Suzanne Stengl's Blog, page 6

An Update for my Author Photo

I will be publishing my fifth book on November 1st. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow. For now, I thought I’d post a new Author Photo. This is me by the Bow River in Calgary. 

And this is me, last weekend, brainstorming in Edmonton, at Whyte Avenue’s Varscona Hotel.

brainstorming . . .

Amazing how these late-night events work out.

The post An Update for my Author Photo appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

Chicago

Chicago is known as the Windy City, but during the week I visited, the place could have used a bit more wind.

I attended my nursing reunion here from September 21 to 27. We happened to show up during a heat wave with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit). On my last day, the temperature dropped 20 degrees Fahrenheit to a very pleasant 70.

Another nickname for Chicago is “Chi-Town” pronounced Shy Town. And still another nickname is “Second City”.  

I always thought that meant it was second to New York City, but apparently that is not so. Our tour guides told us that Second City refers to how the city was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1871.

Legend says that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knocked over a lantern which set fire to the barn, and from there, the fire spread. Some of our tour guides dismissed this legend, saying that back in the day there was a tendency to blame the Irish for anything that went wrong, and that more likely, the fire began as a lightning strike. At any rate, the fire spread and burned for three days. Rain finally put it out.

Following the fire, legislation decreed that buildings not be built of wood. The materials that could be used were brick, stone, marble and limestone. And thus began the era of the skyscrapers. 

Our group stayed at the Embassy Suites near Navy Pier. Here is our crest on their Welcome Screen. The hotel gave us a hospitality room. Here is the signage. Our school is called HADSON, and the hotel almost got it right, calling us HUDSON. Pretty close.

almost HADSON

10 things I like about September

Hiking to Boom Lake

Picking out a pumpkin

Getting lost in a corn maze

Finishing off edits        

Pumpkin pie

Getting my next book covers done. (I’ll show you the covers soon—probably mid-October.)

Leaves changing colour

New pencils

Pumpkin spice lattes

And best of all, my morning glory. I finally got a morning glory to bloom in my Calgary backyard.

Now, I am off to Chicago to meet up with my buddies from my nursing graduation class. Looking forward to happy hours, talking with old friends, and touring the Windy City.

I hope you are enjoying your September. What do you like best about this month?

Pumpkin pie from Photos.com

Book covers from iStockphoto.com

Fountain pen from iStockphoto.com

Pencil crayons from Dreamstime.com

Squash from Depositphotos.com

The post 10 things I like about September appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

August update and some painting

Summer in Calgary is almost over. The indigenous poplars are starting to turn yellow and drop their leaves but the warm weather continues. It’s hot during the day with the temperatures ranging from 27 to 30 Celsius (81 to 86 Fahrenheit). Too hot to walk, at least for me, so I walk at 6 a.m. before the sun is up when the temperature is closer to 10 degrees (50 Fahrenheit). I’m trying to hit my 10,000 steps per day. This is important for a person who spends a lot of her time sitting at a computer.

August has been a busy month. For the first time I attended a local conference for Readers and Writers, called When Words Collide. I liked it so much I am already signed up for next year.

I also attended the Annual Sylvan Lake Retreat with thirteen other writers from Calgary and Edmonton and surrounding areas. We even had a writer there who came all the way from Keewatin Ontario.

Sylvan Lake Library

And, yay me, I finished my latest manuscript. My editor has it now. In the meantime, I am working with my cover artist and finalizing a design. I hope to have the book ready for October. This is the prequel to ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING that I’ve told you about.

Also this month, Rolf and I got to doggie sit Makita for two weeks, while her humans were on vacation.

Makita saying hello to Rolf

Here she is greeting Rolf at McKinnon Flats as he finishes a canoe trip on the Bow River. She is such a happy dog, but I know she missed her humans and she was happy to be reunited with them.

Makita missing her humans

We don’t have a cat because Rolf is allergic to them, but apparently cats have the same attachment needs as dogs.

Bourbon the cat

A friend of mine wrote a beautiful (and funny) article about her experiences with fostering cats. I think you’d enjoy reading it. You can find it here.

On August 21st, I watched the partial eclipse of the sun with my son Kyle. Here we are using his welding helmets.

Suzanne and Kyle, eclipse watching

Kyle somehow managed to get this shot of me – watching the eclipse, with a jet stream in the sky, while he was holding the “pin hole” and reflecting the stage of the eclipse off my shirt. Pretty cool, eh?

See the “pin hole” image of the eclipse on my shirt?

As this month ends, I am edging into a new story. It will be book three of my Wedding series. While part of my mind works on that in the background, I am taking a watercolour course. At this point, I am mostly learning about paints and brushes and papers. And I still enjoy playing with acrylics.

