T Stands for Birthdays andHalloween

Happy T days ladies (and any gentlemen also). It is Tuesday, the last day of October, Halloween and time to celebrate a cup of late autumn cheer.

To join in the fun stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog . You can also see what the T Gang has been up to.

So this past Sunday, the 29th, was my husband's birthday. Monday, the 30th, was my daughter's birthday. My daughter and her beau came out on Saturday afternoon and spent the night so we could have a little birthday celebration. Saturday night we went out for pizza and a beer, but did I remember to take any photos?  Nope. 

So on Sunday, my husband's birthday, we had a big birthday breakfast celebration. We had eggs, bacon, sausage, has browned potatoes and some cinnamon French toast. 

And even though it was his birthday, my husband likes to cook breakfast. So he did.

We were having a big breakfast because my daughter and her beau were heading out around noon since they live a couple hours away.

And did I remember to take any photos of all the finished food?

Nope.

But it did dawn on me just as everyone was getting up from the table.

 You can see my empty plate. I had a slice of cinnamon French toast, a half a sausage, some hashbrowned potatoes and a slice of bacon.

And you can see my last sip of apple cider that I had for a drink. (Nope, not hard apple cider just in case you were wondering.)

It was very good. But at least I don't have to make anyone get hungry looking at thee photos.:)

I almost thought I wouldn't make it to T this week.  We had horrible winds and rain Sunday night as Tropical Storm Philippe came up the east coast. Nothing like the hurricanes in Texas, Florida or Puerto Rico, nor like any of the other big storms that have hit the world recently, but we did lose power and I didn't think it would be back in time. (Seeing when I lose power I usually lose it for a few days, especially when 270,000 people in my state lost power.) But I came home from work today and it was back on. Hurrah for having electricity back.

And since today is Halloween, I have one last Halloween page from my calendar journal to show you.

Have a fun and spooky day everyone.

A Bonus Day

Hi everyone.  It's a dark and soon to be very wet Sunday here. But yesterday it was just beautiful. 

The hubby and I took the dogs and headed to a town near us, Wolfeboro, and walked some of the rail trail.

It's a great walk as it is very flat and has some beautiful views. The part we walked passes 3 lakes: Winnipesaukee, Crescent Lake and also Lake Wentworth. It also follows along the Smith River.

We walked about 3 miles  (4.8 km) round trip, but the trail goes on much further. We needed to go to the grocery store,  and we also wanted to get home not too late as my daughter and her beau were coming for the night. But we also wanted to walk far enough to feel like we had a real walk.

I took several other photos too which I will show you another day, but I wanted to show you another Halloween page from my Halloween art journal. 

Hard to believe this month is almost over.

I must say other than the shortening daylight hours, I am looking forward to November. It's very chopped up at school (I don't have a normal week all month), and it's also a month with one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving.

But I am getting way ahead of myself. Here's a spread in my Halloween journal.

I am linking up at Moo Mania which has a Halloween theme for a few more days.
Hope everyone has had (or is having) a wonderful weekend.

Halloween Circles

Hi everyone. 

There's new challenge at Try It On Tuesday. It's circles.

I like circles. I've made a bunch of spooky circles lately.

Here's a few.

 Most of these started off with me painting some beer coasters I had collected over a few years.

 I added some printed tissue paper and then I decorated that with stickers or die cuts or some of those TH Halloween people or phrases.  I added paint dots and some little toy Halloween items. 

 I punched a hole and added a piece of string.

 And added some dots of paints on some of them.

So that's a lot of Halloween tags. I made about twice as many as I showed you today.

 I will also  link up to Tag Tuesday and their Halloween challenge.

So why so many Halloween circle tag you ask? 

Well, I have this little black Halloween tree. And I have a box with a few Halloween decorations, someplace. I can't find it. I think it probably got put in with Christmas decoration by mistake. One box looks like another when you loading them up into the attic.

But no fear. I can fix that problem.

(And thank you Jeanie for the tag idea to decorate my tree.)

I like my tree better than with the few little ornaments I have. 

Plus it was fun to make them.

Hope you have some fun weekend plans. I am celebrating 2 birthdays, my husband's and my daughter's.

