Coloring Books

Yesterday I wanted to buy myself something fun and cheap. I was in a spending mood, which doesn't happen often, and while I wanted to satisfy the craving, I wanted to keep the cost in check. So I bought myself two coloring books and some colored pencils.

I used to color all the time with my grandmother. In fact, it's one of the few clear memories I have of her--outside of her threatening me with a hairbrush because I wouldn't take a nap. :) We had a kid-sized table--a pint-sized card table trimmed in green metal, complete with folding legs that liked to bite my fingers. She would settle herself down there with me--at some considerable effort--and we would color. It was there that I was taught about how small circles didn't leave lines and streaks, and that if you outlined with crayon inside the lines, you were less likely to go outside them. Of course her efforts always garnered my admiration and jealousy. Her encouragement brought me back the next time.

So I was thinking of her, as I haven't for longer than I like to admit, and I decided on two coloring books. These aren't anything like the Snow White and Mary Poppins ones I did with her. These are design books. Mindware makes them. Since I spend quite a bit of time listening and doodling in the evenings (hubby likes to talk, and I love to listen but my hands need to be busy while I do it) I figured this would be an ideal way to play with color instead of just lines and shapes.

Sometimes I need a visual outlet for the artist. I usually opt for words. Mostly because I haven't taken the time to work at honing the visual artistic skills I do have. It doesn't come naturally, but I'm convinced I could learn it if I had the time and access to good instruction. Cheap. At any rate, these books are perfect. One of them is called EcoLights. The images are stamped on vellum and have a stained-glass feel to them when they're finished. The second is from their Designs series: PrismDesigns. The finished products look like what you might see through a kaleidoscope. I did one of those last night, and it was a BLAST. Not only was it fun to see the image emerge, and imagine what it might be like in other colors, it was relaxing and my mind was free to think. (Hubby was not chattering! LOL!) Very soothing.

Love ya, Grandma Lewis.

We're Back in Business

I hope. No promises.

For the past week I've had trouble getting anything to upload onto my website, including blog additions and new prompts. But today the sun is shining, even though it's cold, and I feel better, and perhaps the world in general does too, because when I tried to log on today, it worked.

In my heart I know that the sun isn't shining everywhere, and that things are still going wrong somewhere, but days like today, after cold and rain and coughing and effort that produces no results, they feed that seed of hope. All of the sudden it's worth getting out of bed, and it makes sense to be busy while the effort produces the desired result.

But what should I fix for dinner???

Good grief, I get so tired of asking myself that question. I did plan a menu for this week, but not for tonight. LOL! What was I thinking? That they wouldn't be hungry. Ha! That there would be leftovers? Ha! Ha! That I could get buy without much effort after a heat-and-eat lasagna meal last night? Ha! Ha! Ha!

So I need something fast, healthy, lo-cal, and delicious. Ha! Ha! Ha! HA!

Oh, but workshop was great today. We didn't write but we did talk about editing, and it got me fired up. I have been working on Cousins, but since I finished the first pass, my mind was getting tangled on what was the next best step to take to start fine-tuning and polishing. Since we've had workshop, I know I need a timeline, detailed character profiles to make sure all the loose ends are tied up, AND a notebook to jot whatever else I want to fix down so it doesn't get all mixed up in what I'm trying to do at the moment.

I love writers! They are the most amazing people. Every time I think about quitting my hosting of the Wednesday writer's workshop, I have days like this to convince me of why it needs to continue. It's well worth any time or effort. And my heartfelt thanks goes out to all those who make that true.