Pintester Movement - Pretty Wire Garden Art

As a Pinteste, I look forward to the crazy things the Pintester tries. I she cracks me up.  She is doing this thing where she is having her readers do their own Pintesting. Be a part of the Pintester Movement.  I came across several pins that I wanted to try and decided this Pretty Wire Garden Art project by Jen Goode would be fun. I am buying my first house this year and this way I could make my own yard art. Isn't that exciting for me?
 

 

So these are the supplies. I had to buy wire coat hangers because I didn't have any and because apparently I never go to the dry cleaners. The fine craft wire and the little glass things I bought at Michaels. I had the wire thingie but I didn't actually use it.

 

Step one was to straighten out the wire. The cat decided the wire was something fun so we had to take a break for a few minutes to play.

 

I did my first bend following the pictures on the website. I wanted to make a dragonfly because I love them. See, it is taking shape! A wing!

Look, it is working so far! I have two wings and a head! I also have the picture up on my Kindle Fire so I could follow along.

 

 

Well, it starts to fall apart around here. I couldn't bend the 2nd wings the way they needed to go. Seriously. Not in the least. I could not bend them with my thumbs. I tried and tried until they were numb. I could not bend them with a plier. To say I succeeded would make me a liar.  But, hey this looks kind of cool right? No. No it doesn't. So I straightened it out and started over again.

 

 So I went back to the drawing board and just did a simple spiral flower. This I could do. This worked well. I also had a needle nose pair of pliers to help me out with the little bend. (Completely related, as I type this my right thumb is numb with pain and discomfort since the wire bending is HARD)

 

 

Next step is to decorate with decorative wire. I also included some small beads.

 

 

So here's the completed flower with the red decorative wire and little beads wrapped in. Not hideous. 

 

I had an extra little part that I wrapped with green decorative wire and then glued to the stem.  Gluing wasn't part of the project but it was necessary to make the leaf hold. 

 

And then I stuck it outside in my flower pot. I think it looks pretty. It was difficult to do and seriously my thumb hurts. A lot. I have enough hangers to do a lot more if I wanted to. I think I'll use them to hang up some clothes or something. Maybe jackets in the closet.

Dating Dissonance

So I've been doing the eharmony thing for a few months now. I've had two dates (with the same guy) result so far. The guy was niceish, but so blah. He had no opinions on liking things and was just so blah. He was also, and I KNOW this is unkind of me, very unfortunate looking. I really want to believe that people become more attractive when they have great personalities and maybe that was the problem - he didn't have a sparkling personality.

I'm trying to be as open minded as possible while reviewing my matches and all that jazz, but the reality is that for the most part guys are who they are on the dating sites. If they are a conservative guy who indicate they are a conservative guy, there's no real reason for me to think otherwise and since I am not a conservative girl this match won't work. Giving him the 'benefit of the doubt' isn't going to work. And, as always, I'd rather be alone than miserable with someone. (Or alone with someone). I think I tend to respond, especially if they contacted me first, because I'm so excited someone - SOMEONE - is interested in me. I guess I get worried that might be the only one. Because the way things have been going, that MIGHT have been the only one. I've been alone a very long time. I frequently wonder if I will even be able to maintain a long term relationship, especially as I spend more time alone and dig deeper into my own ways of doing things.

Counterproductive?

So my words for this year were Home and completion. One of the other things I'm working on this year is dating. I am actively doing eharmony - going onto the site, initiating communication, working the program, responding to anyone who was not completely repugnant. Which leads me to this ponderence... if I'm working on buying a house in less than 2 months, am I somehow defeating the whole dating thing? Since, theoretically, my goal is to find a husband and get married, am I just assuming the whole thing won't work out by buying my house? Given my track record with men, this is a reasonable assumption. Should I spend another year as an apartment dweller just in case? And see, that's the real reason I'm going forward with my house buying - I don't have more time to waste waiting for my life to happen the way I want it to. I just reread Jonathan Tropper's book "This is where I leave you" and a quote from the book really resonated with me - "I'm too old to have this much nothing." I feel like that a lot of the time. I'm almost 40 and what do I have to show for it?

Father's Day vs. Mother's Day.

Sunday was Mother's Day. While I was out at breakfast, a place I've eaten almost every Sunday for the past 3 years and have had people join me MAYBE 7 times, and I was wished, by a waitress who has been there 3 years and knows my order without me even saying it, "Happy Mother's Day." In the few days before Sunday, I heard that from several other people. I commented on Facebook that the next person who said that to me was going to get punched, or at the very least a scathing look and explanation that not every woman of a certain age is a mom. A FB friend commented on my sense of humor. Except I'm not kidding. It's painful to be told Happy Mother's Day when you're not a mom and want to be one and so far plans haven't worked out that way. Don't get me wrong. I have not managed to make the types of decisions that would enable me to adopt. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way as Amy at The Peevery peeved about this very topic.

More than that, though, and the part that bothers me is this presumption that women of a certain age are moms in a way that would not happen for dads.  I'd wager that when I go to my breakfast place on Father's Day the waitstaff will not be wandering around wishing random guys at the tables "Happy Father's Day." At Wal-Mart or Target the checkers won't be wishing the guys in their lines Happy Father's Day. In fact, I'd wager most men would be uncomfortable with people randomly wishing them Happy Father's Day. So why is it acceptable to do it to women when it doesn't happen to men?