Hot and Steamy

Happy Sunday from a hot, humid and quite steamy New Hampshire. I slept in this morning quite late, but I needed that I guess. And the weather is  mix of sun, rain, and clouds, probably thunderstorms ahead, so I'm glad we planned a boating day yesterday because I don't think today would be a very good (or safe) one.

So first of all I have a new page for Art Journal Journey. I am having fun with this month's theme of "In My Garden" hosted by the talented Yvonne.

Its mostly hand painted excepted for the hummingbirds which I used the left overs from a die cut as a stencil to make. Then I stamped the garden saying (from Crafty Individuals). I don't know what these flowers are except they are my own sketch. I wish I had flowers like this in my garden. :)

So last winter I bought a little waterproof camera by Intova. They are built in Hawaii for surfers, and I thought it would be fun when we are boating and/or swimming to have a camera to get some photos. 

 My first attempt using it I only managed to get 2 photos because I had it on video the whole time. (The video's weren't so good either as I keep thinking I was taking photos so they lasted like 2 seconds). But yesterday I got 108 photos. I'm still working on the learning curve as its a little different from a regular camera. But here's some I liked.

 Notice I've never set the date and time stamp. I will one of these days. Something else to figure out.

 Its cool to be able to have a camera in the water . Instead of looking out of the boat, I can look back to the boat. I would have never taken my camera or phone into the salt water.

You can see we brought the dogs yesterday. We spent most of the hot day anchored off a little beach on the back side of a state park (Odiorne) . We're in a harbor,  and its not a huge beach, but a good calm place to anchor. When the tide is down, like it was yesterday, we can actually walk in from the boat. Its also a good place to swim, and yesterday the water was actually quite warm.  At first the dogs were excited to go in but they didn't quite know how to get off of the boat. They were trying to get onto the little swim platform you can see here, like they had seen us do, but the rail was making it difficult for them.

So the hubby came and showed them how to do it.

We gave them a little swim and then they got hoisted back into the boat.

We went in and headed for the beach. Since its not an official beach and on the edge of the state park, lots of people bring their dogs with them.

Good thing, because we look back and first one of them is jumping in and then the other is too.

 (And neither of them are jumpers.) They just didn't want miss the fun.

 I like the fish-eye lens effect. 

And it takes fun underwater photos.

Next time I need to snap a photo like this under the water to get their legs.

I bet that would be a fun photo.

Anyhow, as you can see, it was a fun afternoon and a good way to stay cool.

Hope you're having a fun weekend (or had a fun weekend). 

Thanks for stopping and visiting.

Another Look at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Last week you might remember I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.  I made a 2 page spread in my summer journal about my day. I added my subway and museum tickets, along with a postcard of Isabella Stewart Gardner. This is actually her portrait painted by John Singer Sargent. The portrait is in the museum.

Hope I'm not too boring, but I took a ton of photos last week at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and I wanted to share a few more with you. For a small museum, it was just chock full of art.

Of many forms and kinds.

 When I go into places so full of things I go into sensory overload and I know I miss a lot of things because there's too much to take in.  The photos help me see what  I might have missed. This especially true when viewing art with my husband- who doesn't have lots of patience for paintings so there's no going back for a second look. But he loves old buildings (me too); that's how I got him to go in the first place. But one thing for sure, I'm not waiting 30 years to go back again.
Hot sunny Saturday here in New Hampshire. How about you?
Hope you enjoyed the views.
Happy weekend. 

Abstract Lilies

Another journal page for Art Journal Journey today. This month's theme is "in My Garden there are..." hosted by Yvonne. Its the perfect theme for July, and its a lot of fun creating flower (or other garden) pages. Stop by to check out all the garden pages or better yet, make a page and join in.

My page is  all hand painted  except for the stamped saying and a little spray ink through a stencil. I painted these blooms from memory so they aren't exactly perfect lilies but they are lily like enough that I can tell what they are. I like them that way too.
I'm also linking up to Paint Party Friday. Thanks again to Kristen and Eva for hosting every week. :)

 My inspiration are my lilies which are in bloom right now. They are not pink but I wish. I still love these plants because they are so low maintenance and give  such pretty flowers most of the summer.

The other morning mine were covered with raindrops as it rained during the over night. 

And my hydrangeas are blooming wildly right now too. Last year I barely got a flower, so I didn't cut them back last winter. I don't know if that's how it works or not with hydrangeas. Maybe its more to do with the weather or the amount of rain...? Anyone have any advice? 

Whatever it is they are looking beautiful right now too.