For no other reason than it seemed like fun, I decided to paint this Sun and Moon. Someone threw it out and I figured it could use some brightening. And of course one person’s trash is another person’s treasure . . .

start with this

paint the sun yellow and decide I don’t like it . . .

so paint the whole thing white . . .

then another coat of yellow for Mr. Sun and a first coat for the stars . . .

some blue for the moon . . .

a darker blue for the moon, a bit of detailing . . .

a couple coats of varnish and put it in the garden!

And that’s it for August. How has your summer been?

The post August update and some painting appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

Backyard Bliss

balcony garden

In the good ole summertime, there’s nothing quite like relaxing in your backyard and garden.

geraniums and lobelia

Of course, I love anything pink, but these are one of my favourites.

Sweet Williams

Always pretty and very hardy, especially in this climate, we have snow-on-the-mountain.

snow-on-the-mountain

The strawberry patch is doing well.

tasty strawberries

We got a new lawn chair.

We already had a “pensieve”.

our bird bath aka “pensieve”

And the livin’ is easy . . .

The post Backyard Bliss appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy 150th birthday Canada!

Cupcake from Depositphotos #74487599_l-2015

The post Happy Canada Day! appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

June update and some provincial flowers

The Tuesday Café is rather quiet these days. You may have noticed that I’ve only been posting monthly for the last little while.

That’s because I’m hard at work on the next book in my WEDDING series. This one should be available by October 1st. It is the prequel to ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING. I’m just wrapping up the final chapter and then I’ll let it simmer for a bit before sending it off to my editor. Next, the fun will begin with choosing a cover.

Besides writing, I’ve been doing some traveling. At the beginning of June, I spent a week in Regina and the Saskatchewan countryside.

Nothing but prairie for miles and miles.

Here is the grain elevator in the little town of Limerick. The hotel in this town makes the best chicken wings in the world.

Saskatchewan’s provincial flower is the western red lily, also known as the wood lily or prairie lily.

western red lily

Last week, I was in Ontario for the annual family reunion. We are fortunate to have a great photographer in the group who happens to have a “drone” and so we even got some aerial shots this year.

Everybody wave!

One of the farms I visited had peaches ripening in the beautiful Ontario sunshine.

peach tree

As usual, I visited Pinecroft for lunch with some of my cousins. And I bought an art card of trilliums, Ontario’s provincial flower. I’m holding the card here.  

at Pinecroft

I intend to frame it, maybe with a double mat, some white and a bit of green. Trilliums have three large white petals and they bloom in the springtime. Here’s a picture of trilliums up close. My sister has some in her backyard. I wish I could grow them in Alberta but we don’t have the climate for it.

trillium

Alberta’s provincial flower is the resilient Rosa acicularis, otherwise known as the prickly rose, the wild rose and the Arctic rose.

Alberta Rose

This little flower starts blooming in late May and will often continue to bloom into August.

Do you know what your provincial (or state) flower is? Got any growing in your backyard? Do you have an annual family reunion?

 

Ontario trillium from bigstockphoto #164564648

Saskatchewan western red lily from bigstockphoto #164564648

Alberta rose from depositphotos #47112519_l-2015

The post June update and some provincial flowers appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

A Walk in the Park

On Thursday, I visited Banff National Park with some friends from Ontario. We hiked to the Upper Falls at Johnston Canyon, then toured the town of Canmore.

I usually do this hike when the snow is gone. On this day, May 25, it was still slushy in parts. I found my walking sticks were useful to keep from slipping.

Meet my Ontario friends! Here they are at the Lower Falls.

This is the view looking down at the Lower Falls. We walked into the cave for a closeup of the water crashing into the pool below.

Water glistening on the limestone rock.

Snowy in May.

Following our hike, we were revived at the JK Bakery in Canmore.

Turkey and all the vegetables on multigrain with tomato basil soup. Perfectly delicious.

We walked around the town, visited a Farmers Market and admired the wall art.

And later, we watched the aspenglow.

aspenglow

The five of us stayed at a beautiful condo in Canmore with this view of the Three Sisters.

Gourmet dinner was prepared by these talented ladies.

These shooters are called “mini beers” and were useful for cheering on the Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup Playoffs – Eastern Conference final game. I didn’t have any of the “mini-beers” because it’s necessary to down one in a single gulp and that just didn’t seem right.

Too bad Ottawa didn’t win, but it was an entertaining game with two periods of overtime. Congratulations Penguins!

A fair amount of wine was consumed. This is a partial sample of what was available. And, no Alan, we didn’t get into the really “expensive stuff”.

Spark Joy: an approach to decluttering

My good friend Anna Marie is the most organized person I know. So when she comes across a book about organizing and she recommends it, I pay attention.

It turns out everyone is talking about this book. I told another friend about the book and a friend of hers had already given her a copy.

