T Stands for End of January This and That

 Hi everyone. I am writing and posting this Monday night for this week's T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

I thought January went very fast until I realized that January 1, New Year's Day, seems like a very long time ago.  I am ready for spring, but I am happy it is almost/or is (depending on when you read this) February as that means we are slowly getting closer to better weather. If we're lucky March will be mostly snow free and mild.  I'm hoping for that at least.

Like many of you in the northeast, this past weekend we had a big snowstorm on Saturday. Here's some Sunday morning views out my kitchen window and then out the living room window when the dogs went outside.

It was cold so the snow was light and powdery, but with the wind it drifted. It was still a pain in the you know where to shovel, especially where the dogs tramped it down.  

That makes it hard to tell how much snow we actually had. Whether we had 9 or 10 inches, with drifts over a foot, it was more than enough, especially with the next storm on the weather horizon.  (This photo of my deck looks deceiving -like there isn't much). I know the coast of NH and down in Eastern  Massachusetts had a lot more snow.

I did a bit of baking this past week also. I made this Basque Cheesecake (Tarta de Queso).  The recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour website (Basque Cheesecake recipe), and it was very easy to make. It had no crust, and all the ingredients get put into a food processor, mixed until smooth, and then poured into a parchment paper lined pan.

It's baked at a high temperature for a shorter period of time, which browns the top ( and makes it a little like a crust) but leaves the inside really creamy.

That browning also gives it a pretty but rustic look. This was the yummiest cheesecake as it was much lighter than traditional cheesecake but still quite tasty.  Nothing tasted burnt. I recommend giving it a try sometime if you're a fan of cheesecakes.

The other thing I did twice last week was head down to the beach to walk a couple of days. The beach is  one of the few places you can walk easily at low tide during the winter when other places are snow covered or icy, but it is also a bit of a pain (for me) as it means driving an hour each way to get there. The drive is worth it though when it's not too cold or too windy.

One of my beach walks was at York Beach in York, Maine. York has a couple of beaches, and I walked Long Sands (to answer your question CJ).   Back in my 20's, I lived for a couple of off seasons in York. I loved being near the beach and being able to walk it on a regular basis, and that's one reason I enjoy going back there.

After the beach I took a drive over to Nubble Light.

Nubble Light is not only picturesque, but is on this island just off the shore.

Here's a little info about Nubble Light from Wikipedia:

The Cape Neddick Light is a lighthouse in Cape Neddick, York, Maine.^[2][3] In 1874 Congress appropriated $15,000 to build a light station at the "Nubble" and in 1879 construction began. Cape Neddick Light Station was dedicated by the U.S. Lighthouse Service and put into use in 1879. It is still in use today.

Nubble Light is a famous American icon and a classic example of a lighthouse. The Voyager spacecraft, which carries photographs of Earth's most prominent man-made structures and natural features, should it fall into the hands of intelligent extraterrestrials, includes a photo of Nubble Light with images of the Great Wall of

 China and the Taj Mahal.^[4]

If you want to read the full article, you can here: Nubble Light.

Since it is T day, and since I need to share a drink photo, I will let Maddie do that this week.

Ha ha. I don't think she'd even drink Diet Coke,  but she looks like I caught her sipping mine.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great T day and week ahead. And Happy February too.

Under the Warm Sea

Hi everyone.

Yesterday we had wind and snow all day. It was dark and cold too. I spent the day under the weather, and not the snow storm weather. I hadn't caught anything, but Friday I had my second shingles vaccine. I got as sick as I did after my first shingles vaccine. With the storm blowing all day, it was a good day to be sick, if there can be such a thing as a good day to be sick. I am feeling better today,  and I'm happy I don't need any more shingles booster shots.

January is quickly winding down.  I hope February will give us a few more hints of spring. Usually we have a January thaw for a few days, but not this year.

The end of January also means that  my Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey is almost over.  Today I have another page for that challenge. I believe this will be my last page for January, seeing the new challenge starts on Tuesday (February 1), and tomorrow night I do my weekly T day post.

