Another Week Almost Gone!!

I swear the older I get the faster time flies. It seems only yesterday we were getting ready for the holidays and now a whole month as passed into the new year.

I have been watching with interest as the presidential candidates pull out of the race this week. In my demented brain I am finding it interesting that they did this before super Tuesday. I do not have a political background so I am sure that there were reasons behind it. What I do not know. I am not sure that we are ready for our former first lady to take the reins of the country and being an independent myself I don't think we need another military mind in the White House. I am of the opinion that Barack Obama would make a great president. He is young, has fresh ideas that make sense and I feel that many more heads of state throughout the world would work better with him than his rival. We need all the help we can get to improve our image with the rest of the world.

We need to get our troops out of Iraq as soon as reasonably possible. My feeling is that we never should have gone in there in the first place. I am sure that most Americans feel that we should have had more of a reason to attack Iraq before we just barged in. But, I also feel that Sadam Hussein was justly tried for his crimes against humanity and had we not invaded the country he would probably not have been brought to justice.

I am also concerned about the billions of dollars that are sent to other countries around the world. We have thousands if not millions of people here in the United States who are at or very near the poverty level and struggle to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. I am not talking about those who spend their lives living on the system I am talking about those who go to work everyday and try to survive without government help or survive in spite of the lack of it. The government puts a price on what they perceive as poverty level. How much money do those who set that figure make a year. Bet it is a heck of a lot more. Has that increased with the price of oil, gas, groceries, etc. Housing has gone out of sight and it takes an act of congress just to be able to get a place to live. I have watched rent around here in my area jump beyond what I could afford if I didn't have my own home. I can see me living in my camper at my parents old house paying my nephew rent to park it there. As it is I live in a 1962 mobile home that I am trying hard to renovate.

I am seeing a lot of housing prices knocked around on TV these days and it is no wonder that the foreclosure rates in California are so high. Here in the northeastern part of New England median salaries are under 15 dollars an hour for most people. By the time we pay our high health and disabilities insurance costs and pay what Uncle Sam wants from us we have lost 1/4 or more of our pay check. Try to save some through the 401K plans and you have taken another 10% away. Our housing costs are probably on average 1/3 the costs in California. How much do those people make out there?

Is there an answer to how to cut government spending and bring down taxes? Is there a way to make health care more affordable? Do we, as supposedly the richest nation on earth (next tot he UAE), need to support the world when we can not even take care of our own first? Why after working all our lives and then trying to get those final debts paid do we have to have social security income taxable. I could go on with all kinds of questions, but what or who would listen? I have never played the system nor tried to live off it and I hope that I never have to, but would love to know why people are allowed too.

When our Senators and Members of Congress leave office with their full salary for the rest of their lives, which by the way is not part of the social security system, do they have to pay taxes on that retirement? If I had to live on what they make I don't think I would complain, but then the more we make the more we want to make. I remember my first job in high school was working in a toy factory making just over a dollar an hour. What do we do now. Cost of living is out of sight for the regular guy.

Someone please enlighten me! I would love some answers to my questions that make sense.

Have a great Day!!
Debs

Income Taxes - On my soap box!!!

On a much heavier note I did my taxes this weekend. Quick simple and highly depressing. We do not have major deductions and so just do a simple form. To keep me from going out of my mind with the nagging that I was getting every night when I got home from work while my DH was recuperating from cervical spine surgery. I hounded him until he went to work, first as a dishwasher and then as a greeter at Walmart. He needed to get out and be around people and that was the only way I could find to get him out of his recliner. He was always a social person until he didn't work any longer and then he became a recluse with only me and our children on occasion to talk to.

Well with that said, his income took us over the limit for social security to be taxable we now have to pay in income tax this year. One wonderful thing about our government - they never want anyone to keep their head above the poverty level. We work all our lives paying into this so called retirement system and then when we get to the point that we can retire we have to keep ourselves at the poverty line to prevent being taxed all over again. Isn't this a wonderful world we live in. It costs more to get to work, to heat our homes, put food in the cupboards and in general just live day to day, but our paychecks do not go up all that much and then we get hit with taxes for trying to survive. So now we are being penalized because we want to be out of debt by the time I want to retire and to have everything ready to hit the road as full time RVers.

It is no wonder that there is rampant depression and suicide in our elder population. One saying that comes to mind. You are Damned if you do and Damned if you don't. What is there to look forward to in the so called golden years.

Have a great day,
Debs

Monday & Miniatures

Well it is Monday again. For us in the working world that means back to work and the grind for another 5 days.



