AMANDA'S BASKETS: RAIN, THISTLES AND NEW BEGINNING PLANS

Friday, August 7, 2015

RAIN, THISTLES AND NEW BEGINNING PLANS

I woke up to cold (57 degrees) and rainy weather. Check out these clouds...

And yet, there was a spot of blue...

And yes, I did take the above picture at the same time I took the others!!!

Remember the outline of my latest zentangle?

This is what I've created so far...

Loving my time spent zendangling. Do you like to doodle? Once I let go of the idea of doing it perfectly and just put pen to paper and drew lines, I found it very relaxing and meditative. Give it a try sometime, you may like it.

While walking outside today I found some very tall thistles. I didn't know they grew that that tall. The fence is about five and a half feet tall...

I also found a pink thistle flower which was unusual. Most of the the flowers are purple/pink...

All the flowers on this thistle were light pink...

So, are you thinking about a new beginning in September? Maybe if not the big new beginning of New Year's, you could think about a small new beginning.

I have been considering lots of things. First of all, my trip back to the East Coast. I was going to just get in Lady J and drive (I'm leaving Duchess here.) But then I thought, why? I have no deadlines to be anywhere, so I am going to take my time and see some things. This time instead of camping, I'll make use of the motels along the way.

First up, I want to drive down to Moab and maybe spend a day. I love Arches and I just may take a day to explore the park.

Then I want to take I70 to Denver because I think that is one of the most beautiful drives through the Rockies. From Denver, I'm not too sure if I will go up to I80 or take I70. Maybe I'll look at some smaller roads now that I won't be pulling Duchess. Decisions, decisions, wonderful decisions.

I do want to get back to the East Coast in time to drive up to Maine the first week in September to either pick up all my furniture still in storage or just my bike. Another decision to make!!!

One thing I am spending time on is deciding what to take and what to leave in Duchess. I'm not too sure that I will be living in it as much as I have these past few years, so I am thinking of taking some of the artwork and a few of the kitchen items. More decisions...

Well, I have enough things to decide and to do to keep me busy...

Thanks for dropping in...
Have a great weekend...
Talk to you Monday...

CRAFTING IDEAS

I decided to play with box making. (That was one of the demonstrations this past weekend but they included fabric.). So I first made a box shape out of a flyer that was card stock weight. I used my grid that makes fold marks - one size for the bottom and the same size plus one grid mark for the top. After folding, I cut the fold marks at both ends, overlapped them and glued using my stick glue. I then used scrap decorative paper to cover the entire box, inside and out. The top and bottom were loose before adding the scrap paper but after adding it, they fit nicely. It was an easy, fun and fast craft. And the result was really cute.

BOOK IDEAS

(New). I was looking through the recipes and marked many of them. The first one I want to try is the Wake-Up Potato and Sausage Breakfast Casserole. Everyone here likes the Jimmy Dean Breakfast Casserole so I thought I would try this one to see if it's just as good. The recipe is very similar except instead of bread, it calls for potatoes. Being originally from the midwest, you know that potatoes are golden for me! I would eat them breakfast, lunch and dinner and still not get tired of eating potatoes!