Mom and I, Snow and Snow

Mom and I went to Lowell to visit the New England Quilt Museum and arrived just in time for a blizzard. The museum was closed on Thursday but we did get in on Friday due to the New England-ish work ethics of one of the employees. We of course had brought lots of stuff to keep us busy and we spent the blizzard day watching the snow and the snow clearing crew out the window and binging on Pokemon and political stuff.

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Came home, shoveled out my driveway, went to work the next day.

Spent Sunday snowed in again.

Rinse and repeat!

TGI… um what day is it, anyway?

Yes, I had that moment today. Thought I was going to writers’ group after work, thought I was off the next day… only to realize that it wasn’t Sunday after all, that it was Saturday and in fact I get to go to work on Sunday (all over again).

I made a quick stop at the Nassau Post Office on the way home and finally caught a Pikachu! Only the second one I’ve ever seen.

Then I came home and started a small sunset scene in watercolor. I’m trying to teach myself to wait, to let things dry before going on to the next part. Do like how the clouds came out though.

Then I looked at the little Windsor Newton Cotman travel kit I have and decided to add it to my color swatch page. It has half-pan colors in not a half bad array although if I was filling my own half pans I’d have different colors. I’d found some of the plastic corrugated board I’ve been using to tape paper down to and cut it to match the size paper I’ll be traveling with. At that point I didn’t have much oomph left so I watched a few “traveling watercolor kit” videos, two of which showed taping down a stack of paper to a board. That seems a little excessive. I don’t mind packing some tape. I was thinking of cutting some Arches paper to bring and that could go sandwiched between the two boards. We’ll see.

Taking Time To Look and Catching Them All

Click for all the photos taken tonight at Crooked Lake. It was a quiet sunset but I enjoyed all the light and waves variations.

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Afterwards I realized there was a Pokestop right behind me and I enjoyed catching a lot of aquatic Pokemon! Bonus!

Chasing Clouds

I was driving towards these towering plops of whipped cream-ish clouds with darkness below on the way home. And by whipped cream I mean when you whip cream and then keep whipping until it’s almost just about to begin thinking about becoming butter…

They were to the east and north and it became obvious that I should scope out some clear views in that direction. Oh well, I did find some new pokestops etc.

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Getting Ready to Quilt

I’ve been listening to Walden in the car. It’s pretty good for commutes. It’s not, it turns out, great for quilting to. Last night I ended up finishing a good chunk of quilting to Paul Simon. I had the epiphany that there are few tunes I’ll reach over and hit ‘play again’ in the universe but one of them is definitely “The Only Living Boy in New York“. Who knows how this stuff happens.

In other news, if you order something that comes via UPS and you’ve signed up for myUPS, you can throw a little money at them to deliver it as UPS rather than turning it over to the post office. It says it probably saves you a day or two and they only charge you IF they do that. So I had a couple packages sent from Amazon with free shipping and for $3.50 I got them a day early. I was excited and yet felt virtuous. There’s an app for that (the myUPS thing, not the virtuous thing…)

Besides a copy of Mary Oliver’s Rules for the Dance, there was this:

which I’m busily getting ready to put on my iPhone…

Earlier today, in a world that exists within this one:

Express Mail, Special Delivery

There is neither the opening nor the end
Without what is spread in the craze,
I obey the faith of own.
The human being spends it in the bone
until I die after being born.

I put up a “Noroshi” for all things about.

Life Inside and Out

Tonight I had another look at the hosta when I got home and then I couldn’t resist admiring the primroses (not roses at all) and the moss roses (about as ultimately and fragrantly rose as you can get!).

Then I got all my stuff together for tonight’s writing critique. Computer, AC adaptor, earbuds – oh wait – I have something better than that… Yes I do. And they worked great! Thank you WoW raiding days!

Looks can be deceiving…

Little did the people who dealt with me today, for good or evil, suspect that underneath that mild-mannered work tshirt was this: