As normal, it has been a busy week. The girls returned to school Monday, after a week off for Spring break. The break was rather quiet, since I had a cold. I had plans of more, but such is life. Then, unfortunately, Joe caught it.. But that is how it goes, you know. We did manage a movie, "Nim's Island", which was fun. I would have adored the story as a kid. We also did a few crafts at home, mostly making kitties, err Warriors, out of Fimo.

This week Becca has been busy working on a term paper about moose, but getting her to focus is always a challenge. Now that she is nearing teenagerhood, she always has friends to talk to on the phone, things to do, well pretty much anything but homework; so it is a continuing battle to help her make good choices in her priorities.

Her Girl Scout troop went over to get started on the service portion of the Bronze Award they are working on. They have been asked to clear a large field of rocks and weeds and turn it into a sensory garden for special needs children. I think her leader was a bit overwhelmed with the scope of the project and asked if our troop might be able to come out and help as well. I need to talk to my co-leader about it, but I doubt she will be interested. Her girls seem to have something going on most every day of the week. It is hard to just set up things for our own troop. I did offer to help Becca's leader as much as we can though.

Speaking of Girl Scouts, our troop went to a Victorian house this week for a a traditional tea. I was rather worried with so many girls and just a couple of adults, the girls might act up. We have a few that are really hyper and think it is their duty to wind up the rest of the girls. But I was surprisingly happy with their behavior. The bits of naughtiness were not noticed by the two ladies doing the tea and they commented how good mannered and polite the girls were. The naughtiness was mainly a few girls who were attempting to see how many sugar cubes they could dissolve into a single cup of tea. And that really was not too bad, considering.

We met with the new real estate agent today, who will be taking over the sale of the house. She seems very nice with a lot of good experience. Stuff turned into a real mess near the end of the contract with the old guy. He wanted us to raise the commission and lower the price again, after we had just dropped it by $30K just two weeks before! We did get one offer, finally, for $375K, which was close to $100K under what we were asking! Arghh! We just rejected it outright. The new agent thinks we should be able to get $450K for the house, as it is. I hope she is right. At this rate, we will just barely be covering the loans against it. This market so sucks! All the stupid foreclosures make people think that they should pay the same for a turn key house as a place across the street, deep in weeds and in need of tons and tons of repairs. I guess the bit that makes me the most grumpy is that those of us who have paid our mortgage and did read the fine print to make sure we were not getting in over our heads with a loan, are the ones who pay in the end. Okay, rant over. For now!

Hopefully I will have some updated photos soon of the 1930's mini kitchen I am making. I have been working hard on it, and still trying to figure out what to do with that floor. After lots of research I have determined that while it is a period fool color and style, I still hate it with the other colors! It just distracts from the rest of the room. The down side of changing the floor is that I will have to rip out all the baseboard that I have glued in, and it is such delicate stuff that it will probably break and so I will have to totally cut, fit and paint new trim for the new floor.

Anyhow, I hope everyone has a great weekend! Be good to each other!

The girls are off school this week, finally getting their spring break. I am not sure why our school district had it so far from Easter. All the other local districts have long finished spring break. They have been busy reading a series of books about cat clans called Warriors. I think there are 13+ books in the series, so it should keep them busy for awhile. They have also have been learning a software program called Scratch that was developed by MIT for kids to let them develop their own art, animation and computer games. I like it because they find it fun and it encourages them to use logic and creativity and they think it is all just play.

Meanwhile, Joe is finally taking his driving test to get his California driver's license. Which will finally give him ID that people actually like and allow us to significantly lower our car insurance. Prior he had to be insured as a nonresident, which is not cheap.

In Girl Scouts, the kaleidoscope project was a big hit and they girls were really fascinated to see the parts of one and how they work. I also built a May Pole so they could practice May Pole dancing for our last visit to the senior home on May 1st. Next week, they will be going to an afternoon tea at a local Victorian home. I may try to call around to local florists and see if any would be willing to donate flowers to take to the senior home for the May Day party.

