Sylvia's Simple Shots

I took my first trip of the year to the Heritage Hills Wetlands yesterday.  The winds were high, the water was choppy and the streets were being cleaned so I could not leave my car parked on the street.  That meant a quick visit. 

The ducks and gulls were on the pond.  The water is very low and there are now islands of mud in the middle.   I guess it provides a safe haven for wildlife but makes for not the prettiest pictures.

I captured this adult male Mallard Duck with it's mate feeding.   I don't know if they have eggs yet.  It has been so cold that I hope not.

I will return when I can spend more that a few minutes.

I finished Memories and Stories by Aaron A. Lehman this week.  I chose the book because it had an Alberta connection.  This fellow was a teacher in our province for many year.

He came to teach in one of our communities way up north.  The accommodations were not the best but he and his wife made the best of it.  She was pregnant with their first child and it was his first year of teaching.  Being a new Dad, setting class lessons and being in a remote communities were all growth edges for this couple.

They made it through.   It is interesting to read about coming into Edmonton which is the big city.  Travelling on the train from the United States, then by bus north and being hosted by kind strangers.

His wife was a nurse so there was no lack of work for her.  They raised their family, stayed connected with their US relatives and contributed to the young people of our province.  

I'm glad I read it.

To get the machine back into it's desk I needed to take the spider plant off of it.  I wanted to hang it back up on the hookr but needed a prettier hanger than a pink shoelace to keep it in place.

I had limited resources at my disposal so I checked my yarn box and found some yellow that would match the pot.  Great!  Very skinny so I braided 2 strands together then tied on end to the spout and the other to the handle.  Added a metal ring at the center to keep the two lengths going down. 

Yes, that will work nicely.  I added a few knots to shorten it a bit 

The plant is very happy in the north window and now I can put the sewing machine back in the desk.

The sewing machine went in for servicing a couple of weeks ago and it was ready to pick up on Thursday.  A general servicing was all it needed to get the decorative stitches to work again and the pick up of the bobbin thread. I brought it home and let it sit till the weekend.  I set it up on Sunday with a project already in the planning stages.

I spend some time in the living room working on design and when I returned to the machine it was whirring, smelling and very hot.  I unplugged everything and let things cool down.  I have no idea what's up.  I was so looking forward to sewing.  It is back in the shop waiting for a diagnosis.  They assured me they would not make me wait the standard 2-3 week serving time.  We shall see.  If I have to start looking for another I will be really bummed.

I typically don't pay hard earned cash for pens.  I get free ones where ever.  I picked them up at the ReUse Center.   But I was getting really tired of trying pens in the holder and they no longer making marks.  I went through the holder and chucked all the one which no longer worked.

I took at trip to the office supply store and actually bought some pens.  I prefer blue ink to black.  I like to have a red one when I want to highlight changes or check off done items on the to do list.  The green one was a bonus.

These then to blob ink at the very beginning so they need to be brushed on scrap paper before I start writing on the good paper.  It is what it is.  

I'm glad to be able to write as soon as I pick up a pen rather than to find it does not have ink it or it has dried out.  Yes, I did check that item on my list with the red pen.

Just finished this book - Thursdays at Eight by Debbie Macomber this morning.

Four women at different stages of life and in various circumstances meet at the writing workshop.  They decide to continue meeting after the classes end.  They meet at a cafe Thursday mornings at 8am.  

They bring their hopes, trials and challenges and find support, comfort and reassurance that things will be all right amongst this group of friends. 

Made me miss my Welcome to my Kitchen friends more than ever. 

My niece was here last week to visit and see Mom before her treatment.   She brought a small DVD player so that has allowed me to get back to aerobics.  With some help from my other niece I got the TV set up to access the internet.  I have been watching a bit of new shows.   The green USB stick holds music so that I can play music on the TV and no longer need a stereo to play my CDs.  It turns out the DVD player will play my music CDs.  Great@

I am sharing with Mersad who hosts Through My Lens #334. 

