Green and Thrifty Thursday

Now, goodness knows that I have yet to figure out how to get all my life's necessities from second hand stores, or how to coupon my way out of paying for groceries.

Nor are my hands entirely clean and spotless when it comes to taking care of this beautiful planet that God has given me.

But there is something to be said for aspirations, yes?

And something MORE to be said for progress.

And this is what Thursdays are for:

Tales of adventure, danger, and mystery
on my quest to become friendly to both
my wallet
and my good buddy,
planet Earth.
And, I'll be honest, when it comes to the "planet Earth" stuff, it may get a bit...
opinionated. Because sometimes there is an assumption that being religious and being an environmentalist are two opposite ends of
some kind of spectrum....

Rubbish!
Folly!
Balderdash!
et cetera, et cetera.

I am allowed to love trees without being a "tree hugger."
I am allowed to save the whales without being a "hippy."
I am allowed to recycle, make my own cleaning products, prefer organic food, do yoga, wash and save all my plastic and glass containers, have minimal red meat consumption, grow my own produce, wash my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, believe in animal rights, and even...


...tie-dye a t-shirt now and then.

I am proud to call each of these beauties my very own:

And I am also allowed to believe that God created all things and has given us agency and stewardship over this Earth and that we are His children.

Now, have I done all of these things yet?

No.

No, I have not yet saved the whales. Or the tigers. Or the black-footed ferret.

Sorry guys.

But I like baby steps.
And I like to share my baby steps with others, so that they can maybe take some baby steps, too.
And hopefully give me some pointers.

After all, being environmentally conscious starts with just that:
Being CONSCIOUS of it.


I proudly keep my treasured childhood orca
on my dashboard,
Monica.

On a Whim on a Wednesday...

...on a Thursday....

Why is Wednesday on Thursday?

Because last night at 11pm, I realized that I had yet to blog.
(hey, I'm new at this).
And so I whimsically decided that I
really didn't feel like it.
I also decided that I am allowed to embrace such whims on Wednesdays.

And, you know... any other day I don't feel like it...
or forget....
But if I HAD posted something yesterday, it probably would have been along the lines of this:

This "daily blogging theme" is probably my favorite of all of them. Because, come on, isn't it just ridiculously fun to say?

(Go ahead, say it a few times. You know you want to).
Another reason why it is my favorite:
I get to do whatever I want.

The "daily themes" is definitely a needed structure. It keeps my thoughts all nice and sorted, making it possible for me to actually write posts without feeling like I'm leaving out something.

However,I'd be lying if I said that I never have thoughts and feelings that simply don't fit into a category.

Whims.

Yes, that is what they are called.

And Wednesday is a good day for such whims!
No, not just because of the splendid alliteration opportunity.

But because I think we could all use a little
uncategorizable WHIMSY
in the middle of the week.
I really don't want to make this post any longer than it is, because it really shouldn't even belong on this day, and it is kinda sorta about nothing at all....

So I will just close with a one-sentence whim:

Last night I pulled into my parking spot and my headlights startled a little white kitten that had been climbing up a tree trunk about four feet in front of me and had its legs wrapped around it and its tail sticking out to the side and it turned to look at me all guilty with its eyes all green and shining in the light, as if it had been caught doing something really mischievous, and then jumped down and bounded away under a nearby car and proceeded to meow at me as if accusing me of being a party pooper....
Yeah... I kinda had to work at that in order stick to my "one sentence" claim.

I can write a run-on sentence
if I darn well feel like it,
Monica.

P.S. I can't bring myself to publish this post without including at least one picture.
So I choose this one:

Because what's cooler than an Okapi???

Tuning in to Tuesday

Yikes.
Day 2 of "daily" blogging, and I nearly forgot about it altogether....

Good thing there are still a couple hours left in this Tuesday.
And what a glorious Tuesday, it has been!

