The Moss Museum

 Hope everyone is enjoying your weekend. The weather here is fantastic-I wish it would stay like this year round. :)

Today I am sharing some Japan photos with you. I am taking you to the Moss Museum. OK, that may not sound exciting, and I thought that way at first, but it ended up being a fascinating little place. The Moss Museum in Nichinan is a world famous place for scientists who study moss and their relatives call Bryophytes, as well as some other plants too.

I really enjoyed this pods. I even carved a couple of rubber stamps they inspired me so much-but that is for another post another day.

But as much as the science was cool, there was a really fascinating piece of art here.

This is a one of a kind art book that shows the evolution of life on the planet. It was made by an artist but I am afraid I don't know the artist's name. All those boxes on the right are individual chapters in the book.

Why so many blank pages you wonder? That is because we do not know the full story yet.

This cool one of a kind book was for sale for $7000. We were lucky she even brought it out for us to see. I probably would have bought it but $7000 is not in my budget.

BUT, what was really exciting for me was that the artist made extra copies of the art prints and put them into albums which you could buy for a much much more affordable price.

And I bought one of these, as did my friend Deb who also went to Japan  and is one of my biology teacher co-workers.

This is just a few photos from the book. 

This is my kind of souvenir too-it's original, it's beautiful art, it's biology; it brings on a good memory, etc. etc. 

Especially since I can tell the story even though I can't read the caption.:)

Hope you have a great rest of your weekend.

May Calendar

Happy Friday everyone. I woke up early today but somehow time still seems to be getting away from me. :) I am glad it is Friday, even though with graduation tonight it is going to be a long day. But I am looking forward to seeing the kids wrap up their high school career and getting to say sayonara to  some of my former (yes, now they are former) students. 

And I want to say a big THANK YOU to all you who commented on my retirement question. It is really encouraging that no one said "I wish I still had my job and stayed working." I think a lot of my doubts com from my husband who isn't ready to retire but he hates the idea of me not going to work also. (Hee-hee) All year I have been saying 2 more years until I retire, and now that I need to send in my intent letter I am for some reason having all these second thoughts. Just a bit of too much thinking about it I guess.

So today I have my monthly calendar to show. The front of my drawing journal has these monthly calendars so I figured I might as well make it a little more exciting than leaving it blank. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Friday too!

More of My Japan Travel Journal

Hello there. Hope everyone is well today. This is senior week at school and almost the end of this year school so it's been a little crazy in my world.
I am joining in with Gill's Inspired by Challenge over at Art Journal Journey today. This is a spread from my Japan Travel Journal that I have been working on lately.  I was inspired by some of the sights I saw while traveling and also some  classic Japanese images we are all familiar with.

Here's the side I made with some markers and paint to remember my visit to the bamboo forest. 

And on the other side of the spread I used  the envelope to a hotel room that had my key as well and some classic Japan images.

 For some reason this tag didn't want to photograph with the actual color. 

Red it a tough color to get right.

I stamped this envelope to make it a little more exciting.
I'm on a roll with my Japan Travel Journal and haven't been working on much else. In 2 weeks I will have a lot more time to spread my art wings and I am looking forward to that. :) Tomorrow night is graduation at my school so even though it makes a long day it is nice to see such a happy finish not only to the school year, but to say goodbye  kids I have known for  a few years. I have also decided to put in for retirement in 2 years. I think I will at least-it's such a tough decision-there's so many factors besides the job to take into account. I need to put in so early because I have a lot of accumulated and unpaid sick days which they spread out over 2 years of my salary. I guess there is part of me that is ready to go now and part of me that isn't and it is hard to plan 2 years out because so many things can change.
Any of your retired folks have anything to say about that?
Thanks for visiting. I always appreciate your visits.

T Stands for a Sweet Treat

Hello some of my favorite ladies. Tuesday is here again.

 I wasn't sure if I should take you back to Japan for T Day this week, or maybe share something more recent. 

So then I thought, how about show both? :) How about a little sweet ice cream treat? It's that time of year when something cool tastes good.  (That is, if ice cream is your thing.)

One afternoon while in Nichinan, Japan, our van that was shuttling us around turned onto a narrow dirt road that was just a little side road with houses on it. Then we pulled into what was much like a driveway, parked in front of the garage and walked back to this house.

There was nothing making it stand out as anything other than a house. But when we walked inside we found it was a little fruit and ice cream shop with maybe 4 tables. What they served were amazing fruit and ice cream creations. Truly food art.

I had one of the strawberry creations. I think 4 of us this one of these strawberry creations.

I had never seen pink strawberries before. Not pink because they aren't ripe, but fully ripe pink berries.

You can see my drink was some water.

One person had the melon creation. Not quite as pretty as the strawberry one, but it still looks good.

And one of group didn't eat fruit, so he just had a bowl with some ice cream. And a cup of coffee. Delicious, but not as amazing as the fruit art.