Exchange Cards - April

We are starting a new session of card exchange.  I've decided to get my cards ready ahead of time so I will not disappoint folks when I am busy moving.

I had these silver chrome metal earrings in my stash so I off the hanger and mounted them with brads.

I chose Striped designer paper by SU in Rose Red and cut it to about 4x3 inches. I adhered it to a piece of sold Rose Red card stock measuring 4.75 x 3.5 inches. I placed pink and silver brads into the holes in the larger flowers in the metal accent.  

I strung a piece of silver cord through one of the flowers and wrapped around this layer and knotted it on the right. This layer was then adhered to the front of a Pretty in Pink card with 3D foam tape.  I added the round greeting in the bottom right hand side again with 3D foam tape.

On this card it the same layout with different colors.  The card base is Chocolate Chip.  The designer paper seems to have pink and brown lines so I chose those colors for the brads in the metal accent.

I cut the designer paper larger this time to 4.00 x 5.5 inches.  Attached the silver cord in the same way.

The greeting is punched with the Modern Label Punch in color printed in Chocolate Chip with an offset of solid card stock same as the card base. It was adhered with 3D foam tape.

Sylvia's Simple Shots

After three days of ridiculous and constant wind we got a skiff of snow over night.  Others in the province did quite a bit of the white stuff.

The temperature this morning was -11C which is very cold for this time of year so the snow could have been much worse. 

Despite that, the hares are getting brown so we will get through this.  I was very glad to see this big guy in the back yard this morning.

I finished this book - The Waymaker by Ann Voskamp this week.  I believe I have read all her books and I own quite a few.

This is her latest released recently.

The lesson in the book is that we must maintain our connection to God - Jesus as He is the Waymaker.  He knows what we need and he knows what is next for us.

I bought the book because I am having to practice patience for the time being.  I keep the house tidy at all times and await calls for viewings with the hope of the right offer.

Mom & Dad have both experienced health crisis and that requires trust that the best for them will come to pass.  

As a planner, living with uncertainty is very difficult but I guess that is the lesson to relax and trust that was is right will come.

I replaced my TV recently.  I have had the old one for nearly 10 years I think and I bought it second hand.

It was not working well for quite a while and I thought it was just the antenna but it was the TV.

There was a sale in March offering a generous discount so I just made the decision to move forward. 

I love that I can put my music on a USB stick and play it in the living room - just like that.

I have not been able to connect it to WIFI yet so I will need help with that.

The DVD player is packed so that will have wait as well.  Very happy so far!

The challenge on Flickr Macro Mondays this week was - Bulb.  The electric kind not the garden kind.

This is one of the shots I took for the challenge.   You can check out my Photostream (SMDPics) to see the image I submitted.   There was a good variety of images to see.

I bought myself a new Basil plant last week as well as the other I purchased last April was getting gangling and not very pretty.   I am very happy to say that I now have 5 plants growing in my place.  My windows face east and north.  I have given up on African Violets for now.

The Aspargus fern I bought last year is doing well.

The Dracena I got from aunt fall of 2020 continues to grow.

The Greek Oregano that my sister gave me is a bit stretched out but I take leaves it about once a week to keep it in check.

The spider plant my niece gave me last year has been moved to the north window and is making babies for the second time which I take it is quite happy there.

The Devil's Ivy has been moved further from the east window not sure how happy it is.  Just for a little while longer, I say.

I am sharing with Angie who hosts Mosaic Monday #173 and Mersad who hosts Through My Lens #332. 

Have a great week!

Sylvia's Simple Shots

Cool Water by Dianne Warren.   Another Saskatchewan story.

Juliet, Saskatchewan, is a blink-of-an-eye kind of town -- the welcome sign announces a population of 1,011 people -- and it''s easy to imagine that nothing happens on its hot and dusty streets. Situated on the edge of the Little Snake sand hills, Juliet and its inhabitants are caught in limbo between a century -- old promise of prosperity and whatever lies ahead.

