Long time no see...

I know that I have not posted in a long time, but I have a good excuse. I have a new hobby...and a yard...and a garden...and a husband...and friends. :)

Let's start at the top. My new hobby is Artist Trading Cards, or ATC's. They are neat little portable art. The idea is to create a piece of art, in whatever media you like that will fit into 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The simplest way to start is to use a playing card for a template and decorate that, although it looks nicer if you use card stock as a base. I haven't bought any cardstock yet, so the playing cards will do for now. You then decorate it by drawing on it, creating a collage, embellishing a picture, or whatever you can think of. You then trade your creation. That's it. Simple and fun. A card can take as little as an hour or two to create. I am participating in a yahoo group for ATC's called ATC World. The people on ATC_World participate in swaps, which are organized trades in which you make 5 or 6 cards on a particular theme or method and then send them to a moderator. The moderator will the give each person in the swap a card from each of the other people. So, you send in 6 of your cards and get back a card from each of 5 or 6 other people. Nifty way to do it, and it saves a lot in postage. I have participated in one swap, which I mailed off this morning, with the theme of the Green Man. The cards were definately a freshman effort, but I really had fun doing it. I cannot wait to see what I get back from everyone else. I signed up for another swap that ends the 30th of this month, and made those cards up yesterday. I think there are also a couple of other that I will do that are due in the next few of months.

As for my other hobbies, I was trying to get some letterboxing in before my friend left for Mt. Rainier for the summer. She works up there developing curriculum and studying the volcano and loves every minute of it. The program also hosts an exchange with scientists in Japan, so she will spend next summer at Mt. Fuji. So so cool. The sad part is that now I will not see her for the next two months. Very Sad.

Shane and I have been squeezing gardening and yard work into what spare time we can scrape together. My yard is looking decent, but needs weeding. The bulb beds are all bloomed out and need to be weeded and have the leaves trimmed back. My veggies are being slow, so I may have to add some more tomato and pepper plants to augment what is looking to be a fairly small crop. I envy Bethany her lovely plants. Hopefully it will all come out right in the end. At least my potatoes, onions, and rhubarb are doing really well. Also, the cherry tree is getting very close to being ready to start picking. This is going to be a big job this year and I will pay in cherries if anyone wants to help. :)

Other than that, I have been super busy at work for the last few weeks, so my weeknights are spent winding down. Over the weekend, Shane and I went to dinner with my boss to visit and hang out. Shane and my boss really get along well and they love to talk about lab stuff.We went to a really good Mexican restaurant in town. Yummy. We spent Saturday clearing out the garage, using a chemical cleaner on the floor, and sealing all the cracks. Whoever built this house did a crappy job on the concrete work. Tonight Shane will be spraying a sealant over the whole floor and when that dries we get to start in on the modular shelving system that he is building along one whole wall for storage. Yay! I am so excited to have real storage.

So, in the near future I have cherry picking, card making, shelf building, visiting with my family and Shane's and above all relaxing in the sunshine whenever possible. Oh yeah, and Ren Faire is the end of the month...if I can squeeze it in :) For now I am off to eat the yummy stew I put in the crock pot this morning. See ya.