September's Reading

   Hi  everyone   It’s time for my monthly reading post.  I knew  this past month wouldn’t be a book heavy one because we were away for 11 days.   Even though I do read while traveling, one of my prime reading times (right before bed) doesn’t always happen because I’m often exhausted from a busy sightseeing, walking and even car riding day.  🥱

 This past month there were a few mysteries and one  excellent biography  for a total of 6 books. That's still a lot, but compared to last month's reading (which was even a lot for me), I only read half of what I did in August.  I'm not complaining, only stating, when I write that though, and keep in mind most of these mysteries are fast and not overly long reads. 

   I started off September with this biography of  Christiane DesRoches-Nobelcourt  by Lynne Olson. I had never heard of this woman, but her story (in the book blurb) sounded fascinating. Plus this book had really good reviews.  It only took a little bit of pre-reading research to learn Desroches-Nobelcourt was born in 1913, and instead of following the path many woman of her generation took, she became an Egyptologist. She published many books and worked closely with the Egyptian government to save many ancient treasures when the Aswan Dam was built in the early 1960's. This dam would have flooded some ancient sites when it was completed.

   Christiane was born into a family who believed in women's education, and after she finished her  basic education, instead of them trying to marry her off, they sent her off for more education. They thought she might study something more traditional, but she wanted to become an Egyptologist. Since they were residents of Paris, she actually went to study at the Louvre as well as other places in the city.

    Her time at the Louvre was important because Christiane met her mentor, and eventually she even had a chance to go on an archaeological dig. It was a man's world, and sometimes she worked with men who thought she belonged at home with a husband and babies. However, she persevered and eventually was an important part of the Egyptian exhibit staff at the Louvre.

   This woman's life could be an entire post, so let me go back to the book. I loved how the author, Lynne Olson, wrote not only about the events in Christiane's life, but also about particular historic events that  formed the back drops. I learned a lot about archaeology and  the study of Ancient Egyptian sites. I also learned about what happened at the Louvre during the Second World War. Christiane was part of the museum's underground shuffling of precious artwork away from Paris as the Nazi's approached the city. She also worked for the Free French Underground.  And when Egypt became a free nation instead of a colony, (also described in the book), they took over running their own archaeological excavations. However, the Egyptian government wanted someone to help them set  up this governmental department so it would be successful, and Christiane's name was at the top of the list. One thing this woman was as good at was respecting all people and also helping as many as she could.  

   

   I very much enjoyed this book right from the start. I liked learning about someone new and how so many people all over the world were also drawn to saving the temples because of her work.  This was not a difficult or drawn out read as Olson is an excellent author, and she sets the stage for Christiane's life exceptionally well.  Since Christiane had a very long life, living  until she was 97, there were a lot of stages to set.  I only touched the surface in this review. This book covered them all and was an interesting and well done biography.

  My only  listen for September was this stand alone mystery, The Murder Stone, by Charles Todd. It wasn't a long book (about 12 hours), but with my trip and other things going on I didn't have  a lot of long periods of listening time.  It  took me  a while to get through it, but only because of the time issue. It was a good historical mystery, and I enjoyed it. 

  I've read some Charles Todd books  in the Ian Rutledge series. Those books are set in the aftermath of World War One, and this stand alone book, begins in 1916 during that war.  The other interesting thing I learned while double checking the name of the Ian Rutledge series (it's been a while since I read any) is that Charles Todd is actually 2 people and a pseudonym too. Charles Todd  was actually a mother and son writing team. They professionally went by Charles and Caroline Todd, although the books are only under Charles name. Their actual names were Carolyn and David Watjen.  Besides some stand-alone novels and the Ian Rutledge series, they also write/wrote a series about a British nurse in the same World War One and aftermath time period.

   This book takes place on an estate in the Exe Valley of England.  Francesca is a young woman whose grandfather has just died, leaving her the only one left in the family. Not only had her parents and her father's siblings already died, but so had Francesca's 5 male cousins who were all killed in the war. 

   At the reading of the will, Francesca finds that not only is the Exe Valley estate left to her, but so are 2 other properties elsewhere in England she knows nothing about. There's also a strange codicil to the will that asks her to move a stone that  is in the estate's  garden called the Murder Stone. Her grandfather wants her to dig it up and move it to Scotland.

