 obviously went in the car, obviously my hair is wet. I do happen to know today, it's Sunday, May 6th, but don't get all excited. I only know that because I was already up today doing today's writing and postings on the different art and social media groups that I'm on that I have to do that for. So we, as you saw on last week's vlog got home pretty late last night from Portland, Oregon, and we were there for a wedding and to take care of some business and we were just exhausted. So anyway, we are home and we've got unpacked. I am headed out to Target and the grocery store to get a couple of things. It just seems like we haven't been home much. We were in Lake Tahoe for a week, then we came home, we were home for a few days and we went to Portland, like literally. My husband heard his back in Lake Tahoe for those of you who don't know. So we get things done up there that we wanted to. We were there for vacation and my husband had like a laundry list of things he wanted to do while he was there, which we didn't get to do them all because his back was hurt. Then we came home and he had to go right back to work and he was at work for a few days before we left for Portland. In the meantime, his back got better, although he's undergoing treatment to figure out what's wrong with it. His back got better, but then he caught a cold. So dude can't catch a break. So anyway, we are home now hopefully for a few days and not having to go anywhere. I'm headed to Target because I need to do some reorganizing and purging and stuff in my art room. We really need to paint that room and there's a bunch of holes in the wall that I've got a patch and I think the wire shelves have to come down for the painting part. So I need some place for all my stuff to go. And although I've done a significant amount of purging in the last year or two, I still feel like I have too much stuff. So I'm gonna be working on that this next week. In the meantime, I'm looking for some storage solutions to redo the closet. My idea is to get a lot of stuff in the closet and out of the room room for a few different reasons, one of which will make moving it and packing it if needed during the painting process easier because you can just grab the plastic drawers. If I can fill it up with drawers, you can wrap them in plastic packing like cling wrap stuff and just move them like out to the garage without unpacking all the drawers. Right now, everything's on shelf. So it's gonna be, it would be a pain in the neck. So anyway, that's my goal. So before I order anything, I am headed to Target to see what they have. I don't really wanna run all over town. Either Target has what I want or they don't. I have gotten plastic drawer units at the office supply store before in the past and they have a really good quality ones, but they're pricey. So I'm either gonna get them at Target or I'm gonna order them at Amazon and I'll keep you all posted. I also have to get groceries. May 7th, don't get excited. Catching up on, we are headed out 9.30, I think. I was done for the first half of what I need to do today. So I'm running over to the PO box to mail some Etsy orders that came in while I was in and out of town the last two weeks. And also pick up the mail because I haven't gotten the mail since Thursday. So I don't know, there might be nothing but there might be a big stack of stuff, I don't know. So I could wait until today's mail is in and sorted but I don't really wanna do that. I also need some flat rate boxes. So I will be making some more ply overstuck. I don't know what to call them. I really hate to use the mystery box word because although we've used that before, word has gotten some bad so to speak on YouTube and social media. My boxes aren't usually a mystery because as you will see right about here, this is footage of me cleaning the closet and I will make some footage of me actually filling the boxes. So although the box that you get is picked at random, you have an idea of what's in them. It's not a complete mystery. I will be, because I've been chatting with friends and doing stuff around the house to go get the mail because some of the new storage for my art room should be in today. I need to make some copies at so that I can work on a project in front of the TV tonight because I got some things together. And I was finishing up or catching up my daily traveler's notebook Portland trip. I just was stuffing stuff in the notebook and I didn't glue anything in or document anything or any of that. So I got it caught up, things are drying right now and I'm going to finish the journaling and any doodles or anything I want to do. See that cardboard box? Iris carts them in the description. I bought the ones with the larger drawers at the bottom. They do have one with all skinny drawers all the way up. So I'll link them both for you all. But they're a great storage solution for your art room. The only problem is like nobody's got them in stock anywhere you have to order them. So anyway, I got mine at Amazon. The boxes, they're not heavy, but they're huge. I think they're almost taller than me. So anyway, let's get home and let's unpack them. Hi guys, it's Wednesday morning. I only know this because I'm in my office by the computer. Whoops, where are we? And the calendar. So I need to go out this morning and go run some errands. I need to go, you know, do the grocery store thing. It's time. Last night took some of these. I really like the new yo-play French style yogurt that comes in the glass containers and I do save the containers. And many things you can do with them including using them