We are having no luck on selling the old house. We dropped the price by $30K two weeks ago and the agent already wants us to drop it another $20-30K. Arghh! I hate this market. People don't seem to care if it is a foreclosure or not. It doesn't seem to matter that our place is turn key and a foreclosure will be ripped apart and need tons of money to repair and refurbish. And now, with Congress wanting to reward people for buying a foreclosure over other home with $7000 credits, it will likely be even harder to sell.

But in happier news, I am really looking forward to May. At the beginning of the month, our friend Daryl will be visiting for a few days. Then later in the month, Joe and I are off to England for almost 2 whole weeks. Then a quick week home, and I am off to Maine for a week at the International Guild of Miniatures intense, week-long school. I will be learning to make this wooden dresser:

We will be learning various wood-working techniques, as well as how to age the wood and paint.

And this arts & crafts era lamp:

In this class we will be doing miniature soldering for the lampshade and electrifying it for a dollhouse. Both of these pieces will be in the traditional 1:12 scale ( 1 inch = 1 foot).

I also just look forward to seeing Maine again, it has been over 40 years since I was last there. Oh and I must have a lobster roll! I have signed up for a couple seminars at night too, but am not sure I will get in. One class is making a mini basket of peaches, using Fimo and the other is painting a traditional New England welcome sign with a pineapple on it. Painting is not my strong area, but I think I can manage what she is doing for this project.

My friend Carol, who makes miniature flowers and plants will also be attending and will be my roommate in our dorm room.  Can you tell I am excited? This is my belated combination birthday and Christmas gift from Joe.

Anyhow, that is about all the news for now. If all goes well, we are off to the movies with the girls this afternoon to see Nim's Island.

Not April yet, at least as I compose this, but probably will be, by the time most read it.  Spring is officially here, but our flowers and green hills from a winter of rain, are already fading. Such is Southern California, even in the best of years.

So, Megan got her California mission project finished and turned in and has done her oral report. This week they are having an open house day so the parents can come in and enjoy all the work. And yes, I am afraid I put a bit too much of my own time and effort into her project, being a 'mini' and all. I hope I didn't get Megan in trouble!

Here is the finished product. We built it using foam board, then sprayed a stone texture paint over the board. Finally, we painted it all in a cream color, to give it the look of adobe.

Megan's other big news last week was an academic award for her outstanding work in both reading and writing. On Friday they did the monthly awards and Megan was surprised, since her teacher had asked us to keep it a secret. She was very excited and happy with the award and I got a great picture of her!

In other news, we took our 18 year old cat Chelsea into the vet for follow-up bloodwork. About a month before, we had  learned she had a messed up thyroid and so she was put onto medication twice a day. At that time, we found she had dropped to only 5 pounds, unable to absorb anything from the food she was eating. Poor thing. Anyhow, a month later, her thyroid levels are very good and she has gained 1-1/2 lbs! Yeah!

Next week the girl's are off on Spring break, much later than all the other school districts around here. I am not sure why our district waited so long. Oh well! I will have to think of some special things to do. Meanwhile, I have another Girl Scout meeting this Thursday and am working on a project where the girls will build kaleidoscopes towards a science badge.

Oh and in happy news, Joe and I have worked out for us to go to England in May, so Joe can see his family. It has been over 2 years since he has been home to see his family. Luckily he has accumulated a lot of frequent flier miles with all his travel in the past, so we were able to do well on the tickets. Gene will be on vacation during that time and has agreed to take care of the girls. I will enjoy seeing the UK for the first time in the spring, since I have mostly seen it in winter.  We will get to be there almost two weeks. I guess I better dust off my passport.

Oh is anyone else watching the John Adams mini series on HBO? We have been and really enjoy it! What a great way to learn history!

Hope everyone is well! Be good to each other!

