 It is Sunday morning, November 8th. It is technically still morning. It's 11 27 a.m. It's almost lunch. I have spent the morning editing the vlog for this last week, that'll air Wednesday. So I spent the morning doing that and I also have another video on that had footage on my phone that I need to edit to. So I'm gonna take care, I wanna try to take care of all that today. I'm gonna continue work on my faux beetle wing fingernails. I'm running out of black nail polish, but I'm gonna try to get the colored pretty part of the rest of the fingernails in this collection done. And then I'll have to get some more black polish to do the back side because I like to not only, oops, do this side, but this side. I don't want it to be white. So, yeah, I'm gonna have to do that, but that's kind of on my table right now. So I'm gonna get another coat on some more fingernails because you know, crazy stuff. But yeah, probably after lunch, I'm probably not right this second. Maybe, I don't know, we'll see. All right, we're in the car again. So I am headed out to go to work. See if I can find some more black nail polish because I'm running out and I need it to paint the rest of my faux beetle wings. I also could use some more blue tack. So we'll go see what we can find. I have some writing to do today that I'll probably, well, it doesn't have to be done today. It could be done tomorrow, but I have some writing to do. I have the continual issue of the Christmas counting cross stitch to do. So I'm gonna pick one of those to do this afternoon when I get back. In the meantime, we're gonna go see if we can find black nail polish. Got a little strip mall near me that has a dollar tree. It had a Tuesday morning, but that's closed. Marshals and write aid, ace hardware, and planet fitness, I think. There's a couple other small shops. So I'm thinking between Dollar Tree and write aid. Somebody might have black nail polish. Hey everybody, it is just before lunchtime Monday, November 9th. The deer have been by a couple of times already today. Done the checking on social media thing and just basically piddled, just piddled. Got a little laundry going. And I've got the last of the faux beetle wings painted on the outside. I'm gonna turn them all over and paint them black on the other side when this batch is dry and get that done. That's my primary focus is to get that done so I can get it off the table and then work on something else. Otherwise I'm not really doing much. I'm feeling a bit lazy and maybe a little bit lost because I got everything I normally do Monday morning done yesterday. Now I could do bookkeeping because that needs doing and I do need to get that done this week. I don't know if I'm gonna do right this second. I think I'm gonna break and have lunch and then maybe work on it after lunch. But yeah, it's a thing. All right, I'll be back. I guess enough procrastinating and it's time to go upstairs and work on the bookkeeping. What I will say to you all though is if you are in this time of worldwide uncertainty, not just with the U.S. political events but the pandemic and being stuck at home and locked down every other month and all the things and because of that you're feeling down and you're feeling blue and if you're creative, you're having trouble being motivated and you're just feeling blah. You're not alone. It's happening to all of us and don't be so hard on yourself. Put in place some practices that will help you deal with it whether it's unplugging from all the social media stuff which I'm terrible at doing, FYI. And reading a book. And I mean a book book, not an e-book, a book book. Or it's turning on some music and painting a picture or it's doing some writing in your journal or whatever it is. Maybe it's going for a walk and just getting some fresh air. I don't think it's any accident that the last couple of times I've been walking, I've taken my phone for safety reasons but I haven't brought it. It's stayed off for the most part and I haven't brought earbuds or anything. I don't think that's a mistake. I think that's a good thing. So anyway, if you're having trouble, you're not alone. Just so you know. All right, I'm gonna grab some more water. Because yeah, I need some more water and we're gonna go do the bookkeeping. I think I'm gonna turn a pandor on in the background so I've got some music to listen to and yeah, gotta get done someday. All right, I'll be back. Is it just me or do you feel a small victory and wanna go wahoo when you figure out a computer program or paperwork or bookkeeping issue or what about all three at the same time? Thank you to the people at US Bank for helping me. Oh my God, yay! Made my life so much easier. Now I'm almost done with paperwork that I have but I'm almost done. I just need to go through PayPal statements and that has to be entered by hand but oh my God, yay! So excited. All right, I'll be back. I would say good morning, but it's 1.53 p.m. It's Tuesday, November 10th. I'm squinting at the iPad so I can see. I did a live broadcast this morning and then came down and had lunch. I'm working on some chores and stuff and listening to our governor and her latest press conference on the coronavirus and we're on a two week pause again. Infection rate isn't as bad as some areas of the country but it is rapidly increasing and becoming really bad so yeah, we're being reminded again to wear your mask, wash your hands, stay six feet, get your flu shot and this time she's encouraging everybody partly because of the infection rate, partly because of the time of year it is, no social gatherings except with your own household and limit your people to six people and under. There's gonna be restrictions on restaurants and things too again. You know, people do what you need to to help control the spread because we don't have a treatment yet. We don't have a vaccine yet although it looks like something might be coming. It's not gonna be available for quite a while in the meantime, lots of people are gonna die and dead people can't recover the economy. Flat out. It's worse than the flu. If you don't believe me, check the websites. There's lots of info out there and yeah, I'll link Dr. Campbell's video on that down below if I can find it. Yeah, so that's a thing but I got to do some arts this morning so that was good. Months since we bought this new dryer and washer during COVID, it's bugged me that the dryer door opened the other way because the washing machine's here where you can do just to go and put it there but I had to reach over the door. I decided to not wait for the husband to have five minutes and do it myself. I'm an intelligent woman. I know how to use a screwdriver now to tell him that's what I did. Hey guys, it's Wednesday, November 11th. So if you're watching this clip, you saw the clip of me making a red poppy in remembrance of all of our veterans and those in, well, it's the veterans day. So all of our veterans, those past and present, those currently in service, I thank you for your service. Anyway, I made a red poppy which I've kind of wanted to make for a long time and there it is right there. I hung it up right there. I also had a bunch of embroidery floss that needed winding, which I finally got off my lazy fat ass and did to be honest. And I worked on this canvas finally. I will put a picture like here somewhere of what it used to look like, which I really wasn't happy with, but I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go with it. I wanted it to sort of be moody and dark. I wanted it to be that way before the current world situation and political situation, just FYI. I've taken quite a few of these dark, blurry, moody pictures of Portland and when we've been driving in and out of the city and along the river, the bridges and lights along the river. And I wanted this to sort of reflect that. I just didn't know exactly where it was gonna be. Okay, I love that. It's not done yet. It needs a pop, probably because it's so purple, maybe some orange, but I'm not exactly sure yet. We're gonna let it dry completely for a couple of days because there's a lot of paint on there and stuff. And that way I can put a little tiny bit of paint in one section. I can stand back and see if it's the color that I want on there. And if I don't, I can wipe it off with baby wipe if that underneath layer is completely dry. It shouldn't do much damage. So yeah, so that's my little painting corner. I've got my table there. I've got my Ikea cart with all my artist paints I used for canvas. And yeah, I used up two jars of paint, mixes of artist paints that I had mixed with slow dry medium and stuff. I used two of them up. So yay for that project pan art supply style. I found a couple of pallets that had been missing somewhere in the art room. I couldn't figure out where they were. Found them. And I am going to rearrange things a little bit, I think, to make way for my homemade dies, which were on top of here, which is not a great place for them when I want to pull this out and use it. So I'm gonna do a little bit of rearranging. And yeah, otherwise it's just a quiet day at home, which is fine with me, but we're having a lot of those this year. Anyway, we're gonna go for a walk later. No idea what I'm cooking for dinner, but you know, last night we had kitchen sink pasta. So again, we've done a lot of that this year. And before anybody asks, what is kitchen sink pasta? So you just cook up some pasta. If you don't have plain pasta, maybe you have like noodle roni or something, cook that up, whatever flavor it is. You figure out what