I especially want to say "Thank You"  to everyone who joined in this past month. Your support was very much appreciated, Uou linked up some great inspiration and art too. I hope you had as much fun using faces as I did.

My page today is inspired by a warm ocean and tropical breezes, certainly not the weather we've had in my area this month. (smile)

I started with a piece of scrap cardboard, a stencil and some light modeling paste. Once my modeling paste dried, I used some assorted colors of watery acrylic to color it. The fish are stamps from Paper Artsy that I stamped, colored and fussy cut. So is the mermaid, but I don't know what company made her. I just love that surprised look on her face. I wonder if she can see me using her on a page. Ha-ha. The tall seaweed is something I drew  and fussy cut before adding paint dots to it.

I'll finish my post with a few more photos from Salisbury State Reservation. I'll  skip ice piles today though.

Look down the beach outside of the state reservation. 

The wire in the next 2 is from a couple of washed ashore lobster traps.

Looking back to the parking lot from the dunes.

And looking out towards the jetty and the ocean, as well as the slight horizon of Cape Ann.

Enjoy what's left to your weekend. If it's Monday already when you read this, then happy new week. 

In the Storm

Hi there. Happy weekend everyone.

We're in the storm zone today. The snow zone. Let's see how much we actually get, and I hope we don't lose power.

Today's journal page for my Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey is appropriate, not for the snow, but for the rough seas that will be accompanying this coastal storm. 

My page today  actually began as I was going through my embossing folders and found this one with these great waves. For some reason, I immediately thought of making a wild wavy ocean tossing boats around on it.  To do that I used some blue lightweight cardstock and made several copies of embossed waves. I rubbed a blue ink pad over them for some contrast,  cut the waves out of the paper that went through the machine and then I layered them on my page.

Before I glued down my waves, I stamped a partially inked captain's face. I wanted to include the face, but I wanted only part of his face. More like a memory or a ghost, because this scene is really about the waves.

To make the ship, I stamped  the image on acetate and rough cut it close to the stamped lines. Then I colored and inserted it partially behind some waves. The reason I used acetate was I knew I could never fussy cut the thin lines of the masts close enough, and by stamping on acetate I could create the ship without a white paper border around my image. The fish are stamped directly on the page and colored with opaque gel pens, and the compass is stamped, colored and fussy cut from white paper. I finished by added the blue tape line along the bottom of the page.

The Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey runs through Monday.

I took a second drive to the beach this past week. I went back to Salisbury State Reservation in Massachusetts looking for more snowy owls, but I didn't have any luck seeing owls. I did get a walk in though.

It's been cold enough for sea ice to form, but with the waves, some of the ice  had broken up into  interesting piles. (Here's a little science tidbit for you too. If you don't know, ice is always made from fresh water and any impurities in that fresh water. In salt water, as ice forms, it pushes out much the salt, but as the unfrozen water  near the ice gets saltier, it needs even colder temperatures to freeze. In more everyday life, this same phenomena explains why roads get salted or brined to keep from getting icy.)

Whether you knew (or cared) about sea ice or not, these photos look cold.

The sky was once again interesting, especially with the contrails from planes. And in this next photo you can just make out the loon too.

I bet the water is no where near  as calm today with the storm and probably looks more like in my art than photo.

Enough from me today. I hope if you are in the storm zone you don't get too much, and otherwise, have a wonderful start to your weekend.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

More From My California Journal

 Hi everyone.  It's almost the weekend. We've had a couple of chilly days and very cold nights, and I am ready for some warmer weather where I don't need to huddle by the woodstove. Maybe next week, if you can believe the long range forecast; they don't ever seem to know.  As I write this Thursday to post on Friday morning, it looks like we could  will have a big snowstorm coming out way for Saturday. When I looked this morning (Friday), it looks like we could get more than they said last night. My town is right on the line between 6-12 inches and 12-20 inches (15-30  and 30-50 cm). I've even heard the word blizzard mentioned, but I think that is more right at the coast.

The good news is I am getting my hair cut today. I was supposed to go a few weeks ago but my hairdresser came down with covid. Now she is better and can squeeze me in. Some months my hair grows fast and some not so fast, but of course, this month it's growing like it's just been fertilized, so I'll be happy to get it chopped.

