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Saturday, May 16, 2020

News Trend What I'm Doing Lately|Actual

I suppose this reveals my nature as a true introvert, but I must say that I am digging the effect of our Covid-inspired Stay Home mandate on my creative energies. Without the distracting energies of jumping in the car and driving away every day, I'm bursting with extra enthusiasm for projects around the house.

Here's what I've got cooking these days:

Boring but necessary.

Back in January, when the sun still rose in the east, we finally bit the bullet and bought our home some much-needed new windows. Installation was originally scheduled for March 23 but for weeks now, my husband has been insisting that it would not happen like that in our post-corona world. Replacing windows is not an essential business activity, he reasoned. But it appears that Governor Inslee is down with home repair, because our windows were indeed installed right on schedule.

Which is the fun news. The less fun follow-up report is that I spent several days last week staining hundreds of feet of new woodwork, and that was just the beginning. Post-install, all of the new windows needed more attention from a paintbrush, and I spent quite a few hours of quality time over the weekend in painting mode. I'm extremely thankful to my fourth-born for helping me, and as of Sunday night, we are almost done!

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RFshIKs4ps9UFHurrXQCqwABNcATlPqm

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A long-overdue project whose time has finally come.

When my girls were little, I kept meticulous photo albums.

Editing down to the best of the best shots,

Arranging everything in chronological order, right down to the day.

Writing little notes in the comments section of the pages.

And the whole family - especially my daughters - have spent many a happy session flipping through those perfect pages and chortling over the childhood memories.

Then, around the early 2000s, the whole system went kablooey.

My trusty old-school Nikon died.

My daughters started taking a lot of their own photos and no longer wanted to pose for mine.

My brain filled with important homeschooling details designed to get my kids into college one day, and photo albums took a back seat.

As the years tumbled by, we all continued to take lots of pics. Our social media accounts and personal computer stashes overflow with beautiful shots, but I've never figured out a reasonable way to convert all that digital data into anything as simple and old-fashioned as a hand-held photo album.

I'm still not sure I have all the answers, but I've finally decided to start.

Though I'm hoping to eventually fill in the last ten or so missing years I'm going to start with the current year. After looking at a truly janggal number of options, I finally pulled the trigger on a versatile photo album that should be around for some years to come.

Then I bought a photo printer.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mTdIemHtfebkAulaEObe2da_x7PcRPrM https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=124MYUen4gce4c9As9Vn4cOKzyLd4U1xA

Again, I studied the options in digital photo printers for quite some time before deciding on this one. The reviews that raved about color quality won me over, and after setting up the printer over the weekend and running a few test shots, I must say I'm impressed too.

Now I've got everything I need to start pumping out the next generation of family photo albums. Let the giggles begin!

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Art to feed my soul.

My brain is pretty much always percolating with ideas for making art. Though there are usually a half-dozen solid candidates milling around in my mind while I try to find time, every now and then, an newcomer will catapult straight to the front of the line.

So it was the other night when I came across this amazing three-dimensional sculpture-ish gem online, it was crazy mad love at first sight.With a head full of dopamine, I ordered the balsa wood and promised to make this before anything else.

Cannot wait to create its insane geometric beauty.

And then, because I'm pretty sure we will still be in lock down, I will find some other things to do.

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Read more stories about life with Covid-19 here in suburban Seattle:

Sitting Pretty

Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter

Our First Church

Silver Linings

Hopes And Dreams In The Silverware Drawer

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher: Midterms

Keep Life Simple

What I'm Doing Lately

Do Dinner

Covid Cleaning

Gracie's And My Daily (Socially Distant) Walks

Life Of A (Socially Distant) Math Teacher

Miracle Of Light

Social Distancing In My Dining Room

Social Distancing In My Kitchen

We're On The Road To Shambala

Sunshine And Disco Balls

Feel Better

Covid-19 Is For Real

A COVID-19 Update

Checking In From Coronavirus Central

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