watch for leaks.  food coloring SHOOTING out of a tiny hole in a balloon = dangerous to wall paint. and tiles. and your clothes.

lucky for us, we got a little snow and had a little cold.

i took a pr of scissors to the frozen balloons to get the plastic off, and they were so cool.

and a little messy.  i recommend black gloves – won’t see the stains, won’t get food coloring on your hands!

the day we brought them over, it was bright and crisp and DANG COLD

such a pretty little burst of color!

this is really my favorite part of the winter.

the chiropractor (who turns out to be my neighbor, he lives maybe a dozen houses away, strange. and hello, housecalls.) felt the same spot and was like “yep, what that guy said.” and every day for  week now i’ve been going to have little shocks and hot rubs and cold rubs and what i guess people call adjustments, but i call “fear for my life because this guy is going to twist me in to two pieces.”

people keep asking me: no xray? no mri? ummm, no.  cuz we know what the problem is.  each time i go to the dr and when i do what i’m told, i get minutely better…. but being as bad as i was, any little step forward is in the right direction.

i found a website if you’re in to that stuff that says why it’s not always neccessary to have an mri immediately w certain types of back pain:  click on it: http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20189797_1,00.html i thought it was very interesting that with all the stuff that goes on in our middle aged bodies, of course there are going to be abnormalities, even when we feel great.  and i kinda hate that i just lumped myself into middle age, cuz i’m not.  My mother in law said this stuff happens “in our 40s” to me the other night and OMG, I AM NOT 40.  EEEEESH.

so there’s that, and then i wiki’d the exact muscle/joint/area and found this:

Perhaps the biggest reason for misdiagnosis or lack of diagnosis of sacroiliac joint dysfunction is based on the inability of common radiological imaging to discern the disorder. Diagnostic testing, such as X-ray, CT scan, or MRI, do not usually reveal abnormalities; therefore, they cannot reliably be used for diagnosis of sacroiliac joint dysfunction.^[ 

A clinician well-trained in manual medicine (i.e., a spine surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, sports medicine doctor, physical therapist, physiatrist, osteopath or chiropractor) can diagnose the disorder using a hands on approach by palpating the painful areas as well as administering several different tests…

^{so ta-da.  more chiropractor, probably some PT, hopefully some more drugs, and eventually i’ll shut up about the whole debacle.}

but i won’t be doing this any time soon.  or ever again.

(interlaken, 2000-ish)

not related, but related, why-o-why are toilet seats so LOW???  hoooooly cow, they’re low.  or maybe i’m tall.  or i have a high butt.  i don’t know.

and now, a fashion show!  jammie pants!!

sunday at the walk-in

monday – lounging

tuesday at the chiropractors

(haha, just kidding, i didn’t take a pants pic that day. or maybe i didn’t wear pants.  i cannot say for sure. don’t my legs look so skinny?)

wednesday

thursday

friday

and thank goodness the week is over cuz next up is christmas pants, or Kris has to do laundry.  both ideas scare him some, lemme tell you that.

things are improving, i was able to get in the kitchen and make toast for the girls and coffee for myself today, and even do a lap or 2 of the house.  i am absolutely out of my MIND looking for things to do, but at the same time, i’m a little ADD with having nothing to do.  at this very moment, i have tabs up for pinterest, netflix, facebook and twitter…. and i can’t tell you what my plan was for any of them.  OH! and peapod.  i am gonna order the heck out of some groceries around here.

and just one project i hope to make in the next day or so is a variation on this:

imagine it in my colors, in my house hanging all in my spare bedroom… BUT i’d have to send kris into my craft warehouse to find paper and a cutter and adhesive and yarn, and he’s pretty scared about that, too.

but in light of recent developments, here i am.  i hurt my back like crazy-wicked-holy-sh!t bad, and i’ve been laying in bed for 6 days.  i am not kidding, this pain is worse than anything that has ever happened to me.  and i’ve birthed 2 nearly 9 lb babies in fairly rapid succession.  the drugs are starting to wear off, and i can kinda type again.  at least, it looks to me like i’m typing, you can let me know if it looks like klingon to you.  yay, drugs!

i became that person wearing  her pajamas in public in town.

and i have been getting all kinds of compliments on my shoes.  i’ve had them for a long time now, and i think they’re adorable, too. =)

this week i was featured on the blog Mod Podge Rocks, and that well, rocks.  if you’re looking for inspiration, or to kill some time and maybe learn a crafty thing or 2, it’s really a great blog.

i’m also pondering what queenvanna’s plan is going to be this year.  last year i really wanted to just keep doing what i was doing and develop a good customer and merchandise base, and this year i’d love to expand some.  if you (my 2 readers) have any ideas of places where my crafts might fit (calendars especially), i’d love to hear some opinions.  i’m pretty proud of how far i’ve come and what i’ve done, i want to share that love! =)  i mean, look how sweet these are!

