We also saw a wonderful exhibit of recycled items called Come on down by Lisa Hoke.
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This collage art was about 30 feet long and the colors covered all the colors in packaging that you see on your grocery store shelves. There was a video at the beginning that talked about how she created this art work. Â She worked in 2 or 3 foot sections to make it easier to work with. You could watch a time elapse of her putting the collage on the walls of the museum.
It is awesome incredible artwork full of life and color. She has friend and family save their recyclables for her. It is a great example of creating with what you have on hand.
You can see a panoramic photo of the installation on her website as well as her other collage work here:Â http://www.lisahoke.com/pages/newInstallations/74.html
We spent the weekend away from our children. It has been about 10 years since we planned to spend time away from them with a purpose. The intensive child rearing years can be overwhelming. We got stuck in just planning to get them to adult age and had not planned beyond that horizon. The end of child rearing and the speedy approach of the empty nest is now only about 3-4 years away. So, it was more than time to spend time talking, dreaming, planning and thinking what we would do in the future. We visited the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and saw the Ansel Adams art exhibit and also the Dale Chihuly Glass exhibit.Â
We weren’t allowed to take photos in the Ansel Adams exhibit, so I don’t have anything to show you of the beauty he captured in his photographs.
I have been wanting to see the Chihuly Glass exhibit for years and years. It was incredible and the photos I took do not do his work justice. The blown glass is enormous and he created with bright colors. Imagine the bright colors of my crochet blankets only glowing. Each piece of glass appeared to glow from the inside.
This is a boat with giant  glass marbles. The colors were intense and bright. The same range as the colors in the photo below. This is a ceiling installation in a hallway. The colors in this photo are more true to life.
We also saw a wonderful exhibit of recycled items called http://www.okcmoa.com/see/exhibitions/come-on-down-by-lisa-hoke/
I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. There just seems to be too much on my plate and not enough time. I remembered this email that my husband had forwarded to me and decided to take a look. It is from Michael Hyatt. He has experience and common sense. This year I decided that I needed to streamline my business and then I plunged into the 100 items in 100 days Challenge. I have been blogging and stressing about things to do ever since.
Here is Michael’s article:Â http://michaelhyatt.com/086-what-to-do-when-you-feel-overwhelmed-podcast.html
1. Decide that you need to make a change!
I do need to change some things. My schedule needs to be flexible and work with the ebb and flow of this retail business and my family life. I tend to get into ruts and many times say “No” when it should be “yes”. I have some natural built in things that keep me honest about energy and time usage. I need to say “Yes” to change!
What can I cut out of my business or home life? What can I do to change up what I am doing? I am working on some new spins on old items in my shop and some new things altogether. Can I organize things within our family that will allow me to be better organized overall?
3. Automate
I need to automate some parts of my business so that I don’t have to make decisions about little time consuming details. I need to blog and create weeks or months in advance and then decide when I am going to release different  articles.
4. Delegate
I need to plan meals, cleaning and other activities that take me out of the house and away from studio productivity. My family helps all the time so delegating more to them is not possible.
5. Three high payoff activities
These three things save me the most time or pay me the most money for my time ; creating new items, writing crochet patterns, blogs and tutorials, planning everything from grocery lists and menus, to vacation days and business ideas.
6. Productivity Sinkholes
I know that these eat my productivity; leaving the house and studio disorganized, spending too much time on the internet or watching tv, not following through on a task, starting more than I can finish in one sitting when sewing, being afraid of success or failure.
I need to plan when to sit down and sew for extended periods of time. Schedule it in on my calendar. I have already scheduled basic household maintenance things like changing the heat pump filters. It is helping me to remember to do the small things that save money.
I’m not really ready for a paid virtual assistant but I can work on using all the tools available on the computer and phone to help me keep track of expenses and mileage.
I hope all this thinking helps out. I have the beginnings of a plan and now I need to implement it one step at a time.
