A Weather Report + #Crafting + #AmWriting + #Music + Day To Day Life

No sign of any more snow here.  Some rain, some sun, some chilly temperatures, but no snow.

 

Never mind, there's plenty of time for more yet, and it's not unusual for us to get our best snow in March, so I'm not giving up hope.

 

~

 

Anyway, it's been a busy week, so let's take a look at what's been going on in my world during the past week, shall we?

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Friday was mostly taken up with Zoom calls.  I try to make it to the ACB Presents call every day at 9:00am Eastern, and like to pop in to the ACB Crafters call for a while before the Free To Be Me call I co-facilitate on Fridays.  But I also decided to go to another call, which I don't always attend, but is fun when I do.  Between that and the usual day to day chores, petkid care, etc - which you can just assume I did every day, and I won't bother mentioning every time - there wasn't much of Friday left.

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Saturday was a day mostly filled with crafting.  I attended a Zoom call on ways to add crochet to other forms of crafts (cards, fabric, etc) which was fun and interesting.  I also finished up the crochet mug hug I'd been making, which I mentioned in last week's post, and which Kelly has claimed for his mug.  LOL!

Here's a photo of the green crochet mug hug (essentially a mug cosy) on Kelly's mug:

Oh, and here's a photo of the blue needle knitted round dishcloth/doily thing I made too:

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I also wrote the first draft of an article on audio book production I've been meaning to get to.  I've been promising someone I'd work on it since about November, so it was long since over-due in my opinion, even if I didn't officially have a deadline for when I was meant to submit it by.

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The other thing I did Saturday - well, I'm calling it Saturday, but it was technically Sunday, since it was actually early hours of Sunday morning for me - was to go to ACB's Saturday night kareoke, which I've started doing on a regular basis now.  And, yes, I sing each time I'm there.

I attend the ACB's open mic night when they do that too, but that doesn't happen every week like kareoke does, because the person who facilitates that can't do it every week.  But I read some of my poems for that instead of singing.  I mention it though because it's another one that happens late (when it's on it's a Wednesday night/Thursday morning thing) and I wanted to tell you about what happened after the last one ended, since you won't have seen about it if you're not on Facebook, and might find it as amusing as I do.

So, when open mic night ended it was about 3:00am for me.  And - seeing me remove my headset - Lilie and Logan got up and ran off in to the bedroom, knowing I go in there afterwards, even if I end up reading rather than sleeping.  I didn't pay much attention, but the next thing I know there's a whole lot of noise going on in there, so I went in to see what they were up to.

They were jumping on the bed.  Literally just bouncing up and down on the bed.

I asked them if they realized it was 3:00am, and they stopped bouncing for a moment, looked at me as if to ask if I had a point, and - deciding I clearly didn't - promptly started bouncing on the bed again.

I guess they didn't care if it was 3:00am, or see why that meant they shouldn't bounce on the bed.  LOL!

*~*

Sunday I finally got a chance to play with my potters' wheel.  I made two pots of slightly different sizes and shapes (one a sort of vase shape, and the other a little round pot) which you can see in the photos below.

 

 

 

 

I also made the pen part of a pig sty I'm making as part of the scenery I'm making for my Dad for gaming.  I told my Dad with how much crafting I'm doing he'd likely end up with handmade items for his birthday and Christmas the way I'm going, and he said the thing he needs most is more scenery for his figure gaming, and mentioned an interest in things you'd find in farms or rural settings, like a pig sty, a pond, etc, so I'm taking him at his word and making him a pig sty, and will later make him a pond or two as well.  He gets what he wants/needs for gaming without having to pay ridiculously high prices for scenery, or find time to make it himself,and I get to play with my clay.  Everybody wins.  But, anyhow, I only got as far as making the pen part of the pig sty on Sunday, since I wanted that to dry before I started working on doing the shelter for the pigs to go in it.  Plus ran out of time to do more than that anyhow.

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I also went to a cooking themed ACB Zoom call on Sunday, where they sometimes do cooking demonstrations, and other times discuss things on the general theme of cooking.  This week they were talking about meal planning and prepping, which is something I'm trying to get back in the habit of doing.  It was an interesting call, which I'm glad I went to.

