been in real trouble. My father wanted to call me Karen Marie, Mom wanted to name me Joyce and so here I am as Penelope. (what a compromise)


I did a little better with the fairy name generator.

Your fairy is called Fidget Elfdancer. She is a cheerful sprite. She lives in rotting woodlands near poisonous toadstools. She is only seen when the bees swarm and the crickets chirrup .She wears red with white spots, like the toadstools. She has delicate green wings like a cicada.

Enough about me - on to some fun facts.

Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy

Nipper is the name of the dog on the RCA Logo.

The cracker Jack dog’s name is Bingo.

The Taco Bell dog is Gidget.

Barbie (the famous doll), last name: Roberts Her middle name: Millicent

Ken’s last name: Carson


Well I best get back to my studio - I have a few irons in the fire - and I really need to finish a few of them up for a dead line.

Have a great week.

Hugs,
Penny

Would you look at that, Genghis upstaged me. Must have something to do with our names.

I spent a quiet day dreaming, err I mean thinking.

Hello efurryone,
Early this morning I heard Pellie telling Sir Knight that today is - "What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs? Day". So I spent the day giving that idea much thought, sometimes I was very deep in thought. So I really wasn't sleeping even if it looks like it in the picture.




What would I do if I had an opposable thumb?

• I would be able to grip a sword better - so I would take a few lessons and become a great Samurai
• I would be able to type much better and faster - so I would begin to write the book I've been thinking about for some time now. . . "The Life & Times of Genghis Khat" or "All you ever wanted to know about me but were afraid to ask"
• I would have better control of the remote control - so I could watch all my favorite movies.
• I would have greater control with a paint brush - so I would show Pellie that she's not the only one who could make pretty picture. Maybe I would even become famous, have my face on the cover of many magazines and make lots of green papers. Yea that would be so rad. I like that idea.
  
• Best of all If I had an opposable thumb - I could shut the lamps off at nap time - instead of having to burrying my face under paws.

What would you do if you had opposable thumbs?

Purrs
Genghis


N.B. "Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of" . . . Sir Walter Scott