    Besides these questions, some strangers begin show up at the house, including a man who claims that  Francesca's grandfather murdered his mother and a woman who claims she was Francesca's nanny. Things also start to happen like people found searching inside Francesca's home and a shed on the property being burned by an arson.  Plus there are lots of images reminding you that World War I is still going on like a dirigible bombing of London and the authorities believing there is a deserter in the area.

   As I mentioned earlier in this review, I enjoyed this book. The authors created a suspenseful atmosphere, interesting characters and definitely the feel of 1916. This book doesn't move slowly, and it doesn't move quickly. However, the pace seems perfect for the setting’s decade making me, as the reader, feel like I am back in that time period. However, it does take a while for the book to  turn from lots of suspense to where all the side events come together. There are a few twists too with one that was not only a bit predictable but expected (and a bit of a let down in some ways). I  liked that Francesca is not  a sissy, having grown up with 5 male cousins. Then this story starts to question who those cousins and even who Francesca  actually are.  I don't want to spoil it for you should you ever read this mystery, so I'm going to be a meany and stop  discussing this book now. 😈  I do recommend it if you like a historical mystery with lots of suspense, although the ending, which was not a let down, was also a bit of a predictable twist. 

    This next book,  the 1990 G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton, was a fast read.  This is book 7 in the 25 book series, and so far, is my favorite of the  series.

    Back in book E is for Evidence, Kinsey Millhone's garage apartment was blown up. This book starts on her birthday when her landlord Henry hands her a key to her new "redone" garage apartment. This time it has a ship's theme and is actually 2 stories with a bedroom loft. She doesn't get much time to enjoy it though, because she's hired by a woman to head out to the California desert. The woman hasn't been able to track down her mother, and she asks Kinsey to see if she can find her.  Kinsey heads out to the Salton Sea, finds the mother, but then is in a terrible car accident.

    The accident is even more dramatic because you learn earlier in the book that someone Kinsey helped put in jail has hired a hit man to kill her. It's this man who tries to kill Kinsey by ramming his truck into her VW bug several times. She ends up in a drainage ditch, and with that Kinsey finally takes the threat seriously. She calls the man recommended to be her body guard.  Of course then she does something dumb and heads over to help the woman whose mother she found find her a second time.  The hit man makes his presence known again. This book has lots of suspense because it left me wondering when,where, and how the hit man will make his next move on Kinsey.

   This story then takes a twist as the hit man and the missing mother stories intertwine. I loved how I didn't see even a glimpse of the ending. This book/series has some interesting characters too. Of course, there's another big dramatic conclusion to wrap up the story. This time it's at an airport, but that's all I'm saying. 

   I was excited to see this next book, The Last Tenant,  published because I really enjoy this Icelandic mystery series. It's been a couple of years since the last in this series was published. This is book 6 in the Forbidden Iceland mysteries. Plus this is the first Icelandic mystery I've read this year, and I do enjoy some of these Nordic Noirs.

  This series main character is police detective Elna in the town of Akranes which is north of Reykjavik. Earlier in this series Elna ends up together with one the investigators on her West Iceland CID  team named Saevar, and they now have a young child. In this mystery,  the bones of a woman and an infant are found at a farm that has been abandoned for around 50 years. The jewelry found on the bones of the woman matches that of a woman who went missing a few years earlier. Some of her clothing, like her shoes and jacket, had been found on a beach, and at that time, everyone assumed she committed suicide by drowning. 

  

  The second story that interconnects is that of a young woman named  Karitas who takes a furnished apartment in the basement of the home of an elderly man. She moves in with her young son  Bessi. She also becomes romantically involved with the man who lives next door. He is the same man who was involved with the woman whose body was found on the deserted farm. You later find out that the dead woman also spent some time in this same apartment. 

   I thought this book started off a bit uneventful. Then before I knew it the story had ramped up, and there were suspicions about the man who owned the home where Karitas' apartment was located and also about her boyfriend and his father. The author  added a few other shady characters too. Plus Elna was having suspicions about her husband, not anything to do with the dead girl but about their marriage.  There is then another attempted murder, which made me, as the reader even more suspicious about some of the secondary characters.

