Pleasure in Memories

I was traveling last week, visiting my mom, and while I was there I made more doodles in my art journal. I also reviewed past entries and discovered some from July that begged for color, like this one of her hutch. Today I finished adding color to it. One thing I love about the ink doodles in my art journals is that I get to revisit each one and add fanciful color - or not - and when I do I take such pleasure in the childhood memories of meditative time and space invested in coloring books.

Peace.

A Little More Color

A couple weeks ago I met some friends at a tavern and being early I doodled a bit, while chatting-up the bartender. Today, between making phone calls, drying produce, cooking, preparing packages for the Post and listing new Spirit Cords I put a little color to that doodle.

That's what I made today. Peace.

More Color, Revisited

Today I relaxed a bit with artful activities. Aside from making time to work on my Sketchbook Project, I went back to another black and white page of one of my journals to add color, a page lovingly titled "Imagined and Not."

I enjoy this activity … for me it is akin to playing in a coloring book, much like I did as a child. You too, I imagine.

That's what I made today. Peace.

Time for Birds and Stems

Today I made time to revisit "Birds and Stems," a page from one of my art journals. Back in July I doodled with black pen in the pages and finally added some fanciful color. That's what I made today. Peace.

Dried Peppers

Hot peppers, I love them. These are cayenne, the kind my mom would string and dry and leave hanging in the kitchen, where she'd snip off what she needed from the bunch throughout the winter. I'm packing mine into an old, glass top quart canning jar. I have other varieties drying too, but these are the quickest driers.

That's what I made today. Peace.

Green Tomato Relish

Today I made 15 pints of green tomato relish, 14 for the winter pantry and one for the refrigerator for The Boy to enjoy right away. I made do with what I had on hand - plenty of green plum tomatoes, red and green sweet peppers, hot peppers, onions, celery seed, black mustard seed and some sugar, cider vinegar and salt.

I still have more green tomatoes and I think these will become green tomato ketchup, thanks to my brilliant plurkish friends! Peace.

A "Movie"

Today I made a promotional video for my little pieces of wearable art … Impressions of Nature ~ handmade jewelry at ArtFire. Take a peek!

Peace.

Dried Eggplant

I had so much beautiful. organically grown eggplant from a local farm that, aside from making grilled salad, antipasto, eggplant cheddar (a parmesan variation using sharp Vermont cheddar, (because that's what I had), I also dried a bit. Drying garden and farm harvests is a nice way to preserve foods for simple storage, and simple to do too. I am blessed with a plug-in variety dehydrator, but solar works too and even a low, low oven.

Yesterday I chopped the eggplant, salted and sweated it for a couple-few hours to release the excess moisture, placed them on my drying trays which were then popped into the dehydrator, set to about 130 degrees F where I let the magic happen until they were good and dried. Today I made a winter home for these little eggplant bits, which will now reside in my pantry chest.

These will be nice to rehydrate to use in cooking throughout the winter months, don't you think?

That's what I made today. Peace.