So let's see, what is going on in my little world...

We finally finished the Girl Scout cookie sale and money has been turned in. Yeah, that is done for another year! I am getting ready for my troops meeting tomorrow. The main leader will be gone at the volunteer tea for half of it, so I want to make sure I have enough to keep the girls busy. We will be doing projects to work on two badges, one in science and one learning about wise consumerism ( comparison shopping, learning to know when a commercial or ad is not telling he whole truth, etc.) And today, Becca's troop is going to a place where you paint ceramics with glazes and then the shop fires them for you.

I also have a parent/teacher conference with Megan's teacher today. Nothing abnormal, her school does them twice a year with all the parents and this is the second one of the year. I should also get Megan's report card today. Becca got her report card last week and made Merit Roll with her grades: two A's, a B+ and a C. The C is in math, the subject she struggles most with, but she has pulled it up from a D last semester and is really working hard. She got a B on her last math test!

Meanwhile, Megan is working on building a model of a California mission as part of the California curriculum for 4th grade. I am busy getting all the parts together for her, so she can assemble, paint, etc. I need to make a trip to Micheals for a few things we still need. That is due next Monday.

Saturday I went and attended my monthly mini meeting. It was nice, although not many people showed up. A number are hard at work making stock to take to the big Chicago miniature show at the end of the month. I took a kit to make a really cute 1:24 scale 1930's kitchen in a container that looks like a vintage flour canister.

The canister is actually made out of wood and will have hidden internal lighting when this project is finished.

Yes, that is a little cat on the pantry shelves. I love him, he looks just like our Milkyway. There is a bit of a glare off the glass in the windows, but there is a scene of a 1930's neighborhood street out the window. I am also not sure I will keep this floor. It is what the kit came with, but I a not sure I like it with the yellow walls and green and white counters. What do you think?

It looks a bit bare still, without furniture and such, but hopefully I can rectify that soon. I am working on putting together a stove and fridge, then will do a table and chairs from some kits I found. 1:24 scale is where 1/2 inch is equal to one foot in real life. It is a scale that falls between the traditional dollhouse in 1:12 scale and the really little houses I do in the 1:48 scale. Hopefully there will be more pictures soon, as I make more progress.

This weekend is, of course, Easter. The girls will be with Gene on Sunday, so we will celebrate here on Saturday. I plan to make lamb and I have found cute little baskets of candies as favors at the dinner table. I need to go do groceries for dinner still. I feel so behind on Easter, it is tough when it comes this early in the year!

I hope everyone is well and having a great week!

Been busy here, as usual. Joe mentioned this week that we had not driven the Porche for awhile and we should, to keep the battery charged. It had been about 6 weeks. Oops, too late. After several days trying to recharge it, the battery was given last rites and turned in at the parts department to be replaced by a new one. The Porche is happy now and we have a trickle charger now, so if it is in the garage for more than a week, we can keep the battery topped off. I also took the car out today and got it washed and cleaned for spring and summer driving. Joe loves to go with the top down, and I have to admit, I find it fun as well.

Last Saturday I met with a new mini group that does quarter scale (1:48) projects once a month for a couple hours. This group has specific projects everyone does each week, instead of just letting people do what they wish. Each member takes a turn coming up with a project for the group. We made a little work bench/table with a tiny dollhouse project in progress. I had a lot of fun doing it and learned a couple tricks for aging little things better and doing wear and tear. I think it turned out pretty good. Here is a picture:

Today I have been trying to come up with a card design on my own, rather that following someone else's idea. I wanted to make the Easter cards I send out this year. Here is my first attempt. There is green glitter at the bottom where the grass is, but you can't see it in the photo.

So, things learned. First, I think I need a softer ink color for the wording. I am using rubber stamps in a typewriter font there. Second, the aging ink to give the brown tint to the graphic doesn't look right to me. I am going to experiment some more to try to get it look 'right'. Only way to learn is to try, I guess.

Tomorrow, I am off to my monthly regular mini meeting. I missed last month due to Girl Scouts, so I am looking forward to this meeting.

Girls Scouts is a bit on the frustrating side for me. I got an e-mail from the other leader (I am technically the co-leader). She told me she had been asked to pick girls from the troop to do a flag ceremony for a special event at the school today. I was never told at the time, not till it was all said and done.  She picked her daughter and the daughters of her friends to do it.

In addition, it seems that most meetings, I end up doing all the organizing and work. I spend hours preparing things for crafts, getting things together for projects, etc. Last meeting felt so chaotic. The girls were running all over the room. There was not enough planned to keep them busy, and while I brought the supplies she wanted, she seemed to have no plan as to how to have the girls do things.

So, I sent her e-mail, saying I was concerned about the communication we had (or lack thereof).  Because once again, there are no plans for the meeting this coming Thursday. I told her I felt like meetings were often chaotic and not planned well enough and perhaps we could talk more and try to avoid this in the future. I tried to be as nice as I could. I am not good at conversations like this, heck, I am not good at pretty much any social skills. LOL! But I suspect I have offended her. It has been three days with no reply from her. But she has sent out an e-mail to each parent in the troop about an upcoming campout. I am not sure what to do now. Should I leave it alone? Press it? Just shut up and keep doing what I can to keep the troop running as smooth as possible?

I think part of this is that I just don't feel accepted by her. When I asked to have Megan join the troop, she said that I would need to attend meetings and help, because she couldn't handle 12 girls herself, alone with the previous co-leader. So I did, I showed up at every meeting and tried to help. At the end of the year, at the bridging celebration, she thanked a number of parents for help and thanked the co-leader, and never said a word to me. It rather hurt, but I suspect I was being too sensitive.

In addition to Girl Scouts, she is head of the school's PTA. She is also very active in her church, in politics and laws involving education, in charity work, she takes her kids to some sort of after school activity almost every school day, and worked at the fire shelters last fall. She is sorta like this super mom. She was unhappy that this coming Thursday (our normal Girl Scout meeting time) was also the time for the volunteer's tea at the school. She has arranged to have someone cover her so she can attend. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems like she does this all to just get people to tell her how great she is.

I don't know. I know I am not good socially. Given the choice, I would rather be home and read a book than go out to a bar or party. I don't fit in well with the uber-successful people in the area, that seem to even worry about how an 8 year-olds after school activities might effect a future university application. I don't wear makeup. I don't wear designer clothing, most of my stuff is from places like Target. I don't think I am easily approachable. I am not sure why. I know I can be critical, so perhaps that is why. I have been trying hard to be better about that. Do they have a school for socially spastic people?  So I am confused and unsure if it is her or me or both. But it is frustrating and I can't help but feel I am just a work house for her, to run the troop, while she gets all the glory.

Oh well, for now I will focus on doing minis tomorrow. That will be fun and relaxing and something I do know I am good at. Hope everyone is having a nice March.

Okay, I am a bit early for official spring, but I am good with calling it a little early. I think everyone is sick of winter!

Life is busy, as usual, in our world. Saturday we had the first night of selling Girl Scout cookies at the grocery store with my troop. Six girls showed up and Becca helped as well, so we were able to cover both doors. We had two adults at each door and our biggest challenge was getting the girls to focus on actually trying to sell the cookies and not just chatter with each other and play games! Despite all this, we managed to sell close to 150 boxes that night in 3 hours! Girl Scout cookies sure are a lot easier to sell than the stupid candy bars my school did each year! Our next night will be Wed. for Becca's troop.

Sunday, Joe and I went down to the natural history museum in San Diego and saw a really amazing exhibit about Pompeii. While it was horrible to think of how all those people died so horribly, it is amazing to have history frozen in time like that, so we can see and know about things that would have never survived otherwise. My favorite bit of trivia type stuff, was a floor mosaic found just inside the front door of a home, with the image of a growling dog and a warning, in latin, to Beware of Dog! LOL!

