Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wednesday-7:30am

Karma pouting to go out on the porch yesterday...accented with the occasional whine.
Still waiting for me to finish blogging, but catching a few winks in the meantime.
She's already cried at the door this morning and been out to examine the porch and check for snow (still none). Now she's purring right underneath the laptop table I am typing on. Purrs are cat smiles...so I know all is well in Karma's world. ;)
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Today is the last day of AEDM and I ended with a bang! Had an exciting time yesterday!! Tried something new with ink, liquid watercolor, and a straw.
Was also fascinating for Karma, apparently, to watch me bending and blowing and exclaiming my wonder.
Here's the page spread wet as can be.
On the left side I used Noodler's inks: Apache Sunset and Blue Nosed Bear.
On the right side I used some very old Winsor Newton's liquid watercolor Process Cyan and Higgins' pigmented drawing ink Magenta. Both at least 30 years old and with dried up eyedroppers that are barely functional, but they still did the job. Wouldn't have stopped me as I do have extra eyedroppers. ;)
The Blue Nosed Bear was an ink sample from Ink Drop and was already in a cartridge in that Preppy pen (took out the cartridge and used a pipette to suck up a little of the ink.)
Left the wet pages to dry overnight.
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Meanwhile, I experimented on adding pages to make a bookcard out of a regular card made from card stock. Had to cut down the inside pages a little to fit the smaller card. Misted me up some white paper flower parts...
...with golden bamboo and solar gold (radiant rains).
I'll have to add the bling flower here on the front (and anything else I might decide to add) after I am done writing the letter inside. Writing over a big old embellishment lump would not be pleasant. Even the ribbon is annoying to me, to be honest, but that's already glued down--LOL! Anyways, my camera is really off on color sometimes. The ribbon is actually more purple, not blue. Oh well. You get the idea so far, anyways.
The last day of November. I made it!! TaDa!
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Funny, I just checked last night and apparently I never was registered and listed for the November Nablopomo? I couldn't find my blog anyplace even with the search engine? I did everything, filled out everything, put the badge on my blog, have been getting their emails, and never gave it a second thought. Another "oh well"--ROFL! It was a personal goal for me, I know I blogged every day in November, and that's what matters, right? ;)
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Well, now I can start the daily meditations and go back to blogging whenever I feel like it...which occasionally is every day for a stretch, but usually more like 2-3 times a week.
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I do have some new things to play with from this wild ride month--the art journal, doodle book, and the mandalas! It was definitely a creative kick in the pants--LOL! An exciting month! Trying new things, meeting new people, and chatting every day. Was a lot of fun! I am amazed and proud that I actually accomplished this personal goal! Whoohoo! :):)
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Okay, enough patting myself on the back--ROFL!
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Caroline comes to clean today.
Dagan and Leah are coming after work.
I emailed them both to tell them not to jump the car before they came up here to my apartment and I could talk to them.
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The more I have thought about this...well, there's something draining that battery...whether it is the battery, the alternator, or old wiring going bad. All the wishful thinking about holding a charge isn't going to change that fact. They don't have the money to bring her in right now--and she might cost too much to fix, anyways, for all we know. Even if we got her jumped today, I don't trust that she will start up again when I come out after an appointment or not die at a stoplight or something, you know? And winter is here (even if we don't have the snow proof yet). I know they want me to have transportation and I think that is why they are hoping she will just magically work again, you know?
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Well, I checked on the Valley Senior Ride Service. (You can find anything online these days--LOL!) You know those little buses you see around town transporting seniors and the disabled? Well, I qualify now because I turned 60 in March--tada! Much easier on me physically to get a ride door to door than to use the public bus system. For example, when I have my yearly Federal Housing appointment this winter it takes me three buses one way and ends up being a 5-6 hour day. Where when you can drive directly it's about a 20-25 minute trip to get there. No comparison on my body.
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Anyways, with the senior bus/van you have to call at least two days ahead of time to schedule a ride. They run Mon-Fri from 7:40am till 4:30pm and it's $2.50 one way. I need to call and ask if they take checks or if I need cash, but I think this is the perfect solution for transportation to my appointments.
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I had checked about this when I first moved to Fargo in 2005, but I wasn't old enough and they didn't seem to care if I was on disability. I remembered telling the lady I could bring in my paperwork, but she turned me down flat. And when Dagan lent me his old car over 3 years ago I forgot all about the buses, of course, and haven't ridden them since. Now I am 60, baby! She can't say no. Probably doesn't even work there anymore--LOL!
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That is what I am going to tell the kids tonight. Let's just leave PitaPaseo in the garage and not deal with her until whenever we can try to jump her and drive her straight to the garage. She's not in the way...not going anywhere...can wait forever. ;) In the meantime, I can use the senior bus for my appointments--tada! I can use them to go any place I want to actually. :)
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And I can use the regular bus system, of course, whenever I feel up to it. I can get to either the big mall one way or K-Mart the other direction on just one bus.
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So...that's the plan. My plan. :):)
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Oh, just got an email this morning that we will finally be getting a mandala lesson sometime today. Looking forward to it. I haven't done any more doodling on mine. Been waiting for the last week's classes. Wonder if we'll still have two more or just this one today now? Oh well. Regardless, I have been enjoying them. :)
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I will leave you with pictures of the almost thoroughly dried page spread I took this morning. (Yes, there are some thick spots that are still wet even after sitting overnight!)
I love this straw blowing business!!
Goodbye AEDM!
Happy Wednesday, All!! :):)

