Sometimes something someone says gets stuck in my head and I can't get rid of it. It sits there, tugging at my thoughts, pulling at my emotions, until I give it the attention that it desires and perhaps the attention that I need to give it. After all, if it's there, it must be there for a reason, right?

In this case, a man that I was involved with a few years ago, perhaps more now, wrote me this rather horrible email to not only end our relationship but to end any association he had with me. Honestly, it was cruel and below this person, but that's not what this post is about. It's about what he said to me in that email that has hung around in my head for all these years and the fact that I'm finally at a point where I can deal with it clearly and without wasted emotion. After all, emotion is wasted on someone who was flat out cruel to you.

I'm not going to directly quote him because honestly, I have no desire to open that email. The gist of what he said was that I'm not me. I'm not someone who stands for anything or has her own beliefs. I'm merely someone who morphs herself into whatever she thinks the other person wants. I'm nothing more than a mimic.  Harsh, huh?

That one single idea has stuck with me ever since I read it and I wondered if it was true. Who am I? I'm reminded of this quote from the movie Music and Lyrics:

"Since then, every time I pick up a pen, I'm haunted by those words that he wrote, you know? "She was a brilliant mimic. She could ape Dorothy Parker or Emily Dickinson, but stripped of someone else's literary clothes, she was a vacant, empty imitation of a writer.""

Stripped of other people's interests and beliefs, who am I? You see, he was right in a way. I do tend to take on the interests of those I care about. Do I do it to define me? No, I don't think that I do. I do it to have more in common with them, to learn about new things. Rob is a perfect example of this and someone who, on the tiniest off chance that he ever read this, wouldn't care if I used him as an example.

Rob was/is very much into roller derby. Me? I knew next to nothing about it. When I'd visit him, if one of his friends stopped by, they'd sit and talk about it and I'd be left out because I knew nothing about it. I hated that. It was also something he was very passionate about so I wanted to know more. I downloaded and read the complete rule book. They teased me that the next thing they knew, I'd be some sort of official. The reality is that I never intended on playing myself or getting involved. I just wanted to know more. I'm still holding out for Rob to take me to my first bout.

Did I change myself into a derby girl because Rob was into derby? No. Some would point out that I did go and buy a pair of skates. I did. I still have them though due to illness, etc I haven't used them since right after I bought them. Skating is fantastic exercise and a lot of fun. It was something I could do on my own or go with Rob to do when I was visiting him. Was it because of him that I looked into it? Yeah, it was. Did it change anything? Not really.

So where am I going with all of this? I guess I'm going to the part where I say Stuart was right. Over the years, I've molded myself at times. My upbringing caused that. If I wasn't what was wanted, things happened. When I was with the boys' dad, that continued. Please don't misunderstand. He never raised a hand towards me, but he knew what buttons to push to get me to be or do what he wanted.

Then, I was on my own. I was no longer his wife. I no longer had an identity. I didn't know who I was. So, over the years since then, I guess I've explored options. With Rob, I explored the idea of skating and I discovered that it was something I enjoyed. I totally sucked at it, but I enjoyed it. With others, it may have been certain television shows or hobbies. Does that mean that I continued to morph? Perhaps, but only to the smallest extent. As someone who had no idea who they were anymore, what their interests were or what they wanted to do/be in life, it was a way to discover the answers to those things. I discovered that no matter how much someone else liked it, I just could not get into Buffy, but that I loved Doctor Who. I realized that I do kind of like certain types of science fiction. I found a tiny piece of me.

I tend to think of myself as one of those jigsaw puzzles that have 10,000 pieces and each time I discover something, a tiny piece slides into place. With enough exploration, I may find me again. I think that I started my container garden a number of years ago because Rob or someone was growing tomatoes and it gave me an additional connection to him. It also allowed me to discover that dirt therapy is really good for me. Does Rob still grow tomatoes? Heck if I know. I do know that right now, there are 8 plants on my front porch that I need to water later today.

