Pages 4 and 5 of Art Journal

Pgs4-5, a photo by Cali-rhoz on Flickr.

Making a little more art tonight. THese are the last of the orangish pages (which don't seem to photograph all that well).

2 more pages!

I just got inspired and wanted to start!!



Page 2



Page 3

Why I like Art Journaling

Since it is a New Year I thought I would get down a few thoughts about WHY I like to work in my Art Journal. The reasons change over time but here are the ones that are on the front burner at the moment:
I art journal as a way of experimenting with ideas and techniques.
I art journal to express and process my feelings.
I art journal to use supplies I haven't used in a while.
I art journal to allow myself to fail. (although that is a hard one for me and I want to work on that a lot more this year)
I art journal to learn about myself.

When I travel I also like to use my art journal as a travel diary. It didn't work last summer because I got so caught up in having to blog about my trip so between that and the actually traveling I never had time to do art. I think next time will be easier. That was the first time I had traveled with my Netbook and I think I have some ideas for how to lessen the online time and do a little more journaling when I travel next time. Only way to tell is to get out there and try it!

Art Journal 2012

This last week I have gotten very inspired to start up my Art Journaling again. I have been watching free video blogs for ideas and looking at all my favorite journaling artists for inspiration and last night it hit me that I just needed to start! Just do it!



Repurposing some of the pages I salvaged from the travel journal that didn't happen last summer to jump-start my 2012 Art Journal. I forgot to take a picture of the "before" (just background) for this one but my plan is to take a shot of the background, then the final page for the pages this year. The first 12 or 13 are already done from last year's journal that didn't happen (because I decided to blog the trip online instead). So as I get a page done I plan to upload the "before" photo and the "finished" photo for each one.

Kale Chips, take Two...

Trying them dehydrator style this time...

Sunday Update: they were really boring! The oven must bring out other flavor cause these are still sitting on the kitchen counter 2 days later!

Another new experience and it is only Jan 2!!

I finally bought and cooked KALE and found out that I LOVE it! I had always heard kale was too bitter and the couple of times I had ever had it from anyone else it was awful. But lately there has been so much written about it on the blogs I read (Paleo food ones mostly) that I thought I would give it another chance. And I am so glad I did!!

I find my previous reluctance similar to this blogger's... and probably to many people. But boy oh boy kale is sure good for you!



First of all I found Lacinato Kale which everyone had said was better than the other old fashioned kind you find. I guess this one is sometimes also called Italian or Tuscan kale. I don't remember ever having it when I lived in Italy a few summers ago but I may have. Anyway I found it at Raley's and got two bunches to test out.



A few leaves I tried baked kale "chips" which are ok but so thin they just crumble and then you end up with really green-spotted teeth so these might not be a school food for me. Just sayin...



The I choose a recipe from one of my fav Paleo blogs, Nom Nom Paleo, and tried that. It had to be good since it also had bacon and we all know, say it together now: "Everything's better with bacon!"

It turned out yummy! So now I am a kale convert and plan to research other yummy ways of having this new (to me) leafy green. AND it was part of one of my short 2012 resolutions: Eat more leafy greens! Check!

My First Geocaching Experience...

My friend Jan (pictured below) took me with her to a few Geocaches that were in my neighborhood and I am hooked!





I actually had signed up on the Geocaching site years ago then never did go or try it. I have a few teacher friends who enjoy this hobby so I am glad to find I had a ton of fun testing it out too!



I am not going to say where these are because I don't want to give too much away but these were my photos from my first Geocaching trip!

I want to try some countryside ones in the Spring -- it seems like it would be a great way to get outdoors and enjoy the scenery as well as have adventures finding caches. And it is so popular in Europe so who knows, maybe next time I go abroad I can do a little geocaching there too! For now, let me get my feet wet in and around Sacramento!

My six-words resolutions...

In the spirit of the Six-Words Memoirs Project, I thought about things I might resolve for 2012 in just 6 words... a few of my attempts:
1. Move more. Stop making same excuses!
2. Eat more leafy greens and proteins.
3. Discover what is under the clutter.
4. Play more. Have more art fun!
5. Smile. It will not break anything.

