Diva Challenge: What Is A Zentangle?

This week's Diva Challenge was TOUGH! You had to create a 'Zentangle' without using any of the patterns associated with Zentangle.  Basically you had to create new ones sort of.  Anyway, it was rough like I said, as evidenced by this piece.

Here are a couple of 'tv watching' pieces I did that I was much happier with!  It's so much more relaxing to use established patterns. And there are so many great ones!

Just when I think things are going to slow down in my life, they just keep getting busier.  Work is busier due to short staffing. I've been having lunch and dinners with friends, working at the barn and still tinkering on the house in between.  That kind of busy is a good busy to have so no complaints!

Diva Challenge 122: Grid (un)Locked

This week's challenge was a fun one. It was to use grids, which I do a lot anyway so this week's entry was pretty angst free:

I did this week's challenge in my new art journal that is made with tan-toned paper. I think I really like it. It gives things a softer look. I might try and snag a brown pen and see what that looks like next.

No grids in this one! This is unshaded but it was the first piece I did in the new journal. For once I pulled off an 'airy' piece that isn't packed with tangles in every square inch!

Saturday Night: Improve With A Drunk Guy

I started getting the calls early Saturday evening. Waaaayyyy to early to be as drunk as the dialer seemed to be. The first three times I answered the phone, I got some variation of 'Hey Baby...How YOU doin?' from local number I didn't recognize. There was a bit of a lag in between each call so I had waaaaaayyyy to much time to think about things to say. I swear on Colin Firth that this is the actual conversation (leaving out all of the drunken mumbling and a lot of general confusion of course) I had the fourth time I picked up the phone:

CALLER: Hey Baby...whatcha wearing?
ME: Chanel # 5
CALLER: Ooo and nothing else?
ME: Naw I just got out of the bath. It's hard to cover up the skunk and tomato juice smells even with expensive perfume.
(silence)
CALLER: What color is your hair, Baby.
ME: Oooo! I'm a fiery redhead! When I have hair that is. I recently had to shave my head because of the lice.
(silence)
CALLER: You got brown eyes?
ME: No, they're blue but it's kinda neat because one points up and to the left so I have a wider range of vision than other people. It's like a superpower!
(silence)
CALLER: What cup size do you wear?
ME: Double D's but you really can't tell because of the hunchback. I've kind of got a 55 long situation going on.
(long silence)
ME: But most people don't notice.  They see the limp first.
CALLER: What happened Baby?
ME: Oh nothing, I was born with one knee cap on backwards.
CALLER: (interrupting) Do you have long nails? I like girls with long nails.
ME: You know, I've never had them done because I always thought it was too expensive. Do you know if they charge by the hour or by the nail?
CALLER: Errrr, dunno. Why?
ME: 'Cause if it's by the finger, I would get a discount since I am missing three.
(this seemed to blow right by him totally).
CALLER: You got any birthmarks or ink?
ME: Well, I've got a huge mole on my right cheek. I used to be self conscious about it but I got a guy to tattoo Jeff Dunam's 'Peanut' around it. People kind of like it. The hairs coming out of it  looks like that fuzz coming out of Peanut's head.
CALLER: (incredulous for the first time) Really?
ME: Yeah! People kind of like it. Jeff has a lot of fans.
CALLER: Yeah. I like Jeff Dummmammm. (Silence) Do you have a nice smile?
ME: I guess. My teeth, the ones I have anyway, aren't really white.  The chaw kind of stains them. But I love to laugh.
(Looooonnnng silence)
CALLER: So you wanna meet up Baby? You wanna hook up?
ME: When were you thinking?
CALLER: How 'bout tomorrow?
ME: Darn it, I have a podiatrist's appointment tomorrow to get my bunions shaved, but you keep calling around, I'm sure you'll find someone free tomorrow, OK.
CALLER: OK.(Mumble, mumble, mumble)

Then I hung up. I'm not sure why he hasn't called back.

Diva Challenge and The Grub Snuggle Tile

This week's Diva Challenge was to use the pattern 'Birds on a Wire' in a tangle. That's the zigzag with the curl at the top that makes up 90 % of this tile. I love the  pattern but I'm not thrilled with my tile. I couldn't get everything as even as I would have liked to 'cause I was rushing just to get it done, but my rule is to post the first attempt so here it is. 

This is just a tile I did the other night. Bird on a Wire is not in it. I worked on it before bed and when I was done, I looked at it and thought...OMGosh! There are grubs snuggling down the middle of the tile! I totally didn't see it when I was working on it!

Just a short post today to get my challenge entry out. Time is precious this week as I missed life altogether last week, but Ben is having a problem with rabbits so you know there will have to be another post real soon. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Getting back on my feet.

I was feeling enough better to go to the farm this morning for the first time in two weeks. We moved week before last so I wasn't there and then the food poisoning incident last weekend. Two weeks felt like two years.  Especially when you get to see little faces like this one when you go in. This is Michael the baby goat. 

Remember the movie, Gremlins? With those ears doesn't he look for all the world like a Mogwai?

We just have to be careful not to get him wet!

