The quotes in this CJ layout are from some Tim Holtz stamps that I copied down onto my handy dandy notebook.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.”

“Always know in your heart that you are far bigger than anything that can happen to you.”

“No journey is too great if you find what you seek.”

“Sometimes on the way to our dreams, we get lost and find a better one.”

“Everything happens for a reason, it’s just a matter of moving our point of view around until you see it.”

“Creativity is an endless journey. We should always make take the scenic route.”

“Change is to give up what we are to become what we could be.”

“No journey is too great if you find what you seek.”

“Listen to your heart above all voices.”

There is so much color and beauty in flowers. Natures has this way of showing the trueness of life. Beautiful and lovely!

Life is so fleeting. We truly need to make the most of everday, like it is our last. You just never know.

My mom had a routine colonoscopy last Tuesday. The Dr. found a small 5mm Sessile polyp in the Distal Ascending Colon. The Microscopy also showed a Poypoid Adenoma. In addtion a 2.5CM Sessile Hard Polyp in Proximal Ascending Colon was found. The Biospy showed that it was Villous Adenoma with severe Epithelial Dysplasia and recommended “prompt and complete removal”. Yesterday, she had about 4 sections of her large intestines removed. She was very lucky that this was found early and it was pre-cancerous. If she had waited any longer, who know what path she would be following now.

The foilowing are some links about colon polyps and colon resections.

personalweb.sunset.net/~mansell/polyp.htm
www.emedicine.com/med/topic414.htm
www.gihealth.com/html/education/colonpolyps.html
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002941.htm

So other than my mind completely being focused on my mom, everything else is pretty normal here in my world. We had a garage sale at our house on Saturday with 5 other families. I made $17, minus $11 for breakfast at McDonalds, so it was really $6. I mostly have junk, so I can understand why I didn’t sell much. I sold some scrapping stuff, a corner shelf, and a couple of other things that I already forgotten what they were. I need to post some stuff on ebay soon.

Oh ya, I turned 35 yesterday. I really didn’t have time to think about it. We did have a lovely dinner at Soup and Salad Plantation. I bought myself a pretty pink ipod shuffle. Love it! I gave Brennan my old blue mini, which mostly has his music on it anyways.
Yesterday at Brennan’s class we decorated eggs and today they will be having an egg hunt. We usually have a traditional Easter dinner at my parent’s house. I think my mom will be home by then, but I am not sure what we will be doing that day because she usually does the cooking. I am a horrible cook so I doubt that I will be taking over her role.

Oops, times up. I gotta get the kid to school.

Today we took a trip to the California Science Museum, mainly to see the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit. The rest of the museum also turned out to be very cool and quite kid friendly. Another plus was that entrance into the exhibits are free. The boys really enjoyed themselves.

I had a few free minutes in the morning, so I took a peak at Pamela Garrison’s article in the latest Somerset Studio. She mentioned in the first paragraph that her life had traveled in a path that did not allow her passion for creating, much room in her life. This totally hit home for me. She also mentioned that “Although along the way I was always crafting in bits and spurts, I found that it was not enough creativity for me. I was not living my life as artistically as my heart and spirit longed to”. At this time in my life, I truly feel this way. I am constantly inspired by others, but I definitely do not spend enough time creating and finding my creative purpose. When I enrolled in a program in the Arts program for graphic design, I wasn’t enrolled to search the inner artist in me, but because I wanted to get a job. More recently, I am now finding out that I love to make stuff, just for the sake of making stuff.

Speaking of, on Sunday I made a getaway for some alone time at my favorite stamping show. I picked up this fragments I stamp sheet from Invoke Arts. I have to say that they were one of my favorite vendors there. They are actually part of StudiosBlackbird. I think the stamps are part of Invoke Arts and the other cool stuff that they were selling was part of StudiosBlackbird. Whatever, I totally loved the stuff. Other than that, I kept running back to watch Tim Holtz demo. He is totally brilliant, and he has some pretty cool stamps as well. I also picked up a few other neato stuff to play with, and play I shall do one day. Ha!

Den has been working for the past several months on a little conservation project at a local cemetary. I got to tag along on their last day of work and help with some of the cleaning. It was really quite interesting and most definitely neat to see what he has been working on. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to post any pictures online. This experience really reminds me that I need to do more volunteer work. Afterwards, we went to his SIL for March birthday celebrations. It was nice to see the family.

Well off to tend to a waking and crying toddler.

After dropping Brennan off to class, Elden and I took a little trip to the local Salvation Army where I scored a jogging stroller for $25. I am not sure what the brand name is because there was no tag, but it is really lightweight, which is a double plus. I have been needing one for a while, since I tossed our old one. I forgot how much fun it is to got there.  You really can find lots of interesting junk. I actually went to there because I wanted to see if I could find pasta machine to use to roll out the polymer clay. 

Speaking of polymer clay, I made some time to experiment with some for the past couple of days.  Since I donated our extra toaster oven, which I think I did because I can’t seem to find it in the garage, I ended up curing the clay in my melting pot.  It seems to work okay, but since I haven’t baked them in an oven, I can’t make any comparisons to see if there is a difference in the cooked results. I made some interesting canes, and some other ugly pieces, that I may or may not post online. I can totally see the possibilities.  When I took a semester of glasscasting about 7 years ago, I made these interesting glass pieces.  The pieces in themselves were not exactly impressive, but they were really a beginning of an idea that I wished that I could have elaborated more on, if I had taken more glasscasting classes. I have always been interested in Murano glass pieces, ever since my parents took to Italy when I was highschool.  I even got the opportunity to visit the Murano glass factory in Venice, and watch the artisans work. It was quite impressive at the time, but I didn’t realize how much it influenced me. But looking back at my final project that did in my glasscasting class, I realized that I was much more influenced by the Murano glass than I realized. I believe with the combination of using my meliting pot with the Ultra Thick Embossing Powder (UTEE) and polymer clay, I will be able to continue my vision of my glass art from almost a decade ago.  