So our humidity came back today with a vengeance.  After 2 beautiful summer days too. Oh well. I had a dentist appointment this morning-yuk- but then I met a friend from work for lunch. We got to do some planning for our upcoming trip  to Iceland in 1 1/2 weeks. There's 4 of us going, my friend, her sister (who I know although she lives in Massachusetts) and a friend of her sister's whom I haven't met. Should be fun-and I am excited since Iceland isn't on my husband's travel radar and with his dialysis  he can't really travel right now. But its been a place I've really wanted to go check out for quite some time.

I guess everything does work out if you are patient. :)

So that's all for me today. Thanks, as always, for visiting.

In My Garden, There is

 a place to de-stress and relax.  Nothing better than getting your frustrations out by pulling weeds. I purposely chose a photo of this grumpy, non gardening looking lady for this piece as I thought she might be happier if she kept a garden. I mean, who couldn't be happy with all those gorgeous flowers on the paper I used?

I found this lady in  the old Italian fashion magazine I have. This is kind of a different piece for me, more like a scrapbook page. But it was a fun attempt to see if I could still do a page layout. Not my most favorite page but it is good to challenge yourself. It was also a good way to help get rid of some scraps laying around on my work table.

I am linking up to Art Journal Journey. This month's theme is In My Garden, hosted by Yvonne.  Be sure to stop by  and post your garden themed journal page.

Life has been quiet the last couple of days. I've been enjoying walking, reading, making art and fabric dyeing/painting. Oh, and I can't forget my daily afternoon nap in my hammock on my screen porch.

The perfect summer activities.

Thanks for stopping by!

T Means Making Journal Pages

Happy T Day everyone. Another T Day already. Summer is going by way too fast for me. I want to get a beautiful day and just stall it for a while.

Stop by  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  to join in the T fun and to see what all the Tuesday T gang has been up to. If you've never joined in, just post something that has to do with drink (it doesn't have to be tea) and/or food.

Today I have some journal pages to show you with a "drink" theme. These are from my summer journal I am keeping.

Margaritas on the dock a couple of Sunday afternoon's ago. Back when it was still June.

Can you make out my doodled (not so great) glasses on the bottom left?

And one more T themed photo to show you. This is my mom. She is 86 and has some memory issues. She was thrilled for a little jaunt out of the assisted living where she is now. Her new apartment is actually really nice-she is a happier woman than I ever remember her.  I went to see her 2 weeks ago and we went out for lunch. Just cheese burgers and fries, nothing special, but we had a nice afternoon together.

This is my mini-frappe with the giant straw, which I loved the size of- just enough- and Mom.

Somehow I missed her mug of coffee in the photo.

Quiet week on my agenda. I think. I hope. Summer vacation mode has really set in. The humidly is due back as the week goes on and I have a few little "projects" I want to do  around the house. And just be in my slow summer mode for a little bit.
Thanks for stopping by ans visiting.

The Great North Woods-or North of the Notches

Happy new week everyone. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. I took a day trip this weekend, and today, instead of art, I am going to share some view of my trip with you.

When I was a child, my family would often take a week's holiday in the northern most town  in New Hampshire, the state I now live in. The name of the town is Pittsburg, and I hadn't been there for probably at least 30 years. But I was curious to see if and how it changed. 

Anyhow, since yesterday was cool and wet and not a good boating day, the hubby and I (and the 2 dogs too) took a road trip up to Pittsburg. We ended up driving around 330 miles and were gone for almost 13 hours. 

Pittsburg (like most of northern New Hampshire)  is very rural and  very wild.  Its an area of small dairy farms and even more so thick north woods.

In New Hampshire , we have mountains. And we have some mountains passes, which we call notches. All the parts of the state that are above of these notches we refer to as"North of the Notches", and that's where we went. We couldn't go much further north and stay in the US.

Since we didn't bring passports, we didn't go further into Quebec.

But it was tempting. 

And we drove closer to the north pole than the equator.

(Well, it was chilly and felt like the north pole but I know it isn't that far north.)  :)

 The cold didn't bother the 2 dogs though. They needed a little fun too.

There's some beautiful lakes in Pittburg. Too bad it was cloudy and the mountains aren't very visible.

I was glad to see that things hadn't really changed very much. That way the journey didn't conflict with my memories, which was what I was hoping. 

 Besides seeing Pittsburg, we got to explore some other parts of New Hampshire too. 

And we saw some other interesting views too.

 We drove through 3 different notches. In the northern most one, Dixville Notch, is this gorgeous old hotel called the Balsams. 

 And this is one of the big rivers that flows in New Hampshire and Maine.

 And we discovered this interesting store. It was a full sized hardware store, and a full sized grocery store, and also a sporting goods store,a camping store and a clothing store too. I love stores you find like this in really rural places. 

And have you ever seen these kind of shoes?

And they had this taxidermied  albino moose. But I saw something more exciting than that,

She was feeding in a marsh.

This is what I was hoping to see. :) I didn't even need to crop these photos. 

I hope you enjoyed this journey through my post today. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.