There are also things that I do simply because they're a part of me. I love to craft. I've been making things since I was a child and while I don't do it as much these days it's not because someone has frowned on it. It's simply because I got in my own way and now I need to clear that out so that I can get back to it. Nick once told me that coloring is my therapy...crafting always was and I suspect it always will be. I can't draw but I can still create in my own way.

Which brings me to writing...another thing that I've done for as long as I can remember. In fact, if you asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I'd tell you that I want to write. It's another thing that I'm just plain getting in my own way of. Will I ever be famous for writing? Probably not. Could I be successful at it? Probably. It's my own fears that are getting in the way of that, but that's probably another post for another day. It's another one of those thoughts that have been bumping around in my head lately.

What does this all mean? It means that you may see me becoming interested in something that you do. I may try it out for a little bit. I may discover that I love it and stick with it. I may discover that it's not me and leave it. Either of those things is okay. The only way to truly discover if something is me is to try it. I'm not mimicking, I'm exploring and exploration is healthy. It's good.

In order to reclaim me, I have to find me.



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It's been a really long time since I posted a time for me post here. Really, it's been way too long and today, I want to share with you something pretty special that I did with the boys today. I confess, it was mostly with Roger because Ben, while watching, was more focused on telling us just how gross this whole thing was. What was it? We made slime! Yep, I taught my children how to make slime. It's much better than the stuff you get for fifty cents and you can make it any color you want. I was asked to share the recipe, but before I do that, I want to show you a couple of pictures...



Roger made green slime and I made mine purple. Next time, I want to experiment with some darker shades. I wasn't sure just how washed out the color would become and as you can see, it's pretty pastel. Now, for the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 tsp Borax powder*
1 c water
4 oz white school glue
4 oz water (1/2 c)
Food coloring of your choice**

1. In a bowl, combine Borax with 1 cup of water and stir until the Borax is completely dissolved.
2. In a zip lock bag, combine the school glue, water and food coloring. The easiest way to do this is to empty a 4oz bottle of glue into the bag and then fill that bottle with water and pour it in.
3. Once the glue and water are thoroughly combined, pour in your Borax solution. The mixture will immediately start to look slimey and goopy.
4. Mix the two together. At some point, you will probably need to reach your hand in and start working it. For me, this is the best part! The more you work it, the more your slime will thicken up.
5. When you're done playing with it, store your bag of slime in the refrigerator. Borax is a natural bug repellent (great for use on carpet to get rid of fleas, by the way!) so you don't have to worry about bugs. If you live in a high mold count area though, it could grow mold. The biggest concern is it drying out, so when you're not playing with it, always keep it in a sealed container. Also food coloring can stain so be careful not to get it onto anything that it could mark.

* Borax is a laundry booster and be found in the laundry aisle. It's a powder and comes in a box.
** If you decide not to add food coloring to your slime, your slime will be white.




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Ta Da! Please ignore the mess to the left. That's the remainder of the boxes I'm going through in that room. I'm happy to say that I'm down to about 8 boxes and once I do some re-organizing in "The Wall", a lot of those will be gone. Woo!


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School is nearly upon us and I wanted to share a fun idea that I had stashed away in my "This is an awesome idea I had and someday I'll find the time to use it" stash. This particular idea is for a College Survival Can but you could easily adjust it to different grade levels.

Find yourself a clean, empty paint can (you can buy these at home improvement stores), decorate it up and fill it with:

A teabag - in case you ever get into hot water, make tea and share it
A pack of tissues - to remind you to dry each other's tears
A toothpick - to pick out the good in yourself and others
A package of salt - to remember to take some things with a grain of salt
A lifesaver - to remind you that Friends are lifesavers
A penny - so you are never broke
A package of sweetarts - to take the bitter with the sweet in life
A rubber band - to remind you to stay flexible
A kiss - to remind you to kiss away boo-boos and that you are loved
A star - to remind you to shine and always try your best
A pencil and eraser  - to remind you that we are all sharp, but we all make mistakes too
A paper clip - to hold your life together
A snickers - to remind us to laugh more and enjoy life
A graduation cap - to remind you to always seek knowledge
A duck - to remind you to let some things roll off your back
A mint - to remind you that we're all worth a mint as long as we work together
A hug - of which we can never give or receive too many

Hmm...now that I read over this list, this would make an awesome wedding gift for some friends of mine. I wonder if I could do one by Friday.....