That was pretty much my Thursday. We just went open after picking up Brennan from class. I ended up sleeping early, which is not something that I do often. Den had to finish reading to the kids because I just crashed right in the middle of reading. LOL!

I am just going to continue here for Friday.  My goal for today is study and to try to finish my homework. We are at my parent’s, which is the usual thing for us to do on Fridays.  I really like coming here so that the kids can play with their grandma and great-grandma (my dad’s mom) and of course to eat some traditional Korean food.

Wednesday is my workday at Brennan’s co-op preschool and the day that we spend the whole day together. This also allows Elden to have some one-on-one daddy time. I am happy that Den doesn’t have a typical 9-5 corporate job.  He does work hard, but his schedule is flexible enough to accomodate the family. For this I am totally grateful.

Usually after school, we will go to the library and rent out books and dvds.  Instead we ended up going to Jamba Juice and we shared a Chocolate Moo’d. It was oh so chocolately and heavenly. His books are not due until next week, and I had already returned his DVD’s.  After we walked down towards the beach, but since it was getting overcast and breezy, we didn’t go down all the way, but ended strolling to the bank to deposit some checks. After we went to Michaels where I picked up a some Primo clay. I am suddenly into clay.  I am not sure where this urgency to want to make jewelry and to start collecting beads came from.  I just know that I need to make something with clay. I thought we had an extra toaster oven, but I must have donated it.  I did find that you can cure polymer clay in the melting pot, so I am going to make a few canes and test it out.

Brennan wanted to get a magic kit and a some galactic glitter glue. After spending an hour or so at Michaels we went to ToysRUs. I told him that he couldn’t get anything there, since he got stuff at the craft store.  We ended up reading a couple books and playing around with some other toys.  They had these interesting double strollers there as well, and I ended up pushing him around in them for a bit. I also got to ride around on a Razor scooter, while Brennan rode on a bike. He never rides his bike at home. What is up with that?

We were probably there for an hour and a half.  It was already 6:30 by the time we got home.  Den made some hamburgers and tater tots.  Quick and yummy.  After enjoying some icescream and watching the Simpsons, we got the boys down for sleep. Elden doesn’t quite sleep through the night, but Brennan sleeps like a total log.  Elden also had a case of pink eye, and is still taking his eyedrops.

This week is really speeding way too fast.  I would write a better entry, but I have an assignment due on Monday, and I am feeling totally behind now. I guess my life pretty much feels like that everyday. Like it is speeding way too fast for me and I just can’t keep up.

I just realized that yesterday I wrote that it was Tuesday. See my brain is obviously in some toilet hole. It made me really bummed because I really suck at all this domestic cleaning crap. I have no idea what is the best thing to clean with when your 4 year old draws on an entire wall with a red conte crayon. So far, there is a nice faint of a pink shade, where the white wall used to be.
I woke up this morning in a fairly good mood, but when I walked downstairs, I still didn’t understand why the dishes weren’t miraculously cleaned and why the floors still had caked on green beans and oranges smudged into it. Oh well. We had to leave at noon for Brennan’s school, so all that stuff had to wait again. Elden and I walked to the local farmer’s market. I am so addicted to this homemade cheese and red pepper tamales that one of the local vendors sell. I usually walk the Strand, but Elden was having too much fun running around. It was so sunny earlier in the day, but the clouds quickly covered up the blue skies. I also stopped by the library  on the walk back to Brennan’s class to pick up season 4 of “Six Feet Under”. I am so loving this season. It is definitely one of the best tv series out there.
That was pretty much the short summary of our day.

After class a few of the kids are playing outside. Brennan runs up to the swingset, where Samantha and Hanna are swinging. Sydney is standing there waiting. He goes up to the girls and says do you want to play this game? Sydney is standing there, and says to Brennan, hey I want to play. Brennan says to her, sorry, but only two people can play this game. Only one boy and one girl. Samantha is still swinging and basically ignoring Brennan. He calls out Samantha, who is still swinging, mind you, let’s play? I here some yelling and whining going on. Samantha screams out nooooooooo!!!  Brennan chases her and tries to convince her to play with him.  All along Sydney is running along, screaming, I want to play, I want to play. Hannah, who is sort of a tom boy and could care less what they are doing, is still swinging.  Samantha’s mom and I are sitting on the bench. I turn to her and say, and just shake my head.  Is this how these kids act at 4?  I can’t believe that this is going on already. Brennan is chasing after this girl. while she is playing hard to get.  Oh, and anytime I ask Brennan who is girlfriend is, he tell me that Samantha is his girlfriend.  This was after the older next door neighbor girl (who is 6) moved away.

Stampington & Company produces a series of different amazing magazines.  I picked up the latest Belle Armoire Jewelry, Legacy (this is their scrapbooking magazine), and Somerset Studio (paper and mixed-media).  I already subscribe to Stamper’s Sampler already.  There is just so much amazing artwork in all of these magazines.  I would list some of my favorites, but to tell the truth they are all so amazing.  If you get a chance, you should take a look at one of their magazines.  They are also coming up with a new publication, titled Somerset Life, which is about how you can bring attention to the littie things that enchance our daily living.  This is set to come out in April 1, 2007. Yay only one month away.