Thursday, my Girl Scout troop is going back to the senior home that we visited at Christmas. This time we are doing a St. Paddy's Green Day, with some music, bingo and a contest for the best green outfit. I have made about 40 shamrock pins to pass out to the seniors as well. Hopefully it will all go well.

Meanwhile, I am using as much of my other time to try to master the graphics program that works with my laser cutter, so I can start making some pieces with the cutter. That is pretty time consuming, by itself, but I need to get it going.

Hope everyone is well and finding a bit of spring where they are.

That is a slogan here, "Life is rad in Carlsbad", but it turns out to be copyrighted and sold on t-shirts to make a buck, so I will probably get sued for using it as a title.

We have been getting a lot of rain this winter, more than my kids recall seeing.  They were too little to recall the last time it was like this, they were in preschool. California is like that. You get several years of drought, then a winter where it just rains and rains. This year is actually a more mellow version that some years of the cycle where it just comes down so hard and fast, so often, the ground can't soak it up and everything flash floods. This year has been at a more reaonsable pace with days in-between for it to soak in a bit. This week we are supposed to start getting some sun and I am ready for it. Rain is great, but it gets old and all the flowers here want California sunshine so they can bloom.

Saturday was a big Girl Scout event called Thinking Day. All the local troops get together, about 400 girls. Each troop picks a different country that has Girl Scouts (or Girl Guides as they are called in some places) and the troop learns about the country, what it is like to be a girl there and then sets up a table at Thinking Day celebrating their country. On top of all that, the troop brings a taste of a food from that country, for each girl and leader to try. In addition, there are crafts, games and activities. Oh and one really fun part, each troop tries to wear something tied into the traditional clothing or costume of their country. I love seeing all the creative things troops come up with. Our troop was Hong Kong and our girls especially enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year, which is the biggest celebration/holiday in China. We made up a big chart with all 12 of the Chinese new year's animals and added which animal was which year, so people could figure out which year they were born. For our food we brought a massive box of fortune cookies to pass out. That was very popular and we had a good number of girls come by a second time to get more! And happily, the event was a nice sunny day, wedged between two days with lots of rain.

Sunday, Joe and I went to downtown San Diego to attend an opera called Mary, Queen of Scots. I am not huge on opera, but Joe really loves it. However, I love this history of the time period of Mary and Queen Elizabeth I, so we both found some common ground to enjoy. We were way up in nosebleed seats, but we brought opera glasses and that worked out fine. The voices were really amazing and the music was pretty, something I could listen to again.

In other news, Becca came home last night from a day with her dad, to announce she thought she had lice. Apparently one of her close friends at school has lice. So I pulled out the comb and started looking and was very unhappy to confirm her suspicion. And of course, with that, I began to feel itchy as well, so I moved on to check myself. I was close to done, only to discover one of the nasty critters just as I was finishing up. Sooo....both girls are home from school today to be treated, I am madly washing bed sheets and putting gunk on everyone's hair. This too shall pass.

Today is also Girl Scout cookie pickup. All those advanced orders are now ready to be delivered and site sales start at the end of this week. Busy, busy, busy! I also have to get ready for another Girl Scout trip to the senior home for a St. Paddy's day celebration. I need to assemble a zillion little shamrock pins for the girls to hand out as little gifts to the seniors because we won't have another meeting between now and the senior home visit. Whee!

Have I mentioned that I am never bored??

If you have known me for a long time, you will know I started making a Mimi's Cafe in 1:48 scale several years ago. I built the building in pretty short order, but then it sat. And sat. And sat. I made some furniture for it, but mostly it sat.

Well I am trying to finish some of my UFO's (unfinished objects!) and have been focusing on it. I have done finished 3 of the 4 rooms and landscaped the outside, so it is really close to done. Hurray! And being impatient, I decided to post pictures of how it looks now.  To give you an idea of the time involved in this, the desk top took close to an hour to make a tiny blotter, paperwork and pen to sit on top. But that kind of detail is what makes it so cool!

The front, landscaped, with flowers at each window. Sorry it is a little out of focus!

Closeup of the door entry. That is a little orange and white kitty on the bench to the left. On the wall to the right is a "Today's Specials" sign, but you can't really see it in this picture. 

The main room with bar counter and bakery case. If you look careful at the case, you can see a dent where Milkyway (our cat) bit the case and carried it around, before I glued it in place. He decided it was a toy for him. Bad cat!

Booth side of room. There are tiny Mimi's menus on each table, scanned and resized to work in this scale. Each menu is about 1/4" tall.

Here is the desk I did today, in the upstairs office. You can't see the great details on the desk very well though. The green fuzzy blob in the right corner is a fern plant.

The macro lens on the camera sorta screwed up the scale on this. The sink looks massive, but isn't' really. The trash can next to the toilet is a tiny silver bead, as is the base of the plant on the right.

This is the unfinished room, but I have started. There will be tables and chairs added.

The other side of the unfinished room. I decorated the wall with chicken pictures.

A set back view of bathroom, office and main room of cafe. Don't ask where the stairs are! LOL!

Hope you enjoyed! By the way, this whole building is about 6-8 inches tall.

I have been quiet because I was away in Indian for almost two weeks with my mom. She needed to have cataract surgery and she asked me to come out and help her during that time. The week prior, I was working like crazy on the old house, so by the time I got on the plane, I was exhausted.

Luckily I had a day and a half to adjust before her first surgery. The three hour time difference is killer. Her surgery went pretty well but the weather that night was insane! You know those tornadoes that blew through last week and killed like 53 people? Well the tramped right through my mom's town and I have NEVER been in anything like it. It scared me to death. I would have done better if she had a basement that felt safe to stay in, but all we had was a tiny bathroom with a door that felt far to flimsy with 70 mph winds!

Anyhow, to make a long story short, we ended up fine, but I think I lost a few years off my life. I never want to live in tornado or hurricane zone! And, to continue on the weird weather track, the last few days before I left there was snow and ice, at levels greater than mom has seen since she moved there!

The snow was really pretty and I loved watching it fall. Being a California girl, I don't see it often, especially falling, so I was like a little kid playing in it and taking pictures.

Front of mom's house

The back deck, snow and ice

So much snow you can't even see the road!

Mom's second surgery was the 12th. That one didn't go as well, for some reason they could not deaden the pain. Ugh! But luckily the whole thing only takes about 7 minutes. The vision in the first eye is now doing very well, since they put in new lens that also corrected her vision. She is 20/25 in that eye. However, the second eye was still a bit cloudy on the second day, but that is normal. She is very excited to not be wearing glasses any more.

To continue with weird weather, I got back to San Diego to find a freak rain/ice storm that closed a 22 mile stretch of one of our highways, due to snow and ice and stranded several hundred people! Good thing there isn't global warming! Mr. Bush said so!

So now back to regular life. It is good to be home. I have to get ready for two Girl Scout events next week and the picking up of cookies to deliver. Whee!

But for now, the girls are enjoying a 4-day weekend for President's weekend. I came home last night (Valentines) to a nice and clean house and the most delicious dinner that Joe planned and cooked. We had rack of lamb stuffed with a combo of feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and greek olives...oh my gosh it was good. The meat had been marinated as well. It was as better than almost anything I have ever tasted! And he made these thin sliced potatoes with cheese and thyme that was so yummy I had seconds and as a rule, I don't even LIKE potatoes! It was SO nice and such a fantastic welcome home!

Hope everyone had a good Valentines and enjoys the weekend. And I wish you nice, normal and sane weather! LOL!