“When the world is too much with us…” (William Wordsworth) – it’s essential to have an escape or two.
With some people, it’s exercise (I wish I felt this way :0) ). Others have photography, or talking long walks, or listening to music. Escaping with TV programs or a DVD can take you away. With the world the way it is today and the way people are reacting to it, we NEED to find things that help us cope.
I’m lucky to have many things that help me –
Lately I’m spreading my time between the refurbishing project and reading.
I’m working on a yard art piece in the shop we call our ‘cleaning robot.’ I may be able to finish him up this morning, but will probably wait to bring him out because we have a 70% chance of rain today. I will take pics to share with you when he’s finished, though.
I pre-ordered the latest two ‘In Death’ Series book by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) to come out in paperback. The first should arrive the last of July. I’m enjoying re-reading the series in preparation for the new additions. I’m on “Festive in Death” – #39 in the series of what WILL be 54, when the hardback comes out in February of 2022. I can immerse myself in Eve Dallas’ world, so different from my own – a very welcome respite.
I hope that you also have escapes when the world is too much with you –
Filed under coping mechanisms
“Painting in watercolor is like walking a tight-rope; one must find perfect balance between what the paint wants to do and what the artist wants to do, or all is lost.” (Mary C. Taylor)
Filed under Watercolors I Love
Thanks to a post by Maria of FlowingWatersArtBlog I’m feeling some new motivation on my weight loss goal. (Her good advice applies to any difficult goal, but I took it to heart since I’ve been having such mixed results.
I’ve set a goal for myself as to how much I would like to lose. I have an appointment with our primary doctor for a checkup in November, and I would like to be seeing some significant results by then. I have broken the goal up now into weeks, and it looks doable, even if I run into a plateau or two. I have used my desk calendar to remind myself what I’m trying to do and to hold myself accountable.
In the past, I had the amount of lard I wanted to shed, but no specific time frame, and no real plan for accountability. It was too easy to slide – one of my greatest skills. Breaking the goal up, I can SEE my plan is actually DOABLE, so I’ve planned things out on a weekly basis.
To this end, I made some changes that I initiated yesterday –
Now that I’ve started and have a doable plan with guideposts and a deadline, I’m newly motivated. Thanks, Maria.
At the beginning of this week, I sold a mini purse from my HandmadeHavenByLinda site on Etsy. It looked similar to this one, but was painted with ladybugs, front and back. It was delivered today.
My customer wrote,
“Just received the bag – it is adorable! Am planning on using to carry my cell phone when I am walking my toy poodle. thanks,”
Appreciation is a two-way, win/win thing. My customer liked the bag enough to buy it. She likes it. And she was nice enough to write and tell me that – plus give me a mental picture of her and her toy poodle using it. (I suggested that she might think about including a dog biscuit in the bag sometimes… :0) )
I’m now walking several inches off the ground.
Filed under HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy, kindness
We call this yard critter our “Cleaning Robot.” He is ready to clean up any spill with his fireplace broom and shovel dust pan.
He has the usual fading or peeling paint, but he was also injured this past year, falling over and having his head break off. My husband did a quick repair, welding his head back on, but we didn’t take the time or effort to do anything cosmetic.
This morning I thoroughly cleaned him, threw away the completely faded and now brittle “red” bowtie, pulled off his discolored eyes, etc.
I painted the first coat, but am considering some color changes that might mask some f the weathering damage better.
Our humidity is still really high, making our rather moderate temperature of 88 right now feel like you’re swimming through pea soup as you walk around, so unless it rains, the robot will have to wait until tomorrow morning for more work.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis projects, Lewis yard art
Filed under metal art, spoon - cutlery - art
Maria wrote me recently to encourage me about my efforts to lose my lard, suggesting that I read her blog post the next day.
When I read it, I was re-motivated to follow her suggestions of handling goals, making the goals reality. You might find it interesting and motivational, too. FlowingWatersArtBlog
Maybe we can get there!
Thanks, Maria. :0)
Filed under DIET!, Encouragement, exercise
Filed under Art From Found Things
We’re all still going through a very stressful time. It’s hard to try to get to whatever the ‘new normal’ is without at least a twinge or two about risk.
