Words For Today

One Thing Leads to Another!

You may think this is a very strange journal page. 

 It's been wet and rainy here today and not a good day to finish painting my screen porch floor, which I started yesterday.

But I couldn't anyhow because yesterday when I painted I noticed one board felt rather soggy when I stepped on it. 

"Oh we have some of the flooring left so we'll just cut it out and replace it." Says the husband.

And then he says "Oh no, we have a problem."

We had some rot. Not just in the floor boards themselves but in the plywood underneath. 

Luckily not a lot, but a bit. My screen porch is almost 20 years old now (yikes!) and being an outdoor structure it occasionally, if the rain and the wind are just right,  gets puddles right in this spot.

Luckily the husband is a very talented and handy guy.

He managed to removed flooring and then he realized he needed his circular saw which he had left at his mother's house yesterday. (He had been there with his brother-in-law rebuilding her dock, which had a few issues itself). So that meant we had to take a trip up to her house and back before he could continue.

Luckily we didn't need any plywood or flooring as he had some stashed in his workshop.

Sometimes there are benefits to have slight packrat tendencies.

Maddie was quite curious about the project, but Pete vanished as he didn't like the sounds of the power tools.

Plywood in.

Floor boards in place. Yes, I now have a patch, but  at least I don't have to worry about falling through. One of these years we should replace the whole floor as it has also very  slightly cupped a bit, nothing you notice except when you go to wash the floor, (although  the salesman told us bamboo would be the perfect choice), but then again it's been on for almost 20 years and it is an outdoor porch. 

I can live with a patch.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get home early enough to finish my painting since it is supposed to be the best day for the next few days.

Afterall, (SMILE), summer break officially starts Tuesday afternoon, and I have lots of lounging plans on my porch.

Happy new week everyone.

Weekend Chatter

Happy weekend everyone.

The weekend has arrived after an eventful week for me. The kids wrapped up classes Friday, and a nice sense of decompression has set in. Even though I still have a couple of work days left there isn't a
schedule so now I can truly say I am in wrap up and ready to finish mode for the summer. Year 36 is just about in the books.
Today I THINK I am going to work on painting the floor of my screen porch, which really needs it. It really isn't a huge job especially if I paint half today and half tomorrow because then I won't have to move everything out of the porch but just move things off to one side.
 Let me show you the other half of my ATC journal page in my summer journal.

(The other half is in yesterday's post.)
I am linking up to Halle's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month it is Words to Live By.
And I snapped these garden photos this morning when I got home from my walk.

I am going to have lots of roses very soon.

One of my azaleas is in full bloom.

 The other one isn't as happy and only has a few blooms.

It is time to go do some separating and weeding I think. This cool and wet spring has really made the plants very happy and they are growing like crazy.

My mountain bluets have started to bloom.

 And still only buds on my peony.

This year I tried leaving the fall leaf clutter in my veggie garden. Everything is growing well but I have to admit I am having a hard time with the looks of it. The big plants in the background are some wild milkweed which seeded themselves a few years ago and which I left for the butterflies.

That's all for me today. Have a great weekend!

A Spring Page Today

Happy almost weekend everyone.  

I think I mentioned I was keeping a spring/summer journal. Here's one page of a 2 page spread from that book. I began by making a bunch at ATC's one day. All my ATC's had a spring theme. I didn't make them to trade but to use in my journal spread. I've been playing around with using lots of little items and turning them into a big page. 

After I made my cards I sprayed the page with some green and light blue inks. I also added some bits from a Japanese book and some of this cool wide paper tape.

There's lots of words to live by here so I am going to link up to the Halle's fun challenge at Art Journal Journey

That's all for me today. Hope your day is going well or goes well if it hasn't started yet.

Flowers

Happy Thursday everyone. It's going to be a really wet and cold day here in New Hampshire today. And yesterday was just gorgeous, but that's they way the weather goes I guess. 

