Happy St. Valentines Day

A Very Happy Day to all...



I really don't do chocolate ...I mean I like it...but it really has little to say to me. So Richard has been off the hook for many years now...does not have to seek out that fancy heart shaped boxes filled with bon bons....but he always gets me a beautiful card and it ALWAYS has a black background (he knows how I enjoy my color black) I am not sure where he finds them each and every year ... but they are always beautiful , frilly and filled with loving rhymes. On valentines day I would rather have a picnic, watch a movie or have friends over...and the later it is.... Tonight we will have some local artist friends of ours over for a tipi sit ...there will be six of us ...I will be making my Red Bell Pepper Pasta Sauce (YUM!) Caesar Salad, Garlic bread... did I mention I love to cook! Anyway, after dinner we will all sit and sip wine in the tipi around a warming fire and just relax... I look forward to it.






My memories of childhood Valentines day are strange and funny ones at best...when kids use to sit up all night signing little Valentines day cards for classmates and dropping little candy 'I love you' hearts into each (two for the boy you loved a little more) ...I actually liked this part the best...I think I was a very organized child (not sure what happened) ...I liked sorting and organizing the cards and nicely placing into a box according to the school desk order... well we were up in Reno (one of Dad's music gigs) and of course there was slush and snow around in February...I came bounding out with neat box of cards in hand to the car my Mother was warming ....when.... Slip***Swosh*** SPLAT!! I fell and all the Valentines Day Cards went flying up in the air (to me like slow motion in one of those movies) and all came falling down in various slush puddles....man was I ever bummed...all my work, all those candy hearts now dissolving inside each tiny hand doodled envelope...and one particular one with TWO hearts...the one the little boy would never get and thus never realize my true undying love via the extra candy heart (a kid signal for LOVE) ... OK...I was Late, I had no Valentines Day Cards to share and I had a scraped knee and bruised ego. So my dear Mom stopped by a local store and purchased 27 little 'special' foil wrapped chocolate covered triple fluffed marshmallow Heart Treats... (+ one extra for the little boy I told her I was going to marry one day) ... I arrived late...made a grand entrance ...handed out my little treats to all (held the extra one for the little boy until after class...so no one else would know my intentions) and was very popular that Valentines Day... Needless to say my Mom saved the Day, my humility was in tact, my popularity rose a notch or two ...and the little boy knew I was serious in a big way.. AHHHHH is was a Grand Valentines Day Indeed.

A week later things were back to normal ...kids turned back into kids....the little boy dumped me for a girl with red hair whose Mom made Chocolate Chip Cookies for the class...and I'll be damned...she used my M.O. ...she gave him TWO COOKIES!!! He dropped me like a hot brick.... so I slugged him in the arm and never thought of him again....until now of course...AHHHHH....love never dies really...and sometimes the first ones are the hardest to shake off.

Love can tie us in knots, it pokes our heart till it hurts, it promises and many times never delivers... yet it can be the most wonderful thing there is.... the one true emotion that can set you free...I think the Beatles said it best....

"All You Need Is LOVE......."



Later ,

Jodi

Friday the 13th…. The mere words send shivers up and down the spine of even the most well adjusted individuals … pending DOOOOOM! But not me (of course, I have never ever claimed to be well or adjusted)..Since early childhood I have found that the day of Friday the 13th seemed to be always one of my luckiest days of the week, month and year… if there were more than one Friday the 13th’s in a year calendar…all the better for me. Now that is not to say I am without my superstitions …OH LORDY, I got enough for several people….but the actual day of the 13th and Friday never bothered me…in fact I would go out in search of ‘good’ things to happen.

In school let’s face it…when you are a kid…Friday is a GREAT day…precedes Saturday and that means no school!!! So any Friday was all right in my book. Black Cats…people would run away….as a child it passing in front of me I would think to myself he is trying to tell me something or he likes me…. Ladders, how could it possibly be unlucky to walk under a ladder securely laying against a wall…unless of course there is a ‘painter’ attached somehow and you are wearing a new hat…but then that’s just plain laughing in the face of the devil. Broken mirror meant “I am gonna catch hell for this from Mom…”I DIDN’T DO IT….MY IMAGINARY FRIEND DID”…(yeah yeah, that’s it Imaginary Friend…by the by, that is when I started to officially ‘see’ them) ..

