 How are you today? It is Thursday, December 14th. The whole day has just gone by, it's gone already almost. It's after six o'clock p.m. We're getting ready to have dinner. We've been working on Christmas cards and things like that. Wrapping gifts all day today. I did do a journal page. I did get it done and I love it. I love it very much. I love love love it. I am really enjoying using these letter stencils. These are from the office supply store. I got these at Staples. You can get them in any office supply store, probably at Walmart or something like that too. They come in a set of four and I'm really loving them. I did film this a little bit, a speed through, so I'm gonna edit that at some point and get it up on YouTube. You can look forward to that. I know I've been trying to purge, but we were doing Christmas cards. One of the Christmas cards we had, I don't know when we must have bought it last year, the year before on clearance or something, but it came in this nice box that I don't know. I guess I'm gonna have to figure out something to do with it. I don't know. I didn't have the heart to throw it away, so we'll see. Anyway, I've also been enjoying playing with the nail polish and acrylic pour skins here and I've been sharing some of the pages I'm making with them on social media. I am going to try to figure out a way to store them. I've tried different things with skins before that didn't work. I do have an idea of something that might work, so I'm going to work on that and see what I can come up with and probably film. If I find a good solution to it, I'll film it. All right, that's it right now. I also have a pile of mail on my desk and I can't even see the planner. Things I have to put away, but that's it for right now. I am going to go have some dinner and put some of this mess away and I'll be back. Hey guys, it is Friday, December 15th. I am cleaning, purging again. This time I'm dumping some liquor. I don't drink anymore for those who didn't know. So not that I ever drank a lot or anything, but it's just bad for my health and overall well-being, so I don't need it in my life. My husband does still drink the occasional beer or glass of wine, but that doesn't mean we need all this liquor around and people like don't seem to know what else to give us besides liquor and chocolate at Christmas and I'm not a small girl. I don't need either one. And anyway, this really stinks by the way, dumping all this stuff. Anyway, I'm purging some more stuff here out of the kitchen, getting rid of things. You know, if nothing else, having less stuff and clutter and knickknacks out, make it easier to clean the house because you know that's not my favorite thing and so anything that makes it an easier, faster job. I'm all for that. I'm never going to be a minimalist. That's my sister Elizabeth. You've got the wrong bronze eating girl if you're looking for the minimalist sister because that's not me. But that doesn't mean I don't want to have less stuff around. So, that really does smell really bad. So I'm dumping a bunch of liquor down the drain. God, that really smells bad. Some of it, we can't remember when we bought it. It's been in the liquor cabinet that long. So, yeah. I found a few things that I want to keep. I have a bunch of these little food prep bowls that I use, you know, when I'm making some dishes and you to pre-measure out like all the spices and stuff. So, when I do the actual cooking, I can just dump things in. They were sitting over underneath where the wine fridges and they're a little dirty. So, we're going to wash them. So, that's pretty much all that we're doing today. Cleaning and purging and I hope you're having a good Friday and that's it for right now. I'll be back. The back of the car is halfway full again but the kitchen dining room space is looking lighter and brighter so it's all good. Now I have dishes that I need to wash that I want to keep that that are dusty. Yep. So, on to the next thing. Alrighty. It's, Rebecca, what day is it? Saturday? Saturday, December 16th. December 16th. So, it's what, nine days till Christmas? Something like that. It's lunchtime and as you could hear, I only know the date because, Rebecca, my daughter is in the car with me. For those of you who saw last week's vlog, you know that the title says November but it's not November, it's December. Anyway, we are leaving the boys to finish doing a DIY project in my house because it wasn't going very smoothly and my husband was a tad grouchy so we thought that it would be a good opportunity to leave and go get lunch, right? Yes. Plus, I want a cookie. Well, yeah, there's that. We don't have any more cookie dough at home. I don't dare. Dad and I ate it all. So, we're gonna go over to Togo's and get some sandwiches. Oh, let's pick up a couple onions. Yes, you've said that like four times. I know. Let's do that while we're out. Yes, we'll eat that. I keep saying it because I don't want to forget. So, as there's more donations stuff on the back of my car, I'm not gonna do anything about it right now though. Yeah, I think that's it for today. For right now, anyway, was this morning, it's filming and doing my daily writing and I've got all that done. Try not to get sick. I think that's it for right now, isn't it? I think so. Yeah. All right, we'll be back. Anything else, family? Yeah, regular number 21 on whole wheat. We are back. We've had lunch. The kids went out and went Christmas shopping and Bob is getting cleaned up from his adventures in the attic doing a DIY. We are puppy sitting or as I