I came across an artist on Instagram (and YouTube) who had some wonderful short tutorials for watercolor paintings that you could do in 5-10 minutes. Count me in! Her name is Emily LeFebvre if you want to check her out (emjlefebvre on Instagram).
I was intrigued in particular with her use of salt on wet watercolor to obtain certain effects – it looked positively magical! Here’s one of them:
She puts the salt on the wet watercolor and lets it dry, after which she rubs it off. The salt somehow removes the paint and creates a crystallized look that lends itself nicely to the look of snow on the trees. I gave it a try:
Ha ha! What has her salt got that mine hasn’t? I used kosher salt, just like she said! It was mostly a disaster, although I think my birds look every bit as good as hers. 😀 Undaunted I looked at another of her salted watercolor projects, figuring maybe plain table salt would do a better job. Again, here’s how hers turned out:
And mine:
I hope you’re laughing as hard as I am over the contrast between those two paintings. Table salt wasn’t the fix. She really made it look so effortless. Sigh…
I looked over her salt-free paintings and chose a couple to work on. I’m not going to show you hers because there’s not such a stark difference between hers and mine (although hers were better). Here we go:
First attemptSecond attemptFirst attempt
I’m wanting to do a fun painting project with my daughter and daughters-in-law when they are here for Christmas. Between the berries and the gnomes, which do you think would be more fun to work on? Which do you like better?
I’ll be rubbing the salt off this post in the morning when it’s dry.
Having shared with you some of my Kitchen Disasters it’s time to move on to some of our experiences with hospitality. Many of these involve problems in the kitchen, but not all of them.
When we were still newlyweds, my husband and I decided to invite two other couples from church over for a New Year’s Eve celebration. One of the couples had a Trivial Pursuit game that we’d played at their house. I told the wife when issuing the invitation that it would be fun to play Trivial Pursuit that night and thought making that suggestion was a good way of letting her know they should bring their game (we didn’t have one). This is a language called “Minnesota Indirect.” Naturally, she had no idea that this indirect statement was a request for their game and when they came and she realized we didn’t have it, she made her husband go back home to get theirs. Cringe! That same evening, we had planned as entertainment to watch a movie that both my husband and I had loved as children but hadn’t seen since then: My Side of the Mountain. Oh my. The acting was terrible, the script was terrible, the cinematography was laughable. At one point eagles were shown to be flying in the sky and it looked like someone had cut out some photos of eagles and dangled them in front of the camera. We were SO embarrassed and apologized profusely, offering to turn the movie off, but these kind friends good-naturedly told us it was fine and finished it out with us. That might have been one of the first times we had anyone over that wasn’t family.
We moved to another state and started having people over from our church to our little rental house. We had just gotten our first gas grill and planned a casual meal of brats with a couple that we asked over after church. My husband put the brats on the grill and then came in and we had a lively conversation with this couple until a neighbor came to the door. “I just thought you should know that your grill is on fire in the back yard,” she said helpfully. Hubby ran out back and found the brats completely burned to a crisp, becoming almost lighter than air because their substance had been so thoroughly burnt out of them. Ha ha! I think we found some hot dogs in the freezer to cook up instead.
Another time I was making cooked carrots using a steamer and again, we were chatting away with guests in the living room. Suddenly, I noticed a definite “smoky” smell, ran out to the kitchen and discovered that the water in the pan had long since boiled away, and the pan was overheating and burning. Yikes! I had to throw the pan away when it cooled off.
The only other food mishap I can remember from that house was when we invited a couple over that was new to our church. I had made a chocolate pie using my Grandma Lois’s famous chocolate pudding recipe for the filling. Unbeknownst to me, it hadn’t set and when I brought it in for our dessert, it was a gloppy mess. I served it anyway with apologies, which probably tells you something about me.