It will be party central here in my house.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

White Crows

Happy Friday everyone.  This is a short post as I'm tired this morning. I got lots of work done at my open house at school last night, manning my room for the tour groups to come through. It was very low key as I didn't need to do anything but be in my room as people wandered through. And I'm counting the hours until the weekend arrives, but it should be a fairly quiet day as I am testing my classes all day.

Of course that means I'll have some new work as I am all caught up for the moment. :) It never ends.

So my art today is my brain on the dark side. Or the nighttime side at least. I created this textured background with some modeling past, printed tissue paper, painted deli wrap, dark paper tape and some watered down down black paint.

So I was going for opposites and made my crows albinos.  Ghost crows if you'd like.

I'm linking up my page to Moo Mania where the theme is Halloween.  I have a couple of more Halloween posts before the spooky season ends early next week so you will most likely see some art over the weekend.

Hope everyone has a great day and a great start to your weekend. 

Autumn Nymph

Hi everyone. It's  another dark and wet morning. Oh I would love to sleep in more today.:) 

Many of you asked yesterday if I really get up at 5:15 AM. And yes, I do. Yawn. I agree. It is too early to roll out of bed at this time of year. I can guarantee you that when I retire-in hopefully  a few years :)  - I will not be getting up quite this early.

Although I must say this morning, as I can barely keep my eyes open, the 2 dogs are all frisky and playing tug of war with a toy. Send me some of your energy please! Ha-ha.

So today I have a journal page for Elke's challenge Landscapes of the Soul over at Art Journal Journey. It's a little bit different kind of page for me. 

I used a Gelli printed background from my stash, and then I painted this face.  I had even painted the hair, but then I found a bag of foam leaves that I had. I decided they would make her more interesting than painted hair. She became the autumn nymph.

And here's the quote.

I have a long work day today since tonight we have open house for the middle school students who will be coming up to our high school next year. It's a pretty low key night as I have my room open for building tour groups to come through and see what we're like. I usually manage to get a bunch of work done in the process, so hopefully I can get myself all caught up. This week I have been cramming to wrap up material before mid-semester exams next week. I am ready for November and some low key weeks.

That's all for me. have a great day.

A Doodle A Day

Busy days at work. I need to be out 2 nights this week too, once for work and once for fun. This month has been keeping me hopping. 

I am still staying with  my daily drawing journal though. It's become a good habit.

I've been trying to draw less per page. To make a bigger object. To focus on something about the day other than all the events or things I did.

Trying to keep it fresh and expand my  drawing ability.

OK, my cartoon doodling. 

I am getting a terrible bulge on the left hand side of my journal. It was suppose to stay flat, but that never seems to happen to me. I don't know what I am doing wrong, maybe I tend to add too many add in on some pages. No issue though. The year is winding down and almost over. It's almost time for a new book. 

To fix the problem, I've taken to drawing on a cut piece of graph paper and then taping it in.

I'm using a little paint now and again too.

And a bit of stamping sometimes.

Thought I would show you something that's not Halloween today.So this is what you get.

Happy hump day. It's a wet and dark one here.

Just hoping it makes the kids a little more mellow at school.:) That they will be half asleep.
They're feeling the stress of the end of the quarter. (For that fact, so am I.  I am ready for exams to be over and a new quarter to begin. No new classes but November gives us all a few more weekly breaks with a couple of holidays and a teacher work day. The general feeling for everyone, kids and adults, is that we can't catch our breath.)

Thanks for visiting.

T Stands for Lunch

Happy T Days ladies. Tuesday is upon us again.  

Time share your drink related posts over at   Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.  Every Tuesday we share a little bit of our worlds and would love you to join in if you haven't yet.

So this past Saturday my daughter and I headed down to Worcester, Massachusetts to visit my mother.  Mom is 88 and lives in an assisted living facility. She is in excellent health and moves like she is a young woman, but she does have major short term memory issues. Her apartment facility is beautiful and she loves it there. We met a lot of her friends when she went down to lunch.

So when my daughter and I left we needed some lunch, even though it was past the lunch hour. My daughter loves eating at Chick-fil-A, and since she was buying, I figured I'd eat wherever she wanted to go. After searching on her phone, she said  "Look Mom, there's one here in Worcester and it's not too far from here." She read off the address on Gold Star Boulevard. 