affectionately call her demon seed sitting. Yeah, she's very much a puppy. That's all I can say. And she keeps finding balls in my yard. I do not know where she's finding them. I keep picking them up and putting them away, but I don't know where she's getting them from. And she's got a palm frond, so I got to go get that from her. I swear it's like having a gopher in the backyard because she digs holes everywhere. Do you see all that mud on the door? That's from our little puppy here, Lily. She's cute and all, but holy cow. So anyway, she's playing outside. She keeps running around to go see what Bandit is doing in his run. It's going to be an adventure for a couple hours while the kids are out Christmas shopping. But there she is. They live in an apartment, so she loves to come over here because she gets to play in the yard. All right, that's it for now. I'll be back. There you go. Well, YouTube loves Lily. I'm telling you. They have accused me recently of tranquilizing her, but we aren't. We don't prank her. No, no. She's just determined. You know, if she just looks cute enough, you guys are going to just give her a treat. It's like, oh, come on, really? Do I have to? Lily, come on. Okay, let's find something else. Yeah, we need something else to put on. Okay, so we're at the bank getting some cash and we're headed out to go see the new Star Wars movie and spend some time with friends. I hope you're all having a great Sunday. I'll be back. I'm kind of wondering, it looks interesting. There's a family down there taking a picture. How much do you all, like me, want to take part of that display home, like those big wings? And underneath the sign that says Coco, all of the flowery designs and the two guitars are on clear acrylic outer acetate, so we'll have to take that apart. And then we have Jumanji, which I don't know. That doesn't make sense. I wasn't too thrilled. I wasn't too crazy about the first one, so anyway, that's it. We're just waiting to go in to see Star Wars. Got done taking their family photos, but look, this is on. Am I the only one that wants to just pull that piece off and take it home? And then we've got these huge wings. Yeah, now I'm wishing I was still a merchandiser and I could chat with the one that does their movie displays and say, can I have those when you're done with them? Those are really cool. Okay, so who's bigger? Javi or the rock? Who's cuter? I think Javi's cuter. If you're already watching this part, then you've probably already seen the other part where I shot a little bit of video very quickly and took a couple of stills in physical therapy. So I started physical therapy for my tendonitis in the right shoulder this morning and I was planning on doing therapy and then going home and getting on the treadmill, but I think I kind of, I like physical therapy. Don't get me wrong, it's helpful. I like the electrical zap machine. I don't know what it's called with the ice at the end. I actually really like that, but I forgot how much the first couple of visits take out of you. So I have this feeling I'm going to go home and maybe have a cup of coffee and just sit and then go take a shower and not get on the treadmill today. We'll see how I feel when I get home because now my shoulder and stuff is kind of sore. I do have, it's Tuesday, I should say, it's Tuesday, December 19th. There is, prior to this was a little bit of footage from the Christmas potluck and white elephant gift exchange at my husband's Masonic Lodge last night. People that don't know how to park evidently. I'm just going to sit here and wait for them. So yeah, so we did that and for those that don't know a white elephant gift exchange is when everybody brings a wrapped present, you don't know what it is and then you draw numbers and seriously, the first person picks a gift, opens it, shows everyone. The next person had the option of stealing that gift or picking a new one and it goes on through everybody. The gifts can only be stolen. When we play it, they can only be stolen twice. Otherwise, honestly, you'd be there all night. We ended up with two bottles of champagne, which is kind of funny because I don't drink, but the rare occasion. So yeah, that was interesting. But the kids are coming over for Christmas Eve breakfast. Waffles and my daughter wants mimosas. So it's a good thing we won the champagne, I think. So there's that. I'm headed home right now and I'm going to go, like I said, have that cup of coffee and just rest for a bit, take a shower. I have video to edit. I've got journal pages I want to make. I want to work on a watercolor tutorial, which I haven't filmed in watercolor stuff in forever. So I want to do that. It's we're going to be for my creative year. So it's not going to air until January and you won't get any extra bits from me on YouTube, but you will if you're part of my creative year. So there's a plug. So if you want to be part of that teaching group, it's a Facebook teaching group and I do it with some friends of mine. It's free. You can get direct contact with the teachers, comments, questions, hints, tips, all that stuff. So encouragement, inspiration, hopefully. So if you want to be part of the group, the link is in the description below and yeah, go on over there and join. All right, that's it for right now. I'm going to go inside and make that cup of coffee. So I'll be back. So this is the state of my room. I don't think there's a single surface that doesn't have stuff on it because I decided to clean and reorganize my Ikea cart. So this bag on the chair is all stuff that's got to go. Some collage stuff, some new stuff, some things. People have very kindly sent me and I just haven't used. So I'm going to pay it forward and send it to someone. I don't know who yet. At the time of filming this, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it. I may decide to do a giveaway. I don't know. I'll put some kind of text frame at the end of the video for this week's vlog and let you know. All right, that's it. I'll be back. Okay, so my cart's all clean. I have this bag of stuff, some stuff that could be used for glue books, grabbing glue books, some painted papers, bits and pieces. There's a lot of stuff in there, just random stuff. There's some stickers in there. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with the box. I do think I'm probably going to do a giveaway. I'm going to maybe split it up into two medium priority mailboxes. I don't know yet. Again, I will put a card or something, a notation at the end of the video. So make sure you watch through to the end. And the cart is all clean. I have my current working journals. These are just, this is actually junk mail. These are financial statements. They're this really thin, almost like photo, I'm sorry, phone book paper almost. And I like to just paint on them and do wipe my paint brushes off on it and use it for painting paper. So those are right there where I can grab them easy. Scraps and things I want to use up that I'm really loving right now. Some words here at the bottom. A few bigger scraps and things I want to use right now. Some scrap paper, I always like to have that out again for the same reason as the financial statements to wipe brushes off and stuff like that. Some packaging tags I've been working on. There's another little thing of scraps back there. And paint, craft paint and paint that I use most often when I'm journaling. I do have fine art paints, but I really only use them when I'm painting on canvas, which isn't very often anymore. And I'm considering doing a purge of some of that and sale. I would have to sell it. I've got a lot of golden fluid acrylics. I'd have to sell it. So if anybody's interested, email me. I might be able to fill a box up for you of artist paints, not these of artist paints. I have golden liquid text, heavy bodies. And then I have, I think there's some liquid text basics down there. There's a bunch of stuff. I also have golden fluid acrylics, like I said. And down there are journals that I kind of want to have out because every now and then I get on a tear. And I want to grab one of these particular kind of journals, like the little teeny ones and just do a whole journal like a grab and glue all in one sitting. So I like to have some of these out. And there's also some practice sketchbooks back there that when I am sitting, and really I'm not inspired to do anything else, I'll sit and practice sketching faces or crazy animals or lettering or something like that. So all those are down there. And you can see my Shannon Green custom keeper peeking out there. So that's it. I'm liking the way the cart is. I have my magnets all over the cart still. Yeah. And I have my little mini dustpan and broom for when I make a mess. My canvas bag there hangs. And that's where my my creative year journal lives. When it's not out on the table like it is right now being worked on because I've got to work on December. It's just I started just stuffing shit in the bag. To be honest with you, pardon my French end. Yeah, no, it's pretty messy. So I pulled it all out. And the garbage can's full again. So anyway, I'm really liking what I did. And I like the way my cart is always good to purge all our part of your studio once a year. I think it refreshes your inspiration. And, you know, as we move along in our journey, we always we start out thinking we're going to do one thing or like one thing or do something one way. And then it turns out that that's not where we're going with that. So you need to move things around, you need to purge and alter your space to be in keeping with what you're currently doing. So I encourage you to do that. Because as I'm always saying to my students, there's no right way, there's no wrong way, there's only your way. So it's all good. All right, that's it for today. I think I'm going to go run and get the mail and just chill for a bit. I've got paintbrushes to wash because my little jars. These are dirty. That's full. So I'm going to do that. And I will talk to you all later. All righty. So I got the mess I made cleaned up. I eat all the garbage taken out. Go out and get a couple of those medium priority mail boxes I spoke about. And I do think that I'm going to make up two boxes of painting papers, vintage papers. There's some stickers in there. There are some collage images in there that I've collected or that people have sent me. There's some words in there. So I think that I'm going to make that here that that's more purge stuff in the back. I think I'm going to make that my project tonight. My husband has a massage lodge. He's a Freemason F.W.A., if you don't know already. And so they have a meeting practice or something. I don't know. I don't ask. So he'll be at that for an hour or so tonight. So I think while he's doing that, I'm going to sort the stuff that I purged in that bag. I showed you on the chair into a couple of boxes. I do think I'm going to pull all my artist paints out. And I'm going to start with the ones I truly love and keep. And I think I'm going to let the rest of it go. I am not going to be able to give them