for your water for your brushes. But I thought I could turn some into tea light holders. I used a bunch of glitters and sequins that I had in stock and some decoupage and glue and yeah, it's super cute. So I'm gonna get some battery operated tea lights to go in there. Did that last night, let them dry. And I was going through my magazine stash and pulled out some articles. I wanna reference or reread and added them to my Tips and Inspiration notebook which is sort of like my own version of Arts and Crafts Idea Magazine. I've showed it before. It's getting really full. I'm gonna have to buy a new notebook soon. I've got things to mail to friends but I don't think I'm gonna do that today. I have goodwill donations stuff to get in the car and sort through and some stuff from the backyard that just needs to go away. It needs to be trashed or put at the curb for free. Some of it I can't lift though. So I need to wait until either Bob is home and or the kids can both come over and help. But that's all stuff on my to-do list this week and we have a business meeting. My husband and I later this evening here at the house and so we're gonna take care of that today. It's a busy, busy, busy day. So anyway, I'm gonna go get my day started and go get my chores done and I'll be back. But it's already 12th. Good afternoon, everybody. It is Thursday. I think I'm pretty sure it's the 10th. It's Thursday anyway. I have the phone and the computer all morning. I've gotten nothing else done. Well, I shouldn't say that. I did get the dishwasher started but I didn't get any filming done. I haven't gotten any art done. I haven't had lunch yet. I did get my coffee and breakfast but barely. It's just been nothing but business and phone conversations and paperwork. So anyway, I've got Etsy orders to go out and Mother's Day cards to send out. All of y'all out there have moms somewhere. So wish them a happy Mother's Day. They deserve it, I'm sure. We're sending cards out to ours. Well, I'm sending the cards out to our two mothers this morning. Well, it's afternoon. We ordered them flowers and things last night. So I think my mom gets hers on Friday and I think Bob's mom gets her order of stuff that we sent on a Sunday. Hey guys, how are you today? It's been a crazy day. It is Friday. We started off the day with some business meetings and contractors coming over for more estimates and we're gonna be getting the outside of the house painted and stuff like that in the next week or so. And then I'm gonna have some inside light work done, nothing major construction wise, but light work done next month. So we were taking care of all that and while I was showing the painter the leftover cans of paint we have, I jammed my thumb down here between the metal storage shelf and the top of the paint can. Like it's still tender and sore, it was bleeding. I hope my thumbnail doesn't come off that sort of thing, you know? So it's tender. I did get all of June filmed for my creative year. So that's all done. I just need to get it off the SD card and onto the computer and then edit it and get it loaded up to YouTube. I'm gonna get my other two commitments done for June which are my giant life and explorations of me before I do any of said downloading. I'm going to be trying over the next few weeks to actually film all my commitments for all of 2018. And what I usually do is do one month at a time. Film, download, edit, load to YouTube. Empty the SD card, repeat. So I'm gonna be doing that over the next few weeks and try to get all the rest of the year done. I have only my giant life and explorations to be left for June. So I don't know if I'm gonna get them done today but I might get them done Monday. I think there's too much stuff going on today but we'll see. What else, what else, what else? Just the normal chores laundry. We do have dinner with friends tonight, friends from the Masonic Club known as the Grotto. And we have that tonight so that'll be fun. Tomorrow I think we just have a chill day. We can sleep in, we don't have to be anywhere or do anything and we can just relax, maybe go for a walk. You know, we went on vacation and then my husband got hurt and we've had all this business stuff to do and I am so out of sync with my treadmill routine. In case you haven't noticed in the last few vlogs there's been like no walking on the treadmill. Right? So I need to get back to that. So I'm hoping like tomorrow I can walk on the treadmill or my husband and I can go for a walk around the neighborhood or something. So I'm hoping cross your fingers that starting tomorrow going forward we get back into a good routine for that. And we are gonna head over to Goodwill right now because you know, as if things weren't busy enough thank you my friend, Shannon Green. Now I have this itching to make avocado skin and seed ink, I know right. So I've decided that I don't really want to use one of my cooking pots for this. I'm gonna actually go buy a cheap little pot from the Goodwill that I can just keep in the art room for when I want to do stuff like this. Like my cookie sheets and my other things that are normally cooking equipment but I use them for crafting. So I'm gonna go in and see what we can find and do that. And then I'm going to make some ink this afternoon using just skins and water and then I have the avocado seeds which I smashed with a hammer and then I'm gonna make ink out of that. I'm gonna film it for you all and we'll see what happens. All right, I'll be back. Okay, we got our pot cost me just a couple of bucks at the Goodwill. Ironically enough, the very first pots and pans