My 1st SMART phone!

Ok, now don't laugh. I have been holding out jumping on the phone wagon.  My 2010 flip phone has been an old friend. I have had it for 5 years. I never needed the smartphone since I have an iPad2 and a newish MacBook Pro.  I was out of my 2 year plan with Verizon for 3 years now. It took that long to decide what to do.
But the 'ol Flip phone was starting to fail at receiving calls and messages. It just couldn't keep up with technology. 
So when Verizon offered the iPhone 5c for free I decided to jump on board. Yeah I know, the cost isn't in the phone, it's in the monthly charges.  I'm ok with the extra cost. I hate it but the phone companies have us by the neck.

She is very pretty.  I love how Apple packages their products. Everything is smooth, snug and simple.  I just love it. 

Look at this darling little box that they put the ear-buds in.

Can you believe how cute this is? They sound amazing too. But that box and the way they wind the cables so nicely. What other company pays attention to the details like this?

The only part I don't like is the time to get it set up how I want.

I am familiar with how it all works since it is so similar to the iPad.

FedX came early this morning and delivered my FREE iPhone. I tried to follow the instructions to set it up but since my Flip-phone was older I needed a Verizon store to transfer my contacts. So I drive the 23 miles to the next town.  I tell the guy to activate my new phone and de-activate the old one. He was very nice. Did the transfer thing. Then I went and did a little shopping around town with my new phone in my pocket. I felt like a million  dollars. I was hoping someone would call me. Nope, the phone was silent.

So when I get home I want to hear the phone ring. So I call it with my landline.  Long story short I discover that the phone was not activated and the old one was still working. I had to call Verizon and wait, wait, wait, wait and then a nice lady helped me.

Now everything is going good.  

I also took my first photo and started an Instagram account for the first time.  Everything is new to me with this new iPhone.

Here is my first Instagram photo

This is Charlie sitting on my new couch. He looks like a sourpuss.

He cracks me up.

So there you have it dear blog. I am a victim of the big bad techno monster. I promise to always put the phone aside at meal time and when visiting friends & family.

 Love and Hugs,  Carol

Faux Pas with my Haircolor

So lately I have been feeling like the blonde color has been getting too light.  It seemed like it was almost the same color as my skin. I hate that.  So I went to the Family Dollar store and bought some hair color. I got a cheap brand, not my usual Garnier Nutrisse. Big mistake. I colored my hair yesterday.  I wanted a spicy color. Sort of a light brown with auburn highlights. Like I had when I was in my 20's, 30's, and 40's.  So I dyed it Saturday evening.

Wow!!! it was Orangie-Red.  I didn't like it. I think the top layer of my hair before dyeing was lighter blonde from the sun. That part turned orange like a carrot.  Really wild.
It was not a good idea to experiment on my hair the night before Sunday morning Church.  I was too embarrassed to go to church like that. It was so bright orange when I was outside.
The first thing I did on Sunday morning is drive to the dollar store and buy some good hair color.  My favorite Garnier Nutrisse. I didn't know how to tame that carrot top color but I knew maybe 
something with ash in it would calm down that orange. But ash could turn my hair green or even purple. You never know with hair color that has ash in it. The box didn't say ash but I could tell from the girl's photo on the box.  Anyway, I bought #93 which is Champagne.  I mixed up the color and put it on the top half of my head. I kinda wanted to have that spark of reddish orange on the under parts of my hair. And really the lower part of my hair didn't go orange but I nice light auburn.
Well the experiment came out good. It could be a smidge darker. But I do like it.  I'm not sure the photos show much difference but believe me. The first dye attempt was very very orange and bright.

Above is the final result.  It does look how my hair looked many years ago. I like it.  I know with each wash it will get lighter but that is ok as long as I don't see that neon orange color. 

Long Time No See.....

Almost a year and a half has gone by and I didn't write. I will tell you why in a moment.
I moved one year ago from Highland/Yucaipa Calif. (southern California) to southeastern Idaho. I live in a tiny town of 5,000 people now.
I moved to American Falls, ID. and I love it. We get all the seasons here. No more 5 months of sweltering heat.
I love the snow. I love the frost. I love the autumn that we are having now.

Last weekend we went to a corn maze in Blackfoot ID. It was fun. This is my son and his wife.

We took the girls, my granddaughter and my kids nieces.

It was a beautiful autumn day. Warm. The trees are turning.

Already we have had ice on the birdbath in the morning.

I bought a house here that needed so much renovations. It took a long time. But I am settled in now. I need to go plant my tulip, daffodil and crocus bulbs so that I have flowers in the early spring. This is great since I could not grow tulips in SoCal.  

Now the reason why I didn't blog for 1 1/2 years. I was busy with the move but it was because after having this blog to call my own for a few years it changed. One day my granddaughter wanted an email. We decided to go with gmail. When I finished signing her up everything in my computer was put into her account.  Blogger was the worse. It won't let me change ownership back to me. It shows her email as my user name. She is just a little girl too. So I stopped blogging. I was so mad.  All my searches of what to do came up empty. The chat boards for help all said that Blogger doesn't have a way to let one select which email is the primary on Blogger. Blogger will select their gmail as the default. You can't change it.  I think Goggle is very invasive. I don't have a gmail account myself. 

Anyway, that is why I stopped blogging. I want to come back. I will just have to over look that my user name is a childs email address. Grrrrr

52 Weeks of Happy 6/52

Week 6 of Happy!!!
This last week I had a very happy time going to have a pedicure with my granddaughter Peanut.  We sat in the spa chairs and they massaged our feet & calves.  They also put my feet in paraffin wax to soften my feet. I am a barefoot kind of gal.  It was a wonderful way to spend an hour. Afterwards my feet felt like new.
Look here.....


Peanut got pink with zebra stripes where as I got a neon aqua.




I don't know why I waited 57 years before getting my first pedi.  I have had about 4 of them now.  It does make a difference where you go.  The last place made my toes hurt.  I think their tools were not clean and gave me an infection.  But this last place was very clean but expensive.  BUT no infection or hurting toes.

I love my AQUA toes!!!!!

52 Weeks of Happy 5/52

Week 5 of 52.  I think I skipped a week in there.
I have been so busy and my life is up and down.  That is why I am Dancing in the Dark!  hahaha

What makes me happy?  This week is is picking paint colors.  I have decided to paint the inside of my home.  I will hire a painter since my ceilings are so high and I hate prepping for paint.

Right now my living room looks like this:

The mantle


The walls in the living room are caramel tan, green and red.


Here is the green wall.  It is seen from the living room but it is the hallway.


I'll get better photos later.  My bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and dinning room are all white. Boring!!!
The colors that I want to paint these rooms are Cream, gray/with blue tones, and maybe a pop of teal on the island. The island has Corian counter tops. They are off white with speckles of blue, dark yellow, dark blue, red.  It really is pretty. It is called Fiesta.
It looks like this


The colors I picked make me happy.  They are light and beachy. The other colors are nice but they darken at night and feel heavy. They are cozy and cabin feeling.  I need light and airy now.

Happy week 5 to everyone!!!

52 Weeks of Happy 4/52

Last Sunday was Easter. Peanut and I went to church on Saturday night so on Sunday we took Bob to the elementary school.  They have a huge grass area for the kids to play.


Look at this beautiful day.  The school is called Highland Grove Elementary.  There use to be orange groves in this area of Highland.  This is not where Peanut goes to school.  She attends Cram Elementary.



The mountains were so beautiful. The day was warm with a slight breeze. We got a little sunburn.  By 4 pm the clouds covered the sky and it looked like rain. 



Peanut practiced her kickball moves.  She is really good. We had a lot of fun kicking the ball.  This was a white ball and she colored it. It is beautiful.





Since there were very few people there Bob was allowed to be free and run till he was too tired to run.  We brought his tennis ball and he chased it over and over.  What a cute dog.
Peanut put him on the leash in order to get him to go down the slide. He is not fond of the slide.  hehehe



If you look real hard you can see Peanut and Bob on the playground.



This day made us happy.  We would have loved to spend it with our loved one but everyone was busy. Some of the invites from loved one were too sfar away to go to.  My sister had to work on Easter! darn Chevy dealership. Grrrr.   
But church was lovely saturday night. We worshiped our Lord and that he rose on the 3rd day. He LIVES!!!!

52 Weeks of Happy 3/52

Once each week for a year I will post something that made me happy that week.  This will give inspiration to me to blog more.

I love spinning this Falkland fiber.

Sheep from the Falkland Islands.


I love my garden. I planted lettuce and some herbs. I also planted a branch of raspberry that I will train to go up the tomato spirals.


I love my kitties.  Above is Coraline and Charlie.
Below is Charlie.  He was sick for 10 days with a cold. But he is feeling better this week.


He is a handsome kitty. I call him my sweet Baboo.


Finally (after all the kitty love) A new fiber arrived this week.  It is from Germany.  The sheep are called Weisses Alpenschaf (WAS). It's semi-soft. I think I will like spinning it. 



I haven't been posting every week like I wanted to but at least I am blogging again.  

Happy Easter Sunday to everyone.  The Lord is Good.
Praise the Lord.
Luv ya, Carol

52 Weeks of Happy 2/52

I missed a couple weeks but here I am.  
Something that makes me happy is sunsets. I love to see them and I love to take photos of them.

Here is a sunset in Highland.  I only walked to the corner where I wouldn't have a house in my way.  Nature is the frame.  What I mean is the dark area above are the black clouds. The trees frame the sides and the hills frame the bottom.  It was an amazing night.
This is a December 2012 sunset.


Here is a sunset from January 2012.  We were on our way to church. This is in Highland looking towards Redlands.


Here is a sunset that I painted.


Here is an almost sunset at Redondo Beach. I am saying:
PRAISE THE LORD!!!


Again here I am at Redondo Beach in April 2010. This is why I have on a sweatshirt.

52 Weeks of Happy 1/52

I saw this on Irish Girlie Knits blog.  Once each week for a year I will post something that made me happy that week.  This will give inspiration to me to blog more.  I have been very lazy in my posting.

Spinning with friends makes me happy. I went to the spinning group and started this braid of Falkland wool.  Is is so pretty spun up.  I am about 1/3 of the way into this. I am trying to spin thin so that I can get a sport weight yarn.



Last week we got more snow.  This photo is from a few weeks ago but the mountains look the same.
I try to enjoy the green color on our mountains because in a few months they will be dry and brown.
In the lower mid-section of the photo is a large orange grove. I live to the right of the grove.  My backyard is next to this grove.  In April when the trees begin to bloom the air is so sweet.


And lastly here is a knitting project that is making me very happy.  This is lace.  I am knitting with lace weight yarn. It is like knitting with string.  My yarn is 50% merino wool and %50 silk.  It is so soft and beautiful.  I have knit shawls before but nothing so detailed.  So this is my first lace shawl in lace weight.  I am loving it.  I did start and rip out 3 times. But now it is going very good.
The red thread is my life line.  That is incase I make a mistake or drop a stitch and can't fix it. Then I can undo the shawl back to the red thread and go from there.


So there is week one of Happy.
Join in if you like.
God Bless,  Carol

Red Rugosa Rose-hips with long Sepals

This is week #2 of my online class with the theme Autumn.
I love this weeks assignment. As soon as I saw the big red hips with the long skirt-like sepals I knew this was the picture I wanted to paint.


I did some color swatching. I also tested my inks for bleeding:


Then I drew in ink for 30 min.  This is how far I got. It was fun using the ink.
I used my TWSBI 540 pen and my free Noodlers pen. The ink is Noodler's The Heart of Darkness.


I worked on my center of interest first. I tend to paint the thing that catches my eye. Those rose hips really caught my eye. I have learned that if I am interested the painting will be interesting. If I am bored the painting will be boring to look at.  So that is why I will paint the thing that gets the juices flowing. I just love the long sepals on these hips too.


I wanted to get that glow that I saw in the photo and my watercolor paints didn't have that for me. So I took out my little glass yogurt jars that I got in France and put some ink, since this was an ink project after all, and diluted it with some water. I had one little jar that I let it be watery mud.


I continued to work from the center out. I did more ink work in black and then added some white ink. I would work a while and then set this painting on my mantel for the evening. Then I would just look over to it now and then. It is helpful to me to do this because I can see what my marching orders are for the next day when I will paint. I have to back up and view my work from a distance to really see what it needs.


So in the end I took the painting outside and took her photo. I tried different places in the yard, sometimes with the painting laying flat on the lawn, and sometimes sitting up on a table. It's strange how the colors change depending on the lighting of the yard. I can see it when I upload the photos.


I painted a black ink border around the painting too.
This was a fun assignment. I really enjoyed it.

Painting Autumn Leaves

I decided to use a photo that I had taken of leaves from my tree. I took this years ago.  These are maple leaves of green, red and yellow.


In the first 30 min. I sketched out the leaves and started to paint.


Here is my painting set up:


I didn't want to paint the main leaf as red as the photo since we were working on Gold. Yet I wanted to keep the contrasts of the 3 leaves.  I have to say, the camera doesn't pick up the lights and darks of the red colors. In person one can see more values in the colors.
I spent the afternoon painting. I was enjoying getting back into painting again. It was so peaceful and relaxing.


The actual painting size is 6.75" X 5" on cold press watercolor paper.
This photo came out much brighter (neon) than the paint is in real life.



Then I took a black and white photo of my painting to see the values.

This is the time to PAINT

What am I working on?  Well I am painting on a large oil painting.  A few years back I painted a watercolor of a lady dancing which I really loved. I don't have this painting right now. It was given to a friend in Mexico.  I wish I had the original but I do have a photo of it. I love the bright colors.



So from this photo I decided to paint this again but larger and in oils.  Oil on canvas 36" X 36"

CLOSE UP

ON THE EASEL


I'm also painting an abstract.  This is fun to paint. I can paint for an hour and then leave the work for a month and still be able to come back to it. The size is 14" X 10.5" This is in progress......


Above the whole painting, below a close up of the picky work I love to do.


Speaking of picky work. Below is a drawing in pencil and ink that I have been working on for a couple years. I love doing the small detail drawing. I'm the same with my knitting, cross stitch and even as a dental technician. I like picky work. 

This drawing is 14" X 11"

So that is what I am currently working on.
Today I begin some new watercolor painting. I will share this soon.
Happy Painting!!!