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tuesday-5:15am

Right after I clicked post yesterday I grabbed my camera and got this last glorious sunrise shot. Ahhhh!
Karma taking some rays in her chair.
Well, I had been thinking about blending a light blue just around the edges of the white triangular areas on my mandala. I used the outside areas on the paper from my first mandala to test some watercolor pencils. Not sure if it shows up very well. I was going for a pale shadow.
But I didn't like it, after all. Would dull the brightness of the white too much, I thought. So I got out my micron pens. This is one of my art/craft pen containers. (Any surprise I have more types of pens? LOL!) The first section holds a set of colored microns, the next section holds black ones, and the rest are types of gelly roll pens.
Here's the colored set.
I didn't do much yesterday. I drew this little chicken-scratching type of edging around the colored circles on the outside of the mandala. Hard to tell but I did use dark blue, purple, and dark green.
I know it's difficult to see from this wide shot, but it was only meant to be a kind of additional shading.
Truthfully, I was waiting for the next lesson to arrive. I thought they were supposed to come on Mondays and Wednesdays. She was late on the Wednesday lesson last week and now I haven't gotten the Monday lesson this week, either. I know...it's a free class. But still.
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Or! Has anyone else taking the mandala class gotten their Monday lesson for week three? I never thought to check my spam folder since the other lessons arrived just fine. I'll check.
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Okay. I don't even see a spam folder with this newest version of gmail...that I am still getting used to--LOL! Oh well.
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It's just that I was thinking that maybe she was going to get into the doodling aspect more this last week...and since that is exactly the point I'm at with this mandala...I was kind of waiting for the next video for inspiration or to see if she had instructions I'd like to try. Well, I'm sure it will show up eventually. :(
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Sorry. Do I sound a bit like a whiney little kid this morning? Where's my lesson? When will it get here? Is it here yet? LOL!
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Anywho...now I have signed up for the Chopra Center free 21-day meditation challenge that starts December 1st. My oldest friend of 55 years, Linda, sent me an email with the link a couple days ago. Sounded like a great idea for slowing down in December after this everyday pushing pace of November. ;)
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One more day! I feel so fortunate to have met so many interesting and creative new people! So glad I joined AEDM. Been quite a ride! :)
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It's 14 degrees, quiet, and dark up here in Fargo. I'm so grateful to still be on day hours. Karma is waiting (pouting) by the porch door until I get done blogging. She's going to be surprised at how cold it is again...and probably begging me for ice cubes in her water dish--LOL!
Have a great day!!! :):)

