The100DayProject - Week 4 and Selfies With the Grandson

It was a busy week for phone calls and I also spent the better part of a day cleaning out my e-mail accounts.  It's amazing how fast they accumulate.  Admittedly there are some daily e-mails that I pass over so I can go through them maybe once or twice a month.  Those are from some crafting sites that do daily mail.  But I would say that the majority of my e-mail comes in the form of advertisements for new products or sales.  That said, because I don't go through them right away, sometimes those that are purely correspondence sometimes go unanswered for a bit.  I must improve on this.  

Here are the tags from the last 7 days.

This one is a fail.  I call it "Deconstructed Orange".  I don't know what I was going for but unlike real stitching, once I put the pen to paper I cannot take the stitch out.  I do practice what I'm going to put on the tags before I actually do them, specifically so I can chose the right colors and size of the subject.  But I just don't know what happened here.

And another faux stitching lesson learned - I regret the direction of the stitches in those petals.  I think it would have looked nicer (and neater) if they were all from the center outward instead of horizontally.

This one is based on a photo that I took several years ago.

 

We made a quick trip to DE on Saturday and got to spend some time with our daughter and her family.  This little guy is a bundle of energy and so much fun.  He is still grabbing at our glasses so they gave him a pair of his to play with to try to keep his hands off ours.   He is such a ham. 

Papa's phone is in a waterproof case that has seen better days - can you tell?

We got out second vaccine on Friday with no apparent side effects - just a little bit of a sore arm for me, but not like it was the first time.  I will say that we're tired today, but that may very well be just from travelling yesterday.  We left in rain yesterday and returned in sunshine which was nice, but the rain is back today.  And though the weather here is yucky, it's nice in Florida where the Yankees are playing their first spring season game - it's definitely a nice diversion.  

The100DayProject - Third Week

 The next week's set of The100DayProject started on Valentine's Day so there had to be a heart.

The first 20 day's worth.  Kind of looks like a Girl Scout sash of badges against the green of my cutting matt.  They are all dated and numbered on the back.  

Jingle Belles - Text Me Christmas

Words, words, words.  Are you a word nerd?  I am.  This is the KOOK in me, the one who collects words on a dedicated Pinterest board.  One of my favorite words - absquatulate - which means "to leave abruptly".   This seems to be a family trait.  HWNSNBP, who is an ambivert is very good at absquatulating.  And our daughter, who considers herself an introvert admits to also practicing absquatulation.  But let me absquatulate from this conversation and get to the Jingle Belle challenge at hand - using text/words on our Christmas cards.

I found some texty background papers in a paper stack along with some coordinating papers and put them to work.

On this first one I added a red pick-up truck brad from Eyelet Outlet in front of some die cut trees.

And to the second one, I created a little Santa from punches that reminds me of a Weeble (you know - Weebles wobble but they won't fall down).  He even has googly eyes.  I actually spent a fair amount of time gathering up the googly eyes I had in a couple of spots in my craft room so they could all be in the same place from now on.  I didn't realize just how many different sizes I had.  I kept them in tiny ziplock bags by size and quickly ran out of room in a recycled peanut butter jar.  Luckily I found a larger clear plastic jar I could use instead.  Now they are all together and I won't need a search party to find them anymore.

I was only using half of the sheets so I figured I'd go ahead and make a second card for each whilst the supplies were all at hand.  

 

More for you Word Nerds - This morning both Kirby and I were enjoying the apricity while listening to the melting ice clattering through the downspouts.  He on his flank, me on my acnestis.

Okay, enough words here, time to go spread some around to the Jingle Belles participants.  If you would like to join in click here.  

The100DayProject - Second Week

Yikes - I had this ready to post on Monday but forgot to publish.  I have been keeping up with this so far and don't want to get behind on doing them or posting them.   

Days 7-14 - Finally found a pretty pale pink fine line marker to use.