(this one was made as a special order for a very cool boutique i work with)

and who does not love robots?

i made a few of these note holders, too, just to see how they’d come out.  pretty cute, i think!

my shop is still open and there’s lots of fun things to buy in there.  hubs has been so helpful packing things up to send.

i’ve got a few new ideas up my sleeve, but i think it’ll be a while before i’m back at it full steam.  you’ll have to stay tuned. xo.

they didn’t turn out the way i hoped (peppermint candies, i am OVER you!), but i used another 50 candies or so, hooray!  that top one is probably the best, i used a pizza cutter to make the edges sharp and so it’d fit the little tray i wanted to put it on.

the edges tended to get a little runny, but eh, cute enough.  oh, and hey!  dig my cupcakes!  i made those for our viewing party for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and they were pretty darn cute if i say so myself.

and i guess while i’m doing the dump of holiday-time desserts i have made, lookit these little peppermint icecream whoopie pies!  i made the icecream, i made the whoopies, i made the pies!

i did NOT use peppermint hard candies, i’m still looking for ways to use up about 400 of those…

the call came on a Friday night at the very end of July. “can you make something like a picture of yours i found on flickr, but nothing like what’s in the picture?”  i’m pretty sure this is the picture the field producer was talking about:

with 7 drawers and big enough to put ornaments and trinkets in and Ty will tell the family every day….. and i didn’t hear anything else, cuz i heard Ty….Ty…. Ty…. *swoon*.  And in my house, what Ty wants, Ty gets, so i yesyesyes’d that lady and when i hung up the phone i just had no idea where to begin.  it was Friday night at 8:30. she had to have 2 of these “things”, whatever they were going to be in her hands in Ohio by Wednesday afternoon, they were filming on Thursday.  Throw in a few other things:  i had to work 8 hours at the scrapbook store.  I had to drop my children off at my parents’ an hour away on Saturday because on Sunday, we had tickets to see Craig Ferguson in Boston.  Boston is at LEAST a day trip from where we live.  There was no time for this.  but it’s for Tyyyyyyyy….

my husband and i stood in my craft room, looking at the various projects that we might alter to make what we needed, and my eyes came to rest on some IKEA boxes that i used for storage.  they’re awesome boxes, i wish i had 12 more sets… but conveniently enough, i had 2.  I arranged on the kitchen counter my vision:

 so make it like this, but with this, and without this. and you know, better.

hunny planned a trip to home depot for 6a.m. the next day.  and while i was at work, he dragged out his saws and other stuff and made just what i asked for.

great!  now do it again!

Christy, my trusty minion and pal was with me through the decorative design and cutting and pasting.  and the trip to craig ferguson.  what a weekend.  Sunday before we left for Boston, we cut lots and lots of pieces.

monday, we were dilerious and pretty shouty (what else is new?), and we saw that hey, we were actually going to pull this together.

so many pieces….

it’s august in my diningroom Christmas sweatshop.  Yes, that’s a kissing ball made by a 4 year old last Christmas hanging from my light fixture.  it’s like Christmas all the time in my house.

and here we are, just about done:

They were shipped on Monday afternoon, one was “lost” in the mail for a day and caused me to age 12 years, and they all got where they needed to be for filming.  ABC is a little touchy about showing the actual folks from the show, so you’ll have to trust me, that’s Ty.  he’s all up in our drawers.  Yes, i’m gonna use that joke for as long as i can ride this out.

more next time.

we called it the queenvanna creations annual corporate Christmas party.

one girl did not think it was cool to skip a day of school.  oooh, she was mad mad mad.  she got over it once we were actually there… and she saw her friends:

we saw a show and rode all the rides 100 or so times,

spent some quality time with the big guy himself!

every little adorable detail was festive-fied.  so, so sweet.

it was a magical weekend for our little family.

i got a chance to try out my new camera. aaaaand i’m in love.

we took a nice walk out in the field and picked the first tree that we thought was tall enough.  marked it with kris’s glove – this is very “laverne and shirley” to me.

he gets better and better at this every year.  of course, it probably helped that it was 45 degrees and no snow on the ground.

big girl was very interested in how we’d know which tree was ours once the kid in the ATV took it away on his trailor.  she’s remembering the ticket number.

it’s going to be a beautiful Christmas.

Last week I did a 3 day craft show that was…  not very crafty?  wrong crowd?  lots of imported pottery?  all of the above?  i’m not sure what it was, but it was weird.  and i had a LOT of time. I decided i wasn’t going to waste my days just waiting for customers, i had to get some stuff done… so i made 500 clothespins over the course of a couple of days.  i made a bunch in to magnets, with fun buttons and glittery embellishments:

great stocking stuffers!

it was fun to make some new patterns and just crank out as many as i could…

i had to tidy because i hosted thanksgiving, and my diningroom cleans up so nice… if only it could stay this way…

it’s barely 24 hours gone by, and the joint is trashed with crafting supplies again.  home sweet home.  next week we are having the “Annual QueenVanna Staff Christmas Party” and it is destined to be a doozy.  just wait til you hear where we are having our Holiday Celebration!!

here’s a hint:

come and play, everything’s a-ok! to be continued…

before (august 2011):

during-ish (oct 30, 2011) (hey, where did the deck and swingset go?)

after (nov 01):

it’s decidedly whispier after the freak october snow storm we had.  good news – the pieces bounced off the house and didn’t squash any of us.  we were only out of power for 5 days, and as crazy as it sounds, we were the lucky ones.  i get crazy clausterphobic when the power goes out, and i don’t care much for living in a house with no heat or water with two little girls that ask 100 times an hour when the lights will come back on.  oi.  i took them to my parents on the coast, and my poor, long suffering husband stayed home because he still had to work.  he got to shower there and have a hot meal, sleep in a 40 degree house and the girls and i had a mini vacation.

we trick or treated at grammie and poppie’s and made out like little bandits.  or a little bat and a little butterfly.  whatever.

pssst, they don’t really like candy.  mama has a year’s supply of peanut butter cups, score!

as i type this, we’ve been out of school for 6 days, tomorrow will be lucky number 7.  i am so ready to have my boring little life back, cutting and pasting and making colored waffles.  i think we all are.