Now, to introduce the "tuning in" concept:
Really, I think all I mean by this is that Tuesday posts will have something to do with music...

Just, something....
Because music makes my little heart flutter.
And goodness knows, I can gush about it!

So there will probably be posts with music videos.

Posts with favorite lyrics.

Posts with playlists (because making those is like... my favorite thing, ever).

Posts with instrumental endeavors.

Posts with musician profiles.

And maybe even some posts with
deep, thoughtful, psychological analyses....

Like this:

But probably more like this:

Hmmmm... YES.
Anyway, to add a little bit of intrigue to this rather dry, rambling, tumbleweed of a post, I think I will do a bit of an experiment.

Ever wonder what would happen if I put my entire iTunes library on random and wrote down the first 10 songs that came up?

Come on, you KNOW this question has
kept you up at night.
Well, fret not.

First 10 songs to be randomly selected:

1. Adeste, Fideles - Enya
2. Come to the Isle of the Skye - Steve McDonald
3. It Ends Tonight - The All-American Rejects
4. The Pirate That Should Not Be - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
5. One of These Days - Tim McGraw
6. Don't Let Go - Bryan Adams
7. Going Home - Mary Fahl
8. Humble Me - Norah Jones
9. Bad - U2
10. Sarabande in D Minor - Johann Sebastian Bach

So, um... what does this say about me?

I love a good soundtrack, celtic melody, or Baroque piece....
And yet my heart also beats for Tim McGraw, The All-American Rejects, and U2.
And then there is Norah Jones... somewhere in the middle of it all....

Is this embarrassing, or validating???

Let's go with the latter.
Yes.
Bach and U2 are my heroes,
Monica

Mountains, Trees, and Mondays

Today is THE DAY!!!

My daily blooging themes have been filed away in my mind for months now....

(Yes, that should say "blogging"... but the giggling I experienced thanks to that typo was just too delightsome to keep to myself.

You're welcome.)

....But seeing as I made my posting intentions "official" with my last post, I have been itching to really get the ball rolling!

Maybe like this:

But probably something closer to, you know...

Blogging.

For my first week's attempt at this "daily themes" stuff,
let's keep it simple!

I'll probably just introduce the general daily themes and what manner of posts we can expect from them.

(In other words, I'll be putting my own thoughts and intentions into writing... mostly for my own purposes of rounding up all my jumbled thoughts into some kind of general guideline. You know, like rounding up sheep. Or putting all your ducks in a row... and all the chaos those things entail).

Without further adieu,

Introducing,

MOUNTAINS, TREES, AND MONDAYS!!!
Hoooorrrraaaayyyyy!!!!!!!

So, um... what IS that, exactly?
Good question.
And... I'm not really sure.

But it probably has something to do with yoga poses like these:

And places like these:

And adventures like these:

And, AND....


....a general feeling of this:

So in other words, anything and everything that fascinates me about our beautiful little nook of the universe.

the hills are alive,
Monica

New Look! Same great taste.

It is very possible that the phrase I used for this post's title is more applicable on breakfast food boxes.
Not blogs.

hmmmm... debatable.
But it gets the message across, I think.

I have decided that it is time for a new blogging strategy!
It will involve categories.
Schedules.
STRUCTURE!

....All those wonderful things
that help me to channel my undeniable
whimsical/spontaneous/adventurous/"Indiana Jones"
personality...

...into manageable chaos.

You know, probably something like this:

But minus the predator.

(Oh, how I can get carried away by a good, sufficiently ridiculous analogy. But now back to real life in which I am NOT in fact Indiana Jones or a school of crafty fish).
The idea here is to avoid the "I want to blog about everything in the entire world at the same time and can't decide what to choose therefore I end up avoiding it altogether" scenario.

Here's a little snippet of what I'm thinking for my daily blogging topics:

Mountains, Trees and Mondays
Tuning in to Tuesday
On a Whim, on a Wednesday
Green and Thrifty Thursdays
Flashback Friday!
Sweet and Savory Saturdays

Let's see where this takes us, shall we?

