New/old house

Some of you already know that after 7 long months of house hunting, we finally found a place.
The housing market in Ann Arbor is crazy. There are more people looking to buy than there is inventory. While we were looking for houses, they would sell at the first day of the open house and for thousands more than the asking price. It was frustrating.

We were lucky enough to find a house in our neighborhood before it went on the market though. I went to an estate sale (see the blog post about estate sales: http://myglassbeadlife.blogspot.com/2012/06/new-things.html) and discovered that the house would be going on the market soon, we let our Realtor know and she jumped on it.

The house we bought was built in 1958 and renovated in the 70's. The house is a mix up of both of those years, so it needs lots of renovations to update it.

We have met with a contractor/designer and she is going to reveal the plans next week.

Here are some photos of the "before". Over the next couple months, I will continue to post the progress.

The small green kitchen

Dinning room with velvet wall paper!

Groovy wall paper in master bath

View from the side

A beautiful day

Today it started snowing around 4am and it has not stopped yet. Well actually it stopped for about 30 minutes while I shoveled the driveway, then promptly started again as soon as I was done. Oh well....

Since the sun was out, I decided that it was nice enough to take a walk, the ground was still frozen and not really wet, so it was pleasant. We have been having lots of crows around stealing from the bird feeders and I noticed them flying around above me, so I stood at watched them for a while, when I started walking again the sun had just come out from a cloud and was shining on the new snow and it was magical.
I hope you can see the flakes in these photos. I have never in my life seen anything like this. For some reason, I did not actually realize that snow flakes looked this way. Whenever I have seen them before, they were big and fluffy with no real shape, but these are gorgeous.
Enjoy..... and remember sometimes you have look around and be in the moment.

Latest inspiration

While doing some work on line, I ran across some art work from the German biologist Ernst Haeckel and have become obsessed with his drawings. Here are some of his works: http://www.strangescience.net/haeckel.htm

I wanted to use his work as an inspiration in my bead making. I have begun experimenting with lines and colors. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Side one

Side two

first view

second view

First view

Second view

Third view

Cat's view

So far, I am really excited, and cannot wait to see what else comes out of this.

What do you think?

My Michigan Snow Project

The weather here has been pretty schizophrenic lately. It has been up in the 30's and down in the teens this week. Some days the sun is out, and other days it's grey skys all day.
Recently, I have been warned of something called Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. It is a type of depression that affects some people when they are sun deprived.
Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder

This is something that I had not even heard of living in Arizona, and it kinda freaks me out a little.
I know enough about my personality, and I could easily join the SAD people, but I wont!
And here is why, first I have been taking my Vit. D, second, I have been going outside as often as possible while the sun is out, and third, I am going to be proactive in making sure I dont.

So, on New Year's day I started a new project I call the Michigan Snow Project. This consisted of making as many snow people along our street and in our yard as I could muster the energy to do. Here are the photos:

This is the first one I worked on. It is closest to the house and the largest.

Then I decided that the large snow person needed minions.

Here they are all together.

Once I got enough in our yard, I started moving down the street.

This one in our next door neighbor's yard.

This one by the mail box will hopefully will make our mail person smile.

This one is my favorite with the ice sickle mohawk.

By the stop sign, this one gets a lot of attention.

At the stop sign on the other side of the street.

In another neighbor's yard.

 So, I made a total of 20 snow people (some not photographed) and while I was making them I was surprised by the responses that I got and continue to get from people. Some looked at me like I was crazy, some complimented me, and lots of people smiled and laughed.
I hope that doing crazy things like this will keep me far away from SAD, and will help some of my neighbors do the same.