T Stands for A Week in the Heat

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Happy July to everyone too, even if you stop by Monday night and it's still June. I know I say this all the time (about time flying that is), but I can't believe  July is here, we're into the second half of 2025 already.

   It is time for T Day over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog again. Last week at my house we had a mix of very hot and humid weather  (highs around 101 degrees F/38 degrees C) and some beautiful, not quite so hot weather. I'm not a fan of the high heat. For a few days when  I was sitting inside because it was too hot to go outside, I ended up watching a movie called Hitchcock from 2012 on Netflix. It was all about when Alfred Hitchock made the movie Psycho, and it was pretty good. Then I noticed Netflix had several original Hitchcock films in their line up, so I ended up  watching or rewatching The Man Who Knew Too Much, Psycho, and Vertigo.  Other than the clothes and other time dated styles, those films really do still hold up well.   I think I'm now back on a Hitchcock watching binge as there's a few other of his films on Netflix I wouldn't mind seeing again.

         

    The other thing from last week was I spent some of my time up at my mother-in-law's house. This summer, like last summer, my husband and his sisters are all getting weeks  when the house is theirs. Last week was one of  our weeks, and since we don't live very far away, it was easy to go up for a while to take a swim and let the dogs swim too. 

      Of course the one afternoon I had invited friends up to hang out and swim it was cloudy and not so warm. 😒 We had lunch on the dock and some good catching up for a few hours, but then it started to rain. Luckily the rain didn't come until it was getting time for us all to head home, so I'm not complaining.

     I need a drink for T day, and this photo is from one time when I was at the lake earlier this season, but it was not from last week. I don’t think I’ve shown it before, and it goes with my lake photos so here's my ticket to T this week.

     Have a super T day, start to the new month and week ahead too.

The Bees Are Wrapping Up June

    Hi everyone.  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. Yesterday we had another rainy Saturday. We've only had one sunny Saturday since March, and that was last weekend. I hope that one day wasn't a fluke, and we'll see more sunny Saturdays soon.

      Today I want to share my final journal page for Matilde's "People" challenge at Art Journal Journey.  I also want to thank you Matilde for hosting again and say that we loved having you. And I don't want to forget to thank everyone who joined in too. I always love seeing how people interpret a challenge. 👍

      As I have various types of media, I am linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge BLog challenge # 116. I really am squeezing this one in at the last minute since the challenge ends tonight. 😏 I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

      I chose to finish the month with this honey bee inspired page.

    In my big sticker book that I shared a few weeks back ( post is here if you're curious) there was this huge but lovely vintage bee sticker. I first used scraps of paper to cover my journal page, and then I added the sticker.  I then used a Creative Expressions stamps set to stamp the vintage bee keeping lady. I fussy cut her and left her uncolored so she's stand out more, but I did color the flowers that I stamped and fussy cut around her. I even added some little half pearls to them. I then added some washi tape along the bottom so she wouldn't be floating, and I added the cloth sun sticker to the top. I colored the sun with some yellow marker. Finally I stamped the quote (from the same Creative Expressions set) and fussy cut it.

    In this next photo you can see this page as well as the edge of the page next to it in my current journal project.

  And speaking of bees, I went  into the hives on Friday.  The 2 hives are total opposites. I have one hive that is just hanging on (meaning I hope the colony number increased enough so they'll make it through the winter), and I have one hive that has made more honey in the last month and a half than my other hives ever made in a  season. It's almost time to put on the super (which is the box where the honey is for you, the bee keeper) and get me some honey 😀.

Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week ahead.

Art, Birds and Flowers

     Hi everyone. Happy end of the week. Another week has flown by for me. Did yours fly by? 

    

     Today I have a bit of art and some photos. I'll be linking up to Friday Face Off over at Nicole's blog and also to Friday Lunch Break at Gillena's blog.

     Let me start with this journal page, my penultimate piece for Matilde's People challenge at Art Journal Journey. This challenge runs through this coming Monday, the last day of June. 

    It even has a face on it. 😏 This page is an insert in a journal I'm making. I used various paper pieces to make the background.  I also stamped the numbers, dots and the light bulb. I did some coloring, gessoed over the numbers to dull down the color a bit, and added some yellow glitter to the light bulb.  The woman is a TH image and the definition is a very old Cats Life Press stamped image.   I finished by adding the tape along 3 edges and cutting out the crow from some clear tape and adding it to my piece.