   This was an enjoyable read. Aegisdottir created an interesting backstory that linked so many of the characters together in unexpected ways. She ends this story with an unexpected  twist too. She has you,  as the reader, thinking along one line, and then she goes on to show you that you bought into her storyline "hook, line and sinker" as the cliche goes.  Plus I like Elna, the main investigator in this series. I would definitely read this series in order as characters develop and life moves on for each of the main and secondary characters, but it's a very good series if you like Icelandic mysteries.

   

  The Yellow Violet is a 1942 mystery, book 3 in the Pat and Jean Abbott mysteries. Pat and Jean met in book one when Pat went to New Mexico to take an art class. Jean lived there and ran a tourist shop. Pat is actually a detective by trade, and in this book, he is back in his home city of San Francisco. Jean is there also, as these 2  are going to get married. Of course when the event is about to happen, a woman comes into the office needing a detective. Pat (since he's about to be a groom) sends her to an investigator friend of his, and then it is discovered that this detective friend has been murdered. So much for the wedding opening the book. 

   I enjoy Crane’s writing style. Like the last one I read, this story also reads like a vintage movie. The story really focuses on Jean. She gets involved with the mystery of the murdered detective friend as well as with the woman who came to Pat saying the Italian Fascists are out to get her because  her brother signed his inheritance over to them.  This  inheritance is, at the moment, under the control of this woman.  

   If you’re curious about the  Italian fascists, remember this book was published in 1942 right in the depth of Mussolini’s control and the Second World War.  This book is not only a murder mystery, but also has some World War 2 intrigue going on. Plus there's a man in a brown hat following Jean and a Spanish entertainer who escaped from Franco's Spain and who thinks Jean is after the man she loves. (Even though Jean is just patiently waiting for the case to end so she can marry Pat.)

   This was a fun read. I tried to put myself back in the time frame of when this book was published because it was written for 1942 audience. However, in many ways it feels like it could be a more modern story just set in that time period. Even though I couldn't quite be a 1942 reader, I do like this series and the glimpses of life at that time. You don't have to read theses books in order, at least I can say that about these 3 books so far, but things do progress over time.

   I then managed to squeeze in one more book between coming home from my holiday away and the end of the month. I saw this on one of Shari's book lists as she (if I am remembering correctly) had a pre-published copy. This is a NEW Miss Marple book, approved by Christie's family, and written by Lucy Foley. I've read a couple of Foley's thriller books, and of course I read quite a bit of Christie, so I was looking forward to this new mystery.  I suspected it would be a good story since Foley wrote it, but would it measure up to Christie's Miss Marple?

  This story takes place in 1950 at a Swiss ski resort. The only way to get to the resort is to take a cog-railway up to it. In typical Foley style, there are several characters and the chapters jump around them. Some of these  characters are a woman who is a Hollywood starlet, a young woman married to a British MP, the MP's war friend, a  police inspector who happens to be at the resort, and Diana Glass who the assistant to Mrs. Bantry, a wealthy widow taking this trip. Mrs. Bantry is also with Miss Marple.  The interesting thing I learned while reading this book is that Mrs. Bantry mentions how Miss Marple figured out who killed the body that was found in her library. It's been years since I've read Murder in the Library by Christie, but it's now moved quite high on my list to reread.

   Once I got reading I found this book hard to put down, which is why you see it here in my September list and not next month's list. I even stayed up quite late to finish it one night. All of these characters (other than Miss Marple that is) leave you wondering what they had to do with the murder that happens right at the beginning of the story. Foley does a great job combining her thriller writing skills with the classic Christie mystery style. As a heads up, you don't see a lot of Miss Marple at first, but by the second half of the book she runs the show. I hope the author has more Miss Marple stories in the future, because I would love to read more of them. 

   I very much enjoyed this book with all its twists, turns and surprises. (And there were quite a few of them.) On top of that, it was good to see Miss Marple back again in some new fiction.

   Right now I'm busy reading my way into early October. Happy October reading  (even if you are just a blog reader) to you. 

