Wednesday, already?

#184

#34

 These are the last of the vintage paper and map cards, for now. I followed my own rule and started to make a new series on Monday.










I used quotes from the Dalai Lama XIV and was happy with the reception when I posted them on Facebook.

The quotes have nothing to do with the images, totally unconnected except in the way that we make connections, ourselves, in any randomness. Know what I mean?



New stamps! I'm so happy that my new international forever stamps arrived in the mail, followed a day or so later, by the new postcard stamps - apples, illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators: John Burgoyne.

I don't mind the price hike. Still inexpensive for the service provided, getting my mail art out into the world.

185

When Monday arrived I had NO idea what to do for my next series. I pulled out a portfolio from under my work table and found a bunch of prints of my moving car photos - taken along the New Jersey turnpike several years ago.

#35

Okay, what can I do with these? I remembered how much I like the mail art card I received that had inlaid circles in it. I'd try that. I punched out circles in different sizes from the print. I then punched out circles of different colors and set them into the print. Very cool, inlaid circles. I like it. To get the full effect, one needs to see these in person. On the screen, hard to tell what's going on.

Here's the big salad that I made for dinner a few days ago. This is one of our favorite things to eat. 

Day 4, Saturday

 I've started to play with my little traveling water color set. It has a specific limited palette, which is okay for me. I decided that I'd do some coloring book imaginary landscapes.

 Here is the man who makes St. Michel Galettes. I love that they are putting the makers' faces on the packages. Buy local!

 Here's some mail art I made, altering a photo. The title is: "Mom chose the party hats. They weren't happy with her her choices. They were hoping for something simpler."

 Here's our milkman. Buy local, wherever you are.

 We didn't get up until noon today, having gotten to sleep finally at 2 a.m. Yikes. It's supposed to get better not worse. We are so turned around clock-wise. This is what the view was at noon. Later in the afternoon we had a bit of sun, while we were out for our walk.

 I made this salad last night. The haricot verts were delicious; I had to boil them as I have no steamer here, but they turned out great. The beets and carrots came prepared like that. We are happy eating salad, having bread, and cheese. Oh, and a bit of wine.

 Here is my honey opening the mail I got from my friend Val, that said "DO NOT OPEN." Val said that Chuck should open it. and he did. What a riot. So funny.

It had an old document in it, which Val had added to, but in the end, this is what it was about. I hadn't sent Val mail art and was getting fined, or I was getting fined for opening the  mail art. In any case, Val cracks me up. I think Chuck will have to pay the fine as the "opener." What do you think?

#76 and more

 I managed to get today's mail art done this morning. Yay! Now to get all of yesterday's piece and this one into the post before 1 p.m. Oh, it's the letter "M" day and a good way to use the museum tickets and such that I've saved.

 Happy Valentine's day! Here's the crazy cake I made yesterday for the dinner party. One large heart shaped layer with three small heart cakes on top of it. I had to secure them with skewers as they were sliding off at first. The cake is a simple one-bowl cocoa cake with a butter cream icing.  My honey did the decorating with M&Ms and cinnamon Jelly Belly candy.

This is the salad that I made. Decorated it with red beets, pears and blue cheese. It was a savory before the sweet dessert. Thought I'd share food with you, since I've been focusing more on my mail art lately. Wish I could send you some cake, or salad.

Salad, FRBs and a nice view

The other night, I made a really nice salad and had to share the image of it. It was so good with different textures and flavors. It was the entire meal with some bread and butter.

Today, while driving home from my Spanish class, I went through Byrd Park and saw this gorgeous tree.

After lunch, I packed up the two Flat Rate Boxes that I'd finished filling to send to soldiers in Afghanistan. I'm an official volunteer with Books for Soldiers. Please consider joining this group or sending a donation to keep the site up and running. You can become a friend of this group on Facebook, too, but it's best to actually join and send packages or letters or postcards. It's very rewarding!

Some images...

Mr. Honey Bear (designed by Nathan Lerner as we found out in Paris in November) had a bit of a transformation. If you heat up your honey in the bear in your micro-wave, he gets jowls and tips over. The guy on the right had a longer trip in the m-w than the guy on the left. Cute, huh?

I put Mr. Cork on the shelf (can you see the face?) with a shell for a hat and the posted the tag, which Juli had sent to me awhile back. The shelf was pretty bare but the pole still had the festive pink ribbon wrapped around it. Can you see my shadow? The sun was so strong today that I had to let my shadow cover the shelf to get the photo.

Since I'm jetting off to the west coast tomorrow, my guy took me to lunch today. We went to 3 Monkeys and I had this nice salad.
The restaurant was quiet and warm, which was nice on this very cold day.

I'm heading from really chilly to really warm, what a shock to the system, and more time changes. I'm just getting over the jet lag from the last trip...oh what's a jet-setter to do. Ha ha ha.

I've made a HUGE decision. I've decided to leave my laptop home. This is very BIG. I won't be able to blog, or upload to Flickr or check on FB. I just feel like not having to do so much to get through security at the airport, so here goes....out of touch except for my mobile. Enjoy the bears, the shelf and the salad while I'm away. See you next week!

Today, Vendredi #2 (Friday)

We had a mission to accomplish today, but it didn't quite work out, however, our walk over toward the Jardin du Luxembourg made it possible for us to have a lovely lunch out. The brasserie Luxembourg had seats near the window for us and I was able to catch some sun, for the little time it was out. Chuck had a Cesar salad with chicken and shaved parmesan cheese. He loved it. I had a spinach salad with blue cheese and nuts. It was quite good. We added a plate of our first pomme frites for this trip. Next to the restaurant, Delayau, a shop with very artistic looking desserts.

This evening, because we'd had a bit of sun today, the sunset was actually visible. The sky was so nice but my photo doesn't do it justice, only gives you an idea of it.

Later, before dinner, we stopped at a little restaurant on rue Charlemagne, just a block away. We saw a display of hats in the window there last night and wanted to see what was going on. We poked our heads in, but the display was just being set up. Two sisters from Germany (Köln) were selling hats that are handmade. I got a nice green one that has little sparkles on it. I was surprised that Chuck liked it, but he said the sparkles looked like rain drops. Here I am, looking to me, like someone in a 1930s photo, with Gabriela, Marguerite, and Francoise, who owns the restaurant. Check out their site here.