An Ox for Lunar New Year

More Backyard Birds

The birds have been very active in the backyard this winter.  I'm sure the snow has "hidden" a lot of their food which is why we make sure to keep the feeders topped off and at the ready with a fresh suet cake. 

This Cardinal couldn't help but stand out against the gray backdrop yesterday.  It was snowing and when I went to edit the picture to zero in on him more, I could actually see the "streaks" from the very fine snow falling so zeroing in on him really didn't make it any clearer.

At one point there were about 7 or 8 Bluebirds around the suet feeder waiting their turn.  I was transferring pictures from my camera card to the computer at the time and didn't realize that the card wasn't in the camera and was snapping away.  I was excited that I got a really good picture of 5 of them on the clothesline and then realized that the card wasn't in the camera.  Luckily, I was able to quickly install it to get the remaining 4.

There were two Northern Flickers hanging around yesterday.  When they approach the feeding area straight on their yellow underbellies and wings really show up.  I hope to get a picture of that someday.

 

Junco, Bluebird, and Flicker just hanging out.

It's a mealworm party going on.

And here's a sneak peak at something with wings I've been painting.

From My Valentine

 A little heartfelt art from me first.  A tangled heart on an index card with some watercolor shading.

He surprised me with a simple bunch of daisies.

But I knew these delights below were coming.  The car service that HWNSNBP and some friends have used has been having a rough time making ends meet since the cutback of travel during COVID.  HWNSNBP has only used the service a handful of times but always found the young guy and his wife to be very reliable and reasonable.  They have been trying to supplement with other things like grocery shopping and delivery, but their most recent adventure is in chocolate specialties like these chocolate covered strawberries pictured and the very popular Hot Chocolate Bombs.  We also ordered Valentine cannoli which we shared. (I just checked their FB page and they did so well on V-Day that they're taking orders for special St. Patrick's Day cocoa bombs.)  

I also received this LovePop card from HWHSNBP - a pick-up truck full of hearts.  I receive daily e-mail notifications of the mail that we're going to get and I don't know how I didn't see this being delivered.  So I was very surprised.

We were supposed to go to Delaware on Saturday but due to the impending ice storm we nixed those plans.  I had made banana blondies with brown sugar frosting to take but since we didn't go we've been enjoying them and they are highly recommended.  I froze the last four and we'll have to see how they are defrosted.

Now let's see, what is the next holiday?

February Birds and More

Well, I'll start with the more.  They turned a bank into a hamburger joint nearby.  We're still only doing take-out but it was nice to try.  They have good burgers and fries, and currently a choice between a root beer float and creamsicle float.  It sure was orangey.

When I went to water the fairy garden a couple of days after our grandson had visited, I noticed that he had added the tiny telephone he found with some old toys.  I guess he thought the fairy would be able to call someone.  No facetime though.

Looking up through the kitchen skylight when some of the snow started to melt it looked like a snow and sky geode.

And looking down to follow the red arrows when we went to get our first vaccine.  

And now the birds.  A female cardinal.  They are not as brilliant as the males but beautiful in their own right.

A female bluebird on the suet cake.

And a woodpecker.

The male bluebird.

And a northern flicker whilst the bluebird waits his turn again.

The mail cardinal in the snow with an unidentified bird butt.  (You wouldn't believe the number of pictures of bird butts I inadvertently get because they move so fast.)

We have well over a foot of snow blanketing the yard though it is compacting as it melts.  The temps rose to the 40's today and all morning you could hear the icicles breaking off the gutters and the frozen ice inside rattling down the leaders.  We didn't get the ice storm as predicted and we're going to have to see if the snow they are calling for Thursday into Friday will come about.  We had little to no snow last winter and there were so many bugs last summer because the ground didn't freeze.  Hopefully all this snow, besides providing nitrogen for all the bulbs and plants, will freeze more insects and we'll have a less buggy summer to look forward to.  It's good to remember that there are benefits to snow.