Today in my Life... October 20, 2015

Today is Tuesday, October 20, 2015.

I woke up this morning:  very, very early... got up at 3:45 am  and stumbled into the office... fell into my computer chair and prayed for cooler weather.  These night sweats are killing me.

I am hearing:  the fan click as it makes those orbits around that fake golden hub up there.  However.. with the night sweats, I do believe I don't care if it's fake or not as long that cool breeze continues.   My sweet DH is up and clicking his coffee cup in the kitchen... The day begins.. :)

As I look out the window:  I see the new WalMart across the street has cleared all the rubble and trash from the site.  It is beginning to look like it's been there for a while... sod going in, parking lot finished, all the heavy equipment gone.  Won't be long now.

I am thinking:  that I really need to carry a notebook... perhaps I should buy some kind of everyday apron with pockets that I can wear everywhere... that would make keeping a pen and paper in my pocket really easy...

The current book is:  a re-read of the James Patterson book Cross ... for about the 4th time.  I really need to find some new authors.. (she says for about the 100th time!)

Creatively:  doing watercolors.  I took some photos of the new plants when we put them in the flowerbed last weekend.  I also bought some cyclamen that were on sale for $1.00 a piece... LOVELY!!  So I got out the water and brushes and did a couple of florals, but also found an easy Wilson Bickford tute on youtube.com that I did in watercolor instead of the oils he was using.  Didn't turn out too bad.




This is the Wilson Bickford tutorial for painting a chickadee... All I did was change it to watercolor.  He is one of my favorite art instructors on YouTube..  There are couple on there that really make it easy to follow their lead.

 This is a cyclamen, but not one of the ones I bought this weekend.  This is a tutorial by Lindsey Weirich The Frugal Crafter showing how to draw the cyclamen and then blend sharpies to color it. Well.. I changed it to watercolor, but followed how she drew it.  She has many, many tutorials on a multitude of things so make sure you run thru her videos.  There may be something there you would like to try.













This is done from a photo I took of the pansies that we planted this weekend.  I just know that if I keep at this long enough I will get somewhere in the ballpark of good at it... lol







I am thankful for:  telephones and old friends.  I finally got up the nerve to try one more time to find an old (sorry Billie..lol)   friend from high school.  When I looked up the telephone number for her brother I was stunned to see that it was the same number I had dialed about a zillion times in my 8th grade, freshman and sophomore years.. It seems that he now is now living the family home and just decided to keep the family phone and same number.  Talk about deja vu..lol  We talked for about 45 minutes or so and then I called my best friend from high school... I must admit to being a little nervous.. What if she has forgotten who I am???  But not... it was as if no time at all had passed. What a lovely way to spend a couple of hours...

Planning ahead:  hmmm... personally I'm not sure I should put this up here..lol  I do plan ahead on occasion but must admit that seldom does it turn out without at least a little zig in the zag.  Anyway, the Basil I planted out back is seeding so I'm gathering those tiny seeds and putting them in envelopes.  Last year I actually made tiny seed envelopes to put them in... this year an old letter size plain jane works just fine.  Also have marigold seeds.  All the ones I saved from last year were viable and put on a real show until the water stopped.. More on that later... :(

Have a great day today...  :)

Another Book

It seems that every time I try my hand at making a book I find another "thing" to do.. lol   Anyway, I'm happy with this one even if I had to finish it up in a bit of "around the world" fashion. (If you're from the South, you'll know what that means..lol )

First, I found a recipe for cooked white glue (actually called "book glue" ).  Turns out it's just the same flour and water paste we used as kids with a little sugar and vinegar added and then cooked until thickened.  Here's the recipe I used:

4 tbsp. white flour
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
6 to 8 oz of water

Mix well in a small pan, then bring to a boil over medium heat.  Stir continually until the mixture reaches the thickness you desire.  I put mine into small jelly jars and stored in the refrigerator.  I haven't worked on how to do a hot water bath or something that will allow this to be stored on the shelf for a longer shelf life.

Here's how it ended up...

The pages are regular printer paper that I soaked in hot strong tea, allowed to dry and then ironed.

I have no idea how I will actually use this book.  The truth is that I just enjoy making them.  I don't want a professional looking book... I want my great grandchildren and great great grandchildren to recognize that this book was hand made by me.. :)

Well, it's now late August and coming quickly to Labor Day weekend.  Where does the time go?   This has been a relatively mild summer this year with more summer rain than we've had in the last few years.  Only one burn ban that I know of this year... and that's amazing.. :) 

Hoping your Tuesday is a good one.  Here in North Texas the sweet tea is made and the back porch is calling.. .

