Mural-Worthy + Made It Monday

It is 9:08PM. Until two minutes ago I had no idea what I had to offer you for today’s blog. Then I looked out the window. Here is what I captured west to east and west (trees are in the west) again.

 

And the sunset is still beautiful at 9:30PM. I love Summer for this beauty! And the sound of the frogs outside.

Oh, and I finished this little guy yesterday:

If you want to learn how, head over to LoomAHat.com or watch this YouTube. I use a much smaller loom and short row the arms so I don’t have to sew them on. And this time I used safety eyes. I think they’re cuter!

Advertisements

Stream of Consciousness Saturday Open Book, Point, Write”

Per Linda G. Hill:  Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “open book, point, write.” Pick up the closest book to you when you sit down to write your post. Close your eyes, open the book, and place your finger on the page. Whatever word or phrase your finger lands on, write about it. Enjoy!

 

From  Zen Doodle Mindscapes Tap Into Your Emotions by Carolyn Scrace :

Page 98/99 Joy and Happiness

“Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew,

and does not patter down like a hailstorm,” Jean Paul

This is a book about Zen Doodling. I don’t have a lot of paper books close at hand to grab so this is what I did grab. The two pages were beautiful showing ways you can get to the emotion of Joy drawn, expressed in your artwork. I haven’t read to the page. I am still at the beginning of the book learning about the Zen Doodle rather than what I thought it was, the Zen Tangle. Not sure what the difference is. It seems from my newbie point of view that the doodle is a freer art than the Tangle. When I finish this book and the other I nabbed a bit ago, I might be able to answer that question.

I’m not sure I agree with Jean Paul about Joy.  I think Joy is a state of mind we can have even when all seems bad. For me, it seems Joy is a product of gratefulness and knowing you are living your best life. Not that life is all good but that you realize you have a love for life as it is for there is hope for what feels wrong and you are giving what you can for others. Joy isn’t giddy like getting on a rollercoaster. It’s a midline that if you breathe and get calm you can find it.

It’s going to be interesting to see if I can express it in my art.

Have a Joyful Weekend everyone!

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

1-Liner Wednesday 2190501

What comes after Z and April 30th? Nap Day!

 

Thank goodness and Linda G. Hill for this fun–and easy–challenge!

 

Stream of Consciousness Saturday 20190323

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “the last piece of mail you received.” Talk about the subject of the last piece of physical mail you received, i.e. a gas bill–talk about gas, not the bill itself. Have fun! Per Linda G. Hill.

I am horrid at mail of any kind. Email and snail correspondence get dusty waiting for me. Especially since we moved into the middle of nowhere. With no house delivery, we used to go to the post office a couple of times a week. We now are lucky when picking it up a couple of times a month.

I have a friend I would love to emulate in her mailing habits. Out of the blue recently I received the above postcard. She wrote a haiku on the back with a nice message of affection. She is the one that sent the present a day for advent. They were things like dollar store bubbles or silly putty. But out here and with the fibro keeping my housebound most of the winter, these were treasures. I felt like a little kid with each gift I opened. I feel the same when I receive a postcard or letter from her.

Not only is this humbling to me, but it also teaches me how little things can make life worth living.

This is my promise in front of the whole internets: I will start writing notes, letters and other types of posts to this friend and others. Even in Spanish if I have to. 😉😎

 

Free-form Friday 20190215

While my friends in Carson City and Reno were showing me their sudden snow and near blizzards, I took this out my front window. It was windy but we didn’t get the snow predicted either yesterday (except that sideways bit around midnight) or today. Forecasts yesterday for the 10-day had us under snow except for Sunday and Monday. NOW we have no snow until next Wednesday. Life is looking good!

Meanwhile, still making toys and hats and nearly finished with my brother’s first sock! I know once the weather is warmer I will be out walking. And I think the chair yoga with Adrienne and gentle chair yoga that I do with my husband should have me ready to get out there more. Then knitting will be done less often.

You know, I often get discouraged in that I expected this part of my life to be like the Jetsons. We don’t have folding flying cars. We do have robotic vacuum cleaners and video phoning. I can talk to two friends and at the same time! Even when they aren’t in the same location. I can talk to my adult children on holidays even though the roads make it impossible to visit in person. Today was one of those days when my friends and I chatted for hours.

Our newest idea? To try and communicate to each other in Spanish, even if it is only in written form. One of the friends was in Guatemala for a few years so she is far more advanced but rusty. I have blogged about learning from Duolingo. I’ve dropped all but Spanish and German. At one point I was up to Japanese, French, and High Valarian besides the other two. But I felt I wasn’t doing any of them justice. I can’t give up on either Spanish or German as I have had classes in each. The trouble is I often translate to the wrong one. Die-s and la-s and Der-s and el-s get messed up.

My goal is to keep my mind alive. If I can learn to communicate well with others in these other languages all the better. My biggest dream/nightmare is when my mind goes and I’m trying to communicate with the nursing staff I end up saying something in either or both those languages instead of English. LOL! Okay, maybe not so funny if I really need to say something important like my head hurts or I have a broken leg.

