Go Vanessa, it's yo birthday!

Vanessa a.k.a. Waneka a.k.a. Eunice a.k.a. Vanista a.k.a. Semona was born on none other than Friday Ausust 13th 1976!
She is my besteset of best friends. We met through our big sisters who finally saw fit to introduce us one hot day in Mississippi in 1982 or there abouts.
I remember listening to Brandi (my big sister) and Karla (Vanessa's big sister) hatch the plan to get us together one afternoon. "They both love Barbies, and they both love horses!" they reasoned, plus it would get their little sisters off their backs. So on that day in the early 80s I waited and waited for Vanessa's Dad to bring to her my Mimi & Pop's house to play. I had actually laid eyes on her before, twice.

Vanessa knows how we kick it in innertubes on the pond!
One time, a long time ago I was in Pop's barn negotiating all the cow shit on the floor. I spied a shy Vanessa standing on the rail by the long trough, she was checkin' me out. "Who is this city girl!?" I'm guessing she thought. Seeing I had a captive audience I decided to try out a phrase I picked up from my cousin that visit. "Gag me with a spoon!" I said of the bountiful cow pies.
The second time, I think I mentioned this before but-the second time I was in the car with Mom, we were dropping Bran off with Karla. They had this long, hard packed dirt & Mississippi kind of pea gravel driveway hemmed in by a field on one side and a field and then woods on the other. As we were leaving me & Mom saw a gray & red streak fly by the car. It was that fiery red head atop her trusty steed, a gray pony named-wait for it-Dusty!
Here is a High School aged Vanessa, senior year I think. Just a bunch of no good teenagers loitering somewhere.
But as I was saying, finally she arrived at Mimi & Pop's house, I had waited for FOREVER! We watched Rocky & Bullwinkle in "the orange room", then we played Barbies at the foot of the stairs. We've pretty much been BFFs ever since.

Vanessa makes an excellent witch on Halloween!
Eunice really gets to shine when attending an annual White Trash Party. Check out the black eye! She does the best white trash act; she's from Mississippi.
Here is a rare shot of us as teenagers hangin' out with her friends. I'm on the far right and Vanessa is against the column to my left.
Those were the days! Actually, those were not my favorite days, probably not hers either, but we still had each other:)
This is one of my favorite sites. The only thing better is the same thing, but with everybody bareback on a horse. Bran leads the way, then Karla, then Vanessa.
We had an amazing and sadly rare opportunity to get together last month, just the four of us, no kids! It was when I was painting Dad's house, they all three came out, we swam in the pond and walked around the farm. We caught locusts and threw them into the webs of Writing Spiders and took pictures. It was epic. That was Karla's birthday!

Vanessa is shy, hilarious, dependable, smart as a whip, fun, insightful, loyal, thoughtful, self reliant, she rocks just in general. Hers is the doorstep you show up on at 3 AM when you've just left your husband. She is the friend you call at 1 AM to ask to take your dog out for you in the morning because you're running off to the beach with a guy on the first date. She is the friend who moves to Hawaii to work there for a year and asks you to drive her new car the whole time she's gone. She's the friend you rely on for things too personal to even write in your own blog.
She's the one you call when it's 4 AM here and God knows what time in Hawaii when you've been on Prednisone for three weeks straight and you think your head is going to explode! Some day, God forbid, when one of my parents dies she will be the one I call to come sit with me and cry and who won't have to say anything at all, because I'll know that she understands; we did that when her mother passed years ago. She's the one who has countless letters from me from the years of our friendship, many of which she could totally black mail me but never has! She's the one who's boxes of letters I still have, even one from kid-dom she wrote after her hamster George died and a tear dropped onto the paper while she was writing and she circled it in pencil and wrote "my tear" with an arrow pointing at it.
She's the little girl in the picture with me & my Mimi picking tomatoes in Mississippi.
She's my oldest, nearest & dearest best friend.
She's The One.

Part One of Farmstravaganza

I have been absent for so long, but for good reason. As you will all know, the Farm is my favorite place, and Dad is my FAVORITE Dad. I wanted to repaint the house. Been wanting to do that for years.
Whiskey & Sugar boy hang around the barn during a sweet summer storm.
Everywhere you look in the house...it's chock full o' cool stuff every which way. Open a kitchen cabinet and do you find food or dishes? Well, sometimes. And other times you find records on favorite guns, blues tapes (yes, that's right I said tapes) and reloading stuff, for bullet casting.

And just as I was getting started, more beautiful evening storm, with thunder and everything.
So, back to the house. It has been this dark green color since...I was in Jr. High! A very long time.
With so many fine objet d'art around, I made took plenty of "before" pictures.
It is dark, dark, dark in the house, which is the way he likes it.

Wait until you see the "after" shots!
It is much warmer and a good deal lighter & fresh looking.
I had so much fun on this project; absolutely worked my butt off and had a blast doing it.
I'm sad it's over...

OW!

