Thanks for your prayers!

Josh was able to get a new vehicle using his insurance money for a down payment. His previous vehicle had been paid for, but he knew the insurance money wouldn't buy something reliable. So, he now has a car payment (as he said, like a real adult) but he said he's being blessed in his work and he thinks he can handle the payment. God will provide! Thanks again for your prayers. Here's my grandgirl, Starry, posing with the new/used car. :) At least, I'm assuming it's used. He didn't give all the details. Safe travels, little family!

Micah, Hazel and Audrey have all been under the weather the last couple of days, but everyone seems to be doing better today. Micah and I were at Walmart yesterday (along with Sully and Della) doing our grocery shopping together when Micah got a call from the school saying that Hazel was having tummy problems and was running to the bathroom a lot. So, we wrapped up our shopping and went and picked her up. She wasn't in a lot of distress, but they thought she should go home, of course. Then last night, after Micah took the girls to AWANA, Audrey 'fessed up that she, too, had missed lunch and recess because she had been in the bathroom. Micah told her she needs to tell a teacher if that happens again so they can call her. Audrey said she didn't want to tell anyone because she didn't want to miss school! That's our little Type-A Audrey! Anyway, all better today.

So, this mom will try to take a day off from being concerned quite so much with kids' challenges. But, of course, I will continue to pray without ceasing, I'm sure. You all know how that goes.

On the more artsy side of life, this is a postcard I'm making (4"x6") per a request on my ATC site. I'm planning to do colorful splashes of watercolor to finish it, but I thought I'd better take a photo of it beforehand, just in case I ruin it, ha ha! The gal I'm making it for likes "whimsical" elephants. I'm not good at cute or whimsical, so I thought some wild colored paint might fulfill that part. Actually, this is for a Blind Postcard swap,(meaning the recipient doesn't know what they're getting) so I could send her any theme I like, but I try to send something they've mentioned liking on their profile. So here he is...

 Looking through the pictures on my camera it looks like there are lots of photos I haven't shared of artwork, etc., so hang on. I'm about to dump it all on you!

Here are more of the pen and ink drawings for Inktober...

white gel pen on brown toned paper

also on brown paper

A thrift store mug.

One of the snails I brought home from the lake shore.

These four are for a Loteria swap. I'll post the finished versions below.

This little hedgehog was to fulfill a request on the ATC site. I also counted it for Inktober. It was outlined in ink and then finished with colored pencil. The background is a piece of decorative paper with handwriting and an image on the left. That's why it looks kind of weird. :)

We also did a Book Lovers swap where we drew stacks of books or bookshelves containing each person's favorite titles.

This gal mentioned that she likes badgers, so I added one. She also likes old postage stamps, so I used some decorative paper behind the bookshelf that had an image of an old letter on it. This bookshelf took SO LONG to make that I drew the rest of my cards, lol.

I just drew random books from examples I found online and then slapped titles on them, so their thickness doesn't correspond to how long the book would really be. The kids and I studied Beowulf in homeschool, so I know it's a very small book. But hey, it's all in fun!

Here are those Loteria cards after I painted them. Some of the images on Loteria cards are very politically incorrect, but probably culturally correct. I think the El Valiente one represents something to do with bullfighting, hence the bloody knife.

 My Facebook friends probably saw all my pictures down by the lake, but I'll post a few of them again for others. These were taken on Sunday after I took a walk. I always forget my camera, so I ran (drove) home and got it and took a second trip down to the beach of my local lake. (Lake Belletaine in Nevis, MN) I live 1/4 of a mile from there and hardly ever go down to the beach. What a shame! Anyway, it was a very pleasant interlude.

This is where I was sitting when taking most of the photos.

See those tallest trees in the middle of the picture? The highway runs along in front of those. If you follow it toward the left of the photo my house is just a "couple of blocks" away. Really a nice spot to live.

It was windy and the water was very choppy.

Hey! I think I'm caught up!
We're supposed to have snow either today or tomorrow. It will be our first for the season!
I'm surrounded by my art materials and lots of books, so this is the perfect time for snow. Just not too much, please. ;)
God bless you, every one! Thanks for stopping by! :)
Shalom!

Grandparents' day!

Today was my first experience of attending Grandparents' Day. Audrey was proud to show me what she does all day. Her young teacher was perky and in control. Everything worked like clockwork. She has those kids trained pretty well, and they seem to be pretty happy. She showed me how she uses her ipad and we took pictures of each other with it. The photo below was taken by Audrey's "other Grandma Lisa" who was sitting on the other side of her desk. She has another granddaughter across the hall, so she visited back and forth.

Us.

"Other Grandma Lisa" and Audrey sporting her vampire smile. She loves it!

That's Audrey's cousin, Cali on the left. (aka Lisa's other granddaughter) Cali is in the class across the hall. She's in the same grade as Audrey. (1st)  This was taken in the lunch room.

They had lots of boisterous fun during PE, and after lunch they were on their way out to recess. The day goes pretty fast, and they seem to get to move around a lot to get their wiggles out. It was fun!

Are you guys being overrun by ladybugs? We've been getting down in the 30's at night and then warming up into the low 60's during the day. Apparently the ladybugs think it's spring again. This old trailer I live in has many points of entry for them, so even though I run around vacuuming them up, they keep reappearing. I've got my ceiling lights on to attract them up there so they'll stay out of my way. I suppose it will get cold enough soon to kill them off for the winter.