*~*

Monday afternoon I had a papercrafting Zoom meeting scheduled with someone I won it from in the ACB Crafters holiday party I attended a week before Christmas, which for various reasons has taken us this long to be able to arrange.  So I tried to make sure to have everything ready for it before the ACB Presents call, since with my time difference I was scheduled to literally come out of one meeting and in to the other.  I forgot a few things though, so had to go run and get them during the call.  Despite not being quite as prepared as I thought I was, I still managed to make two cards during it though, trying out a couple of new techniques for me; I'd never done cards with extra folds like these before.

One of the cards I made was a star-themed one.  The bulk of the card is white.  The inside has green stars stamped across the top of what would be the back of the card front, and blue presents stamped across the bottom of that same side, with a strip of blue running down the other side.  When the card is closed you can see that strip of blue, and the rest of the front has a strip of green on it, more stamped green stars and blue presents, and three slightly overlapping stars (two blue stars, and a bigger silver glittery star with a small red star in the center of it).  Here are photos of both the inside and outside of that card:

 

The other card is a more feminine card.  The inside has purple butterflies stamped on a white background on what would be the back of the front of the card, and the other side is a yellow background with a pink balloon up near the top of one corner, and a pink heart almost centered at the bottom.  When you close the card the balloon and that area of the yellow background is visible.  The other side of the top of the front has an orange background with a silvery glittery heart on it, and the bottom of the front is left white with purple butterflies stamped on it, and a pink ribbon in the shape of a bow. Here are photos of the inside and outside of that card:

 

 

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I have roleplaying some Mondays, but this wasn't one of them.  Just as well, since we ended up having Mam's dog, Izabel, over for a sleepover Monday night, because Mam was unwell.

 

Lilie loved it; Izi and Lilie had a great time playing together.  Logan wasn't so pleased about the idea; Logan thinks Izabel and Lilie are much too energetic, and spends most of the time when Izi is here just trying to stay out of the way of the girls' games, while also trying to keep them in sight so he doesn't miss anything he might decide he'd like to be involved in after all.

 

*~*

 

To Logan's relief and Lilie's disappointment, Izabel went home Tuesday early evening, during the time when we often have had Dad over for roleplaying and dinner, but as it happened this week I only saw Dad for him to act as mine and Izi's transport, since he and Wayne had their Covid boosters Tuesday afternoon, so we had planned on us not seeing him until it turned out I needed transport to first pick Izabel up on Monday, and then take her home Tuesday.

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Shortly before Izabel went home on Tuesday I went to a different ACB cooking Zoom call where they were making ginger brownies, and offered some substitution tips for those who might want to reduce the amount of sugar they use (or use a different kind of sugar) or avoid using eggs for whatever reason.

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I also went to an online clay workshop on Tuesday, which was for the visually impaired, but not run by the ACB.  It was run by Future In Sight.  Officially it was a beginner workshop, but to me it was just an excuse to play with my clay again.  LOL!

Anyway, I made a sort of oval shaped shallow pinch pot.  And here it is:

I also made the walls for the shelter part of the pig pen.  Since some games are better with no roof put on buildings you make for scenery to use with them, while for others a roof is a good idea, and I'm not sure which kind Dad wants this for, I decided to let Dad do the roof if he wants his pig pen to have one, so here's a photo of the finished pig pen, which is essentially a round pen with the walls for a square-ish structure inside it, and a gate like you'd find on a farm in one area of the pen's wall.

*~*

Wednesday was one of those days when I needed a lot of resting time.  But I also had my keyboard lesson, and there's a fun chatty call I like to go to about an hour after the music lesson ends, so I did make sure to be up for those, as well as for the ACB Presents call.

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The only other thing - besides essential petkid and personal care tasks - I stayed up to do on Wednesday was to take the time to use the bit of clay I hadn't used up from the open packet Tuesday to make the foundation and walls for another building I'll be giving to Dad.  Again, he can either add a roof or not, depending on what he wants to do with it.  But here it is:

*~*

Thursday I finished working on that article, and finally sent it to the person.

I also got caught up on laundry - in case you're interested in hearing about that.

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The only other thing of note about Thursdays is that I have a knitting Zoom call I go to late evening my time on Thursdays.  This week's was needle knitting.  It's needle knitting on the first and third Thursdays of the month, and loom knitting on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month.

*~*

Since I'm putting this together Thursday ready for it to publish Friday morning while I'm on the way to the hospital for my Haematologist appointment, that's you all caught up with everything that's happened between now and my last post.  I hope you enjoyed having a day by day glimpse in to my week.  Not all my weeks are as full as this one was... I had a lot going on this week, that's for sure!