Catch Up On a Saturday

Moon at 95% Waxing Gibbous
Behind the clouds 9:58 PM EDT
5 September 2025

What’s been going on?

Stuff mostly.

A recent purchase of an over the door rack is the reason I’m rearranging my storage areas. The galley kitchen is too small to store can goods that close to an oven. Thus, out of the bottom cabinet and on the pantry shelves they go. 

The door rack is where spices, cereal, teas and light things will be placed.

That frees up overhead cabinet space for soup bowls and such. So now, instead of moving left to right, I can twirl around to get my favorite little fruit bowl. Also, the bottom cabinet now provides pans a new home that’s off the stove and counters. 

The whole process highlights for me how very important good organization is to having a healthy interior environment. 

A word about low fat foods. 

Low-fat cottage cheese is horrible! With my limited sense of taste, due to covid 2022 booster, I treasure the few flavor levels I can enjoy. I dislike even more the flavors that are horrid. 

I feel the same about most low-fat foods as well as light beer. 

What else? Oh, Instagram has become the babysitter to my bored-self. I spend too much time crying and laughing as I scroll through a tremendous variety of video shorts. 

Let me just say that bravado is in vogue. It can be healing, but too much can cause you tell feel a lot of it is hokey. 

Art. Being busy with moving things around, I’ve been falling asleep for some righteously good naps instead of painting. Now that I’ve finally repotted the pothos and English ivy, the table can be clear for creative endeavors. 

How is your September going?

Day 247 of Week 36 August 2025

In a philosophy class, early 1990s, the instructor is explaining the time line of life in philosophically, step by step out into the universe. The end thought, the end question left to us is what is there beyond, beyond life, the universe?

The air in the room is dead silence until a voice in the far back corner provides the answer:

“New Jersey”

That answer, having spent the majority of my teen years in New Jersey, I felt in my bones to be true. I wasn’t trying to make a joke. But the class laughed and do did I. 

In a way, it is funny. In a bigger way, it is a true answer because, I believe, the proverbial, out there, can be wherever a here may be for us. 

More than any age decade of experience, I feel that our teenage years carry the strongest vibe of being our home-land. Other stages may be as nostalgic, as well loved but not in the same way as our transition out of childhood into adulthood. Ten years is a long time.

Have a Wonderful Weekend 

wherever your here is

Change your wall decor

Browse bird statues online

Read about philosophy

Shop for a soap dispenser

Bake bread

Embroider a favorite word

Take photos of sidewalks

Wind
Watercolor sketch

Summer Photograph: Roses

Climbing Roses

As kids, neighborhood roses

were havens of beauty

that we’d admire, smell and

sometimes pick. 

Reflection Monday September 2025

 

A Watercolor Sketch

Charm

Quick sketches have a charm that a painting does not have. As we draw a location, we are there feeling the environment. Even if we are plein air painting, as we process all of it onto the canvas, the charm element is gone. 

Capture the charm

Sketch

Review, Revise & Revel

Reviewing August is a sad glance back at summer, and hot weather, as the autumn equinox three weeks away on 22 September draws near.

Asking if we accomplished what we wanted to do can be part of September’s foundation. Building on the past has me revising my goals. 

In blogging, the debut of my YouTube channel vlog at the end of September is a terrifying thought. Thus far I have only one video section to edit. I have a lot of pre-writing done but none written down. 

To my surprise, the most difficult part turns out to be the writing. Granted, I can sit down and talk for hours and not be boring (if I do say so myself). I can write 20 pages of fiction a day, handwrite. 

Time to plant mums

Where is the terror coming from? Easy. Fear of how people will react. I want everyone to be nice, compassionate as most everyone does. We know that is not realistic. 

Solution. Focus on the good people. Revel in the fortune to have a platform to entertain folks, help them smile, touch their hearts. Be yourself sharing thoughts and things that are positive and on some levels, inspiring.

Day 241 of Week 35 August 2025

Another month of summery weather might turn out to be September. Wishful thinking, methinks, helps ease in accepting the reality of fall is at our door here in New England. 

Glazed baked carrots have been on my mind more than potato salad has. Soup will fill my thoughts any day now. After that, baking bread and cinnamon rolls. 

Robust flavors and aromas are an element of autumn. Sadly, losing weight doesn’t benefit. Thus, I’m not having apple cider donuts until the first frost (as my contribution to my healthy living)

Have a Healthy & Cozy Weekend!

Drive Safe

Read about blacksmiths

Bake an eggplant  

Dance around the house

Sing to your sofa

Browse hiking boots online

Research gems found in your state

Make a wind sock

Goldenrod

It Is There Somewhere

Picture it. You see an interesting sky but you’re all buckled up ready to get back on the road and don’t want to get out of your vehicle. So you put your cell phone out the window, point up towards the sky and take photographs from various angles.   

