Wednesday, August 21, 2013

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.

9 comments:

  1. Like your tile. Interesting thing that I noticed was that people seemed to have more difficulty with the larger sections. I really had to slow down with longer lines to try to keep them from being so wobbly.

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  2. Happy Birthday!!!! A bit late, but well meant.
    The card your daughter made is vert beautiful and a lovely thought.
    Your challenge tile is great, I like the contrast in it. The tile os your daughter is great too.
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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  3. Happy Birthday! You both did a splendid work! Love the Bcard that she made for you! <3

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  4. Belated Happy Birthday! Your challenge tiles are lovely but the birthday card is the Best.

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  5. Thanks, y'all!
    Funny addition: after she read my blog post, Caroline laughed and asked if I knew my she continued that black line on the back. She then revealed that the black line is hiding a stain on the card...it had a mug stain, probably tea, from a while ago. Intstead of calling the blank card "ruined" and throwing it out, she saved it and found a way to work with it. That's my girl!

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  6. Happy Birthday, and thank your for sharing your coffeeshop non-internet experience. I read it with a smile on my face, and could almost see you struggling for internet. Your tile and yours daughters tile are great, even with the left hand. I am suprised about how everyone did this difficult challenge so good!

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  7. The bales are fabulous in your two non-dom tiles! Happy Birthday!

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  8. Thank you so much for the comments and the birthday greetings! I really enjoyed my day. :-)

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  9. I love your tile, Amy! Especially the lower left part... I don't know what it is, but it's so appealing to look at.

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