May 31st Weekly Post

 Hello again!

Hope everyone is doing well.

This past week, Nature decided it was finally time for us to start Summer.

Temps have consistently risen, nights are becoming sultry.

Aside from the occasional blessing of a cool front, we won't have a break until Fall.

I'm thankful we lasted til almost June with pleasant weather.

They are saying we may get a few more relief fronts in June, so one can always hope!

😁 Heehee 😁

I'm guest hosting this coming week at Sunday Postcard Art and my chosen theme is FAVORITE QUOTE/SAYING. I have long loved the quote "We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own". But I was surprised to learn the author is some self-help author named Ben Sweetland. I've never heard of him. I thought for sure Ralph Waldo Emerson or even Zig Ziglar was the author, but no. Well, it just proves that brilliance is in all of us.

For the illustration, I used a Deep Red stamp called Courtyard Stairs. It stamped horribly uneven on the cold press watercolor card I used. So, I took that as a challenge to make it my own! I got out my Platinum Carbon Ink Pen and traced over the stamped lines, then got a bit bold and embellished it with some more. So at that point, it only sort of looked like the stamp, so I have really diverged somewhat from the original image. Then I got out my watercolors, Promarkers and colored pencils to fill it with color. I decided to make the stairs the "brightened path", so I used shimmering gold watercolor on top of yellow Promarker. I stamped the sentiment and then traced over it as well. I *think* that stamp came from Stamp Magick a long time ago. Anyway, I liked the result and will frame it to hang in our art gallery room at the new house.

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Honey and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary this weekend and this is the card I made him.

SU card base, Kraft card, DCWV designer paper, Impression Obsession and Amazon sentiment word dies, Amazon donut dies and gel penned sprinkles. Just a quick card using scraps and what was easy to access.

Here is the inside, created in PSE and printed out.

And the sketch I used.

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We are going out to eat tonight with our across-the-street neighbor friend couple, so it should be a fun evening!

Hope you have a fun rest of the weekend as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

Stay cool and hydrated!

XOX

May 19th Weekly Post

 Hello again!

It has been a while since I've posted. In my defense, I guess I needed the break and I didn't realize it's been almost 4 weeks! They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit, which I may have done. I will confess I forced myself to create this post, lol. 

I hope everyone who celebrated had a good Mother's Day. I used the Artist Postcard I made for Sunday Postcard Art a few weeks back to make this card for my 96 y.o. mother-in-law. We took it to her, along with a pretty flowery plant and some chocolates. Had a great visit and she loved her pressies.

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I received another orchid for my Mother's Day. This is the third one Dear Daughter has given me. I'd told her last year I wanted multiple plants, so now I have 3 and I'm good for now. Love my sweet girl!

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Since I last posted, I've been deep into trying to eat 90 grams or more of protein every day. I'm now old enough that I need to eat more of it because old farts can lose half their muscle mass and this is the only way to keep or regain some. If you have ever tried to do this, you know that it's pretty hard to do without ingesting 4,000 calories a day or spending a fortune on protein drinks or powders. It's taken a lot of my spare time to research and source items when we aren't working on the new house. But for 6 weeks now I've been drinking an Ensure Max Protein drink (Cafe' Mocha flavor) within the first 30 minutes after waking up. And I definitely feel a positive difference in multiple ways. Some days I can go for 3 hours before remembering to fix a cup of coffee!

So here are a few protein bowl meals I made and eaten that I remembered to snap.

This one adds onto a regular meal. I think this was 23 grams. I had to also eat a string cheese to get up to 30 grams.

Next up, this one gave me 36 grams protein.

This meal is about 35 grams of protein.

And this salad with egg, ham and grated cheese hits at exactly 30 grams.

As you can see, I sometimes have to combine foods I might not think go together, lol.

My weirdest yet was a snack of cottage cheese as a dip for buffalo protein chips, but it tasted pretty good!

I also plan to experiment adding protein-inclusive powders to my bread maker recipes. This one is a faux sourdough loaf I made using my last yeast packet right before packing the machine up to move it. (I'd already cut off the rounded top and sliced a few slices, then thought oh I better take a photo lol.) It was delicious, I ate every slice myself (ok, Honey was able to grab a few haha). But making more will have to wait a few months until we get completely moved.

Anyway, I'm also doing weight-bearing exercises so that the added protein doesn't go to waste in my body. Combined with climbing up and down stairs every day, I'm getting a good workout. At first I was exhausted, but with the protein and extra workout, it has very much helped my stamina and as a bonus I am continuing to lose weight. Right now, we are retrofitting the kitchen pantry and a few other closets. The wire racks that are in the pantry are not nearly enough storage space, so we are adding wood shelving. We are also making some adjustments to our master bedroom closet. This is all in addition to moving boxes and large items from old house to new. It seems like an endless task right now. And this will be the same thing I will be doing in a month or two, so I thought I'd update so far, but the scenery won't be changing really until the Fall.

I know some of you are thinking, what is the hold up? Why aren't you moved yet? And please let me say this with love: you have no idea how much stuff we have to move or what it feels like to live in our bodies, so please don't be worried about it, we aren't. We'll get there. I did warn you it would be several months and trust me, no need to keep asking if we are done yet, I will for sure announce it!

I apologize in advance if I sound rude. I do not mean it to be, it's just that I'm getting a bit tired of folks in real life and online thinking I need to be done with moving.

That's all.

✌💗💪

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I'll end this post by sharing a card I made a girlfriend who is a fellow coffee lover.

The coffee pot and cup, as well as the Java sentiment die are Stamplorations. The patterned paper is Echo Park. The Happy Birthday die is HunkyDory. The balloon dies are various brands. I colored the pot and cup with Promarkers.

And the sketch I used.

