March Activities

 

March has been one of those months that feels like I haven't gotten much done.  But as I discovered while writing this blog post, there's been more than I realized!  I've had flowers blooming all month, most from bulbs that I have forced.  It has been a steady progression of hyacinths, the last of the paper whites, and a few supplements from the garden center such as these lovely primroses!  They start off white and turn pink as they age.  So pretty and a perfect pick me up on the gloomy days of late winter. 

 

I filled all the pages of my last journal and needed to begin a new book. That meant I needed to do another yearly setup for the new book as I didn't want to have to jump between books for the rest of the year.  For the watercolor, I had done a study of a favorite Beatrix Potter painting and it was a perfect way to start this journal off.  I choose a new focus verse, still focused on trusting in God, as I feel that with all the things going on in my life, I need to keep my focus there.  No matter what happens in life, good, bad, or just plain difficult, God is still God and deserving of our praise.  It is God who helps me, and as the creator of all we know, he is more than capable of providing the help we need.  I just need to remember that. 

For the month of March, I did a watercolor of the primroses.  I struggle painting flowers, which is frustrating, as they are what I want to paint more than anything.  I was fairly happy with this one.  The layout of my monthly journals has been working really well for me, so I didn't really make many changes.  

 

One of the great things that happened this month is that I graduated from the heavy, uncomfortable cast to a brace that I can remove to do PT exercises and shower!  I'm still not supposed to pick up anything heavier than a coffee cup until mid April. Since the muscles are pretty cramped and weak from being in a cast for 2 months, that hasn't been too hard, though this past week, I've probably done a little more than I should.  So grateful to be healing, albeit slowly. 

 

The kitties have had some adventures.  We suddenly developed a mouse problem.  Mushu has caught four mice this month.  One didn't survive the attack, but the other three have been released to the farm fields to the east of our neighborhood.  

 

They sure are cute little beasties!  But I don't want them in my pantry or stockpiling the dry cat food under the washing machine!  

 

The kitties also got a new kitty tree with multiple nests.  Now they each have a place to sleep or to watch the birds from and don't have to fight over a lone nest.  

 

Mid month, I participated in Plein Air Live for the third time.  It was a pleasant surprise because I had completely forgotten that I had signed up and paid for it at the end of the last one, until I received an e-mail giving me instructions for how to log in to it!  This was from the first paint-a-long.  I worked in watercolor because I still can't paint in oils as I use both hands quite a lot.  With watercolor, I've figured out how to do it one handed.  

 

This is my work from the second paint-a-long.  These are both about 5"x7" on 6"x8" paper.  Watch for information on an upcoming art sale I hope to hold soon to raise money to pay my medical bills from breaking my arm.  

 

The biggest accomplishment of the month has to do with the garden shed!  I've been wanting to move it ever since I moved in.  This photo was taken last fall when I was working on my new garden bed. 

 

The reason I wanted to move the shed is this.  It completely blocked the view from my office window, and the only west facing window in my home.  Not very nice to look at.  

 

The inside of the shed has been a dark hole.  Last summer, I got half of the inside painted white, but it had so much stuff in it, that I never got around to cleaning it a out a second time so I could paint the other half.  Since I don't have a garage, it is the repository for anything that doesn't fit in my little house.  What a mess!  

 

To prepare for moving the shed, I pulled up all the metal garden edging - that wasn't doing much of anything except making it hard to mow. I was able to fold it in half and flatten it by stepping on it, to make it more manageable to take to recycle.

 

The edging was held down with 12" long staples.  It was challenge doing all of this one handed, but I managed!  Took me four hours to pull up three 8 foot long sections and all those staples.   

 

My wonderful neighbor moved the shed for me, almost single handedly in about 45 minutes.  Another neighbor chipped in for some last minute adjustments.  What a difference!  I love having it far enough back to see out of the office window!  Those logs are what he rolled it back with.  He used a floor car jack to lift it and slide the logs under.  I filmed the whole process and hope to get a YouTube video up soon.  

 

Since the shed was emptied out to facilitate the move (Huge thank you to Gary, David, Stephen, and Amanda for helping me move all the stuff I was not able to lift!), I took advantage and finished painting the interior (also one handed!).  So much brighter now. Before putting everything back in,  I took time to go through stuff and downsize and reorganize everything.  There is a pretty good pile of stuff to get rid of, plus some stuff that went into the garbage bin.  Now to keep from cluttering it up all over again!