But the heart of the town beats in the rich and overlapping stories of its people: 

the foundling who now owns the farm his adoptive family left him; 

the pregnant teenager and her mother, planning a fairytale wedding; 

a shy couple, well beyond middle age, struggling with the recognition of their feelings for one another; 

a camel named Antoinette; 

and the ubiquitous wind and sand that forever shift the landscape. Their stories bring the prairie desert and the town of Juliet to vivid and enduring life.

It was a different kind of book and a nice change of pace.

The sun is shining this morning and the place is bright and wonderful feeling.

I am learning a new way of living where everything has a home and it is returned there at the end of the day.  That I have only enough stuff for the space I have so that this practice can continue.

Big projects are on hold.

It means having to discern my very top priorities and concentrating on those.  

I have learned that in the past I have not cleared the stuff from one past time before moving onto another so stuff accumulated and sat around taking up precious space.

This place has space to breathe, relax and live a quieter life.   Is that what I want?

I did manage a few photo challenges this week.  Macro Mondays was Reflections so these were a couple of the shots I took.

This is a very old book which has fallen apart and I kept some of the pages to print cool stuff on them.  It's been sitting for about 6 years - am I really going to print on them?  And if I do what will I do with them?  I am no longer going to craft markets so supplies destined for those projects have to go. 

I love the depth of field I acheived in this shot.  The texture of the old book signatures are wonderful.

To me books are precious and should not be thrown away.  The ReUse center is now open so that is likely where it will go to be found by a teacher, student or other creative person.

This Y is for Yesterday book is the last of the Alphabet Series of books by Sue Grafton because she died before she wrote the Z book. 

This starts with high school antics which turn bad and I was not sure I was going to finish it.

It was better once we were with Kinsey Milhone the detective in the present.   

Crimes are committed by teenagers, some are held accountable, others are not.   Once prison sentences are done and the dues to society have been paid, one should be able to move on but those who have not paid drag those have paid down with them again.

Kinsey of course is in the middle trying to figure out the players, who did what and why things don't add up.

I did finish the book and it was okay. 

Books Books Books

 I have been reading a lot.  With as much packing as can be done for now and having to keep all the surfaces clean and tidy reading works well for this waiting season.

I think this is my second Kinsey Millhone Mystery in the Alphabet series by Sue Grafton.  She has written 26 books starting with A and ending with Z.  

"G" Is for Gumshoe is the seventh novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California. In "G" Is for Gumshoe, Kinsey Millhone meets fellow investigator Robert Dietz when someone hires a hit man to kill her.

Good and bad things seem to be coming in threes for Kinsey Millhone: on her thirty-third birthday she moves back into her renovated apartment, gets hired to find an elderly lady supposedly living in the Mojave Desert by herself, and makes the top of ex-con Tyrone Patty's hit list. It's the last that convinces Kinsey even she can't handle whoever's been hired to whack her, and she gets herself a bodyguard: Robert Dietz, a Porsche-driving P.I. who takes guarding Kinsey's body very seriously. With Dietz watching her for the merest sign of her usual recklessness, Kinsey plunges into her case. And before it's over, she'll unearth the gruesome truth about a long-buried betrayal and, in the process, come fact-to-face with her own mortality. . . .

At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific.

She’s come home.

Home to a place she thought she’d left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows.

And in the backseat of Caroline’s car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment—five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She’s now their legal guardian—a role she’s not sure she’s ready for.

But the Oysterville she left behind has changed.  

Caroline returns to her favorite place: the sewing shop owned by Mrs. Lindy Bloom, the woman who inspired her and taught her to sew. There she discovers that even in an idyllic beach town, there are women living with the deepest of secrets. Thus begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle—where women can join forces to support each other through the troubles they keep hidden.

Yet just as Caroline regains her creativity and fighting spirit, and the children begin to heal from their loss, an unexpected challenge tests her courage and her heart. This time, though, Caroline is not going to run away. She’s going to stand and fight for everything—and everyone—she loves.

Zorro by Isabel Allende is the 4th of her novels I have read.

