Tuesday-11:30am

Good Morning!

I've been able to have the patio door open for a part of the day on occasion...

...but it's still in the 80s so it gets hot in here by late afternoon.  Still remain mostly closed up. 

I know that is really wimpy to those of you who have it in the 100s.  Well, I am a self-proclaimed, heat-wimp.  At least now with a good AC I am not praying for fall--LOL!  ;)

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Remember the big feed bin I bought?  Can you see where Karma spent a couple days before Caroline came to pick up the box?

Caroline's workplace is moving so she'll take any boxes she can get from me.  So, before Caroline got here I emptied out the parts for the second Ikea rolling cart, too. 

Yes, Leah picked me up another one when they were in Minneapolis last week--in the rust color!!  Leah will be here tonight to work on cards and will put it together for me, too.  She's such a sweetheart!

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Normally she comes on Monday nights but Dagan's work had a golf tournament yesterday that was running quite late so we switched to tonight.  (Dagan loves golf!)

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Oh, and I think Leah picked up a quick release thingie for my hose.  I don't have good grip with the bum arm and all, so it sprayed all over the place at the wall.  I was afraid to try to get it on tighter because then I might not be able to get it back off again.  (Hey, I can have trouble getting the tops of my thermal mugs--LOL!)  So, that's why I haven't been able to use the hose yet.  Still using buckets of water.  They work.  But the hose works so much better.  ;)

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I carry out some fresh cold water for the saucer every morning.  Do you think someone is maybe a little jealous?  Tipping over the bucket and licking water droplets when I bring it back inside--good grief.

We've seen more ground squirrels.  Today I finally saw one that looked larger, too!  And that's a mourning dove on the edge of the patio.  The doves have come a lot more often now that there's delicious small seed. 

In an hour or two at the most...all gone.  And usually wet around the saucer where they drink and bathe. 

Just lots of tiny poops left--LOL! 

I couldn't catch a picture of it, but one afternoon Karma was watching a plastic bag twirling about out there in our whirlwind area.  Stray pieces of trash are really mesmerizing on a windy day.  They skitter across the sidewalk and fly up into the sky...only to return in giant loops of air.  They do look alive!  

 Later that afternoon Karma went nuts crying over something.  A leaf.  

Must have skittered across the patio and got caught there behind the metal table.  She wanted it badly.  Karma does believe in wind magic.  ;)

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I got a beautiful handmade card from Jeannie!

So sweet!  Thanks so much!

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I've been getting letters and long emails from several of you lately--whoohoo!  You know how I love snail mail, but a nice long personal email is wonderful, too.  I know not everybody loves to take pen in hand.  ;)  They are all appreciated.

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 Okay--new stuff and repurposing old stuff! 

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Leah and I often need lots of surface area for cards to dry.  Obviously there's only so much surface area in my place--LOL!  Well, I came up with an idea.  I bought a set of a dozen small plastic food trays!  We can fill them and stack them criss-crossed to dry.  

There's about 3/4 of an inch leeway in the gap so plenty of room for cards or any artwork papers we want to dry.  Only takes up a small amount of surface space.  I hope this will work really well.  :)

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Confession (of a fountain pen nut)...I ordered several really cheap fountain pens (under $5) from China/Japan (through Amazon) that can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks to arrive, it says.  (One has already shown up, though, and seems okay.)  Anyways, I had been using an old box cover in my wire shelves on my desk, but now there would be too many pens to fit in there.  (Purpose--have so many ink samples to use up.)  So, I needed to come up with some other way to store all those filled pens.

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I wandered about my place looking for some kind of container that was large enough for pens to lie flat but not too big so that it wouldn't fit in my wire shelf unit (which I love)...when I came across these storage bins.  They are InterDesign Linus drawer organizers and come in all different sizes and shapes.

  I bought them on Amazon and use the 12 X 4 bins in my wall unit in the studio.  

I was so impressed with how sturdy they are!  Even with my bum arm I can get down the bins filled with big bottles of paint with no problem!  They weren't cheap, so I bought them a few at a time over several months. 

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Which reminds me!!!  I never did make a new apartment tour video, did I?  I need to do that, too.  LOL!

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Anyways, back to the pen storage.  

These bins stack so they don't take up much room. 

I cut squares of felt to lay in the bottoms to keep the pens from rolling about as readily.  Oh, and the highlighters are just place holders for pens I am using at the time.

I've kept my currently filled fountain pens in the bottom drawer of the wire shelf unit on the right there on my desk for years.  I really didn't want to move them elsewhere if I didn't have to, creature of habit that I am.

I had four of these 6 X 6 inch bins--which is absolutely perfect because they fit stacked two high in the wire shelf and there's room for two stacks.  PLUS--I also already had a 12 X 3 inch bin that I am now using for all the ink sample vials that fits right alongside the stacked 6 X 6s!!  Yes--absolute perfection!  Couldn't have planned it any better.  :)  

And--speaking of small joyous moments...

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I saw this idea on Gina Ahrens YouTube channel HERE.  Brilliant!!  I had gotten the package of 24 Brusho Crystal Watercolors quite a while back.

They come like this and from what we saw online you had to poke your own hole or holes in the tops of each of these plastic containers if you wanted to shake out the crystals (which we do!). 

Leah and I are waiting until we get done with all the six sets of cards before we start anything new, though.  (I have been remiss the past two weeks and not worked on them at all for various reasons.)  But--anyways--I found the shakers Gina was using on Amazon!!

A set of 24 miniature salt and pepper shakers in a metal holder rack!  I am so excited!  Now we can transfer the crystals and make labels for each of them--preferably with color samples on them, too, of course.  Now that's a project, eh?  But they'll be so pretty we'll hate to use them--LOL!

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Well, I guess I had best get moving.  Karma's been crying for a big tablespoon of canned food.  She's upset with being ignored and has her back to me and is flicking her tail with her ears back--pouting--till I am done staring at the silver machine and hitting it with my fingers.  Humans!  Who can figure them?

I have created a monster. 

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When she had the UTI the vets wanted me to get her to eat more canned food.  She was used to her little bit, mornings only (speaking of creatures of habit--LOL!).  It took me months to get her to eat a little bit of canned food in the evenings.  That finally became a pattern, but she won't eat more than a heaping tablespoon, if that.  The vets were talking canned food being her main diet.  So I thought I'd try during the day...hence, the birth of the treat monster.

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Now she wants a little bit of canned food off and on all day long--whenever she decides she is in the mood--LOL!  As often as every two hours some days!!  But she never will eat more than a tablespoon!  Awk!  

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Well, she hasn't been sick again, so that's a good thing.  And she IS eating more canned food than she used to, so that's a good thing.  But having a demanding feline...well, I was already her personal servant.  Geez!  As you can see by the above picture, she doesn't think I'm an efficient enough servant, either.  Right now, she'd fire my butt.  So--got to go.  Later....  ;)

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 I would say to Miss Karma...

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“From adversity we can learn the value of patience.”

Dalai Lama