Category : Outdoors

117 posts

The calendar says its Spring but I think Mother Nature needs her head examined. It’s cold and snowy. So since the weather isn’t cooperating I figured I’d create something that would brighten the gloomy day.imagine spring

I pulled bits together from my scrap bucket.

imagine spring

I even briefly set up my sewing machine on my workspace to get some stitching onto the page. I sewed this scrap directly into the book.

imagine spring

This piece was stitched together before gluing into place. Gosh I’ve missed using my machine! For some reason it inspires me.imagine spring

Lastly I added the word imagine. I was trying to imagine what Spring should feel like. I’m linking up with AJJ for Spring.

Art Journal Journey
With it being spring break so many people are traveling. Mini-me and I did as well. It wasn’t a tropical destination. It was 4 hours NORTH of here for the state archery tournament. caribou
We drove up on Friday and spent the night in a hotel since she didn’t shoot until Saturday. A snow storm was expected anyway so might as well go early. Thankfully we never did get any snow…just a cold wind.paul bunyan
We had to do the usual tourist things…amazingly enough there was others venturing into the frigid wind off the lake for a photo op that were nice enough to take a picture of us. That may look like standing water under Babe the Blue Ox but its solid ice.
After the tournament (at which she beat her personal best score by 24 points!) we headed for home but took a slight detour since we were that far north to visit Itasca State Park. Itasca state park
As we turned in we quickly realized that we probably wouldn’t get to see the headwaters of the Mississippi as we had wanted. Some of the roads weren’t even plowed. Instead we just took a photo of the map on went on our merry way.Itasca state park
I really wanted her to be able to jump across the Mississippi as I had when I was a kid…heck, I wanted to do it again now! Oh well…maybe another trip.
This is typically when I share my photo challenge but I’m woefully behind. I will get caught up though and share them next week as well as the next months challenge.

Last week was awesome! Busy but awesome. I’ve been continuing to do pour painting when ever I have the chance. I did get my step by step process written and posted. You can check that out in the previous postacrylic pour walk through

The kids had their Spring concert Thursday.

It’s the second to the last for J. The next one will be sad for me. He’s been in choir since the 4th grade. He plans to sing in college but I won’t be necessarily seeing those performances. His choir sang such a cool song with movement. I wish I had know so I could have recorded it.

This is the video that they learned the movements to the song from.

I must say that our choir with the kids in the robes looked much cooler when their arms were swinging to the music.

The weather has been amazing…so beautiful on Saturday that the neighbor had the first bonfire of the year on St. Patrick’s Day.  Some adult beverages were consumed. One neighbor even put green food coloring in his beer to be super festive. 

As the sun began to shade the driveway and get chilly even with the fire the decision was made to move the party across the street to a sunny spot. Yep…portable fire. Us Minnesotans are dedicated to being outdoors!!

The week wouldn’t wouldn’t be complete with my photo challenge update.

10. Savory…. sausage dip tastes so much better than it looks.

11. Iconic

12. Pastel

13. Ha!

14. Clouds

15. Blue & White

It’s off to work for me. Three days left before Spring Break!!!!

What are you doing today?

 

I am super late getting this posted. Yesterday was a scheduled day off for school although it’s highly likely that school would have been released early due to the blizzard that rolled through.  On the bright side…Mini-me took her knowledge test and got her learners permit yesterday. I let her drive a bit in a parking lot on our way home. It was crazy slippery already at 11am.

(fyi…this will be a photo heavy post)

Lets back up a bit….last week I was super excited about the Vikings playing for a spot in the Super Bowl. Yep…they lost. By a lot. It was almost as if they didn’t show up. Don’t get me wrong…I’m still a fan. Always a fan but I’m not going to lie it was disappointing.

Me circa 1976 sporting a Vikings Fan club button.

The game was so stressful to watch that I kept myself busy knitting Little Hats for Big Hearts

When I switched to crochet the pattern got away from me. Not really sure what this might end up as…certainly not a hat.

I’ve continued with the January photo challenge…this month is going really well and a fun challenge to think outside the box at times.

13) floral

14) faceless portrait….faceless portrait of a Vikings fan

15) new….my new Vikings shirt

16) wall….local tribute to Prince

17) thoughtful

18) cool

19) paper….embarrassed to say only part of my collection

20) reflection

21) day off

22) scenic…out for a drive at the start of the blizzard

Last night we waited and waited and waited for the plow to go through so we could clear the driveway. The snow just kept coming getting deeper and deeper. Finally we heard it come barreling down the street at about 8:30. The four of us suited up and began to dig out.

