7 Quick Takes: Gratuitous Web Images Edition

--1--

So I drove through a part of South Philly I'd never been through before this morning and I gotta say, I kinda get why S. Philly people are so fiercely loyal to their part of town.  The part I went through had a very cool vibe to it--great integrated residential and commerical interests, reasonably well-maintained, good pedestrian traffic, etc.  

--2--

You know how music from childhood can just untie a part of you that is tangled in knots?  I've been listening to Acapella a lot lately, and I've gotta say, it is good for the soul.  I grew up listening to these guys, and my parents made a point of taking us to their (free) concerts whenever they were in the area, and I still love their old music.  I've not kept up with recent albums, but the late '80s-early 90s stuff is still great.  

--3--

Speaking of childhood music, my dad reminded me the other day of the Music Machine and Bullfrogs and Butterflies LPs we used to play ad naseum when we were children.  Guess what?  They are available on CD now!  It was fun to remember the songs--I know I still have the Patience one memorized, and probably most of the others too.  I'm looking forward to introducing them to my children this fall.  

--4--

I realized recently that stairs are the bane one of the defining points of my existence.  I am hoping to write a blog post all about stairs over at the other blog very soon.  In the interest of truth in journalism, I counted the stairs in my house.  47.  Forty-seven, people.  With no bathroom on the first floor (that you go up four front steps to get into anyway).  That is just nuts.  I'd consider putting in a dumb waiter except for the sure possibility that my boys would use it for joy rides.

--5--

On my drive to Target this morning, I noticed a new Dunkin' Donuts with a DRIVE-THRU on Columbus Blvd.  And everyone knows drive-thrus were created for moms with small children in carseats.  There is a God and He loves me.  Easy iced coffee, here I come!

--6--

I hesitate to mention this, because it probably won't last, and because well, I'm shy about talking about food/weight stuff over here, but I've lost five pounds or so in the last few weeks.  Mostly just by eating less, and cutting out high-calorie junk food.  (I still have my chips ahoy 100 calorie thin crisps for sweetness when needed).  I'm hoping it is the start of a trend and not a blip on the screen, because seriously?  That baby weight has got. to. go.  

--7--

I will say part of the problem is that I have a hard time being disciplined about food when I'm tired, and Birdie is still getting up a ton at night.  On Saturday night (after a Friday night of SIX, count 'em, 6 wake ups), my husband and I looked at each other and said, this.has.got.to.stop.  And decided to give crying it out a better go.  And she slept through!  And then did it again on Sunday!  But by Monday, not so much.  At least it is down to once a night, but still.  Gah.  Enough already.  She is 11 months old today!  It's not that we don't believe in crying it out (quite the opposite), but when you have a sick baby that you can't let cry it out because maybe she vomited, or can't breathe, or whatever, and then said baby gets a bit better, but is much older, it is harder to know when she is crying because of her health issues and when she is crying because she's being a stinker about going back to sleep.

Wake up big brother!  If I'm not sleeping, neither should you! 

That's all folks--no card today!  I've been a bit busy with other things this week and didn't create much.  

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes.

Baby, baby, baby

This seems to be a summer of babies--at least for my friends and family!  Another friend is getting ready to have her first baby any minute now, so I wanted to make her some baby thank you cards.   

I borrowed the Two By Two stamp from my upline and started coloring!  I ended up doing a hybrid of watercoloring with markers/blender pens, and straight marker coloring with accents.  (I call it faux-watercoloring). Basically, you color everything in with one color, and then go back over it with the same color to add depth/shading.  I colored all the animals this way, but I colored the water and the main part of the boat with a blender pen and marker.

I made the main congrats card on Riding Hood Red, and the thank you cards on Wild Wasabi because I didn't have enough RRH on hand to make them all the same. 

(close up of the coloring)

Click on the photos for a more detailed image.  

Aaaaand, we're back! 7 Quick Takes

--1--

Did you miss me?  I'm feeling good today because it is raining and 70 degrees.  Yes, friends, you read that right.  Raining and 70 degrees.  I'll take it!  After several weeks of hovering near 100 degrees with 80% humidity, yes, I'll take it.  While I've tried to be a good sport about the heat this year, this week made me want to do my best Wicked Witch of the West impersonation.

--2--

One of the frustrating pieces of news we got last week was that we couldn't safely install the window AC units in our windows.  Our windows have small ledges on the outside, and there isn't anything to brace the unit on, plus they would be on 2nd and 3rd floor windows, and so a big fall risk.  As the heat rose, we decided to splurge on a floor AC unit for our bedroom, easily the hottest room in the house.  If the rest of the house is in the low 80s, our bedroom will be in the upper 80s.  It hasn't been cooling down well at night either, so off to Lowe's I went!  I would like to state for the record that I bought the last unit in the place, carried all 66 pounds of the beast across the street, up four stairs to the house, and then up to the third floor. Just call me Rosie!

--3--

On Wednesday, our parish had its annual feast day for St. Elizabeth the New Martyr, which was also Birdie's first namesday.  The bishop came to our church to celebrate with us and ordained my husband a subdeacon while he was here.  I brought the two littles to the service long enough to see the ordination and then a little bit of the liturgy, but Birdie melted down pretty quickly, so we high-tailed it home for lunch and naps. 

The prayers for ordination.

Vesting as a subdeacon.

--4--

Boo seems to be quieting down a bit the last few days and was very good all day on Wednesday.  I'll take what I can get, especially as Birdie is now Into. Everything.  She is crawling, pulling up, almost cruising and refuses to be restrained.  She looks to be a firecracker!

--5--

Click on it to embiggen.

My cousin and another friend had their second babies this month, so I've been making baby thank you cards for them when I have a few extra minutes.  I did a bunch of watercoloring last week and made the cards using the Nursery Times set (I made two of each image) and then used Baby Prints for the other set to keep it simple.

--6--

You know how little things make life easier?  Our second floor bathroom toilet paper holder has given us no end of trouble since we installed it five years ago.  Because the studs are too far apart to drill both ends of the holder into a stud, the one side kept falling off.  It didn't help that the boys were using the holder as a jumping bar.  So after some deep consultation with Mr. Fix-It (aka my dad), we decided to purchase a wooden plaque to mount the holder, and then screw said holder into the wall.  Done and done.  It seems solid!  

--7--

Oh yeah, it is my birthday on Sunday.  A lady doesn't discuss her age, but let's just say that me and Jesus at the time of His ministry have one thing in common (and it isn't sinlessness...)

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

No Quick Takes

So I'm a total slacker today and don't have my quick takes together, nor do I have the motivation to do so.  My apologies for those looking for a bit of levity for your day.  I'm sorting through some stuff right now and need a bit of mental space, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a bit quiet for a bit. (Except for the odd pictures-only post--I've got one almost ready to go...)

I hope to be back soon!

Watercoloring

So here are a few things I've been working on this week:

Mostly I just took the images I watercolored last week and turned them into cards.  (I'm not sure why the card above looks crooked--it is straight in real life). 

I used an old Mojo Monday sketch for this one--the images just seemed to lend itself to this layout.  I'm kind of digging the new Raspberry Ripple color--it is a nice saturated rose color--like Rose Red on steroids.  Ha!

For some reason some of the detail on the line images is getting compressed when blogger gets hold of it, so I think if you want to see better, click on it for a closer pic.

The Oreo generation

The media is fond of calling my generation the "oreo" generation, which means we are raising young children with parents who are getting older.  My parents are relatively young, but my dad needs a hip replacement, and yesterday, he got a blood clot in his leg and spent the night in the hospital.  The mortal coil is on my mind today.

My dad with us girls.

I've been watercoloring these last few days. I had stamped a bunch of images for some hospital stay a while back and never got around to coloring them, so I'm doing it now--it is a good semi-mindless sort of thing to do. I made this card for my dad and had Piglet sign his name inside since he can do that now. (Although I did sign it from all of us!) It's going in the mail tomorrow.

In other news, today is the 40th day of Kh. Lilijah's repose, so we held a memorial service for her at the church down the street from us.  It was just our family, and the priest and his wife, but was nice just the same.  

Memory Eternal, Kh. Lilijah!

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

I think I wanted this stamp set just so I could title a blog post after the theme song from Mr. Ed.  (Just kidding).  I received this set as a prize for winning the swap contest at the June Philly Inkers meeting.  I roused myself from my heat-induced torpor this afternoon to ink it up and actually watercolor the sucker!  I know, I know.  Back to my stand-by layout, but it just works so well for so many cards!  Plus I love that new apothecary accent piece for the sentiment.  I watercolored the horse with markers and a blender pen as I was short on time and the blender pen dries faster than an aquapainter.

Supplies: Horse Frontier stamp set (new!); Chocolate Chip, Basic Black, Old Olive, Pool Party, Sahara Sand markers; blender pen, Jet Black Staz-on, Island Indigo ink; Island Indigo, Pool Party, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla cs, Watercolor paper; apothecary accents die (new!), Square Lattice EF

Ta for now; off to grill some fishies.

Workin', workin', workin'

Welcome to my sauna.  The last few days have been pretty insanely hot--like the rest of the U.S. we were at 100 degrees the last few days (higher with the heat index).  It is a bit cooler today, but still plenty hot.  I will say that it seems more bearable to me this summer than last, when I was hugely pregnant, and we couldn't keep the house cooler than 87 degrees on most days.  This year, it seems to be cooling down for at least a few hours at night, so we've been able to keep the house around 80 most of the time.  I've also discovered how to grill just about anything, so I'm not turning on the stove for no lover or money.  I just need to figure out grill-baking and I'm set!

Today is my husband's birthday, so we are celebrating tonight at a sushi place (his choice).  I picked a card out of my stash for his birthday card from me, and then I was stamping a little during nap time this afternoon and made two of a card that I let Piglet sign to give to my husband from him.  

So here's what I've been up to!

CASEd from Kimberly Van Diepen (with a few tweaks) 

 CASEd from Jen Sannes (with a few tweaks)

CASEd from Ann Schach (with a tweak or two) 

My swap for the monthly Inker's meeting (I came up with this one all by myself!) 

Also an original, although I got the general idea from another Philly Inker.