Art in the Garden

T Rex Lives!!!
Originally uploaded by Martha {Dancing Monkey Jewelry}

Saw this in my neighbor's yard on a walk - I love it. My dog, well, let's just say he doesn't know what to think of it and did a fair amount of growling when he first saw it.

I love art in the garden. It adds interest and gives you something to look at during the winter months. I intend to add some statuary in my secret garden and maybe a water feature - though I'm not sure if either of those would be considered "art".

When life has other plans...

This post isn't going to be about gardening. Though there's plenty to write about. My garden has been terribly neglected this year (to the point of being embarrassing) and it's also been the first year a hummingbird has staked it out as "his" garden - I've been dive bombed a couple of times when I get to close to the buddelia that he favors. Also, there has been abundance of butterflies this year. So there you go - a little good to go with the bad.

What do you do when everything seems to be going wrong for you? Me? Well, I can't seem to hold back and next thing you know I'm calling my family, texting my friends, posting on my social network sites and write about it in my blog. For some reason it's very therapeutic for me - let's me work out my angst and I get words of encouragement from those who know and love me. The problems don't go away but it's nice to know that other's have similar experiences and have come through relatively unscathed.

I've been on vacation for the last week. We have family visiting from England - Amar's sister and her family. For the most part it's been quite nice getting to spend time with them. Throw in a couple of illnesses, a cranky old dog (seen in the photo above) who isn't tolerating small children and the transmission going out in my car in the middle of an outing and I'm telling you I'm seriously considering not taking a vacation for a very long time. What's even more stressful is that I've got one week left of vacation and I don't think I'll be able to survive week two if it is like week one.

What are my plans? Well...I'll be relying on public transit to get to work and home for the new few weeks. Transmissions repairs are quite expensive my web research has told me - so there will be a fair amount of scrimping and saving. And then I'll be trying to generate some sales in my on-line shops (hint, hint). All in all, this hasn't been a banner year for me (along with a lot of other people) so I'll be happy when 2010 rolls around - I just want to be done with 2009.

So...if you want to help out a fellow crafts person/photographer/blogger and make a purchase from one of my shops (or even leave some words of encouragement on my blog) I'd be most appreciative. Right now I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a swamp and I've lost my path to land in front of me and there are alligators snapping behind me. Not the best position to be in but at least I'm still standing. And there's plenty gardening to keep me occupied as long as the hummingbird doesn't mind.