The cast of characters includes everyone you’d expect in a swashbuckler, from gypsies, pirates, and swooning maidens to the token villain. The women in this novel, as in all of Allende’s work, are exceptionally well drawn. The men are also vivid, from the traumatized, silent Bernardo to the honorable, justice-driven Zorro. The Fox Allende has created is slightly conceited, while at the same time chivalrous, entertaining, and likable. The characters are familiar rather than stereotypical, and Allende wisely avoids falling into the cliché trap, primarily through the tongue-in-cheek narration. Set in the chaos of Napoleonic Spain and the Alta California of the hidalgos, the backdrop adds depth and drive to the story with its social mores and shifting political tides. Allende has crafted a swashbuckling tale, with just a hint of the magical realism that will be familiar to readers of her other works. I really enjoyed this book. 

Nicholas Sparks novels can be counted on to have some interesting characters, good story lines and no bad language and explicit sex scenes.  They are a good read but becoming a bit predictable for me.

Denise Holton has no family, both of her parents have died. She is alone and a single mother of a child with severe learning disabilities by a former one-night stand. She was a school teacher for many years but now she doesn’t teach anymore; she spends all her time trying to teach her son how to speak. She has a part-time job as a waitress and makes just enough money to get by.

Kyle Holton is the 4-year-old son of Denise Holton. Kyle has severe learning disabilities

Brett Cosgrove is Denise’s former one-night stand, leading up to Kyle’s existence. He was engaged at the time and wants nothing to do with Kyle.

Taylor McAden—is a volunteer firefighter for the Edenton Fire Department, owns his own carpenter and contractor job. He was the person who found Denise’s son the night of her car wreck. Taylor has had problems in the past with commitment, but that all will change throughout the book.

Judy McAden is the mother of Taylor McAden; she came to the hospital to spend time with Denise while her son was out looking for Kyle.

Mitch Johnson is Taylor’s best friend and a volunteer firefighter for the Edenton Fire Department also. Mitch and his wife Melissa often provide Taylor with advice about his romantic life. Mitch and Melissa are the closest thing Taylor has to siblings, and Taylor is the godfather of the Johnsons' oldest son.

This was new author for me and I enjoyed this book. Case histories by Kate Atkinson.   I did not realize that these have a TV series produced from the books.

Case Histories (2004) is a detective novel by British author Kate Atkinson and is set in Cambridge, England. It introduces Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector and now private investigator. 

The plot revolves around three seemingly unconnected family tragedies – the disappearance of a three-year-old girl from a garden; the murder of a husband by his wife with an axe; and the apparently motiveless murder of a solicitor's daughter. 

I seem to be reading more detective type stories recently.  That is completely by coincidence as I am getting my books from small library at the park and it is totally random as to what will be there when I drop by.

It is nice to run across authors I have read before though. 

Christmas Card Challenge - Watercolor - Dot Wreath

I chose to use my Stampin Up Watercolor Wonder Crayons for this month's Christmas Cards as that is the card stock that has not been packed.

I used Arches Watercolor Cold Press Paper.

I started with a light pencil circle mark.  I sprayed my crayons. I mixed Always Artichoke and Garden Green for the green dots, Cherry Cobbler and Real Red for the red ones and Not Quite Navy and Night of Navy for the blue ones.  I applied the dots with the end of a cotton swab which I wet then dabbed into the colors. 

I drew a bow towards the bottom of the wreath with a Micron black permanent marker then filled it in with a bit of the red paint.

The greeting was traced with the black marker using the window as a light box.  I just printed several greetings on a quarter sheet of white paper.

I added a few stars with the black marker to balance out the shape.

The piece was then spattered with colors used in the card front but somewhat diluted.

I chose a Not Quite Navy card base.  I adhered the wreath watercolor to the card with double sided tape, added a quarter sheet insert and pressed them to ensure all the pieces stick together.

I am taking advantage of some down time now to get ahead  with this project so when the move comes I don't have to worry as these will be scheduled to arrive on time.