I have a page today for Halle's challenge at Art Journal Journey. The challenge is words to live by.

So my calendar journal for this week had this pink and purple background page. I thought about covering it over but I wanted to see if I could do anything with it. I also felt like painting flowers, an abstract take on my irises (OK, very abstract). So I said to myself, just do it.

And so I did. I like it and I don't like it. I haven't made up my mind. But it does work. 

But let's focus on the words for the challenge. They say

we are fearless,

independent,

original

Hope everyone is having a good week. I've been dealing with some major hives for the last couple of weeks and they are now under control (again), so that is making me really happy. Hives are not fun, especially when they are from an overactive immune system, not something I can just stop using or doing. As my doctor said the other day "I just don't know what we are going to do with you." (Hopefully she hasn't totally run out of ideas or I might need a new doctor.)

Thanks for visiting.

A Vintage Page

Hi everyone.  I am back today with a page out of my summer journal.  I wanted to make a journal that was artsy but also recorded my late spring and summer adventures.  I have been doing a lot of gardening lately so I made this page to celebrate the joys of gardening. The open me tag has some notes on the backside. And I gave the page a vintage feel since I think gardening is one of those activities that people have been doing and loving for centuries.

My page is burlap so I began by taking a piece of a dress pattern (which is tissue paper) and attached it to the burlap.  I used some rusty embossing powder to give it a bit of texture, as well as some washi tape bits. Then I added  lots of bits including TH ephemera, a found relative card and the vintage frame.  I also added these cool vintage metal butterflies from Finnebar as well as some of these cool cloth flowers which feel (to me) like they came off a vintage quilt.

And I am joining up to Astrid's challenge at A Vintage Journey. For the Junee challenge, this month she asks that you use tissue paper in your art, and my dress pattern background should work for that.

I also want to answer a question that was asked in my T Day post yesterday. Some of you inquired about drinking alcohol on boat. I don't know all the different state rules, but in this area boating is considered a recreational activity and it is legal to drink. However it is illegal to operate if you are over that state's legal limit or are impaired in any way. Somewhat similar to driving a car, but an open container is illegal in a car but not in a boat. Hope that answers the question.

Happy mid-week everyone. 

And thanks so much for stopping by my blog.

It's a Man's World

Happy Tuesday everyone. It is time for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

Aren't you excited?  I am. Our newest challenge is

It's a Man's World.

Think of Father's Day or any guy inspired art.

I made a journal page. I was inspired by an upcoming adventure when I made this one.

I began by washing my page with some very watered down brown acrylic paint, Then I added some scraps of brain paper and a bit of burlap.  I did stain my brown paper with some brown ink and a bit of matte medium with some brown paint in it. Then I added this cowboy photo which came from a catalogue I received in the mail. I also added some copper tape . I stamped some Pony Express postmarks and a bit of a western trim stamp. Then I die cut the cowboy and the frame. After adding those I also added the stars and a couple of rusted embellishment. Lastly I stamped the word cowboy and used  black pen to put in some faux stitching.

I hope to see your masculine art over at Try It On Tuesday.

Thanks for visiting.

T Stands for This and That

Happy T Day everyone. Time to share our drink related photos for T Day, already. 

Hope you'll join us for T over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

Today I just have a little bit of a lot of different things.

I'll start with a drink related tag for Tag Tuesday By the way, beverages is their latest theme.

And a couple of food/drink related posts from this past Sunday when we went out boating.

 My husband with his beer.

And my daughter having a cookie after lunch which the dogs were very interested in.

We were anchored off the beach (which you can see a little bit of in the background) where we spend a very low key afternoon. We had a picnic lunch and then everyone else took a little nap. I stayed awake but lounged in my chair reading.

 And last Friday my remaining juniors in microbiology and I went out for an ice cream. The seniors  were done and were graduating that evening.

Too bad I had to white out their faces (the expressions are half the fun) but I love this photo. We had fun posing for it and having another customer take it for us. These a great group of kids.

