T Time

Happy T day everyone. I am here with my Tuesday post from New Mexico. Its cold, grey and windy today and between tonight and tomorrow we may get 5 inches of snow. At home it is spring like and warm. I guess I am in the wrong place for spring weather. Usually it is winter like at home and  more spring like here, but I must admit I am having a fantastic time anyhow and it would be fun to see snow here at my friend's house.

(You can see it on the mountains already though)

So yesterday we went to fantastic museum, the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos. Millicent was an heiress who collected some fantastic southwestern items and also was a gal who loved jewelry. She even designed some herself. She lived only into her early 50's and died in in 1953.

Here are a few photos from the museum. Lots more to show you in posts to come.

 Above is some of her jewelry and here is the sketches for some she designed.

 This necklace was huge and looks heavy and the spike pin, it was at least 9 inches long-or more. Not really my personal style but still cool to see.

They also had one of her childhood journals on display.

 And here's one from some of her colored pencil sketches for her version of Hans Christian Andersen's story Little Mermaid. She did these for her sons.

 And how about some clothing she designed with some southwestern jewelry and buttons.  I don't know if this jewelry is her designs or not.

And here is a portrait of her  done by artist Dorothy Berg.

I bet if you are like me, after that little tour you are ready for some T.

Stop by Elizabeth's blog-Altered Book Lover to see what people have been sipping (and eating) lately.

 Look at these artful mugs my friend has. I have been using the quail mug. I really love those guys.

A little hot coco by the fire.

And maybe a small piece of brownie too-though I didn't take a photo of that.

Thanks for visiting. As I am away I might not  get to my computer as regular as usual. so please be patient with me. I will get to everyone's blog to leave comments and to post comments.

Happy end of the month. (Can you believe it is just about March?)

First Light, New Mexico

 Good morning from New Mexico. I woke up early today, mainly because we all went to bed early last night-I fell asleep reading, and also I am probably not quite on Mountain time yet. 

I love the sunrises over the mountains here. The sunsets too. From my bed  and at the window this morning I used my phone and snapped a few first light photos.

 I arrive here Friday night after traveling for over 12 hours. 

 My buddy the plastic alien was waiting for me. I get a kick out of him and finally learned the story that he had been a house gift to my friends. New Mexico is of course a crazy place where supposedly the aliens landed in Roswell back in the late 1940's and there are alien "items" all over the place.

Yesterday we had a low key day. We went out to breakfast, did a little shopping around the plaza, saw a Native American dance performance (photos later as they are on my camera not my phone) and then came home to warm up (it is windy and very cold here). Here's me and my good friend Vicky out at breakfast having our breakfast burritos. (Vicky on the left, me on the right)

I've got half mine left for today which I am very excited about. We are doing a couple of museums today-this is my 4th trip and I haven't ever done either of these. I shall have more to show you another day. Tonight they go to two-step dancing lesson which they do every winter, so I shall get my third lesson-good thing, I can't remember the much from the other 2. :)

Well Emma their dog has come in to greet me for the third time. I think she is telling me it is time to get up and really start my day.

Hope everyone has a great day and new week too.

I'm Just about Ready

 Hi everyone!
Its been another busy day for me.
Today  I'm going to show you  a few more blank and ready to go pages in my travel journal before I start to fill them in.
I put some blank journaling cards into the pocket just in case I want them. If not, they get to go for a little plane trip and then another one back home later before being returned into the stash.

I actually added  2 pockets. You can't have too many pockets.

 And I'd though I'd show you this spread in my journal with the map just in case you aren't  familiar with where New Mexico is.
The 4 is on the page because this is trip #4 for me to Taos. Its gotten to be a February break routine. A good one for sure!

I tired to place the arrow in the general area. of where I will be hanging out.

And I can happily announce that  I'm done with school until March 6 and tomorrow morning I'm off on my way.

😀

I'm taking my laptop so you may hear from me over the week.

 Have a great rest of your week!

Bienvenidos

It all about red over at Art Journal Journey this month thanks to Linda and her great challenge-50 Shades of Red.

I had some stencils out so I did a little playing. And I was stamping on some tissue paper and added a few of those images, so what I had was little Mexican folk art style page. I found the welcome word in a magazine and added that.

This page would work well in my New Mexico journal I am making.

And what do you think of my new art supply cart? 

I love it-even though I haven't filled it yet. And the best part is that it didn't cost me any money. I had some Costco cash and decided to get it for myself last weekend when we went past Costco on the way home from visiting my Mom. 