I’ve chosen to read as much as I can about what is going on in the world around me – reading as many different sources as I can find – decide what I want to do, and just do it.
Life is too short to live in fear of everything. I’m going to die of ‘something’ at whatever time I do. I can only take whatever precautions I think are reasonable and get on with it. I don’t want to miss the rest of my life because of fear.
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, Encouragement
Our turkey was just really dirty with all the paint fading or completely gone. I forgot to take a “before” pic before I started cleaning him up. I put him back in his spot beside the driveway last night.
My husband wants to change where the turkey lives, and I have no problem with that. He’ll probably move it today while I work on another critter.
It’ll be interesting to see where my husband decides he should live.
I’m leaving for Lunch Bunch in about an hour, looking forward to celebrating my friend’s birthday today, and hopefully it won’t be TOO hot to choose another critter, take a pic or two, and get started with the cleaning.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis projects, Lewis yard art
Smart Ass Answers – (sent to me by a dear friend)
SMART ASS ANSWER #6
It was mealtime during an airline flight.
The flight attendant asked passenger John, “Would you like dinner?”
“What are my choices?” John asked.
“Yes or no,” she replied.
SMART ASS ANSWER #5
A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check tickets. As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket. He opened his trench coat and flashed her.
Without missing a beat, she said, “Sir, I need to see your ticket, not your stub.”
SMART ASS ANSWER #4
A woman was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but she couldn’t find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?”
The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”
SMART ASS ANSWER #3
As the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window, the policeman got out of his vehicle and approached the kid, “I’ve been waiting for you all day.”
The kid replied, “Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could.”
When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket.
SMART ASS ANSWER #2
A truck driver was driving along the freeway and noticed a sign that read: Low Bridge Ahead. Before he knows it, the bridge is right in front of him and his truck gets wedged under it. Cars are backed up for miles.
Finally, a police vehicle comes up. The cop gets out of his car, walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, “Got stuck, huh?”
The truck driver says, “No, I was delivering this bridge and I ran out of gas.”
#1 SMART ASS ANSWER OF THE YEAR
A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow’s final exam. “Now class, I won’t tolerate any excuses for you not being here tomorrow. I might consider a nuclear attack, a serious personal injury, illness or a death in your immediate family. But that’s it — no other excuses whatsoever!”
The smart-ass student in the back of the room raised his hand and asked, “What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?”
The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering.
When silence was restored, the teacher smiled knowingly at the student, shook her head and sweetly said, “Well, I guess you’d have to write the exam with your other hand.”
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, sass
Filed under sculpture
Our heat index this afternoon will reach the triple digits, so I’m going to get our to the shop pretty soon to continue work on refurbishing the ‘turkey’ yard art critter I started yesterday. I’m hoping he can go back out to his place at the base of a tree beside the driveway by the end of the day. I forgot to take pics of the ‘before’ on the turkey. He was basically just super dirty and desperately in need of new paint. I’ll take pics to share when he is back in place.
Did I tell you I HATE automatic Windows updates? For some reason they always cause us problems. We can’t NOT do the updates, but it’s sure a pain to deal with the havoc they generate. Yesterday it was one of our printers that suddenly won’t print plus our personal DVD computerized collection isn’t opening as it should. My husband fought with it most of the day yesterday to no avail. He wrote Microsoft and is hoping they have some help for us. He also talked to our son via a conference call, in Thailand. Hopefully, answers will come today.
Tomorrow at Lunch Bunch we’ll celebrate the birthday of one of our core members. Our friendship – going on 20 years now – is priceless.
My husband has been celebrating the lack of rain lately. He’s been praising the ‘brown and crunchy patches of grass in the yard, meaning he has to mow less. I told him to enjoy it while he could. Rain is due this weekend.
My spring garden is about to come to an end. I got what is probably the last of the yellow squash, leaving only sweet onions. I’ll probably pull the onions soon, leaving them to dry on the trailer bed and clean up the garden. On the good side, though, we had the first two ripe tomatoes of what I hope will be a wonderful season. My husband and I shared them for lunch yesterday. They were delicious. I hope we get enough that I can share them.
Every year about this time I wish we had been able to build the pool we wanted when we built the house. Since we’re on top of a ridge line, we had to do a lot of blasting to build a house amid all this rock. We blasted for the septic tank, the basement, and then blasted the whole back yard for the pool. We ran out of money before we got to the pool, though, so it never got done.
I worked every summer from the time I was 14 through college teaching swimming with my 6th grade gym teacher to make money for college. I really miss the great exercise I got. I tell myself that if we had a pool, I would go out and swim every possible night before bed. The reality of that would probably be that I would gritch and moan about having to get my exercise cleaning the pool, rather than getting to swim in it. I would have to fight for space to swim laps, having to dodge raccoons, opossums, squirrels, and other critters I don’t want to think about who thought we had built the pool for THEM…
Stay cool and safe!
I lost half a pound yesterday. Hooray?
My husband, who paid no attention whatsoever to what he ate – including a bagel slathered with French Onion and Chives Cream Cheese – lost a full pound. Arrgh!
Filed under Cork Art, Creativity with Corks
Filed under Amazing Animals
Hahahahahahahahaahh! I love this. :0)
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, sass
Nailia Schwarz – FineArtAmerica.com
We did our errands and I went out to the shop to work on the Farmer Robot.
I replaced his ‘hands,’ having found an old pair of work gloves. I stuffed the fingers with plastic peanuts and the palm of the hands with plastic bags. I drilled a hole in one side of the gloves so I could screw them onto the arms – having learned the hard way that if you don’t do that, the hands ‘disappear.’ I then wrapped some duct tape around the bottom of the gloves – also having learned the hard way – that if you don’t, wasps make nests in the gloves.
I laid him on his back in order to be able to glue new eyes in and have them stay on, instead of falling off before they are dry. When I eased him down onto his back, water came streaming out! Apparently he filled with water during all the heavy rains we’ve been having. I left him on his back and finished painting the lower part of his overalls and legs.
Later today I’ll turn him over, seeing if more water comes out, and also so I can paint the lower part of his back and legs. When I stand him up again, I’ll use duct tape around his neck to keep as much water out as possible, then tie the bandana back on.
My husband will use our truck dolly to give him a ride from the shop to his spot on the right side of our driveway pad against the house. When he is back where he lives, we’ll take pics to show you.
I’ve almost finished the 2nd piece in our metal critters refurbishing project. There are 8 more in the shop, with more to come.
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,I think I told you that we got fiber optic Internet and TV when we finally got the opportunity recently. We’re very happy with the Internet. There is much less lag time than there used to be. The TV, however, is VERY upset when the system goes off, in a sudden power outage, for example. It takes forever (seemingly) to get to the point where it is up enough that our remotes again work. We decided to get a UPS that will live in the entertainment center with the TV plugged into it. Our power outages are of very short duration. We have a generator that comes on when the public power is out. It switches on by itself when it detects the public power is off for a certain amount of time. It switches off again when it senses we have public power back. A couple of mornings ago, our power went off and on several times in succession. I thought we would never get the TV back again.
The UPS we ordered came this afternoon and my husband hooked it up awhile ago. Now we’re waiting for the TV to resurrect itself and be able to watch TV again. Fingers are crossed that we have this small irritation solved now.
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I find it almost impossible to believe what a gorgeous day we’re having. It is normally in the mid to high 90s with a heat index in the triple digits. Right now it’s sunny and 78 degrees F. with a light breeze. Stunningly beautiful!
I hope you’re enjoying your day, too. :0)
Filed under paper art
Even though I look a bit ragged, I’m doing well this morning.
With all this good, it’s hard to be down. My spirits are still high from the nice lady who stopped in her truck to tell us how much she enjoyed our mailbox decorations. I felt bad that we had gotten really lax about changing them, so I told her we would do better. We changed from our Calvin & Hobbes decoration to our Pepe LePew & Penelope decoration. I hope she has driven by and likes it. :0)
I hope that your Tuesday is a bright and happy one.
Filed under DIET!, Gardening, Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________
creativeartworksblog 