Monday, November 28, 2011

Monday-7:30am

Karma greatly appreciated the sunny morning yesterday. :)
We're supposed to have another sunny day today.
Pre-dawn this morning!
I love how the deep orange-red underside of the clouds looks like the softest blanket.
I baked zucchini bread yesterday...
...and got out the Doodle Book. ;)
I wanted to try out this freehand building of a mandala from the center point that I saw someplace on youtube. Kind of cheated. Used the protractor to make a circle so that I knew where to stop and where the center was to start. Was nice to not have to worry about lines being perfect. I think I have a toe in the water with this loosey-goosey drawing thing.
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Funny. Even when I was little I focused on staying inside the lines and coloring perfectly and with even smooth pressure in my color books. Maybe I have grown up with my feet inside the box and my head outside the box? ;)
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28 degrees in Fargo.
That prairie sky is turning gold and blue as we speak.
There should be a new lesson in the mandala class today...and I'm not done with last week's. Oh well. I think she might be going to show us more about doodles this week and then I can just doodle on this one I've been working on.
Do you believe it is almost December!
Where did this year go?
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Well, have a really sweet Monday.
See you tomorrow! :):)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Sunday-6:30am

Karma waiting patiently for me to put up the foot on my chair so she can snuggle up between my legs under my tilted reading table while I type on my laptop...which is where she is right this very second. ;)
Okay--the art journal red and yellow page spread...
...after it dried under the crinkled saran wrap.
You have to leave it alone all day or overnight and not touch or peek.
But it is such fun when it comes time for the big reveal!
I am happy with ii and think I'll leave this as it is for now and move on to the next background. I have an idea involving straws that I have never tired before. ;)
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I received this gorgeous card from Iggy yesterday!
He saw this card with the real leaves on it and thought of me!!
Thanks so much, Iggy! :)
Things like this are what amaze me about my blog friends and touch my heart more than you'll ever know. What a wonderful world we live in. :):)
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I worked a little more on the mandala. Took a kind of orangish-brown, crossed my fingers, and did a trial blending on a small yellow area.
I liked it!
So I continued on lightly shading all the yellow areas.
I decided to just let it dry and leave it alone for a day or two. To be able to look at it with a fresh eye, so to speak. I am liking the white areas so far and am deciding whether to leave them like that or not before I go on to the next step...the doodling! There will be some kind of black doodles in those white areas...well, I'm not the best at visualizing when I have no clue what doodles I am going to make until I start--LOL! So, I have to really like each step along the way--as is.
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Anyways, it's 27 degrees and supposed to be sunny today. Only three more days of nablopomo and AEDM and the mandala class! Wow! This has been quite an experience! I've met quite a few wonderful new people who have inspired me to keep plugging away all month and I hope to keep in touch with after November ends. And I hope it wasn't too much for all my dear, loyal readers and blog family to have to put up with me every single day. Only three more days and I'll be back to my erratic self--LOL! ;)
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Have a lovely, lovely day!! :):)