 

The best part is now having this view from my office window!  Can't wait to get the next garden bed put in and to finish the arbor!  What a lovely view I'll have of my garden now!  The office is so much brighter now that it's not blocked by the shed!  

 

I've been working hard on the next round of YouTube videos.  Watch for a flurry of them coming over the next few weeks.  Here are a few of the upcoming topics:

• Sewing Birds
• Faux Paper Pieced Mug Mat (shown above)
• Moving the Shed

And many more to come.  I've got so much material filmed that I need to edit.  I'm hampered by an older laptop that doesn't have the best capacity for editing, so it takes me a while.  I'm also switching editing programs and have had a bit of a learning curve with that, but the new program can do so much more that I'm excited to be able to use in my videos!  

Perhaps the video I'm most excited about is a talk with Carol Sarchet!  She's a wonderfully creative textile artist who I find incredibly inspiring.  We had a lovely day filming and chatting about her work and process this past week, and I can't wait to share it!  

One last note!  I'm so thrilled that my YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/c/IvoryBlushRoses, continues to grow with well over 3,000 subscribers and that I was able to get it monetized this past month!  This will help to support me a little and allow me to keep creating more videos.  

You can also support me by visiting one of my Amazon links in the tab above for my favorite CQ supplies and books before shopping on Amazon.  This allows me to receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, just for having pointed you towards Amazon.  This works even if you don't purchase any of the items I have linked above but purchase something else instead.   

Another way to support me is to buy me a cup of tea through the link at the top of the side column.  Watch for a Patreon site coming in the future which will allow you to support me and my work on a monthly basis!  I hope to have that up and running sometime in April.  

Thank you all so much for your ongoing support over the years - it truly means the world to me! 

January into February Happenings

What an interesting start to the year! The first thing I did was to complete the 2022 annual pages for my journal and the January page. I was so happy with my floral theme for 2021 but I wanted to do something a little bit different for 2022 so my annual page I chose Psalm 100 to focus on rather than a specific word.

 

Psalm 100 is all about praising God for who he is. This year, I want to focus on having a joyful attitude and a grateful heart. For the watercolor surround, I decided to do a year in trees and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I'm not sure why, but I seem to have trees on my mind lately!

For January, I had done a little sketch of the paperwhites that were blooming on my countertop and a pot of Ivy, and I decided to use this as the header illustration for my January page. For my verse for the month, I chose Psalm 28:7 which was a good transition between my focus in 2021 of “Trust” and showing my gratitude towards God in 2022. I used the same format that I used last year as I was really happy with it and it worked well all year.

 

Little Finn is growing! He's now almost 8 months old. He's just as lovable as he was when he came home with me. I love how he cuddles when I'm sitting at the computer and sometimes even when I'm stitching! He brings me his foil ball to toss for him all the time. Such a sweet boy!

If you read my recent blogpost, you know there was a tremendous wildfire here at the end of December. From the news footage we really thought that my childhood home had been lost to the flames. But incredibly, it turns out the house has survived when everything around it burned. We think that all those trees my dad planted helped to save it by blocking the embers from reaching the house. Amazing. I truly hope the family that lives there now is not suffering too much from survivor’s guilt, and that they had minimal smoke damage. You can see the house in the picture above still standing surrounded by trees while the houses that were nearby are just blackened foundations now.

One of my year goals was to take a trip to England to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum otherwise known as the V&A Museum to see the Beatrix Potter exhibit that is showcasing her “Life in Nature”. They are exhibiting exquisite treasures such as the embroidered waistcoat that she drew for “The Tailor of Gloucester”. Oh, how I have wanted to see that coat in person! But I realized that financially this trip is not a possibility for me, so instead, I ordered the exhibition book and it arrived just in time for my birthday! What a treat to travel virtually and to also have a permanent record of this beautiful exhibition.

A huge accomplishment was completing the first of our family photo books. While we were able to save many of our family photos from the house fire, we also lost a large number of them.   Many of them are smoke stained or water damaged. I found a large number of the negatives and have scanned all of them, done a lot of photo editing and have started putting them into books.  It's so nice to finally make these photos that we nearly lost, available to every member of the family.

The paperwhites have been blooming beautifully, but Mushu has been a bit mischievous and broke one of the stems off before it had a chance to bloom. I tucked it in a little Aqua bottle and enjoyed it next to my comfy chair. They bloom so quickly you can almost see it happening.

 

The kitchen windowsill has been especially pretty as the geraniums that I had outside this summer are blooming amazingly inside! In fact, they are blooming better than they did outside! Mushu enjoys them too.