  

  

Friday Faces, Friday Lunch Break and Second on the Second

   Hi everyone. Friday has rolled around already, and it's a busy posting one. Today is October 2 which means it's time to repost some second looks for Second on the Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.  Today I also have faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off and  a post Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

  

  This post has some previously published art that has lots of faces.  All my journal pages are from 2  posts back in October 2022.  It's hard to believe that 2022 was already 4 years ago as in many ways I feel like I just made these journal pages. Time just goes way too fast.

   First of all, seeing it's now October, I feel like I can share some Halloween art. 👱👿👹😱 This paper art is not as exciting as Nicole's skeletons,cauldrons and witch shoes, but I still like vintage Halloween and how these pages came out. You can find the link here for these relooks: October 27, 2022.

    And if Halloween is not your thing, here's a glimpse of another October 2022 post : October 29, 2022. This time it's some trip journal page from a US National Park trip we took in September of that year.

    I'm not sure painting stalactites and stalagmites is something I really (and still don't) know how to do, but these don't look too bad in an abstract form. Smile. I hope everyone has had a great start to the new month, and that you also have a super Friday and start to your weekend. 

Happy October

  Hi everyone. Happy new month to you. Holy cow it's October already! That means it's time for a new challenge over at Art Journal Journey.

    First I want to once again say  "thank you" to Sharon who was our September host over at AJJ. I also want to thank everyone who joined in also. September was a cool and crisp autumn like month in my area, so the Hello Autumn theme was perfect.

   This month I want to welcome my talented blog friend and co-admin Mia as host. You probably know her from her blog Craftartista. I just love the idea of her theme this upcoming month which is:

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

    Mia talks about autumn in her AJJ write up. In some places autumn is a bit different from the traditional turning leaves and cooler days and nights. I was thinking of that when I made this page. I was also thinking about how, once the weather cools off, I often do some nostalgic looking  back to summer. Autumn sometimes makes me feel  bittersweet, about summer and about other moments in my life. 

   To make my page I used some printed paper pieces to cover up the watercolor paper base. Then I used the same Ciao Bella junk journal image book you saw frequently back on my summer journal pages in August. I cut out the beach scene and also the man standing on the bottom left. I think he is like me, looking back on summer and feeling sentimental, remembering wearing his swimsuit and seeing this beautiful woman on the boardwalk.

   To bring in an autumn theme I fussy cut all the sunflowers, and to make them a bit more autumn added some flat orange beads to their centers. I also used a 49 and Market worn looking paper frame. The quote is stamped on a piece of blue paper, and I thought it also worked for my sentimental fall look back.

  Let me remind you of our dreaded rules at AJJ. Please, we only accept art journaling, of any kind. We do not accept cards, tags, ATC's and other art forms.  And let me also remind you that you need to link up through a blog post as not all of us admins have every type of social media there is. If you do link up we cannot necessarily comment on your post.

  Saying that, I hope you are excited about it being a Beautiful World, and you'll join Mia with some journaling this month. 

   

Wrapping Up AJJ for September

     Hi everyone. Happy end of September. I know I went away for a week and a half which definitely threw me off, but this month seemed to be the fastest month of 2026 yet.

     In this post I want to share my final page for Sharon's Hello Autumn challenge at Art Journal Journey. I also want to say "Thank you" to Sharon for hosting and say "Thank you" everyone who joined in. I don't know about you, but autumn is definitely one of my favorite journaling themes.

   My page today started with me cleaning  my brush and using up some left over yellow paint. On top of the yellow I splattered some green and brown watercolor paint. Then I used a leaf stamp from a  Creative Expression autumn set. I stamped it several times in a light olive green and several times in orange.

   I then added a piece of scrap paper to the side of my page. I die cut the bare tree (Impression Obsession)  and used a chipboard kitty that I had inked black. To complete my page, I used an old Postmodern design alphabet stamp and then a quote from the same stamp set as the leaves. 

   And that's it. Have a super last day of the month, and  I hope that you'll check back in on the first to see who is our next host and what our new Art Journal Journey challenge will be. 

