Monday, December 31, 2018

Happy New Year

Happy New Year my T day friends. Welcome 2019. 
And it is also Tuesday, time for T over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.
Thanks so much to our hostess to welcome us each week where we can share our drink related posts.
So let me celebrate the start of the new year with a look back on T during 2018. There were lots weekly good times in this past year.
  Traditional formal T.
 My daily insulated tumbler with T.
 A new T mug.
 And take out T.
 Art time T.
 Wedding T.
 A summer ice cream treat T.
 Japanese vending machine T
 A pitcher before a hockey game T.
 Lower calorie  T
Meeting blog friends T
 On the water T.
 Tokyo, Japan  T.
 The most unusual place to find T.
 The most unusual snack with T
 Breakfast T
 Japanese formal meal T
 Let's party T
 Dessert T
 A fancy summer drink T
Newfoundland T
 Lunch T
 Wedding shower bingo winning T
 Fruit smoothie T
 My birthday T
A million calorie T
The best hot coco T
The meal you can eat all week T
Family get together T
And lastly, Christmas brunch T from last week.
Our Christmas dinner is always smaller than our holiday brunch.
 Prosecco and oj for mimosas, fruit, bacon, sausage, eggs and Danish.
I could call this one a million calorie T also.
But who needs dinner after a meal like this? 
What a good year of T 2018 was!

Wishing you all a fantastic  new year  and hoping to share many more T days with you in 2019!
Thanks for visiting.

Sunday, December 30, 2018

A Winter Weekend

Hi everyone. Depending where you are and when you read this post it might be December 30th or maybe even the 31st.We are really counting down the final hours of 2018, aren't we? 
My last page for this month's Art Journal Journey is the last full spread in my December Journal.  It looks better in the book than it photographed I think, but  I am saying goodbye to a year that was a good one for me.
I started by doing a wet paint stencil just to give the hint of music in blue. Then I added a piece of printed acetate, parts of a die cut clock in some sparkling blue paper, and then some stamped images. 
I want to thank both Bleubeard and Elizabeth for this fun challenge this month at AJJ. 
I'm not much of a New Years Eve revealer, and although I don't know for certain, I think it's going to be a low key evening for my husband and myself. They are saying some measurable snow for part of my state for New Years Eve , and right now where I live is right on the line between snow, ice and rain, so that may be even more reason not to be out and about. How about you? Do you celebrate?
Yesterday the temperatures were milder here so my husband and myself went out on a snowy owl hunt at one of the areas where they have been spotted this winter. We didn't have any luck except for seeing lots of seagulls, but we did get out for a little beach walk with the dogs.
 The wind had picked up but it was still relatively mild (for late December that is)

And I know this info probably doesn't mean much except if you're familiar with this area, but I took these photos at Salisbury Beach State Preserve down in Salisbury, Massachusetts.
 There was a lot of lobster traps washed up onto the beach.
And everytime I come here there are horses. This one wasn't so sure about the waves.

But one of my dogs had plenty to smell, her favorite thing.


The husband and I had a nice afternoon out. It was good to get outside and good to get down by the ocean again for a little bit.
Enjoy what's left of 2018.
And thanks, as always,  for visiting.

Saturday, December 29, 2018

It's Still the Season

 Happy Saturday! This year is winding down quickly, isn't it? I'm back to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth with another entry for this month's Tis the Season/Your Favorite Season over at Art Journal Journey.  These are some end pages from my December journal. They both have a winter theme.
Even though I must admit winter is my least favorite season, it is still needed in the cycle of the year. I just wish it wasn't so long, which it is here in New Hampshire.
I alos set up this year in review page with all these journal cards I had in my stash.  It is the season for doing that, isn't it?

Hope everyone has a great weekend. 
Thanks for visiting!

Friday, December 28, 2018

The Book Post-Part 1

Hi everyone.  I'm in happy vacation mode. I did a bit of picking up today and got ambitious and cleaned out 2 of my kitchen cabinets. It's time to make some space and get rid of some mismatched pieces I haven't used in years. That took about an hour and then I had the whole afternoon to make art. Big smile.
But no photos of the new art yet so today I am going to do a reading review. I will admit I do this more as an assignment to organize a years worth of reading, but if you like to read about books (like I do), then here's a post for you.

