food, memories, and playing with watercolor

 

red beans

DH made a batch of red beans and rice last week. I LOVE red beans and rice! And his is the best... even better than they serve in the restaurants at home (New Orleans). It was the perfect meal for these cold, dreary, rainy winter days. 

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And this past Monday would have been my sister's 85th birthday! She passed away at 51 of Cancer.  I was only 10 when she married at 19 and moved to Mexico City. But as the years went by, she eventually moved back and we were just beginning to know each other as adults when she died. 

my favorite photos  (as I remember her)

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Photo taken from my TV set 

I watched the Inauguration of President Biden and was amazed at how well it was done (considering the circumstances). IMO his speech was excellent and the songs beautiful and appropriate (This land is your land, this land is my land...). And that poem from that young poet laureate... well, it gave me chills. 

I'm sure that things will not be easy for President Biden, but just having him in charge after the last 4 years of chaos does my heart good. 

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And these last 2 entries are just things I like... and am willing to share with you.

grand daughter and Moose 

Grand daughter and Moose (their Great Dane) enjoying her last day before going back to college. 

sketch and water color

Practicing my watercolor (which needs a lot of work) on a sketch I had made years ago for the cover for my book... before I found an actual picture that I was happy to use. I really need to take a watercolor class one day. Started one in 2017... but  before the second class I was in the hospital with acute appendicitis.

Oh well, maybe one day.  BTW, my friend who owns a kiln fired my batch of cheeky chickens last week... (10 chickens and 1 fox) so at least they have had their first firing. They will need another after I black bird them... and that may be a while since I'm out of blackbird.

OK, enough sharing for today. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. The weather had been a  bit bleak this week, but my concerns for our country (politics and the pandemic) seem to have lightened... :) 

Hugs (virtual),

Rian

lots of catching up to do...

 

lots of catching up to do...

 
This summer is halfway into July and I've not posted very often. Sorry about that. From a daily journal-er to a once a week blogger is a bit sad, but there are times when life gets so busy that there is little time to fit in all the things one would like to do. Besides, sometimes a little divergence is good, yes?

My plans to do both watercolor and pottery classes this summer went out the door with my unexpected emergency appendectomy. By the time I got my doctor's OK to drive, I had already missed 3 classes of watercolor and 4 of pottery - and as summer classes are already shortened,  it didn't seem advisable to continue them. 

And our oldest son's plans to move to Hawaii with his family meant their moving out of their house at the end of May and into ours for a while this summer until grandson was graduated and safely off to basics or US Air Force boot camp (which is coming up very soon)... this has changed our normal routine.  But I have to admit we've enjoyed having this time with them. Once your children get married and busy with their jobs and families, birthdays and holidays are the only real time you get to spend with them. So these little unexpected times are to be treasured.

I have continued to work on my watercolor - on my own mostly, but I have watched a few you tube videos also. Not sure how well it's going, but like everything else, doing a little every day should be a good thing.

just practicing with colors over old sketches

Julie, our silly little black and white cat, has become a bath fanatic. She loves it when she can sit on the side of the tub and get soaking wet. If you tell her that you're going to take a bath, she immediately runs and sits on the tub... waiting. Loves me to squeeze the washrag all over her head and body. Such an odd little cat. 

Julie enjoying the bath water...

 

 


















The kids came over last week to go out to dinner and back to the house for birthday cake. Since this week was my birthday and next week is DH's, we try to celebrate the two birthdays together. We're both 72 this year. He got to choose the cake... which was an Italian Cream cake.  It's his and my youngest son's favorite. Mine is Chocolate mousse... but believe me, I didn't need more chocolate.  Oldest son and his kids are Chocoholics... so we have more cookies, cakes, and candies in the house this summer! (DH is in high heaven - as I never have this much 'trash' around). But what the heck... 

birthday flowers - must remain in bathroom as Julie will chew on them...

Another thing that is going on is that while our son is going through all their stuff and trying to get it all packed away and shipped, I have started going through boxes and boxes of family pictures that have accumulated over the last 50 years (it's not actually 50 until January, but close enough...). What I'm trying to do is divide them up between the 3 kids... and those that should go to other family members (like cousins) and friends.

While doing it of course we are taking a stroll down memory lane... laughing at  some, trying to remember where or when for some, and of course some bring tears as so many in the pictures are no longer with us (like my mom, dad, sister, brother, nephew, aunts, uncles, and a few friends, etc.) But the pictures do bring back memories of happy times when we were all together. So I guess it's 'bitter-sweet'.

Well, I promised to make meatballs and spaghetti today for Sunday dinner, so I'd better get to it. Hope your weekend was fun and will try to get back to the computer later today to read blogs and make comments.

Oh... also my dear friend took me out to lunch this past Thursday for my birthday. She gave me a bag of 'goodies' ... as well as brought me some new books to read. And over the years I've made her several little dog sculptures. Yesterday she sent me a picture of the ones she has on her desk. I'd forgotten which ones she had.

But perhaps it's time to make her another...

Oh, Ghost wanted to say goodbye... or hello? (actually it's not Ghost, but it certainly could be).

Today was the day...

Today was the day! Had my 2 week post surgery check-up and all went well. Glad to put that behind me.

The doctor said that I could go back to all normal activity... which includes driving and walking. Of course I was able to walk before today, but found when I did try to walk too far or too long, I got a few twinges where my surgery sites are. Since I've had no problem with pain since the surgery, I simply have foregone the walking my 10,000 steps (actually I hardly ever get more than 5,000) for a bit longer.

Sending you some pics of my youngest grand daughter visiting the beach for the first time. My son and DIL took her to Galveston Beach this past weekend. 

 





I think she thoroughly
enjoyed it! 











The cats are all fine. They are missing my being in bed with them during the day - as since my energy has returned, it hasn't been necessary anymore. However, I do still take a short reading time in the afternoons and do occasionally do fall asleep. This seems to satisfy them. And Tux seems to have calmed down now that things are back to relatively normal.

I finished the 2 quilts I've been working on. Here are some pics. The first is a baby quilt and the second is a quilted tablecloth for my kitchen.

This is the 2 sided baby quilt...


 

This is a close-up of the 2 sides...

 

close up of 2 sides

 

Quilted table cover

Well, that's about the news for now. I'm practicing with my watercolors since I had to drop the course for now.  

Getting used to colors with their tints, shade, tones, and de-saturations...

Practicing using some of the colors on sketches... 








There's so much that I don't know, but possibly I'll pick up some techniques while I wait out until the course becomes available again... which probably won't be until next summer.

Well, have a great week. The 4th of July is fast approaching (as well as my 72nd birthday which follows on the 6th)!  Life is just one big (or little) adventure after another... and I will try my best to keep up.

back on track...

OK, my day of feeling unfulfilled is over and I've decided to see about starting writing again.  I haven't had my writing muse visit in some time, so I'm going to jump start myself by re-reading some of my old stories.

These are just stories that pop into my head from time to time and I write them down... some are short, some are fairly long.  Anyway, I thought I'd invite you to read along (if you're so inclined... not a problem if you're not as I've not a lot of time to read any really long blogs myself).  But again, I could use the feedback.  However, I do realize that these are not up to professional writer standards... just scenarios that take on a life of their own inside my head.

I'm going to start with "Whisperings".  It's a semi-science fiction story about a higher life form infiltrating our world in a compassionate long term process for the ultimate good of man-kind.  It's written in 4 parts - none of which are very long.

And for those who do not wish to read my ramblings, I'll post some more pictures of things that interest me and may be of interest to you.

The first are pictures from one of my favorite watercolor books "Drawing Closer" by Carolyn Blish:

and a few pages from her book...

I would love to be able to watercolor like this. The third painting is my favorite as there's something about how gulls land that fascinates me... (you really need to click on these pictures and see them larger to appreciate them).


Next is just a few of Ann Purser's cozy mysteries that I enjoy reading.  These pictured are the Ivy Beasley series (3).  At the moment I'm almost finished the Lois Meade series (about 12).

And lastly... I'm posting a picture that a friend posted on Facebook recently that I thought was amazing...

Wow!

books...

One of my favorite dragon books

As you can see, I really like children's books... especially some of the illustrations. My favorite type of illustration is done in watercolor... and not being an art major, I don't know what the technique is called.  But it's a very pale fluidy process (and sometimes it's outlined in ink).  I own some books that use this technique ("city dog, country frog") is one.

And I've seen this technique used in other books, art, and even on a blogsite. Nora McPhail (www.noramacphail.blogspot.com) seems to use it. She does some wonderful watercolors.  My favorites are the people scenes and there's one of a bike in the snow outside the library...

This is another of my favorites. It's called "The Library" and it's about someone who loves and collects books.  I'm going to show you a few pages of the illustrations.  I absolutely love them. You can see the details in the pages better if you click on them to make them larger...

and then there's "The Money Tree" same author, same Illustrator

Isn't this wonderful?  

Sorry to go on and on, but I just love these pictures.  I try to use this technique when I watercolor... which isn't very often (it's only when the muse comes visiting).  

Here's a few of my 'attempts':  First two are just sketches I made of pages from books...

and some random watercolors :

done on a silent retreat...

copying an illustration in a children's book...

Enough of this. Hope I haven't bored you.  

Have a great weekend!