The ice cream was good by the way, but I forgot to take a photo.

Friday's the last day of school for the kids.

And I have some new blooms in my garden.

 My first rose of the year.

 My irises are in bloom.

The pink flowers (which some of you asked about before) and my ground phlox.

That's all for me today. 

Have a great T day.

Back on the Water

Happy weekend everyone!

A gorgeous weekend has arrived for me. To start if off, last night I met my husband after work, and we took the boat out for a little cruise. Our first cruise of the season! Hurrah. We call this our shakedown cruise to be sure everything is running properly.

Which everything was, running properly that is.

Here's some random views, in no particular order. The captions may or maynot mean anything to you, but I decided to add them in.

 The old bridge support and a bit of the new as we cross under the Route 16 bridge (The General Sullivan).

And here's a good span of the bridge, but not quite all of the structure. They have been rebuilding this to accommodate the traffic for over 10 years now.  They keep running out of cash. But finally they opened up a third lane northbound which is now saving me a good 15-30 minutes on my commute home as I am not sitting in traffic any more. Hurrah for that!

 As we passed Portsmouth. the ship was tied up to the commercial docks. 

 Passing through Little Harbor.

 The I95 bridge. On the left is New Hampshire on the right is Maine.

 Far off view of the Isles of Shoals, 6 miles off shore. It was a really clear evening. and I was using my zoom.

 Lobster boat on Sagamore Creek.

 A nice evening to relax on the New Castle jetty.

 Looking back at the old part of Portsmouth.

 Canada geese in flight.

 I believe these are Eider ducks. They were a ways off and I had to crop down the photo.

 The commercial fleet in port.

 A visiter on someone's dock. 

 Some graffiti under a bridge in Portsmouth. I wonder if any of my students had been out spray painting this.

 Smokestacks on a large cable laying ship in port in Portsmouth.

 My favorite harbor birds are the terns. I love watching them dive and soar. They are scrappy little things, rather like me I think.  ( I have a wicked sarcastic side which comes out occasionally, especially when having fun with the kids at school.)

Here's a close up.

 Tugs at the docks.

 A cute little little island house, right off the shore. The old owners used to have this metal hippo statue they put in the water and which you could really see at low tide. But they have moved and the hippo is gone.  I must say we miss it.

 Part of the old Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, now a state park.  back when we were an English colony one of the British governors lives here.

And a view back towards Portsmouth as we move out of the harbor channel. The tall structure towards the right is the support post from one of the other bridges. We have to pass under a minimum of 4 (depending which direction we go) to reach the actual ocea. 

So today my daughter is heading home and tomorrow we're all going back out in the boat again. Even she is having boating fever this year. 

Hope you're having  a wonderful weekend also.

Friends

Happy Friday! The beautiful weather is back and is supposed to last through the weekend, or at least that's what they say. 

The sunshine may not be the most conducive for art, but it is certainly better than more rain since we've had some heavy rain recently. I think all the plants in the gardens will enjoy some sunshine too.

So here is my calendar journal page for this week. 

I covered the page with some Japanese book pages. I don't know what they say as I don't read  Japanese, so if you do, they may be something horrible. But the cover of the book had a happy photo so hopefully not.

I attached 4 pages and then used some very light blue watered down paint to wipe some of the page. Then I stamped the flowers and colored them. I added the TH couple, stamped the quote, and also added this gold paper swan I had in my stash.

So I am linking up to a couple of challenges. First of all I am linking up to the Things With Wings challenge at Moo Mania since the gold swan may not be flying but does have wings. 

And then I am also linking up to Halle's Word's to Live By at Art Journal Journey.

Last night I planned on some art time, but it was such  nice evening when I got home that I decided to enjoy my screen porch. I finally got that set up the other day. It took me long enough this year.

The hammock was so comfortable that before I knew it it was almost 7 pm. This photo is not the most flattering for my legs, is it? (smile)

Happy almost weekend!