And this past Saturday night the hubby and I went to see the new Star Wars film (Solo), and just before the theater we passed one of those open only in the summer food places. Sawyer's Dairy Bar originally opened 73 years ago in 1945, and I don't think it had drastically changed since then either. I love the fact we still have a few of these vintage places so you pretend to go back in time and live some old fashioned moments.

Sawyer's sign even spins around .

And they make their own home made ice cream which is delicious.

I had a small mocha frappe (pronounced frap) with coffee ice cream and chocolate syrup. Just the right amount, the size of a coffee cup, and the big wide straw to get the ice cream chunks up through.

In lots of places a frappe is called  milkshake.  But here in New England a milkshake is just milk and flavoring, and if you add ice cream you get a frappe. Here's an article in Yankee Magazine you can read about our unusual New England naming of this dessert  if you desire: The Difference Between a Milkshake and a Frappe.

I am linking up my T Day post over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog. If you have a drink related post you should join in too.
Have a great T Day!
And I always appreciate you stopping by myblog.

The Page I Couldn't Get a Good Photo Of

Happy Sunday everyone. We've gone from hot and humid to feeling like late September. The sun is warm but the air is cool and crisp. It's the perfect gardening day, so you know what I will be up to.

Here's a page from my Japan Travel journal that I had a hard time photographing because I couldn't get the book to lay flat for anything. Guess I should weight it down with some books.  I have been working a lot on my travel journal lately as I want to get it done before the inspiration fades too much. And now that it is June, I have been home for over a month already.

I am linking up to Gill's Inspired By challenge at Art Journal Journey.

The temple in this photo looks like it is the leaning Tower of Pisa. :)

Here's a link to the the Golden PavilionThe Golden Pavilion, the inspiration for the spread, which I showed you a few weeks ago: 

My irises are blooming. The only thing wrong with irises is they need to bloom all summer, not just fo such a short period of time.

And maybe while I am here, a few more Japan photos.

This is a tropical greenhouse next to where they grow the $25 a piece mangoes. It wasn't open yet, but we got to take a walk through with the aboritist as he was very excited to have some science teachers visiting.

There were some beautiful tropical flowers inside.

It was a great stop for me. 

Have a great rest of your weekend everyone.

June Second

Hi everyone. Happy Saturday and Happy weekend. It's still very humid here. It feels like I am in the rainforest ( including with birds chattering and squirrels squealing so it is loud just like a tropical rainforest too), but the weather is supposed to be changing by tomorrow, and that is good. And even some rainy days next work week-hurrah-that should keep the kids a little more focused. The hubby needs to work today to finish up a big project, so I have the day all to myself. And that is very exciting. Though I do feel bad that he has to work.

First I want to show you a journal page which I will be linking up to Gill's Inspired By challenge over at Art Journal Journey. It's a page from my calendar journal and I was inspired by the swirly lines that came on the base page (it's a coloring calendar).  They made me think of the water and swimming and summer.

I made it a little more exotic after I colored it in shades of blue and added some stamped tropical fish and the mermaid.

And it is also June 2, which means it is time for another look  over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

I want to bring you back to June of 2012 and share some sky photos with you.  That June day was a very eventful Saturday for sure.

Here's a link to the original post: Sky and Water where you can read about the sky. And here's the photos I included in that post which as you can see was also was a very changeable weather day.

Morning

Mid-Day

Afternoon

And evening.

And here's a second link up to some art I had made right around that time also This is It.

I thought this was inspiring hot humid day art.

That's all for me today.

Hope you are having a fantastic start of your weekend.

And I am glad you stopped by my blog.

Welcome June

Happy Friday everyone. And it is a new month today so Happy June to you also.

Today I have a tag to join in with the group over at Tag Tuesday The latest theme is lock and key, and even though I don't have any locks on this tag, I do have some keys.

I made this tag for my Japan Travel Journal. I used scraps of a black and white napkin as my background. I also stamped the Japanese lady image and colored the image in with markers. The big cherry blossom is a die cut, which I colored and even stamped a bit. Then I added the keys. The small cherry blossoms at the top of the page are also die cuts. And I had the big Asian piece in my stash, but I can' t remember where I originally got it

I am also linking up to Moo Mania as their latest challenge is die cuts.

And one more link up for me.  I am linking to Try It On Tuesday because their new challenge is "She's Got the Look" and this lady does have a look.  Maybe not the look, but she does have a look. :)

I don't think we are going to have fantastic weather this weekend in my world, but I have plenty to do whether I need to be inside or if I can get outside. The kids at school have almost totally shut down, it's become a battle every day, so the weekend can't begin fast enough. :)  It is time for summer vacation. Or some rainy and cooler weather as that will put us all into a different mood. Oh and some good news if you stopped by yesterday and read about my car problems.  Did you know that mouse damage is covered by the comprehension part of insurance? I was quite happy about that as the repair was going to cost me over $700 and now I only have to pay my $50 deductible. My car is actually fixed and the insurance company has paid already, so I am planning on picking it up tonight.

Have a great start to your weekend!

And I appreciate you stopping by.