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. 

Halloween 2011

Surprisingly, Addison wasn't as in to trick-or-treating this year as she was last year. We made it way farther last year. She was done before we got to the top of our street. I think she much rathered seeing all the other trick-or-treaters and passing out candy. Since she's not all that in to candy, I guess I can understand that. What was most amusing was how bothered she'd get when someone wouldn't say "You're Welcome" after she said "Thank you". At one lady's house she kept saying "Thank you" because all the lady would say was "OK". I was pulling her along as she repeatedly said it. We get to the end of the driveway and Addison says "She wouldn't say 'you're welcome'". Who knew I'd have a teaching moment about why that's okay. We still pushed her to go a little further up the street and lo' and behold, Greg falls while holding her. His superman move resulted in very little damage on her part (she just fell on her bum). He, unfortunately, took the brunt of the fall and skinned his knee. It's a miracle or something that neither of them had to go to the emergency room as it was slowly passing before my eyes. Truly, she was done after that...and I'd be a monster to make her continue (although, we did sneak in one more house). :) All in all it was a good Halloween and she was adorable.

The Dreaded THUMB!!

It’s been awhile. I have no excuses other than the normal “been busy” excuse. The oldest in the book. In the meantime, I recently read an article written by a mom about her thumb-sucking daughter. That almost sounded like a bad word! Ironic. I agreed with her article, so I thought I’d write about it. We had lots of parallels. She was a thumb-sucker – I was a thumb-sucker. Now her daughter is a thumb-sucker and my daughter is a thumb-sucker. I knew it would be this way. Addison was sucking her thumb in-utero, so no surprise here. Basically, what is most bothersome about the whole ordeal is how much it bugs OTHER people. As a former thumb-sucker, I don’t think the teasing, humiliation, and overall disappointment from other people was helpful. I’m not sure that’s what really made me quit either. I became a sneak-thumb-sucker. Like an addict. Not the message you want to send to a kid. Addison sucks her thumb as her Zen. Couple that with certain corners of her “blankie” and she’s in such a relaxed state that any Buddhist would drool over. It’s her lullaby. I commend her for finding her peace. Unfortunately, societal pressures will shame her from achieving that peace soon. I wish people would lay off her for now. It doesn’t bother me. Should it? Why? Because you say so? Meh. Whatever. She’s only 4…almost 5. Why does she need to go through that pressure now? It helps her cope with whatever is stressing her. I think she’ll find other, more “appropriate” ways in due time, but how do you expect a 5 year-old to know how to deal with her emotions and stressors. A 5 year-old shouldn’t have stressors, you say? To her, having a doll taken away from her for 10 minutes is the end of the world. Trust me, she has stress. Having to wear pants instead of a dress is sheer torture. Not being allowed to watch a movie at 8:30pm because it’s bed-time is cruel. She has stress. Let her have her thumb, for now…ok? Don’t let it bother you and she’ll quit when she’s ready and found another way to cope. In due time.

Shades of grey

So this one I think I'll put up on Etsy. It was a lesson though in what different kinds of pens look like. If you look closely you might be able to see that I used two different kinds of pens. One was a Sharpie pen (this thing lasts forever!) and the other was a Micron. I used different nib sizes and prefer the very fine point, but sometimes that's just not practical. The Micron is definitely a darker shade. It makes the Sharpie almost appear grey, which I don't mind too much here. It might make an interesting project in the future. My only complaint is that I can't get the Sharpie pen in different sizes. Maybe I haven't looked in the right place, but I think it only comes in Fine and Medium. I used Fine, but it's not quite fine enough for some spaces.

So, in the frame it will go (soon) and I'll load it up on Etsy. Go check out my Etsy tab at the top to see other stuff I've listed.

My initials tangled

This was a challenge I saw posted out there in Zentangle world...to take your initials and "tangle" them. I found this project very fun. I've seen other interpretations and hope to do another one with my whole name to see how it turns out.

Zentangle - #1, the very first

This was really my first attempt at this new thing I've discovered called "Zentangle". Not bad for a first try if I do say so myself. I love the repetitiveness of doing it and the freedom to just create without having to worry about the outcome. I think that's what intimidates me most about creating a new piece of artwork...the outcome. What if I spent all this time working on it and it looks awful? That's happened. I've scrapped paintings, torn out sketchbook pages (that's why I prefer a spiral bound - no evidence!). I've wasted time that I have so little of. With this, I feel like there's no expectation to the final product. It is what it is. It's the process that's the most rewarding, not the end. If it looks cool, yay. If not, it doesn't feel like such a wasted moment.