away. They're too expensive. So I'm going to sell them. And yeah, I think I don't know. I don't know exactly how this is going to work or how I'm going to do it yet. I'm going to have to see what's in there. We're going to have to just see. I honestly have no idea. I don't paint canvases that often anymore. And when I do, if I don't have a color I want, I can just mix it. And when I first started painting canvases, started this mixed media adventure, I didn't know anything about mixing paint or anything. So I really felt like when I bought paint, I had to have every color in the rainbow in that product line. And that's just not true. I also have a few colors that I do really prefer to work with. And I've learned over the years which ones I like and which ones I don't. So yeah, I think I'm going to have to, I'm not going to get rid of everything because I do occasionally still paint canvas, but I'm going to get rid of some. And the other thing too is acrylic paint and fluid acrylics, they don't last forever. And at some point they're going to be past it. And I can guarantee you I am not going to use these paints up before that happens. So it's best while they're still good and viable that I pass them on to someone who can use them. I really am into for 2018 working with less to create more. I think working challenging myself to work with less materials really makes my art more interesting. So I think that's something we're going to continue to do going forward. So anyway, if you need some paint, you want to get some good paint for a good deal. If I can get it listed before this vlog goes live, it'll be in the Etsy shop. If I don't get it listed and you don't see it over there, message me. All right, let's go get the mail on a couple of boxes because I don't have any boxes. I'll be back. Okay, so I wasn't quite feeling up to getting on the treadmill today, but you know, I am feeling like getting steps in at the mall, like the Wednesday before Christmas. Like it's going to be really crowded. When I'm willing to put up with crowds instead of the treadmill and the garage and the peace and quiet, I don't know what that says. I don't think it's good. All right, we'll be back. First of all, isn't it hermit crab and hot families crab? It feels like the middle of a mall is not the place you should be selling any animals or pets, so much less hermit crabs. I'm not generally one of those kind of people who have a problem with somebody marketing pets, as long as they're well cared for. That being said, this didn't have a big problem. I don't know, it just seems wrong to me. Not only that, but they painted their shelves. Okay, I don't like it when they sell puppies and kittens for pet food store. I definitely don't like when they sell hermit crabs in the mall. It's Wednesday evening, 6.18 p.m. I had to look at the computer. It's December 20th, and you can hear Mr. Poopy's in the house. There he is, grouchy old man. You wouldn't know he's almost 14. As soon as play or food is involved, he's no longer grouchy, you know, like the rest of us. Anyway, we're cooking dinner and wrapping up the day. We took another load of stuff to Goodwill, continuing on purging and cleaning. And yeah, we're all ready for Christmas. I hope you are too, and I hope whatever holiday celebrations that you do or you have that you have a great one and that you enjoy spending time with friends and family as we are going to. And yeah, that's it for right now. That's it for this week. My family and I have, it's all my husband's fault. We have started using an app called LOSIT, L-O-S-E-I-T, one word. The icon is an orange and white scale to just try to be healthier, not really worried about losing weight or anything. Postmenopausal and on cortical steroids. So losing weight, yeah, that's not going to happen. What what you doing poopy? You want to say hi to the people? No. As soon as I do that, he walks away. I don't know what the deal is. Yeah. So anyway, so maybe you want to join us on the journey and download the app. You can use it for free. You can pay for an upgrade and connect it to your Fitbit if you have one, and it just keeps track of what you're eating to keep you healthy, like I said. And you know, it goes along with being on the treadmill and he's coming in and out of the office and just trying to be healthier. I'm okay with how I look. I just want to be healthy. So anyway, that's going to be my thing. I'm going to try to focus on that on the new year. I've tried to focus on it before with mixed success. So we'll see if I'm better at it for 2018. All right, that's it for right now. Everybody have a happy holiday season and I will see you next week. And I am going to give those two boxes of ephemera and paper. There's some stickers in there. I threw some of my favorite pens and markers in there that I had extra of and a few other little goodies. There's some copies of some of my artwork, some of my own painting papers are in there. I just kept I kept throwing stuff in the box. So mostly it's paper. So I'm giving away two medium priority mailboxes. The rival copter link will be in the description below. Sign up. There's a bunch of different ways you can do that and we'll give them away. Merry Christmas. All right, that's it for right now. I'll see you next week. Don't forget to go out and check out not only check out the video description for all the links I'm talking about. Please like share and subscribe, but go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'm going to do that too and I will see you later. Bye guys.