15 years ago it was Easter. We still have a little over a week to go until Easter this year. So I am feeling extra on top of things right now! To me the big difference between Washington Easters and Louisiana Easters is temperature. Louisiana is going to be in the high 70's and Washington the high 50's. So the weather in Louisiana is wonderful and prime for outdoor family gatherings and so many bouncy castles! Family gatherings in Washington require a back-up plan in case it rains.

The only photo contest I can remember entering into:
Black and White Photography Contest
December 6-12, 2007 Vol. 16 Ed. 49 THE PRESS in Anchorage.
​I won 3rd place for this cockroach photo in the "Things" category. I won $20.

Some other headlines include:
Obama? Opening a campaign office? Here?
Russian word for "illegal"?
Chasing daylight
A rich, dark marriage of chocolate and stout

April is heavy with birthdays (including my own). I use a perpetual calendar and there are 15 birthdays on it. Typically it is my birthday gift to me to (almost) ignore everyone else's birthday with the assumption that they will all ignore mine. But this year I am going to try to send out a few more cards than normal and it made a great excuse to finally make a bunny stamp. 

I first started carving stamps when I was about 40 weeks pregnant with Karl in 2014. I've largely gotten away from it and the supplies have been stashed in a drawer. It was great fun to dust off the lino cutter and share a new craft with Karl. In reality I sat down at the dining room table and started to carve my bunny stamp by myself. Karl quickly noticed I have two carving tools. After telling him not to touch it 15 times because it is dangerous and sharp... I relented and found him a larger piece of carving block. Thankfully he required little instruction and he is quite pleased with his handiwork.

Does feeding a squirrel count as paying it forward? Not likely.

Prior to my bike trip a friend gave me some very good advice regarding noises and sounds that my bike might start to make. He warned that if I didn't take immediate action when I heard something new, it would quickly fade into the background. Then bad things would happen because I didn't take care of it early on.

I've kept this advice in my pocket even after my bike trip. It easily applies to other home, appliance, and vehicle maintenance. But it can also apply to relationships, eating habits, and penmanship. The list really can go on.

A little story about something I've gotten used to... following the purchase of our home, we discovered that it basically needed to be rewired. We made some great progress before we moved in, but it wasn't complete. Little by little more work has been done when time and motivation have allowed. 

Our bedroom hasn't had a working outlet or light for five years. We've totally gotten used to it and it rarely frustrates me. We have a nice stash of flashlights and book lights for task lighting. My husband has a magic desk (flashlights with dead batteries magically get refueled with fresh batteries). A bedroom is primarily for sleeping; an activity that requires very little light.

It will be amazing when we do energize our bedroom though. Getting that ceiling fan to work before the next heat wave would be especially awesome. 
​

Good News: We got the house vacuumed.
Bad News: I can't find the blender cup we are missing in the house.
Good News: I tried out my bluetooth remote shutter control for my iPhone camera. It allows me to start and stop video recording on a tripod outside my office window while I am inside.
Bad News: Said recordings are going to be very slow going. Meaning that I set the tripod up where I think the birds are going to visit. Then I wait for the birds to show up in my shot and I also have to press record. The iPhone has to stay "on" the whole time and one battery charge I might get one or two clips. Charge the phone. Rinse and repeat.
Good News: The weather was beautiful and warm today. 

I love making these themed tic tac toe pieces! The kids get really excited about it too and I try to keep the shapes relatively simple. Just an easy space saving way to enjoy the holidays! This time I used a couple Noodler's Inks: Green Marine and Rome Burning.

I was chatting with an unnamed friend yesterday about Texas. I already knew he doesn't like Texas. But I have some fond memories of Texas and I thought I would engage him on the topic. The complaints ranged the humid, hot, or humid and hot climate to country music. He's concerned by the way Texans have more pride in their Texas Pride than they have directly in Texas. He also noted that the vegetation is completely unfriendly because it is covered in thorns. This friend who-shalt-not-be-named was able to rattle all this off and more with great confidence and authority...I don't have the same way with words in discourse and thus he was unmoved by my notes about how Alpine, TX was a "cool town". 

Reminded of the great memorization efforts I made in the hill country, I decided to to a bit of copywork. Copywork and memorization are great ways to get to know a poem better. I've had a giant book of unread Wendell Berry poems sitting on my shelf for a couple years. So lots of great material to work through. But tonight I decided to work on Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken that I referenced in the blog post below 15 years ago.

Reading it again now... I would guess that it is set in the fall because he references "a yellow wood" and then later "In leaves no step had trodden black." Traveling alone by foot with winter fast approaching makes me think of this poem differently. The choice of the road seems to carry more weight. 

