Morning Glory Studio

nov 29: Sunday ...

 

7:51 am

Il pleut! This Sunday morning looks & feels like Nov: grey, wet, chilly ( a cool 48 degrees). Happy I don't have to go out - except to buy gas and I have all day for that; if I don't - that's OK too. At best, I'd save a dollar - of course, nothing to sneeze at…it's the idea that intrigues me more.
Time to fix my tea…now that my 30 min+ wait is over (My weekly pill requires I wait at min 30 min before I ingest anything else besides water.) 

On the agenda for today: 

1. Finish making the paper-pieced courthouse steps block! I've practiced enough and know the two things I must pay attention to doing:  1 -placing the fabric correctly on the pattern and 2 - avoiding trimming the seams too short…better to have larger pieces of fabric… Thinking as I write how my mother was always one for practicing, trying things out, seeing how long any one thing might take so she could gauge her time and and finish a project with time to spare - way before a deadline; I don't know that I ever saw her flustered because the clock was ticking; 
2. Set up my Dec memory-keeping project. Since 2005, I've documented the month of December. 2015 makes my 11th year. Yesterday, I spent a goodly amount of time pulling together my notes and journals from the previous years and couldn't find my 2010 journal/notes. After searching high and low, I decided to give up, thinking they had to turn up eventually… Fast forward to this morning: I was standing in front of a bookshelf and saw a journal on the shelf - naturally, I pulled it off, opened and yep, you guessed it: my 2010 December notes! Wahoo! So glad (and relieved) I found them. 
   Over the years, I've kept my December journals in several different formats. Looking back and forward, I think I'm going to settle on using a mid-sized (5 x 8.25 ) Moleskine. Should streamline my December memory-keeping/documentation a whole lot…and hopefully avoid a repeat of yesterday's experience. Time will tell..

2 pm.

    Here it is the afternoon. At Noon I came upstairs to start stitching and got side-tracked looking for thread…I started organizing (aka procrastinating, I daresay)…and then it occurred to me that I'd not posted to the blog and that I needed to take the photo…and so I  stopped to do that. As soon as I hit publish, I'm sitting butt in seat and stitching the block!

Enjoy your Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow's the last day for NaBloPoMo…whew!

Cheers~

 

watercolor wednesday | poinsettias...

There is a local nursery - Behnke's - that has been around for ages. During the Christmas holiday season, a favorite thing I do  is visit to see the colorful poinsettias...and of course, also, buy a few assorted plants. This year, I was particularly eager to go  because I wanted to get a photo to paint in Waterlogue.

Today, I went and as evidenced above, you can see I was not disappointed. Not. At. All.

Despite their charm, I didn't buy any of the colorful poinsettias  (I don't know why) - but I  did buy one that has variegated flowers and also a bloomin' Christmas cactus. More importantly, I enjoyed meandering through the greenhouses, looking at all the beautiful Christmas florals and other lush plants,  wandering through the Christmas shoppe (I bought some fun ribbon and an ornament)  and smelling the live Christmas trees, wreaths, and swags.

Just taking a break from the season's  hustle and bustle and relaxing in Mother Nature's contribution.  Do you have a favorite place to go to take a break during this busy time of year?

Only 8 days til' Christmas! Where does the time go?

Cheers~

december 10 day trip to nyc...

 

Well, it's now Friday and I'm back! On Wednesday, enjoyed a whirlwind trip to New York City, despite the fact that we had to board the bus no later than 6:15 am. Getting up at that hour is not strange for me - I do so nearly everyday if not earlier...but seldom am I on my way to someplace else. Thank goodness that I spent the night at my friend Pat's - or else I'd have had to get up at 4 am. 

We had a full and enjoyable day, starting with breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner where the wait staff sing great Broadway tunes.

Next we attended noon mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral; the scaffolding within and outside just add to the church's majesty.

 

Pat and I took a sortof wild taxi ride (for us) to The City Quilter. We had been there in 2009 and I looked forward to returning. I wasn't disappointed as you can see from my loot above.

 

Of course, no trip to NYC in December is complete without a visit to Rockefeller Plaza to see the great Christmas Tree - magnificent, especially  up close and personal . We ended the day with dinner at Cucina's on the concourse level of Rockefeller Plaza; I had grilled salmon and sauteed squash ~ yum!

We had a great time and the day  ended with wet snowflakes ~ perfect! Now that I  am rested with a calendar that is  pretty much clear for the next  ten days, I am looking forward to spending some quality time at home, attending to and enjoying the season! Stay tuned!

Cheers~

So much for some quiet time...

     "Kids from a local high school have ARRIVED!"

 

Cheers~

 

PS. They were actually very good!

4 goals | dec 2013...

1. Savor the moments...

2. Appreciate the blessing of family and friends...

3. Give...

4. Believe...Rejoice...Enjoy!

 

 

IN box almost to zero...