protein you have in the fridge, throw some of that in. You got some extra broccoli, some onions, some maybe fresh tomatoes, chop them up and throw them in. Literally, kitchen sink, whatever you have in the kitchen, just throw it in. Cook it all up, throw some cheese on top. Maybe a little garlic kitchen sink pasta. It's a little different every time. Last night was creamy garlic shells by Knorr, I think. And one spicy German sausage, some baby broccoli, some green onions and some garlic chicken and some shredded cheese. Yeah, I've couldn't hide. It's not the healthiest thing on the planet, but it's quick and easy. Anyway, all right. I am going to do some brain ranging and I'll be right back. Okay, people, we're going for a very late walk, which means a very late dinner. There we go. It is icy outside. I don't know what the temperature is, but I'm guessing it's like 40? 38, 39 or 38? Something like that. It's cold, but we're gonna go walking anyway because we need steps. And I'm gonna get off of here because the husband's walking backwards and it's dark, he's gonna trip and fall. So yeah, anyway. We'll see what we can see and I'll be back. It is like 1.34 or so, Thursday and November 12th. I'm just really kind of taking it easy, catching up on social media, comments and stuff like that and I'm gonna go check the mail until there's not so many people around to vlog a little bit. So the anchor's moving in. Anyway, my anxiety is a little bit off the charts this morning to be fair. It was like that before I got the blood test results. And again, they're not horrible. They're just a little bit out of whack, but I didn't need that today. Between the COVID and the election and worrying about the holidays and all the people we're not gonna see and we're knowing the crap out of them because we're not gonna see them because some of them aren't taking COVID seriously. It's just too much. I could have kept stitching, but I need, I'm just gonna go walking. I'm gonna go walking. We're gonna see what we can see. We're gonna take some pictures. I'll walk again later in a couple of hours in Bob's zone with work. I'm gonna go across the street that way where we never go. Just get some fresh air. Besides art, it helps me burn off the stress. So we're gonna do that. Anyway, holy crud. Can't wait for 2020 to be over with. All right, I'll be back. Take a little park. And there's an aquatic center over that way. I'm sure it's part of this little community right here, but didn't know any of that was back here. I'm only semi-lost, by the way. Went at the streets to get out, to go towards my house that I know how to take us out that way. But we're gonna go that way. I'll be back. So sometimes when things are as stressful as they are for most right now, art is not enough eating that much chocolate to alleviate your stress is not good for you. Drinking that much alcohol is definitely not good for you. And talking to people's not, it's just not enough. Get out in the fresh air, get some steps in. Even if it's cold, just bundle up and look at nature. Take some photos, chat with people socially distanced, of course, at least say hi and just breathe. Sometimes it's the best medicine. Morning, everybody. It is Friday, I just realized, and I was gonna say February, but it's Friday, November 13th, Friday the 13th. Yes, it is. Crap. It's 10, 23 a.m. and it's a warm and toasty 53 degrees here in the Portland metro area. Anyway, we are out running errands. Fred's got the day off because he's got all this vacation time and we can't go anywhere. Thank you, COVID. So we- It was raining like heck last night. What's up in the middle of the night? We had one of those hard rainstorms, like you get very frequently, I think in the Midwest, especially the upper Midwest, where it's raining so hard that you can't see over the hood of your car. We could hear it. It was so hard and pounding and so hard against the house that it woke us up at like 4.30 this morning. And it was like that for at least an hour, if not longer. Listening against the windows, the air conditioning compressor outside. It was so bad. So we're both a little sleepy. More condensed, I should say. Yeah, it's a little sleepy. So anyway, we are out trying to get some errands done and I'm assuming because of the situation with COVID across the US and in Oregon, like the grocery stores are way more crowded than they normally are on Friday morning. Like we were just at Winko, which we love Winko and they're very careful about everybody wearing a mask and all of that stuff. But there was a lot of people there. Now we're headed to Fred Meyer. I don't know what to expect there. So I'll let you know when we're done. I'll be back. Yeah, we're headed out for a walk. I don't know what time it is. I have no idea, but it's still