Checking in: 2019

Hey, that's quite an accomplishment! I've now missed an entire year. Why was that? I dunno, there's no fresh inspiration to report.

I've been working on organizing stuff on my hard drive, with the intention to go back and catch up on my posts.  It's quite a mess. After my escape I used various old computers and the photos piled from one hasty, badly-organized backup to another. At this point, I'm thinking of giving up on 2018 and start fresh right now, posting the photos as I locate them! That causes a risk of overlapping-- posting the same old stuff twice-- but the other risk is of never catching up and never posting in my blog again. 

Here's today's random inspiration.  I went googling a phrase I heard long ago in the context of showjumping-- a rider said it. You can't admit the possibility of failure, or there's always that hesitation, and the fear causes the failure.

The quote is, "Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow."

And I found this lovely blog post--

https://nikpitome.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/throw-your-heart-over-the-fence-and-the-rest-will-follow-norman-vincent-peale/

Which addresses the worry, "But what if it doesn't work out?"

Right.  But what if it does?

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like

Just because we are not doing Christmas doesn’t mean we can’t get fat on delicious spicy gingerbread cut into nondescript shapes!



Next next to the gingerbread there is homemade Mounds style candy made from coconut flakes mixed with honey and frozen, then dipped in chocolate.

Blue and white nighttime beauty

Walking in a winter wonderland!
Hasn’t snowed yet but we’ve got some blue and white right here in Olympia.

This Morning's Cozy Fire

Welcome to my home!
We have a lovely fire going today. It’s only raining and dreary out there, not exactly bitterly cold, but we couldn’t wait another minute for the first fire of the season.
Build it, and they will come. Next thing you know, everyone is cozied up near it with a book.

New Creations for 28" Barbie Best Fashion Friend

A gathered long sundress, and a cute peasant crop top and denim pencil skirt.
I'm really pleased with how these came out!

Glamping, Anti-Rodent Style

For those of us who are not giant fans of having small fuzzy critters scrambling over our bodies while we sleep.

There's a GRAND new invention called the Privacy Pop!  Here it is--

It's come down to $129, which is closer, but still out of reach of the rest of us.
The rest of us can handle plopping $18 for a "pop-up changing privacy shower tent" on ebay, especially when the need is urgent, as a sojourn in a rat-, black widow spider-, scorpion- and ant- infested place looms in our immediate future.
Like this-- (not the exact one I got)


This kind has a built-in ceiling and an open floor.
Perfect!

I stitched a piece of salvaged screen into a square frame of fabric, and stitched that to the bottom.

This is not the best looking job, I know it!  But you should have seen me trying to wrestle this giant spring-steel framed thing around under the sewing machine!  One of the steel springs has to go UNDER the presser foot and then a child has to hold up the rest of the contraption while I stitch.



"If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid."
 

And it worked GREAT.  Because I went by car and there was extra room, I hauled along my featherbed-- yes, someone gave me an old-fashioned featherbed, that's feathers in a bag that you sleep ON, or rather among; and if you've never experienced this bliss, I can only recommend you listen to a song by John Denver-- so each night, I popped up my tent, shook out my featherbed very, very well to evict any rattlesnakes that might have gotten in there, crammed it inside the tent, climbed in and zipped up that zipper and zipped the world OUT.



View from the inside.

While I was sleeping peacefully, the contents of my backpack weren't so lucky.  The mice got in there and had lunch.



Didn't discover this until I got back home. 
EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Art for My Bare Walls

I had wanted one of these Vibrant series of jigsaw puzzles when I saw them in the store.  So many lovely designs, but Mt Shasta was my favorite.  No money for that sort of thing. Then I was walking by a garage sale and picked this one up for 50c!





Starts off easy enough, but later bogs down in a purple slough of confusion.



I had this puzzle to this state once before, then gave up because "I don't have time to do jigsaw puzzles" and scooped it back into the box and donated it to the church garage sale. 
Then I volunteered at the church garage sale and brought Mt Shasta home again. 

With a dedicated place in the living room for a puzzle to be spread out, you'd be surprised how much puzzling gets done while listening to kids or talking on the phone. 

Here it is glued to poster board and up on my wall, about as close to fine art as I'm gonna get.

 

Then a magnificent idea struck for how to get some more!

In fact, the famous A READING FROM HOMER. 



I snagged the huge "original" size jpg from Wikimedia here,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema,_English_(born_Netherlands)_-_A_Reading_from_Homer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

A little judicious trimming plus a white border in Photoshop make it a suitable rectangle, and I printed it out 12 x 18" at Costco on matte paper for a cost of four bucks.

I just picked that up tonight and I'm delighted with the results.  It's close enough to ART to hang above my cozy little bed.