When we bought our first home and moved in, we decided to start having neighbors over to get to know them. This generally worked out well, but we invited a young couple over one night and they couldn’t bring themselves to talk to us the entire night. We’d ask questions and they’d either nod, shake their heads or give one-word answers. They never initiated any conversation and were clearly very uncomfortable around us. It was a really long night and we could hardly wait for them to leave. We also invited a family over that we’d met somewhere else, maybe at church. The invitation was clearly for a meal and the time was at the normal supper hour. Nevertheless when they showed up, they’d already eaten. Try recovering from that kind of weird social scenario! We made the best of it that we could and they sat at the table watching us eat.
Eventually we moved to back to Minnesota and at some point started having people over, either from church or the neighborhood. A new couple moved in across the street from us after a few years, so we invited them over for a meal. I was baking a pie and right about the time our guests were coming up to the door, some of the pie innards had boiled over onto the oven floor and were burning, thus sending some smoke billowing into the kitchen and setting off the fire alarm. This made a wonderful first impression, I’m sure. They were pretty laid back about it, actually.
Another memorable occasion was when we had invited an older couple from church over for a meal. I was making ravioli and five minutes before they arrived, I was trying to strain the water out of the pan, the handles slipped and the whole kit and kaboodle got dumped on the floor, splashing boiling water on me and even a little on our daughter. We both ran upstairs to get cold water running on where the water had hit our skin and my husband scooped up the ravioli off the floor and put it in a colander. I came back down, rinsed it off and put the sauce on it. We had a nice time with our guests, but I felt rather guilty about serving food we’d had to pick up off our floor and I was conscious the entire night of the painful burns on my legs. We never did tell our friends.
One last story from that house. We invited a fairly new family from church over one Sunday after the church service. I had cleaned the house on the main floor, but the upstairs where all the bedrooms were looked like a tornado had gone through it. Hubby was showing the family around the house while I was finishing something in the kitchen when I overheard him saying, “Would you like to see the upstairs?” I was absolutely horrified, but couldn’t stop them. I cringed in embarrassment at what they must be thinking upon surveying our messy house. Later on, the wife told me that when they came into our house, she didn’t think she could be comfortable with us – we appeared to have a perfect family (ha!) and everything looked so orderly, unlike how she felt her own household was. Then she saw what our house looked like upstairs and realized that we were just a normal family like theirs and she was able to relax and enjoy the time with us. What a lesson that was for me!
I’ll probably delete this when I see the smoke from a burning blog post in the morning.
Who besides me loves the season of Advent? (raise your hands high). Who besides me loves a tea party? (raise your hands high again)
If you raised your hands both times, you are my friends, even if I don’t know your name. If you didn’t, don’t worry – you can still be my friend. I’m not an elitist.
I hosted an Advent Tea Party here last week for three friends who have been in my friendship orbit for a long, long time: Lori, Teresa and Sara. I wish I’d taken more photos, but sometimes you’ve just got to live life without the camera in hand. One of our number wasn’t feeling well enough to attend, so we got a photo in which she was included long distance via FaceTime. She joined us for our prayer at the beginning as well. We all turned 66 this year, if you’re wondering about the “66” pinned to our clothing (compliments of Teresa).
A neighbor lent me her beautiful Christmas dishes. I felt positively Martha Stewart-ish! I don’t have a tablecloth, placemats or cloth napkins, so MS points were docked for that.
And of course I invited my felted friends. They kept an eye on us while we drank tea, feasted and did a lot of talking and laughing.
Teresa brought Percival, so he and his twin, Colonel Purslane, could have a nice reunion.
Percival on the left – oh, but I’m sure you could tell them apart!
If you’ve been longing for a tea party with friends, perhaps you’ve enjoyed this one vicariously. Now go and do likewise.
Martha Stewart and I will probably delete this in the morning.
I received some metallic watercolor paints for my birthday recently and couldn’t wait to give them a workout. As usual, I went to Pinterest for some ideas and got started. I can’t show you the originals because I won’t come out favorably if comparisons are made. I never said I didn’t have glaring character flaws.
Shiny fish! I like the fact that you can’t tell what size it is. Could be a minnow, could be as big as a tuna.
I really want to like this one, but all I can think of is a Petrie dish with little squirmers on it. I didn’t get that vibe at all from the original. Sigh.
I was going for a “sloppy” look. Success! (Ha ha)
I’ll probably delete this shiny post in the morning.
Yesterday morning, my husband told me a funny story about seeing a gray shadow seeming to run across the kitchen floor and thinking at first it was a mouse, but realizing it was a weird floater in his eye. We laughed.
I came down early this morning and was puttering around the kitchen when that same gray shadow ran across one of our counters. Oh my dear husband, that was no floater. He was still asleep after having to pick our son up at the airport at 2:15 a.m., so I couldn’t wake him up just for this. I yelped and moaned and panicked. Where’s Luna when you need her? Right on cue she came wandering into the kitchen so I picked her up, set her on the counter and said sternly, “NOW DO YOUR JOB.” Normally, we forbid her presence on our counters, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She seemed interested but ultimately did not understand the mission. There were too many things in the corner on that counter behind which it was lurking. Why have I allowed things to build up there? Why? And I couldn’t even remove them because that horrible little gray shadow might be exposed and attack me. I simply cannot be expected to be rational when a mouse has invaded my kitchen.
Luna gave up and jumped back down on the floor. I glared at her and scolded: “What use are you to me?” I’m not proud of my behavior. In the meantime, I’m not going near that counter; when my husband comes down, I’ll let him remove those things from it to see if the foe is still there. My hero!!
We’ve had mice in the house before, usually right around this time of year when they come in out of the cold. Here’s how it goes down: we spot a mouse and within a few days, Luna has conquered. She really does know her job. I just don’t enjoy the interim between the mouse sighting and the mouse killing.
One time many years ago, I was sitting in the living room and saw a mouse run under the coffee table, the base of which is very close to the floor. Keeping an eye on the coffee table to make sure it didn’t escape, I called for my son Sam. We developed a plan of setting encyclopedias and other large books all around the base of the coffee table to make a wall. When the wall was erected we would lift the table and Sam would capture the mouse and take it outside. Good plan. I watched to make sure the mouse didn’t come out the other side and Sam did the heavy lifting to bring all the books. I wish I had taken a photo of that brave and bold edifice of books around the table. Let this be a lesson to those of you who eschew the multiplication of books in your home.
The moment of truth arrived. Sam put on some work gloves with which to grab the little offender, we took hold of each end of the table and lifted it up. To our dismay – and our amusement – there was no mouse. It must have run directly out the other side before I could see it, a cunning move. I salute you, Mr. Mouse, but your day will come. And it did, just a day or two later. But I must admit that the sight of a mouse carcass (usually not all there, if you know what I mean) also makes me yelp and moan and panic. Could somebody else please come and dispose of this? I’m not proud of my behavior.
Okay, just one more mouse story. Three or four years ago when everyone was here for Christmas, a kerfuffle came up when Luna spotted a mouse and began chasing it around the living room. Some “light” screaming occurred (that was me, of course.). We all tried to stay out of the way and let Luna do her work (and yes, some of us were standing on chairs). The little critter ran under the Christmas tree and right into the tree stand which was full of water and from which it could not escape. It swam around and around. Luna was somewhat stymied by this development (what do I do now?). Hubby put on a glove, grabbed the little invader out of the water, went outside and flung it out into the cold, sub-zero weather where it probably froze before it hit the ground. My hero!! And indeed, we found it the next day, frozen where it had landed. I have no regrets about how that mouse met its demise and neither should you. When it enters our house, it has declared war and we will give no quarter.
But to show that there’s no hard feelings, here’s a little comic I drew some years ago with a rather cute mouse in it. I’m not completely unfeeling.
The carcass of this post will be disposed of in the morning.
How was your Thanksgiving, friends? It’s such a lovely, understated holiday: a day set aside to be intentional about thanking God for our many blessings, and even the trials He appoints to us. “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
I like to thaw my turkey in a salt-water brine the day before. Accordingly, I got my brine ready in a bucket and fetched the turkey out of the freezer. Poised over the bucket with it, the turkey fell out of my hands into the bucket and displaced a couple cups of salt water into my face. I was still wiping it off my glasses when I heard the distinct sound of water hitting the floor. The bucket had sprung a large leak (maybe when the frozen turkey fell in?) and the brine was merrily filling up our kitchen floor. Hubby came to the rescue and helped me clean up the whole mess. Another bucket, more brine, and better technique with the turkey and I checked that one off the list.
Time to start the two different kinds of rolls. Why two kinds? Believe me, I asked myself that question a couple times throughout the day. It was excessive in the extreme, but my brain doesn’t have a very large logic section. I reasoned to myself that the crescent dinner rolls would not be good as sandwich rolls for the leftover turkey. Simple math would have perhaps instructed me that 6 people do not need 4 dozen rolls, no matter what. I had trouble with both roll doughs: one was too stiff, and the other one I halved the recipe but forgot to halve the water in it. I added extra flour and hoped for the best. They both turned out okay, which goes to show you that you can’t give up and walk away from it all. I was tempted though.
You’ll be happy to know that the turkey thawed just fine and we had a very enjoyable meal with a few family members. God is good!
Took the Autumn decor down today to make room for the next season…It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Well maybe not a lot, but at least a little.
The earliest kitchen “disasters” that I can remember were in our first year of marriage. I’ve always been a corner cutter when it comes to cooking; I like to find ways to eliminate extra work or to change recipes to suit what I have on hand, but had an inflated sense of my own abilities in that regard. I had a recipe for cornbread and didn’t have all the ingredients so I did some ill-considered substitutions and put it in the oven. After a bit, we both noticed we were hearing the sounds of sizzling in the background. I looked in the oven and my substitutions had been so off-balance that the stuff hadn’t risen at all and was literally frying in its own excessive oils.
Another time I decided to make pizza instead of buying it, thinking to save money. I forgot to put salt in the dough for the crust and had bought an awful fat-free mozzarella-substitute pizza cheese. I didn’t have pizza sauce either, so I tried to make one without a recipe (how hard can it be?). The resulting pizza was well-nigh inedible.
The first turkey I baked for a Thanksgiving meal turned out fine, but I baked it upside down, never having had up close and personal contact with a turkey.
My cooking generally improved over the years with lots of practice, but my propensity for choosing strange recipes was a continual trial to the family. We’d been to a church function once where someone had brought an eggplant parmigiana that was superb. This impressed me because up until this point I hated eggplant with a holy passion. It’s like someone took the essence of dirty socks and poured it into a vegetable. Filled with new zeal about eggplant possibilities, I found a recipe for eggplant parmigiana and made a YUGE casserole. Oh my gosh, was that horrible! I apologized to the family and gave permission for people not to eat it. Kris famously “tripped” over by the kitchen sink and dumped the remainder in the garbage disposal with a loud, “Oops!”
Another time I found a recipe for carrot ice cream. How fun! It wasn’t. I have a vague memory of a carrot soup that I made that tasted like dirt. I realized then that perhaps there was a good reason to peel carrots before cooking them (corner cutting as usual – why do I have to waste time peeling carrots?). And of course, most of my family remembers the time I forgot to turn the crockpot on and didn’t discover it until quite late in the day. Good times.
I decided once to conduct my own experiment with baked potatoes. Instructions always said to pierce the skin before baking them and I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I didn’t do that? God was merciful to me the day I made that incredibly stupid decision. After it was done baking, I reached in wearing an oven mitt to pick up the potato and it exploded boiling hot potato mess all over, but fortunately most of it in the oven and not on me. Not long after that I read a story from pioneer times about a girl who was severely burned and ended up dying when that very same thing happened to her. Yes, mistakes in the kitchen can kill you.
