My daughter is flying down on Monday as a birthday surprise for me! Yippee! I can’t wait to see her. Of course we have a ton of things we want to do but she will only be here for a few days so we shall see!

I have been commissioned to build two miniatures. One is of a cafe, a small copy of the Greem Cafe in Seoul, Korea: https://www.instagram.com/greem_cafe/

The second is a haunted house based on a number of scary movies. I have seen most but not all of the movies the buyer wants to be depicted in the house: The Sixth Sense (kitchen), Hocus Pocus (cauldron room), and Casper (Foyer), to name a few. I am building it completely from scratch and don’t know how long either will take but I am up for the challenge!

I finally painted the house!

Now we just need new shutters and the trim painted!

Peace to you all! Have a great day!

I just received a message from my daughter that her boyfriend of years ago has just lost his step-father to cancer. When I had first met the family, so many years ago, the gentleman had been waiting and had finally received a new heart, as his was failing. Now, after surviving that he was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He started doing better but there is only so hard a body can fight. RIP Tom.

As anyone can imagine this opens so many wounds that will only partially heal. It is hard to understand that if this is a part of life, why understanding it and dealing with it is not easier. Oftentimes when I am remembering my late husband and especially my son I think about all the people who have lost their loved ones, some in even worse circumstances than my own and I just have to think how lucky I was to have them in my life to begin with. As I have always said, and will continue to say, losing my son is a something that will never feel better.

I appreciate all of you who read my blog and offer support. I hope that in some way or at some time I can help someone too.

Peace

I’ve been thinking and I want to give myself a challenge and write some sort of poem anthology and I want to ask everyone for help. For each poem, I would like to use between 7 and 10 random words. I don’t want to know if they are related, or anything else, just a list of words. For each set of words, I will write a poem, just like my compilations. I guess this would almost be like going back and grouping words from various bloggers and days, but thought it might be fun if anyone had some words they wanted me to work with. I’m also curious to see if what I come up with may be the “idea” of the blogger who left the list.

So…that being said, if you would like to help me in my personal challenge, give me a list of words in the comments below. I have done up to 12 words so I will try to attempt varying length lists. This is completely for fun and if you want me to dedicate the poem to you because it was on your list, I will. I guess it would be easier to say that if you DON”T want your name then tell me.

We shall see how this turns out. I am hoping that because blogs pop up here and there for different people randomly I will get some new bloggers with very varying lists.

Thanks!

Before I forget…I finished a few new ceramic vases and they are out of the kiln. I will be making the flowers for them and then having them on my shop on Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/StineMiniatures

Good morning! As I had mentioned I am on my road trip up north. So far everything has been great! I’ve been staying next door to my old house with my best friend, Mary. We had become best friends the minute I moved in and she came walking up my steep,awful driveway (that I don’t have to deal with ever again!) with a cake and a smile.

So far I’ve just stayed here and relaxed. Lots of animals so there is always entertainment. Horses, various birds, and dogs are the domesticated ones!

Tonight is the awards ceremony when I will present my son’s scholarship to two students from his old high school. The Joseph Bialczak Excellence in Mathematics scholarship! I know he will be looking down with a smile that he is “going public”. Lol 😂

I shall be back to the blog soon!

I rarely check my Spam folder because it always has hundreds of messages and it takes such effort to delete them all. However, today I looked and I was glad I did. I had three messages, one from Jim, one from Sadje, and one from Cindy! Do you all check your Spam folder?

I will be on a bit of a road trip next week. The scholarship, The Joseph Bialczak Excellence in Mathematics Scholarship, that I started in memory of my son is being awarded and I get to present it! There will be one awarded to a male and one to a female from the high school he graduated from. If anyone or any organization would like to make a donation to the fund please use this information:

It is tax deductible and goes straight to the business office at the school. Thank you!

Anyhow, I will hopefully post from along my trip. I will be driving, which is one of my favorite things to do, especially when I have emotional “baggage” to deal with. Luckily, I will be seeing my daughter who makes my heart melt! She is such a good, kind person and I miss her so much.

Here is the picture of the dollhouse I made almost completely by hand. I didn’t construct that actual house and a few furniture pieces came with the house. The rest was completely hand made!

Frog update:

I have been running the pool pump all through the night. Apparently, frogs won’t go in moving water. This has stopped the infestation in my pool! I will do this until we are able to put a screen cage around the pool. My other deterrents were not working very well. The coffee grounds work, but the frogs seemed to be desensitized. Then I went on to vinegar. This worked except it killed a few frogs, which ended up in the skimmer and I thought I might lose my mind if I had to see that again. 🤢 🤮

Have a peaceful day!