I spent the weekend working on the dog intended for a birthday present for a coworker and as you can see I completed it. I was happy with the finished project although I learned I need to make things a little on the skinny side so when they are furred they look natural and not to chunky. In the picture is also a picture of my model Miss Pippen who is a gorgeous long haired German Shepard with a wonderful temperament. She doesn't seem to have a mean bone in her body.










I also got pictures taken of my parrot. I was also pleased with the way it came out. Compared to the one pictured in the previous post I have a long way to go for perfection, but for my first try I am happy. It is amazing what we can learn to do in a small scale. The only problem I have is trying to make everything I see rather than focusing on one medium. I quickly get bored and do not like to mass produce things so I could never make enough to satisfy the demand it would take to do a show.

TGIF everyone!!!

This week seems to have been so long with the cold weather we have been having. I have been working on my parrot and finished it late last night. I will take pictures of it this weekend and get it posted. I can tell you that it is not as spectacular as the one pictured in a previous post this week, but for my first try I am excited with the results. This weekend I am going to try for a German Shepard using the same techniques that Kerri Pajutee uses on her website. I have done needle felted dogs which turn out well, but want to try this method to see how it works. Will also post the resulting critter no matter what it looks like. Only by laughing at my own creations will I work to improve the pieces as I go along.

This week was meeting week for my miniature group on Wed night. We are working on gardens like the one previously posted. It is amazing how 4 people can come up with totally different ideas to fill a 6 inch cardboard circle. I so enjoy teaching others to challenge themselves in new ways they never thought of. I love learning new things, but more than that I love watching people who say they can not do something, blossom as they learn new things. I would rather do an intense project with many different techniques than to do simple things that only take an hour or two to finish, but have no place to go when they are done. Starting with the garden base we could add fish ponds, fountains, plants of all kinds, benches, little critters hiding in the corners or any number of things and still not make it to crowded on the small base.

My mother always tried to instill in us that we could do anything if we wanted to badly enough. I, in turn, tried to teach the same thing to my children. Having the desire to strive for more in our lives is what makes us grow as life goes on. I hope never to have a day I do not learn something new. My mom passed away a year ago and I miss her still. I still want to pick up the phone and call her on occasion when I need someone to talk to or some advice on some issue or other. She lived to be 83 so I was lucky to have her with a healthy mind, even though her body was failing her for as long as I did. One day I will write about her life, but I am not ready to do that just yet.

That is it for today. Have a great weekend.

Debs

Happy Tuesday!

We are in a deep freeze here in New Hampshire, but the sun was out this morning giving us the illusion of a beautiful day as long as you just looked out the window. It was 0 degrees F when I left the house this morning and is now up to 32 degrees F so it has improved quite a bit.

Last night when I let the 4 legged kids out for the last time before bed I could not believe how bright it was with the moonlight reflecting off the snow. If the wind had not been blowing it would have been a wonderful night for a walk. I had noticed on my way home that the moon was already up at 4:30 PM so knew it would be lovely to look out at the snow later on, but it seemed so much brighter than usual and the moon was huge. I was amazed that the kids did not go crazy when I let them out as they often do when we have a full moon.

I am watching the weather bug program that is a necessity when you work for a roofing company. We have a weather event coming at us from the west which is supposed to drop about an inch of snow on us this afternoon and evening. It is to be just enough to cover up the dirty snow and make everything pretty again.

I was able to get my parrot painted last night and hope to be able to get some feathers on it tonight. Hope to have it ready for reveal tomorrow. If you would like to see some of my other projects you can go to my photo site and take a look around. I have many of the projects I have completed and miniatures I have made there.

Way to go Patriots!!!

Happy Monday everyone! I am not a huge fan of football unless my grandson is on the field, but how can anyone live in New England and not be proud of our sports teams. I watched sporadically throughout the games yesterday and was happy to see the Patriots win. I had hoped to see Green Bay win as one of my brothers is a huge fan of that team. It would have been so great to see them on the field with the Patriots, but was not meant to be. Just two more weeks and the season will be over for another year.

I did spend some time over the weekend working on my little parrot and I have the body ready for painting. Want to try to get that done tonight and then feather him tomorrow evening. Sculpting him was not the easiest thing I have done, nor was it the hardest. I think he is presentable and will be able to tell how well I did once he is feathered.

I had rather a quiet weekend as I tend to hole up at home when the temp. goes down. A hold over from childhood and being poor. I HATE TO BE COLD!! I spent the weekend doing the usual weekend chores, laundry, etc. All those things we are to tired to do when we get home from work during the week.

I am one of the millions of people who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis so I conserve my energy for the important things during the week. Fatigue is the one thing I hate about having this disease. I have always taken care of things around the house and now I have to ask for help and it is driving me crazy. I am not one who likes to wait for a time that is convenient. I want to do it then and there or as soon as possible so I find it hard to wait.

I read a story of how someone explained RA to a friend and it really made a lot of sense to me. When you have the disease you only have so much energy to get you through the day. Using a dozen spoons as your allotment for the day you take away one or two spoons for each activity you need or want to do. The more strenuous the activity the more spoons it uses. When the spoons are used up then the energy is also gone and you are done for the day.

One ironic thing about having RA is you do not need a weather man to tell you a storm is coming. When the barometer starts changing then the joints tell really quick that there is a storm or weather pattern of some kind on it's way. The joy of getting old.

You gotta see this!

There is a wonderful group on the web called Custom Dolls, Houses & Miniatures that I have been a member of for a couple of years or more. They have online classes most every weekend and this past two weeks one of the members, who is an IGMA Fellow, Kerri Pajutee taught a class on sculpting and feathering a parrot. It is two hard for me to follow along with a class on my slow dial up at home so I wait until it is over and check it out. Well let me tell you I will be doing it this weekend or at least attempting to do it. My sculpting skills are not professional at all, but I really want to try this one. The picture is one completed by Kerri. Notice the comparison of her finger to the size of the parrot. It is just over 1 inch in length and about 3/8 inch wide. I was totally amazed at the realism she achieves. You can see other things she has created on her website: http://kerripajutee.com/ . After my attempts at making one of my own I will post a picture of the results. Anyone who is interested in miniatures needs to check out the CDHM site: http://www.cdhm.org/ . There are amazing artists there creating some of the best in miniatures I have seen.

Sunny New England

Oh, but wait a minute and it is apt to change. We have the craziest changes in weather here in the northeast. It is a common saying here, if you don't like the weather just wait a minute and it will change. Today we are windy and only 30 degrees, but the sun is shining and it looks beautiful outside. Tomorrow they are predicting snow changing over to rain. I hate the change over as there is just enough snow in my yard to turn it all to ice again and these old bones just don't bend as well they used to and it seems a lot further to the ground now. Will have to call and have it sanded when the rain stops.

Last night I was online looking for a tutorial for a flower I knew I saved and could not find. It made me realize that while I had spent a month organizing my craft room last summer I still need to organize all of my tutorials and patterns in note books or files of some kind. Many people share tutorials for miniatures on all the groups and forums I belong to so when I find one I think I might want to do I print it out and save it in a file cabinet or with my supplies for that type of project. I do this simply because the old brain does not always remember where it sees something online. Usually when I decide I am going to do something I do not want to waste time looking all over the web for it.

I, also, have huge files on my computer of flowers in different colors so when I start making them I can paint the paper in appropriate colors before punching them out. Nature does not make all flowers in one tone colors. Many flowers are in shades of a color so we need to paint them in variations of color if they are to look natural. I think what I need are more books on flowers, but then with the world wide web I can always find pictures of what I am looking for when I need them.

If anyone has any ideas on organizing them feel free to comment here.

Have a great day!
Debs

My world of Doll House Miniatures

Today I thought I would introduce you to my world of miniatures. I was given a doll house for Christmas 10 years ago. I had always wanted one and finally had one. Well I opened the box, looked at the directions and viewed the video that came with it. Intimidated is to mild a word for what I felt. I closed up the box and stored it away. It took me 7 years to get up the nerve to open the box and take the plunge into the world of doll house construction. Now three years later I am still working on the basic construction of the exterior. I am down to the detail painting and trying to make up my mind where I want to add that last bit of color to make it pop without being gaudy. It is a little further along than when this picture was taken, but still have much to do to finish the exterior.

Well it didn't take me long to learn that I would never be able to afford all the wonderful miniatures it would take to fill up the 6 rooms in the house. One visit to the doll house shop nearby and a wondrous world opened up to me, but alas my tastes run to the high end of the market. I knew then that I needed to find a way to make as many of the small things to fill it as I could or it would never get furnished. Just how does someone new to this little world find out where to go. Well a search on Yahoo groups brought up numerous groups dealing with the small world of miniatures. I was off and running. I joined everyone I could find and read everything I could about scales and any advice that anyone could impart. In the miniature world you can find the most supportive people willing to share knowledge that in other areas most people charge a small fortune for. Ask a question and you will receive an answer sometimes even before you ask. There are also many websites found when doing a search for dollhouse miniatures.

Many of the miniatures I have made can be viewed on webshots at http://community.webshots.com/user/mizdeb11?action=publicAlbums

I have so many projects in line to do that I doubt I will ever finish them all. I tend to think about what I want to do in terms of where will it go when I leave my stick house for life on the road.









I think my favorite thing to do is create gardens. You can see many of them in my webshots albums. I love flowers and creating them has become a passion for me. I usually give these little gardens away as they make others smile and often brighten a day that is dark and dismal.

