Good Riddance 2021

I loved the potato-toed shoes and for some reason they popped into my head today.  

A bit of this and that at Christmas

No prompt - This one was a few days in the making.  Finally finished it on the morning we are heading home.  

I wish I would have been more thoughtful when I glued down the gift wrap trees.  Oh well, it doesn’t really matter, I really just wanted to fill up the page.  

I can’t recall the last time we played Monopoly; my husband gave it to our granddaughter as a gift.  I don’t I have ever read the actual rules or how-to play but we did this time to familiarise ourselves.  

I had no idea that there were hair cutting videos on line.  I have never heard of a “flow bee”!  It was very entertaining to me although my daughter found that she learned something new! 

Backyard Fire Pot

When the lockdown started last year, my daughter bought this drum like gizmo as a fire pot.  They have a cement patio in their backyard so the fire pot is safe.  Yesterday the weather was relatively warm (2C) so it was good to hang out outside.  It would be great to cook chicken breasts etc on it too!

Christmas Day

I am a very lucky woman and received some awesome gifts this year!  My granddaughter is so thoughtful and made me a potpourri jar!  My son-in law gave me the fun journal and coffee, my daughter gave me the new shoes and my hubby gave me the gouache set!  How freaking fabulous are all these?!! They were fun to draw and paint. 

I hope everyone is able to be with their their family and enjoying the day! 

Eventful Day

Yesterday was an eventful day.  I felt so bad for our little Chick-a-dee.  Birds have hit the window before but this is the first to die. 

Our furnace konked out so we woke up to a freezing house at 4 am.  Put wood in the wood furnace and kept the house warm until the repair man came and installed a new part.  Furnace is back on and heating up the house! 

Packed the car up, and headed south to be with our family.  They took their “rapid tests” and they were all negative! Yay! So glad our daughter bought some before they were so coveted but they go fast at this time of year. 

I tried rather unsuccessfully to write a haiku! 

Sewing kit

I wanted to be a good girl guide and be prepared “just in case”!  Sometimes our granddaughter wants me to help with some sewing so I gathered up some things to be ready. 

I wanted to keep it small and light so I wound the thread on some cardboard cut outs that looks like the embroidery floss ones I’ve seen by stitchers.  I have black, navy, beige and white.  It took me an age to get them unfolded and now I can’t figure out how to put them back! 

Playing around with money

I followed a Draw with Me -Money with Danny Gregory and Sketchbook School.  

I added a bit of imagination 

It’s a Wrap

No prompt-  Wrapping up the wrap!!! Almost finished Christmas presents wrapping for this year.  I spaced them out over a few days.  

First of all, at first glance, I thought this said, “Oh behave”!  So silly of me.  This bread bag is going to our son-in-law; he makes some delicious loaves in the bread maker they bought during lockdown.  I’m totally thrilled that someone thought to make this useful product and that it is made locally (20 kms south of us)!  I think this is my favourite find for this year!! 

I can’t open this; to chicken to slide the paper sleeve off in case I wouldn’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle. So I just used the same colours and simulated some of the botanical images. 

Perfume

 I think I’ll be wearing this perfume for the next little bit!  I like the Christmas vibe of the bottle, I know it’s mostly about the colour.  I do like the scent of this perfume especially since it is a floral with patchouli! 

What happened?

I’ve seen this red squirrel before and thought that my eyes were mistaken.  I’ve never seen a tail-less squirrel before.  He kept pulling apart the burlap around my fathers birthday present. Then he seemed to disappear for quite some time!  Now he is back and I got a better look at him through the zoom lens of my camera.  It almost looks like the tail simply “fell off”!  Has anyone else seen this?!!?

New Ornament

I bought this cute mouse ornament this year!  It is made of cloth and is quite lightweight.  I prefer lightweight ornaments because we have a real tree and weight goes make a difference.  

I have some cheap tube watercolours that had dried up so I used them here and added some gesso to it to provide a gouache like effect. 

Third shot

Hoping that this latest shot will keep my husband and I safe while we are with our family this Christmas.  We are not going to miss out this year; opening presents via zoom doesn’t cut it.  We aren’t going anywhere without a mask so we are going to restaurants, concerts, Christmas parties or hockey games but I still feel better with the shot. 

I tried to access the provincial booking portal on-line without success as their website crashed.  Even the telephone system was out due to technical difficulties.  It was very frustrating!  Finally….it dawned on me to just go to the tiny “out-of-the-way” pharmacy that I went to for my second shot.  I had to go to town to get my first ever bone density scan so I was thrilled that there was appointment time available in the afternoon. Sweet!! 

Christmas Kettle

No prompt- The Salvation Army is an organization that I have appreciated during my working career.  They always stepped up to help when the city I worked in had few resources (before it grew exponentially).  I think they do good work all year long and deserve our support. 

I was quite surprised when I saw this new addition to their Christmas kettle.  Yes, I tapped before I left the store!! 

Terry’s Chocolate

I really shouldn’t say anything against the colour orange because I do love a sunset and I do love sweet juicy oranges.  This fun confection is perfect; yummy chocolate with the orange flavour.  

Coral colour

No prompt- it is so interesting to me when I realized recently that I really like the colour “coral”.  It goes to show that preferences do in fact shift and that change is so slow that it went unnoticed until I bought the coral coloured Talens sketchbook last week.  I don’t really need a new sketchbook but I “wanted” it.  So, I caved. 

It snowed last night

 We got about 6 inches of fluffy white stuff last night.  I’ve just come in from being outside.  I bet chya can guess what I was doing!!!!(?)

This was my line of sight while drinking my cup(s) of Java this morning! 

It seems I piled the gesso on a little thick over top the charcoal pencil.  Oh well.

Just in case you’re wondering, it’s snowing again. 

Cute label design

What I bought earlier this week.

I didn’t bother adding the name brand, I don’t think it is necessary to document the super cute gimmick. 

Ugh! I don’t like delivering packages

No prompt- Grrrr! Not happy that I’m doing work and not getting paid for it especially since someone else got paid but didn’t do a good job.  I mean really, the app on my phone got me to the right address without issue.  Besides, the package was left out in the rain since we don’t have a covered veranda.  The last time this happened it was a package for the farm next door but still; numbers don’t lie.  Our green number (for 911) is clearly displayed at the end of our laneway, we aren’t #600 and we aren’t on the 7th Line.  Cheez, a multi billion dollar company and they don’t train their employees on how to use technology that would make their jobs more efficient!!!   It is just so annoying!