Non-Digital Creations

For posts on my Non-Digital page

Hurry up and Wait Zone!

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Seems I never published this so doing so now with an update:

Moving is a job!

We have spent the last 40 days in a whirlwind of seeing a home, making an offer, having an offer accepted, the finance dances, sorting, purging, donating, selling, and packing the current home, putting current home on market and scheduling all the dominoes.

NOW IT IS HURRY UP AND WAIT!

It is four days to closing on the new home and 7 days to the movers showing up to haul all of our belongings to a place 65 miles away. These few days now my mind is churning away and so much to do – but it has to happen in sequence and much of it is not anything I can control – only be aware of it happening.

Our lives are in a twilight zone of not knowing where anything is and doing without. Normal routines are upset and new ones can’t be started.

One of the checklists I found says to make friend visits during this time and say good bye as well as make plans for reconnecting.

I have been a regular Zumba Gold participant 2x a week since August 2015. I only missed 2 classes during that time. I have nothing but complete adoration for my instructor. She is a natural for all age groups and tunes into her participants needs. She was kind enough to give me a list of instructors who might be good for me to connect with in our new location. She also was so sweet and gave me a gift. I love it!

I now have my official Zumba T-Shirt and a nice tote bag for my towel and water.

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We did move and after a lot of efforts, a daughter’s wedding and other things, we are starting to feel settled. We still have our former residence to sell and hope some action picks up on that soon. A winter of having two homes is not the most pleasant thought.

When arriving in our new local – I did find a Zumba class. Not low impact and only once a week. The participants were great and I began to pick up some of the routines. Then on week 4 – pulled and strained ligaments in my knee and hamstring. I couldn’t even bear weight for 3 days. I had to drop out and was limited in activity. Then from favoring the right side of my body – twisted my back out – another few weeks of not being able to do anything. Now 6 weeks later – back to just older adult aches and really out of shape!

There are no more sessions until late January – so it is off to YouTube and finding some exercise videos and gaining the motivation again. I have kept weight the same within a couple of pounds – but inches have creeped back and well – let’s just say my muffin top is a little larger than it was and i don’t like it!

Much like maintaining a daily create habit -so goes exercise. We all know it is good for us and the right thing to do and many rewards – but it does take some hills to climb to get back into the routines.

We will see – hoping I can post in the future that things are back in the routine groove.

 

A month past – still here!

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Wow – a month has passed without a post!

I am still here. I have been checking the Twittersphere when I can, viewing Flickr and Instagram, keeping up with family on FB. My art for the last 4 weeks has been in organizing moving and juggling a housing purchase while prepping the current house for listing!

We list on July 8 with an Open house on July 10. Hoping for a quick and clean sale!

Movers are coming in 15 days! So getting things packed, labeled and organized.

And – remembering why we are doing this – Landon! Squeezing in a day to go visit. Soon we will be close and we will be part of the day care team for 2 days of the week and as needed. 🙂

Looking forward to getting my office set up and back into a digital creating cycle again.

So far – it is still creating – just different ways.

Packing

Packing

My Little Guy!

 

 

Fairy Gardens to DS106 Hedgehog?

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Sam Checking out the Fairies. :-)

Sam checking out my Fairy bowl

It is Mother’s Day 2016 in the USA. When my girls were young they would send me off to the garden center to look at flowers and buy myself a hanging pot for the front entrance of the house. They knew I could take hours looking for that one hanging plant and enjoyed it.

Now that they are grown women and on their own – and one celebrating her own first Mother’s day this year – there really was no reason to go off on my own and savor the plants. I can do that on any given day now.

This year I decided to create some Fairy Garden pots for the deck. Last summer I had visions of creating video tours of Fairy Gardens for the Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival. I could see GIFs and tours along with story narration. Things turned out differently. I spent more time on Goldilocks and the 3 Bears as well as other activities and the Prisioner106 creations filled in as well. Looking back I am not sure how I got so much done!

Yippee!

The Fairy Garden theme stuck with me. I don’t think I will go crazy with it – but wanted just a touch. I had found some figurines at a garden store sale in March and have had them tucked away. With the weather warming, and plant sales a few more supplies. I also had sea shells and gravel, some old Christmas village ceramics that I don’t use anymore for the holiday and found objects. Today was the day to put it together. A beautiful sunny day to be on the deck and play.

It also gave me a chance of some new subject to work on with photography. I am now shooting RAW and developing in Light Room. I get totally confused by ISO, FStop, and shutter speed. Light Room is also a challenge as I try to decide photo organization. I am getting closer – but with LR, Photos, GooglePhotos, and external drives – downloads, camera shots, phone shots – Yikes! It is till a beast to tame.

The day and construction reminded me of having a doll house and creating the story  and scene in your head. Play is really a good thing. We should encourage our children to play and the adults too.

Found a nice place to sit

 

So enter my fairy world – Leave me your story of who they are and what they are doing….

and somehow ds106 enters again—-there is something with hedgehogs – not sure what the story is – but they show up now and again and cause some conversation…kinda like socks….you don’t need to know the original story – just jump on and weave the next chapter…. I see @mdvfunes drawing hedge hogs and @annycow tweeting about them and even @mburtis in this snuggle with one…has to be stories here somewhere!

so here are my hedgehogs – appropriately Mom and little one for today. 🙂

A rich day to be in the garden

See more pictures in my Flickr Album.

Coming up for Air – Baby Here Soon!

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Geesh! Time flies when you are doing lots of different things.

I took on some consulting hours to help an organization write their technology plan and have ended up taking on the clean up of their website. A content management system is used which is great and distributes work. But for the last 3 years there have been many transitions and all of the check points fell off the map. The front end just look tired and had some dead ends, some loops and some things that were conflicting- not too bad, but only because there were no viewers using much of it. The back end – out of control and very tangled. Becuase of their host and set up  – there isn’t a staging or development area. You can not publish things – but it makes the clean up of the back end even more tedious and error prone. So the only way is jump off the cliff and try to fly! So after a week of 12-16 hour days – I was ready for some sleep and a break.

First came my Happy Cow! A local paint and wine studio had a Friday afternoon session- so I signed up. When I got there I found out I was the only one and they didn’t cancel – so it would be me and Fred the instructor. Fred and I painted away and even finished 90 minutes sooner than was scheduled. I could have gone a little more leisurely – but it worked out fine.

Happy Cow!

I would like to do another one and work on a different type of eye, plus make the background a little brighter for some contrast.

Saturday morning – well started with some of the web grunt work – but just was not ready for it. My first grandchild’s due date is within this week- so I decided I needed to get the “Waiting” video done before arrival. Several months ago this had a lot of grand visions in my head – but I couldn’t get all I wanted. The plus was a weekly shot of Mom that shows the journey. We don’t know who the little person is – that will be a surprise for all until entry into the world. So excited!

Here is the video. I do want to get to more than just music and get more audio and narration in the family stories – but that is still evolving. Until then it is trying to find music that goes with the idea of the video. I have also begun to get better at keeping them to under 5 min. Any longer than that – no one wants to watch and they just go on. These are being placed in a flip book so each video created is separate and a reader can view, skip of view multiple times within the  book.

So – my #ds106 #4life friends – I am still creating – still learning from you, still growing my skills. And still tracking what you are all doing. One of you will soon have something that I won’t be able to pass up being a part of even if there are websites to clean up.

 

A break from digital….Hummingbird

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Hummingbird

April 16-18 Blog Hop:

Hello to the LYA2015 Blog Hop Participants! The blog hop is attached to this post -but if you click on the links below you will see the other posts specific to LYA2015. Also feel free to explore the digital art created for ds106 throughout the blog..

First Postcard!
Card 2 Shipyard!
Cards from Swap!
Humming Bird!
Getting Ready for Liberate Your Art 2015

A friend I have made thru a 365 Photo group connected me with LYA. She participated last year. It sounded easy enough to do and I love mail. I took some photos of my paintings and had cards made up at Costco. Kate’s instructions seemed clear and simple and off the cards went.

I am one to believe that the “new wealth” of society is sharing. The more you share, the more you grow, the more your life gets richer. It is also about creating. Innovation in work and creation for personal pleasure and accomplishment feeds the soul. This swap built on that and returns 10 fold.

It has been great to see everyone’s work and truly inspiring and good for the soul! DS106 is an open online course that focuses on making art and using digital tools. I love creating, I love sharing!, and I chase shiny objects so I really have not settled into one genre or type of art. Hope you enjoy and thank you for your sharing – it is wonderful! You make the world a better place.

Thanks most of all to Kate for making this possible.!

My post for ds106 follows:

Took the afternoon to do non-digital art today. A group (community) activity which is socialization and fun. Not my usual style or subject matter but it was 3 hours that went by quickly.

In #ds106 style:

  1. Canvas and paint
  2. Work in layers
    1. Background work from light to dark in quick X brush strokes.
  3. Dry with hair dryer
  4. Paint in leaves of flower
  5. Block in flower shape with white – triangle and circle.
  6. Fill in with purples
  7. Block in hummingbird with white. Put in spine, circle for head.
  8. Add wings – from neck straight ling up and flowing curve.
  9. Second wing just behind.
  10. Fill in with color
  11. Add tail feathers
  12. Add beak and eye
  13. Futz and putz until you like it or give up!
  14. Sign it.

Adult beverages encouraged while doing – however this was an afternoon session and I was on my own – so just a diet coke. :-).

I like the community painting. I get to meet others, see some great art, be inspired by all the different versions and interpretations and come out with a finished product.

It gets me going again to create on my own and try to figure out new views.


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