A day in the life...

This year's Father's Day tshirt

Addison's dance class picture

Dance picture

After Addison's dance recital

Naked evacuation

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought of this - at least women. You have that moment when you're all alone in a quiet doctor's office with muffled voices in the distance. You're sitting completely naked except for those paper gowns they give you. Looking around the room and reading all the posters in the office on cholesterol, the liver, or mapping out where you are on the dreaded BMI poster that every room seems to have. Then you spot the escape route map. If you're like me, you consider how awful it would be for the alarm to go off at this very moment and there be an evacuation - with you in just your paper gown. Surely you'll be the only one without any clothes on. Then I hear it. A sudden, blaring, unpleasant, concerning alarm. BRAAAP, BRAAAP, BRAAAP! I wonder if I'm supposed to evacuate or if I should wait for someone to come get me.  BRAAAP, BRAAAP, BRAAAP! Certainly someone remembers that I'm in here. BRAAAP, BRAAAP, BRAAAP! I can still hear voices outside the door - so I assume they've got it under control. I'll leave if I start to smell something funny or hear people yelling.  BRAAAP, BRAAAP, BRAAAP! Have I lost your mind? Is anyone evacuating? Am I the only one who hears it? Will the alarm get shut off? Should I leave your room? Naked? Finally after an eon the alarm goes off. WHEW! The doctor or nurse comes in. No explanation. Hmm. Now everytime I'm left alone in a doctor's office, I will think about this...and how close I was to having to expose myself to the world (or at least passers-by in Huber Heights). It could happen to you.

Wacky Wednesday @ school!!

We had picked this outfit the night before and just when I thought we were done, Addison wanted to throw the sweater into the mix. I think we accomplished most wacky outfit ever - and certainly for a Wednesday. It was Dr. Seuss week at school and sadly, many of the kids did not participate. I think parents forgot, but give me a themed school day and I will walk to the ends of the earth to find what we need.

Ice skating @ Riverscape

Despite the sour look on her face, she did have fun. We paid for an hour lesson, and waited on the sidelines not wanting to interfere, but the instructor was too busy to pick her up every time she fell. She was so desperate she'd reach up to anyone passing by to help her. Greg decided to help her and got on the ice. She did extremely well for first time lessons. I think next year she may get the knack. There were other kids older than her who were doing that cartoony legs up in the air falling hard on their butts...but she has a proper fall, so I'm certain she'll get it.

This, by the way, is the look of frustration we get when she can't do something the first time. We are working on patience and perserverance.

The elevator ride

Addison and I were in the elevator at her school when we had to wait for an entire PreK class to board. Like proper elevator passengers, we scoot to the back - which is also where all the 4 & 5 year olds want to be. I was literally swimming in children. So, there's a boy standing next to me looking at my sweater. He says, "what are those?" pointing to the beads on my sweater.  "Beads", I say. He says, "Seeds?".  "No, wooden beads." I correct.  "Oh." There is a lot of 4 & 5 year old chatter going on and I'm about 3 feet taller than him, so it's hard to have a conversation.  He continues. "What's your name?" he asks.  I struggle a little with this and little kids, because I'm not sure it's setting a proper tone with a strange child to call adults by their first names. You have to establish some authority or something, don't you?  Anyway, I cave and say, "Christie". He looks at me a little crooked. "Steve?" I try to hold back my eye rolling. He's just asking an innocent question, but I'm finding this whole conversation very unnecessary. "No, Christie" I say, hoping this is the end.  "Christeve?" he asks more confounded. Another boy, overhearing our discussion jumps in and says "Her name is Christeve".   "No, Chris-teeee".  "Oh" he says.  Then the elevator door opens on the second floor and the kids pour out. My daughter and I are left alone to float up to one more floor. I'm left confused and maybe a little dumber.

Happy Valentine's Day from me to you

Scratch art

I've probably been working on this for 10 years or so. :)  It started out as something and got forgotten or the inspiration fizzled. Greg found it not long ago and had it on display in our computer room. I kept looking at it thinking it wasn't finished...because it wasn't really, so I took it down and I think the results are a little more pleasing to me. I think I'll try another and maybe this time I can stick with the project to completion. It's really hard to go at something 10 years later.

Zentangle days Feb 4 to 6

Zentangle day 31

Zentangle days Jan 28 to 30

Zentangle days 25 to 27

Zentangle days Jan 22 to 24

Zentangle days 19 to 21

 As you can see, I started coloring in the middles of Casella, but changed my mind. I think I like it better shaded instead. It makes it look more like an optical illusion and 3-dimensional that way. I'm sure you could add some kind of pattern inside too, but that pattern does take some time to get through...and I didn't have the imagination after I was done. Jelly Roll started all in a row, then I started researching how other people used it and lo and behold it can float around! Why don't I think of these things? Finally, there's Undine. This one has lots of possibilities and I really have to use my noggin to make it not like everyone elses. I split it to remind myself later that I can be creative with it. For the most part, I did it how I saw other people use it, but added a little flair on the one I did on the bottom trying to make it a little more dimensional. That made me happy. I had a burst of something creative which pleases me.

Days 16 to 18

 I started off hating 2-N-5. I didn't get it. I started off small and realized that it needed to be a big pattern. I almost scribbled out the top because I was so dissatisfied with it, but I didn't. Looking at it a few days later and from a distance, I don't hate it as much. It even kind of works that it starts off small at the top and ended up bigger at the bottom. I was able to restrain myself from making it perfect and worked with what I had, and it all ended up okay! Lesson learned.  Then there was Flez. I think I picked it to make up for the previous one. It is lovely! All of these tangles I think are block fillers, but quite different from one another. Boucle' was another that ended up being kind of a cross between perfect and not. It required a bit of brain power as did Flez to make sure my swoops were going the right direction. I did have a moment where I started a like going the wrong way, but I challenge you to find it. I might be brave enough to try 2-N-5 again now that I understand it can't be the perfect and precise design I try to acheive. That's okay. I think I learned that it makes a good compliment to those designs that are.