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Saturday-9:30am

This grey morning where you can hardly tell the ground from the sky. It snowed a little, but has now turned to rain.
Yesterday I went for a bright red and yellow page spread. Then I added crinkled Saran Wrap on top...
...and pressed it down. Left it to dry overnight. Haven't even peeled it off yet to see what the results are this morning. Soon.
I have been up since 5am and have puttered away all these hours already. Been catching up online, have clothes almost ready to come out of the washer, and put dishes away from the dishwasher. Feeling pretty good today--tada!
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Found out yesterday that Dagan and Leah never told the office that they got Sammy and Annie! (Naughty! Naughty!) Well, they got caught. Got a notice that they will have to pay $70 more a month and have to get both of them declawed ASAP. So...Dagan and Leah had looked around a little bit for a different place to live before...but then Leah's mom got sick with cancer...well, you know how time passes. Dagan said they are going to look for another place and want to move.
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So, this means that they will jump the car when they come over on Wednesday but if it doesn't hold a charge it will just have to sit in the garage for a while. They can't afford to bring it in for a while. Which is fine with me. Goodness! They just brought Dagan's old car over for me to borrow out of the goodness of their hearts because I can't afford the upkeep. I wouldn't blame them if they wanted to get rid of her if she costs too much to fix or they just plain want to cut down on expenses, you know? I have been able to drive myself to all my own appointments for almost three and a half years now. That has been a luxury I am extremely grateful for and can never repay.
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Well, we'll shall see what happens with PitaPaseo. Will she come back to life one more time? Will she die at the gas station? Will she start two days in a row? Or will she sit patiently in the garage till spring? The saga continues...LOL!
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I will leave you with the latest Simon's Cat video. I just love that he's gotten a kitten in the recent ones. Any of you who have watched a kitten drive an adult cat crazy will really love these!
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Have a great weekend!! :):)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Friday-1pm

Thanksgiving pre-dawn was amazing!!
Today was absolutely dull by comparison, so bear with me.
I was deeply enthralled. Shut off everything...
...and sat in the dim light...
...taking picture after picture.
These are just a few.
A plane took off from the airport...
...and the golden sun rose...
...into a perfect blue sky, white cloud day!
Was a beautiful Thanksgiving Day that got up to 57 degrees!!
Whoohoo!
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Yesterday and today I have been coloring my first mandala that I made from scratch using my good set of Cretacolor AquaMonolith watercolor pencils (that I got on sale but I always thought were too nice to use and that's why they are like brand new even though I have had them for like 9-10 years--LOL!).
Colored in the yellow. Here I am over halfway blending with the paintbrush and water. Let it dry.
Colored in some blue...
...and blended with water. Let it dry.
Colored in some purple, blended, and let dry.
Karma found my up-down-back-forth-coloring-painting-drying routine unbelievably boring.
Colored in the green. Took a darker blue, colored in around the edges for depth, and blended with water. Only three blue sections done here.
All the blue done and the green blended. Let dry.
Took a darker purple and did the depth shading thing. And a darker green...ditto.
Here's a close-up of the shading.
I really like this so far. Much better than the last one, I must say. Probably just because it is cleaner and neater--ROFL! ;)
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I am really thrilled that I am sitting here posting this right now!
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I woke up and my laptop wasn't connected to the internet. I knew Dagan and Leah were headed over to his dad's today for the whole weekend, so I was lucky that Dagan talked me through how to reconnect it via the phone before they left. I just needed to pull a lot harder than I had been to yank out the plug for the router or whatsit-thingie. I was afraid I was going to break it. Anyways, I would have missed you all this weekend! But now I'll be around...whether you like it or not--ROFL! ;)
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I think I forgot to tell you that Dagan's dad's pathology report came back good--hasn't spread. Doesn't sound like he'll even need chemo--tada! So, a very happy Thanksgiving for them this year! Thanks to everyone for all your thoughts and prayers and good wishes! :)
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Oh! And I think I found out what is upsetting Miss Karma's stomach. Every time one of the little pieces of dried up fern frond drifts down to the floor...she eats it! I bumped it and several floated down into her eager little sharp-toothed mouth. She gobbled them right up! And then she was erpy again. Never threw up, but a bit gaggy and moped about for a while. Just proves that she isn't as smart as she thinks she is. And this little revelation means that I will now have to race her for dead fern parts. ;)
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I feel like I have forgotten something but I guess it can wait until tomorrow. I am soooo happy the McLap is functional again!! Fargo Happy Dance!!
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Have a great weekend!! :):)