I finished up these pot holders and coffee press cozies this week. The pot holders have two layers of batting in the middle to keep your hands nice and cool. There is coordinating fabric on the back that I pulled from my supplies and the front is quilted from fabric I had as well.
Here is # 92
#93
#94 and 95
They turned out really nice and I love the thick potholders. I also finished up these coffee cozies using the supplies I had on hand.
#96
#97
#98
#99
#100
There we go 100 items in 100 days! I am so excited about being finished. I have a bunch of new items on the horizon. I did use up a bunch of supplies and it did stretch my creativity. I had fun and finished up a bunch of projects quickly as I was motivated to be able to buy some new fabric! I still have about four projects that are unfinished that I have started during the challenge time and I may continue counting them toward the challenge. I did have to breakdown and buy some new supplies towards the end of the challenge. If I hadn’t started the challenge I would not have been ready for the opportunity that came my way at Java Dave’s! Â I have a ton of things cut out, ready and waiting for me to sew.
The post about being overwhelmed has encouraged me to write my to do list each week. Last year I kept a running list on my computer. I had several lists that kept  work in the front of my mind. I stopped using them after several  comments from my family about how busy it was and overwhelming. Productivity dropped through the floor. So  I will start the perpetual lists back up immediately. Here is my To Do list for this week.
Home and family
Scrapbook page for Home school yearbook.
Baby photo of Sr. for yearbook
Meal with son and daughter in law
Plan meals for week
Mail sr photos out to family
Get Commencement invites out
Organizing
Create shopping list
Clean bedroom
Clean out front flower bed and plant irises in back yard
Work on organizing files (pick one drawer to work on)
Chocolate Dog Studio
Finish pattern for baby blanket
Create  last 10  items for the 100 day challenge!
Complete Calendar planning for shop and home for rest of year.
The first of April is this week and we have been incredibly busy. IÂ put things on hold for awhile but I am ready to get back to the 100 items in 100 days challenge.
I have these projects started:
The blanket is almost finished. The quilt is almost half way done. The stars are still in progress and the bottom picture is only 1/8th of the way done!
It has been a busy week as we decide classes for our daughter, getting some last minute senior year  things done. I get photos taken today by our son and daughter in law. They are coming over to spend the day with us. We will send out Commencement announcements soon.
This is number 91 out of 100 items created from my stash! Woohoo!!
I finished this last week but I was waiting for our son to come and take these photos to show off it’s true beauty.
It is crocheted completely of wool out of my stash yarns. I used little balls of yarn and whole skeins.Â
Some of the skeins were variegated and some were solid. I love it, it is warm and cozy. It was almost too warm to work on as the weather is turning to the mid 60s these days.
I like the peaked scalloped border that is a bit more masculine than I normally use. It is  59″ x 49″ on an average size.  I just love it and it is available in the Etsy shop!
This is a quick view of the daffodils in my front yard. I don’t remember them looking this beautiful in years. We are not going to look at the weeds in the grass. We have been really busy raising kids so weeds have crept in over the years. It is a busy day today.
It has been a frustrating week and I tend to hit one of these fairly frequently. My creativity seems to hit a slump and my ability does well. I  have been working on using up my stash and part of that was to finish a crochet blanket I started about 10 years ago. I thought I had finished it way back when. It is a lovely green, white, yellow and blue blanket that I use in the studio when I wake up too early. It was not big enough to be warm and cozy. So, I have started adding to it with my stash yarns. I finished it once and the ends were definitely not the same width by about 12 inches.This is a  huge difference, and it looks gathered. I changed crochet hook sizes and went up to my largest hook, and it is still not even. Now I will need to count stitches and see if I have dropped stitches off the ends of the blanket. It is only about 4 inches difference now so dropping stitches might be the answer. Turns out I had dropped about ten stitches so I added those back in and the width turned out just right. I used up a bunch of little balls of yarn and some larger ones as well. It isn’t the most beautiful blanket I have ever made but it is incredibly soft which more than makes up for it’s homely appearance.
 
