And everything was delicious, we had a great time. The business was slow probably because of the weather. But the mushroom and goat cheese pizza was Deelicious!
Yes, I’m being a child again learning to color. Have not been aware that adult coloring is a popular activity to relax the mind. But I have been wanting to learn to color. Learn what colors go together as pleasant to me. I don’t know yet. But I’ve made the first step. Using the prismacolor color pencils and Monalisa odorless paint thinner with a paper stump to blend. I did my first coloring. It involves a lot of thinking still, picking colors that I am not sure will go together or not. But the end result is pleasing to me. And I think I will do more. Hopefully a lot more.
Today, I finished the quilt. Well the top of the quilt anyways. Eunice has been patient with me watching me cut, sew, measure in record slow time. And she still smiled, joked and told stories while I busied myself cutting or sewing the pieces. It was a wonderful class and I totally enjoyed it and I learned a ton of techniques. She designed this quilt to show different cutting and sewing techniques. I had a ball with each row and didn’t feel it was hard while I was doing it. Not sure I remember all the things she showed me but I think they will come back when I make more quilts.
Today we did the borders. I liked a smaller maroon border outside of the brown border to further define the edge. And after the final border was sewn, I like it better now. It warms up the piece actually. At first I thought I would not use it as the color didn’t seem to match the rows. But I think it is ok looking at it as a whole.
Quite excited.
Now what would I do for the next one!
Yes, it’s kind of late for the new year. But I finally made it to the gym today. Talked to the trainer rep and filled out the forms. They will begin by giving me an assessment then we will start the sessions. Kids bought me 12 half hour sessions! I know it will kick me into action. And it finally did. Intention has been there, just didn’t put it into action.
Since we weren’t going to start the training sessions for a while, I went swimming. And my luck had it, there was one lane open for me. Did my 6 laps for the lightest swim and went to the whirlpool and let the stream hit my shoulder and back for a few minutes. Two places that give me regular discomfort. While sitting there, I asked myself why I didn’t come more often. The view was great, the whirlpool was great. The swim made me feel good. Laziness!
The When Frogs Sing asked us to have a year long project. I picked “The Artist Way“. Maybe too ambitious since I am NOT an artist. But it interests me and excites me to follow along and see if there is actually any artist nature in me. Seems like there is something in there that has been trying to come out through some kind of channel, photography, blogging, now journaling. Something is trying to speak to me and I haven’t found a way for it to come out yet. So let’s see what will happen this year.
I have tried a few fountain pens even paid for a nice Pilot Falcon. But none of them really suits me. I do like the italic nib on Lamys. And that has been the only pen I use on a regular basis. The other day I got an email from jetpens and somehow I landed on the preppy page. Because it is only $3 a pen, I ordered a couple to try. One with extra fine nib, one with fine nib. I fully expected to like the extra fine nib cause I usually don’t like anything other than extra fine or fine. But to my surprise, I found I like the fine nib better. Again, I normally use converter with bottled ink, but I like this purple color just fine and would probably use the cartridge for refill in the future.
I am really pleasantly surprised at this. Love to find something this inexpensive and yet such a joy to use.
It’s a very wintery day. Snow has been coming down consistently all day with drafts of wind kicking up frequently. We are staying home to be warm. Leo is cooking chili and I whipped up a batch of rustic bread. It’s proofing in the fridge now and the recipe says to refrigerate overnight. So I might try to bake it tonight.
I signed up for Rhomany’s Realm’s When Frogs Sing 2015. It’s been interesting so far and keeping me busy. I didn’t expect to have so many assignments or things to setup in the first week. Looking forward to learn to draw in the class. Although it’s a year long journaling class, it has planning, drawing and writing aspects to it. I’m hoping to use it as a nudge to keep me writing in my journals and writing in my blog here more consistently.
The side benefits of this class are already showing, it has got me thinking about a year long project, how to overcome obstacles for journaling, writing or drawing. The students are chatting a lot in the discussion area, and they give me a lot of suggestions for each topic in the class. I did participated a bit and uploaded a couple of planner/journal pictures. But I don’t think I will do that too often. Not good at classroom discussions and participation. Just me. But it’s ok. We all have our owns styles of learning.
Dough at 5:50p
The lake in the back is frozen. I saw these geese close to our place and walking or sitting on ice. Had to take a picture of them.
Our Christmas tradition was kept this year. We actually finished a puzzle on Christmas day evening. Well, we didn’t finish until 2am and the three of us non-quitters were very very tired and our backs were sore. But happy.
We had a great dinner with prime rib and lots of side dishes plus Elim’s cookies and Ryan’s mom’s cookies. Thanks to Elim, we had a great Christmas gathering. Eny started a cold that night and it lasted till the day he left to go back to SF. Not really a fun vacation for him. Poor guy.