Summer is finally over here in Arkansas. I was beginning to wonder for a while if it would be perpetual! It’s crisp and brisk, with a definite nip in the air this morning – at 37 degrees F. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful fall day.
Today will be a happy day for me.
We will leave for Lunch Bunch soon – an every Friday brunch/lunch with good friends we’ve been enjoying for over 17 years now. The core bunch, Linda, Kay and I, has been expended to include my husband, and Kay’s recently, with others joining us from time to time, such as sons, daughters, grandchildren, and other good friends. It’s a time to catch up, share what has happened – or is going to happen, our hopes, dreams, failures, happy and sad things – knowing we support each other. A very special group that means the world to me.
When we return from Lunch Bunch, I’ll pack the truck again with things I’ll display in my good friend, Carla’s, booth in a local shop. We went together yesterday to look at things, bouncing ideas off each other, grabbing some supplies from a couple of places and finally sharing some tea and good conversation. I will pick her up this afternoon and we’ll go add my stuff to what is now OUR shop! She has already paid the rental fee for November, so I’ll pay for December. I’ll share pics of the shop and some other details with you later.
When I come home again from adding to our shop, I’ll do my elliptical trainer and yoga for the day, chores around the house, etc., and catch up with my husband and our pets, enjoying a quiet evening together.
Happy day! I hope that YOU enjoy one, too!
Filed under exercise, Family, Friendship, opportunities, Seasons, Thoughts on a ________
I’ve had a great time creating flat wooden Christmas ornaments painted with Unicorn Spit Stain/Glaze. These are some samples. There is a total of 16 different ornaments right now. I will add a name and the year on the ornaments at no extra charge. You can order multiples, but please understand that, though I will use the same colors, the blend will turn out differently on each ornament. Even the two sides of each ornament are different! :0)
In addition to the Unicorn Spit, I’m using black webbing paint. The finished ornaments are then sprayed with polyurethane to set the colors.
The ornaments are different sizes, as well. I’ve drilled a hole in the ornament, if needed, to attach a shiny silver cord for hanging.
If you are interested in looking at the other designs, please click on this link for my ArtFire shop.
I’m offering free shipping to the contiguous United States. If you live elsewhere, please contact me at lwlca47@gmail.com and we can figure out shipping.
Thanks for looking!
Filed under Holiday Gift Ideas, holidays, Lewis Art
I have to admit I’m still very disappointed to have learned that the wonderful order – and payment – for 40 plaques turned out to be a fraud. I’m grateful that our only loss was the joy of such a wonderful order and the chance to fulfill it. We were very lucky. I’m disappointed to have met someone who tried to hurt us. I always believe that people are good – until they show me they aren’t.
I’m very grateful to my husband, who – although believing the order was a scam from the first – offered to help me make plaques when I returned from the bank – before I told him that it was confirmed to be a scam. He’s definitely a keeper.
Since wonderful things can happen any time, my good friend Carla called yesterday to check on my husband and me – AND to make me an offer! She is renting a booth in one of our local shops and wanted to know if I wanted to bring some of my work to sell! She also offered me the chance to go in 50/50 with her! I’m thrilled. My husband and I are planning to visit the shop today and then I’ll call Carla back. They have a website, so I checked it out and found some really nice pictures and stellar reviews from people. I’m thinking that I will at least go 50/50 with her until the holidays are over, giving me a good chance to see if my work will sell or not. Isn’t life – and the friendship of dear people – amazing?!?
I finished listing my flat wooden Christmas ornaments on ArtFire. I’ll do another post to show you some of the ornaments. :0)
It’s raining again today, but it doesn’t seem like we received the downpours the weather people were forecasting.
Since my ego was smashed yesterday with the confirmation of the scam, I didn’t exercise at ALL, actually getting under my throw in my recliner and taking a nap. We went to get fried rice for dinner – a definite no-no for both of us, but SO delicious – AND I ate some ice cream before bed. Needless to say, my back and the scales were both letting me have it loudly this morning, so I will get back on the horse and be good again now that the pity party is finished. :0)
I hope that YOUR day today is full of good things, too.
Filed under Family, Friendship, Thoughts on a ________
I am in the middle of yet another of life’s character-building exercises.
I told you about the money order a customer was going to send for a huge (for me) order of plaques.
The order was supposed to be for all five of the plaques I painted using Unicorn Spit. He said his administrative assistant messed up and sent the wrong amount in the money orders. I told him I would refuse delivery of the package and that he should send another for the correct amount. He then said he wanted to increase the order, wanting 40 (FORTY!) plaques in all, 8 of each of the five designs. We went back and forth, but I asked him to stick to the original order, and then, if he was happy, he could order more.
