Molly Bee's Attic

 We've been lapping up these last warm days of autumn here at Chez Bee. I go for walks at least once a day in the prairie park down the street and Mr. Moose wants to go out for more walks now that it's not so hot, but not cold yet. He has a terminal heart condition, so he doesn't go very far or very fast, but I cherish his little Mr. Tudball sojourns around our block. I usually have an urge to do some spinning come October but our 70-80 degree temps have put the kybosh to that so far. I am working on an afghan for our sofa that will be done soon so maybe then I'll feel more like greasing Mabel up and taking her for a spin. Lord knows I have lots of wool to spin even though I haven't been to the Sheep And Wool Festival for 2 years! Aside for that I've been arting-mostly Zentangling and art journaling, but a little watercolor here and there. I want to love watercolors. I love the way they look in other people's work, but so far we have a like/hate relationship...

 Well, lookie here! Haven't checked in here for a while and thought it might be fun to start up again.  Blogger has implemented some changes since the last time I posted and I don't know if this even still works, but I'll give it a go.    So...what has happened in the last two years....oh nothing really....since I've been trapped in my house because of a global pandemic! From March 2020-March 2021 I was oh so alone in my home. I ordered groceries online and  then drove the the grocery store where a young man put them in the trunk of my car. Every three months I went to the pharmacists to pick up meds and that. was. it.   For A YEAR!  No friends, Knit Night, restaurants, movies trips, vacations, holidays or get-togethers.  No coworkers since my company went remote. You would think that I must have been bored here in the nest with nowhere to go...but nope. I had lots of worrying, fretting and stewing to do. During that entire year, my only view...

I was in Sturgeon Bay over the weekend and went to see the Third Ave Playhouse's matinee of Shooting Star with Doug Mancheski and Amy Ensign. It was a great play about old lovers that meet up by chance years later while they are snowed in at an airport. The house was packed-sold out-which was great to see. This is such a wonderful theater and the plays I've seen there are intimate and outstanding!  I'd never seen Amy act before and she was amazing! And of course, Doug was his usual magnificent self! He has such a range of skills. If you've only seen him in his comedic plays, you owe it to yourself to try and catch one of his shows at TAP and see his more serious side. The average age of the crowd at this play was 75+.  It's weird to be one of the 'youngsters' in the crowd at 54! Reminds me of the time I went to Irish Fest on a  Burkhaulter tour bus out of Madison in my 30s. The average age on that bus was 812 and all they adopted me as the naughty grandchi...

When I was younger, I went to Lincolnville Beach, Maine with my family. We were wading in the shallows and I  found a group of starfish on the rocks. I held my left arm outstretched, palm up and lined several of them on the underside of my arm. I showed my folks, and examined them all closely before slowly tipping my arm thinking that they would all drop gently back into the sea-bloop, bloop, bloop. Imagine my surprise, and abject terror as it turns out, when they remained firmly  affixed to my arm. To put it mildly, I panicked and lost my sh!t briefly! I just knew that they were dissolving the flesh of my arm with some kind of slimy, sucker acid. I marveled that I felt absolutely no pain even though I was obviously the first person in all of time to be killed and eaten by a marauding gang of starfish! Someone has to be first...just my luck. I flailed around until I finally got it under control and realized that it was easy to pick them up and gently lower them back down to...

In late October I was blessed to travel to Providence, Rhode Island to obtain my  Zentangle Teacher certification. Southern New England is absolutely gorgeous in the late autumn. The fact that the seminar was held on the top floor the glorious art-deco Providence Biltmore Hotel, and my room was on the 12th floor, was pretty amazing too. The views were spectacular! I always wanted to go to the seminar for the experience, but NOT to learn to teach. I  told anyone that said, 'you should do classes' that was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. I would hate speaking in a roomful of strangers. And I had been to so many classes where there was always that one annoying person that kept derailing the class... and how would I ever handle that without Valium...or a mallet? Nope. Not cut out for teaching. Not for me. Never. BUT...then I got the unexpected opportunity to go-my company generously offered to send me if I would come back and lead sessions as part of our Corporate We...

Wow! Five months since I've written on here! Doesn't seem like that long on the one hand....but on the other, it seems like 5 years!  This has been the longest. winter. ever.  To be fair, not a lot of earth-shattering, blog-worthy stuff has been happening, Maine for Christmas, work, teaching Zentangle, crafting, reading and trying to keep our sanity here at McCurdo Midwest. But it looks like to long months of house arrest are finally over. Our spring flowers are up-crocuses mostly. Once the 5 foot snowbank in the garden melted, we discovered that they had jumped the gun and were already 3-4 inches high under there! Bless their little hearts. With the warmer (relative term) weather and the ice gone, long walks are once again on the docket. Love to take three or four miles through Prairie Park and watch the world waking up again. I have been bringing plastic grocery bags with me and picking up the trash and detritus of winter. That in itself is...interesting. Sometimes the com...