friday blingy friday

a star is worn

tomorrow is the last first day of high school for the houser kids. besides revamping her room and wardrobe and intense lunchmenu planning, we have been embellishing the calm with stitches. she has been wearing her brother's handmedown cutoffs this summer and i thought to add some girly to them. so a star was born, er, worn. then, a pocket edging and then a "mom, can i do it, too?" (seriously, i heard angels singing at this point.)

once she had her momentum going, i had to keep mine up...so i started embellishing this book satchel that i bought on superclearance last year.



her pencil bag stitching was finished last night. photo to follow.

the land before vampires

besides the fact that these are the quintessential back-to-school shoes to her, babygirl made my heart swell (again). she finally read a wrinkle in time. i couldn't tell you why she had procastinated the reading of it for this long, but i had put off the reading of her beloved twilight series until a few months ago, so i guess all is fair in love and reading.

madeleine l'engle wrote a book that is still my all-time favorite. she made it easy to understand how faith and science can share a room and it makes perfect sense to me. i was never one of those young girls with big cure-all dreams of marriage, babies and white picket fences, but i remember thinking that mrs. murry (meg's mom) was the perfect mother and if i ever was to mother, i wanted to work from home and be the mother that she was. the ever-understanding mrs. murry brought home the bacon and cooked it on the bunsen burner.

summer 2 ended on thursday and we toasted it with pretty in pink. school starts up again in eleven days. tuition has been paid, twelve books have been ordered, fall syllabi written and copied and we get a little break to tie up loose ends around here. yippity yeppers. i am mos def going to reread wrinkle, get 'duckie' tattooed on my knuckles and look for a pair of golden shoes myself.

skirt

this skirt had a huge stain in the front and i took it to the studio to play with it.

spirit in a pimpcoat

one of the things that i have picked up again is my love of the target. we have to keep our eye on the prize and sharpen your aim. there is something so wonderful about the practice of it all. the prize of the target is to live life with the least amount of regrets, i think.

there are situations and people in life with the sole purpose of breaking your spirit. yet, the most wonderful fact is that you have to allow it to be done. there are just some things that no one can take from you. no one has the power to break your stride, except for yourself.

maybe, the rules get a little trickier. okay, promises will continue to be broken and enforced rules will get cherrypicked as to which ones will be followed. yet, spirit stays resilient and Someone always has your back. you have to claim that for yourself.

big news around here is that my studio is almost done. when we moved in, it was the dumping ground so the rest of the house could have a semblance of order as we started school. my goal is to have it done by tuesday and honey, i am on a roll. when i finish, i will share before & after shots. this has been a monkey on my back around here.

go forth and hug your resilient spirit.
oh, and don't forget to don your pimpcoat.

an american radass

my sister tipper,
an american radass,
rocked my yesterday.

hey, miss!

my kids at school call me 'miss' and i don't care if they add the 'houser' or if they leave it at that. i love it and them.

this necklace is my favorite necklace and i got it right after my divorce last year. it is sweet and sassy and everything in between.

a little thang called shoema

while cleaning yesterday, i had a lot of time to think about the yahoo article on rising food prices and felt like i had to be responsible and go out there and stock up. on the way, babygirl wanted to stop at ross (well okay, it wasn't really on the way, but you can clearly see why i love babygirl) and we hit the shoe aisle immediately. there are those divine moments that i call shoema. back up to the post a month or so ago when i fell in love with dr. scholl’s funkilicious dansko-inspired clogginess, but no size eleven even listed on their site and no squeezing into a ten would work. uh, hello. i lunged on those elevens and their twin sisters immediately.

yeah for the doctor for swishing his moneymaker again. i have hearted dr. scholl's for over thirty years. picture cinderella's stepsister clopping around in dr. scholl's...we won't even go into that issue. but can i say 'damn you, walt disney!' anyway, that was me, but look at me now. i put these on immediately and they are so comfy.

i heart that little thang called shoema. it always says 'youse been a good little girl. have some shoes!' and i curtsy and say 'hellz yeah! come to mama!'

cheeriOs

O, sO these Os make me cheery, Otay?

feel crazygood

okay, so you are telling me that if you feel crazytired & crazyoverwhelmed that these delicious shoes will go all crazygood on you? i might would even attempt forcing my elevens into the biggest size they have (tens) into them.

mmm. i need a pair of these jived up dr. scholl's. childhood memories were made of the originals and of maybelline's kissing potion.

jelly & glam

like i said earlier, i had been searching for a vintage GE makeup mirror for months since i started to play with eyeshadow. this is exactly like the one that my mother had when we were little. i needed the closeup mirror to practice since babygirl said that my first trials at eyeshadow application made me look like a baby prost¡tute. whatev.

i found the mirror at thrift town for $5.99 and didn't have to turn any babytricks. since the thrifted cart was from a mechanic shop, i channeled my inner rosie the riveter and gave her a little makeup table for her jelly & glam.

saturday, i asked annie to go with me to an estate sale while the girls were in ballet. we walk into a closet and i find 11AAA shoes for a dollar. i couldn't resist these silver heels. not that i can walk in them or anything, but i can make like a baby prost¡tute and crawl.

everydaybling

each day, something catches my eye. this little pile of our peeled off bling made me smile. i love that another flavaflave-inspired generation is out there kicking it glitterskool. the world just might make it, after all.

'shrooms with a view

1) new barrettes are making me smile this morning.

2) "unless i see a shark or whale go flying by, i'm good," (said matt sandlin of amarillo, who was on a beach near corpus christi with his family on wednesday as the wind whipped up and the horizon darkened with clouds. --yahoo news)
this is why i love texans. hurricane erin hit texas this morning. it is storming in the most major way and i don't have to get in the car all day.

3) a reminder to make the time to go dumpster diving!

4) don't faint with me, but my tileguy came & went this morning. misterplumberman puts in my bathroom sink tomorrow afternoon. whooooooohoooo!

5) studiocleanup is progressing. i see the floor and have one work table & my desk cleaned off. hopefully, by sunday, it will be complete. shine the light cuz i am going back in.