light out. So it's before four o'clock. We haven't done much once we got done running errands but we are puppy sitting there there for a couple of days. And so we're gonna take her out for a walk and see what we can see in the daylight before it starts raining again. And yeah, it's all good. All right, I'll be back. Good morning everybody. Obviously we're in the car again. It's 11, 16 a.m. on Saturday, November 14th. Hey guys, we are going for another walk. I broke out the raincoat because, you know, it's drizzly. Anyway, we are gonna go get some steps in, gonna see what we can see. This time I brought some Ziploc bags with me because every time we go out lately I pick up birch tree bark or leaves or something. I know, right? All right, I'll be back. They look like a drowned rat. I feel like a drowned rat. We're back from our walk. Hang on. So we're back. Ooh, ooh. Holy moly, guacamole. All right, so we're back from our walk. What an unexpected adventure that was. Bonus, I got a lot more steps in than I thought I was going to. So it is raining outside, which we knew when we left. And I of course had a raincoat on, but it's not a proper raincoat. It's like a water-resistant coat, not a waterproof coat. And my shirt, I have a sweater on because my shirt's in the dryer. I got so wet it leaked through the coat to my shirt. While we were out walking, of course I brought a couple of Ziploc bags, as I think I said in the prior clip. And I picked up some leaves and things I found interesting. I'm gonna show you all here in a second how I dry them and press them, which is very low-tech DIY. You don't need to buy anything special way. Anyway, and you know, it's just, it's a day. It's a day, it's Monday on Saturday. Okay, there we go. So anyway, so as I was walking around with my husband and I was picking up leaves and we were chatting and kind of enjoying the drizzly weather, I dropped my keys somewhere. Yeah, I've never done that before. I lost my keys. Oh my God. So then we had to retrace our steps and I had to try to remember where we walked because Bob and I decided to split up and he walked one way and I walked the other way. And then I ran into some very nice neighbors, Kathy and her husband, whose name I can't remember, I'm sorry. And I'm gonna post this to social media. So if you follow me on Facebook, I'm not putting it on Instagram, but I'm gonna put it on Facebook and Nextdoor. So if you follow me over there, then you'll have seen this already. But anyway, they helped me search the neighborhood, looking for my keys. I was in a panic trying to remember which way we went. I couldn't find my keys. I'm like, crap, we're gonna have to call a locksmith. It would happen when the kids are out of town, the kids have a spare key to my house, but they were out of town. My parents have a spare key, but they're two hours away. So we were gonna have to knock on a neighbor's door, hope they let us in despite COVID so that we can get out of the rain long enough to call a locksmith. My husband met me like at the halfway point. We thanked the neighbors for helping us, but we were headed back to the house to call the locksmith. They said, we're so sorry, we'll keep our eyes out. I said, I'm gonna post to Nextdoor later. So if you find them, you can get me that way. They said, great. On the way back, we decided to check one more place. One more place. At the time, I'm holding on to my cross-end metal from my grandmother, my dad's mom, grandma Jenny. And I said, please, please, please help me find my keys. We walked by a bush where I'd stopped to pick leaves up that I'd looked at twice before I looked down and there were my keys. Thank you, grandma Jenny. But more importantly, thank you to the neighbors, Kathy and her husband, again, whose name I can't remember. I wish I could remember Tom maybe. They didn't know me from Adam. It's COVID, it's political unrest. People are insane, crazy and rude and mean and stressed and upset and they were so sweet in the pouring rain, stopping to help me look for my keys. We need more people like that in the world. We just, we really do. Be that person, stop the person to help them get their keys. You see somebody struggling to get something off of a shelf at the grocery store? Say from a distance, can I help you? They can back up, you can get it for them and put it down lower and then they can go get it. I actually did that not long ago at the grocery store. Say please and thank you. That doesn't cost anything. Like let's just spread more love out there than hate because there's enough of that going around, right? Anyway, thank you, Kathy and your husband for helping me. We found the keys. It's a little small key ring. It just has the house key and my two mailbox keys. That's all that was on there. My husband said