And this is Miss Ellie.  Isn't she the cutest little peanut?  Here she is 'sitting' for a cookie. Over the summer I am going to go to the farm for short periods in the evening to train the minis. We have 5 now, Lilly, Lucy, Ellie, Harley and Lola. Only Lola, Ellie and Lucy will be trained right now. (Harley and Lilly are disabled.) 

They are SO SMART. You use the same tricks and techniques that you do for dogs to get them to come to you, follow you, sit, and 'leave it' . They need someone consistent to come in often and run through their commands with them. It's a rough job full of cuteness and piggy kisses, but someone has to do it!

 On the new home front, there is this adorable face. That's his current best friend, Froggy there with him. 

 There is nothing like an (almost) empty peanut butter jar to help a guy get settled. 

 I had forgotten that we added solar lights to our garden until I looked out the kitchen window and say them twinkling merrily out there on Friday evening. 

There give off a lot of light for such  wee things. Something tells me we will be spending most summer evenings out there. 

 Still not up for real food yet, but I made a skillet supper to use up some broccoli that I was going to use. It smelled wonderful cooking and I had a tiny bite to try it and it was YUM.  Will post the recipe over on my recipe site.

So, slowly but surely getting back on my feet.  Hope you all had a great weekend too!

I Claim This Blog In The Name Of Molly Bee

I've been thinking a lot about my blog lately. I haven't been blogging like I always did because it came to my attention a while ago that I have a very unwanted blog-stalker.  I've caught this person, twice, talking to others about stuff that they could only know by reading my blog,  but phrasing it as if I had told it to them personally and that we're best buds, which we most definitely are not. This person has taken big time advantage of me. They have no empathy or sense of moral decency.  I was shocked to discover, after all that has happened, that they would take such a rabid interest in my life, so I kind of shut down. 

I've finally processed the problem to the point that I have decided that the whole situation has more to say about the stalker's guilt and sad, small, life than it has anything to do with me, so I have decided to start blogging again as I see fit. The stalker has no right to information about my life, and I really can't understand why they are so obsessed with not only learning what I'm up to, but bringing it up to others out of context. Unfortunately, I have no recourse to stop them from reading it. Believe me I looked. A blog is a public thing and the person in question is devious enough to go around any roadblocks I could set up. This is a person who takes whatever they want regardless of the consequences.  I have decided that if I cannot stop them, then I will welcome them. 

So welcome! Come see my life! Share in my happiness, peace and growth. See what  a life well lived with family and friends, who love and care for each other without reservation and without using each other, looks like. Discover what it is to care for causes and people other than ones that will fill your purely selfish intentions. Learn. I have decided that you have taken enough from me, you'll not take my blog too. Let the blogging begin again.  

I've been benched this week and have been finding things to do in between naps that don't much require movement.  I finished these socks.

 I got this Zentangle half shaded.

 And I played with some scratch-off paper that I got a while back. 

 The paper is silver holographic Mylar underneath with a thin layer of black paint and you scratch it off like you would a lottery ticket.

Because of the holograph, it's difficult to photograph. In the photo above, there are no colors on the foil underneath.  Light shining on the foil where the black has been scratched away makes the colors. Cool huh?

And cooler still is that I, Molly Bee Blackthumb, have planted seeds and  managed to coax a green living thing from the soil. Behold...lettuce!

And because he has been sorely neglected on here from quite some time, Mr. Ben, relaxing in his new living room .

So, thank you for stopping by....whoever you may be. Everyone is welcome; family, friends, fellow artists, people who have been referred here or accidentally stumbled in and even people whose main purpose in life is to be an shinging example to others of how NOT to be and not to conduct your life. Peace to all who enter here. 

Memorial Day Weekend

First of all, here is this week's Diva Challenge entry. I like to put them at the top of the entry so she doesn't have to fish for them when she puts her slide show together. It was to do a monotangle using 'Bales'. I use Bales a lot in my work so I really enjoyed  this one.

The weekend started off so well! We planted Swiss chard, lettuce, walking onions and spinach in the kitchen garden.   Doesn't look like much but it runs all the way along the wall.

 And pruned the jungle of bushes that had invaded the flower garden space. You couldnt' see the air conditioner because of that low lying little bugger to it's left and his identical twin on the right.

And got the petunias, flag holder and solar stakes in .

 The Knit Chicks came over on Saturday afternoon and we had an awesome time. I got a lot of a pair of socks knit. Supper on Saturday night at La Vita Dolce  with Scott and Michael was delish. I went to bed earlyish with an excellent book (The Burgess Boys) and drifted off for a peaceful night's sleep. That's where the 'good weekend' ended and the 'evil weekend' started. At 2:00AM  I got sick and stayed sick for two days so nothing else got done. Sunday I was in bed all day. Today I wandered around feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. At least it didn't hurt my stomach to sit up today like it did on Sunday so I finished the shading on the photo mat that I started a while ago. I think it's 10x12. It's an odd size. I got it at a framing shop in the 'weird sizes that no one can fit photos in bin'.  

We did watch a couple of great movies.  The Big Year and Beastly. Tomorrow, if I continue to feel better, it's back to work where I can spend the entire week confused as to what day it is because we had a holiday today (for which I'm extremely grateful).  Anyway, that's all the news there is to report for now. Onward and upward!