GenX

Just buy it!

~ MaryG ~ Leave a comment

What’s one piece of travel advice you always follow?

I’m not a giant spender while traveling, but if something strikes my fancy and will fit in my luggage, I buy it on the spot. I’ve never regretted it.

If you hem and haw and think you’ll have a chance to return to that exact same spot and buy it later, you’re probably wrong.

If you’re in a foreign land and a locally made item beckons to you (and you can afford it), just pull the trigger. The item will always remind you of that place and of that trip. It’s special.

Bud vase I bought spontaneously while on a tour of Dingle Crystal in Ireland. Sure, I could’ve ordered this online when I got home, but I wanted that exact one.
Bonus, the artist/designer signed it for me because he was standing right there.

Full disclosure, I put this tiny crystal vase in a carryon (my only bag) and TSA thought it looked like a hand grenade or something and made me unpack my entire bag. Very annoying! Even so, I’m glad I bought it IN the factory IN Ireland.

An artisan working at Dingle Crystal, County Kerry, Ireland

Life is short. If you are fortunate enough to get to travel abroad, make the most of it. Support the places you visit by buying their wares and bring home something so much more meaningful than your next Target or Amazon purchase.

AMERICANS: History has its eyes on us.

VOTE!

It’s crockpot and voting season

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

It’s 28 degrees Fahrenheit at 7am here in eastern Massachusetts. The sun is just coming up.

Crockpot season has begun.

Last night was the second time my husband made this NYT recipe. It was better this time, because he dumped out the extra bacon fat before frying the mushrooms in it.

NYT Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore with Mushrooms and Bacon

It was my idea to serve it over polenta, which we happened to have on hand. It was excellent that way.

The US midterms are NINE days away. Americans should vote as if their lives depend on it, because they literally do. The current regime is wildly corrupt and incompetent in a way that defies comprehension. I believe the entire world is on the brink of a truly terrible time if it is not stopped.

Donald Trump should be impeached and tried for treason.

The latest on Iran.

Watercolor bootcamp – part 2

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments

This week our watercolor drill sergeant made us copy a colorful abstract collage. The point was to recreate each color as accurately as possible. It was really hard!

I did OK on the color matching but got disapproval for using “subpar” paper which created all those streaks. (I didn’t want to waste my expensive paper on what was essentially an exercise.)

The homework was to paint a still life comprised of colorful objects, getting the colors as close as possible. Again, hard.

Here’s my homework. I’m pretty happy with it although the yellow is not right. I think I went too light on the yellow because I knew I was going to paint those flowers over it. (It would’ve been too much work to mask out that whole flower area. )
Here’s what I was looking at—a collection of objects from China and Japan that
I happened to have in my house.

In other exciting news: I decided to move all my painting and drawing stuff out of the dining room and into an extra bedroom upstairs. So I guess I have a “studio” now.

Cute bedroom with nice light that nobody ever used
This is not ideal, but it’s better than the dining room. That card table I’m painting on was my parents. I think it was made in like 1960. It has some sort of faux leather covering that smells moldy. I need to get rid of the daybed and get a new, larger table.

Related post:

Watercolor bootcamp

Watercolor bootcamp

~ MaryG ~ 29 Comments

I’m now embarking on Year 2 of my watercolor “journey” 😉

After two sessions of “loosen up with watercolors,” I signed up for something called “watercolor bootcamp.” I probably should’ve taken this class first, but the description scared me off. It’s a watercolor techniques class with heavy emphasis on color theory, color mixing, etc. We spent a whole three-hour class mixing greys. There is homework. There are in-class critiques of the homework.

The very first homework assignment was to do a monotone (one color) painting of three objects with a clear light source.

I used Payne’s Gray.

For this week, we had to do a “complementary color” painting. So two colors that sit across from each other on a color wheel. (Red/Green; Yellow/Purple; or Blue/Orange)

I used only Rose (Red) and Phthalo Green to paint these hydrangeas.

I didn’t spring for all the expensive professional-grade paints that are on the syllabus. (There’s a syllabus!) I’m using what I have and will buy new stuff as needed. Jury is out on whether I’m going to like this class. It’s a bit intense so far. Bootcamp.