 A Year in Review
Part 1

I did LOTS of reading and listening this past year. 100+ stories, art books, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, cookbooks, fantasy, mysteries, science...whatever caught my fancy and kept my attention.  So here we go, not all 100+, that would be a novel in itself, but here's my top fictional picks that I read of listened to in 2018.
Rereads:
It's good to reread a book sometimes. Or listen to a book that you read years ago. Good books of course. Being older than the last read, more mature, the books are so much better, most times. Or at least they are different.
Charles Dickens: Wow- this was a rediscovery. I took a Dickens course in college, but this time, listening to these on my commute back and forth to work, I think I just got into his writing. I couldn't stop listening to the version of Great Expectations, which was my favorite book by Dickens back in the day.  Have you read about Pip and Miss Havisham? 
And I also listened to A Tale of Two Cities which I hadn't listened to since high school. It's way better now than it was when I was a 17 year old. 
 This Barbara Kingsolver book was in my top 5 and is still there. The characters are from the American south and the narrator, since I listened to it this time around, had the perfect accent which made the African experience feel even more real.
 Add a  Jane Austen's Persuasion to the mix as well as Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.
 And when I came home from Newfoundland I had to read the book that made me think about going there in first place.

 And I needed a little magic this fall so I reread this whole trilogy.  It was as exciting a time travel romp as the first round. Witches, vampires and demons are always fun to read. There's a new book out with characters from this series that I haven't yet read, but hopefully in 2019.

And I've got a few more rereads on my 2019 reading list. Top of my list is the Harry Potter series.

Mysteries:
Some of my favorite type of reading.
I read 3 Tony Hillerman mysteries of these during 2018. I really enjoy these books. 
Tony Hillerman has since passed away but his daughter has picked up the series, and she is as good a writer. This was the book she published this past year.

And Auntie Poldi made me happy. A 60 year old retiree acting as a detective and an actual police detective in Sicily is lots of fun.
And I read a few of these cozies set in Oxford, England in a tea shop. I want to read a few more also. They are light reading with some potential romance too.
And one more to go in this Peter May mystery. I loved how this one went back and forth between the present and the past, and being set on a windswept Island off the coast of Scotland only added its allure.
And this final mystery book is one in a trilogy that goes back and forth between the ancient Anasazi people of the American Southwest and some modern archeologists in the same area. They were fascinating reads and it's too bad there aren't any more in this series.
And what happened to the son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI when they were killed in the French Revolution? This book started off slow but then it really picked up and was hard to put down.
And finally, a mystery with a bit of a science (or even sci-fi) twist set in the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Fiction:
I started this book in 2017 and then put it aside because it was too thick to carry on a trip with me. I finally got back to it in 2018. I know lots of folks say it was their favorite book, and although maybe not my favorite, I did really enjoy it, and must also say the story still sticks with me, even though I finished it back in February.
 And then a little light fantasy reading about dragons. I like the strong woman protagonist in this one.
 For some October spookiness, I will say I really liked this book. Vampires, a youthful Bram Stoker (who wrote Dracula) and the enchantment of Ireland made this book a great autumn read.
 I read a book about Wyatt Earp and the old west that Mary Doria Russell wrote a few years back, and this book sounded interesting.  This book is set at the turn of the 20th century, with a strong woman who goes to Egypt and meets famous people like Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill as well as becomes part of the political scene of the day.
 OK, Eleanor is my favorite book of the year. I read it in one sitting. This book just makes you feel good and remind you life is all about what you make it.
 And Red Winter is a teen book that I listened to when I got home from Japan but I really enjoyed. It was a good introduction to some of the Japanese gods and goddesses that this girl deals with in her journey to be a goddess, as well as an enjoyable story.  There's 2 more in this trilogy I hope to get to this year.
 And Lincoln in the Bardo had many interesting reviews. Some people didn't like it, and some did, but I really enjoyed it. The main characters are the ghosts in a graveyard,  set in the 1860's at the height of the American Civil War and right after President Abraham Lincoln's youngest son died. I also liked the style the author used, which was more like dialogue in a script than  the typical paragraph set up in a usual novel.

I think that's more than enough book talk for one day. I'll finish  up my book list in another post.
Thanks for visiting. And if you have any good recommendations for the new year, I'd love to know them.