I was awoken early this morning with pain in my right leg.
Oh Hell, I can't even be stoic about it, I awoke to excruciating mystery pain from my hip to my knee in my right leg. I am only writing this so I have something to focus on while I wait for the one remaining Darvocet I have to kick in. It is too painful to even read a book.
Here's the thing: I kinda have to suspect the culprit could be MS, and I don't like to because I can't be concerned that this is a bizarre new start to a relapse.
I've had two, neither started this way. I am one of what I consider the very fortunate who does not generally have physical pain due to MS. It's a good thing too, because I'm pretty tough, but I'm not tough enough to handle prolonged debilitating pain. You know, the kind where you can't even hold still, the kind that prompts you to squirm around in agony? Call me a SISSY!
And while I'm at my own damn pity party here, let me reiterate how much I do not wish to be thrown into another relapse.
For those who don't know, I have relapse remitting MS which means most of the time I'm okay, but I experience occasional relapses or "exacerbations". These can be triggered by many things, prolonged exposure to heat, stress, a mild breeze...sometimes it's anybody's guess. But at onset of an active relapse, treatment is high doses of Prednisone to stop the process. The process being your own immune system attacking myelin that insulates the neurons in your brain and spinal cord.
This can result in any number of symptoms, one of which could very well include a pain in your leg sent straight from HELL!
It's never a good time for a relapse, but it just so happens that I have an important project which I had very much looked forward to finishing this week, starting tomorrow.
In the interest of observing the Law Of Attraction, let me end on a positive note and just say
"I am healthy, I am happy, I feel good!"
Wish me luck!!!!!

Can't have too much of a good thing.

http://www.themarthablog.com/2009/10/eerie-but-fascinating-graveyards-near-my-home-in-bedford.html


On Martha Stewart's (a.k.a. the Queen "B"!) blog I found these pictures of an old cemetery in Bedford, where she lives.
Old graveyards are, as she would say, "A good thing"...

Gussied Up!

So, I've been working on conjuring up good things, good news to come in the mail. Something other than bills, you know? My mailbox and the entire entrance to my house was nasty, grungy, depressing looking. So I spiffed things up a bit. I repainted my front door inside & out with Kilz exterior white. I can't tell you what a difference it makes having a serene, clean, updated entryway to my house. It's just good feng shui. I scraped and painted my mailbox, and after trying to get the brass plated part to look decent I decided some Halloween orange glitter was in order. I lacquered it heavily, but I still don't expect it to last very long. Isn't it exciting though!?
Now I just wait for the good news to start rollin' in...

I was getting ready for bed the other night and had to get a picture of my girls waiting in bed for me. Roxi is my blue Doberman/yellow Lab mix and Mixie is my crazy mixed up kitty, the one who delivers all sorts of dead critter offerings through her kitty door. She has even brought them straight to my bed in the dark of night before; now that's service.

Today is Misty's birthday. Misty is a friend of my sisters (and mine now too), she is hilarious, witty, creative, gorgeous and a wonderful friend. I'm going to Concord in a few hours for her Birthday and this is what I made for her.

I have been having way too much "OCD" fun with my rosary pliers. I even gave myself blisters the first night I used them. The rosary style chain has faceted glass beads, I cut the bat from silverplated copper, a big two inch glass tear drop hangs below. This pendant is strange; I've had it displayed on my coffee table for a week and I swear at times it looks pale, pale gray and other times it appears to be purple. It has me stymied. But I think it's cool the way it appears to change colors...
I love giving gifts!
And maybe when I come home there will be good stuff in my Halloween bling mailbox...

Waiting...

I am waiting, for fall, for good news, for things to come...
When I'm anxious I like to bake, it soothes me. So last night I made this dark chocolate pound cake.
The glaze is dark chocolate too and it oozed down the sides of this creation like molten black patent sugar.
I love baking, everything from scratch of course.
This will be my contribution to dinner tonight with my Mom & sister. And I will have to take the remaining cake to the Farm for Dad this weekend, especially because he reads my blog and if he sees that he missed out on this he will be sorely offended!
It has been so hot, a truly unfair and punishing summer here in North Carolina. June came and went with record breaking consecutive days above 90 degrees, turning the pond into a crock pot of hot soupy unpleasantness. July is not making up for it either. We will have to endure the rest of July, all of August and at least half of September in sweltering, blistering, suffocating, debilitating patience.
My reward will be blessed, delightful, wonderful FALL; always worth the wait. Fall renews my spirit and awakens in me such joy, peace and reverence. Much as I try to live in the moment and enjoy each day...I can't help but dream of that first day in September when you can see Fall coming in the sky, smell it in the air, feel it in your bones.
Until then I will wait, and write, and dream, and swim when the weather is tolerable.
And bake cakes and treats and sugary things for anybody who will eat them.
Because I am
biding
my
time...

I told you so!

Remember a few posts ago, me telling you about how hydrangeas are good places to find Junebug empties?
SEE?
I told you so.
We have been experiencing a much needed & deserved plummet in temps here and today was gorgeous! I took my hydrangea cuttings outside to root, and as I added fresh ones I noticed this little hanger on under one of the leaves. A Junebug husk on a hydrangea leaf; that took me back to being a little girl pretty fast. So, you pick this off the plant and stick it to your tee shirt; their crusty little feet parts are like Velcro. Or you leave it there and place the whole arrangement by your bed to bring a little nature into your room.
I'm also gonna say it will be good luck, bringing me nice dreams. Even though I always have weird dreams, the sort I've been having all week have been downright unpleasant. But this little Junebug childhood totem will change that...

And now for somethings completely different.
Someone is doing a "Chuck Taylors" project on Facebook. He asked for people to send in pics of their Chucks, so here is mine. I sent it in today. I don't think they will ever go out of style. Aren't they all so cute? The pink ones on the bottom right are 6 years old and have been errywhere with me. Now they are relegated to yard work footwear. May as well cut the grass in style huh?

I am working on a Paris/Gothic themed necklace in trade for some graphics. Here is a sample platter...
I made this while working on the stuff above. Black & blue are so great together. The pendant is a lower chroma blue than in this shot. It's also a Space Age Polymer, sadly, instead of glass. The package wasn't marked and I couldn't tell what material it was until after I bought it. Whenever something is plastic, I call it a "Space-Age Polymer". That just sounds better. See how I can Gussy plastic right on up?