Here are a few I gathered this morning:





I can’t believe it’s been a month since my birthday. I took Peter James to buy fishing gear for him for my birthday. We also ate barbeque at Midwood Smokehouse, his favorite, and one of mine. We’ve often celebrated my birthday with barbeque, but we didn’t get ribs this time. When Peter was little, he called ribs, “meaty bones, and we called him PJ.
We went to Bass Pro Shop, and I had never been. What a surprise! It was like a trip to a natural history museum! There were stuffed animals everywhere!


Not just these! I took loads of pictures, and unfortunately, the animals stood very still.











There was a tank with some live fish, and

a young fisherman, named Peter, got a new rod.
They also had candy, lots of it, and I got lemon drops. Peter had never had them, but found them to be “addictive!”
After dropping him off at home and slipping his sister some money for an upcoming trip, I took myself to Barnes and Noble.I got a couple of things for myself, and a book for Kent.

Guess which one?
Strangely, I like buying other people things for my birthday. These amazing chrysoprase beads are for Adrianne.

Adrianne and the grandkids gave me generous gift cards to Michael’s and Olive Garden. I’ve bought clearance paint and storage with the former! I’m saving the latter for mezzaluna and shrimp!
I took myself home and ate the piece of coconut cake the grandkid’s dad brought me.
It was a good day, so I decided, since it was the big 70, to expand it to a month. It’s been such a good one, I’ve decided to make it a Birthday Year, the year I turned 70. More about that, later.
diamond dot painting! This will be my first full page of dots.

I got this one to work on at the beach next week, if all goes as planned. It reminds me of some photos I’ve taken there.

It was only $5.99 on Amazon, and has everything I need except a pair of scissors.
There are no rhinestone dots to add the extra sparkle shown in the photo, but I have some in my stash leftover from my snowflakes project.
This is a huge project, and I do tend to tire of things quickly. I might have to take several beach trips to finish this one!
Here are a few of my own beach photos, the first two from Pawley’s Island, the last two from nearby Myrtle Beach, SC.




The only creative thing I did today was take the leftovers from this

and added some leftover pork tenderloin bits. It was so good heated over and stirred lightly. This is the Louisiana Style Shrimp Skillet, a new dish from Cracker Barrel. (We know how to celebrate an anniversary! 😋😉)
The dish is not photogenic because they forgot the rice. The original dish was a skillet of shrimp in an oily-looking roux. I added the requested rice and stirred it in before thinking to photograph it. ‘Still not attractive, but very delicious. It was even better with the congealed fat removed and the tenderloin added.
I found a photo of what it’s supposed to look like online.

And, speaking of photos, I took this one of a little pitcher of wildflowers I brought in, intending to gel print with them.

Now, I’m sorting through craft books and magazines. Most of them are keepers, though a few will go to the lending library of the local senior center.

So despite kitchen cleaning and fibromyalgia exhaustion, today has not been a total waste after all!
In the words of grief counselor/artist Karen McKoy, “I showed up.”
No chance to create, today. It’s our anniversary. We went to the Shiloh General Store in Hamptonville, NC, an Amish Market.

There’s a world of goodies in that store!

It’s also in a very pretty part of the world. I took some pretty pictures, too!







It was a very lovely day!
The dogwoods in front of my house have been glorious!






Now, the dogwoods are past their season. Surviving blossoms are pitiful.

I thought maybe I could use them to print on the gel plate. I used some blossoms to pull paint from the plate.

I used others like stamps, painting the bracts (petals,) and center.



The paint “celled” so badly, i kept adding paint till I produced this.

I’m anxious to pull this, but I can’t decide between light blue or a rich leafy green.
I also spent the better part of today dodging a telephone scam. Maybe that’s a craft, and I can find the energy to share that someday. For today, I’m exhausted.

I texted my across-the-street neighbor to tell her she had company.

They had come from the woods behind our house, gone down our side yard, and across the street to visit.
After looking to see if anybody was home, they wandered on around the neighbors’ house and into the woods behind.
Since everybody’s having ham or lamb tomorrow, it was safe to take a stroll!