Kimmel

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

Which celebrity would you love to meet, and what would you talk about?

Nobody is highlighting the absolutely ludicrous, delusional, bloviating egomaniacism of the President of the United States quite like Jimmy Kimmel. The emperor has no clothes.

Long live Jimmy Kimmel.

Also, like the rest of America, I was sad to see Kimmel’s sidekick (and former parking lot security guard) Guillermo get sent home this week on Dancing with the Stars. He was a joy to watch. And so was his pregnant dance partner Whitney.

Dessert guy

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

What does it mean to be a good person I want to hang out with?

View all responses

I don’t feel qualified to say who is “good,” but I can tell you that one quality I appreciate in a person is the ability to enjoy dessert.

“I don’t like sweets.”

“Sugar is bad.”

“I’ve never even tried hot fudge.”

“Those are just empty calories.”

And the worst one of all:

“No birthday cake for me.”

Diabetics get a pass, but generally these are the types of statements that have me looking over your shoulder for someone else to talk to. Enjoy your marathon training or whatever. Imma go talk to the happy laughing people on the porch eating cake.

It took quite a while, but I finally turned my husband into a true dessert guy. He’s disappointed if we don’t have anything homemade on hand for dessert.

Yesterday, he spotted a 3-ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe in the NYT and then just whipped them up — all by himself. I now feel I have succeeded in life. I will not grow old eating dessert all alone, with another person sitting right there.

The three ingredients are: one egg, one cup peanut butter, and half a cup of sugar.

Here’s the recipe from New York Times Cooking:

NYT Cooking PB Cookies.pdfDownload
It only makes 9-10 cookies, but they’re big and pretty fudgy.
The recipe says you can flatten or not flatten. He flattened them a bit and baked for 15 minutes. They puffed up just a bit.
Verdict: GOOD, especially warm with milk

Greece and virtual travel

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

What’s a country that’s at the top of your bucket list?

I’m not sure if or when I’m ever going to make it back to Europe, but I’d like to see Greece in person before I kick the bucket. I was a history major in college. I want to see the birthplace of Western civilization. Also, I hear the food is amazing.

In the meantime, we’ve been doing some “virtual travel” through a company called Indigare. The trips are offered to us as a free benefit through our bank. At first, I thought that this was just a sad holdover from the pandemic lockdown and the “tours” would be totally lame. But I’ve actually enjoyed these virtual trips, which include a private tour of a major site, followed by live Q & A with scholars and experts. I always like it when I ask a question (in the chat) and they answer it live. It’s done through Zoom.

So far, we’ve done virtual tours of:

Machu Picchu and the lesser-known Inca ruins of Chachabamba with famed explorer Peter Frost

UNESCO’s Alhambra (Spain’s Royal Masterpiece) in Granada

Olympia, Greece: The Birthplace of the Olympic Games

India’s Architectural Masterpieces: the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Itimad-ud-Daulah (the Baby Taj)

King Tut at the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids in Egypt

Next up is “Japan’s most extraordinary art destination” this Thursday at noon.

Aaaaah, no airports, no jet lag, no huge bill$, just a fresh cup of coffee and expert tour guides showing me something really cool.

Alhambra (image from Pexels)

Solar ON

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

As of yesterday morning around 10am, our new solar panels are ON and doing their thing.

There’s an app that shows us exactly how much energy our panels are producing in real time.

Also, we voted. Our ballots are in the mail. Massachusetts had a record nine ballot questions this time, which is ridiculous. The single most ridiculous question was about repealing our wildly popular recreational marijuana law, which passed in 2016.

Hard NO on Question 8.

Almost time to harvest our homegrown weed

Harvest morning

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments

Tell us about your morning routine.

My morning routine is get up, drink coffee, read stuff, write stuff, do word games, and generally live the leisurely life of the retired.

Yesterday morning (and by morning, I mean slightly before noon) I went out to the new vegetable garden with my husband and he harvested some lettuce, which we ate in a salad last night, so that was exciting.

Bibb lettuce
Swiss chard is not ready yet
We’ve had a few radishes already

This morning, I’m going to go get a flu shot at CVS. Woohoo! Exciting day 😉