 

I decided that I needed to focus on painting more often, so I started a new personal art challenge to encourage myself to do a small piece of art every day if possible. I've been doing tiny index card sized watercolors. For reference I am using landscape photos on my iPad. I went back to the oldest photos on there and I'm working my way chronologically through them trying to create a painting out of even the questionable photos. So far, I'm having a lot of fun though I have not been able to paint as often as I would like as you'll see shortly.

For my birthday I went to the Denver Art Museum to see the “Whistler to Cassatt” exhibit American impressionists in Paris. 

 It was a great way to spend my birthday! 

This portrait of Alexander Hamilton by Cecilia Beaux intrigued me because the figure is just a little bit out of focus, but the paint palette is in full focus and when you're standing in front of it, it almost pops out of the painting towards you.

Another favorite was this grassy creek, "Wild Asters" by Dennis Miller Bunker, an artist that I was unfamiliar with.

I was thrilled that they had three paintings by one of my favorite American impressionists, Frank W Benson. 

He painted his family near the seashore wearing white or pale pink dresses in the majority of his paintings.

I think he paints light on white better than just about anyone else second only to John singer Sargent.

I've long wanted to see them in person, so this was a real treat.

The day after my birthday Colorado had a rare freezing drizzle/ ice storm. The ice lingered for two days. On the second day I slipped on the ice while taking the trash out and broke my left arm. Thankfully my son Stephen works nearby, and he was able to take me to the ER where I was put in an enormous bulky cast. Oh my! I have a new deeply felt gratitude for having two hands. Having to do everything with one hand has been a real challenge. Thankfully my kids and friends have been enormously supportive and have helped me manage, despite the fact that I live by myself.

Little Finn has been especially attentive and cuddly which has been so nice especially on the more difficult days.

I got to meet one of my new grand dogs! (I have three new ones!) Hopefully I'll get to meet the other two soon. Haley came to visit then got to meet Mushu! I think if they lived in the same home, they would become best buddies.

 

Despite my broken arm, I have been able to paint occasionally. It definitely takes me longer! I did this cute little Bunny sitting in the garden at the end of January. I'm so happy with it!

I was trying to come up with a watercolor sketch for my February journal set up and decided to use the Bunny sketch. I love the way it turned out and as my sister said, this way, I'll get to enjoy it a lot for the month of February! A plus side of having a broken arm, is that my task list for February is smaller than it would be otherwise!

We had a little excitement the other evening right before bedtime. The cats were intent upon the pantry. So I opened the door and started to clear out the bottom to see what they were after. Mushu pounced upon the mouse the moment it dared to show its whiskers! Good job Mushu! Having one eye hasn't slowed him down one bit!  I will say that he wasn't at all happy that I took his bedtime snack away from him though.

I'm in a smaller cast now thankfully, and it is making it easier to get dressed and do a few things though I still am unable to use that arm or hand. I still get pretty tired, but as my son pointed out my body is working pretty hard to heal right now but every day is getting better, and I am so grateful for that. 

One last bit of news! I'm so happy to report that my YouTube channel continues to grow (over 3,000 subscribers!), and is now monetized, so it will hopefully provide a bit of supplemental income! Thank you so much to all of you who have watched, subscribed, commented, and liked the videos! It truly means the world to me!  

2021 in Retrospect

At the end of each year, I like to take some time to look back.  It helps me keep life in perspective.  So often, the year passes so quickly and leaves me feeling as though I haven't achieved very much.  Taking time to look over the past year helps me see that I really did accomplish a tremendous amount!  Let's take a look! 

I've journaled for a long time, but this is the first year that I feel like my journal reflects who I am.  It worked better for me than any other type of journalling that I have done, and I am continuing the same format into this year.  I loved doing the watercolor headers for each month, choosing a focus Bible verse as well as listing out the primary tasks that I wanted to accomplish each month.  I do think that this type of journal really helped me to accomplish many of my goals by keeping me focused.  

Like many people do, I choose a word for the year, which was Trust.  I felt like I needed to trust God that everything would work out.  And as usual, when I put my trust in Him, it has!  

I started the journal off with a 2021 page and a verse based on my focus word.  I filled that journal up by the end of July, so I had to start a new one, and did another 2021 page and another focus verse.  I didn't write quite as much in the last few months of the year, so I'm continuing 2022 in the same journal.  I should get about 4 months in it, I think.  

