We are celebrating seven years of blogging this month. Wickeds what are you doing to keep your spirits up? Is it anything different than you’ve done in the past?
Jessie: I’ve been working on a 100 Day Project of learning to sketch with pen and watercolors. It has been tremendous fun and I have derived so much joy from learning something new !
Edith/Maddie: I think I need to take up watercoloring. I’m not doing anything new, but I am watching more shows with Hugh and reading more, which is kind of a treat. And we played Farkle with our young friends (now 11 and 14) via Zoom last week, which was almost as fun as it is in person.
Liz: I wish I had time to take up something new! Trying to keep my head above water with the day job and my deadlines. I am taking more walks with the dogs as the weather gets nicer, which is lovely.
Julie: I’ve been busy teaching and helping folks learn Zoom and figure things out. I’ve also launched a new program to help people write their books, called Muse Mapping for Writers. Plus trying to learn my ukulele. Fascinated by Jessie’s lessons. I’d love to learn more.
Barb: I’ve been in book jail with Maine Clambake #9, Shucked Apart, so life hasn’t been too different from normal book jail. Our two “roommates,” my niece and her best friend, have been taking their college courses online. I’ve handed in the book and they’re just about finished with school, so I think change is in the air. I hope it coincides with the arrival of a late New England spring so we can all get outside more.
Sherry: I love the new things people are trying. I haven’t tried to learn anything new as yet. I have been doing more crossword puzzles. We’ve also been watching more documentaries than normal. There’s a series called Aerial America that is interesting. The one on Idaho was stunning! We also have Aerial Africa recorded to watch. They are on the Smithsonian Chanel — https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/aerial-america/701. We also watched a show about super volcanoes that featured Yellowstone. Reading continues to be my escape.
Readers: What have you done that’s new to you or what do you continue to do?
Jessie, that 100-day watercolouring project sounds so cool!
Barb, congratulations on submitting book #9 and getting out of book jail!
Me, lots of cooking and baking, both new and old recipes.
And I found 1000s of (hard copy) photos from the 1990s that I forgot I had when I was searching for my Paris photos for a guest blog piece I wrote. I am planning to SLOWLY scan/save them, and start a new scrapbook/travel journal of memorable trips.
That sounds like a great project, Grace!
Packing and getting ready to move to Virginia. If we weren’t doing that, i would have ordered one of those paint by numbers kits and I would be doing that. They look like so much fun! But they will have to wait until after we move, possibly into our condo or house, since we will be renting first.And I have a jigsaw puzzle that’s calling my name, but again, packing and culling our belongings comes first.
Good luck with the packing! I think those paint by numbers look fun too!
I got a paint by numbers set to help keep me occupied while convalescing from getting my tonsils out! It was a tiger. I was 6, and I was so excited. And it is the ONLY thing about getting my tonsils out I actually remember. 🙂
I haven’t done too much new. I have deadlines, so still writing. I did do an Instagram Live yesterday. I’m not that comfortable being on camera, so that was different. I’d love to dig my counted cross stitch out of the closet, but there’s a big piece of furniture in front of the door.
I’m so sorry I missed that, Liz!
I’m sorry I missed your Instagram Live!
Jigsaw puzzles— great for working out plot points as I’m writing the fifth Nora Tierney English Mystery. Happy 7th!
Hubby and I love photography. Thankfully, we live on a small tract of land outside the city with many daily critter visitors that give up lots of photographic opportunities. We also love to bake, but with only the two of us, we would soon be wider than tall if we baked all the time. Taking photos has no calories. 🙂
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I “need” to make a cake today for my Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen gig on Friday. Hugh will be happy, and I’ll be a pound heavier!
Great big salute to all of you learning something new. Mostly the opposite, I find I don’t want to learn new things. My brain already feels overloaded by this pandemic experience altogether, plus trying to write something completely new and different for me. In what must be a first, I am even having trouble concentrating on reading. So I cook and bake and nap and watch food shows and Amazing Mrs. Meisel and musicals when I can catch one. But I did a few chores: cleaned up and renovated the large dollhouse my dad made for my daughters a lifetime ago, so my little granddaughters can now use it more easily. It was fun to order tiny replacements for some of the lost items! And we sorted through my deceased mother-in-laws photos that my husband brought from her apartment. Someday we might get to my moms…
It’s sounds like you are keeping busy in new ways! I love that you have the dollhouse — I’ve always loved them.
I’m like Liz. Between working from home and my blog, life doesn’t seem that different for me. I am finding more time/motivation to read, so I am getting more read than normal, which is nice for the TBR mountain range. With my normal TV shows being sporadic/ending early, I’ve been rewatching my Mary Tyler Moore season 1 DVD’s and some movies I’ve been wanting to rewatch, which has been fun. Some friends are doing a rewatch of Once Upon a Time. We’re up to 3 episodes a week, and we comment on it in a Facebook group, which is also nice.
So nothing new, just enjoying some of my hobbies in a new way, I guess.
I love the Mary Tyler Moore show — how fun to watch it. And Once Upon a Time! I’m glad you have more time to read!
Congrats to Barb for finishing book #9.
I haven’t taken up any new projects, but I have had the time to learn more about technology – at least as a user. I’ve recently set up Zoom so I can meet with my book club, and Venmo so I can send money to my daughter who is working two temporary jobs and still having a hard time. Her well-paying job bit the dust with the CV (and, because of it’s nature, it won’t come back.) I feel good about these things because it proves you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
In the meantime, I’m scratching away at the TBR pile, and loving doing jigsaw puzzles all night long, if I desire.
That is great that you are learning new things!
Besides learning new recipes, I’ve been trying my hand at watercolors. Who knew the paints also came in tubes!
I’m also continuing to read for fun!
You are brave — watercolors seem so hard!
Congrats on sticking it out. Love your blog and all the wickeds books!
Great prep for these special days. Sticking it out is what we do, what we need.
I’ve been combining audio books with gardening and spring cleaning.
That sounds like fabulous ways to stay busy!