     You may remember the baby bluebirds that I shared some photos of earlier this month. Well Mom and Dad have had a second brood in the birdhouse, and those babies look like they're almost ready to fledge. I'm not sure how many are actually in the nest, but there's at least 2, since they are now sticking  their heads out the opening on occasion.

And sometimes they even look like they're about ready to fledge. It must be getting crowded inside the house.

    I wonder if this will be the last nest the parents have for the season or if they'll manage 1 more. I would love to get in and do a bit of cleaning in the garden where the birdhouse is located. I haven't  had any chance to get in there at all this season as nesting of these 2 broods has been going on since early May. It's a good thing this garden area is supposed to look on the wild side and not be formal. 😏

     I have lots of Spirea plants in my yard, most of them self seeded from two that I bought and planted a long time ago.  I like how they fill in where the woods meet my lawn, and I like them even better when they are in bloom with pretty ink flowers. All the bees, both my honey bees and the wild bees, seem to love those flowers too. Here's just a few views. 

      In the garden around the bluebird house, I also  planted a couple of goats-beard (Aruncus dioicus )
plants. At this time of year they have these long grass-like white blooms which are also attracting a lot of wild pollinators. I can't get close enough  to photograph them without disturbing the bluebirds right now, so I took this next photo while standing in my veggie garden.

     I think it makes an interesting photo even if you can't see the whole plant.

     And I'll finish this post with these flowers from a dogwood that I passed while walking one day before the heat arrived. It was just covered in flowers.

Have a super Friday and start to your weekend.

Thursday

     Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well. We're finally out of  the crazy high  heat and humidity we started the week with. I know some of you still have very high temperatures, so  (try to) stay cool if that's you. Hopefully the AC's at my house can get turned off, and we can open the windows for a few days. 😏

    Today I have a page for Matilde's People challenge at  Art Journal Journey  I don't know where June is going to, but her challenge runs through Monday, June 30. That means you still have a few days to join in if you're interested.

       I went with a Japanese garden themed for this page in my nature journal. The page background is made with inks, some piece from an old Japanese garden book, some white paint and a Sharpie.  I die cut the pocket and made a bookmark to put in it. You can see that bookmark in the next photo. I also added this Japanese person, a crow cut out some some clear tape and a 49 and Market printed image.

     Here is the bookmark from the pocket which is made with ink, some yellow paper, some 49 and Market images and some more Japanese writing. I don't read nor write (nor speak) Japanese so all I know is that the writing is from a Japanese garden book, but who knows what topic it is covering.

   Yes, this is a short  post for today. I hope you have a super day!

It's Time for Another New Challenge

     Hi everyone. It's Tuesday and time again for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

      Let me first thank everyone who joined our In The Garden challenge which just wrapped up.  I want to also thank Rosi who was our guest designer. I really enjoyed all the lovely garden inspired art.

      For our new challenge the theme is ADD SOME TEXT.

    I made a small page for a journal insert for this challenge. I started by stamping the background with some TH images that contained text. Then I inked the background  with blue, purple and pink ink. I die cut the swirls, used a 49 and Market punch out leaf image that (if you look carefully) has some light text on it, and then stamped the flowers on some book paper. I fussy cut those flowers and colored in the centers. I then splattered a bit of white paint and finished with a sticker quote from an Art By Marlene set. 

    But sure to check out the design teams examples since they show lots of ways to use text on a page. You can use text in any way or form.

    I'm excited to see what people create as text is one of my favorite additions. I hope you like it too and will join us in the next 2 weeks. Also remember we accept any type of art. 😀

T Stands for a Walk in the Woods

  Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Today for T  over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  I have some photos from a little adventure I went on last week. 

       Last Thursday my daughter had the day off from work for the Juneteenth holiday, so she asked if I wanted to come over and go walking with her. Of course it was the one day last week that it was very hot (91 degrees F/ 32.7 degrees C) and quite humid too. We talked about where to walk, and one place I've wanted to go was the New Hampshire State Park where there is a huge stand of wild rhododendrons. 