My family never freaked at the 13th …so I guess that is why I didn’t… but as I mentioned we do have our little foibles … and those I did inherit from my family…
My goodness you should have seen us as dinner time…sitting around the table..if someone spilled salt you would have thought cousin Jimmy’s head was on fire..”QUICK…pour it over your shoulder POUR IT OVER YOUR LEFT SHOULDER”….say a few words, turn three times… kiss the ring of the person to your left (I jest about this) …you should have seen Richard (who is the most unsuperstitious person I have ever know) at the first family dinner and one of our first dates… he spilled salt AND Pepper (very nervous…bless his heart)… and flipped his spoon over… Good Lord… you would have thought the world was ending…with all the commands of what to do from family members , poor baby was sweating and hyperventilating … I could only imagine what was going through his mind at that moment… “Holy Crap…I am hooked up with Eccentric Gypsies…if a chicken head rolls onto the table…I am outta here” but alas, he made it through the dinner …and 34 more years of Family Feasts….who knew that he had a thing for Gypsies after all!!

So I do throw salt over my left shoulder, am ugly for a week when pepper tips over, if I feel I am being ‘bugged’ by something not of this world…I put a pair of open scissors next to my bed on the night stand…
I knock wood with the best of em, I whistle walking by a graveyard (and then go in and say Howdy) … and never ever put ‘New’ Shoes on a table.
And probably do 100 other little silly things that I am not even aware of anymore…I know in my heart these are all just little ‘habits’ formed in childhood , carried on into my adulthood … but I like to think of them as little eccentricities that have made me who I am today… NUTS and INSECURE!! No, seriously…I think our little habits and superstitions make us all unique and unbelievably Interesting as human beings…I say embrace them, nurture them…and pass them on….why let the future generations go Scot free .

Later,

Jodi

We tried something NEW on our Web Site GULP!!!

Hello Thursday Readers (or any other day you might read this post)... Well I did it ... I finally posted 'items' for sale on our web site http://www.creagers.com/ ... other than our DVD's this is the very first time in lo these many years of having a web site that I have dared to offer 'things' for actual sale...Gulp!! We are starting small with pins and such.... and working up to Shadow Box Art and Dolls...also Richard will be making 'miniature' accessories and offering those. I think from time to time I will also offer little hand made books with pictures of dolls and poems / stories that I so dearly love to write.... I have been considering for some time doing a Halloween Book... not sure where that will go but I did write a couple of cool stories a few years back that I have never done anything with... we shall see... Anyway, back to the 'web thing' ...I picked out some of my favorite pins to start with...things we at one time offered on EBAY.... but I am seriousily trying to wean myself from that...several have said ETSY is the way to go... hmmmm... will have to give that some thought as well... always pros and cons to everything in life... I think for now I will stick with our own site... it will be like Christmas...always a surprise waiting, and you never know what will pop up for sale... after all, I am a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal...

OK...I am off and running (not literally...oh god no...to cold and I need more coffee) I will 'walk' later today....

Later,

Jodi

The Dark Side of Westminster

Sad to say ...but the Westminster Dog Extravaganza is over...sniff sniff! I do love Dogs and I do love that Show...actually Richard and I were in New York once for Toy Fair when the Westminster Show was going on...was really very thrilling... with their popularity ...it was almost like seeing a bunch of movie stars ...only much more hairy!
And with some weight on them.

Anyway...I got to thinking...these little doggies work so hard...training, being groomed non stop, having to stay in strange hotels, having people gawk at them and feel their privates in front of millions of people....and there is only one winner at the end of it all... but what happens after it's all over... and all that hard work means nothing.... do dogs go bad!!! Do some of them slip into the darkside and become rogue ? Quitting the Biz and running away joining some flea bitten circus and jumping through flaming hoops, or posing with no shame for dog food commercial ads in third world countries ... or sleazy catalog models for 'Doggie Poops Alot' ads in the back of Sunday Paper inserts.