Happy New Year everyone!

Testing out posting from my new phone ...

I broke down and finally moved into the 21st century... I bought a smart phone! So now I am testing out how to write a post on my phone and upload it to my blog. Let's see if it works now...

More photo filter play...

The original photo.


Just using the filter Anne.


Now using filters Anne and Shine.


Using filters Ramona and Burn.


Using filters Karen and Kryptonite.

Playing with online photo filters...

I am a big fan of the IPhone Instagram photo look but since I do not have an IPhone, that somewhat limits me. So today I spent some time looking online for some PC photo filter programs and came across PIXLR which seemed to work pretty well for what I was looking for.

Here is an example:
My dog Maggie...

and now Maggie colorized...

There are tons of effects and I have just begun to play!
(As you can see I also colorized my photo to the right -- looks so much better that way!)

The dragon speaks…

okay here goes… I'm speaking into a microphone and the computer is typing this post. and the (sigh)… Andy… This damn program will not recognize his name exhibition point! It needs more training…

My husband bought me this Dragon program to be able to talk into the computer instead of having to type. It's not doing too badly but it needs recognition training for names and things that I normally say I to get back to you on this one but it's really frustrating when I want to say my husband's name and it comes out and the (GR are) no no… That was supposed to be grr…

Definitely needs more training!!

Okay I just taught it to listen to the name Andy so now it types properly whenever I say Andy. Yay!

I have to remember to tell it the punctuation where will put anything there. Otherwise I have a feeling it would write the longest sentence of the world which I tend to do anyway but it's probably not a great idea in this posting to have a sentence that goes on and on with the really should be some punctuation if you know what I mean LOLand now I have to figure out how to do the correcting without doing it manually there's a whole methodology to all this but it's going to take a learning curve for me as well as this program.

Anyway time to start dinner it's Christmas and I am making lamb. Yum!

.

I really liked this article...

And it gave me things to think about for myself. I have been thinking of the food aspect of Primal so much over the last 6-8 months that most of the rest I have let go. I know I do not MOVE enough, and the rest I need to focus on more this coming year as well. HERE it is. It's not just what we eat...

Easiest jury duty ever!

"Your group is not needed. Your service is complete. You do not need to check back. Thank you for making yourself available to serve as a juror."

Vicarious Vacation

Ok I am on vacation here but this woman (Mary Ann Moss) is REALLY on vacation! I follow her blog regularly and am so envious that she is still on year-round schedule so she can go to such amazing places during non-touristy times of the year! Plus of course she is an artist and I am so in awe of her travel and visual journals so you just HAVE to see her blog HERE!

And it was THIS set of entries on her blog that make me really want to go to Budapest next vacation! She travels like I like to -- capturing a lot of the little aspects of daily lie rather than the major touristy sites. I like that and Budapest seems so inviting...

2 weeks of vacation!

We are off for 2 weeks now yay! Saturday was the first day of Christmas vacation aka Winter Break. And I have Jury Duty! I had to check on Sunday and found out that I have to check again tonight. My group was next on the list so I will probably have to go in tomorrow. But... I actually wanted it this way. I postponed it from summer (when I was traveling) to now, mostly thinking "Who is going to want a trial on the week before Christmas?")... I guess I will find out tomorrow!

I hesitate to make it a goal for 2012.... keep this blog up more? I think the main problem for me is the addition of photos each time. I mean it isn't a hard process but sometimes I don't have anything to upload and then I talk myself out of writing anything. Since I used this blog so much for travel I got used to mostly putting photos on it. I have to get over that! Then a month goes by and I am writing stuff like this.... again!!

I'll get over it -- I usually do eventually.

I forgot to plant bulbs again this year. Wonder if it is too late?

Andy got into Nursing School!