Aspiring to be like the fishes in the sea,
Monica.

Dragonfruit: the bane of my existence, the pinnacle of my achievement

Well... my artistic achievement, that is.

Because I'd really really like to think that I have achieved greater things than this:

Though I will confess that I get quite the sense of satisfaction from it.

And, if you care to know, this is how it all went down....

(Though you probably don't care to know at all. But I feel like making an account of it just to remind myself how hard I worked. And how much I hate dragonfruit).


First there was a basic line drawing.

Then there was a basic color-blocked underpainting.

And then there was a leaf.

And then there were a couple more leaves.

Aaaaaand then a few more leaves....

(lets all keep in mind that each leaf took 2-3 hours)

(yes, I am well aware that I must be insane to put myself through such agony)

And then there was this wonderful little NUB thing...

...I'd rather not divulge how long that took...

Yay! Green parts finished!

Now just for... well, all the RED parts.
But you see, this isn't just any old red. Lets look at our photo reference, shall we?

This red is rather... hot pinkish.
Which is not so good.
Because hot pink is a notoriously impossible color to mix.

Let's just fast forward through all the failed attempts.
Because there were MANY.
And they took many sweet hours of my life away from me.

Eventually, I decided to try something drastic and dangerous.
Well...
As drastic and dangerous as you can get doing art homework, I suppose.

And so this is what I did:

Why is it orange?

Well, no matter what I tried, I could not get a vibrant enough color.
Soooo I decided to go ahead and just start with something vibrant.

...and pray that I didn't ruin this whole thing for good...

But I was relieved when I discovered that putting a cool, crimson color over the orange turned out to be exactly what I needed :)

Then, it was really just a matter of adding light and shadow.

Which took, you know... all night long.
Who needs sleep?

Then I needed to touch up all the little smudges on the background.

And FINALLY, the end result:

Picture on left, painting on right.

Never.

Ever.

Again....


And seeing as rethinking this dreadful process has left me feeling rather
angsty,

I think we are done here.


p.s. In case you were wondering, I did in fact eat the dragonfruit.

It was like a combination between a kiwi and watermelon.

Which sounds like a good thing.

It wasn't.

Puff, the Magic Dragonfruit.

A couple days ago, after navigating through my arch enemy (Idaho Falls, that is), my little sister and I successfully arrived at Winco.

It is a magical place.

And something magical happened, there.

I needed to take a photo reference that day of some kind of fruit or vegetable or very very simple object. My teacher for "media experimentation" means business. He is starting us out on what he refers to as the "killer assignment."

That's ominous.


Basically, we have to take a photo of our simple subject. And replicated. With photo realism. Using oil paints.

Yeah, I've never used oil paints before.

But hey, what's the point of being an art major if you're not going to push yourself to insane measures and come out the other end of it being entirely sleep-deprived and starved and smelling like paint?

....Oh, there's also the part about achieving things you never ever thought you could....


But I digress.

There we were in the store. And what is the first thing we see? A solitary cardboard fruit stand holding lots of THESE:

Dragonfruit.

I commented on the coolness of them.

Laura suggested I paint one.

Some random man with long hair warned us that they were filled with an "excessive amount of seeds."

Hmmmm....

And so grabbed one, I did. Kept it safely in the child's seat of the grocery cart, I did. Walked across the warehouse store with the original one in hand to swap it with a new one, I did (because apparently children's seats aren't exactly ideal for keeping dragonfruit in pristine condition).

Oh, and lets not forget the part where the random long hair "excessive seeds" patrol guy wrinkled his nose at my dragonfruit later when he saw it in my cart.

How could he not see the beauty of it? *tsk tsk* Some people....


Well, I have yet to begin the painting. But the underpainting (fancy name for the first step) is due on Wednesday.

Wish me luck.

