Ice Storm 1-24-2026 on Rabbit Hop

 Rabbit Hop got covered in ice yesterday and last night, and we lost our electricity about 3:30 a.m.. We are ok, because we have gas heat to keep us warm and plenty of food and water. It came back on about 1:40 p.m. So thankful! Most people in our county still don't have any. Just praying that ours stays on and theirs comes back on soon!

Sorry about the picture quality, but I made these through dirty windows from inside the house. I have three rechargeable batteries for my camera, and they all died on me while I had no way to re-charge them. 

This is just a sampling of the damage to trees in our and my mom's yards. Our driveway has multiple limbs across it and there is a huge limb on top of my mom's house. We don't know if the roof is damaged or not yet, and we haven't been out of our yard yet to investigate out around the whole place, because we are old and don't need to be on the ice any more than necessary. We are way too far from an emergency room!

Hubby moved our car from my mom's car shed next door, because a tree is threatening to fall on it, to our car shed, which also has a tree threatening to fall on it, but we have insurance on ours. We don't on hers, because since she passed away and nobody lives in the house, they wouldn't let me keep the insurance on it. It wouldn't have been practical to keep it anyway, because it's an old house that I grew up in, and I couldn't bear for anyone else to live in it. It is very sad to watch it die though...

It's already below 20 degrees and falling, so with what little ice melt we had today freezing back tonight, we could possibly have more breaking trees/limbs falling on lines tonight, causing us to lose power again. Prayers that doesn't happen, but we're trying to prepare just in case!

So that's today's adventure. Not too many dull days on Rabbit Hop! We'll see what tonight and tomorrow brings. So thankful for a warm roof over our heads, food, water, each other, and that we don't have to be anywhere for a few days! 

Prayers for everyone in this winter storm system! Stay safe and warm, and we'll try to do the same!

Blog Book 2025

 I got my new blog book for 2025 a couple of days ago. It's very different from my others, as the printer I used for years went out of business. I used Pixiebook last year, but I had no control over how it was printed. It's a gorgeous book, but I didn't like that the text wasn't with the pictures, and the pictures were all different sizes, with some covering a whole page, while others are postage stamp size. 

So, this year, I tried Into Real Pages. I had a little more control and choice with them with the layout and the book cover. They also had a choice of soft cover and different formats and colors. I'm glad I picked the two-column layout. At least, the text is closer to the pictures, which are all the same size. The pictures would have been too small had I picked the three-column. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it, and I do have a record of my creative efforts last year.

This is the cover I chose, and I'm only including a few of the 212 pages of the 9" x 12" book to give you an idea of how it looks. And, with the discount coupon, the price wasn't too bad either for a hardbacked book this size.

I have accumulated my own little library of blog books now, as I have one for every year I've been blogging, which is several. I love looking back through them and seeing things I forgot about. It usually inspires me to get busy! Not that I claim to be that good of an artist, but that I had that much pleasure creating anything! So thankful that I have this outlet to keep me sane!

Sorry the photos aren't better! I was trying to hold the book open with one hand and take the photos with my camera phone, which I don't know much about...

Take care! See you in the next post!

Doodling My Way Out of a Slump

 Well, I'm still in kind of a slump, creative wise, but I have done a few doodles over the last few days. Most of them are quirky doodles, where I make a bunch of random marks and swirls, then pull an image out. Three are 1-liner sketches (the dog, cat, and owl). I used Micron, brush, Posca pens, and a pencil. The butterfly is watercolored and spattered. Just fooling around on the last few pages of my current sketchbook. Only a couple of pages left before I can break in a new one!

We're currently getting snow and ice in Tennessee, and they're forecasting it to get really bad today and tomorrow, with possible power outages. Trying to get stuff caught up and saved up, just in case!

I just saw on Facebook today that the new Sketchbook Revival classes for this year start April 11th. I'm anxious to see what's included this session, so I know if I want to take them this time. I also got an email from Ivy Newport about a new mixed media art journal course that looks interesting and isn't too expensive. I'm thinking about it! Of course, I still have a bunch of classes left in the Sketchbook Revival 2025 session that I haven't sampled yet, a couple of courses with Jeanne Oliver that I haven't even started, and I'm wanting to create stuff on my own, not from a class, if I can ever get started again. A bit overwhelming and frustrating! lol

Anyway, it's cloudy and gloomy and snowy and icy, but still a beautiful day today, and who knows, I may do some more doodling before the day is over!

Prayers for all of us in the path of these winter storms! Stay safe and warm, and make a little creative magic while you're housed in!

First Post and First Art of 2026!