we had after we got married were this exact same brand and I had this exact same pot till the handle fell off. So this one seems to be in pretty good condition and so we are gonna go home and try to make some ink but first I'm gonna go see if the mail's ready so I'll be back. All right guys, we've got our pot. I've got a bag of smashed avocado seeds which I think we're gonna do first and then I've got some avocado skins. Now I can tell you right away before I even get started with this I have this sneaking suspicion which is why I bought a pot rather than used one. One of the reasons anyway that this is gonna lead me down a path of boiling all sorts of things from nature, food things, plant material to see what kind of ink colors we get. I just have this feeling. I don't necessarily wanna do that in my cooking pots because I don't know what I'm boiling may make an interesting color but it's probably not food safe. So yeah, I would recommend getting a pot from the Goodwill and once you do it for something crafty like this it's not good for food, just FYI, there's my disclaimer. So I'm going to dump my seeds in the pot and they've already oxidized a bit. You can see some of it here on the bag. There you go. So that's interesting. And then we're gonna fill the pot up with some water not all the way, a good halfway. Then I'm going to do like I generally do. So you're not talking to my chance. So I generally do when I'm making, okay, gravy. I fill a small pot with some, about three quarters full with some stock, beef stock or chicken stock. I add a good slug of dry sherry to it and then I bring it to a boil and then once it comes to a boil I turn it down very low and simmer it low and slow for a long time until it gets thick and syrupy. So we're gonna do something similar with these avocado seeds and then when that's done with the skins and once I don't think we're gonna quite try to get to the syrup stage but we are gonna reduce it greatly and thicken it. So let's see what happens. I'll let you know and let's get started. I'm gonna start off on high. When it comes to a boil I'm gonna turn it down to low and then just let it simmer low and slow. Usually takes 30 to 45 minutes. So I'll be back. Boiling seeds. They look such an interesting color like a dark purpley fuchsia. At least from here they do. So we're gonna just let it simmer away for a few more minutes. We're moving on to avocado skin ink but I got this much seed ink out of just two avocado seeds and look at the color that it is. So to preserve this ink like I've done in the past with coffee and tea ink, I'm gonna put a little bit of glycerin in it and that should prevent it from not only evaporating but getting moldy. And now we are boiling avocado skins. Got my timer going. So we'll see what we get. Okay so this is the avocado skin color and this is the seed color. This is significantly more red than this one. It's more brown. Interesting though. All right. I wasn't gonna boil some rusty metal and see what color of water I got but I just am not comfortable doing that and it's probably fine and safe but I don't know that for sure. Yeah, so I'm not gonna do that one but I am happy with the two that I make. I'm gonna let the skin ink cool off a little bit and then I'm gonna add some glycerin to it like I did with the seed ink. And yeah, pretty interesting. I can't wait to try different things from around the yard and garden and see what happens. Let me know if you have any things that you make interesting ink or paint colors out of in the comments below. All right, I'm gonna go clean up and finish the explorations of me for June that I'm working on right now and then get ready to go out to dinner with our friends. I'll be back. Good morning, everybody. It is Saturday morning, March. March, holy cow. I was doing so well. May 12th. I only know that much because I've already been up doing my daily posting and writing. Yes, my hair is wet again. We are getting dressed and getting ready to go out and run some errands. We've got another purge load in the back of my car for Goodwill. So we're gonna go drop that off and the kids are coming over tomorrow for Mother's Day and they're gonna help me get rid of some more stuff out in the backyard and the shed and the garage. Purge, purge, purge. I'm on a kick. What else? I don't know, we have stuff to do but we're in no rush to do it. I have Etsy orders to drop off in the mail today and I have some daily drawings to catch up on if I have time today which I probably will. But first I need to make a trip to Costco with the husband and we need to get dog food and stuff like that. So exciting, I know, right? Anyway, if anything funny happens or interesting, you know I'll film it for you all. All right, I'll be back. Lunchtime Sunday. I forgot to film the outro for last week's vlog so here we are. We did another episode of Cooking with Fred. I will include a still shot of the meal here somewhere. It'll be a separate episode taken out not in the vlog anymore. So it's episode three, episode two is airing soon. If it hasn't already, I don't know the date off the top of my head right now. Anyway, it's been an interesting week, a long week, a lot of stuff to take care of and do but I look forward to spending Mother's Day with the family and doing some things around the house that I've been wanting to do and need help with and having a couple of good meals with them and all that. So anyway, I hope you've all enjoyed the vlog and that you have a great week and have a great day and don't forget to do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys.