Monday Updates- How are you doing in 2011?

Me, I am gathering myself up! I feel like I am scattered from one side of the planet to the other.
I am having a hard time focusing on anything for any period of time.

We had a wonderful Christmas, it was all about Madi too! She got so many fun things to play with and some very cool clothes.



there is a very big grin on her face

 I think that children make the magic of Christmas. I miss that in my life, the excitement, the belief in magic, and the law of attraction. I felt like I could wish for almost anything and get it when I was little. LOL!! Didn't you? Why does that go away?

Madi gives that back to me and I loved it.
She loves opening presents. She will even help others open theirs. She even says cute stuff like awwwwwww! in a little munchkin voice.

I had an incredible Christmas, I have family that are very very dear to me all year long and they worked very hard to make this a wonderful Christmas for me. The thoughtful things just kept coming. It really helped to give me some hope for the New Year and a breath of light in my life. After the never ending drudge from the last few years, this was exactly what I needed to believe in magic a little again.
I need something to change the view I had been looking at for so long and that is exactly what I got. How can it get any better than that?
Now in to the 2nd week of this new year, I am feeling positive and looking forward to the miracles and grateful and know that when they come I will be able to see them!!
Thank you, all of you, I am very lucky to have you!

Happy Monday my friends, may you be luckier than me!! I wish that so much for all of you!
How are you doing in the 2nd week of 2011? Do you feel the hope?

Do not forget to enter the 18th giveaway either here http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-new-year-and-18th-giveaway.html
Oh and thank you so so much for all your prayers, healing thoughts, and well wishes for my friend Susan, she is doing really well and has a great attitude and is trying hard to rest and take it easy. It is hard to hold that woman down.

A little reminder about the Giveaway and the finished piece.

I am having a giveaway right now, it is the 18th giveaway. I am giving away this prototype piece.

You can still enter the giveaway on post
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-new-year-and-18th-giveaway.html
and
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/12/401st-post-unknown-give-away-that-makes.html
This giveaway closes on the 11th, that would be 1-11-11 at 11:11 pm.
Do not post here for your entry.


Here is the piece that developed from the prototype above.


this is Sacred Heart 3, it is in my Etsy shop now!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/65221454/sacred-heart-necklace-3-complete-love



And here is Sacred heart 2




Also in my Etsy Shop now http://www.etsy.com/listing/65159271/sacred-heart-necklace-2-mothers-love

Here is the story of these hearts.
This sacred heart necklace is inspired by a friend’s dream and I made what she told me.

“This is Mary's heart and all women's hearts being pierced but still able to love and feel joy and compassion and it is because of that piercing that we can do just that. The sword stands for a mother’s love. ”

Make your life like this heart!



Wednesday Wonder- Give me a hand, lend me an ear, read my lips, and in the blink of an eye

From Margaux's website. http://www.margauxlange.com/
Get your coffee/tea and sit a spell. Wonderful website with a multitude of fun.

Margaux Lange is one of the most interesting artist I have seen in ages. I am drawn to her work and I love looking at it. She is a red head, yay.
What is it about this art?
The work is impeccable for one thing, really well constructed. I love that she cuts Barbie a part!
My youngest daughter and I had many a row over her deconstructing Barbie and re-assembling her.
I wish I would have left her alone.
Even though I didn't want her to cut her dolls apart, I adored what she did with them.
Maybe this is why Margaux's work appeals so much!


Breast plates?? Pic from Margaux's website http://www.margauxlange.com/



As a girl growing up in the 50's, Barbie played a big roll in most girls lives.
In mine she was not so big, I was outside most of the time or watching cartoons, my friends, though, were bitten by her bug, big time.
She was the fashion diva of little girls. Everyone wanted to look like Barbie.
I see women here on the west coast still trying to look like her.
It is almost laughable, but there are woman running around with perfectly perkies and perfectly long skinny legs with permanently arched feet. ;-D

Can you hear me now?? Pic from Margaux's website http://www.margauxlange.com/

Margaux also has an Esty store here http://www.etsy.com/shop/margauxlange
Margaux's website http://www.margauxlange.com/
See Margaux amongst the parts http://www.margauxlange.com/profile-contact/profile/about/
Margaux's blog http://midgesmind.blogspot.com/
Places and Galleries where you can buy Margaux http://www.margauxlange.com/shop/

Read my lips? Pic from Margaux's web site http://www.margauxlange.com/

Give Margaux a hand, she is recycling and she is making art with a non- traditional mediums.

This pic is from Maurgaux's Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/margauxlange

An incredible woman I know

My friend Susan is having a double mastectomy today. She has been in my mind for days. She knows inside, and is very resolved about this being the best way for her to go with this, I am backing her up.
Susan is a generous, loving, and caring woman and I am so grateful to be the kind of person that would attract a dynamo like Susan in to my life.
She is creative, she knits, she makes clay flowers, I showed them to you before here, and works a full time job and takes care of her incredible family too. I am in awe of the power this woman holds, I am also in awe of how humble she is.
She is also able to find humor in the best places, I really need to learn this lesson.
I got a note from Susan this morning I opened it up and it said

"I attached a picture of my prototype boobs.  I made them out of air dry clay from scraps, they will fit in a cami.  Better than Kleenex.   Because it is air dry they are light weight."

Along with this picture

Bless Susan and her strength. I love her.

Please pray to whomever you pray to for my friend.

I know this blog sphere is magic and you are all good at this.

Thank you so much!!

Happy New Year and the 18th giveaway

This is what I am giving away for the 18th. Sorry it took so long to get it up here.
This is a prototype for a new design I am doing and this is the first one.
This is New years day and perfect for the first one, the date is also 1-1-11, wow, I never even imagined living to 2011 or to be this old ;-D.
2011 sounds like sci-fi to me. Or it did before. LOL!
Rules of a sort!
1. Leave a comment on this post or the last for one entry.
Since I am feeling generous and it is a new year with a beginning number, if you leave a comment on both posts you will get 2 entries, one for each post.
2.Post this picture and info on your blog and you will get another entry.
3. tweet it and leave the link, another entry.
4. Be a follower or become one, another entry.

As long as I am playing with ones.
This contest will close on the 1-11-11 at 11:11 pm!
Wishing you all the best New Year ever.
Love and huge hugs.
Marie

401st post! Unknown give away! That makes the 18th

Wow, what a way to end the year. Good friends, good food, and my 400th post.
This is the 401st.
I for one, am very surprised.
I didn't even want to do this blogging thing. I needed to find a way to promote myself and my hubby's store with out spending gobs of money. I needed to get back into the swing of things after several hits to my heart and ego. I had to find the self that I had lost and find new people to believe in and trust again. I have gained so much more.

It has been a long journey, this blogging road. It has been interesting, the people I have met are very unique and so very talented. I ended up making friends, many of them. Kindred spirits with light in their eyes and so much to share with others on the same path. It feels good. I don't mean to get maudlin, but I need to do this, I need to see how far I have come, because to tell you the truth, when you are I am standing in the midst of your my own life, the everyday caca can sometime swamp you or I should say me. I call those Sh_t tsunamis. Standing so close to everything it is hard to see anything but a huge wave of it.

I got to have this forum on my terms, posting the things I want to post, with the products I want to use and do the projects I want to do. I did it my way ;-D, right or wrong.

All in all it has been very rewarding now that I look back at the year. I guess this why we do this at this time of year, to take stock of all the events positive and negative to see what we can keep and what we can toss, to make the next year better than the last. I am wondering if I should even label them positive or negative? Some of the things that I thought were positive have turned out different and vice versa. So maybe I should just call them speed bumps or even just events and remain as detached from any outcome as I possibly can. Not to judge but to just be there for all of it.

Baring unforeseen events, I can move forward in to the rosy future.

I feel I have grown, I have been scared a lot of the time, felt that I had no net most of the time, and found out that all I need is inside. I have tools. I have learned new things, one day at a time, I am still learning and I want to keep going. This is good, this is very good!

I am so sorry if I haven't been by, I have an almost 2 year old that runs my life now. I drop by every once in a while and read, maybe comment, but everyday I think of you and I am grateful for you. I am hoping some day I will get this kid thing all figured out, I mean after all, I did it before. I am just a lot older and she is just really smart and really busy, a good girl! She says "Hi".

She smiles at me and says "gamma, hand" and I have to put mine in hers and go. To follow where she leads and to see the world through those bright young eyes!

I am going to have a quick giveaway before One World One heart comes at the end of this month, so if you want to win something (I haven't decided what yet) put your name in this post.
I will get the rules up later, I just want to say thank you and Have a wonderful New Year all of you!
Know that I think you are all perfect and you have something beautiful inside of you!
Share that with those you love.
We will all be better off for it.
And please keep sharing with me. I am better because of all of you.
Thank you!

I am going to leave you with something one of my new blog friends said to me. It rocked my world.

"Create your life like you create your art - you have that power. -Donna, the Woodwife"

Have a very Merry, all of you!

This is what helped my holiday blues, good friends, cookies and a dieter's nightmare.
Oh and Christmas music.

Whatever winter Holiday you celebrate, whatever winter Holiday you have celebrated, or whatever winter Holiday you are going to celebrate, may it be with people you love.
May there be food in your stomach and heat in your hearth.
May you have friends by your side.
May you have love in your heart.
My heart is filled with gratitude for each and every one of you!

I sometimes forget that when a door to change is getting ready to appear that the change feels intense and chaotic right before the opening.
This is almost a daily occurrence lately, do you feel it too?
It does not mean it is bad, just uncomfortable.
Maybe the universe is conspiring to help me.
Ya, I think I will choose to think that one!
Love and huge hugs to you all.
I will be back soon to show you some of what I did over the holidays and getting ready for it.

Thank you to two beautiful women who shared their day with me.
They know who they are.
You helped so much!