Addison turns 5

She's growing up fast. She helped prepare for her party by making little place cards for everyone (that was totally her idea). I helped her spell names, but she wrote them all down and carefully organized where everyone would sit for cake. She even decorated them with some new stickers she had gotten. She picked out from the balloons I had gotten her party favors. She selected specific colors for everyone so when they left, they took a balloon with them. Her dinner request was Jay's Seafood, to which people reacted with an impressed "Oh!" when we told them where she wanted to go. Granted, she ordered the chicken fingers and fries, but in all fairness she devoured Greg's clam chowder. Considering she hardly had a nap that day I think she did okay. They brought her a surprise cake and the waiter sang to her while she hid behind me with her coat on ready to go. Despite all that, she was surprised and even asked him how he knew. Apparently he had super-hearing.

To all of you who joined us (mom, dad, Joan) - even though she tossed her gifts aside as she greedily grabbed for the next gift, the next day she joyfully played with everything. She spent some quality time with Greg putting the Lego sets together and playing with the horse and LeapPad by herself. In my opinion, she had a pretty decent 5th birthday - and so did I. 

On a side note: whoever told her that when she turned 5 she wouldn't have to take naps anymore - we need to have a word. I would very much like you to come pick her up at 1pm and bring her back at 8pm for bed so you can experience her full scale naplessness. Some kids need naps no matter what age. Even 40-some year old grown men still need naps. I think we try to make it a normal thing to need a nap. Some quiet, alone, distractionless down time. Even if she doesn't think she's tired, she has to have at least an hour resting in bed. I find that it helps me to slow down occasionally and just lay with her lying side by side. Without a nap, she doesn't know what to do with herself which ends up with everyone being grumpy and mad.

Addison's 5th birthday cake!

Princesses. Of course! This cake turned out great though, thanks to Ele. She wanted a strawberry cake and I think it was pretty good considering strawberry is not one of MY favorite cake flavors, but it wasn't my birthday was it? I'll definitely be getting more cakes there!

This is another awesome reason I love having my own office at work - I can hang my OWN artwork!

 It's hard to tell on here, but those pictures aren't very big, so I have a whole lotta wall to cover. The little ones I think are probably 4X6 total. For over a year I've been staring at that photo and it has needed some friends. I LOVE those floating frames I got at IKEA. I did an art show in school were I used those frameless frames (?). I think it's one of my favorite looks. The Zentangles kind of have a life of their own and frames can sometimes hold them in too much.

Zentangle - In Living Color!

Days 13 to 15

 I like all of these! They are fun to do and fun to look at. Purk and Fricle seem to me to be tangles I would use as my starting point.

Days 10 to 12

 I always like working on Antidots. I think it captures what Zentangle is - to me anyway. Something that just takes shape, doesn't require much thought and is satisfyingly page filling! Sundoo was a challenge because I had to think about it a lot. It's kind of like an inside-out star. Shiraz. What can I say about Shiraz. Meh. Looks a bit like seashells. That's all I got.

Zentangle days 7 to 9. Took me a bit to figure out the first and last ones.

 I have to admit that I'm not overly excited about any of these. They are definitely good space fillers though, so I guess if I have a big project I might be more likely to use them. Seeing them all together though leaves me a little unsatisfied. I can't blame them though. I was looking for tangles that were similar to put together and I think I accomplished that.

Smash book - beginnings

Here's another thing I'm working on. Mom got me a "Smashbook" for Christmas and it's really cool. The idea is that you have pages to just put stuff on. The pages are already designed, so you don't have to spend time picking out scrapbook paper from the millions of papers available. You just do. You can record thoughts, doodles, pictures and those little things that you collect and have no place for, like movie tickets, theatre tickets, receipts, etc. Here's the first layout I did. Of course, it's not finished exactly, but I haven't found anything to put in those places yet. It comes with a pen/glue stick attached and has lots of nifty accessories available. Very fun.

I got the new Tangle-a-day calendar!

What is it? It's a calendar for Zentangle exercises. Says so on the cover. :)  I was very excited to go get this calendar. I thought I'd have to buy it online, but noticed that Carole Ohl, who designed the book and one whose blog I frequently peruse for inspiration, was from Dayton, so I contacted her to see if it was sold locally - and to my delight, it was. So I got to save on shipping costs too! Not only that, but I got one of those gift card Visa's a few months ago. You know, those ones that you think will work until you get up to the register and find out that their machine can't accept them and you have an armful of merchandise and no other method of payment? Yeah, one of those. Again, to my delight, my gift card worked!! It was fate. I slept with it overnight while I decided how I would approach it. The nice thing is, there is no expectation (which I enjoy), so while I've decided to practice a different tangle for each day and make a diary of designs, I can change my mind later if I want to do something more in-depth and incorporate different patterns into one piece. Anyway, I'm going to do my best to try to keep up. She says on the first page that you might take a few minutes each day or sit down with a chunk of time each week. I like that. Not so much pressure to try to get it all done in a day. I've already gotten to day 6 and it's only the 9th of January. Good start so far! I'll post my progress.

Here is days 1 to 3: I tried to do just strings.

Here is 4 to 6: I did all circle shapes that could be done unattached.



The thing with patterns is that they all have different names, so when doing challenges and such, you need to be able to know which patterns to use. There's no way I could remember all of them...so this might be a good place to keep them all. The other thing is that I don't like them all, so I will have to challenge myself to do it even when I don't care for the pattern.