In advance of my bike tour I'd printed off a couple poems suggested by my english professor (if I correctly recall). I trimmed them up nicely eventually I pulled them out as a welcome distraction. This copywork provides a similar relaxing distraction only made better by a lovely journal that lays flat nicely and smoothly writing pen. 
​
Sailor 1911L Wicked Witch of the West Fountain Pen Broad Nib
Diamine Seasons Greetings Ink
Life Noble Note Ruled A5 N39 Japanese Journal

I wrote this little poem to go with my post from 15 years ago. That post is about my first day touring by myself. These days I am aware that I am more introvert than extrovert. So it is no surprise that I seemed rested, happy, and writing poems on my way to Brackettville. While Jon was a wonderful traveling companion, I found it stressful traveling with another person (any other person). Group decision making has never and will never be my favorite thing. And there were a lot of decisions to make all day, every day on a trip like this. 

This farm was hard to look away from in the evening light. Cotton farms are pretty common in this area.

I don't send out Christmas cards because I'm not in the mood in December. But in January I have a festive string of family photos and glossy cards in my hall and I feel inspired. This year I sent out a Valentine's Day Update. I settled on a booklet format and started reflecting on our last year and a half. Working around the theme Write With Love made it easier to outline each page/topic.
The other bonus about waiting until February is already having updated return addresses from all those cards and letters. I do mail out to a ton of people that never mail me anything. Sometimes I hear back and it is rewarding to reconnect with friends and family. Sometimes I never hear back. I hope that the news from our lives brings some joy to yours. 

In my writing 15 years ago I mentioned PIPs (Previously Important People). I don't think I came up with the term, but I really can't recall. Giving this some serious reflection I realize that there aren't just PIPs. I'm also considering other titles we give ourselves:

PAP Previously Adventurous Person
PEP Previously Energetic Person
PCP Previously Carefree Person
PHP Previously Happy Person

I know it is easy to get hung up on the past and think that the best is behind us. It is also easy to think that the best is yet to come. I recently watched the movie Hector and the Search for Happiness and it reminded me that happiness is in the pursuit. 

As long as I'm not a PLP (Previously Living Person), I'd like to embrace what I am:

CCP Currently Creative Person
COP Currently Organized Person

I'm probably also a CTP Currently Tired Person otherwise I would be able to come up with better acronyms.

I prefer decorations to parties. One involves fun crafting. The other involves people. These are two of my favorite ways to decorate for holidays. I made cute little egg tic-tac-toe for a birthday party and I'm just reusing the grape vine, twine, and hot glue grid again. Hearts are a pretty easy shape. The eggs were easier to cut out though. The hearts are all painted with fountain pen ink that are very richly saturated with pretty pigments. I used Bristol paper for the heart garland too. The hearts are hot glued to the string and then I needed to add a little extra to the bottoms of the hearts to keep them from flipping up. All in all, pretty easy and they will pack up small. I'm thinking  a string of clovers for St. Patrick's Day?

Please excuse the pretty rough quality on this comic... new format for me...
We do not know what was really going on here. There was a woman alone on the side of the road who looked like she needed help... but she didn't really want help from us. You can read Jon's version of the story here.
Maybe we only narrowly escaped being kidnapped? 
Maybe she was a secret agent trying to bait the bad guys into abducting her so they could catch them?
​Leave your theory in the comments!

What are you doing tomorrow? I am not getting on a train or doing anything earth shattering. We'll probably reconcile our bank account or paint some trim we replaced a couple months ago. Do I wish I were getting on a train to go on a bike tour? I'm not sure.
I've been having fun lately reflecting on some mundane daily events through little poems. A couple nights ago Karl even helped me write one and you can hear him reading it here:

YouTube has really evolved in the last 15 years. I never really used that much on my bike tour 15 years ago. I've got a new YouTube channel now. There still isn't too much on it; just a few reviews. My most popular one so far is my review of the StablO Portable Easel with 1,700 views! 

I love this quote from 15 years ago! Early pandemic I heard this exact sentiment so many times from so many of our customers. People were home alone doing the exact same thing everyday or doing nothing at all. For me early pandemic meant working from home (like always), but homeschooling and lots of other random stressors thrown in there. I didn't have any trouble remembering which day of the week it was. I loved that my social calendar was wiped clean! I had more time to do a lot of things I really wanted to do (like go for a walk everyday). 

I am sure that I didn't properly appreciate 15 years ago this feeling of having time. Time to exercise. Time to rest. Time to let thoughts wander. Oh and quiet! My life was so much quieter then. I miss the quiet. Of course in another 15 years I bet I will even miss the noise of little children arguing.