As for the dragonfruit, it is sitting in my fridge. I am looking forward to opening it and seeing what is inside.

Probably excessive seeds.

In other news,
I am currently in love with this little spot right here.

Desk in front of an open window.
A warm, stormy breeze coming to visit me.
A tree in all its beautiful spring-time wonder.
And,
(you can't see it too well in the picture)
a rather impressive sky of clouds and bright white sunlight.

Needless to say, this is pretty darn refreshing after a long hibernation from the Rexburg-arctica winter.
(I think that name should become official).

Basically, I am high on life right now because it has just been so spectacularly beautiful outside!

In fact, Austin surprised me with a little "mini date" on campus today after lunch.

You see, he is taking an "evergreen identification" class.

And you see, I happen to love trees.

This makes for a good combination.

He took me for a stroll around the campus gardens. They are pretty much the best thing ever during spring time. So insanely colorful! Not to mention, they have LOTS of evergreen trees.

And so we walked along the paths (and sometimes off of them) so he could show me the difference between spruces and pine trees. And how this one kind usually lives for 4000 plus years. And this other kind has needles that are green on top but white on bottom. And how there is one that essentially has rubber branches that you can bend every which way and it does no harm whatsoever to the tree. And how one of them is called a dwarf and it bounces like jello if you give it a little push.

Have I mentioned that he is the man of my dreams???

Well, he is.

And maybe one day we will have one of those Christmas tree farms.

Or maybe just a jello dwarf on our porch.

(Sorry, babe, I can't remember the common OR scientific name for it. I was listening, I promise. But lets be honest, the words that stood out to me most were inevitably "dwarf" and "jello.")


I should probably mention right about now that the "warm stormy breeze" very quickly turned into the kind of wind that makes a tree bounce back and forth as far as a 45 degree angle from the ground.

So... I shut the window. And am excitedly awaiting the thunder storm :)


Now, for some other random business and tidbits:

1. I think the phrase/title "business and tidbits" has extraordinary potential. Any ideas?

2. I still have a few blog posts/topics (the "summary" kind that I had mentioned a couple posts back) that need writing. Or... maybe they need a good tossing-out-the-window-because-school-and-work-keep-me-insanely-busy-and-there-are-too-many-NEW-fun-things-that-are-happening-that-I-want-to-blog-about-to-worry-about-the-old-stuff-anymore.

Um, that hyphenated word was considerably longer than I had anticipated. And kinda makes me cross-eyed (there I go again with the hyphen). But I invested too much effort to suppress the impulse to hit the space bar between words and type a hyphen instead.

So it's going to stay.

As for the blogs posts... maybe I will try to do little (keep in mind this word is up for personal interpretation) posts every couple days. Then once a week I can have "Flashback Fridays."

Yup, that sounds about right. Stay tuned.

3. Yes. School started. And so did work. And so did the perpetual state of messy hands (paint, clay, charcoal... they are my constant companions). Suffice it to say that being back is everything I thought it would be :)

Which includes "really really hard."

But honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way! Lets hope that mentality lasts further than just the 2nd week.

4. I am taking piano lessons. First time in years. Boy howdy am I excited. I begin Thursday. But I am wondering what my teacher will think of my "artistically messy" hands... I'm sure some of the great classical composers must have had messy hobbies, too.

Beethoven probably gardened.

Mozart, I'll bet, liked to fingerpaint.

5. I have officially lost my train of thought. Probably because that train has switched tracks to "homeowork and chores and general responsibilities."

But hey, the blogging ride was rather nice while it lasted :)

Last but not least, here is a little piece of my life last week:

Feet up.

In my "messy" clothes (no, I don't wear them all day. Just when I have to. Which is about half the day).

Munching on a nice, cool salad.

And enjoying a brief brake after work, before heading off to the ceramics studio to make an asymmetrical pinch pot.

Yup, life is pretty much fantastic.