I'm back today to share a few more pages from my California journal.  Although I can't say my pages cover  every trip detail, I am going along in  relative chronological order of our trip. My book is getting quite thick, and I can image how much it will be bulging by the time I finish it.

Today I'll start at he Channel Islands. This was actually just past the halfway point of our trip. (Photos are here if you are interested: Channel Islands blog post from November.)

You might remember the pelican photos I shared (post is here:Pelicans). I had never seen so many pelicans together in one spot. The day after our boat trip out to Santa Cruz island, we went to National Park store (mainly because we didn't have time on our travel day to stop there). I like to support our parks. I saw this pelican sticker and thought it was perfect for a journal page. I added the circles just to give the page a bit more interest.

I also picked up this postcard in the next photo.  This was the boat we traveled on and where we docked at Scorpion Harbor out on the island. I never had a chance to take a photo of the actual boat docked because it literally came in for a few minutes and then left, and it was the only boat for the day, so there was no time to snap a photo from down on the beach. 

A highlight of the trip (in fact one of the nature highlights of my life) was seeing the super pod of dolphins on the way back to shore. In my journal I tried my hand at drawing dolphins. I used a bit of paint, Stabilo and wax pencils as well as Gelato crayons.  We saw the super pod near sunset, when we had some very colorful skies and when Santa Cruz Island was a still just visible on the horizon. (Photos are here in case you are interested: Dolphins.)

And here's a couple more pages using bits and pieces as well as some very old items from my stash about our day at this National Park island.

We stayed at a hotel right on the harbor when we visited Ventura.  It was close to the boat out to the Channel Islands, and we had an early start on the day we traveled to Santa Cruz. It was also  nice after a day with a lot of walking as well the voyage out and back (to the island)  not to have a long drive at the end of the day. We did have to pay to park (crazy), but since the hotel was relatively empty our room got upgraded for free, and that helped with sting of paid parking. 

My husband managed to lose the first parking pass, so putting this one in the journal registers a memory.

I also decorated the little paper folder they give you with the room keys. Inside I added some details about the hotel and trip.

You might also remember the trip to see the Monarch butterfly wintering in Pismo Beach (post is here Butterflies).  The big butterfly sticker is one I bought that supported the park where the butterflies wintered. I also used lots of small butterfly stickers I had in my stash to finish off the page.

And lastly a fun page to wrap up this post.  It was good to use some stickers I've had for years. 

As there are lots of faces in this post, I am linking up to the "Let's Face It Challenge" at Art Journal Journey. This challenge runs through  Monday.

Thanks for reading through my post. Hope you have a wonderful Friday and start to your weekend also.

 

My Little Faces Journal Continued and Completed

 Hi everyone.  It's the last Thursday of January. Can you believe it?

There's still some time to join us at Art Journal Journey before the month ends next Monday. You probably know the challenge is Let's Face It, hosted by me. I am linking today's pages up to Art Journal Journey.

Today's art is some more pages from my little expressions journal. You might remember I said that I decided to use only playful more cartoon like faces on these little 4x4  inch pages. All white pages are colored with watercolor paints first.

In this first piece, she's the girl who's always there, every time you turn around. Maybe she's even the waitress at your favorite local breakfast spot. 

I hope this girl in the page above isn't worried about something too big. She might need a copy of a self help guide like Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (if that's still even published).

This girl in the above page looks so sad, holding her heart in her hands. I don't know who disappointed her, but hopefully she will be over it soon.

And this girl is  the total opposite of the broken hearted one above. She is going crazy! She is having a wild night on the town, pre-covid of course.

And here's a couple of pages on a black background, starting with this witch who can't believe she has pink skin.

Of course we must celebrate the true heroes of this pandemic. They may not be movie stars, but they should be for all they have been through and all they do for us.

And last for today, the girl who's eyes are bigger than her stomach.

If you missed my earlier pages and are curious, you can find them  at these 2 links:

Little Faces Journal

More Little Faces Journal

  I hope this week is treating you well. Thanks so much for visiting. It is always appreciated.