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Since I had a few requests on how to create the giant snowflake that's hanging on my wall, I decided to post the instructions. Since I didn't invent this, I knew there had to be instructions out there somewhere and sure enough....TaDa!



I do have to apologize for a) the length of this video and b) the fact that he has loud music playing the entire time he's creating the snowflake. For the abbreviated version, I suggest this video. He made me laugh.



Now, if neither of these works for you, I'd suggest this link. It has pictures and a video! If you do make one, please be sure to come back and link me to pictures! I want to make some smaller ones to go with the teacher gifts. I just have to find the time!

So much to tackle, so little time. This week is pure insanity. I never thought I would say it, but I'm going to be glad when school is out on Friday. It will put an end to some of the running around. Some of it. There's still doctor's appointments from time to time and going into Hastings every couple of weeks to pick up the boys.

Oh how I would love to tell you that I was so busy finishing things yesterday that I just didn't get a chance to post. Actually, it's not so far off from the truth. Yesterday, I finished off my week with a Friday broadcast of my show, Musically Sunshine. Once I was done with that, I did a bit of work around the house and got on with my big item for the day.

I made a wedding gift for my ex-husband and his now new wife. That's right. I did. Their wedding was today (Saturday) but I wasn't invited. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I can respect that she probably found it a bit uncomfortable to have his ex there. I'm hoping that eventually all of that will end. I honestly like her and don't want him back so there's no reason for the weirdness. Maybe I'm just weird like that. Once a relationship is over, I honestly just want everyone to be happy.

Anyway, enough babbling about that. So, I decided that even though I wasn't invited to the wedding, I still wanted to give them something to show that I'm happy for them. It took a while, but this is what I made:



In other news, Dell finally came through for me. I got a phone call on Thursday night letting me know that after reviewing what happened to me, they're going to fix my laptop free of charge. That's right, it's not costing me a penny! I have to say that it was worth 3 months of total frustration and aggravation to get that news. They're sending me out a box to ship him to Texas in. They're going to replace the motherboard and run tests on everything else to make sure that there's nothing else wrong with it. I'm so excited about this! Once I have that laptop back, I can start doing stuff I've had to put off because I just didn't have the computing power! Yay! Did I mention Yay? Yay!

Ok, it's dinner time so I need to scoot but I just wanted to mention....Yay!

I know! It's Thursday! I'm running so far behind with things, but I'm here and that counts, right? It's just going to get worse...I have a confession to make. My picture, the one below, I didn't take it today. I didn't even take it this week. I umm...well, I took it a few weeks ago when I was working on my projects for Crop Chocolate. I'm betting that you want to know what the theme could possibly be for this picture. Is it crafting? Nope. Is it stickers? Nope. If you've been following along, you know the theme has to start with G. What starts with G? Green! In this picture, you can see my green paper cutter and even some other bits of green here and there.

And with the posting of this fabulous photo, I now have to head over to Sunday Shutterbugs so that Corinna can come over and tease me for not taking a photo this week! *grins* Then, it's right back over here to do my Thursday post before Thursday turns into Friday!

Wow! I cannot believe how sleepy I was yesterday. I'm so thrilled that even though I was falling down tired, I still managed to get some stuff done. I did a quick tidy in my bedroom and hauled in the leather chair from the van. Then, I managed to get it upstairs. I still need to get it cleaned up but I'm hoping that will be on the agenda today.

For today, though, I need to take some time for me. The truth is, that's what I'm doing right now. The address to this blog is craftsbykatie and I so rarely post crafting photos because of the circumstances of where I was before these 8 months. Now that I have a nice home (in progress) and The Wall actually has functional crafting space aaaannnnd I got chosen as a Chocolatier for Crop Chocolate, I spent some time doing crafting and now I'm going to show off what I made! I'm seriously considering doing something with my Etsy shop so this is my first step in facing my fears of having someone tell me that my items suck.

Ok, enough chatter. It's time for some photos!