I knew exactly where it was since I grew up in Worcester.

So we arrive and I pull into the parking lot.  It seemed kind of empty, even if it was later than lunch.

So we got out of the car and were walking in when a man with a real Southern accent  said "Excuse me mam, but we don't open until Thursday."

No wonder why the parking lot was empty.

 I had my daughter take a photo of the sign on the way out. If only we'd read it when we drove in.  I suggested we head out to the end of highway i290 where there is a 99 Restaurant. At least that way we we have made a bit of headway home.

 She agreed. You can see her salmon and salad in the background and my chicken and apple fall salad in foreground. It was delicious, and I swear my salad had enough apple chunks to make 2 full apples.

To drink I had a diet Pepsi. Ever since I've gone back to school I've been drinking way too much soda. (Bad bad habit I need to wean off for sure.)

And I also have another tag to share with you and to link up with Tag Tuesday.

The theme for one more week is Autumn/Halloween.

This one is a little spooky.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Weekend Wind Down

Sitting here relaxing. It's Sunday evening and another weekend is almost over. As usual the weekend flew by, but at least this week at school should be more "normal" since spirit week is over. However it is the last full week before quarter exams which means I need to push those kids so we can finish up the work needed for exams. 

Well, at least I will try. :)

Yesterday I met my daughter, and we went to visit my mom. She recently turned 88 and we went to have a little birthday celebration visit.

Mom commented how the 3 of us have the same smiles.  And that we do.

On the way home we did some shopping. Next weekend is the hubby's birthday and we went on an expedition to find him a couple of gifts. We had success too!

Today was another beautiful day when I took the dogs out for our morning walk. I also enjoyed the colors of fall.

And I noticed this tree had been cut by a beaver. That might be the dam to the right, and next walk I am going to take a better look. I've walked by this little swamp many times and never noticed the tree (maybe the leaves blocked it).  I wonder if it's recently been gnawed down.

And after a very long and productive play time with paints and some coasters, I relaxed with my latest book and this book of cookies.

Oh yes, they are back! Last year I devoured about 5 boxes over the course of the fall pumpkin cookie season. I ate way too many out of this box too.

And I did finish up a tag I started for Tag Tuesday. The latest challenge is Autumn/Halloween.

I am all about Halloween art lately. I think it's the one time of year I can let go and just let the little bit of dark side out. ( You may have figured out I am NOT a dark person. My dark side art isn't even very dark if you  haven't noticed.) 

So the weekend is ending with  the Outlander tv show overlapping with the Patriots football game. Such conflicts mean there is only one outcome.  Seeing the hubby is a huge football fan and also has become a  Outlander fan, (but not as big a fan as he for football), Outlander will have to be recorded and wait until tomorrow night.

Sigh The reunion of Claire and Jaime will have to wait for me.

Happy new week everyone. Hope you had a fantastic weekend.

Spooky

 Hi everyone. The weekend has begun!  And if you stop by frequently you might remember it was a crazy week at my school; we call it spirit week, and it is now officially over. It is fun to see the kids dress up but I find it hard work to put together my own spirited outfits everyday. I am ready to go back to "normal" clothes. Ha-ha! Today was the pep rally which is something I don't like  as there is way too much screaming and noise.  But the kids love it,  and I can handle it since it's the only one we have all year. 

Go PHS!

Next week is back to real school days but first a couple of recharge days! Big smile on my face! I'm meeting up with my daughter to go visit my Mom tomorrow. Looking forward to that day out with her and also the company she will be on the drive.

And tonight I have another Halloween page for you. I've been having a lot of fun playing with my spooky supplies.

This page began with a cool sugar skull napkin that became the background. Then I added the painted flower skin which I made by painting on Yupo paper and then adding gloss soft gel. Once dry, the painting peels off and you can attach it to other pieces of art.  I also added some black heart die cuts (that I outlined) and finally a couple of paper ephemera pieces that I had.

I am linking my page up to a triplet of sites. First link is to Elke's challenge at Art Journal Journey where the theme is Landscapes of the Soul. And second of all I am linking up to Try It On Tuesday where the theme for a few more days is Halloween. And finally I am linking up to Moo Mania where the theme is also Halloween.

Happy start to your weekend.