iseecerulean

I was supposed to be in Chicago this weekend, at the Bishop show....but we, unexpectedly, had to buy a new boiler and hot water heater, so I had to cancel my plans (thank goodness I had decided to drive this year instead of fly).   Ah well, such is life...there is always next year, and the year after that, and the year after that....  Honestly, I have so many miniatures, kits and supplies stashed I don't need any more, so I'm not too upset about it; though I do miss catching up with people I wanted to see.

The English Cottage Kitchen is still in progress...slow progress...I am so sick of gluing egg carton stones on that I could puke.  I am forcing myself to finish, one row at a time.  I'm up to the top of the door now.

In between rows I've been tackling the pile of things I've saved because 'I can make something with that'.

Mini dish scrubbers from fancy toothpicks and dental picks I picked up at the dollar store...

A splatter screen from a faucet aerator and wire, and I don't know what from a jewelry finding and yellow paper-covered wire...

A plastic container cut down from a breath mint container and a baking sheet cut from the foil lid off a can of mixed nuts...

And a scoop carved from a piece of bamboo chopstick...

I'm having fun with minis again after my long break :)  I've missed it.  I'm not going to gym as often as I was when I first decided to get back in shape, and I've needed a break from that...but now I have to figure out how to balance my time to fit in a little bit each week of all the things I want to do.

A fitness update picture...I don't look much different than I did in the picture I posted at the end of December, but I'm stronger.   I feel great :) 

My mom said she's noticed the most difference in my face...which I hadn't, so I had to dig up an old picture...here's one from Kate's graduation in 2010 and another from a month or so ago (ingore the gold star on my forehead, it's a work joke).

And a couple more from 2010, from our trip to France...

...and another, from the early 1990s, before I put on weight, before the surgery to correct my vision, and before I stared coloring my hair every shade of the rainbow...I don't want to get that skinny again though, I looked like a walking skeleton.

Let's see, what else have I been up to?

We rebuilt our pantry closet...took out nine inch deep shelves and installed new hardware and 12 and 16 inch deep shelves...it's only been on our to-do list for 10 years...

I also rotated all the art on our walls.  I took everything down that was up, dug a bunch more out of storage, retired all the 15 year old outdated family pictures, framed some prints that had been sitting around, and hung it all back up.  It was a refreshing change...breathed new life into our old house.  My husband's father was a photographer, we inherited hundreds of his prints when he died, and having more of his work up is wonderful.  I wish we had a bigger house with more walls.

I'll spare you pictures of all our other walls, and close with a gratuitous cat picture for Susan...