Where did the past two months go?! I haven’t been the most prolific blogger this year, but the least I can do is send off 2024 with a final blog update.
As for where November and December went, they went the way those months usually do. With holidays at the end of each, I tried to catch up with my “work-work” load earlier than usual to free up some time in the last week or so. I succeeded in that, but what with one thing or another, I ended up not doing a whole lot in my free time.
It’s strange how that happens! When I’m on my usual schedule, I’m certain that I could accomplish so much if only I had more time/fewer responsibilities, but even when I manage to break free of parts of my routine, so much of my daily/weekly must-do list remains the same—and I’m so easily sucked into time-wasters—that I may actually get even less done than usual. I guess that’s just life. Maybe I needed to laze around more than whatever else I thought I’d be doing… There’s more than one way to recharge your batteries.
We had family gatherings large(r) and small(er), early and late—and some of us even had the chance to take a ride on the Cool Bus to see some of the Christmas lights in the area. It had been years (and years and years) since I’d done that, so it was a fun stroll down memory lane! In short, Thanksgiving and Christmas were both merry and bright, and I plan to spend the last day of 2024 doing fun stuff (and, well, maybe a few dishes that I didn’t get to today).
For 2025, I am hoping to get into a better routine with less mindless Internet time and more creating and blogging, because I do enjoy both. But I’m also trying to be realistic and manage my expectations. It’s okay to waste time, if that’s what you feel like doing!
Random Stuff
I’m including this photo because it just amused me when I found it in my recent photos. I have no idea what this is or where I took it… Which way is up, which is down? No clue!
Donald and I have fallen into the habit of only playing Scrabble, for a while now. It’s easy to remember the rules, and if you have a go-to game, you don’t have to waste time deciding what you’re playing (or refamiliarizing yourself with the rules). The only downside is that it can get boring after a while, so we’ve been playing a couple of other things lately—Bohnanza (a.k.a. The Bean Game) and Wingspan. Here are snaps from our most recent plays of Wingspan:
A couple “detail photos” of our tree this year. (We finally upgraded to a new pre-lit one. The old one was almost as old as our house, I think, so it would have been coming up on nearly 20 years old soon. We put the box up by the road, and someone took it fairly quickly. It’s nice to think that maybe someone else is using it, now.)
And a photo of Frodo looking a bit mischevious!
Last Watercolor Doodles of the Year...
This blog entry will be a mish-mash of things I’ve made/done in the past couple of months. Let’s start with the most random stuff!
Flower doodles filled in with watercolor pencil, then activated with water…
Followed by a doodle of perfume bottles just because I’d doodled too many pages of houses and this was the first idea that popped into my head…
Scanning vs. photos again…
First, a mushroom scene from November (I’m guessing):
Then a pumpkin village… I loved making this one, so I’d like to do more of the same type of doodle again.
Now we’re moving into December and Christmasy doodles.
This first one had to be scanned twice and joined digitally, because it was too tall for the scanner. I’ve done this before, but this one didn’t turn out well, and I see now that I didn’t even crop it!
Anything with metallic paint/pen doesn’t seem to photo or scan as well, either, so that’s another issue with most of these Christmas-themed doodles.
Three photos of this next one, which is a gingerbread village.
First, we have an in-progress shot, followed by a snapshot, then a scan.
And finally a few Christmas cards. Unfortunately, I was short of time and just snapped some photos, which didn’t turn out perfectly. Anyway, they all had copper metallic ink details, which probably wouldn’t have photographed or scanned well even with extra effort. They’ll work well enough to remind me of what I did this year, if I care to look back.
Recent Listening...
I asked Alexa for instrumental Christmas music while I was baking, earlier in the season, and enjoyed one or two songs enough to ask for more by the same artist, which is how I “discovered” The Piano Guys. After looking them up, it would seem that I’m probably one of the last people on Earth to have made this particular discovery, but that’s okay. Better late than never! If you aren’t familiar with them and like instrumental Christmas music, I recommend giving them a listen! (Specific recommendations: “Away in a Manger”, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”, “Still, Still, Still”, “Carol of the Bells/God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, “Winter Wind”, “O Holy Night/Ave Maria”, “Where Are You Christmas”, “Mary, Did You Know”, & “Let It Snow/Winter Wonderland”.
I’ve also been enjoying Paul Cardall’s version of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”.
