Tag Archives: Paris collage collective

Is it Saturday? 5/24

Ever since Ken retired we hardly know what day it is. That’s why we announce on Friday evenings, “IT’S THE WEEKEND!” For a while, I made a point of cooking up a nice hot breakfast on Saturday mornings but not so much anymore.

Still weekends feel different, they do. No appointments or classes or zoom calls (for me). He has a cocktail in the evening. Less roaring and beeping construction sounds. Fewer kids at the playground next door.

Soon we’ll be treated to the “Cape Effect.” Love it. The Cape Effect is when our town becomes noticeably quieter because so many vacate to their second homes.

As for us, we’ll be heading to LA soon. Just in time for their “June gloom.” I’m gonna load my kindle up with books this time so I’ll always have a novel in my pocket.

My brother won’t be up for attending a protest, but since one of the No Kings gatherings will take place in nearby Pasadena, I may pop down the hill for a bit.

PS Two digital collages above from this week’s Paris Collage Club visual prompt. Combines my photo of Ken with Finn, a former PCC prompt (the tree), and photo of a quilt.

Two more:

It was a shocker to find a figure framed in that slave cabin window (above). Revealed by the quirks of the filter. As many times as I looked at that photo of mine, I’d never discerned the person inside. Photo below.

Here’s the exposure slid to the brightest setting.

Sunday catch up

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So many hydrangeas here have died. Not this one!

Lady’s mantle, predictably lovely after rain

A couple of quiet days. I can hardly believe it!

The funny thing about this is I was already planning to make lasagna!

After a pause in Paris Collage, I’m back

This and the first collage feature the same moon rubber stamp

She’s back! From paper doll collage series

Happy Father’s Day!

Publishing (boring) update. SO MUCH OF THIS PART IS BORING. Ken is helping me figure out the self publishing platform, D2D. I made an account with them and supplied tax info. This will be in conjunction with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). In advance of using D2D’s formatting feature, Ken was able to resize the margins and get the book under 500 pages. This is a good thing! I think I’ve landed on a cover with a designer from Connecticut (to be revealed before summer’s end!) AND

AND I may (finally) have written a decent blurb. Bit by bit! Now to try (for the third time) to figure out WordPress’s newsletter feature. Conventional wisdom is that it’s the most important marketing tool for writers, but? Really? Who wants another fucking thing showing up in their email box? I for one am getting six daily political newsletters.

Probably more important to rework my landing page here.

Established writers have other people write their blurbs

Insomnia post

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The top of this quilt ended too abruptly so I laid out some additional edging. I love that vintage pink floral silk! CapeCod Shibori is the source for the indigo sky, a polyester blouse from the 80’s (I’m guessing) for the grey foreground. Other garments appear as well. There’s batting and backing behind the central rectangle so I’m gonna have to figure out how to even up the layers.

Paris Collage Club prompt flowers with photo of quilt

The squirrel got back in. Two guys came back and found the entry point and you know what? It surprised me. I don’t know what it says about my state of mind but I fully expected them to be baffled and to shrug and walk away, problem unsolved.

The garden needs dirt. Everywhere. Probably because we got so much rain and so little snow last season.

I started PT for my hip today and have my fourth acupuncture appointment on Friday. Goals? To be able to squat and weed the garden and get in and out of the car without wincing. Ditto: up and off the couch.

Tomorrow, SCOTUS will hear the presidential immunity arguments. You know the case. The one they could have heard back in December when Jack Smith appealed directly. The one they could have scheduled a month or more ago. The frivolous argument by trump doesn’t need to have merit because he’s getting what he needs through delay. There simply is no good faith interpretation of the Court’s actions. There just isn’t. It’s sickening.

Today the Court heard discussions of how many organs a woman might have to lose before an ER doctor can provide her health care under Idaho law.

And I wonder why I’m depressed.

Light, silence, tooth, and time

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Dull light this morning but no percussive hammering. I think it’s over.

Also over: the first (and most invasive) step in getting an implant for my front right tooth. The one with a history.

Grievance: a doctor who didn’t answer my email about anxiety meds until it was too late to do anything about it.

Humor: my brother disagreeing with her assessment that diazepam prescribed eleven years ago probably wouldn’t work. “Unless it’s turned to fungus,” he said, “it’s fine.”

It was fine. In fact it was so fine that I was relieved when K said he’d walk over with me. I felt that woozy.

Tonight I’m eating ice cream. I can be a bit of a baby.

Yesterday I wrote a scene where a character spins and spins and spins. Sufis were mentioned. Imagine my surprise as I noodled around with this week’s Paris Collage Collective visual prompt in bed later to see the Sufis emerge (from an old SoulCollage card). I remixed extensively to make them more visible (along the lower edge).

I didn’t seen them at first. With many of the dianaphoto app filters they disappeared. I love to be surprised like this.

A far cry from where I started.

The Christ-like figure is from a photo taken by Andrew J. Whitaker, a photographer for the Charleston paper The Post and Courier. He took it during the summer of George Floyd protests — George Floyd who recently would’ve turned 50.

@andrewjwhitaker on Instagram, photo itself

Other surprises from last night.

Incorporating photo of Hearts for Charleston Quilt

Canada, clutter, and prompts

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Passport. CHECK. Mouth guard and meds. CHECK (but didn’t have to carefully tuck them in carry on bag in case suitcase gets lost). Sewing, reading, and writing notebooks. CHECK (you’d think I’d have an elegant handmade etui to hand, but I don’t. I just stick needles and pins in whatever swatch of fabric is handy).

Our lovely house sitter will be taking GQ-level photos of Finn again no doubt. I can’t tell you how comforted I was to learn that she’d held a piece of cheese to her forehead for some of her darling shots from last trip.

I consolidated heaps of fabric and windexed here and there. The difference was relieving, noticeable. K said, “I’d live here,” which tells you something about his dry wit. What it perhaps doesn’t reveal as readily is how forbearing he is of my clutter.

Question to crafters: are works-in-progress demeaned by the label “clutter”?

Never mind that. What would be really hilarious if it weren’t so hypocritical is that I dare to ask him to please put his shoes away!

Traffic on 128 is bad. The trees are green. I will report back as we travel north. We may be in for some pretty foliage.

I’m excited to be going to Quebec City. Our older son went to McGill, so we’ve made many trips to Montreal in recent history, but I haven’t been to Quebec City since my French class traveled there in 1975.