Saturday-9:30am

Good Morning!

This was actually yesterday's sunrise. 

This morning we actually have sunshine!

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First of all, last night I actually did do the zendala dare for this week.

Been a long time! 

Just my own doodles.  Was so relaxing! 

Now--down to business--LOL!  

Dagan is 39 years old today.

I took this picture of a photo album spread.

I know.  Who has photo albums anymore?  These days people make crafty "scrapbooks", if they have physical pictures at all.  Why bother when you can keep digital photos and even videos, right?  Times have changed.  For the better, I think.  If Dagan was little now I would have tons of pictures and videos!  Taking pictures was an expensive venture back in the day.

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I was thinking of Dagan a lot yesterday.  There was a little boy (about the age Dagan was in that bottom right picture) who came out with his mom to go someplace in their car.  He hung on to Mom's hand--slack-jawed--all the way to the car--eyes glued to the men and their noisy, dangerous machinery.  He froze by the car--eyes riveted on the scene before him--and the mom couldn't get him to climb into the car.  I really liked this mom.  She told him not to move, I believe, and let him stare while she decided it was a good time to clean the inside of the car a bit.  I was so busy watching that rapt little boy (and remembering my own at that age) that I forgot to take a picture of him. 

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But this is what enthralled him.

Chopping... 

...and digging up the lot. 

Was quite a project... 

...with lots of vehicles... 

...that took lots of men... 

...working...

...and waiting in the wings in big vehicles. 

I thought of how, if this had been going on when my Dagan was little, my boy would have been glued to the window all morning... 

...and we would have both been fascinated by all the mysterious activity. 

This vehicle... 

 ...was one he would have gasped at... 

...with the steam rising in its wake. 

Then the little scooper brought more tar for another layer. 

Took seven men to spread the little bits of tar.  

But I noticed at clean up time it only took one man and the little scooting scooper to put all the leftover tar back in the dump truck.

There were, at minimum, a dozen men and about eight vehicles... 

 ...to lay this big tar T in the parking lot.    

My four year old Dagan would not have missed a moment.  ;)

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Then--Miss Shelly asked me in a comment on the last post:

"...as for really nice pens, which would you recommend out of all of them for doing things like hand letting on cards?"

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Well, for handwriting an actual sentiment on a handmade card I always grab one of these pens.  

I scribbled these on a piece of card stock so you could see. 

The top one is the Platinum Carbon desk pen (never purchased the pen holder part) which has a very fine smooth nib.  The bottom one is my Lamy Joy--a calligraphy pen with the 1.1 mm nib.  (You can buy a 1.5 or a 1.9 if you like a bolder script.)

I always have my Joy filled with Noodler's Black or Polar Black. 

And, so far, have just used the Carbon Ink cartridges for the Carbon pen.  The ink is so black and the pen writes so smoothly for such an ultra fine nib I hate to mess with a winning combination, you know? 

If you mean just writing an inside note and signing a card--whether store bought or hand made--then any of the fountain pens would work.  I hope that answers your question, Shelly.  If not--let me know.

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  Having a favorite pen you love the appearance of and enjoy the flow and feel of in your hand--that's for you.  The colors of ink you use and how the pen nib actually writes on the paper--that's for the reader.  ;)  The reader can't see if I am using my favorite feather dip pen or a $3 Preppy, right?  That's why I love both pens and inks, I think.  Well, and then there's paper....

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Anyways, I still managed to finish this in a little over an hour!  Whoohoo!  Aren't you all sorry I have let the OCD blogger go--you are probably going to see too much of me--LOL! 

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Oh, and somebody brought this up to me...(and I never would have thought of it--ever)...that maybe some people wouldn't comment before BECAUSE they knew I would answer every comment and that my computer time is limited.  ??  That never crossed my mind.  If so--no worries!  

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We shall end with a silly photo of Miss Karma wishing her flat mat had sides she could really push against--LOL! 

Happy Birthday, Dagan!

You changed my life and made me a better person.

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"There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe. The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time. At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net, but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe."

Rig Veda