And that's what I've been doing! If I get the chair all cleaned up, that will be all for me! It's going to be part of my reading corner up on the landing. I'm so excited. I can't wait to have another part of the house done!

It's early on Thursday and I'm happy that I'm on top of remembering to get this posted. As always, I have a list of things I'd like to get done today. I have two "big" ones. I want to email the Dell customer advocate and continue that saga. I'm waiting for the final conclusion before I write up this drama, but I will write it up. Hopefully for Dell and for me, it has a happy ending.

The other thing is my bathroom. It has this horrid plastic bathtub. I swear I don't know why anyone would install one of these in their homes. Then again, the same people also installed carpet in the bathroom and the kitchen. Anyway, this horrible plastic bathtub was stained and dirty looking when we moved in back in June. It's still stained and dirty looking. I'm going to try another cleaner on it today and see where that gets me.

Of course, there is also the time I'm going to take for myself. I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do. I've considered doing some crafting because I still have projects to make for Crop Chocolate. Of course, there's also my Wreck This Journal. I've been twitching to play more with that now that I have the numbers all in. Ok, I think it's pretty clear that you'll find me in "The Wall" (the kids voted we keep calling it that) this afternoon for some fun time for me!

How about all of you? What will you be doing? I can't wait to see!

And here we are, another day and another blog post. I do love my blog. Do all of you love yours? I mean really you should. It ought to be the one place you can go and just smile when you see it because it's all yours. If you don't love it, you should change it until you do.

Now, after that bit of deep wisdom, I bet y'all can't wait to see what I'm going to be doing today. Of course, really you already know because I told you yesterday. Today, I am tackling my craft table. I am thrilled to report that not only did I get those other 2 tables done yesterday, but I also started working on the desk. That's mostly because I was bored and when I'm bored I start to putter. Well, I puttered my way to a nearly finished desk which is just a nice head start.

So, did any of you get to see ice dancing last night? I am so bummed. Our satellite box decided it no longer wanted to work the other night. According to tech support, they say the hard drive in it must have failed. What is it with me and technology lately? I still haven't heard back from Dell and now this. Calgon, take me away, eh? Sheesh. So, no television for me until the replacement box comes which will probably be a couple of days. Not to mention that we just lost everything that we had recorded which is a major disappointment. They say to back up your hard drives, but how do you back up a dvr? lol!

Well, no use fussing too much over it. It's only tv, after all. It's not as if it's a hurricane or an earthquake where you could lose everything. It's just hours and hours of mindless entertainment. There, I think I feel a little better...hehe

So much better that I'm going to give you today's challenge. Are you ready? No? Well take a few deep breathes, stretch and do what you must and then scroll down a little bit and see what I have in store for you.


Challenge -- Let's go to the linen closet. I don't think we've stopped in there yet. How many towels do you have? Now, how many do you need? I'm actually putting a new towel "law" in practice around here, come the Spring (when I can easily access our camping gear). I have 4 levels of towels: bathroom, laundry room, barn and camping/outdoor events. The ones that we love and that are in good shape get to stay in the bathroom. We get to have 2 each of those. If I'm doing laundry regularly (which I ought to), that's basically one dirty, one clean. The camping/outdoor ones are those huge beach towels. I'm thinking one each of those, stored in the giant ziplock bags and tucked into our camping equipment out in the barn. Then, there's the laundry room towels. These are the ones that are starting to wear out but have tons of use left in them. I use these for dusting (the small kitchen sized ones) and for emergency spill/oh my gosh, there's water everywhere events. Once the towels get too bad for that..you know...where they're starting to wear thin or whatever, they go to the barn for use when we wash cars and stuff like that. Now, if there's any towels left after I divide them up, they'll be donated to a local animal shelter.

Did you manage to make yourself read all of that? I just want you to go through your towels, wash clothes, etc and decide if you need/love all of them that are stacked there. If not, find them a new home or a new use. Good luck!

Well, I promised you a photo update and here you go! These really should say day 7 because other than to take these photos, I haven't had the chance to step foot into "The Wall" today. I expect that tomorrow I'll have far more time and will actually begin to dig into what's left in there, which is a lot.



