In my next life...

I’M GONNA BE A BEAR.

In this life I’m a woman. In my next life, I’d like to come back as a bear. When you’re a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.
Before you hibernate, you’re supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too. When you’re a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you are sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that. If you’re the mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that. If you’re a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.
Yup, gonna be a bear!

I got this in an e-mail from a cousin in Dallas.  Thought it was a perfect expression about how I'm feeling these days.  I'd at least like to sleep until the cedar season is over!

Texas Tuesday - January 18, 2011

How is everyone doing today?  Hope everyone is hale and hearty despite the dreaded cedar fever!  Here's my post for the latest Texas Tuesday Challenge.  I don't have much of a story today, just a card.  Yes, I'm one those cedar sufferers and I feel like somebody has been walking all over me, so I'm making this post short. 

I started with a piece of beige Bazzill for the card base, then used a sort of burnt orange Bazzill to cut out the boots with my new Ellison AllStar die. I shadowed the boots using Memento Rich Cocoa ink.  The side panels on the boots are also Bazzill  and the star is plain old white cardstock.  I added some stitching with my trusty Signo black gel pen to both the star and the toes of the boots.  On the card base, I first put down a couple of strips of Tim Holtz tissue tape, then mounted the boots on top of that.  The sentiment was printed on the printer and mounted with Sookwang tape to top it off.  Hope you enjoy it and thanks for stopping by.

The First Texas Tuesday of the New Year!

I cannot believe that 2010 has come and gone and it's 2011!  2010 seems to have flown by!  There were so many things that I wanted to accomplish that went by the wayside, but there were also things that I am proud to say I did!  One of those things I'm proud of is participating in these Texas Tuesday posts.  Here it is January 2011 and we are getting ready to inaugurate our new/old governor for what seems like the umpteenth time.  Whenever we have some sort of high muckety-muck state ceremony, for some reason I can't help thinking of our State Song, "Texas Our Texas".  I remember learning the words in grade school and we proudly sang it (albeit off key) at assembly in the school auditorium.  My junior high (no, we didn't call it "middle school" back then) and high school bands both played it proudly at football games.  I think even UT has played it just a few times, although the probably play "The Eyes" or "Texas Fight" more often.  But as state songs go, I think ours is pretty darned good.  A bit of Texas trivia - it was adopted as the official state song of Texas by the Legislature in 1929 after being selected in a state-wide competition. It was composed by William J. Marsh of Fort Worth, TX composed the tune, and the lyrics were written by Mr. Marsh and Gladys Yoakum Wright.

And now about my card.  I used a shiny dark purple piece for the card base, then a piece of lavender cardstock on top of that.  For some reason woodgrain stuff intrigues me. I guess it reminds me of an old barn, and I love old barns. I used a huge Hero Arts woodgrain stamp on the lavender paper which I stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa ink.  I used the same lavender paper to stamp the beautiful Deadbead Designs "Texas", again with the Memento ink.  I had to handwrite "our" and I'm not too happy with that, but it was all I could think of at the time and I was too lazy to look for an alternative.  I decided some layering was in order, so I fussy-cut around the Texas, and put that on a piece of the dark shiny purple, fussy-cut around that, and put it on white, and fussy-cut around that too.  That's a lot of fussing but I think it's cool looking popped up above the woodgrain. 

We Texans are proud of our state and we do like to brag a bit now and then.  We are truely blessed to live here surrounded by such a rich heritage.  On inauguration day, think of our state song and if you want, sing it out. And if you do, be sure to sing it loud and proud. 

Here's to a great 2011.  I wish health, wealth, and happiness to each and every one of you.  Thanks for visiting my humble blog.