The Joy of Trivia

I finally decided to look through a book that's been on the bookshelf for at least a year.. It's called The Joy of Trivia by Bernie Smith. It was written in 1976, but looks a lot older. The pages have browned and there's a tiny bit of wear on the ends of the back binding... but I find that I can't put it down! He has such a sense of humor!

(Excerpt:...)

"The world's first successful income tax was tried in England in 1799. William Pitt was the man who fathered the idea, to finance the war with France.

There will now be two minutes of silence while we think ill of Mr. Pitt."

Good Reads

I was reading one of my spindling groups message digests and someone had a link up to Good Reads... Well, it's now 4pm and I have spent most of the day wandering that site. Good Grief!

I have listed the 400+ books that I came across that I have read.. now I just have to come up with the other couple of thousand names ... The practical side of me says that giving my brother the hundreds of books to sell in his store was a wonderful thing...but the hoarding book worm that I am really wishes there had been a way to keep them. All of them.

There's also a place to upload books, articles, prose, poetry..whatever a person would like to write. Just click on the link that says write . Hmmm... May have to look into this...

Cool Rain

It's been a lovely couple of days. Cool, slow rain...temps in the 70s and 80s. Lovely.

Off to the cardiologist tomorrow.. CT Angiogram.. just checking. Should know the results by the beginning of next week.

This doctor is one that when you go for an appointment, make sure you have enough of something to keep you busy for at least 4 hours. They have grown accustomed to my spinning...grin And speaking of which, I don't think I will ever get the Corriedale that I dyed spun into that sock yarn I really wanted. Of course, if I have very many more of these appointments, it may be done before I know it...lol

DH has finished his clock. It turned out really lovely and looked so good on the wall! But there is something wrong with the speaker for the chimes, so that part of it had to come out and is now on it's way back to the factory. Hopefully the new part will be here within a few days.

I found this Stephen King book on sale for $3.99. Naturally I grabbed it right up. It bears an uncanny resemblance to "The Stand" in the plot line and the characters. After learning not long ago that many authors have "ghost writers" that write the

story after the "author" gives them the outline and plot, this one makes me wonder if it really was Stephen that wrote it... This is not to say that I didn't enjoy it... it just didn't seem to be of the same quality as his others...

My Kromski Spinning Wheel Is Here!

It came Thursday... It had included with the wheel an extra bobbin and a Kromski niddy noddy. (Ask me if DH didn't get a lot of mileage out of that name! grin) We spent the afternoon putting it together...a 30 minute job (grin) Anyway, finally got it together and you should see my first 10 yards or so of mess.. ( I won't be posting pics..grin)

Ask me if I love it! DH tells me I have to be able to chew gum and walk to use it..lol Finally got it semi figured out yesterday and managed to finish the 4oz. of practice roving that came with it. It's the blue that is on the niddy noddy. The yarn is triple plied using the Navajo technique. I ended up with just over 50 yards not counting the 10 or so yards that I messed up in first try.

The yarn is not so great. Too much twist. I've seen someone on the net trying to get the effect I got with the twist on the single making a spiral after it is plied...grin If I try to do it again, it'll never happen.

We had company yesterday morning, waited around for someone who never showed up and finally gave up and went to the book store. I found several James Patterson novels (Alex Cross .. only!) that I didn't have. I looked for anything spinning, naalbinding or yarn related... not a single book in the whole store! (Half-Price Books) Anyway, finally got to work on my spinning in the evening.. I think I have found a new passion...

Of Books, Bobcats and Daffodils

I'm not really a slow reader, Patty...grin The books on the sidebar seem to sit there forever before they are changed. That's because recently I have been so busy (have no idea doing what!) that by the time we hit the sack I can hardly read more than a few paragraphs before the page blurs to disappearing letters and I have to put it down.

We have one blooming daffodil. (This pic is from last year.) What a joy... I love that fresh, vibrant yellow announcing that spring is around the corner. The wren began peeping into the holes in the ends of the clothesline poles this morning... nesting will begin soon.

Our bobcat showed up yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. Came streaking across the road and disappeared behind the neighbors house. A couple of minutes later he came sauntering back, sat down on the side of the road with one of our squirrels in his mouth. Realizing that this is nature's way does not lessen the distress very much. I'm ready for him to move on down creek....