Birthday Bliss

It's been far too long since I have posted. I've been a busy girl, but hadn't completed any Diva Challenges, nor taken the time out from my busy life to post about any of my summer adventures. It was a wonderful summer! I can't believe it's August already. Caroline and her brother went back to school last week, which means that my life is now working its way into a new rhythm . . . early mornings. After-school activities. And unprecedented freedom in between. This is the first time I have been a stay-at-home mom since my youngest started kindergarten back in '05!!! It's strange! I have so much to do, yet I'm not sure what to do with myself, as there is no structure. It is up to me to develop the structure. I'm working on it. I have many, many loose ends that need attention.

Yesterday was my birthday. My husband went to work, Caroline & Joseph went to school...I had the day to myself. I had plenty of tasks to tackle at home. Too many! So I abandoned them, like a proper birthday girl,  and drove away--hee-hee! I checked out a few possible class venues, including a new-to-me coffee shop in a nearby town. I spent a few hours there, enjoying a latte...followed by an additional cup of coffee.  It was a good day. :-)

Who knew that failure to connect to the internet in a coffee house would be the ticket out of my Diva-Challenge-and-blog-post dry spell?!

At the coffee house, I tried to log onto the internet to check out all my facebook messages (don't you love fb on your birthday?!). No matter what I tried, I could not get my computer to cooperate with the free wifi at the coffee  house. All around me I could see folks working on their laptops...but all I could do was mess with my settings and try to figure it out. I asked at the counter, and the gave me the user name and password...but that didn't solve anything. Restarting didn't help either. None of the usual tricks. So I tried on my iPad mini. I spent my whole latte-sippin' time struggling to get on the silly internet! Ridiculous! Finally, I decided it was a sign. A sign that I needed to unplug. And tangle. I had planned to write a Tanglefish entry once I was online, but without a tile, what would I post anyway?! Forget the internet. I needed to tangle. To take on the Challenge. The Diva's Weekly Challenge #132: the Non-Domonotangle Challenge. I love that name! Click on it if you want to check the challenge out for yourself.

We had to use Bales. And only Bales. A montotangle. And our non-dominant hand. Only our non-dominant hand. Whoah. Uh-oh; tough one. I am right handed, so I drew with my left hand. And I stuck with it. It was hard. It was awesome! I loved it!!! Is that weird? I loved pushing myself and overcoming the difficulty. I actually like how my tile turned out, given that it was all done with my left hand! Sure it's shakey. (And not due to the caffeine!) But it has character. It was a sublimely satisfying experience. I used 5 different pens to get different weights to my lines. I was a little worried about my clumsy left hand putting too much weight on the delicate Microns, especially the 01 and the 005, but all went fine. And then I worried about the shading. But that went fine, too.

Here's the back, that I signed with my left hand, of course. My signature even looks close to my right-handed signature! By the time I wrote the note ("Left Hand Monotangle: Bales") my hand was exhausted and it actually started hurting. But not until then. My pen control deteriorated immediately. But by then I had done it--had met the Challenge. I was pretty amazed. What a delightful way to spend my birthday!




Caroline got motivated to take on the Challenge, too, and here is her tile. I did not show her mine until she had completed hers. We love how different they are!

Caroline also made me a birthday card with my initial. Look at her Mooka!!!! Needless to say, I was delighted by this gorgeous card!!! The "A" extends onto the back, as you can see below.

I didn't mind spending my birthday day by myself, but was so happy to spend the evening with my family. Dinner was at my favorite locally-owned pizza place, and we finished the evening with an episode of Dr. Who. The episode we watched just happened to be named "Amy's Choice."

So, even though I neglected my blog all summer, I am back! Alive and well, and happy and healthy. With plenty to blog about--adventures, new tangles, lots of photos, and more. Life is good.

Oh, and did I mention how proud I am that my daughter is a CZT?! You'll be hearing more about Caroline's endeavors, too.

I love how the arm of the "A" extends
to the back of the card.