I'm slowing down on the art. I've fulfilled my obligations for swaps so I'm just doing Inktober, which is one pen and ink drawing per day in October. I think I have a few of those to post. Let me go rummage around in my pictures. Let's see, oh, here we go...

I spent the last week thinking there was something wrong with me! My muscles felt weak and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I tried eating more, thinking it might be low blood sugar. That didn't help. Finally, day before yesterday, I realized that the weakness had begun last Thursday. The day I brought home all those books from the library book sale. It was just my allergies to musty books. I've always had that reaction when I spend a lot of time around musty papers, like old photos and books that have been stored where it's damp. I took all of the books out on my deck and let them air out, and then I wiped them down with Clorox disinfecting wipes. It seems to have helped a lot.

Well, I'm finally getting a little hungry seven hours after that filling school lunch! You all have a good evening and God bless everyone!
Shalom!

BOOK SALE!!

Wah hoo! Library book sale! Warning: lots of photos ahead!

As a backstory I should mention that my 6 year old grandgirl, Audrey, took a reading test yesterday. She's in 1st grade and the test showed she's reading at a 4.8 level (4th grade, 8th month). I'm not suprised! She's been sucking up learning like a vacuum since she was born. SO, when I mentioned to daughter Micah that I was heading to the book sale she asked if I would look for some chapter books, since her teacher had suggested getting her some books that would challenge her. (Audrey was excited to tell us that she gets to pick her book from the BIG KIDS books at the library!) I found that it was tricky finding something challenging for a six year old to read. It seems like so many of the chapter books already have themes of cliquish girls being mean to each other, or maybe boys becoming of interest. So, I went for some more old-fashioned books. I think she can read most of these without too much difficulty. This is fun for Grandma the book pusher!
Here are a few I got for Hazel and Adele. Lots of animals.

And here are Audrey's. For ten cents each I was kind of a book hog... I got a couple of these at the thrift store.

 Here's what I got for me. A lot of these I got because I love the illustrations. Some may be used for collage (gasp!), but I'll think long and hard before cutting up an old book. I really don't want to spend money on tons of printer ink to make copies, and hopefully I'll make something with them that will be used and appreciated by the recipient. But mostly I'll look at the pretty pictures. :)

Yes, that is Dick and Jane in the lower left! Two of them! I couldn't pass them up. I learned to read with Dick and Jane and I love the colorful illustrations. The Tapestry one at the top is stories of children from all over the world. I may pass that along to Audrey after I enjoy it.

When I was paying for these one of the library volunteers said to her hubby, "Oh, look! A whole book about Leonardo Da Vinci!" I felt kind of bad that she hadn't found it first! The two books on the right are Spanish textbooks that have lots of good lists and lessons for beginners. The little book in the upper left is full of tiny pen and ink drawings illustrating children's poems. I'm copying some of those in a sketchbook for fun.

I may use some of this sheet music for collage, but once again, it's hard to do that. But I don't think anyone would have used it for its intended purpose. The Exodus Song is one of my all time favorites, so I'll hang onto that! The Christmas books is packed with beautiful illustrations, some full-color, others pen and ink. Inspiration!

These are two illustrations from the children's poetry book. There are just tons of charming drawings like these.

While I was at the thrift store, in addition to a couple of chapter books for Audrey I picked up this little baggy of random yarn leftovers. It appears to be cotton yarn, so I thought I could use it to make little washcloths or something small when I feel like playing with my knitting needles.

I also bought two warm sweaters for around the house. Yellow isn't my best color, but this one looked warm with the collar. This is my first winter in this house, so I'm trying to prepare in case it's drafty. The cocoa colored cardigan isn't really my style, but it sure is snug for lounging around! (They were both on the $1 rack!)

I'm still participating in the Inktober drawing challenge. Here are my #7-#12 drawings.

 

 This was my 5x7 canvas for this month. I ended up outlining all of the letters with white gel pen to try to correct the smeary "a". It did look a little better.

 

I'm following along with a gal on YouTube as we (she and her audience) put together "Idea Notebooks". This is a place to keep all of those ideas that spin around in our heads, and tend to be forgotten before we can do anything with them. I found some decorative paper that included this cute typewriter, so I used it as my cover and then stamped the words on the blank page. I think it's sooooo cute! Now I'll enjoy filling it with stuff! The idea is to have one central place to put all of your creative ideas instead of having them scattered around in lots of little notebooks and scraps of paper. It will be a fun project and may even bear some fruit if I actually implement some of the ideas!

I'm developing an interest in collage. I'm thinking paper collage on canvas, and eventually, when I have a bigger place, maybe even tile mosaics. (Think garden decor!)

Does anyone know what this is? Well, yeah! It's Lisa's version of a tea cozy! (Since I've never gotten around to knitting one.) I'm finally using my new teapot, though I'm finding that the tea cools off quite a bit before I get around to pouring it into my cup. I'm also using the old tried-and-true-mug-in-the-microwave technique. Good tea weather! I drove into town today on a back road and I so wish I had taken my camera with me! This is a windy, hilly road that twists and turns between various lakes. It runs through woods that were all bright yellow, orange and red leaves contrasting with deep green evergreens. Beautiful and sunny. It was really windy, but still comfortable for wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Perfect!

Well, I'm going to run over to Duolingo and do a little language. I played hooky yesterday.

Happy Fall, everyone! God's blessings on all of you!
Shalom!