More Bad Habits

Here are the pages made by my fellow Journal Junkies, as presented at last night's monthly meeting, hosted by Bizzy B:

Heather's page was about her addiction to sugar. She used Twinkling H2O's to get those vibrant colours.

Laura told us about her habit of buying coffees and not finishing them.

Helen's patchwork styled page was based on her habit of trying various new artful pursuits and not necessarily sticking with just one or two.

She made a list of those pursuits on the back (all of which sound like good habits to me!):

I especially loved the little scroll - such a clever embellishment to her page! (it has a great quote on it, a line from a poem which I sadly cannot remember)

Kelly's personal page focused on her use of the "F" word.

The "cleaner" page she made for the store was about her habit of buying flower embellishments and then not wanting to use them because they are "too pretty".

This quote pretty much sums up how we all feel about our bad habits:

Bad Habits

The theme for this month's Journal Junkies meeting at Bizzy B is "bad habits".  This assignment was a bit of a stretch for me as, in the words of Eubie Blake, "I don't have any bad habits. They may be bad habits for other people but they're all right for me!" ;)

I had a very slow moving Sunday yesterday but knew I needed to spend some time putting together a journal page for tonight's gathering.  To save time, I decided to use a gelli plate page I had made some time ago as a background.  As I had recently picked up a copy of Joanne Sharpe's book, The Art of Whimsical Letting", I also wanted to play with some lettering styles. I had gathered some great quotes about bad habits and decided to write them out on individual pieces of paper and add them to my page.

It wasn't until after I'd written out the heading that I realized I had used a grey marker instead of a black one. The letters didn't have enough oomph and the orange accents weren't showing up very well.

I went over the letters again with a black marker and liked the effect much better, especially after I used the grey to shadow the letters.

In adding the orange accents over top, I pushed down too hard on the Sharpie marker I was using and ended up with a little blob of orange ink on the capital "H" but, in the way happy accidents happen when making art,  I really liked the imperfectness of the result and the way it tied the title together with the background.  So I made another blob on the capital "B" as well!

Here's how the finished page looked:

I shall leave you with this thought:  "Bad habits are like a comfortable bed - easy to get into, but hard to get out of." (Anonymous)

Haiku My Heart: Spring Blooms

Purple pansies and
lily of the valley bloom
happily in spring.

My boss brought these pretty blooms in to work from her garden. I just had to take a photo, they were so perfectly evocative of all that is special about spring.

Haiku My Heart Fridays is hosted by the dear Rebecca of recuerda_mi_corazon/.

Today's Spam Message

Today's spam message is even funnier than yesterday's, although the spelling is equally atrocious, the context just as difficult to decipher:

"In еxtremes of temperature, always ρrotect your liƿs.
Ѕhe currently rwsіdes in Santa Monica, CA witɦ two chihuahuas, two
cats, two baby turtles and a betta. A good quality bеd suitable for the couple
is an essential commodity; itt can have a side cupboard foг keeping
the mobile phones, telephone diary, a note book, a pen and an alarm clock."

Did someone say chihuahuas??  I think this calls for a cute puppy photo, don't you?

Photo from www.chihuahuatrainingtips.net

P.S. In case you are wondering (as I was), a betta is a type of fish.  :)

A Lot Of Spam

Photo from theguardian.com

I often get spam comments posted on my blog.  Most of them are badly spelled with poor grammar and I just delete them without reading them (after reporting them to Blogger first, of course).  But for some reason, I did read this one and I laughed out loud when I got to the end!  Here it is, verbatim:

"Yourr wifе told youu too writte them down, but, of course, уyou didn't becaսse you're a guy, you 
can rеmember these things. I'll admit that at first I wwas skеptical and my expectations ѡere low that the device would prodice noticeable healthh сhangeѕ; but, as I used the device my opinion changed.  Unnderwear is something we often take for granted; it is just a part of life."

I didn't click on the link in the comment so I can't be sure exactly what product was being recommended here (yet another Viagra ad, perhaps?) but I do know that I hadn't really considered that I might be taking my underwear for granted. But, doesn't everybody? Hmm.

First Grader Art

I had another letter from my first grader penpal today.  What a treat.  School recently ended for our American friends to the south (as compared to classes here in Canada, which continue for another few weeks) so this will probably be the last letter from my letter writing friend Britton. I did write him and say I'd be glad to hear from him over the summer but (a) I'm not sure my letter arrived before class ended (since I didn't realize class was ending for the year so soon until about a week beforehand, not sure that was enough time for my last letter to get there); and (b) he may not feel like writing letters while on summer holidays, so we'll see what happens.

However, the envelope I received today had a letter from Britton as well as a note from his teacher, thanking those of us in the National Letter Writing Group who had volunteered to correspond with Britton and his classmates.  Her letter says she believes letter writing is a lost art, so she teaches her students to write letters and they go to the post office (which is only a block away), buy stamps and send off the letters.  She said they usually write to a family member but she thinks the kids enjoyed doing this more.  Of course I was thrilled to be part of any project that encourages kids to write letters!

Best of all was this drawing Britton sent me of his classroom.  Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen? I love it!

Thanks Britton, for being such a great penpal! And congratulations on learning how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in grade one - I'm totally impressed!!

Yard Sale #1

My mom had a yard sale on Saturday. My sister and I stayed over at her house on Friday night and we all got up at the crack of dawn to start getting ready. It took 2 hours to carry everything out to the front yard.

The first early birder showed up at 6:20 and was told to come back at 8 a.m.  By then, we had filled the front lawn and lined things up along the driveway.

Turns out my mom has collected a lot of chairs over the years, who knew?

This little girl from across the street came over in her pyjamas and was delighted to find these wooden toys, some of which went home with her.

This guy with his saggy pants won the award for the weirdest yard sale shopper outfit.  I have never understood this trend and don't suppose I ever will.  Love the expression on my mom's face!

Many thanks to our neighbour Susan who made lunch for us and brought it over. We didn't get a chance to eat it until around 3 and by then, we were so hungry and tired, the tuna and egg salad sandwiches and homemade baking she'd brought over tasted even more heavenly!  

It was the perfect day for an outdoor sale, cool in the shade but otherwise sunny and warm.  Lots of traffic and we sold lots of stuff.  We had so much fun, we're going to do it again next weekend!