I had hoped to get filling it up but there seems to be a lot of other things going on this week. I almost wish I was going to be home next week so I could do some cleaning and  organizing. But I think this sounds like a good project for March.

Work has been  busy with too many meetings and a HUGE pile of papers to grade-the worst part is that I did to myself by having all these assignments due and giving the kids tests before break. I made a good dent into them yesterday and hopefully will really get the paper pile down to nothing today. I don't want to wrap this week up and have anything left hanging over my head.

Not much else here so happy hump day everyone.

A Valentine's Day Toast

Happy T day ladies (and gentlemen too). It is Tuesday again, and time to stop by Elizabeth's blog-Altered Book Lover  for a little T day fun.

I have been married to my husband for 28 years, dated him for 7 years before that, and then knew him another year before that. And not once in all those years has the man ever taken me out to dinner on Valentine's Day. 

Now I am NOT complaining. I was just more in shock when he suggested we go out for dinner this year. 

Maybe that heart surgery he had made his heart a little bigger. Ha-ha!

 We decided to go get Mexican food.
We each had a margarita with our dinner.  Actually I think the hubby really wanted to go just for a margarita. No, he didn't  have 2 of them,he was just holding mine for the photo, although maybe if he did have 2, I could have talked him into buying me some flowers or maybe even a  little jewelry. Ha-ha again!

I had a yummy fajita salad. So did he. But since he doesn't like guacamole, I got his.
I love guacamole. 

I still couldn't eat this whole salad. But I still ate too much!
💓💓💓💓💓💓💓
Have a great T day everyone!

More Weekend Chatter

Another weekend is biting the dust for me. I know some people here in the US have tomorrow off for the President's Day holiday, but since next week is our winter school break, we don't have a long weekend this weekend. 4 days and counting!

So today was another gorgeous spring like day. We had all kinds of melt.

I love the reflection of the trees in this little mud puddle in the driveway.

My road is just a GIANT mud puddle. The snow looks sooooo dirty and yuk! Hopefully with the whole week being on the warm side we'll get a lot of melt.

I won't miss all this snow. :)

So I had a long list of things I wanted to do today, one of which was packing for my trip. I had this vision in my mind of my suitcase getting basically organized and together, and I did start working on it, but right now my suitcase is buried under a pile of "things", and its more like a disaster mound on my bedroom floor. :) That's about all that got done on my list, but I did enjoy the nice weather and did a bit of reading of my latest book too.

I've been biology brain geeking out lately.  Awhile back I got my own DNA ethnicity results back. I had some doubts about submitting my DNA, but my curiosity got the better of me, so my hubby gave me the test kit for Christmas.

I had a couple of friends who did theirs and had some real big surprises. 

What I find  amazing is that Ancestry (the test company I used), who really knew nothing about me, sent me these DNA results that matched what I knew about my heritage, with just a couple of surprises. Any doubts I had about how much my DNA could really tell me about my family tree and history were definitely erased. 

What amazed me even more is the list of people they connected me to who have also had their DNA tested and with whom I might be related. Now I haven't really started any genealogical research (but that will be coming), and I haven't contacted these people, but some of the names matched that of my maternal great-grandmother's family. They said a few of these people might be 3rd-4th cousins, and I do plan on finding that out once I get some time to sit down and do the research. There is also someone who they said could be my second cousin-hmmm, that has really peaked my curiosity. There were also a few people with my maiden name that they said were 5th-6th cousins, and even one listed with my married name. I would laugh if one reason I am a kidney match to my husband is that we are distant distant cousins. The scary part, is we both have distant relatives from the same general area in Finland going back past our great grandparents.

I'm sure I'll have more to share with you once I get more into my search.

Now my ethnicity does make sense but has left me with some surprises. I came back almost 60% Scandinavian, which is no surprise since 3 of my grandparents were Swedish immigrants here to the US. And I came back over 30% Eastern European, which also makes biological  sense because my maternal grandmother's family was/is Polish. And then I came back 4% Finnish/Northern Russian which also makes sense because one of my Swedish grandparents family still does live in an area of Finland with lots of Swedish heritaged people. Then there was my 2 % British, which did surprise me, but makes sense because of all the travel that took place between the British Isles, Iceland, and Scandinavia over the last 1000 years. And finally, I came back 2% Eastern European Jewish. Again makes sense with part of the family coming from Poland. But who knew? 

Its really fascinating stuff.

OK, and I'm finally getting to my art for today. Its the inside cover of my travel journal

I'm linking it up to Try It on Tuesday. The  challenge is  Messy, and I think my background collaging could be called that. 