Finally!
After applying for 5 semesters! He was beginning to wonder what he was going to do -- he had taken all the pre-requisite classes, was doing an EMT internship, and just wasn't getting selected. I hate that lottery way of admissions -- doesn't take into account a lot of things that need to be considered (in my opinion). So now they have a test every applicant has to take and Andy scored way high on that which I am sure helped.
Long and shot, starting January he is in for a fast paced year of nursing school then he can go be a nurse which he has been wanting to do for several years. Seems like his days of being a computer person are so long ago. Mixed blessing I guess, of one's job being outsourced to another country. (If you are reading this and don't know me, Andy is my husband)

And now it is already November. I have 2 more weeks of school before a whole week for Thanksgiving Break. We used to work the Monday and Tuesday of that week but now those are furlough days off (without pay), part of the 9 days we lost the year before last just so we could keep most of our health benefits. (Oh and there was the pay cut too but don't get me started on that!)

New food I discovered I like: Bison Hotdogs from Costco!



I am not a big hot dog fan to begin with (although I also liked the lamb hot dogs that I tried in Iceland a couple of years ago). These are yummy though! Chopped a couple up and mixed with scrambled eggs and a yummo breakfast!

And a second thing I like: purple potatoes!



I had tried them once before and found them sort of mealy. But this time I roasted them in the oven, cut into quarters and sprinkled with olive oil and they were delish. I don't eat many potatoes any more (sometimes yams) so these were a nice treat. Plus they have a lot more phytonutrients than regular white potatoes. AND they are purple!!

Oh and finally...



Lowest is around 30 years now? Getting there, slowly but surely!

Been in a slump...

But I think it is behind me now.

And I blame it all on the mangoes.
Even though I know it is not the mango's fault.
But it is always nice easier to have something else besides oneself to blame anything on.

So about 6 weeks ago I went on this mango eating craze -- maybe longer than that. Suddenly I could not get enough mango!

First it was Trader Joe's unsweetened dried mangoes... Sometimes Raleys cut mango pieces...
Then, I found my main pusher!

The Mexican foods market near my house that had huge luscious ripe mangoes from Brazil. And only $1.39 each!
I was hooked! I was easily eating 1 or more mangoes a day!

And then I started getting headaches.
And muscle aches even though I wasn't exercising.
And I felt lethargic, and angry, and annoyed all the time.
And figured it was just stress from school.
Or maybe the weather changing.
Or caffeine withdrawl.
Or too much caffeine.
Or anything but the *gasp* sugar in the magoes?

So I was talking with one of my co-workers who eats Paleo and she asked what am I eating now that I wasn't before and of course it dawned on me... mangoes!
"So, easy," she said. "Just stop eating them. At least for now. And see what happens."

No duh.

I imagine my food confessional:
- It has been a week since I ate any mango.
- And how do you feel?
- Good. No. I feel great!
- Was it the mango?
- Maybe. Maybe all the sudden sugar in my body from too much mango.
- So what does that teach you?
- A little mango goes a long way?

So, now it's a week later. I started to exercise again. I have more energy to do things around the house.

I did end up having a tiny bit of mango today because I had some chicken mango sausages (Adelle's) that I wanted to use up. There will be a little in my egg muffins this week too but there is not very much mango in those things.

But in the long run, I don't think it was only the mango.

And I may now and then have my favorite salad to go with my slow-cooker carnitas: butter lettuce, avocado and mango slices. But maybe not for a while.

Good experience at DMV...

I am now going to say something I never thought I would ever say: DMV adventure was awesome today! Yes, you heard me! I made my appt online, RUSHED there after school to make it by 3:30 (ok I was a few minutes late but it was ok), was in line maybe 2 minutes, waited maybe 2 more minutes for my number then was out of there in 5 minutes! Even getting a parking place, 10 minutes TOPS for everything! Wow! All cause I couldn't find my car title and needed a new one!

Oven roasted golden beets which I then marinated with balsamic vinegar. Salad with butter lettuce and goat cheese.
Served with grass-fed lamb chops which we splurged on yesterday at Whole Foods... oh my a yummy dinner!

159.2

First time in around 25-30 years that I have been under 160 pounds! I think the change in eating has been the guiding force here (see sidebar for more info on Paleo/Primal eating). It has made us even more aware of how and what we are eating. And with eating more meats and healthy fats, I am full more so I don't have quite as much urge to snack, which helps too.

