Monday, September 1, 2008

Apologies to the Air and Something New is Coming

I am awfully sorry for the long interludes between posts, but I've gotten a bit spread thin these days. In an attempt to remedy this situation I am pulling all my blogs and articles that I contribute to other blogs into one spot but separate pages! Thanks to Miracle Worker Marr at 13 Pumpkins I should have a gob-smakkin' new WordPress (shhhh, don't tell Blogger, they just don't have the flexibility I'd like!) blog in the next week or so. I've got too many things juggling around up in the air right now and though I love all the cool stuff one can do creating a website/blog, I just admit, I don't have time for learning that right now. We've got a new year of schooling to start and since Spartacus is now officially 9th grade, we be homeschooling a high schooler! YIKES! So with four "at the table" and one somewhere under the laundry pile, I still have high hopes of keeping the stores up and getting opportunity to tickle your eyeballs once in awhile on the information highway. I hope to have a place for Homeschool, Garden, Spiritual Journey, and Barnyard Mucking Around to come together and maybe sing or dance or hey! give things away! Yes, there's plans up these sleeves, Ladies and Gents!
I'll send a great big invite to all those of you who just sit on the edge of your cliffs waiting for me to put word to blogspace! OK, so I'll be sending this out to like, my mom, my sister, maybe my aunts and cousins and a few best buds who WISH they'd never have sat next to me all those years ago at the Church "Get to Know Each Other" fellowship dinner.
So hang tight and I pinkie swear ya, I'll get back to you real soon.
Her long hairedness- Sonya

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

We're Taking a Snow Day

OK, its so hot. I was trying to upload some little family update videos of Z and saw this video I did last winter. What a day that was!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Where the Heck is Matt? (2008)

QUICK! Pause the PLAYLIST at the right-- yeah THAT right! Mom, see the upper left corner with two vertical bars? That's the pause button!

Now, click the triangle in the middle of the video.

I altered the title to a different word but this is the best video I've seen in a long time. I'm talking goose bumps on the goose bumps! I WISH I could be dancing right there with the guy!

Mmm, good vibes, good vibes, man...

Friday, May 30, 2008

CONTEST! IndieHomeSchoolMoms Group Icon Image!


Whose Got THE LOOK for Indie Homeschool Moms on IndiePublic??

Its been awhile since we've been active, yeah, I know LIFE is busy. So I thought to spark a little activity I'd host a GiVe-AwAy contest for our IndiePublic group image!~
The winner will win one of my Fridge Friend Magnets of their choice (anyone else who feels so generous can donate to the cause too!) If you aren't familiar with these heart stealing critters, you can see them here: MY ETSY STORE!
It's not difficult, just submit your "G" rated images, photos, drawings whatever that you think best represents us as a group of indiecrafters. Submissions should be sent to: playventura@gmail.com . I can then post them over here and we'll take a poll for the winner (Blogger has a polling widget, I haven't found one at IP yet.)
You'll have till Friday, June 6 midnite to submit. Once the submissions are all posted here, I'll run a poll for the week, we'll vote on the submissions then on Fri June 13, I'll announce the winner here, on IndiePublic and through our group messages.
Now put on those thinking caps and plug 'em in!!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

My Goosey Goosey Gander- In Memory of Tristan

My heart breaks this morning for a beautiful goose named Tristan. He and his paramour, Isolde, lived fairly peacefully on our little farm pond. We've watched them for the past year and a half and taken some beautiful photos.