Time for a New Challenge

    Hi everyone. It's Tuesday so that means it is once again time for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

    Thank you to everyone who joined our Pretty Paper challenge.  I loved seeing all the petty papers, and even better, all the things that can be done with it. ❤

      Our new challenge is one for the season here in the Northern Hemisphere. This time we're looking for art that showcases Autumn's Beauty.  I have a  collaged journal page to share.

   I started this page by using up some paper scraps to make my background. I like how some of the scraps were autumn papers. I also splattered some orange, brown and yellow watercolors over the background. 

   I knew I wanted to use this cute little mouse as the focal point of my page (just please stay outside eating acorns and keep out of my house). 😉   I had 3 left over die-cut leaves on my work table that I added first, and then I glued down the mouse. My page still needed something more so I used a bunch of assorted autumn stickers that I've had for too long. I also used a scrap of copper metallic paper trim that was sitting on my work table to ground my page.  Finally I added the quote (Unity Rubber Stamps) which is one of  my favorites for this season. 

   Be sure to check out the design teams art too. As always, you have 2 weeks to join this challenge. And we accept any art as long as it meets the challenge's theme.

 This is also my penultimate page for Sharon's Hello Autumn challenge at Art Journal Journey That challenge ends tomorrow so if you're going to link up a journal page, you need to do that ASAP.👍

   I look forward to seeing your autumn inspired art. 

T Stands for I'm Home Again

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Happy last few days of September to you also. And for everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog, Happy T day.

  I'm slowly getting back into blogging mode and getting around to people's latest posts. You might have noticed that I've been away from the blogosphere for the last 11 days. The hubby, the dogs and myself went on a road trip.  Now I'm home after our  adventures in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and even (although not originally planned) New Brunswick. ❤ 

   I haven’t yet had time to go really through my photos so this post is more of an overview. Ha ha. Whether you like it or not there will be more photos to come  😉 Grin.

  For those of  you who aren't familiar with the area I traveled in, here's a map for you. I'll explain below  the general gist of my travels. 

  On the first day of our trip we drove to Bar Harbor, Maine (about a 4.5 hour drive from home) and caught the ferry over to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. That ferry trip took around 3.5 hours. Here's a photo I snapped of the image on my phone using the Apple maps app. I took this while we were in transit, and you can see the blue dot where the ferry was at that point.

   It wasn't the most scenic ferry ride because  other than in Bar Harbor when the ferry left (in the first photo below)

we had mostly fog the rest of the way.

   You might remember that last year we went to Nova Scotia. When  we went in 2025  we didn't get to do a few things we would have liked to have done. One of those things was exploring the south (Atlantic side) shore, so we spent the first 3 days of our journey doing that. During this leg of the trip we meandered from Yarmouth up to Halifax. 

  For the next leg of our trip  we drove from Nova Scotia into New Brunswick and then over the 8 mile/  12. 8 km Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island. 

   We hadn't been to Prince Edward Island (PEI) before, so we spent much of the rest of our travels exploring the island. From there we were supposed to  go back to Nova Scotia to do a few things on the Bay of Fundy shore and then to catch the ferry back to Maine  to head home.

   No trip is without a snafu or two, right? 😒 One of ours was a major Nor-easter storm that moved north up the US coast and was due to move into the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia area.  Because of this weather forecast the ferry sent out an advisory that it  might not be running to bring us back on our scheduled day. 

  At this point we looked at our options and decided it was easier for us to drive directly home from PEI, a 9 hour trip, rather than to drive south along the Bay of Fundy to Yarmouth for the ferry, a 6 hour drive. If we did drive to Yarmouth and couldn't take the ferry due to the weather, we would have had to drive the 6 hours back to be almost in PEI again and then also drive the 9 hours home.   Even though the storm was still a few days off, we decided to cancel the ferry trip back to Maine and also our other Nova Scotia stays. We now had new plans to drive home from PEI.

  This was the message about the ferry posted on Friday morning while we were still on PEI.

