My Birthday Week

If you haven't read my late-night, pre-Birthday rant, please take a look - it would mean SO much to me!

I did have a party and it was a lot of fun. It was interesting to note that none of the people that would consider themselves to be my closest or oldest friends, made it to the party. As for Family, my Mom and my daughter were there. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised and heartened by the folks who DID attend! Good food, chocolate, whiskey, and lots of laughter! Thanks everyone!
If you'd like to see photos, follow me on Facebook.

Although, seriously, if you want to see photos, you should follow my MOM on Facebook. Sheesh...

After an exhausting week - which included RE-doing my application for the McDowell Colony Residency, planning the party, packing for my vacation, lawyer emails, etc., and then WAY TOO MUCH DRIVING and chaos - I am, at this very moment... trying to relax and BE on vacation. Well... maybe after I write this blog post. THEN...

So... One week later...

I want to tell you about my Birthday Presents!

If you want to send me a present, or a card, or just insist that I don't look 50... I celebrate all month!
Send it/them here: PO Box 359, Warner, NH 03278.
Wink-wink.

Seriously, these are the Birthday Presents I gave myself in honor of (surviving) 50 years.
(Gold star stickers only go so far).

OK, here's what I wanted (in CAPS) and what I got...

1. FIND A TRIBE -- Midlife Redefine
I did a promo piece for Emily Clement a while back and I've worked with Emily as a Life Coach - she is so much fun and so inspiring! I was whining about how I wished I could continue working with her (private coaching is out of my budget right now), when she told me about a membership group she is starting later this month.

Yes! Life coaching AND instant friends!!! Dream come true!
If you are curious, look here:
www.emilyclementlifecoach.com/midliferedefine
And this is a video Emily made that gives you an excellent idea of what it's like to work with her, and some great ideas to get you started now:
https://youtu.be/5uPAfegkazk

2. MAKE A CHANGE -- Solar Panels
Yes! My very own power station was installed just before my Birthday. Still a lot of things I'd like to do to my house to make it energy efficient, but this is a start.

I got my panels from Granite State Solar through the Solarize Kearsarge program. There was funding available through VSECU (a VT credit union) and 2019 is the last year to take advantage of the awesome solar tax credit!

3. PLAY! -- Lego Ninjago City
I know what you're thinking!!
But, yes, I'm pretty sure this city will fit above my kitchen cabinets with the rest of my city.

There are still three other buildings that I don't have - Assembly Square, the Corner Garage, and the brand-new Treehouse! But I had been getting really nervous that this one would be discontinued soon - and I really need a "Chinatown" for my city! (Or Japantown). I don't care about "Ninjago" anything but OMG! - there's a COMIC BOOK STORE and a SUSHI BAR!!!! Yes, yes, YES!!

This one will take a LONG time to build, but I can't wait to start on it when I get home from Birthday present #4...

4. RUN AWAY! -- Ogunquit, Maine
I have been almost desperate for an escape!

And this is my Place. Although it got off to a rocky start, I am so grateful to be here.

My mom and daughter were here with me for a few days and my sister came down for a brunch party on my actual Birthday (Sept. 15th).

Now I have the whole treehouse to myself for a few days. And there is a huge table where I have all my comics laid out (no, I haven't done a dang thing yet!)

I've never been here when it's so crowded, but at night, the beach is quiet and beautiful.

And there are so many things to distract me and remind me that I really want to start doing watercolor paintings again (of Dragon Trees!)

If you want to see more pics of Maine, be sure to follow me on Facebook.

5. INDULGE -- Super soft cozy sweater

Well... it was 50% off! And it's SOOOOOO soft and fluffy!! Mmm!

6. CULTURE -- Ticket to "Kinky Boots"

In the 15 years I've been coming here, I've never seen a play at the Ogunquit Playhouse! Probably because it's usually closed (I come here off-season).

But Kinky Boots just opened yesterday- "score by Cyndi Lauper"!! - so I searched every performance on the days I'm here and found ONE single seat available on Sunday! Live theatre is expensive. But I am proud that I could find the last cheap ticket.

OK, that's enough presents for now. I'm hoping to get some sleep. Draw some comics. Talk to the ocean some more. Listen to its advice. Drink at least one more Chocolate-Caramel Martini by the fire pit - hopefully with someone cute to gaze at over the flames- otherwise I'll have to keep drinking until they ARE cute, and get some more definitive images in my mind of where I want to steer my Life next. I'm running everything through the "Hell-Yes!" and "Hell-No!" filters.
Stay tuned!

More stuff I'm working on...

I was very productive this past month, not only did I complete three rounds of antibiotics for ear infection, sinus infection, AND STREP! - I also decided to turn the front end of my house into an apartment, and scheduled a hysterectomy (more on that in the next post).

We'll skip the details for the holiday illnesses, although, not leaving the house for 4 weeks may have contributed to my productivity?

First up - I enjoyed doing the daily Inktober drawings (in October) and was horrified that I stopped drawing again on November 1st!? So I set myself a Challenge for 2019 --- I would draw one of my Toys every day for the entire year!

Yowza! My goal is to draw 5 out of 7 days, I'm not completely insane after all. There are times when I just can't get to it. I'm posting the drawings on Instagram, so if you'd like to see all the pics I've done so far, they are HERE.

I've also been working on either a HUGE coloring book, or a series of smaller coloring books - with my daughter, Lilah. It's a lot of work scanning and cleaning up the art. But I love to color and her images are a blast to mess with. Here are a few that I colored:

The apartment idea has taken over my life and my house - there's mess everywhere - and I've spent many nights carrying boxes of books or staining walls - until 3am!

In order to free up the front of the house, I have to empty those rooms and the attic. So I'm converting my Library (aka the Dining Room) into a bedroom for my kid and a Library hallway. This is what the room looked like when I started cleaning it out...

 The books are stacked in the laundry room, in piles in the Living Room, on the stairs to the Studio...

 And the other two walls of the Library had my Lego City! It sat on the kitchen table for days.

Where in the WORLD was I going to find space for that!!??

Hmmm... the town would look really cool on the shelf in the kitchen!!

And there is still room for the Diner (which I have not built yet.) All the Harry Potter, Medieval Village, and Monster Legos went up in the Studio treehouse.

Then the real mess started...

The ugly chimney was boxed in.

Those pink walls were the first thing I painted when I bought the house, like 25 years ago! It was nice to paint over them, but took quite a few coats. And the walls are ancient plaster and lathe, so really lumpy. The ceilings are awful, cracked and stained too - they'll be covered by tin-like ceiling tiles next week.

So much brighter!!!  The bedroom will be rather tiny, to the right of the chimney box. To the left, is the new Library hall that goes to the laundry room/bathroom and the front of the house (new apartment). The wall is "temporary" so it could be removed by future owners who have a use for a dining room.

We jump ahead a few days and the bead-board wall is built ( stayed up til 3am staining the durned thing) and the door track is installed. The door is a sliding "barn" door, but I found more modern hardware for it. I'm painting the door with chalkboard paint (both sides) which makes my 12 year old very happy! I'm guessing the outer side will read something like "Go Away So I can Read!"

We moved all the bookcases into place in the new hallway today. Tomorrow I'll finish painting the door. Then the electrician has to fix the light. Then the ceiling panels. Then we move the kid's STUFF down from her room... and I figure out where to put all the rest of the stuff from all over the house....AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

All before February 6th. Which is when I go in for surgery. I'll tell you about that, my Idea, and the next Kickstarter in the next blog post.

Oh Carousel!

I spent the last five nights staying up very very very late! I binge watched three tv series and built my Lego birthday present!

Night One (Drop Dead Diva):

the infrastructure

ticket booth

Night Two (Drop Dead Diva):

the platforms and stairs

Night Three (The Good Place):

the poles for canopy

the mechanical infrastructure for the canopy

Night Four (Sisters):

the creatures and kids - elephant, flamingo, swan boat...

... frog and tiger

Night Five (The Good Place and Sisters):

the canopy, fancy details, and Gramma with camera

Finished!

Building Legos makes me very happy. Very tired, yes, but very happy.

In Progress...

I spent a lot of time this week painting and cleaning the new Studio. I painted over the Angler Fish...

That took a lot of work and a lot of paint to complete the second HUUUUUUGE blackboard.

The first, "small" blackboard will have trees AND party lights!

The old cork boards got pretty blue felt resurfacing.

 And today we moved lots of displays, bookcases, books - TWO trips to Concord! Even my life-sized mannequins were transported. The younger one rode in my passenger seat, but the older one sprawled on the sofa in the back of the truck - rather indecently!

I just realized what an odd collection of studio necessities I have... just in this one picture there are three large drawer units filled with about a thousand rubber stamps, a futon couch, 16 stacking classroom chairs, 2 movie theatre chairs from the old Cinema 93, an antique wood door from India, and of course, the life-size, wooden, artist's mannequin.