This is how I did with the in back of me shots. 

Yep, there are times when 

what is there, is there.

I did manage to find the sky.

Going through my zippered carry portfolio, I had an unpleasant realization of a depression side effect…unfinished and forgotten projects. The feeling of loss is strange when there’s nothing gone but time. The stack of cut watercolor paper is still in there.

The abstract is a finished artwork I haven’t seen in a long time. Looking on the back reading math notes written in maybe 1999 is surreal. I used diagrams I made as study tools.

Math notes on back
of the abstract

Abstract detail

Yesterday I had a lunch and sketch at the Crown Point Historic Area. I added watercolor at home. 

The ink and watercolor drawings are a pleasant re-discovery. I added more color on all of them. Two need to have impressions pressed out. I will moisten the back and place the dent under weight enough to remove them (see diagonal line).

Finished Watercolor Drawing

Summer Photographs: A Country Road

 Summer doesn’t feel like summer without two lane country roads, bordered by cornfields, to travel down. 

Route 17 is such a road. The 40.409 miles (65.032km) stretches from Route 100 in Waitsfield to west and ending in Addison at the border of Upstate NewYork by Lake Champlain. The scenery from out of the Green Mountains to the flat land of the Champlain Valley is spectacular. There is a vibe if traveling through a part of New England’s geological history.

Day 234 of Week 34 August 2025

 

Starting August with a celebratory attitude is actually a good way to begin any month. Last year I celebrated the entire month of August. This year I am doing the same.

Think about it. In the month you were born, those 4 weeks were monumental for you. For the first time, you breathed air, drank fluids, sneezed, farted, had hiccups, used your voice, cried, laughed, looked at people, were held by your love ones. Are those events not worthy of a month of celebration!? I think they are.

 

Have a Happy Weekend!

Celebrate You

Browse cowboy shirts online

Make black bean chili

Read about horses

Listen to Willie Nelson songs

Draw a herd of cattle

Dance the 2 step

Tell a bale of hay a story

Thoughts On What We Miss

 

Bumble Bee & Red Clover

Can you spot the bumble bee right away?

Walking along, do you notice that you will glance down sometimes and see something on the ground? 

In the wild, surveilling above and below is a safety measure because of snakes and animals that can launch a  surprise attack. On a sidewalk or park grassy area, holes, sprinkler heads, dog scat or other various objects can also surprise us in unpleasant ways.

Sometimes, we miss stepping on a bumble bee. 🐝  

Being aware of our surroundings is survival. But what about the places we allow our faces to encounter close up as we do with LCD screens? There can be the figurative snake ready to strike and mountain lions ready to pounce there as well.

That brings to mind a thing I notice more and more online. The split second sudden jump on the page, a disappearance, or appearance of something. There’s also the plain old looks like I hit the wrong button (when I didn’t).

The surroundings of 20 years ago are not the surroundings of today. Back in the day, deflecting or avoiding danger was mainly in the control of the individual. 

Methinks, AI now handles our online surroundings. And that presents to me a big question. 

What did we miss? How or why did we miss seeing that in our path? Experts warn us. Yet, companies continue to invest in using AI. 

To increase profits? For what?

This Is the Day

Telling myself that my small voice won’t change anything is a truth that I can rely on. 

Writing a controversial post is not easy when retaliation is a real fear. I usually delete or revert them to Draft. Fascism is real in America.

Observations, watching shorts on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook have left me feeling worse than I already do since January despite the  many positive uplifting videos. 

There are also an excessive amount making fun of people and guilt tripping boo hoo you videos. As funny and clever as the jokes are, I find myself too often asking for God’s forgiveness that I laughed. 

Fort St Frederic in August 2025

Moving on to August sunshine, I had an exceptionally good day yesterday visiting places that I’ve been neglecting because I have not wanted to go anywhere. Depression does that, bullies you into numbness, and staring out the window instead of doing healthy things like being outdoors. 

I have not painted or sketched outside at all this summer. No trip to Massachusetts and the Atlantic Ocean. No beach. No diner. Yesterday is my best day of the season so far.

I plan to visit the Shelburne Museum as my big summer excursion. I bought the ticket online to be scanned from my phone. The ticket is good for 2 consecutive days. For bad knees old ladies like myself, that is good. 😎

The weather up here in northwestern New England is cooling down a bit as it does in August. I have the feeling, however, that hot weather may return. It is good to rule the days mainly with happiness not weather. 

Fields at Dead Creek 
Rt 17 Addison Vermont

Osprey Over Lake Champlain
Upstate New York