   After reading this we were glad we had adjusted our plans.  We booked a hotel in New Brunswick to break up our drive, and to get home we drove down through New Brunswick and back  into Maine before reaching New Hampshire.  Although not what we planned, it worked out just fine. 👍

    The other snafu was that my husband's car, which we were in, started to make a bit of a chugging noise. That noise  only got worse as a couple of days went on. His car ended up in the Subaru dealership in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for some work. We decided to rent  a car while his was being fixed. Although it was a definite inconvenience at the time, at least we could continue our adventures on Prince Edward Island. And it was definitely better to get it fixed than be stuck someplace. 👍👍

   Here's my hubby waving from our rental VW at Seacow Lighthouse on PEI. 

  Other than those few snafus, we had a super trip.We saw some beautiful scenery, ate some delicious food, learned some new things, saw some art, saw lots of local culture, enjoy some gorgeous sunrises and even some more spectacular sunsets, well...basically we had a wonderful time.😊

  More about all that to come.

  It is the start of a new week, and time for T Day. Just like Dunkin' (Donuts) is practically in every town in the area where I live, (and as some of you already know) when you go to Canada there seems to be Tim Horton's all over the place. We stopped once for a breakfast treat, and when we did, I got a cup tea, as you can see in this next photo. It's my ticket for T Day this week.

   Being  a Harry Potter fan, Tim Horton's was running a Harry Potter donut special, so of course I had to see what that was all about. We bought a 6 donut box and enjoyed a couple of days of morning treats.👍

   OK, that's enough of me babbling. Wishing everyone one a wonderful T day and week ahead. 

 

One Last Post Before I'm Off

      Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. Today I have a short post with a bit of art.

    I wanted to share this page for Sharon's Hello Autumn challenge over at Art Journal Journey since by the time I get home, it will be close to the end of the month. I was inspired by the fact that the days get cooler in autumn so instead of having some screen porch hammock time I tend to move inside. This is especially true after a day raking,  cleaning up the gardens or even going for a nice long walk. 

   My background is made with some watered down watercolor paint as well as a brown ink pad. I love the texture  I ended up with and even how there's white spaces.  All of the images are from either a couple of 49 and Market punch-out sets or from some Ciao Bella paper. I did draw in the yellow floor around the chair and the dog, and I stamped a quote from an old Hero Arts card sayings set. I also colored the lights yellow and added some color to the sunflowers at the bottom left.

   If you look carefully this page has many things I love on it. There's autumn leaves, pumpkins and flowers, books, dogs (even though I've never had a Golden Retriever) , cuddly blankets, a comfy chair and even a cup of hot cocoa or tea. It's a perfect autumn later afternoon scene to me. ❤

    I also have another  tag that I made for Lynn's Circles challenge at Tag Along (and ATC's too). It was such fun to play with some of those old circle stamps I haven't used for quite a while.

   This time I started with an oversized black tag. I had at one point cleaned off a stencil in the middle top, and you can see the white fuzzy background underneath my quote. I tried to cover it up as much as possible with my design, and although not perfectly covered, it did make a good place to put my quote.

   I used white pigment ink and a Darkroom Door circle background stamp. Then I took some leaves off a 12x12 chipboard sheet (by Mintay) and punched out the leaves. I inked them with orange, yellow and light green ink. Then I attached them to my tag, leaving room at the top for a cut apart quote (an oldie from Inkadinkadoo).   I added a few little confetti circles, and to cover up a messy edge at the bottom, I used a scrap of orange colored paper as well as a strip of scrap corrugated paper. 

  That's all for me today.  I'll "see" you when I get home from Canada so have a super next week and a half.

   

Time for a New Challenge

   Hi everyone.  Its Tuesday so that means it's time for a new challenge over at  Try It On Tuesday.

   First let me thank everyone who joined our Emboss It challenge. I can tell people like to emboss because there were so many great link ups. ❤

   Our newest challenge will also be fun because this time our challenge is all about Pretty Papers. 

    

    I used 4 sheets of paper to make my art journal page. I started with a very old sheet of green paper that I used as my background. Then I took 3 sheets from an autumn 8x8 package of paper from Creative Expressions. The designs on these sheets were beautiful so I did a lot of fussy cutting and arranging to make my page.