SPARK JOY by Marie Kondo is a unique approach to decluttering your life. If you have issues with clutter, you might like to read the Look Inside feature of this book on Amazon and see if this is the book for you.

In her approach, Marie Kondo has six basic rules of tidying:

Commit yourself to tidying up
Imagine your ideal lifestyle
Finish by discarding first
Tidy by category, not by location
Follow the right order: clothes, books, papers, komono, sentimental
Ask yourself if it sparks joy

The process will be as fast or as slow as you choose. Some of us take longer to decide whether or not an object “sparks joy” and we progress more slowly.

The criterion for deciding what to keep and what to discard is whether or not something sparks joy.

Even though it may not look like it, your clutter is finite. If you commit to this process, you will finish and you will achieve that nirvana of a clutter free home.

Don’t confuse temporary clutter with a rebound.

Marie Kondo tells us that anyone who learns to tidy properly should never rebound. Do not confuse “temporary clutter” with rebound. There will be days when you are busy and don’t have time to put things away. But once you have completed her process, everything will have a designated space. Putting things in their designated space takes very little time.

I’ve only just begun. I am going in order, doing clothes first. I had no idea I owned this many T-shirts and I have to admit, they do not all Spark Joy. Still I have that nagging little voice that says I should hold on to some of those shirts I don’t like, just in case I need one for a painting day.

“It might come in handy”

“It might come in handy” is taboo. It is the enemy of tidying.

Marie Kondo says there are some tools and some clothes, that though they do not Spark Joy, are necessary to make us happy in certain situations. We can thank them for that. But only one of my T-shirts will be a painting shirt. The rest that do not Spark Joy will go, and my closet will thank me because I will have freed up space on the closet rod.

Cosplay

Another thing that encourages me is that Marie Kondo says if it brings you Joy, you do not need to get rid of it. She has a name for those clothes you will never wear. That out-of-date evening gown, that costume for the play. She calls those things “Cosplay” or Costume Play. We put them on, and they lift our spirits. So keep them. Wear them indoors. And, sometimes, when we try them on, after all these years, we discover they no longer give us that same good feeling. No Joy. Decision made.  Easy to toss. Again, my closet thanks me for the additional space.

I am starting with my shirts. At first I made the mistake of color coding the hangers these would go on. Then I ran out of that color and had to switch colors. The rule is Discard First. Storage comes later. So, I will carry on. One shirt at a time.

Have you heard of Spark Joy? Do you need to declutter? Do you have any idea how to begin? Do you think it’s possible to go through this Marie Kondo process, once, correctly (discard first, and in the correct order) and then remain forever clutter free?

The post Spark Joy: an approach to decluttering appeared first on Suzanne Stengl.

Painting with watercolor

my paint box of watercolors

Yesterday, writer Amy Jo Fleming hosted a watercolor painting party for three of her friends—me, Brenda and Leslie.

Amy Jo covered her dining room table with plastic. Her son set up a projector, and we watched a live YouTube tutorial by Lindsay Weirich, the Frugal Crafter. The topic was: how to paint a watercolor scene of “Icy Mountains and the Sea”.

I showed up with my newly purchased paint box and some brushes. Amy Jo gave me a piece of watercolor paper and I was ready.

Brenda has done lots of these YouTube watercolor tutorials and she subscribes to Lindsay’s YouTube channel. However, for the rest of us, this was a first effort.

ready to start

Lindsay makes it look easy, and it was an excellent idea to follow along with the live YouTube. Otherwise I think I would have procrastinated all day before putting paint to paper.

The YouTube tutorial projected on the wall.

As best as I could, I tried to follow Lindsay’s instructions. Usually people watch, perhaps get started, and then end up replaying the video to complete their painting. But I followed along, not sure if I was using my right brain or my left brain or any brain at all. I did love the feel of swooshing on color. And sometimes just swooshing on clear water and then dabbing it with a bit of color and watching the color migrate.

There are so many techniques to learn, such as scrunching up paper towel and smudging clouds into formation. You also need to learn to blend colors, and to choose colors that bring out the best in each other.  

A while ago, I showed you my other artistic endeavour, where I painted with acrylics. I can’t say for sure, but I think a beginner would have better luck with acrylics. At least, I think my tulip picture here, looks a little better than my landscape. But I’m not complaining. I know everything takes practice. Even if I don’t learn to paint with watercolors, or with acrylics, there is something very soothing about watching someone else paint and gradually transform a blank piece of paper into Something.  

The really nice part about this painting party was the Tea that followed.

Tea following Painting

We potlucked. I brought the one recipe I am capable of – devilled eggs. Brenda, who excels at art and writing, has not yet mastered cooking, so she picked up fruit on the way over. Leslie made scones from scratch and brought jam (Scottish Strawberry) and, of course, clotted cream.

cutting off the crusts