One nice thing about miniatures as they will fit nicely into my RVing lifestyle when we take to the road. I just have to make sure I save storage space for the my supplies to keep making these wonderful things in miniature. I am rethinking my doll house as it is almost 4 feet high and on a base that is 3' square. How will that fit into a motor home?

More tomorrow!

Have a great day,
Debs

Winter in New England

January is a time for reflection of years past. I tend not to dwell on the past but look to the future with joy. Looking back only depresses me and shows me how fast time flies. Being closer to 60 than 50 only makes me want to live each day to it's fullest. I am seeing people younger than I pass of illnesses that are devastating and quick. Not me I intend to go out fighting every inch of the way.

Today we are in the midst of a weather event which has slowed everything to a crawl and even though we had the snowiest December on record the local drivers have not figured out how to drive in the white stuff yet. Here in New England having 4-wheel drive is license to drive like a total idiot. My husband typically drives our 2006 Tundra 4-wheel drive while I poke along in my 1994 Corolla. I have worked out the nuances of my commute any time of the year and know just how to drive it. My little car has served me well for the past ll years and continues to get me to and from work most days. Today bowing to my husband, the worry wart, I rode in with him. Being a little fearful of doing any damage to the truck I tend to be white knuckled when driving it in this kind of weather. The snow is letting up now and should be done by the time we leave work this afternoon. Now we can start looking forward to another one on Friday this week.

I look out the window here at work and see the wonder of mother nature and how she knows just when it is time to perk up the look of winter. The beautiful snow of December had turned into the dirty ice mounds left after our January thaw last week and now we have a beautiful white covering again.

As I said in my first post I am looking forward to retiring and hoping to become a full time RVer living completely in a house with wheels. As much as I love the look after a fresh new fallen snow I will not miss it at all. Just knowing I will not have to go out in it will be reward enough. I look forward to the time when I can leave home before the first snow and not return north until long after it is gone. I kept looking at my camper before the first snow fall wishing I could hook up and hit the road, but it was not to be this year.

I spend much time on RV boards and groups getting myself prepared for the day that we can pick up and go. I read everything I can get my hands on or find on the web so if anyone has any good sites or information to pass on I would appreciate a comment.

I am also keeping a log of the places I would love to see so if you have any favorites feel free also to comment on those. I love anything in nature and have seen so little of this vast country I want to plan a route that will take in as much as possible. One of my favorite places to visit is Lancaster, PA. We have been going there usually once a year for a week or at least a long weekend.

Have a great day!!!
Debs

As a resident of New Hampshire and having participated in the First in the Nation presidential primary this past week I have a few after thoughts on the outcome. It is not without trepidation that I was not happy with the result, but then I would assume that the other people who did not vote for Hillary Clinton also were disappointed as well.

I am a member of the so called baby boomer generation and I look forward to retirement spending the rest of my life traveling in an RV full time. There are so many places and things to see in this big country of ours I want be able to do just that without thought of where I have to be tomorrow.

Can this be a reality or is it doomed along with our social security system. Can we trust Hillary Clinton to fix this program? In my humble opinion she can not and I don't think she really wants to in this point in time. I am wondering if we could trust any of the candidates to do a great job in the Presidential Chair. I am one of those independent undeclared voters that New Hampshire is so proud of, yet I tend to lean toward the democratic ticket more often than not. I want to leave the door open in the event that I feel that one of the republicans should as if by magic prove to be worthy of my vote. In this particular election I see no one on the republican ticket that will do anything toward bringing the United States back from the brink of social destruction in the world.

Another thought being can we ever hope to recuperate and overcome the ill made decisions of our current president?

Most importantly to me we need to get the illegal immigrants out of the country. I think getting the borders closed and getting rid of those who chose to come into the US by any other means but legal should be deported without trial or questions. We can not continue to be keepers of the world without regard to what it is doing to our own residents.

I totally lost all tolerance for any illegal that can not come into the US through legal channels and learn our language at the very least before trying to change our world. I came from immigrant stock who did come to the US through legal channels and I feel that it is only fair that anyone else wanting to enter the US should do so the same way.

I also feel that anyone wanting to change the language that our Star Spangle Banner is sung in should be tarred and feathered and run out of the country. You want to be part of the US then learn our language and our national customs.

We hear about others coming into the US and criticizing how things are done. WELL I AM SAYING TO YOU SIMPLY IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT THEN GET THE HELL OUT. WE DON’T NEED MORE ANTAGONISTS COMING INTO OUR COUNTRY AND TRYING TO CHANGE WHAT WE HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO MAKE A GOOD PLACE FOR OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.