Or... they could go very wrong like 'Poodle with a Mohawk' ...this is from one of my favorite cartoonist.... Lynda Barry. She is insane and so much fun...

So today I felt this was the perfect 'funny' for the ending of the Westminster and my weird sense of humor...

Later,

Jodi

'Friend Day'...formally known as Tuesday!!

Normally I don’t think much of or about Tuesdays in general…just a day that follows Monday and a day prior to ‘Hump Day’ …such a freaky little title…ah well!
Anyway…. Tuesday has turned out to be a very good day indeed and will from this point forward be known as ‘Friend Day’…

I have been in touch this morning with not less than 6 friends from various times in my life …and what a joy it is. Friends from my childhood, friends from my artistic beginnings, friends met in my class and who have remained dear to my heart, friends who have always been there to talk me ‘down’ and talk me ‘Up’ … and of course…New Friends that we meet along life’s sojourner. So this is a very good day indeed…. Slapped a smile on my face so wide that it actually hurts … made my mind go on a little time trip to gone by’s and remember fondly … which in my book is Great Medicine and the equivalent of burning at least 1,000 calories…
Yes Indeedy … Tuesday is turning out to be an alright day…and will forever more be known as Friend Day!
Now what the heck am I gonna do with ‘Hump Day’…


Later,
Jodi

Professor Severus Snape

Well this is our latest commission to be finished... Prof. Severus Snape from the Harry Potter Series. This is in 1:12th Miniature Scale... he stands just at 6 inches tall.



As many of you know Richard and I adore doing miniatures from the Harry Potter Series... we have tons of great plans for this year...including lots of accessories...hopefully to post on our Web site for sale instead of listing on EBAY...trying to wean myself from EBAY....been a lot of years of selling there and we are very happy and delighted with the collectors we have met while on EBAY...we hope now they will come over to our web site to see what we will be offering there... lots of goodies I can assure you.

Anyway... Snape is going to a very good collector today ... so I just wanted to share him... I always like to try and make the characters look like the movie actors that portray them...hopefully this looks a bit like Alan Rickman.



So today we are working on yet another miniature.... stressful on the eyes but we do love it so....



Have a Great Monday Everyone... might post more later today after work is done...



Later,



Jodi

Rainy Days and Sundays!!!

Well it is raining Cats and Dogs here in the old Dry Desert… actually a very nice change …. And lots of rain now means our Spring Desert Bloom will be fantastic …already you can look across the open desert and see a faint carpet of green …really nice…and then there is that ‘smell’ that wonderful smell of rain on the desert floor …ahhhhhh!!! No greater smell out there…except maybe cookies baking…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

But the rain put a real ‘damper’ (sorry for the pun) on the street fair yesterday… I guess a few real troupers stuck it out until noon but everyone pretty much packed up and left… was hoping they would reschedule to another weekend…but now will probably not. We also had a Hobie Cat Boat Race in the Lake… that went great as there was lots of nice wind to go along with the rain …they were loving it.

It just freaks people out cause we have rain so seldom here…except during our lovely mid summer Thunder Booming Storms …those I adore.

So it is Sunday…I will tidy the studio again, make some Chili and Corn Bread (seems like that kind of weather) …drink a couple pots of coffee and sculpt a little…working on out latest commission.

Last night was fun…my cousin brought over some OLD OLD OLD video tapes of my family 25 years ago…Birthday Gatherings…Richard had not a gray hair on his head…and I was much thinner…great fun to see… My afterthought was MY GOD… the body sure falls apart in a span of 25 years… it sort of sneaks up on you…everything is just going along fine then ‘film documentation’ from the past rears it’s ugly head and the realization sets in…. suddenly everything starts hurting and I have this mad desire to take a nap…UGH!

But it was truly wonderful to see members of the family there on film that are no longer with us….sniff sniff! Had a lovely stroll down memory lane …with my cane!!

Later,
Jodi