Some of My Heart

My dad and 2 of his minature dacshunds Sam and Frank. That's my beautiful Nancy daughter. It was Christmas time at my folks' house.

Me and silly Anna daughter out to lunch with my ma and my 2 other daughters on Christmas Eve. That was sooooo fun! The restaurant must have felt very quiet after we left.


My ma and my Haley daughter at the Christmas-Eve lunch. Pretty ladies.

Quilt that I am working on for my bed. Whew, it's huge!

Very Quick 2010 Year in Review

Getting a tattoo from a very cool guy named Animal.

Camping at Pennsic.

Having a fabulous Holiday with my man. Could be Santa.

Picking out senior pictures.

Life Going On

My friend Phil married Neill (pronounced kneel - and yes she is a female). Their wedding cake was german chocolate. Brilliant, and tasty too.



Fabric, my reward to myself for, um, clearing up my fabric stash.

Phil's wedding reception: finger-food heaven.

Don and me misbehaving in church. *Flashbulb!*

Silly me.

Small trial quilt as a test for a King-sized quilt that I am making from Kaffe Fasset fabrics. It will be the first quilt that I have ever made for my own self. To keep.

Olvia, so far, has survived all the smooching of every person who comes in contact with her. Things are different to those exposed to her crippling cuteness. Knees are weak all over town. Olivia is catching.

Santa came to work. He gave this little girl some candy.

Thanksgiving 2009, me at my folks' house. That's my dad.

The quilt I made for Don's daughter Deanna. I used some of her late mom's dresses.

Boy George. My baby boy.

Olive Rose fabric. Huge roses. Wish I had bought more than one yard. It's dramatic and happy. I love this fabric!!!

Studio sorted and organized.

Yes, I quiver when I walk into there.

Could you just DIE from the cuteness of my middle child???

I could smooch Nancy's widdle face to pieces!

Things at My Home Today Besides My Sleepy Useless Self

Silly Haley.

Silly Lucy.

4 baby robins.

Thank you, Jesus.

My brother does not have MS.

Pictures, Yay!

Here's a quirky quilted journal I made for the white-elephant gift exchange at my parents' house for Christmas. I try to make a journal every year for the ladies in the family to steal from each other during the exchange. I just don't have the time to make one for everyone, so the gift exchange/brawl is perfect. It's also a great deal of fun!

Here's the quilt I made for mom and dad for Christmas. They have done so much for me this year with my divorce going on, I wish I could give them more thn just a quilt. I love you mom and dad. I could not have made it this far without you.



The following are pictures of my new apartment still in progress. I should be spending my first night there tonight. Thank you, Scottie, my big brother, for taking time away from your own projects/life/work to work so hard on my place and for making it everything I ever dreamed of in a home. I love you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

New Life For This Old Girl

Yep, 'tis true. I am moving on. After 25 years together and ten years of counseling, we have decided to terminate our marriage. I am both happy and sad. Our children don't seem to be too bothered by it. They have known things were not good for a long time.

Our marriage centered on the kids. They are the most important thing in our lives. He and I got along rather well in most ways. What's a few years living as room mates in order that the children grow up safe and secure? That few years got to be ten, and then the kids got to be almost all grown up. None of them was surprised when we made the announcement.

I am looking forward to moving into my apartment when it's completed. It will be located in the second story of my family's barn on the farm in North Lawrence. I know that sounds weird, but it is really a beautiful piece of property, and the apartment is gorgeous. Above is a picture of the view from my deck, complete with beautiful middle daughter. That's a silo out there. How cool is that? I'll still be living close to the kids. They are staying in the house with their dad. Well, the youngest ones will be. Our oldest is off at college for the time being. She'll be at the house too when she's home.

Feel free to get in touch with me if you like. My email is momzilla11@yahoo.com.

Tribal Fire presented Spirit in Motion Show!!!!!

Our big belly-dance show held at Wooster High School was this past Saturday evening. It went great! I didn't get very many pictures because I had to run around a lot and boss people around. :) Here are my photos of the evening.

Here's my baby Anna and her friend Hillary. Anna is on the left. Both girls belong to Bahiya Almaz Troupe.

Britney of Bahiya Almaz and her mom.

Kelli Belly - troup eleader of Bahiya Almaz and professional belly dancer. She is Anna's belly-dance teacher.

Here is Shanrae, my teacher and troupe leader of Tribal Fire.

Shanrae again.


Gypsy Soul. I have a severe non-lesbian lady crush on these women. They totally rock!

We raised over a thousand dollars for Akron Children's Hospital. It was a group effort, and a LOT of work to pull off a big show like this, but it was all worth it. Things I would do differently next year: start sooner, practice harder, invite more dancers but have them do fewer acts each, feed the audience as well as the dancers and backstage crew, charge more per ticket, charge the same same at the door as ahead of time, charge twice as much for reserved seating, rent a venue closer to home (that's a selfish change), advertise more, call more newspapers, have a website set up well in advance, designate someone in the troupe as the final word on all decisions. (Group decision making can take for friggin' EVER!)