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Hopefully, I'll be successful in posting more often from now on.

I will definitely be posting on May 31st, as that's my next time to guest host at Sunday Postcard Art.

Until next time,

XXXO

April 22nd Weekly Post

 Happy Humpday!

Michele hosts this week's Sunday Postcard Art with a FACES theme.

I took a pre-cut 4x6 piece of white card stock and I stenciled a background with A Colorful Life's Cracked stencil and Uncharted Mariner, Chipped Sapphire and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. Next, I got out some DCWV Gold Foiled Cardstock and cut the Jane Davenport Tousled die, leaving all the bits in place and adhered it. Then I stamped a Paper Artsy quote with I/O black hybrid ink. If you cannot make out the words, it's a quote from Helen Keller: "Keep your face to the sun, and you will never see the shadows."

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I made this for a UK friend whose birthday was yesterday.

White Recollections card base, Pink Paislee designer papers, Spellbinders mat dies, Stamplorations cupcake dies, Avery Elle sentiment stamp, Promarkers.

The sketch I used.

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And here's a photo-dump of sorts -- just recent miscellaneous moments:

It's been Texas Ruby Red grapefruit season and it's my favorite fruit, with apples a close second.

We had strawberries again this year. This is the last one.

A recent avocado burger night with some yummy air-fried potato crown tots.

File this one under What A Difference A Year Makes. 

The orchid plant on the left is this year's gift from Dear Daughter.

The one on the right that is blooming was last year's gift.

It really amazed and pleasantly surprised us with its prolific blossoms!

And I finally got out for lunch with two of my closest girlfriends.

We had so much fun visiting over delicious Tex-Mex for over 3 hours!

Well, that's all from me this time.

Hope you have a great rest of the week and weekend!

XOX

April 14th Weekly Post HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my HONEY!

 Hey there!

Hope your weekend was good and your week is going well.

Marion is hosting this week's Sunday Postcard Art with a SHAKESPEARE theme.

I looked in my stamps for anything appropriate and came up with Cornish Heritage Farms castles/buildings and a Scrollswork Elizabethan couple embracing. So I stamped the buildings on a 4x6 precut torn-edge watercolor card, sketched a scene around them and then stamped the couple on another piece of card and fussy cut it. I colored my scene with watercolors, added the couple and the sentiment which was created in PSE and printed out. Since my sentiment is from a Shakespearean play set in Medina, Sicily, I searched images of it online and tried to make my sketched scene look like that area. 

Don't know how close I came but I tried!

Heehee

All's well that ends well!

😎
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And speaking of couples, my better half turns 74 today!

  H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y    H O N E Y  !!!

I got out Creative Stamping Issue 99's Sentimentally Yours stamps, my Amazon bee wreath die, a Momenta small bee die and Pink Paislee's Queen Bee designer papers to make this card for him. I needed something round to put behind the wreath and found this Webster's Pages round die cut. I stamped the bee balm on the vertical strip element and colored with Promarkers, as I did the center die cut bee. I made his wings blue to blend with the round paper piece. I stamped the sentiment on some yellow vellum, heat-embossed it, outlined the top line with a white gel pen, die cut it with Clear Dollar Stamp label dies and some brown scrap card, and popped it onto the card with foam tape.

Used this sketch, stretching it to 6x6.

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Well, that's what I have this time.

Hope your week goes well.

Thanks for the visit!

XOXO

April 5th Post - Happy Easter!

 Good Blessings to all this Easter weekend!

We are having another mini cool front right now. Any time that the temperature barely reaches 70F in the daytime is cause for calling it a cool front this time of year, lolol.

Thanks for all the health well wishes! My shoulder blade pain is taking its ever-loving time recovering, but it is getting better slowly. I alternate Bengay cream and Aspercreme spray on it. Bio Freeze did nothing, but I noticed after applying that it was expired. I actually ended up throwing out multiple expired products. I bought them to have on hand, but since I only reach for Bengay and Aspercreme, I won't be buying anything else anymore. I did have some patches, but they really do not work on me for a long enough time to justify the gymnastics necessary for application, HA! If anyone has a go-to for topical pain relief, please let me know what it is in the comments! I am always on the lookout!

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This week's theme at Sunday Postcard Art is HARES/RABBITS and is hosted by Sabine. I used Our Craft Lounge's Hoppy Anna Mae stamp set to stamp and heat-emboss this little scene with Nocturne VF-Clair ink and clear embossing powder. I also added the Posh bunnies stamp to the foreground. The sky and grass are watercolored. The rest is colored with Promarkers.

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Last week's theme at SPA was DRAGONFLIES. I made this for it but didn't finish in time so I'm sharing now anyway. I colored the base watercolor paper with an aqua watercolor. Then I die cut some greenery for the background out of green card using a Spellbinders 4x6 Botanical Swirls die. After I cut it, I stamped it with a Hero Arts Lattice cling stamp and Brilliance Pearlescent Thyme ink before layering onto the base. I outlined the edge of the card with a black Promarker and added a Pronty Crafts quote. The Technique Tuesday dragonflies were stamped with Versamark and heat-embossed with Ranger Fine Detail Gold powder on light gold vellum, then fussy cut and added to finish.

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And I made this Easter card for Honey's mom. I had The Paper Shelter's Funny Bunny already printed out in my Easter box, along with the die cut Impression Obsession sentiment and Sizzix Sizzlit strip eggs border. I used a white Recollections card base and Simple Stories designer papers. I cut the designer papers using stitched dies by The Stamps of Life and MFT. I colored the bunny with Promarkers and accented with a gold Sakura gel pen.

And here's the sketch I used.

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That's it for me this time.

I plan to catch up reading blogs later today.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead.

Thanks for visiting!

XXO