It's Friday. 5:30 pm. Rush hour traffic is in full swing. The sun has set. Christmas music plays softly in the background on my iPad.

I have spent the better part of this day working through a pile of odds -n-end type tasks: updating information on some websites, sifting through an assortment of unfinished "to do" lists, doing and crossing off  items on those lists; organizing other to-do-s  that are due for my attention over the next several days. Now it's time to call it quits for the day. I feel very peaceful and relaxed and I think it is not only because I whittled down my IN box , almost to zero, but also because of the background music. 

Just a great way to relax , be productive and enjoy the season. Here's wishing you a great weekend and lots of music.

Cheers~

welcome december...

...I am glad you are here and so looking forward to this month,  filled with cheer!  Per usual, my agenda is packed with the special focus of documenting the stories and memories ~ those recalled and those to be made. So, with a little bit of luck and a lot of perserverance, I plan to share December Days here on the blog.

Norman is a great sport. Gotta love that!

 This weekend I'm attending a three-session workshop featuring Donna Downey. The first two sessions have been great; tomorrow, we're working with her inspiration journal. You can get an idea of what our session will be like here. Looking forward to that. 

Tonight, I'm right tired so I think I'll probably  fade early. 

Cheers~

well, hello again...

Honoré here: Especially since it's been five -5- days since I last blogged. Each day I thought, said and wrote "blog!" and, well, the proof of the pudding is...

It's been a busy and productive week, occasioned by feasting with friends; attending a lively jazz concert - music made by University of Maryland students - on a night of pouring-down rain and gale-force winds; and creating the foundation pages for my 2011 December Daily/Journal Your Christmas album. I still have  journaling and photos to add. But, those two ingredients are "done," they just need to be processed, i.e., added to the pages. 

This year I'm trying the hybrid approach...I'll  probably do more cutting and gluing than making digital pages, but I plan to try a few...as soon as I download Photshop Elements to the iMac. So, without further adieu, here is the album and pages, thus far...

album spine...

day 1...

day 2...

day 3...

underneath the transparency of day 3...

day 4...

day 5...

day 6...

As you may've noted, I'm using transparencies in between each 2-page spread...I love the look the transparency gives.

Tomorrow, I'll share days 7 - 10. And, as soon as I post this, I'm off to the scrapbook store for a different inside for the album...Currently, it's the same paper as the outside and I think it may need a red or solid color interior. To be continued...

Cheers~

december 2011, welcome ...

Honoré here: It's here. December. Countdown in earnest to Christmas. And 2012.  It seems to me that as I grow older, time just flies. Wasn't it just  a few days ago that we were celebrating Labor Day and the start of Fall? 

This year, as I've done for the past six years, I'm Journaling my Christmas. And creating a December Daily album - I bought the Studio Calico kit (at ruinous cost)  that was designed in concert with Ali Edwards, primarily for the album. Also stirred into the mix: Project Life, my art journal and  a photo, at least one, a day.  Oh yes, of course, this blog. I figure that with all those avenues I should have a pretty complete picture of this year's holiday season.

If you're wondering why I've chosen so many ways to capture the season, it's because that's just what I want to do: capture and document. All of the above give me options so if I find myself falling behind, on say the album, I'm still documenting... and able to accomplish this without too much undue stress.

Another reason is that I'm often prone to focus too much on the big picture and I'm thinking/hoping that I'll be able to zero in on the ground level as well as the universe. We'll see.

I've also decided that I'm going to do a little decorating each day...today, I put out the welcome mat, hung the evergreen wreath, put candles in the windows and pulled out my snowman countdown calendar. 

And so, that's where I am on this first day of December. I've a plan and I'm thinking that not only is it doable, I'm feeling quite relaxed.

Thought you'd like to see the manifesto Shimelle created for this year's Journal Your Christmas...

...and if you haven't done this before, I strongly suggest you give it a try. It's a great experience and once you join in, you're in for life. That's a deal that can't be beat!

Cheers~

on Christmas Day...

Honoré here:  We had a few snowflakes Christmas morning - just enough to add that festive, expectant  air to the day. Norman and I spent the morning listening to Christmas music, reminiscing about our childhood Christmases, and the calm and specialness of the day. I never got around to MSQT, especially to reading my books that I'd so carefully saved for Christmas morning.

About noon, we realized we needed to get a move on and finish preparing Christmas dinner: bake the turkey breast; make corn pudding; cook the ham; and fix sweet potatoes. The latter is Norman's baliwick...

My nieces arrived about 4:30 pm and after dinner...

(Kayla's mom was the picture-taker), we opened presents. Kayla, of course, was the star recipient

...a book from Granny...

 
...and what is this?

...a doll for our American Girl...

...whose name, by the way, is Dolly Christian, after Kayla's sisters...

  (Did you notice that our American Girl is now wearing glasses? Think her dolly will need a pair, too.)

And that's the way it was at our house Christmas Day, 2010. All's well that ends well...

A fitting end to a great day.

Cheers~