Boy, do I feel like a bad blogger! Sorry about no updates, everyone, it's just been so crazy where I live. If you look back into my posts from this time last year, you will see one about the Waldo Canyon Fire and the fact that I live in the city that was threatened by it. My best friend and her family came to stay with us for five days because the fire was right there where she lived. Her house is okay, but Mountain Shadows pretty much burned down.
Well, if you've been looking at the news lately you've probably seen that Colorado is again on fire. We recently had the Black Forest fire, which hems yet another part of the city I live in and it was a mass exodus of tens of thousands of evacuees into the Springs as the fire raged and eventually destroyed over 500 homes. My mom's boss and several coworkers had to leave their homes (thankfully those structures survived the fire), but I know a lady who lost everything. It has been extremely stressful living through this yet again, and currently there is a smokey haze that is blowing in from the West Fork fire, making it hard to breath. My mom and dad stayed in South Fork, a cute little tourist town and rode on their cog? train and my sister and I drove through there on our way to Pagosa Springs.
Last night the whole town of South Fork was evacuated and firefighters were preparing to make their stand, complete with over thirty fire engines (and the mayor had helped them hose down buildings). The fire was 2-3 miles away and pictures showed a mountain of fire cresting near the town.
Thankfully (God be blessed!) , the wind shifted and the fire didn't come any closer, but we are now getting the smoke from the 60,000 acre burn. It is apparently three fires combined and is hotter than you know where. I don't think there is any containment on it yet. The Black Forest fire is at 100% containment and they are still working at keeping any smoldering areas from lighting again. Sadly, two people died in the blaze, a middle aged couple who worked at the local Shriever Air Force Base. They were apparently packed and ready to go, with the garage door up...but didn't have enough time. It is very, very sad.
Anyway, apart from that stress is the fact that I have been helping reside the back of my parent's home. It is a house from the 1970s and needed new siding (stupid woodpecker holes!), so we ripped off the old and put on Hardiplank, which is concrete based and weighs 25 pounds per 12 foot length. We used a scaffolding and yes, it was back-breaking work, ripping the old stuff off, stapling new plastic sheeting onto the house, then cutting and screwing on the new stuff. Now were are sanding, priming, and painting. So that's where I've been on the weekends! Oh, and I got a new position at my work with more hours so I actually have paid time off! Yay!
Phew, now I'm tired, just thinking about all of that. I guess I will be getting up really early tomorrow to paint some more, but I wanted to get this update to all my patient readers and followers! I will also be posting pictures shortly of a doll commission that I am working on. She is an actual toy, ordered by a coworker for a god-daughter!
These two cards I made for Mother's Day and Father's Day, respectively. Sorry about the blur on my dad's card, I'll try to take a new picture. My mom's card used some Secret Garden scrapbooking paper, dimensional stickers, and Victorian ephemera. The lady and the basket of flowers are antiques. You can find the scan of the lady posted here on my blog, free for use in whatever you want!
I found a 1950s era image of a man fishing for my dad's card. It was originally on a Valentine, but I thought this would work perfectly, as my dad loves fishing! I printed out the image, covered it in clear contact paper, cut it out, and rifled through my stash of papers to match the colors. Overall, I think it turned out really well and I think he really liked it!
This was a Birthday present to a friend who loves purple and dragonflies! I filled it with goodies I knew she would like, including fruit leather for her hiking trips and a lavender dark chocolate bar.
All of the following images are flowers from my family's backyard, which I took a couple of days ago. Enjoy!
And these two images are of a very special iris purchased last year from a local iris society. It is called the Blue-Eyed Blonde and is quite stunning. It has gone by now, but I will always have these pictures!