   The second sheet had the bottom bird, flowers and the music on it. Except for trimming off about an inch on one side, I attached that page directly down on the green background. Then I cut out the top bird and the flowers on the right hand side of the page from another sheet of paper. Once they were glued down and dried, I trimmed out that section with  some copper metallic paper trim, and along the top and bottom, right under the trim, I added a scrap pieces of blue paper to finish off the border.

   The page looked almost finished, but I needed something along the left edge.

   I inked the edges of the green background paper. It still didn't look quite finished to me, so I took my last sheet of paper and fussy cut some leaves from it. I attached those to the bottom left corner and part of a single leaf to the top right corner. Finally to actually finish my page, I added the gold paper sun and my quote.

   Don't forget to check out the other pretty paper art on my team mates blogs too. And as always, you have 2 weeks or join us with your art. Any art is accepted as long as it fits our challenge.

   I am also linking a up to Sharon's Hello Autumn challenge over at Art Journal Journey. Please remember at AJJ we only accept any type of art journaling but not cards, tags, ATC's etc. 

   I'm looking forward to seeing your pretty paper projects. I hope you'll join us. 

T Stands for the Final Summer Play and Then Some

    Hi everyone. Happy Monday and happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  for our weekly T Day meet up.

     So what's new with me? Last week I continued with physical therapy and had something called Dry Needling done on my shoulder.  It's kind of like acupuncture but they also use a light electric current while doing it. It's supposed to be very good at breaking up knots in your muscles, and I have to say even though I was sore for about 24 hours afterwards, it has made my shoulder feel fantastic. 👍

    Otherwise I also went walking a couple of times and did some basement cleaning. The basement cleaning isn't very exciting except that I was able to get the new shelves my husband built (and that I mentioned last T day) organized. Now I can actually find things on the old shelves where everything had been crammed in and on the new shelves too. 😊 Those new shelves are actually pretty organized. 

     I also have a honey update. Thanks for all your comments on my Sunday honey post. I had read that since honey is more dense than honeycomb, if you let the comb sit for the honey to drip out, eventually the comb will rise up and  end up floating on the honey. That makes for easy removal. Well low and behold, it is doing that. 😊

      How cool is that? I'm sure by the time I come home from my road trip the comb and the honey should be completely separated.  👍

     A couple of weeks ago,  three of my friends and I had tickets for a play at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit. Maine. It was our final play of a 3 show season pass we had bought back in the winter. This time the play was a  comedy called (as you can see in the first photo) The Producers. Since it was written by Mel Brooks (of Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles fame  as well as some other screwball comedy films you might be familiar with), it was full of laughs and crazy situations. That made it a fun production.  (And I think, although I have never seen it, this play is also a movie.)

   I'd actually seen this play maybe 20-25 years ago in Boston, but all I remembered was the crazy Springtime for Hitler in Germany part and laughing A LOT. The story of this play if you're not familiar with it is that a Broadway producer is told that if he puts on a flop he'll end up having more money and have to pay less taxes than if he produces a successful play. He joins up with his accountant, and they set out to make the worst play possible.

   That play is written by a former Nazi who is sad that the Nazi's didn't win the war, and the play is called Spingtime for Hitler in Germany. Even though everything sounds like it should be a one night bust, the play ends up being a hit.

   Again, no photos are allowed during the production, so here's a few  shots from the Playhouse's website.

  Since it's T day, I need to share a drink. Here's my glass of wine in my cup that I bought at the first show this season. If you save and bring back your cup, you don't have  to pay for another cup next time you are there. After this show I tucked my cup away in a cabinet for next year, because hopefully they'll be doing some good shows, and we'll be getting tickets again. 

   That's it for me this week. I'll also mention I won't be joining in for T next week as my husband, the dogs and myself will be on a road trip to Canada. We're heading back to Nova Scotia  for a few days and then we're driving to Prince Edward Island which will be a new province for us.  Since I'm not sure how my internet will be (and also how busy we might be), I might stop by blogs and I might not.

   Have a super T day and the next couple of weeks ahead everyone. 

The Art of Honey Collecting

   Hi everyone. I hope you've  having a nice weekend.  

   I'll also be joining Nicole for Sunday in the Art Room  and Gillena's for Sunday Smiles 

   The past week I had the first time experience of collecting honey from one of my bee hives.* I call it an experience because I learned a lot, and the biggest thing I learned was that I didn't really know much about collecting it. 😉 Grin.

   (*For those of you who haven't been reading my blog for awhile: I have 2 hives. The one that I started this year is keeping all its honey because basically this hive had to start from scratch this past May. The hive I'm collecting honey from is the one that is now just under 1 1/2 years old.)

   First I needed to get the honey super with the honey in it off of the hive. Our winters here in New Hampshire are too cold to leave  the third box on for the bees to enjoy the honey, even though they would probably love to have that honey to eat.  Because of the cold you really can't have more than 2 boxes on the hive during the winter. Bees need to be able to heat the inner hive by wiggling their bodies even on the coldest days, and the more space (3 boxes instead of 2), the more heat they need to make to keep the whole hive warm. 

   I'm also a little late getting the honey super off mainly because of my shoulder issue.  You can see the honey super in the photo below. Before I lifted the box, I took out the 2 empty frames on the bottom. I think this box weighed somewhere between 40-50 pounds (18- 23 kg), and being short with a rotator cuff issue meant I basically lifted and then let gravity help me bring it down onto the ground. The box was heavy, and I didn't want to injure my shoulder any more either.

     You might also remember that I left out a couple of frames last spring because the bees had already started to build honeycomb upward  when I went to put the super on. Isn't that a cool pattern they made? You can actually see the honey there too.

    It ended up not being a honey collecting issue though as you'll read further on in this post.

   And you can also see the honey on this one side of this frame. All the frames I left in the have  honey like this on both sides.

   There was no way I could carry this box very far, so I put the honey frames into a couple of garbage bags and then brought those  bags into my basement. It's cold enough in my basement and obviously not full of sugar loving insects so it was a good place to store the frames for a few days.

    I finally got my honey spinner  assembled so then I was ready to spin out the honey. (And please ignore the mess on the shelves of my laundry area. Eeek. Another day I did get them cleaned out now that I have some new basement shelves, but that was after my honey collecting adventure.)

    

    I now learned the most about collecting honey.  The biggest thing, and the most important when spinning it, is that you want the honey to be warm. OK, so I messed that one up having kept the honey frames in my nice cool basement. But I couldn't put them outside either, which I'll explain in the next paragraph. 

   The other thing I learned is that it would have been nice to do this in an area where I could have put a table. That is because you need to slice off the beeswax that is over the honey, so when you spin it the honey can come out.  I could have put a table outside, and I could have spun it outside, but then the smell would have attracted all kinds of 6 legged and potentially hungry visitors. 😩 This year spinning would be in the basement. With cold honey.  😰🍯

   Or I should say this year spinning would  collect hardly any of the cold honey. The honey was too viscous to come off the frames. It ended up being better to slice off the comb and  then put those slices into some large plastic food storage containers. Then, to warm up the honey, I put those food storage containers  on my kitchen counter near the sunny window. The warmth made the honey drip out of the comb. 

   I have 3 containers like this one. And it's a slow process. This could take up to 2 or 3 weeks for all the honey to drip out. Part of the slowness is that honey only  drips when it's warm, and at this time of year, other than for part of the day when my kitchen counter gets the light from the window, it isn't exactly hot. That's OK though since it's not like I must have the honey right this second. Besides, I'm also leaving later this week for an 11 day road trip, so I wouldn't even be home for it anyhow.

  I also have a few ideas  for keeping the honey warm too, but since I have yet to try them, I'll keep my ideas for another post.

   After that dripping finishes, I'll need to filter the honey before it is ready to use.  If I could have spun it out, I could have filtered it quicker and it probably would have needed less filtering.  I should also add, I did get some honey in the spinner, but that may end up being just a few spoonfuls.🥄

   This process left me with some still sticky hive frames. I could have washed them with soap and water right away, but I decided to give the residual honey back to the various bees. I took the frames and put them outside, leaning them up against a garden wall.

  And you can see the honey bees  and others really enjoyed the treat. ❤

  I'll have more of this adventure to share with you once the honey has dripped and I go to filter it.

  Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week also.