I really wanted to focus on painting this year.  I did a number of small studies, as well as a couple of larger works.  In the lower left, is a larger work based on the small study above it.  I loved seeing my work progress through the year! My favorite painting is the bunny!  I "need" to paint more bunnies!  

Nearly every week during the summer months, I spent a day in the mountains, most often in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I always took my painting supplies along and was able to do so many plein air paintings, both in watercolor and oil paints. 

I also did a fair amount drawing, sketching and watercolor painting at home as well as sketching out ideas for house plans, cards, paintings, and garden plans.  I also swatched all of my watercolor supplies according to the palettes they were in. 

As far as accomplishments go, I really did quite a lot this year!  

* I fixed my old wooden yarn swift, which had been broken for a long time  

*I moved my office into the guest room, and the guest room into the sewing (and now storage room) 

*I completed two books for my big 2018 trip to France (I still have England and the Netherlands to go).

*I scanned several boxes of slides and lots of family photos

*I got the RV repaired and then sold!  

*I published 4 issues of Crazy Quilt Magazine and made the decision to stop publishing

*My son-in-law sanded the front porch for me and I painted the rails  

*I fixed the bathroom ceiling, where a skylight had been removed long before I moved in

*I sewed a few little quilt mats to use on various pieces of furniture

*My sister and I downsized the family genealogy archive from 34 boxes down to 13!!!  Suddenly my storage locker is starting to look a empty-ish! 

*I finished a felted knit pouch I started several years ago

*I made a little pincushion

*I was able to get my garden bed built, installed, filled with dirt, and even got a few things planted!  

*I finished the last of the grandkid's stockings!  

Whew!!!  (And there were a few more that aren't shown, as I didn't necessarily take photos of everything!)

In the spring,  put my house up for sale and went house-hunting.  I made several trips to western Iowa, eastern Nebraska and Kansas in hopes of finding a home in a less expensive area.  I also did. few virtual tours.  I even put in an offer on one of them.  But in the long run, I realized that I did not want to be that far from my family and friends or move to a community where I didn't know anyone, so I took my house off the market and decided to stay put for the time being.  Making this decision, does mean that I must go back to work very soon, which is something I am very anxious about.

Through the course of the year, I took a fair number of photographs.  These are a few of the best ones. As you can tell, I love a good sky, green growing things, flowers, and lovely hoar frost! 

Some of my favorite memories in 2021 revolved around family!  I got to attend birthdays for 3 of the grandchildren!  My oldest son and his wife purchased a new home with some acreage, a long held dream for them! In June, we were able to get the entire family together for the first time in a year and a half!  What joy to all be together!  I loved being able to spend time with the grandkids!  I get to watch them on a fairly regular basis, which sadly will come to an end when I go back to work.  It was so lovely to see everyone at Christmas too!  Unfortunately, everyone in the family came down with covid, either just before or just after Christmas (except me - Thank you vaccinations!) and gratefully, they were all mild cases.  Everyone is now healthy again!  

Mushu is now 2 ½ years old and finally mellowing a little.  We aren't having quite the traumatic/destructive episodes as we had in the first year of his being with me!  He has more personality than almost any other cat I've every known.  Definitely too smart for his own good (or mine!). In August, little Finn joined us!  He is a delight and such a sweetie.  He and Mushu have become good friends and having a playmate has been so good for Mushu!  Finn is a lap cat, which Mushu is not.  I love it!  He often sits with me at the computer, or when I'm painting or drawing!  Truly a sweet companion!  

There wasn't much travel in 2021, other than the very quick trips I made to go house hunting.  But in November, the kitties and I traveled to Tucson to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her husband!  Mushu isn't much of a traveller (you can see Finn comforting him after a panic attack in the collage above - middle row right), so he'll stay home from here on out, but Finn is a lovely traveler!  

So, though in some ways I found 2021 to be a more difficult year than 2020, it was a good year.  I was able to accomplish a lot of the things that I wanted to, though I didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped to on the big photo/slide scanning project.  Hopefully this year will see that task done!  In all, now that I've had this opportunity to look back and evaluate, I'm really pleased with all that I was able to accomplish!  

One last thing;

** A follow-up note to my last post about the huge fires here in Colorado.  1084 residences were destroyed, 149 sustained significant damage.  Incredibly, my childhood home survived intact!  It appears as though the hundreds of trees and shrubs that my Dad planted helped prevent embers from reaching the house, even though every single house around it was lost in the fires.  So devastating for all.