        We decided to go here because 1) it was about 15 minutes from her house 2) it's a fairly flat trail and most importantly 3) we'd be in the woods where it would be shadier on this hot day.

    You can see even the road to the park was in the woods too.

     I have never seen so many rhododendrons in the same place. There is a 16 acre stand of these plants, and with the heat and humidity that day, it felt like we were in some Central American jungle.

  I read that this park is northern edge of where native rhododendrons grow. And these native plants don't bloom (in our area) until the middle of July. I had hoped maybe they'd be in bloom on the day we visited since the non-native varieties are blooming now, but I guess this gives me  an excuse to go back in another month to see the flowers.

     There was definitely lots of new growth though, and some of the trees still had leaf buds. You can see new growth in the next photo and the leaf buds in the one after that.

 

     The mountain laurel in the park was just starting to bloom though so we did have some beautiful flowers along our walk.

   The walk wasn't s long as we'd thought it would be, but it was actually a great length for such a hot day. Afterwards we went to lunch at Elm City Brewing for lunch. You can see my daughter's cider and my beer, which was a huckleberry sour which was quite refreshing for a hot day. You don't see a lot of huckleberry things around in New Hampshire, so that made it even better.

     The blackberry wheat beer probably would have been a good choice too with the heat. The food was tasty, and I really enjoyed having time to catch up with my daughter.  Plus,   when we went to the brewery we got one of the swing tables, which didn't swing unless you pushed it, and according to my daughter, are one of the desirable places to sit. 

  And I've never sat at a swing table before. 😏

Have a great T day and week ahead.

     

     

The Specks and Splatters

     Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you. We finally had a sunny Saturday with no rain. It was the first time since back in March.  And it was a lovely Saturday to enjoy before the heat returns today. In fact, it was so lovely that the hubby and I went strawberry picking first thing in the morning. We  arrived at the farm just a few minutes after it opened at seven. Ha ha. And I had hoped for a morning to be lazy at home. 😏

I think other people felt the same way about a sunny Saturday morning.

    My roses are blooming and are looking pretty nice right now too. Some of the plants are still recovering from being moved earlier this spring (when I enlarged the area and spread out the plants), but I'm happy to see that all the plants are blooming even a  flower or two, and they are all getting some new growth. I decided to spread them out since the area up against the house was pretty squished, and some of the plants weren't able to grow to their full potential.  Hopefully they will get some good growth this season. 👍

    I also have this page for Matilde's People challenge at Art Journal Journey. It started with the center sticker which appears to be vintage science oriented. Of course much of science that long ago focused on the stars and mathematics. I decided to use that as a guide and make my page about this astronomer or maybe he's an early astro-physicist. I think he's studying something about hydrogen and stars which is why there are so many circled letter H's.   He's having his photo taken in the garden for his latest publication, which is why he is sitting on that blue trim piece. and all the dots could be all the stars in the heavens or they could be some arrangement of atoms.

   Or maybe this is just my interpretation. 😉

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

Faces for Friday

     Hi everyone. Happy Friday. And happy start of summer to you. I hope your week is going well. Mine has been busy, but it's been for good busy things. However I'm excited for the weekend because maybe I won't have to leave the house before 7 or 8 in the morning as I have done all 5 days this week. 😏 

     Today I  have lots of faces to share for Nicole's  Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. I haven't had much time to write a post, so today I have some captioned photos with some summer critters. I'll start with some creepy crawlies, specifically first some amphibians.

This toad lives out by the water faucet where our house is hooked up.

This is the first time I've ever come across a red backed salamander.

Then we'll move onto Athropods.

And shortly after that I came across this American Giant millipede. They have so many legs. 😉

And at work at the lake one morning, I also saw these 2 Canadian Tiger Swallowtails. 

I'm not sure what type of spider this is.

And this is some type of insect larva, but I'm also not sure about what type of larva.

The other day I saw this red spotted purple butterfly  drinking at a puddle in my yard,

And at my mother-in-law's house I almost stepped on his big old insect. I think it's called a dragon hunter, but I'm not 100% positive about that either.

If you've had enough of amphibians and arthropods, I snapped this great photo of my 2 pups the other day.

And this selfie of myself at work the other morning came out pretty good too.

     I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead.