Friday Once Again

  Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

    In the past couple of weeks we've had a few days of nice spring-like weather. 😀 It's much hoped for weather too. This is one of those years when everyone I talk to (in my area and even further a field)  mentions that it's time for spring.

   However, there's still snow on the ground that is now melting, and anyplace there is open ground is  VERY wet and soggy. The best place to get out for a walk is the beach, so in the past couple of weeks  there’s been a couple of beach walking trips for me. Today's photos are from one day when I went walking with my husband and the 2 dogs. 

    It was actually quite crowded that day at Rye Beach (Rye, New Hampshire), but the tide was way down so there was plenty of room. I know it looks pretty empty in theses first couple of photos.

     And do you think I could get a photo of both dog's and my husband's faces looking at the camera at the same time? Ha Ha!  Here's my faces for Face Off.

 Seeing it's always 10 degrees (F) cooler by the water, that day we still needed hats and winter jackets for a walk.

    And brrr. There's a group in the area that goes winter swimming. Even if the day isn't too cold, the ocean water in New Hampshire is  cold. Right now it's been about 38 degrees F/ 3 degrees C.

   

     I like these next seaweed photos. 

    These crushed lobster traps and ropes certainly ended up a tangled mess.

   After our walk, and since it was such a nice day, we also took a ride along the coast for a bit too.

   That's it for me. I hope you're having some lovely weather whether you are awaiting spring for fall. Wishing you a great Friday and start to your weekend.

    

I've Been Knitting and Other Random Things

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I'm having a fairly quiet week,  but we've had some warmer temperatures (well winter warm,) so that has been a great break after all the cold we had so far this winter and that has now returned as of today. 

    Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and I'm also joining Gillena for her Friday Face Off. Today I have some random photos to share, nothing too exciting since my week hasn't been wildly exciting either.

   Here's my face for Face Off. It's not the clearest photo. But you can see part of a hat I knitted, at least the part not covered by my hood.

   I've been back knitting my Icelandic sweater I started 2 winters ago. The first winter I managed to get through the 2 sleeves since I didn't start the sweater until February, and then by this fall I managed to get the plain part of the body done. Now I'm working on the  yoke, which I was hoping to finish by the new year, but since that hasn't happened, I hope to get it done soon. Icelandic yarn is pretty heavy so if I don't get it done soon, it will be sitting through the hot weather until next winter. 

   I counted wrong when reading the pattern to start to yoke, and by the time I realized it I would have had to rip out several rows. Nope, I didn't want to do that so I've been creating my own design as I go. But I have been following the pattern to know when to decrease stitches. I love creating my own pattern though and knitting with the multiple colors too.

   Since we had some warmer days this week, I took the dogs down to the beach one afternoon when it was low tide. I didn't get to walk as long as I wanted to because my husband wanted me to drop him off at his office so he could get his work laptop and bring it home, but I did manage to get a nice hour of fresh air. The beach was great that day because even though there was no sun, there was also no wind. 

    Miss Maddie enjoyed the walk but not as much as Mr. Pete did. Maddie (being blind) needs to stay on a leash, but Pete is great off leash and doesn't bother other people. Since the beach wasn't  crowded, he got to do a bit of running.

   That's all for me. Have a great rest of your Friday and start to your weekend.

T Stands for ATC and the Water

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And happy T day to everyone who stops by for our weekly drink meet up at BLeubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

      I  joined Elizabeth's ATC swap for last week's T day celebration, and my partner was Jo. Her ATC arrived this past week in the mail so I'll share it today. It came in a little folder as you can see in my first photo.

    And here's her stunning ATC. ❤Thank you Jo! I love it. I was surprised how quickly it arrived (comparing it to how some domestic mail seems to take forever), and I'm glad to hear mine arrived too. 

    What's been up with me? It's been a big water week since we met for last week's T. 🌊🚰🏖 I spent 2 mornings working at the boat ramp, 2 days on the ocean in my husband's boat, and one day I even went to the beach at the ocean (Wallis Sands in Rye, New Hampshire) with some friends. 

     Here's a few random water views that I took when we went on our 2 boating adventures . I hope you like boats and ships. 😏

     Above is some of the local fishing fleet, and below, the Thomas Leighton which is  a cruise ship. You can  board this ship for a trip out to the Isles of Shoals (several small islands 6 miles off shore) to either stay there or for a day trip, take it for an evening dinner cruise or even take it on a whale watch.

     Here's a lobster boat  next to the Portsmouth Headlight and the Fort Constitution which was originally called Fort William and Mary. The original fort was built in 1632.

    Friday afternoon we saw this ship just offshore.

       Saturday we saw it docked along the river that takes us from the marina down to the ocean. 

    We guessed it was unloading gypsum since this dock is at a gypsum plant.

And this ship makes a much more peaceful view.

    Since it's Monday I need a drink for T  Day. My T day drink this week is my  water from  Tuesday when I was at the beach with my friends.

   If you wonder why I'm wearing along sleeves shirt on a 90 degree day (32 degrees C), I wasn't cold, but I'm one of these people who BURNS 🌞 very easily,  I was wearing a sun shirt to protect my arms. The towel was on my legs because I'd just finished eating the left-overs I brought for lunch, and it seemed better to eat them on a towel rather than eating them on my legs.  It was also very hot that day, and even though the ocean is quite cold off the coast of New Hampshire, it felt fantastic.