Fast forward to this morning…I get the call that school is delayed by 2 hours! Hooray! In the meantime Mr. G leaves for work.  Then I get an email to district staff telling us that school is now closed for the day. The kids were screaming for joy and passing the news along to their friends since the automated call had not come through yet. The joy was lost a bit when they realized the chore we still had in front of us….moving a ton more snow.

The drifting sure looks pretty but makes crazy mounds of snow in other places.

My garden is in the deep snow.

The kids worked hard shoveling while I pulled the drifted snow off the roof.

The struggle was real. We got a foot (30 mm) of snow in total that drifted in crazy ways.

Since we were all tired and hungry I took the kids to breakfast. I had buckwheat pancakes. They were so good!! I was so hungry I almost forgot to snap my photo for T stands for Tuesday!

What are you doing today?

Over the weekend we had the last of the super hot and humid days. People who aren’t from Minnesota think that we couldn’t possibly have tropical dew points like our far southern states…well they are wrong. I’m assuming its due to all the lakes..the sheer amount of water around. I could be totally wrong but that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

As some cloud cover rolled in I decided it was time to pull up the garden or perhaps I should say what was left of it after the critters had chewed their way through it. I didn’t bother taking any after photos as it’s pretty much just dirt and some fallen leaves now.

Over the weekend while enjoying the comfort of the air conditioning we watched or I should say re-watched a couple movies. Some laid back family time was definitely in order.

I actually did a bit of sewing over the weekend too but was totally unhappy with the results. I wanted to make a little pouch to hold my hand-sanitizer that would attach to my lanyard. I’ve already gotten one cold from all the germs. Anyway…I didn’t love my result so Mini-me found a store bought one in her room for me to use. Perfect.

Slowly I am finding time for more things in life. I think I just had to get over my old way of thinking and re-prioritize.

I’ve been thinking about trying some new things with my blog…stay tuned!

What are you doing today?

I think the title says it all… this whole working outside the home is really cutting into my artsy time. Of course I knew it would but eventually I’ll find time for creativity again. I have so many ideas float through my head when I have a moment to pause my brain. Now I just need to execute said ideas.

My first week of school was good…exhausting…but good. This week we are starting to get into some routines which can only mean that things are about to change! The kids have had a busy week as well. Mini-me had a game 1.25 hours away on the first day of school and tonight is playing in our capital city of St. Paul. Crazy how far they travel to play teams not even in our conference.

This little guy is so confused as to why mom’s not home…he’s a little mopey about it.

Also since I’m not out in the yard all the time, the deer have decided it would be fun to jump over the garden gate and eat all the leaves from basically every living plant in our yard. Makes me wonder if we will have a really harsh winter or if they are just opportunity eaters,

I did manage to finish the mixed media piece I was working on last week. Anyone remember those I AM LOVED buttons? I want to say they were from the early 80s?? I happened to still have one floating around. Yep it’s a sickness…never get rid of fun stuff like that.

Over the weekend we roasted hotdogs for supper again in the chimenea. Some neighbors showed up and we had a impromptu party on the deck, capping off the night with a couple games of cribbage.  Thank goodness we got a light under the umbrella!

What did you do today?

These last few weeks of summer have us trying to squeeze every bit of summer fun and activities that we can. We’ve already started the school ramp up. Orientation yesterday…during the second half of the eclipse…nice timing people. At least it was raining like crazy at that time so no one cared.

Speaking of the eclipse…did anyone see it? I built a couple boxes in case the clouds cleared. We got peeks at it as it was eclipsing.

The clouds rolled in thick enough to obscure our view minutes before the greatest point of totality in our region. It was very strange though….the temperature suddenly dropped and the crickets started chirping. So awesome…just wish we could have seen as well as felt it.

The eclipse reminds me that I should show you my still work in progress of the acrylic pour project.

Somehow I seem to have lost the chipboard 3 overnight….I’m guessing Marvin had something to do with that.  I think I’m going to paint the numbers either white or black…leaning towards white. Then seal the whole works before attaching the clock parts.

I’ve also been playing around with my button collection again…

I have some ideas for projects. More button stacks. I just love how they look.

Over the weekend we had an evening that was just perfect for a fire. Hot dogs for dinner anyone?

As I waited for the fire to get going I checked out the garden. Late summer has done a number on some of the plants.

Such as the pumpkin  plant..totally dead and gone.

The green beans have totally taken over. I’m surprised since they were really poor early in the season….which is completely opposite of the last few years. I’ll definitely have some spicy beans to can.

And diced tomatoes as well.

Since the thick humidity, as seen here over the weekend, has finally cleared out. I’ll likely tackle the canning today in between playing taxi driver of course.

What are you doing today?

We are ready to safely view the eclipse here.

Have my homemade viewing box.

Now if the cloud cover would just roll out of here we might actually get to see some of it. Where we live about 83% will be covered. I hope we at least get a glimpse of it.

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