on the way back, we need to put a giant bright neon key chain thing on there. So I need something bright and obnoxious. So anyway, all right. I'm gonna do some typing and thank them publicly on Facebook and Nextdoor and I will be back. I need a cup of tea now, but yeah, I'll be back. Before I go downstairs for a much needed cup of tea, I'm gonna show you what I do that's very low tech. You don't need to go buy anything when I wanna dry leaves and flowers and other foliage. I'm gonna show you a couple things. Hang on a second. This is a flower press microflur, which you can get on Amazon. I got this from Peg Robinson, fun fact. And it works great. It actually is for made for drying things out quickly and you're supposed to put it in the microwave. I never do that. But I do layer things between the felt that came in here and there's some cotton in here. And then I put like wax paper. I don't know if these are completely dry yet, but yeah, kind of. And then I just let them dry. There's some like leaves and things in here. And I let them dry that way from flowers until they're really, really dry. When they're really, really dry, they'll come off very easily. I don't think these are quite ready yet, so we're gonna put that all back together. They're a little bit, they seem like a little bit sticky still. Anyway, I layer them with some wax paper or parchment and then I just do this and dry things. But you don't need to have this. I mean, this is really great and it works and I do use it, but it's not perfect. And I find the easier DIY way is to get a big old book, in this case, an old dictionary. It's from a thrift store. A Friends of the Library, because it has a Friends of the Library sticker on it. I probably paid a couple bucks for it. And I just randomly will open a page. I know there's some things in here already. And I just stick, do that. And I just stick it in there and it's fine. This is a book that I use sometimes, take pages out of and use for collage anyway. And so when I was out losing my keys, I lost my keys picking up leaves. So we're not gonna let that go to waste. And we're gonna like open the book to a page with nothing stuffed in there. If the leaves are really dirty and or buggy, I will rinse them off downstairs before I start doing this. And then I will take them and they usually get a little bit mangled, sort of, getting them home. But I will spread them out in the book as best I can. And then these will be on future artworks, future art journal pages. And I just do that. And when I'm done filling up the book, I just close it up completely and I stack it in the corner under a bunch of other things that live there in that corner. And when things are dry, I can go in here and I can pull them out and use them in my art journal pages and things. So just grab an old book. All right, that's it for the minute. I'm gonna put all these in here and I'll be back in the corner and just let it go. Let it dry. And in a few days, it'll be good. It does a better job most of the time than the little drying thing does because I think because it's actual paper and it's more absorbent. But, you know, and I can get a lot in the book. So anyway, that's it. I'm gonna go have some tea now because yeah, I need a stressful day. All right, I'll be back. Well, good Sunday morning everybody. It seems like it's gonna be a COVID regular thing that I forget to close the vlog on Saturday night. There goes the dog after the doorbell. Anyway, it's 842 a.m. on Sunday, November 15th and I'm just now closing the vlog because yeah, that's a thing. Anyway, as yet again this year in 2020, it's been a weird week. But you know, as my dad would say, we're still on the right side of the dirt, so it's all good, let's say. Anyway, I hope you've all had a good one and that you continue to take care of yourself and stay safe, stay healthy, stay creative. Don't forget to remember to say please and thank you and do something nice for somebody because they probably need it right now. Things are pretty stressful. Support the free content how you can here on YouTube and over in the Facebook groups, not just for me, but for all your favorite creatives. Usually there is a way in the video description. I have the link tree list of links and in that list, there's a number of different ways, including the Etsy shop of course. Check it out and if you can't find a way to support your favorite creative, ask them. Maybe they have a way they're just not advertising. I think that's it for right now. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. It really does help my channel out. Hit that little bell icon if you want to get notifications of new videos because there's some fun stuff coming up and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you later. Bye guys.