I made it with some images stamped on tissue paper, some die cut sun symbols and a little bit of collaging to finish it off.

Hope you have a great new week. 

Weekend Update

Happy weekend everyone. Today has been a busy Saturday for me. My mom was in the hospital with pneumonia earlier this week, and now she is in rehab, so the hubby and I took the trip down to go visit her. The good new is that she doing really well, and we had a nice little visit. It looks like she is expected to be back home in another day or two.

As we  were walking back to the car, we noticed these turkeys hanging around the front of the building.  This guy decided to walk out in our direction. Maybe to chase us away. :) I don't know, but it was pretty funny to see them in the parking lot where so may people were coming and going. 

It was an absolutely gorgeous and spring like day today. I loved it. After all our snow and cold lately it was about time for some good weather!

I'm almost finished putting my travel journal together. Before the pages get put into the cover, I did a little pre-trip decorating. I got most of this done last Monday when I was home on a snow day, and then I was able to finish it up a couple of evenings after work. I'm hoping tomorrow I can get it put into the cover since next weekend I will be two time zones further west. :)

 I have a magazine about New mexico travel that I brought home after last years trip. In the back was some information pages, and I thought It would be cool to add the fact sheet in, so I cut it out and added it. On the right is a little envelope for any little treasures I pick up.

 Lots of space for collaging, drawing or writing.

 I got inspired to make a couple of pages that were more or less finished too. 

 And on the right I added this clear pouch (the shiny part) that I found in my stash. I think its big enough for a normal sized postcard.

And for a couple of pages I made some writing  squares.

I didn't spend a lot of time painting any of the pages. Just enough to make then a little less white.

I'll have a lot more to show you in future posts I am sure.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Those Eyes

Hi everyone.

Once again it is snowing here tonight. They are saying we might get as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters), but most likely 6-8  inches (15-20 centimeters). AUGH!  I have nothing else to say about that.

Here's another page for Linda's challenge at Art Journal Journey.  I am loving this 50 Shades of Red challenge. 

I really like this rose stencil. This time I layered it with some printed tissue paper.  Plus I sprayed it with some assorted paint/ink sprays, and use some paint on an empty paper tape cardboard  to stamp some painted circles over my page.

I thought I had flattened out the page, but it still has a little warp. I had these square Asian brads in my stash which I added for a little interest.

It been a busy week at work, even though Monday was a snow day. But it is flying by, although tomorrow night, if we have school, is parent open house night, and I guarantee it will slow right down. 

Hope everyone is having a good week so far.

My New Journal

Hi everyone.

Thought today I would show you some photos of the cover of the new journal I've been working on.

Its still pretty plain because I've been trying to decide whether  I should add anything to it. Its going into my suitcase when I travel to New Mexico, and I am thinking it might be better to wait until I come home to "decorate" it.

(I had decided to stay home for my winter vacation and be fiscally responsible. But my friend Vicky, who I go to visit, really wanted me to come out. And truthfully, I really wanted to go out there too. Vicky kept texting me photos with little notes like "Look where I am" and the sky was always blue and the ground snow free in her photos, and I was sitting home on all these snow days, so last week I finally just decided I might as well go.  I'm excited to have something to break up this winter. And just a little over a week before I go. Yahoo!) 

 I had this big sheet of this cool orange textured paper. I used the cardboard off the back of a pad of paper for as my book boards.

 A little too orange, so I rubbed a brown ink pad over it. I love how the impressions from the red-line tape showed through and gave it a striped effect.

 I thought it needed some sheen, so I rubbed a copper ink pad over it. It gives this light shimmer. You can see where the light hits in the photo below how it has this pretty sheen.

 I decided it would be smart to put an elastic on this so it can be held close. On the front I added this cool metal piece. I needed it to be up off the flat surface of the  cover so I can loop my elastic around it.

 Easy enough by putting a couple of washers between it and cover.

Then I created the spine by using some book mending tape that I ordered off of Amazon.  I like this tape because it a flexible cloth type of tape. It bends really well to make the spine and it comes in lots of colors. I have black and brown and I thought brown would look better than black.

 I used a smaller version top permanently hold the elastic on the back. I did have to wrangle the hair elastic from my daughter.  She tried to get me to use a dark blue or a hot pink  one, but even she agreed this one looked the best. I think she just liked the color on this one and hated to give it up.

But like the good person she is, she agreed it was the best color and let me have it.

You can see my pages inside. They weren't attached at this point, but I have since spent my snowy weekend working to make my plain white watercolor pages a little more interesting. Almost done with that part.

You'll just have to wait to see them until some other day.
Glad you stopped by!