Autism and Art

Over the years I have had several students with autism to varying degrees, many of whom have become very dear to my heart. This piece really made me happy to see that how the arts can affect kids positively, and not just ones with "disabilities". At the end of the movie I almost cried when I saw the little girl reach out and touch her mom's face in joy. Anyone who has worked with an autistic child knows that those moments of connecting can be few and far between. Please check this out, it's worth watching.

Sioban's Art Work

Happy Thanksgiving

Give a turkey a break...eat more sweet potatoes this Thanksgiving!

Quit Your Job (if it's killing you)

Chad and I did this about 7 years ago, and I am so glad we did. We both had great paying jobs that were killing us, and our relationship. Had we stayed, we would have gotten divorced, I'm sure of it. After taking the initial leap and fearing that we would starve, we both ended up doing what we love. I teach, he builds.

Chad started his own business knowing he couldn't do shoddy work for cheap bosses and now has more business than he can keep up with. I ended up teaching piano and music education to kids that I truly care about and it makes me happy. Supremely, deeply and unequivocally happy.

How many of you can say that about your jobs? I know that we could have more material goods, and eat out all the time, and not buy generic if I had chosen to stay at the worst job in the world. But you know what? We don't need more stuff, and eating out is a pain with small children, and generic tastes just the same as name brand, especially when you put it into a Tupperware container and there are no colorful cartoons to distract you anyways.

And believe it or not, hard work is good for your soul.

My New Quilt Shop

I finally quit griping to myself that I have no time for quilting (and I never will...blah, blah, blah) and I decided to do something about it. I have opened my own quilt shop on Esty. It's like a ebay for artists. It's so cool and hard to explain, so please just go see for yourself!



Coffee Cup Quilting - my new reason to quit complaining and stop feeling sorry for myself store. or http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5264973 for those of you that would like to bookmark me.



I think this has something to do with the fortune cookie post because I really started thinking about where I was supposed to be going and what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I think/hope this is part of the greater plan.

Adding Music to Your Blog

Sorry it took me a while to respond. I had to go back through all the steps and see how I did it!

To get the songs

1. Go to Radio Blog Club and search for songs that you like.

2. Click the play arrow and a box will pop up on the right hand side of your screen with the HTML code for that song. (I usally have two windows open at a time so I can cut and paste directly into my blog. You can also open your windows notepad and paste it there temporarily.)

To add the songs

1. Go to layout on your dashboard or template to edit your blog.
2. Click on Add a page element on your side bar.
3. Under Choose a New Page Element select HTML/JavaScript.

Fortune Cookie

Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned.

This was the wisdom imparted to me by my fortune cookie the other night. My first response was "Huh, easy for you to say!" But then I really started thinking about it. Yes, I think about fortune cookies...don't judge me.

The obvious question to me is, how do you know you're on the right path? I always assumed I was because everything has come so easily to me. Teaching jobs have literally fallen into my lap. I would be a fool not to take the advantages laid before me. But then I thought, maybe my life has been so easy because I'm not really trying. Maybe I'm just taking the easy way out.

Chad and I talk about this all the time. What do we want to do when we grow up? I hate to say it, but I can't think of a damn thing I want to spend the rest of my life doing. But then again, are you supposed to do the same thing for your whole life? Is that really fulfilling?

I am very happy with what I am doing now, I just wish I had time to do more. (As if two...well three... no, actually, four jobs aren't enough right now.) I wish I could find the time to quilt as much as I would like to. I made pretty good pocket money selling them before I had the girls and I wish I could do that again. Unfortunately I used to quilt in my spare time. As anyone with kids well knows, spare time does not exist anymore.

I keep telling myself I'll quilt more when the girls go to school. But I know full well that I intend to find a job with daylight hours so I can be home with the girls in the evenings. *sigh* Won't anyone pay me to stay home and sew? (And watch my kids for me? Hee Hee.)

No really, If all I have to gripe about is that I don't have time for a hobby I must be on the path fate has bestowed me. (feel free to hum along to Que Cera Cera (whatever will be, will be))

Oooo, Looky, Looky!

I finished a block! I finished a block!



(Only Morgan will care about this post)

Morgan's Quilt

I told Morgan I would finish the quilt she had started piecing together years ago, and that had been keeping me busy for a while, but I finally found the time to finish it.

Unfortunately when I downloaded my pictures, I found that several of them I know I took were not there. It's still a mystery to me as to what happened to them. Here are the only two that seemed to have survived.


I love Morgan's color placement, it's the epitome of a true "scrappy" quilt.


I chose to stipple quilt using a multicolored thread in a random swirling pattern because I thought it best captured the playful mood of the quilt.

Now that I have rediscovered my love of quilting I am trying to set aside a place and time for it. The place being the hardest part. I will post pictures of the other four baby quilts Morgan has requested as they reach completion.