I'm scouring the internet for more patterns to use and for inspiration. I've seen some pretty cool stuff and for now am inspired. The problem with inspiration is that I think it's more of an aspiration - meaning I aspire for my work to be like that, not that you're choking on your own saliva. I've done that too and it feels ridiculous that you can't control your own slobber. Jeez. Anyway, I know I need to do less of that and more of my own thing, but that's hard when you don't really know what your "thing" is. I'm still trying to figure that out. This has been a long process for me and I feel that I get closer and closer to it, but just haven't quite reached it. I hope to sometime in this lifetime. Perhaps I'll be 80 when I figure it out - but I could sure use the money now. :) For now, I just play. Try to create something cool and hopefully sell some it along the way if not just to feed my habit.

Bedtime story

In the polite company of others

Yesterday after lunch, Addison asked to come play at my work for a few minutes. They have some visitation rooms with lots of toys and she loves to play there every once in awhile. In the midst of her playing, she abruptly stops and worriedly asks, “I need to fart, is there a place to fart around here?”. Stifling my laughter, I tell her where the bathroom is. She honestly just needed to expel gas. I’m sure she’ll appreciate this story when she’s older. :P

But that brings a thought to mind. Why don’t we have farting rooms? Most people just do it where they are to the displeasure of those around them, but if we had a flatulence room maybe this would lessen our exposure. There have been patents and inventions for special fart-pants, though I can’t help but think that having an air-tight pair of undergarments on would host a multitude of other issues, let alone the comfort value.

In America, flatulence is not acceptable. In other countries, it’s as common and acceptable as a cough. I remember a few years ago reading a news blurb about some boys kicked off a school bus for farting. A bit extreme, no? I’m sure there were other factors at hand – pre-teen boys can be quite gross and unruly at times. I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted to be on that bus either. If farts were more socially acceptable, this wouldn’t have been an issue. You don’t hear of many cases where a kid was teased relentlessly for coughing, do you?

Anyway, farts are gross and smelly and you shouldn’t do it in the company of others if at all possible (and I think it’s possible most times). My daughter has learned to not do it in the polite company of others. Although, my car hasn’t been the same since she used to leave stink bombs before I let her out for school. Thanks for that Addison. Karma.

Future famous dress designer

Carnie rides

I have a child who LOVES rides. She loves the carnival, and the more rickey and dangerous it seems, the more she wants to ride it. I also have a kid that's just a l-i-t-t-l-e too short for most of the ones she wants to ride and some of them require an adult or "responsible person" to ride with her. I love rides too - at least, I used to. Seems like the older I get, the less daring I'm willing to be. Carnie rides are especially scary because they just don't look secure. Also, when you're riding side by side with a small child, they are left a little exposed because while the belt or bar might be tight on you, it doesn't come near their tiny waist. I find myself hanging on to Addison. I'm not sure if it's my fear that she'll go flying out (I don't always trust science), or if I'm just holding on to her out of my own terror.
Yesterday we took her to the carnival at Ascension in Kettering. We get on this ride that she called the egg ride. Basically, it's like an open pod suspended from the top and it has two little seats facing each other. There's a wheel in the middle that you can turn around (think tea cup ride) while you're flying around in a circle. This ride was not made for adults and the only way she could ride it was with an adult. I approached this ride very uncertain. We even watched it first. I was hoping she'd change her mind, but alas, she did not. Greg can't do spinny rides - so I'm stuck doing it. Not only is the pod tiny, the seat belt wasn't coming close to buckling. A small teenager - maybe. A grown adult woman? No way. The guy just says "hang on". I imagined he'd walk back and get some kind of extender or something...but no, he actually meant hang on. The ride started and I didn't want to take my hands off the pole in the middle, let alone twirl the damn thing around. What the hell? I am literally flying around unsecured. Granted, it might have been more like a swing but when you're faced with your head possibly being planted in the ground or a sea of people, you're not really thinking logically. Addison loved this ride, but I was glad to get off. Next ride was a rocket ship. Come on people. If you're over 5 feet tall, this ride is too short! I'm by far not a tall person, and this ride was nearly too short for me. I spend a lot of time on rides like this just trying to figure out where to fold my legs into so that I don't lose feeling in them and can safely get off when it stops without falling on my face or getting a limb stuck. These rides need to quit saying adults can ride, when they really can't. Just make them more secure for little people to ride themselves. There was one a few weeks ago that we went on that went super fast and I was literally pressing my body in by pushing my feet firmly at the front of the car. My legs hurt so bad when I got off. How am I always the one stuck riding these things with her? So, we went on a few more rides and there was a big ride that she wanted to go on. No signs anywhere with a height restriction and I saw other small-ish kids, so they went to go on and they said she was too short. What a disappointment. She really, really wanted to ride. Next year for sure I think she'll be big enough for more rides. She's a daredevil! So, she spent the rest of her tickets going down the big slide. We had a great time, but am I getting too old for this? Yeesh.