And speaking of explosions, I recall the night we were sitting in the dining room eating supper when we all heard a loud noise. I had been attempting to make root beer and had stored the bottles in the craft room while they were “brewing.” In a typically careless move on my part, I hadn’t measured the yeast with any sort of exactitude, which turned out to be important. The bottles had all exploded, the first bottle close enough to the others to set them off as well. It was pretty spectacular – a brown, sticky mess all over the carpet and walls and even the ceiling. We never did get it out of the carpet and had to replace it.
But let me leave you with a better picture of my kitchen experiences. Here I am just a couple years ago making bread dough with our granddaughter. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Too many substitutions in this post – it’s going to sizzle in the oven in the morning.
I decided to start taking some indoor photos for a change. I popped my long-distance telephoto lens off, put the kit lens back on, and went exploring around the house to see what caught my eye. A couple of things looked back at me and here they are.
Hedgehog: Why can’t everyone be as adorable and winsome as I? Don’t you just want to pick me up and hug me? Of course you do!
Gargoyle: Wipe that smile off of your face, Hedgehog. Let’s hear no more about how adorable you are. You should be trying to inspire fear, not hugs.
The hedgehog was a recent birthday gift from a friend. The gargoyle used to be my mom’s. I wonder where and why she bought it. Very intriguing.
Those are the day’s meanderings.
I’ll probably wipe this post off the blog face in the morning.
Some months ago a friend recommended taking regular cold showers for health benefits. Nope. I have a distinct aversion to being cold. Last weekend we were talking to our nephew who takes regular ice baths, extolling the many health benefits. I’m guessing that would just about kill me at my age. However, he also mentioned that we tend to love our comforts too much and that struck a nerve with me. I’m all about comfort. The older I get, the more comfort and ease I want. Sadly, my body isn’t on the same page. I want to sit and read a book or work on a puzzle and my neck says, “You can’t do that for too long – I will complain.” Or I might want to tuck my legs up under me in my comfy chair and my knees say, “Not today, my friend – not today.” We’re always told that we should drink more water for more of those alleged health benefits (it doesn’t matter how much you are currently drinking – you still have to drink MORE). Meanwhile, my bladder says, “That’s fine, I’m just fine. Bring it on. No need to….URGENT NEED TO GO TO BATHROOM RIGHT NOW! Oh, I’m sorry – you’ll never make it in time.”
It’s all part of the aging process, right? It sharpens the perspective on the importance of the eternal, rather than the temporal. Paul (the apostle) put it this way: “Therefore we do not lose heart, for though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Case closed.
But the matter of the cold shower still lingered. I flexed my fingers and did a little internet research to find out just how great these health benefits are. Maybe I need to sow a little discomfort in my life in order to reap the great rewards? So here’s the carrot on the end of the stick as pertains to the potential benefits of cold showers:
Boost immune system Relieve depression Make you more alert Keep hair healthy Sense of invigoration Improve circulation Reduce inflammation/muscle soreness Stimulate weight loss Increase metabolism
Of course that lovely list of benefits is not a guarantee, and if you have heart disease, a brisk cold shower could go in all the wrong directions for you. I’M NOT RECOMMENDING COLD SHOWERS. (I have to say that for the lawyers out there).
As an aside, one of the articles I read started out with the phrase “Many people prefer warm showers to cold showers,” which made me laugh out loud. “Many?” Try “All people.” Or at least “All sane people.”
More asides: Cold showers are also called the “James Bond Showers” or “Scottish Showers.” I don’t know why – I didn’t feel like jumping in that rabbit hole. Also, Katherine Hepburn took a cold shower daily.
Bottom line: I have now entered the realm of insanity and have taken two (yes, two!) brief cold showers. The first minute is unmitigated shock and misery, but it becomes surprisingly bearable for the next (and last) two minutes. Is it worth it? Stay tuned.
(Found this charming graphic on the internet)
By the way, I AM NOT RECOMMENDING COLD SHOWERS.
I’ll probably delete this after a cold shower (WHICH I AM NOT – repeat – NOT RECOMMENDING)
Lynniebeemuseoday 