The money orders for too much money were delivered by FEDEX while my husband and I were out doing errands. :0( My husband was angry. I ended up taking them to the bank in order to ask them how long I would need to wait to be SURE they were good before I filled the order. She said 14 business days, and then noticed a number you could call to verify the money orders. She called, putting it on speaker phone. It was an automated system, asking for the number on the money order and then the number of the post office issuing it. She keyed them in and we were told the numbers didn’t match anything in their system – and so were fraudulent.
SO – I am pinning them up on the pegboard on the wall in front of my computer to remind myself that I do NOT need yet another character-building exercise. At least I wasn’t dumb enough to ship the plaques I had ready, or buy wood for the 35 more plaques my husband and I would have been cutting out, finishing, and putting hangers on as quickly as we could to fill the order within the time frame.
I did NOT deposit them. I am out only –
I am considering myself lucky that I had a big sense of ‘too good to be true’ and did what I could to make SURE it was legitimate before getting my family in financial jeopardy.
A cautionary tale…
It’s rainy here today. We are forecast to receive over 2 inches of rain by the end of the day tomorrow. Good thing we live on top of a ridge line. I hope we don’t have flash flooding in the area.
It looks like the wonderful sale of all of the plaques I’ve painted with the Unicorn Spit is falling through. I met the customer on LinkedIn. He has said he has sent a money order, but says his administrative assistant made it out for a wrong amount, wanting me to send him the difference. Shrieks of scam. I’m really disappointed. I’ll have to refuse delivery on the money order. Bah Humbug. It MAY still work out, but I won’t hold my breath.
I’m listing Christmas ornaments on ArtFire today.
Otherwise, we are hoping to enjoy a quiet day.
I hope you enjoy YOUR day, too.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under drawings, Victora Veluz
I’m am on book #40 in the 50-book “In Death” series by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts). I’m reading them all again before I allow myself to dive into the newest one in paperback, “Connections in Death.” I’ve been so busy having fun in my art room and trying to fit in 70 or so minutes of exercise into my day that I’ve been reading in fits and starts, just a bit at a time, but I’m loving living in Eve Dallas’ world again.
I’m also reading several other books at the same time, trying to learn some things here and there. :0) I honestly don’t know how I would survive without reading. Physical books are a treasure trove to me. E books are great for learning things and to take while traveling. Computers are wonderful for expanding your horizons.
I just wish there were more time in the day and I had unlimited energy!
Filed under Hobbies, Reading is FUNdamental
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor
“Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
That’s not a monkey, that’s me. Ha. Ha.”
I love this photo. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually SEEN a kookaburra, much less a glorious whole ROW of them. I always think of the song we sang as children. (I’ve taken some liberties with the words in the lyrics above. WE sang it the way I’ve printed it, which skips two verses and moves the very last line to the first verse.)
I’m happy to report that my husband is doing fine now after his stroke in July. The sudden anger outbursts – apparently a common side effect of strokes – are MUCH fewer now. Though he glosses over the details of how to handle the fact he’s on blood thinners, I’M learning to pay closer attention and make sure things turn out the way they should. He has a dental appointment tomorrow. To give you an example of how he is ‘back,’ he took the Vette to the car wash this morning to clean it up so he can drive it to the dentist’s appointment tomorrow. (He and the dentist talk motorcycles, cars, guns, and such each time he goes.)
I’m also happy to tell you I broke new ground on my scales this morning! The scales actually SMIRKED at me, as we got into fresh, new, lower territory as I grinned back. I HOPE this continues, as I still have a lot of lard I’d like to shed. Though it is much harder to lose the lard the older you get, I’m proving to myself that it IS possible.
A man contacted me yesterday, discussing buying 5 of my new Unicorn Spit plaques. He’s talking to friends today and is supposed to get back to me tomorrow. He understands that these are one of a kind and that I cannot do exactly the same thing twice. Fingers – and all other appendages – are crossed. I’m working on flat wooden Christmas ornaments again today, seeing how they will turn out with this same wonderful paint.
The weather is beautiful, with a high in the low 60’s today! Gorgeous fall weather. I’ll try to get outside this afternoon and get a good amount of clean up of our planters done.
I hope that wherever you are, you are enjoying this gorgeous Sunday – AND that you remembered to set your clocks back last night.
Filed under DIET!, Family, getting the lard off, Seasons, Thoughts on a ________
This is my first try at using the Unicorn Spit Stain/Glaze on fabric. The technique is very different on fabric than on wood. It’s a lot of fun, though. As you can see from these two pictures. it is impossible to do the same design on each side of the tote, although I used the same colors. I really like the fact that each blending is different. To seal the stain/glaze, I used a waterproofing spray.