It's a good sign. And yes I know, I should dust off the scale before I take the next photo!

Carnitas Lettuce Tacos

Changing our eating habits to exclude grains has posed a few interesting challenges. For example: how do I make tacos? We love slow cooker carnitas and this weekend when I was wasting time catching up on some of the blogs I read, I was reminded that butter lettuce can work great as a taco shell as seen HERE (scroll down her pix to the tacos)and HERE from NomNomPaleo's wonderful site.

So when we went shopping today we got some butter lettuce, heirloom tomatoes (I didn't grow any this year), and I found some Mango-Peach salsa that I was just dying to try (although a little sweet and fruity on a regular basis it went fantastically with our carnitas tacos!). We already had guacamole. I haven't had a lot of luck getting avocados lately (guess my avo-karma is down) so we relied on Trader Joe's Guacamole which is yummy anyway!

I made my usual slow cooker carnitas which made the house smell yummy all day too!

This was the end result:


We managed to have several each and decided they were very high on the yum scale! Andy of course added hot sauce and other heat factors. I left mine with the mango salsa. Who needs a tortilla -- the butter lettuce was a great wrapper!

Cleaning the freezer and a new idea...

Cleaned out the freezer part of our fridge today too -- finally got rid of those frozen white packages of mystery meat (chicken? pork? fish?) that have been lurking for so long! Now it's sparkly clean and full of veggies -- all the meats go in our other top load freezer (Andy wants to get a quarter grass-fed cow but I think we gonna need a whole lot more freezer space for that one!).

I designated one plastic bin for packets of veggies and meats so I can just take portions for my school lunches as I choose. I was getting really tired of making 4 or 5 of the same lunch and freezing it then having to eat the same combination of whatever. This way I can -- for example -- cook a yam and put it into 3 or 4 baggies. Portion out frozen veggies. Portion out cooked meats. Then in the morning or a couple times a week (since I have a small freezer space in my fridge at work) take a few of various packets and mix-and-match for whatever I feel like eating that day.

Seems to obvious now...

Cross Fit has started...

Morning after the second session of CrossFit... it was better last night -- I am not quite so angry with myself for being such a weak old fart that I have to have everything scaled down to kindergarten level for me. My brain thinks I am still in my 30s but my body is saying, hold on there chica, you are almost 60. I am only mildly sore this morning so that is good.

So I know, what is holding me back is ME. Not weights, not the heat, not the CrossFit place, not the trainer, just me. I know it is my brain (= inner critic) telling my body inertia ("stay on that bed doing your puzzles, it's easier and plus the cats are there and life is cozy and anyway it is too hot to walk around that building/life that weight/row that 200m/insert activity here"). 

It's not like anyone is forcing me to go to CrossFit. I made the decision. I paid for it. I chose to go because it looked fun and interesting and different from boring repetitive gym classes. So aside from a lobotomy I gotta figure out how to shut myself up and get into the swing of activity.

Testing out the New Blogger Interface...

Not that anyone is really interested but I am testing the new Blogger Interface, which is basically a large white space in which to type. Different from the old style with a small space to type and a lot of other stuff in the way. This is more like typing on a Word Doc but being able to upload it from here. I guess it will work....

I have spent the last couple of weeks in a relative online vacation from talking about me... not all that interested in Facebook or posting here lately, not sure why but not worried about it either. It comes and goes with me.

I have been reading a lot of other people's blogs though, finding interest in other people's travels (Budapest with Mary Ann's blog Dispatch from LA and her sister's blog Tall Tales from Kansas) and catching up with some yummy Paleo recipes (NomNomPaleo, Chowstalker and Jen's Gone Paleo).

Also starting to get psyched up for my On-Ramp CrossFit class coming up at American River Crossfit in a few days (9 sessions to learn the basics in a class called "On-Ramp" that most of the CrossFit places have to be sure everyone knows how to do the exercises and be safe). Now just to find my old exercise clothes!