Yesterday I stole a few moments and popped out to the now updated Waterman Pier.

I'm no stranger to Advent calendars, festivities, and traditions; but the Diamine Inkvent Calendar really was something else. Every morning my kids and I hunted for the next door and popped it open to a reveal a new color, sheen, or shimmer.

In my spare moments during the day I plotted how I might integrate the new ink into a drawing or sketch. Ideally the sketch would feel like Christmas or winter. On a good day I was also able to have the sketch relate to some of my devotional texts: Christ in Our Home or Bread for the Day. I've always struggled to actually retain any of the daily readings. However, doing some copy work and the act of choosing one verse to focus on really helped a little more stick. If you followed me on Instagram where I posted daily my inksplorations, you might have noticed the majority of my posts were after 10pm and there were about 6 days that I was a day behind. I still loved the daily reading, writing, and painting practice. I already have my next project lined up and that will be rolling out in the next week or so.

Here is our full review of the calendar. Which inks were your favorites? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Find me on Instagram to see more pictures @anotherbunny14

I love this time of year. I tend to get 40 amazing ideas for decorations and traditions and I manage to pull off 2. I am glad we did this one. It went fast and the kids even helped hammer in the staples.

Lay out the boards.
Grab your fence boards and lay them out on the ground. Keep adjusting them until you have a star that looks as symmetrical as you want. Don't worry about which boards are on top and which are on bottom. The boards are pretty thin and long so they will flex for you. It didn't hurt that mine have been soaking in the rain for the last several months.

Screw the boards together.
Use two screws at each point and two screws at each cross section. Make sure that you don't have screw tips poking out the back side to get hurt on. I used screws that were exactly the length of the two boards' combined thickness. So I had to be careful.

Attach the lights.
It is easier if you move the star up onto sawhorses or a work table at this point. Start at the center of the bottom of your star with the female ends of the plugs. Tack on all three light strands at once. Stagger the starts of the strands so that your lights will be more evenly spread out. Orient the plastic staples on the boards to ideally strain the wires the least.

Let me know if you try it out in the comments! Any other exciting light displays that you've made?

I've started to notice that different seasons of the year bring their unique traditions, flavors, and demands on my time. Duh, right? In the spring and summer much time is spent in the garden: planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting. The spring's return of light is so exciting that I need to get outside and sketch. In the summer I get so distracted with all the fun random projects (this summer was screen printing). In Western Washington, the fall brings a constant drizzle from the sky and then the daylight just evaporates. It is just so so so so dark in December and there are holiday festivities that distract me. In October 2020 I started to draw bunnies... and I didn't stop until the weather got better and the sun came back. I drew a lot of bunnies. Check out the post about it here. Also, 2020 holidays had a refreshing lack of activities which left me room to get my creative repetition on.

The bunnies happened by accident. My sister, Chelsea, turned me on to the idea of projects. She recently re-picked up photography (and a new camera) and this video gave her some great ideas. So now I am in the process of being proactive in choosing a winter project. I'd like to pick something:

• attainable
• fun
• that develops skills

Here's some projects I've thought about:

• Golden Arches: I sketch a ton of McDonalds either on location or from pictures
• Walking Distance: A collection of sketches within a 30 minute walk of my house
• Too Soon?: Sketch real and/or fictitious headstones, but change the epitaphs so that they are funny
• Children's Picture Book: Lots of options here...and I am not sure how far I'd get in a winter

What do you do in the winter to keep yourself sane? Leave a comment.

This is probably going to be my exciting thing for the summer and it is SO HOT right now! I've been working on some designs as far back as April. Most of them were initially hand drawn, scanned, vectorized, and cleaned up using Sketch. Then I started to investigate the whole screen burning process. There are lots of great YouTube videos and a number of different approaches to building screens, coating them with emulsion, exposing them with the design, and then finally getting some ink on shirts.

I took a pile of thrift store frames and stripped them down to the wood. I heard that some screen frames made from wood like to warp. I had some clear coat laying around so I added some to the frames for good measure.

Then I smeared some activated Speedball Diazo Photo Emulsion on one of my screens. I was trying to get it on there with a nice consistent coating... but I missed some spots. I let it dry overnight in a dark dresser drawer. The next day I used clear scotch tape to attach my transparency to the prepared screen. There is a way to do this backwards... so be careful. I'll really have to go into more detail in another post and actually take pictures. Anyways, burning the screen was easier than I thought it would be because it changed color for me.