This is the second side of the tote.
If you are interested in more information, I just listed the tote in my Etsy shop.
Filed under Uncategorized
I have been on the plateau from Hell for a long time now. I’m FINALLY in a regimen that is breaking through that. My eating plan is intermittent fasting and keto, paying particular attention to macros.
I was kidding myself, THINKING I was eating keto, but didn’t actually make any progress until I started making sure I was eating according to the percentages of fat, protein, and carbs I should have daily. I use a program called Cronometer which allows me to log what I plan to eat, modify if necessary, and add the exercise I’m doing. I’m still doing a bit of yo-yoing, since eating out is a bit of a challenge, or life gets in the way, but at this point I’ve lost a total of 43 lbs and am showing signs of a smirking set of scales in my future.
My bigger news is my exercising efforts. I have gotten more serious about doing 35 minutes on my elliptical trainer and 35 or so minutes of yoga stretching daily, adding gold star stickers to my desk calendar when I have been a good girl. My efforts have yielded some definite smirks from my measuring tape this month. I have now lost a total of 47.2 inches.
Though my weight loss goals remain the same (I’m planning to lose another 30 or so pounds and whatever inches go with that), the exciting thing is that I FEEL BETTER. I have much less pain in my joints and back. I have more energy to do what I want to do (like play in my art room). I am feeling more confident now that I can continue losing the lard and one day meet my goal.
Thanks to Suzanne Ryan of Simply Keto, and Makinze of Delish.com, I’m finding lots of good recipes to try. My husband is VERY pleased with my cooking efforts and actually requests that I make many of the recipes again. The latest favorites are “Keto Chili” and “Sausage, Egg & Cheese Bake” – both from Suzanne. A close second is “Keto Fried Chicken” by Makinze of Delish.
Feeling in more control and that I CAN one day meet my goals is making me a much happier person. I want to stay as healthy as possible for as long as I can.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off
Filed under Gorgeous Gourds
We got our freezing temperatures this morning. Thanks to the forewarning by our good weather people, we are good with no frozen water pipes. We don’t need the snow tires on the truck yet, but I’m still happy that we’re set if we need them. It’s 33 degrees F. right now with a breeze, so it’s a very good day to stay inside as much as possible. We have leftover chili for tonight and a nice, warm house, so we’re very lucky.
Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I have such great memories of going trick-or-treating with a group of my friends. I don’t remember many of my costumes, but my mom wasn’t one to buy costumes from the store, telling my brother and me to use our imaginations. I really think that was a wonderful gift – a skill I’m still developing and enjoying. Back in the ‘good-old-days’ – a hundred years or so ago when we were trick-or-treating – there were vague warnings about watching out for razor blades in caramel apples, but that was all. My friends and I would gather and disappear into the night, giddy with the joy of being on our own to go to as many houses as possible to gather goodies. I loved it when people gave out home made cookies, or snickers bars, but was happy with whatever was given. We finally quit when we were too tired to go to even one more house, and essentially crawled back to our neighborhood and our various homes. Our deadline to be home was 9:00. Back then, my parents didn’t go through my candy, alert for bad stuff. If I happened to get a caramel apple, I gave it to my brother – not out of the goodness of my heart, particularly. He liked them and I didn’t. Simple as that. We already had full stomachs from eating while walking, but we snuck another few pieces before going to bed.
My favorite Halloween as an adult was when we lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in a neighborhood full of kids. My husband got into the spirit that year. We had taken our toddler son around earlier, so he was happily lying on the couch while we answered the door. My husband got on a wonderful, scary mask he had found. He put a pillow on his back and a burlap cover with a hole in it over his head. He really looked GREAT. The first kids came to the door. He opened it. They screamed and ran away without getting any candy. Then the word spread and I think the whole planet showed up at our door to see the ‘monster.’ I went out twice to load up the car with more candy during the evening. Our son finally saw him, and was all upset, even when my husband took the mask off, and stomped on it on the floor. We ended up putting the mask away, in the top of a hall closet. Dad was back, so our son was happy again.
Now kids go to sponsored parties, or their parents follow them in cars as they trick-or-treat. They don’t know any different, so I hope they still have a blast on the holiday. I still remember how it used to be – before the world changed.
This is me without makeup – just for you on Halloween. I’ll put my regular mask back on tomorrow – promise!
Filed under Halloween - How Do You Carve YOUR Pumpkin?, holidays
*”Dem Bones” is a spiritual song. The melody was composed by author and songwriter James Weldon Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson. First recorded by The Famous Myers Jubilee Singers in 1928.
Filed under Halloween - How Do You Carve YOUR Pumpkin?, holidays