This is the wall unit that I managed to get hung after about 4 tries. A laser level might have come in handy there.


This is a shot from just inside the door. The cardboard box tucked partially under the card table is actually full of items to be listed on freecycle. All of the other boxes you might see have all been gone through once and all of the obvious trash and get rid of items have been taken out of them.

This is standing in the doorway and taking a photo straight in. You'll notice that I discovered I had tables under all of those boxes. Those tables are now covered with other things that are no longer in boxes, which is good because I can see what's there now.
And these are my storage drawers that I also managed to find hiding in all of those boxes. As you can see, I did get in there yesterday and put all of those labels onto the drawer fronts. Sadly, I still have to go through all of those drawers and organize them because what's in them doesn't match the lovely new labels.

So, there we go. At the end of week 1, I have managed to go through all of the boxes and bags and this is what I'm left with. Only 20 more days to go and I'm sure hoping I can finish up this challenge!

Wow, am I sleepy today. I'm not sure why other than the fact that being productive when you haven't been for a while takes some getting used to. Yesterday, by doing just a quick skim through my clothing, I got rid of an entire garbage bag of clothes. I know that as the week continues, there will be even more added to that. I'm still tackling Mt. Washmore which means making room for more clothes, which means getting rid of more clothes. After I finish writing this yummy post, I'll be headed back upstairs to see what I can get done today.

Have any of you checked out Sunday Shutterbugs this week? I have and now that we're on to the letter B, this week's theme is Blue. This is a great choice for this week because over the weekend, I reupholstered 4 dining room chairs in this lovely blue fabric that I got from another freecycler. Actually, now that I think about it, the entire project didn't cost me much. Two of the chairs I got from a freecycler and the other 2 were given to me by my great-aunt years ago. I received the fabric from a freecycler so the only thing this cost me was time, a pair of scissors (which we had) and a staple gun and staples. I did have to buy the stapler and staples but they're something we needed around the house anyway. I love projects like this!

So, without further ado...I give you blue and chair. Please pretend you don't see the disaster surrounding the chair. We're very much in a cleaning/organizing phase around here so lots of things are laying around while I sort through them.



So, there's one of our "new" chairs. This picture really doesn't do it justice. Maybe I should have added figure out how to use my camera to my commitment goals for this year. I'm taking a lot more pictures and I know that this camera is capable of awesome things. It's totally a user issue for why my pictures look like that.

Anyway, this girl is off to tackle more of her bedroom. I'm hoping to actually get it finished today (minus the laundry I'll be working on all week) so that tomorrow I can move onto the boys' room. Make sure you come back tomorrow for this week's pampering mission!

Good morning, Good morning! I have no idea why I'm in such a great mood considering the phone woke me up super early and I only took a half nap after laying back down. But, I am and you know what? It's nice. I don't remember the last time where I got up, got around and was singing and smiling for three days in a row. Usually I'm lucky if it lasts one but it's day three and I'm still singing. So, good. I like it. *grins*

Now, over on Sunday Shutterbugs, the theme is Art. They're doing something new for 2010 where they do a letter of the alphabet for two weeks and then move onto the next letter. I'm looking forward to some very interesting themes this coming year. Plus, you know me, I have to confess that this isn't a new picture. It's one I took..umm...wow, thank you flickr for knowing this, June 29, 2004. It's a marble magnet and I used to love making these. I still do, actually. It's tougher now to find the marbles than it used to be but I still love them and let me tell you, they're great for using on the fridge to hold up artwork and such.


Now, the reason I posted this picture is because I wanted to be sure that I put something up today. Plus, I want to take my camera out with me today when I go into Lansing. You never know what you might find so I'm hoping to actually have a second picture to post later today when I get home.

Until then though, I am totally challenging all of you to grab your cameras, find something that says Art to you and take a picture. Then, be sure to post it and come back here and let me know that you did. Sunday Shutterbugs has a linky thingamabob that you can post a link to as well. (Random note, spell check says linky is wrong but thingamabob is right...weird.)