Yesterday, from their treetop perch, my daughters saw a mess of white feathers by the pond. They scampered down and ran with breakneck speed only to find beloved Tristan murdered. My 5 yos came to me in the house hotly angry to relay their findings. I went to see for myself. Tristan was a large and yet fast goose when it came to his flight response in cases of attack. How could he have not escaped!?
Sure enough, there was the poor beast, looking like a museum stuffed display that had seen better years. He was not bloody, but mangled. Definitely a dog kill, a just for the fun, run at anything that flutters kill. We lost a rooster a couple of weeks ago to another one of the neighbor's stray rescues. Now, beautiful Tristan.
I found Isolde painfully hiding in the shrubbery on the other side of the pond. Nearby her own feathers were scattered from her attack, a miraculous escape. She was the more timid and fragile of the two. Definitely dogs packing up, they must have been pumped up and eager to go at her as well. The dog tracks around that side of the pond revealed my suspicions. Isolde would not let me near her. I wanted to help as her tail and back were covered in flies, a telltale sign of some collection of wounds under the ragged and ripped feathers. She survived, but for what? To live lonely and vulnerable to the next seige??
I wanted to sell the farm, I wanted suburbia and laws and covenants. I wanted the promise of the farms you read about in sweet blogs with lovely photos. I wanted to wretch.
I returned to the house, to my utility room where I am raising the three offspring I incubated from Tristan and Isolde this spring. Isolde has lost two nests to the neighborhood dogs so I thought the only chance she would have was my intervention. Turns out I was right. The lovelies were hatched only two weeks ago and they have captured my heart more than any of the dozens of chicks I have hatched over the years, and I assure you, I have loved them as well.


Now, just WHAT am I to do? Well, for one. The violence on the farm is not over unless I am proactive. Deposit will be made at the Humane Society for borrowing a dog sized trap. I can not enjoy my farm, my animals can not live in peace on my farm as long as this is going on and dog owners think it is "just one of those things that happen on a farm. Dogs and birds don't go together."
Yes, well, neither do dogs and bullets.





I hope we can secure the property's peace again so our lovelies will be safe again and then we can continue to watch them thrive. The pond is only an ugly mudpuddle without their graceful movement upon it.
So said I my peace.
UPDATE: Isolde would not let me collect her and shelter her and on the following morning she was found to have had the same demise. We'll miss them.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Twinkly Things in Sight...

Being a hat person, I like to give applaud to crafters/artists who come up with unusual and functional hats! I happened upon the nifty little store of Twinklythings,by way of our EtsyBloggers Team and my attraction to her cute avatar. Great great store, great blog, great products, its that simple. LOVE the
twinkle Girls Medium Japanese Floral Bucket Hat !


Saturday, April 26, 2008

This Taggin' Business...



It appears I have been tagged and instructed by The McCain, his very self:
McCain's Corner.

I am to answer five questions passed down to him and thus further the cause by passing on my answers to a lucky lot.

What I was doing ten years ago:
Toting upon my hip a 6 month old, my first female child and quite the stout one at that!
Raising my first batch of chicks ordered through McMurray Hatchery.
Overhauling one of the first versions of my home educating approach by taking on The Well Trained Mind

Five things on my to do list today:
1) reapply ointment and poultice to my poor donk's rubbed raw legs
2) work on finishing the chicken runs and coop
3) figure out more dreamweaver tutorials for the sites and create the darn things
4) load guns to have at ready for next siege of marauding dogs
5) install Edu-Track software to help with upcoming transcripts and other rabbit warrens home schooling through high school will bring

Things I would do If I were a billionaire:
1)build a house to my husband's and my liking at our original farm
2)contact my husband's employment and tell them just how much I am going to enjoy having my husband home from now on while he manages all that money and piddles in the office/lab/herbarium I will build for him since they couldn't.
3)pay off my sister's mortgage
4)pay for a home health nurse 24/7 that can help my sister in law with my mother in law
5)buy some slightly newer cars for husband, self and son when he gets a license (newer being anything more recent than 1995)

Three of my bad habits:
1)Daydreaming
2)Procrastinating
3)Collecting
4)Not spend enough time in God's word
5)Not checking the fluids in the vehicles anymore

Five Places I've lived:
1)in a silver trailer with my parents in Crystal River, FL
2)in a duplex with my parents in South Padre Island, TX
3)in a dorm in Austin, TX
4)in a faculty house, a regular house and now a farm house with my family near Oxford, MS

Five Jobs I've Had:
1)Selling tee shirts to tourists (blech)
2)Selling condos to tourists (blech blech)
3)Clerk in Snap Autoparts turning rotors (yeah, that's right...)
4)Research Assistant in cactus research and insecticidal plant research
5)Owner/Operator/Contributor of three endeavors: PlayVentura Creations, HauteWraps.com (under construction)
and blogging (Club de Español Nueva Asturias, The Brown Bull, PlayVentura Creations )

