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Hey (Cat) Ladies!
From a mom and cat lady to all the childless cat ladies out there: we all just out here living our best life! So grateful I chose to bring these angels into mine đ
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Seahorse
Oil Pastel
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Fish
Oil Pastel
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Weekly Roundup: Writing, Writing, Writing
For several years, off and on, I have been writing a novel, and I am very happy to say that I have finally completed it! I started it one year when I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which was an excellent writing source for me. They have an annual November challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, which is roughly the length of a novel. It’s kind of a crazy goal to write like mad for a month, but honestly, it gave me the jump start I needed to dive into the novel writing process, because they have forums, local events, and reward badges to…
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‘Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer’ Exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Last week I had the pleasure of seeing the Edith Head exhibit at the OKC Museum of Art. The week before I went, I watched a few of her award winning movies, some for the first time and some re-watched, including A Place in the Sun, Roman Holiday, and Samson and Delilah. Fortunately I got to see costumes from these movies and many, many more. While perusing Head’s extensive list of movies, I discovered how much she accomplished in her life, and also realized there are so many classic movies I have not seen yet! One thing my friend and I noticed was how small the dresses were. Not only…
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Weekly Roundup: Woodland Wonders Crochet Along and Lotion Bars
Last weekend I went out of town for a show, and was a bit busy during the week, so I didn’t get to do a weekly roundup. As a result, this weekend I really needed some at-home time – I always do when I feel like I’ve been out too much. My daughter was on vacation this weekend, too, so we didn’t get to have our usual Sunday outing. So I spent the entire weekend at home cleaning, cooking, relaxing with my cats, and making things. This included testing out different recipes for homemade lotions bars, and in the process I learned that although it is really soft and moisturizing,…
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Weekly Roundup: Feels Like Summer Splendor
While it’s still officially spring, with 90-plus degree days it feels like summer here in Oklahoma. The garden is starting to fill out nicely, berries are ripening on the bushes, and swim season is upon us! Yes, the warm season at this time of year is splendorous. To encourage climbing for my moonflowers and heavenly blue morning blooming vines that I planted from seed, I added two trellises to my apartment garden, and their tendrils wrapped around them and started climbing within hours. My daughter’s boyfriend got me these cute, tropical solar lights for the garden on Mother’s Day and the plants are climbing them as well. Also, I’m really…
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A Magical Sunday at the Tulsa Botanic Garden
My daughter and I enjoyed a beautiful walk through the Tulsa Botanic Garden this weekend. Clouds were forming in the sky when we set out, and the weirdest thing happened on the way there. When we got to the road that leads to the gardens, we saw several tarantulas crossing the street. We slowed down to watch each one, careful not to run over any. We were amazed, but it was also a little creepy for me and once we got to the gardens I made sure to inspect my surroundings everywhere we went – now that I knew we were near tarantula town! But I didn’t see any tarantulas…
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Weekly Roundup: Bee-Inspired, Sea-Inspired, and Banyan Moon
This week I made a soy wax candle from some of those bee and honeycomb shaped wax embeds I recently made. I wanted to make it like a cupcake, but it was much more difficult than I remembered when I last made some cupcake candles about ten years ago. Piping the wax at just the right temperature was the hardest part, and at one point I poured the wax in the cake piping when it was too warm and it made a big mess all over the counter, which I had to scrape and scrape to get it all up. After a few messy tries I finally got it to…
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Back to the Piano Basics
Ever since I was twelve I have played the piano, and I have taken lessons from several great teachers, including a master teacher as an adult, and have even taught some lessons. But in the past few years I haven’t practiced or played much, until today. I wanted to jump back in with the basics, and reacquaint myself with proper piano techniques, because it’s always best to start a piano learning journey with good technique so you don’t have to unlearn bad practices later. Today I started with an exercise book that packs a lot of different elements of piano theory together into each exercise, including different dynamics and musical…