I didn't take any pics of the chaos in the Studio after stuffing it (with two truckloads of stuff!) - but I will show you what it looks like when I go tomorrow. Now for the really hard part - creating order -  and a Studio that people will want to play in!

When I got home, I was so wiped out. I needed a shower, a nap, and chocolate. In any order. There was a big box waiting for me - it was my Lego Diner!!!!

I had ordered it as my reward for finishing the first four Science Kits (and about ten pages of the GOrilla! book) - and packing up my old store, organizing everything in storage to be moved, packing tons of books, and then moving it all... YES - I needed a reward! (If I can get the Wingdoodle building sold by the end of April, can I get the Assembly Square Lego Set as my reward?)

I also got a few of the new Batman Series 2 mini-figures! Zod and Jor-El were the two I wanted most! Yah! Of course there is a whole new series of blind bag figures coming out... oh dear.

It's going to be a while before I'll have a chance to build the Diner, but at least I HAVE it and can drool over it in person.

Lego My LEGOs

Thanks for all the encouraging emails!

And this one...

loscann has left a new comment on your post "Catharsis": 

Sending love, positive thoughts and lots of hugs. LOVE reading your list of goals and things to do...might just be the nudge I need to do the same. And where do you get your LEGOS??? I want...no...I need! a LEGO city! 

OK, I agree - let's take a little break and I'll show you my passion!

This is one of my LEGO streets:

It starts with the Haunted House and ends with the Palace Theatre. On the lower level is part of my old Harry Potter world and bins with destroyed sets (mostly Friends and Elves). The rule was that the kids could mess with the lower shelves, but NOT my city!! If you have seen the LEGO Movie (It's actually VERY funny!!) - then you will understand the reference... at a certain part near the end, my kids yelled, "That's just like YOU, Mom!"  My response: "No! I don't glue my pieces together!"

On top of the Haunted House, the Ghostbusters are... busting Ghosts!

Meanwhile, at the Palace, Marilyn and Darth are arriving for the Premiere!

If you look closely - you can see Batgirl running across the rooftop of the Parisian Cafe to join Wonder Woman in a battle with the Penguin, above the Shop (a fancy department store, like Macy's). Epic Battles like this are common and remind me of those I witnessed in the dressing rooms at Filenes Basement (when I was a kid). Bargain hunting women are merciless!

Across the street is the Old Fire Station. They haven't updated their Eagle to a Helicopter yet and the chore of scraping bird poop off the roof goes to whomever loses the Ping Pong challenge.

(Look closely at the window below the "1932" to see the Ping Pong game in progress.)

Between the Fire Station and the Green Grocer is a lovely Art Park. I constructed it out of leftover pieces and it is popular for families to walk their dogs and push carriages.

The Bakery is run by Gertrude (with the Pretzel) and Cookie (with the red coffee mug). They met at culinary school. They provide snacks for the neighboring Hotel.

It reminds me of the Coolidge Hotel in White River Junction, VT.

And, finally, in the middle of my dining table sits the recently finished Bank with Laundromat (for laundering cash!) and the Detective Agency, Pool Hall, and Al's Barber Shop.

I may need to do a Kickstarter to raise money to buy the other sets for My Town. I absolutely MUST have the brand new Diner!

Seriously - besides the little juke boxes, it's got ELVIS and a pink cadillac! It's on my priority list to buy once I've sold the Wingdoodle building.

 And since I'm fantasizing with you all - this one, Assembly square...

Although it is absolutely, ridiculously expensive, so it's not really ever going to be part of my Town. Sigh.
And this Carousel would be lovely next to the Art Park...

No, I don't get any money from LEGO. I would take it, of course, if they offered. Or free sets...

I have a lot of other sets from... well... a while back - like the Islanders, Movie Monsters, Egyptian Adventure sets. And a bunch my kids don't even know about - like the Robin Hood series.

The one thing I love MORE than the Town sets, are the MINI-FIGURES!

I have hundreds. I used to have them lining the tops of most of the windows in my house. I got some of that amazing new LEGO tape and I'm going to put that on the windows and then set up all my Mini-figs again. That way they won't fall over every time someone slams a door!

I even made mini-figs of Me, Lilah, Minou... and The Fireman!

OH - and the tables that the town is sitting on were built for me. I painted them with stones so I could set up my Hogwarts LEGO sets on there. But the castle got bulldozed to make way for the new Town. That's progress I guess.

I need a third table...

Additional Note:

Since Joyce mentioned (below in the comments) our LEGO experience at Mall of America, I thought I'd find those photos too!
Coolest store ever!!

Joyce - we should have asked Woody to take a group selfie!