    If the forecast stays as it is, there will be more water in my life this week 😏 since it's our week at my mother-in-law's home. I hope you have a wonderful T day and new week ahead. 

 

Weekend Post-Art and Photos

      Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. 

     Today I want to share another journal page for my challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month we're celebrating homes and my theme is Home Sweet Home.  I am also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

     Today my page is all about something homes need every now and again, some TLC. I have some indoor projects at my house that need to be done once my husband retires. And once spring arrives, I have some outdoor projects I want to get to. In fact, I am excited to start my outdoor projects, and it seems like waiting for the snow to melt, the ground to thaw and the mud to disappear is never going to happen. 😏

   I painted the background of my paper with various colored acrylic glazes. Then I used some scraps of TH printed color chart tissue paper. That tissue paper reminded me of picking out paint colors at the hardware or paint store.  I wanted to use some white stencil paste on the rest of the page  to represent either the plaster or spackle that someone would use on a wall. Could I find my white stencil paste? No. Instead I chose silver because it seemed to be the closest white that I had.

   The ladder, faucet, tools and screws are all die cut and then colored. The paintbrush is stamped and fussy cut. To finish my page I used letter stickers for the words and also stamped and fussy cut the house image. That stamp is from an old set by Wendy Vecchi.

   This past Thursday we had some  warm weather. It was warm enough where we had  fog too. Yet it was still a great day to go for a beach walk, and the fog on the beach made some interesting photos.

The seas were pretty rough that day, full of energy from the storm that headed into our area on Friday.

    Even though I had the dogs with me, I was able to do a bit of tide pooling looking. Actually Miss Maddie loved the tide pools. She probably would have run into the surf too, but being blind, she isn't let off the leash, and I was not going in and getting wet. 😏

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

Sunday

     Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend. Yesterday we had a bit of warm up 😀, but tonight we could get snow, and then, the bitter cold arrives. Jeepers creepers this month has been tough, and I don't even mind cold temperatures. 😐

    The Good News:  I can now say that after spending some of my time over the last 2 weeks cleaning, sorting and purging I have enough cleaned up in my art space that I can start making art again-Hurrah!!! I still have some things I want to go through, but my attitude about those things is when I get to them, I get to them.  I can actually see the floor. Big smile. I filled up 4 big bins with supplies to donate. I feel good about that. I also managed to fill 5 bags of trash, much of it scraps of paper and packaging I was saving to cut from. And I saved more than enough to use for probably the next several months. I'm happy because since the weather people say  it's going to be cold this upcoming week,  I can  hunker down and have some art fun.

    Today I have a page for Mia's Dots challenge at Art Journal Journey. I'll also be linking it up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

    Today's page should be titled Dots Galore. It's more of an abstract design where I used lots of old rubber stamps along with blue or red ink. I added a tag that I cut out of a sheet of paper and a few stickers. I also drew in the triangular line and colored in the flowers. And you might have noticed that even the dog has dots on him. 

    Yesterday we had a lot of clouds and later some rain, but before it got wet, we took a little beach walk in Maine after a visit to my mother-in-law.She just had her 91st birthday this past week, and this visit was much much better than the last time we went.

For some reason I really like these red berry photos. Perhaps I am thinking about dots with Mia's challenge. 😏

    That's all for me today. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

    

It's Friday-the 13th!

     Hi everyone. Some of you might have seen this post since I accidentally forgot to change the date when I scheduled it on Wednesday.  😦 Anyhow I deleted it once I figured it out, and here it is again for those of you who didn't see it.

    It's Friday once again. I hope you had a good week. At my house it had been snowy and rainy with lots of grey weather until yesterday/Thursday. Finally we had some sun. ❤ Not the most exciting week, but here's a few random photos I snapped during it. Since it's Friday, I am linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and also to  Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. 

Here's the wreath on my house, and below, the winter wonderland view as I drove towards the coast back on Tuesday. Wednesday's rain got rid of all that snow. Of course there was NO snow at the coast even to start with.

Since it was grey and damp but with fresh snow at home it's not easy to walk on my road, so the dogs and I took a beach walk after a doctor's appointment. Not that the beach was any less grey or damp.

At the beach entrance someone put up a little tree.

And various people added some decorations. I love how many of them are dog related.

Back home, one of my rose bushes had a lot of ice on it.

This "Red sky in morning, Sailors take warning" sky says we’re suppose to have some not so good weather. Yes, it snowed that afternoon and evening on the day I snapped this photo.

And ha ha. This guy has figured out how to jump off the deck onto the bird feeder since he can't get around the baffle. 

I saw this pop of red under my rosebush when looking out the window, and there was the cardinal. A lot of the birds really like tucking into this bush. They must not feel the thorns.

Now most of the snow is gone, but it still looks a lot like winter. You can see the remains of the dog trail my husband snow blows for the dogs.

And here's my face for this week. Sometimes when Mr. Pete really falls asleep he sticks out his tongue.  What a nut.

But he always looks so comfortable.

That's all for me. I hope you have a wonderful start to your weekend.