And of course, you gals are supposed to:
- paste and post this awards in your blog,
- mention the awards in a post,
- send them to someone else and, of course,
- let them know.
And for the awards...



Awards awarded

Sorry Luthien from pimp & paint, I did not link your blog on my last post. That is because... I did not know how to do it !! So I learned, so thank you again, and I hope it is working when the post is published otherwise I will look very stupid !!!

As I said before, I haven't been blogging for a long time. So I still don't know so many people, and I don't post a lot, cause I read a lot, from blog to blog, and then it is time to go to bed or pick up the kids...

My awards go to:
Pam from Pam Warden Art.
I like her cards painted with coffee...

laughing purple goldfish designs, yarn goddess, who create wonderful things using her talents and recycled materials

lu-n-am, 2 young girls who post on a great, fresh and green blog.

And I cannot leave without adding to the list Small Footprints at Reduce Footprints, although Luthien already gave you these awards.

Thanks for all you do...

Virginie

Awards

Soooo coool !!!!!

Luthien has given me awards ! Thanks Luthien, that was so nice of you. I haven't been on the blog world for a long time, and I already receive gratitude. You are making more than my day...

Cause I'm thinking... Why are we blogging really ? To share what we have in our heads and on our hands (as in creativity), our feelings, our knowledge ? Do we blog to make new friends ? Did it ever occur to you that we are making "friends" we will probably never meet in real life ? Sometimes, we might even share deeper feelings than with our next door friend. Is it easier because we are judged only by people who share the same feelings, or do the same thing ?

From my point of vue, I think we need to be recognized by who we REALLY are or what we are doing. I think that is why I am making and selling jewelry. Because I need to leave a trace, a personal touch in this world. Each piece I am making is unique and really made with love, some for people I know, some for people I don't. But my reward is to know that somewhere in this world, someone is wearing my "creativity". That is one way I am making a difference...

Look, I am not bragging at all here, or being self-centered or whatever you want to call it. This would not be me. I just feel that we all need to be recognized and liked, or loved. That what makes us raise in the morning and shine.

So, the awards Luthien ? I know, it is nothing. But still, it's make more than my day. It is the collection of them will make my life...

By the way, if you had not done so, go visit her blog. Luthien is an elf, a real one, at least in the blog world...

OK, tomorrow, I will be awarding my rewards then, as I am supposed to do so.
See you all...

Thankfully

As you may have noticed, I am French, and Thanksgiving is not celebrated in my country. But as I live here, in US, I have to admit that it is one holiday I really like, for the message it conveys. So, as a lot of other immigrants, we adopted and celebrate it. Thanksgiving is often celebrated around a big meal with family members. As we don't have any other person from our family in this continent, we usually invite people who don't either, and would probably not celebrate otherwise. We do the big turkey and all, and ask that everyone comes with a dish to share.

I like this holiday, because there are so many things I can be thankful for. I am gonna try to list a few here...

- My family, aka my husband and my children.



This picture has been taken this fall next to one of the numerous lakes in our great state of Michigan.

I am so fortunate to have my husband on my side. He is my best friend, and we share a lot in common. We are also 2 very different persons and find our complementarity in the other personality. He is a creative guy too, in an engineer way and is never short of new ideas. His motto: "There is no problem, only solutions...". He is also very supportive of my jewelry creations, and I really couldn't do it without his support. That's to make it short...

My children are the sweetest children ever (that is honestly very subjective !) and are my best creations. I am so blessed to have them, even if I have to count my free time in a few hours a day, and if they make me angry, and give me a lot of work. I just cannot imagine my life without them, without the love they give me (when I am not the "mean mom") and the love I give them.

- My parents, and also my in-laws, who are great people, and who love us unconditionally.

- Our sisters, brothers, nephew and nieces and relatives at large, because family is so important for us.

- Our friends, who make our lives more enjoyable.

- My health, and the health of my children and husband. We are not great customers for our doctors, and when we pay them a visit, they sometimes thought we had moved away (including my hubby's dentist, which is not a good thing !).

- My husband's job of course, specially in this troube economy, which allows us to not worry about paying the bills or not being able to have a heated house this winter, as so many other people would. I don't take this for granted, and I am very thankful for it everyday.

- My work, well, it is not a work, but a passion, and being able to express myself and my creativity.

- Freedom, of course, of expression, of religion, of choice, of a country without a war.

- Living in a period when most of us are going back to our roots, and realize we have to take care of our mother Earth and have to celebrate it, its beauty and its gifts, and give back.

and so much more, of course...


Nevertheless,
there are some days when we wake up with our pains,
and forget what we have to be thankful for,
and take for granted what we have,
the love
and the wealth
and the health.

Let's not forget.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts...

Snowflakes

We had the first snow yesterday. My kids were so excited. They brought out construction paper outside for the snowflakes to fall on, and then look at them through a magnifying glass. It did not work out very well, they did not see the magic shapes (I guess this magnifying glass was rubbish), they did not see that the beauty was outside, and went back to play video games... (Well, not really, that was just for the story, but they would have if I had let them !)
No, instead, we went in the basement and made pretend food in playdough. I am pretty good at that :) and was even more excited than the kids : I made veggie lasagna, a cheese pizza, a hot dog with all the stuff inside, spaghettis meat ball... You would think I had better things to do than that ? In fact, not really. Playing with my kids, whatever it was, was the most important, so we spend quality time together, and so they don't fight, and so they don't spend all their time playing Xbox or watching TV. You gotta be with these guys, otherwise they get quickly bored and that's what they would do.

So now, here we go: winter and Christmas. I did not see it coming of course. To get myself into the spirit, I thought today I will post one of the necklace I made for a new year's eve party in mind.



It is all Swaroskis crystals and sterling silver. My neighbor loved it and she bought it. She said she wants to wear it when she goes on a cruise. This one was my longest project of all.

That's all for now...
Today, I am gonna do something close to my heart. I am a volunteer driver to deliver meals to the homebounds in my community.

I want to share with you because I think that is such an easy way to volunteer, does not take me so much time or money. But it bring to all of these people their little smile for the day, a little warmth in their daily life that sometimes they might need so much, staying close to the other human beings.

Some of these people are really homebound. This women who has diabetes and breath with oxygen. She is overweight and it is such a workout for her to climb down her five steps (she had to do it once because the door to her building could not open.
This guy, who is a writer. He is diabetic too. He is Polish and lived through WW2 underground, and then went to Australia covered by the British government. His book is about his experience. This other women, she breaks my heart. Symptoms of Elzheimer, she always asks me what day it is today, and if we have passed Christmas or Easter. And sometimes, she does not remember someone will bring her a meal, and she already ate ! Her hands starts shaking now too.

I speak to each one of them, and try to break their loneliness at least for an instant.

If you find a program like this in your town (here it is called OPC/Older Persons Comm., I encourage you to give it a try. It is another way to make a difference in this world.

Poem of the day

THE WORLD

We all share one big world
animals, humans,
we all share one big earth
this earth is big
this earth is wide
we all share this one big world

Guillaume, 7 1/2 years old

Just wanted to share the poem my son wrote in school today... You like it too ?

Being busy

How do you guys do to write everyday ?? It is fun, but I have already so much on my to do list...

Look at this saturday morning, for example: we have to go pick up the food left on their porch by our neighbors, for the "Scout for food" program. 11:00 am is the den meeting for the cub scouts (why did they put it the same day ??). 2:30 Louis has his basketball training + game, until 4:30. And at 4:30 it is Guillaume's turn. And I have to be there all the time whith both of them, cause nobody else will be at home at this time... Oh, and we need to eat in between, somehow.

Sunday evening, I am inviting my husband's boss and his wife for dinner. So I have to clean my house and my cluttered dining table aka second great workstation for my jewelry work. Plus doing last minute grocery shopping, plus the cooking, and I cannot mess this up !!

Friday morning, I am on duty for the "disability worshop" of my 4th grader. That is all morning and the children have different stations to go through to learn about all the disabilities (including dislexia and autism...), and to know what it feels like to have this kind of problem. I will help the kids to use a white cane so they can have the feeling of what it feels like when you're blind. It is a great workshop organized by the schools, very informative.

Well, all this week, I have been working on my website. I have learn soooooo much since I have started. It does not look so bad, I am quite happy about it. You will be able to check it out soon, I will post the URL when it is ready (or did I already put it on this blog ? But it won't look the same anyway...)
When I started this process, I did not even now what FTP meant. Now, I am rewriting my CSS stylesheet !! (well, kind of !). OK, I am a jewelry designer, not a web site designer.

I also asked a guy on the web, Gary, to design a logo for me. I am waiting impatiently to see how it is gonna look. You might see it, I hope, very soon. I am scared if I don't like it I will have spend my bucks for nothing...

Well, I did spend tons of time on my computer recently, I hope people will be excited by my jewelry, as much as I am.

OK, that's it for today. Nobody will gonna read my babbling anyway, right ?

First blog

Hi, my name is Virginie and I am just opening this blog. This is gonna be a wonderful experience. Here I am, surfing on this gigantic web... Funny, I am starting this today, it is Halloween, and I am dressed up as a witch...

Let me introduce myself. I am a proud mom of my 2 beautiful children:



I live in Michigan, which is a beautiful state in the fall, but I am originally from France. I have been living here 10 years though, and my children were born here. I also have a wonderful husband, who is French too. We don't have any pets, just 2 kids !!, but we enjoy a lot of "wildlife" in our backyard: deers, especially, who eat all my tentatives of planting flowers, squirrels (we all call them "Nuts"), rabbits sometimes, and all the others we don't usually see, like raccoons, and who knows what...

When I first came in this country, I couldn't "work" as I did not have a visa for that. So the children came, and my full time job was to be a Mom. It was hard at first not to go to work every morning, stay at home, and not have a social life, as I just moved to this country and did not know anybody. Plus, "stay at home Mom" sure was not my day dream job. But I got used to it, and realized I was so fortunate to be able to be with my kids every day, watch them growing and not missing any of their milestones. So I became very involved in their education, as babies, as toddlers and so on... The hard work was very rewarding.

Now they are in school all day long. Well, until 3:30 that is. Now, you would think, I have soooo much free time, right ? Well, not what you may be thinking. When they come back to school, I want to be available for them. Assist with the homeworks, talk to them about their day at school, play with them, or just doing things with them. And then, later on, when my husband finally come back from work, I want to be available for him too. He likes to talk about his day, to share "ses joies et ses peines": his good and bad moments, or I like to talk about mine, or about any issue I have. So, all the work that need to be done has to be done during the time the rest of my family is working: laundry, cleaning, bills, grocery shopping, even going to the gym to stay in shape, you name it (well, you know...). So free time: not so much in fact !!

So, what about some free time still left ? Right now, I am working full time on designing my own website. As I am not computer savvy at all, this is haaarrrddd work. But let me get to this.

I always loved natural materials: wood, shells, pearls, rocks... I would collect the most beautiful, on the beach or anywhere I would go. Just because they are so beautiful, created by mother earth, modified by time and years of erosion... My other passion, or dream, was to be an artist. I would decorate my notebooks when I was in elementary school, thinking my drawings were the most beautiful ! Well, they were not, but I liked them !!! But crafting was one of my favorite activities.

Combining that, and after several attempts at other arts, jewelry making come so naturally to me... So I bought my first beads, thought myself the basics, learning constantly, and did my first necklaces. People around me said they were nice and I should make more... They supported me, as well as my husband and children who also liked my work... So I did more, and more, constantly improving the techniques and the creativity. And here I am now. Doing some art shows and selling my work, my own one of a kind pieces of wearable art, created by me, each one with a lot of love and patience... If you have read up to there now, you can as well go take a look at my work.


And I am also building a web site, so I can sell directly through the web. But it is a lot of work. Meanwhile, if you see something you like, do not hesitate to comment and share with your friends...

Nice talking with you, come back again...
Virginie