Things I would not change: Brodan's fundraising and marketing skills - That girl could squeeze blood from a turnip. Habibi Elise's mom's cooking - the food was fantastic, and there was so much of it! thank-you! Ellway's BF's talent at running the sound for the show: Adam, you are incredible. My hubby's lighting talent - all the cues went off without a hitch. Shannon's organizational skills and artistic talent in choreography, teaching, and drawing: she's a fabulous troupe leader, a great teacher, and a very talented artist. The programs were just lovely.

A little aside about my husband: Dan was roped into running lights for the belly-dance show. He was gracious enough to give in quietly when I asked him to please, please, please run lights. Once he got through the technical rehearsal on the afternoon of the show, he settled in at the light board for the actual curtain time. The show ran like clockwork: no light cues were mssed, it was just great.

After the show I asked him how he thought I did ( I had done my first solo dance that evening). He said, "I don't know I wasn't watching." What? Not watching?? He said he had started to watch the show, but when Shanrae made her speech about the history and traditions of belly dance, all he heard was the part about belly dance being created "by women, for women," so he felt like he wasn't supposed to watch. He read a book during the show and didn't even look at it unless he had lighting cues somewhere.

Silly man. He has his own unique take on life. That's why I love him so.

Belly Cuteness

Anna is growing up to be such a beautiful young lady. She is a talented belly dancer too. Here she is modeling her new costume. She picked the colors and some of the fabric. I made the costume and did all the beading. The pattern is a mish-mash of ideas and copies of other costumes she owns. Below is a close up of the halter. Look how tiny her waist is!

Our Gorgeous, Silly Girls

Here they are, giggling and fighting over who gets to lay on Grandma & Grandpa's sofa. Try to keep from smooching them to death!

Friends Don't Let Friends' Kids Use Markers!

Here is a drawing done by our youngest daughter Anna about ten years ago, when she was 3-ish. She gave it to a friend of mine, and he kept it in his tool box all this time. Now he has it hanging in his cubicle. Marv, you look smashing in your baseball uniform. I think Anna has captured you perfectly!

Gimme Some Shimmy

Our youngest daughter has been doing bellydance since she was 12. She really loves it, and has gotten quite good. It is fun to watch her and hear the music she dances to. It makes me want to leap up and wiggle my bits all over the place. Finally, after a year and a half of thinking I was too fat and too old, I convinced my friend Kimmie to sign up for a bellydancing class with me. Once we started, we found out that bellydance is for ANY size, shape, or age of woman. We've been taking belly dancing class for the past 8 weeks from our darling teacher, Shannon, who is an art therapist during the day. Man, is it fun. My body hurts every Friday morning. We must have jiggled something loose this past Thursday evening because I am still sore today. It's a good sore, though.
I started taking Yoga class too in order to get in touch with my own body. For so long I've ignored everything below my neck. I've lived inside my head and my hands since going through major depression several years ago. All I did was listen to books on CD and sew or journal. I would walk sometimes, but not very often.
Little by little, I am noticing that I can move more easily. I can actually tie my shoes and breathe at the same time again. It may not sound like much, but for me it's huge.
Another great thing about taking the classes is spending time outside of work with my friend Kimmie. I also find that I enjoy being around other women. I didn't used to like it. I always felt more in competition with other women than like bonding with them. Maybe I am finally developing a comfort with my self, some self confidence. Enough so that I can find joy in others instead of worrying about whether or not they are "better" than me.

Kitty Porn

I brought my oldest daughter Haley home from college for her (way too early!) Spring Break. Did she ever get smooched all over her darling smoochable widdle face when I got there to gather her up. She is very tolerant of me and lets me kiss & hug her a lot. She can't help it if she is so very smoochable. She only weighed 5 pounds when I brought her home from the hospital the first time, and she is just as cute now as she was 18 years ago. Just as sweet too. This is a dirty, dirty picture! (I need to clean my house BADLY!) And that is a slutty, slutty kitty, no? Beth likes to climb up on Haley everytime Haley sits down. Haley is her human.

Gosh Darn it!

Patrick here is very sad because his Haley is off at college. We all miss her, and it's only been since Thursday that she's been gone. I took many, many pictures of her moving-in day, but, somehow, the camera crashed, and they all got lost or deleted or something. Luckily, I had already printed most of them using the docking printer before the crash. I at least have those prints for my journal.

It was a very organized freshman orientation at Thiel College. I was impressed with how fast we got through all the business of getting Haley her computer, hed ID, and getting her settled in. The college even had volunteers organized to haul all the kids' boxes upstairs to their dorm rooms.

Thiel conducted a formal matriculation ceremony where they had the incoming freshmen assemble and walk up Brother Martin's walk to Passavant center. All the while there was a bell being rung at the center once for each new matriculating student.

After the ceremony there was a beautiful reception on the lawn outside the student center building. There were white awnings/tents with aisle-runner poufs and drapes attached to the top of each pole around the outside. They had much fancy food. There were even servers walking among the throngs passing out finger foods: bacaon wrapped water chestnuts and brioche. There was a dessert tent too. The chocolate mousse was fabulous.

We got Haley all moved in, and left her to home-ify her small double room. She needed a few things which we brought back from the Wal-Mart in time for her to say, "It's almost 6:30 - see ya!"

Now the house is a little bit empty, but I am so proud of my baby for going to college. I haven't gotten misty yet, but I expect it to hit me in an unguarded moment sometime soon.