Five books I've recently read:
Oh, gee, does Internet research count??? Novels and I have a hard time meaning due to time constraints...
1)Pioneer Woman.com/photography and Photoshop
2)The PhotoShop CS book by Scott Kelby
3)My Cave Life in Vicksburg by A Lady
4)THE Declaration of Independence
5)THE Declaration of Independence

Five people I am going to tag:
Fingolfin's Herald
Green Bean Boutique
Carpe You Some Diem!
I don't know any others well enough to tag! How sad. Will have to get back and edit this.
Now I am off to figure out how to tag someone and get to that TO DO list. Been real. S.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Interludes are great, but...its finally warm again!





I know, it's been awhile. I am juggling priorities right now. The home school front has been in need of more direct attention lately and I've had a flush of local sewing jobs to boot. I've been well at the photography, just not enough time it seems to write some words to go with.
SO, what have YOU been up to?
It is now spring here in the mid south- freeze your hiney mornings and sweat your brow days. Time for laundry double duty as layers are the name of the game. But the bees are out and the garden siren is humming her song to be planted.
Oh, lest I forget...I LOVED our lovely featured Etsy featured artist of the week!
Here is my favorite piece-
Its lovely. Its refreshing.
Here's a few more,














I didn't mean to, really, I just 'tumbled upon the cake dish, then found out SHE's THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ARTIST! With good reason too. Hop on over to her store if you haven't yet from the link above.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

How to Make a Chocolate Portrait - wikiHow

How to Make a Chocolate Portrait - wikiHow

Whoa Here, NELLY!










This isn't craft related, exactly... well maybe I could fashion something for this laid back diva but she's really a down to earth kind of diva. Meet Nelly, our new addition to this farm of crafty critters. She is very smart!! She LOVES attention and has very few bad habits, probably the worst of which is to "brey" loudly when we leave her pasture! I'll have to look into recording that! More pics later!







Saturday, January 12, 2008

Bring me up to speed will ya???


I like cruising blogs, seeing what the world is up to and wondering did people just have all this bloggin' bottle up inside them before blogs were created? Did they lay it down in journals to keep to themselves? Or are they only now wishing they had learned to write instead of making Chinese tacks to put in your friends' seats for a lovely mid-9th grade English class gas? (Like me. I am so sorry, Ms. Ramirez.) Some of you folks are wildly funny, some of you are amazingly creative and some of you are just downright full of knowledge to share. I thank you.
I also apologize. I very rarely sign or comment on your blogs. I just lurk around like a fence lizard, darting in and out before anyone takes notice. I caught myself wishing I knew more about the folks reading my blog, not that there are mobs breaking down the monitors to get here but I LOVE it when someone leaves a comment! Yeah, OK, maybe a bit of a self esteem thing, I doubt it. I just like meeting folks. My son has an phrase for my tendency to enjoy meeting people, he and his dad think its darn funny, "My mother has a black belt in social arts." Yeah, whatever. I really don't. I don't host or entertain. Martha Stewart wouldn't be caught dead in my hodge podge styled house. BUT all this aside, I wonder if others like to get comments too? Sure they must, they aren't blogging in hopes of filling a black hole. So I am going to be doing that. Next time I stop by your blog and I enjoy it, or find something that makes me think, or helps me on a research quest- I am going to say so.
Feel free to take the same approach in your own blogventures.
That's all for now- I'm PlayVentura and I approve this message...

Saturday, January 5, 2008

What have I been up to today, I ask you...

I am officially addicted. Yah, I admit it- I even gave the kids chores so I could have the thing to myself...fridge magnets. I've been playing with the new magnets in my Etsy store . "Fridge Friends" I am calling them. They are a hoot and once you start, you just can't seem to stop! Today I worked up two frogs- Frankie and Lulu.
Frankie, we've determined is a bit of a an oddball but what a comic!
Lulu is a tad garish but so sweet to Frankie!


We've decided they need some other friends while they are waiting to go to their new homes, so we have invited elephants, giraffes, a monkey, spiders and a frippy flamingo!

They love to hang out on lockers holding pics of best friends and family. They are great at catching someone's attention with that special office or fridge memo. Favorite of favorites for them though are playing with their human friends!