Today

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Today my life looks like this:

Outside My Window: the sky is grey; it is raining and has been for a few days now. The evenings are getting darker earlier.
I am hearing: the sound of my dog dreaming, she barks, it is the only time you hear her voice. She is, as always, right beside me.
I am watching: for the post, I am eagerly waiting for a new book.
I am thinking: about my mother, October is/was (I never know which) her birthday month. The pain of her going is less but the missing is more. The clocks alter on the weekend of her birthday and it will be Halloween.
I am thankful: for the peace in our lives. The news is not so good for some families.
I am learning: how to paint and draw, it makes me happy, my confidence is building.
I am busy:
creating a daily art project using Daisy Yellow Prompts. It ran through August & September but I couldn’t do it until now.
taking a photo of the sky everyday in October.
keeping up with a photo a day on my iPhone
A few plans: I want to pick up my fabric book again. It is resting just now, but I have put it on my desk, it is one step closer…
I want to start an art journal.
A quote:
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” Marilyn Monroe. Someone sent it to me recently, I can’t tell you how loudly it resonates for me just now.
In the garden: I have three roses in flower, daisy’s brightening up the lawn, Verbena in full bloom, Weigela blooming again: the garden is confused.
In the Kitchen:
Summer in winter chicken. Chicken breasts stuffed with a herby soft cheese.
• Slice a pocket in the chicken breast
• Spread about a dessertspoon of soft cheese into the pocket and close up. It doesn’t really need string, just press it closed
• Put the stuffed chicken on the base of a shallow dish
• Cover the whole thing with cherry tomatoes, a little seasoning, and sprig of thyme
• Cover and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken breast

I will serve it with tiny new potatoes and green beans tonight.
Quick and delicious.
And a picture: October morning

How are you?

Texture Tuesday

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At Kim Klassen’s Cafe it is Not Necessarily Texture Tuesday ~ Anything Goes Edition

Rebecca Sower is posting a series of images she calls Inside Outside. They are beautiful, I thought I would try it today. The fist one was taken in the glasss house sheltering from the rain you see in the second one

Inside



Ruby Blossom Texture

Outside



The only texture on this photo is the rain!

We have huge rain here today, wherever you are I hope you are dry.

Being me

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I have wanted to learn how to paint or draw since I was a little girl.

At secondary school we had the most wonderful art room at the top of the tower block, which was the main classroom building. It was a circular room with views all over the fields that surrounded the school.
The room smelled of paints as you would expect and had piles of paper, trays of ink, pots of brushes and other students work lining the room. I thought it was magical.
I remember painting an old-fashioned gas lit lamppost complete with curlicues, my background was the night sky. In my mind and memory it was perfect.
The magic quickly became horror as my painting was described as hopeless!

So, obviously ‘I can’t paint’

A few weeks ago I was home sick from work with a very sore throat and ear ache, plus a hundred other aches and pains. I got out my box of watercolour paints and found a tutorial on YouTube by Matthew Palmer and followed along. I had fun! and nobody told me it was hopeless.

1st attempt

I got the paints out again and had another try having sent Paul to ‘The Range’ in town to get a new grey and some better paper. Although I quite liked my purple heather mountains I thought I should try some sort of grey! to please Matthew. Memories of school returning?

2nd attempt.

I had more fun and found it relaxing and of course I wasn’t using my voice, which has to be a good thing but best of all:

Nobody told me it was hopeless.

Then I looked at the pot of lavender on my desk and got some more paper and more paint and these emerged.

and lots more followed.

Then I read Alexa’s blog post about painted journal pages and she pointed me here
And this happened

And then I played with washi tape and this happened
and Washi tape animals are coming out all over the place here.
And then I read about Blind Drawing and this happened

And then I was inspired by Ruth, and Hopeful Girl. Ruth was pleased to meet Pearl so I feel I can introduce her to you.


This is the first time I have drawn a face that looks like a face! I blame it on my hormones!

Oh my, how much fun is this?
Please be kind, I am feeling very vulnerable about showing you my adventures with paint and a pencil….If you like them I have lots more to show you x

Story Telling Sunday Two: The Words The Pictures

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Good morning
My post today is brought to you by the wonderful Sian over at High in the Sky. The first Sunday in the month is set aside for Story Telling.
Here is mine. I can’t wait to read the others!

Two tales from Paddington.

The vacuum cleaner wasn’t performing the one task it is supposed to – suck! We decided to get a man in. He was arriving between 9 and 1 on Friday. For once the three of us had a day off, not one of us dressed, when at 8.30 am the doorbell rang.

There was me in my nightie, answering the door to a very jolly man from Paddington as it turned out. Did I mind that he was a few minutes early? I let him in and excused myself saying that someone would be down in a while to make tea; I sent husband.

The two of them got chatting over a mug of tea. Paul said he had just been reminded of when he was a boy, a man used to come and service their vacuum cleaner, he was called Dave Hugget and all the children used to hang around when Dave called because his tool bag was full of fascinating things a boy could only dream about owning! The inside of the old vacuum cleaner was, well, just a boys dream and an awful lot of dust! Sometimes something exciting had been picked up, a coin maybe or a bead or something that might need poking.

The man from Paddington listened intently to this story and said how it was “a very interesting story” and it reminded him of being a boy himself and the excitement in his mothers home when the brush man came to check over the bristles on her yard brush!!!!!!!!!!

“So what brought you to this part of the world?” enquired Paul, the man from Paddington said, “a good few years of what I thought was a happy marriage when out of the blue the wife left me, took the house and the children and proceeded with a messy divorce that lasted for what seemed like forever”.

A mug of tea later we learnt that he moved across the country to sleep on his brothers settee and find work. He had no wife, no kids, no place of his own, no money and no job when into his life walked a woman who fell in love with him and him with her. He is the happiest man alive right now with a job servicing vacuum cleaners, a home of his own and a future to look forward to.

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together”.
Marilyn Monroe