 I hope your New Year is off to a good start! I've been busy getting end of year things taken care of and haven't done any creative stuff much since around Thanksgiving. I've been trying to get back in the sketching/creative groove the last few days by doing a little bit every day again. My mood has not been that great, and when you don't do something for a while you get rusty, and it takes a while to get back in the flow. So, I am trying. and making a bit of progress, I think. 😊

I just finished putting together and ordering my printed blog book for 2025 a few minutes ago. I used Pixiebook last year, and it was ok, but this year I'm trying "Into Real Pages", because I like the layout better. I chose the hardcover because I only had half as many pages as they allow, and the price, with a discount, was reasonable. It looked good on the computer screen. Fingers crossed I like it when it gets here!

This is a doodle that I actually started at the first of December, just trying to get motivated. It didn't work. I got this down and couldn't figure out what to do to make it better. Still trying to figure it out! I'm thinking about collaging something on it? I'm going to see what I can find...

The top of this page has color charts of the colored pencil and marker sets that I got for Christmas from our nephew's family. 

The old saying that whatever you do on New Year's Day is what you'll be doing all year made me do a street scene with pencils and markers, just as a doodle, in the hopes that I will be sketching/creating all year. I didn't like it, so I took a Stablio pencil and went over the lines and sky, then brushed over it with a water brush. I like it much better! It's kind of moody looking.

The second day I did a one-line sketch of a candle warmer lamp with a candle, also a Christmas gift, that happened to be sitting on the table in front of me. I already had the other two candles, so I added them too. Love the candle warmer, by the way!

This collaged page is dated Jan 4, but I've actually gone back and added stuff to it several times since then, right up until yesterday. I think I can live with it now.

I'm still mark making, trying to work the rustiness out. I love Karen Stampers mini lessons in Sketchbook Revival and decided to do another "wild garden" from imagination. Most of what I would love to use on these is still buried in boxes from when I started "organizing" my dining room/work place, so I've added marks with things within reach right up until this morning. I think I'm stopping on it now. I kind of like it. I'm thinking about taking one of Karen's larger courses on her website. Haven't decided yet, but I think I would love it.

Anyway, that's my feeble art attempts, so far, this year. My diabetes count is too high, and I haven't been feeling too well, or energetic. We got four cakes and a large box of expensive assorted chocolate cookies for Christmas, plus the holiday meals, all of which we enjoyed immensely, but it's reeked havoc on my health. So hard to resist, but I definitely need to do better!

I am also trying to work up the courage to call a new dentist, because the last one didn't work out, to have a cavity in a front tooth filled, but I've been having light pains in some of my teeth, so I may wind up having to have them all extracted. They are all held together with fillings and caps anyway. I don't have dental insurance, and it is so expensive to have anything done, but I'd like to keep them as long as I can.

And that's it for the beginning of the year! Hope it's a good year for all of us, creatively and otherwise! Take care and keep making making stuff! It's good for us!

2026 CALENDAR and HAPPY NEW YEAR

 This will be my last post for 2025. I finally got my Vistaprint order straightened out and got the handful of calendars I ordered for myself and for Christmas gifts. If you remember, the first one I put together got deleted on their end, then I got a set of blackout curtains instead of the calendar order, but they replaced the order at no extra cost, and they told me to keep the curtains, so I did get the calendars in time for Christmas, plus a set of curtains that I can't use. Grateful!

However! My 90 year old aunt is still waiting for her calendar and Christmas card to arrive. I mailed it at the post office almost two weeks before Christmas. When she didn't let me know she had gotten it, I texted her that it was in the mail somewhere. I just wanted her to know that I didn't forget her, because she lives in a different part of the state, I don't see her often, and she looks forward to getting hers every year. Hoping she gets it this week...

I decided that since the recipients are all family and friends, it would be fun to put hubby's and my picture on the cover. They loved it! The rest of the pages have some of my favorite sketches (and I did many) from the past year, grouped together. 

January

bottom half pages

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Back Cover

And that's a wrap for this year creative wise! Looking forward to continuing my creative journey this coming year, and hoping to finish some projects and create new ones!

PS: The Laura Gellar four pack of eye shadows and blushes that Amazon sent me instead of the large bottle of aspirin I ordered, then told me to keep, was gifted to our great-niece, kind of a thank you for hosting our Thanksgiving and Christmas. She seemed to love it and said she would put it to good use! Of course, she got Christmas gifts from us too! I still have the blackout curtains...

Thank you for visiting my blog this past year. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you next year in a new post!

Wishing you all the best of everything and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!