Anyway, I think I need to go to the library and pick up something about letter writing in either language. Any suggestions? Have any of you done the Duolingo or another system of language learning? How’s your weather? Is it Spring yet?

Festive Friday 20190208

What do you do with a Friday that didn’t work out as planned?

I couldn’t take the trip to town, Flare. Body predicting cold snowy weather. Husband and son volunteer. But snow would be coming too soon. Canceled. But need groceries. Even as we discussed what to do flurries were gathering on the banister of the porch.

Yeah, the old snow never melted so this coming week should be interesting.

DH and brother drive to little town. Get necessities which in the case of the snow that had started celebratory pizza.

While they were gone my friends and I got together over the internet and laughed and talked for hours. Friends are great!  They made me feel like this:

This evening while trying to figure out what to share here, Teddy came to visit with me.

“Mom, I’m bored.”

“Wanna play?”

“Nah.”

Then he marched off my bed to see what other mischiefs he could get into.

More snow expected over the next week. It is pretty. But worry about Kali and her outside times. Much deeper and she will disappear.

Friends, family, furballs, pizza. Who could ask for more? Snowed in? What do you do?

Snow Sunset

I just had to share what I saw from my recliner. Sunset in the snow clouds. I had to put down the loom and the little hat I’m making and grab my phone. I think this would be a cool book cover!

Just Jot It January Prompt: Final and Best 20190131

WOW!

 

A whole month of blogging! A whole month of chair yoga and the beginning of little walks. A whole month of Spanish and German lessons. Okay, I might have missed a day on each but only that so that means 30 days. The amount of a NaNo month! And only a month between NaNo and JusJoJan! I do have discipline! But as of today, I have to figure out how to maintain until the alphabet month.

Meanwhile, besides bragging rights the prompt calls for which blog was my favorite. I only this month discovered that I didn’t need to save YouTubes to my Media file and could just share the URL and the tubie would show up. Wahoo! So I think that’s a thing, too!

I have a couple favorite prompts and the blogs came out keeping me in suspense as to what else those words could produce. I think ‘cathartic‘, ‘serendipity‘, and ‘zoomies‘. I think there is more to explore there. Zoomies, just because it’s fun.

Thank you, Linda, for this great challenge! And to all of you who came up with these cool prompts to help us all get some writing into our day another big  THANK YOU!

 

Just Jot It January Prompt: Serendipity 20190120

I can remember the first time I heard the word ‘Serendipity’. I don’t know why I learned it or even the year. What I remember is an excitement to know the word. Then I remember watching for it to happen. And it happened a lot!

It was years later that the movie came out.

I liked it so much I bought the DVD. But somehow their serendipitous adventure paled to many of mine at the time. Mine were not romantic encounters but manifestations I felt, in part, I drew to me.

As much as I want to give you a list of these happenings, I feel my brain is not up to that task right now. The closest I can come is how a few years ago when I lived in Reno, I couldn’t afford yarn. My fibromyalgia was worse in Reno. Again, I don’t know why. But I found that if I could keep my hands busy I could distract myself from the pain. So I started making things of plarn.

Stacking containers for folded plastic bags or sliced strips to crochet with and plarn balls.

The bag-bag chair. Was a laundry bag but the cats like it so much when I filled it with plastic bags for future projects when we moved. It is similar to a bean bag chair in size and comfort. But like I said, this belongs to the cats now.

This is one of the small containers I use for little bits.

If you look back into this blog and on my Ravelry page you’ll see a lot of fun ideas that kept me feeling less pain. Until crocheting itself started hurting. I still have a lot of those projects and they are still in use. Nice to know all those stupid bags became useful items.

Then we moved here and I learned of the Hat Huggers who have tons of donated yarn for donated comfort items. The leader taught me to loom knit and the rest is history. Someone else’s comfort is the result of my own comfort. I think of this as a serendipitous adventure. Though I could still work with plarn and I have lots made into balls ready for crochet (loom knitting it isn’t as easy, nor is needle knitting it as workable.) And maybe if I get bored I will go back and make a few things. Until then I’m looming a 10-stitch blanket, socks for my brother and lots more hats and toys.

I’m not so good at directing serendipity or manifesting. Because if I could, I wouldn’t mind making enough money to have my own yarn to make things for me. The donated yarn can go to my family and friends as long as I make sure to claim it on the rosters. Still, I want to go to a store and pick out the soft stuff and know it will be my own hat or my dog’s sweater. Or my own sweater? Or money to buy one– or more skeins of yarn.

Or meet the next teacher of my path. Maybe they’ll have yarn?

So this was a yarn about serendipity. For some reason, I feel I should apologize. I wish I was more alert today as I know I have stories of cars and houses that happened and lots of new friends. Just not specific ones for now. When I think of them I’ll post them, okay?

Thank you, Linda, for Jotting fun. Thank you, Jill, for another chance to remember a beautiful word, Serendipity, full of blessings.