New Blogging Format Test Drive

 I had the idea a bit ago that if I inserted a bit of structure to my blog posts it might be easier to be consistent in my posting. So, here is me, trying that out.

Making: Currently I'm focused on this abstract embroidery piece. It's all in pinks, purples, and blues--colors I'm drawn to over and over again. I am following the shapes on the printed fabric mostly. The lines I've added so far weave in and out of the negative space and I've filled in some of the petals of the batik flowers, concentrating on highlighting that almond-like shape. It's slow-going because I only add a bit at a time, which feels like a fine pace for it at the moment.

Reading: I'm still in the middle of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I am re-reading in anticipation of reading James (Percival Everett). But I was waiting and waiting for the 7th Matt Dinniman dungeon crawler book, This Inevitable Ruin, from the library, watching my number creep ever higher in the hold-queue, when I saw that the e-book version was actually available without a wait. Which was weird because when I first looked at it, the line for that version was longer and waitier than the line for the print version, which is why I didn't bother with it. I guess they overestimated how long the wait would be for the e-book because now I'm finally getting my fix. (But I'm still number 2 in line for the print version and I'll switch when it comes in because e-books can trigger headaches for me.) This series is... something. I'm surprised by how much I'm liking it and I don't like having to wait between books. 

Watching: I recently returned to some 90's and 2000's era movies and watched Father of the Bride (which Netflix is insistent that I know is leaving soon!!!), 27 Dresses, and High Fidelity. I don't even know what to say about these movies except that they give me a straight dose of nostalgia that feels so good. Makes me want to do another re-watch of Friends or something.

Playing: We recently bought a board game called Hummingbirds, which involves a whole bunch of sand timers and magnets and is fast-paced and fun, while still being super simple to learn and understand. I didn't take a photo when we played, so I can't show you and fully fill out this section like I probably ought to, but I can always save that for a future blog post.

Listening: In my album-listening challenge, last week I was on "artists starting with X" so I chose an X Ambassadors album called Townies. I liked it enough to give it four stars out of five, but apparently haven't listened to again since, so... ?

Adventures: This section is for talking about places I went when venturing out into the world; "adventure" in both big and small interpretations. So, the most recent little outing I went on was to the Hoover Dam, with Pat, and I already showed one photo from that day. I don't have a lot more to say about it because it was very, very hot and we didn't stay that long. We live close, but it's been quite some time since we've been there. Here's a few more photos:

Okay, well, I did the format. I am not sure I did it justice, but maybe I can settle into it as I do it more. But, frankly, I'm not completely sold on it. We'll see. (I did have potentially some other categories to add as well and, again... we'll see.)

Loose Reading Challenges

 I wanted to write about a couple of reading challenges I've given myself. They're not part of my 52 for 52 Challenges. They're just kind of... some interests of mine that are guiding some of my reading choices. I also, every year, do a reading challenge called Around the Year in 52 Books. It's from a Goodreads group and every year they come up with a list of 52 prompts to fulfill using your reading choices throughout the year. I like to read at least a book a week and this gives me a good set of ideas to draw from when looking for books. These loose challenges are also something different from that.

Both of these kind of, sort of, follow from experiences I had while earning my college degree recently. In some ways, I was disappointed in my learning experiences and felt like some of my classes were too short to fully delve into the topics. The way these classes were set up, they were meant to be easily fit into the life of a working adult, so each semester was split into two seven week sessions. Ostensibly, they took the same material that would be in a longer class and just presented it all in a shorter period of time. Practically speaking, I'm not sure that's how it worked. I do think some content necessarily got lost in the shortening of longer classes. Then again, maybe it's just the nature of institutional learning. Maybe it's a me-problem. I'm an autodidact at heart and I think I learn better at a leisurely pace.

The first is an extension of a project I did for an English class. I was to create a public-facing piece of media on any topic of my choosing under the broad umbrella of literacy. I decided to create a blog about retellings. What I mean by that are fictional works that revisit older pieces of literature. Sometimes these works tell the story from a different point of view. Sometimes it takes the narrative further into the future than the original author brought it. There are all kinds of ways authors approach retellings. I read and wrote about a few of these (Wide Sargasso Sea which grew out of Jane Eyre and Vinegar Girl based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew) on a blog that I set up for that project, thinking I might continue with it even after the class was done, but I haven't. I don't expect that I will, but I am still interested in the concept. One book that I read after finishing the project that would have fit well was called Longbourn and it was inspired by Pride and Prejudice. It's the story of the servants of the house and takes place at the same time as the the events in Austen's novel. Those events serve as a backdrop, but the main story is completely different. I want to continue finding new examples of this and reading both the original work, if I haven't read it already, and the new spin. Currently I am re-reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in anticipation of reading James, by Percival Everett. (I read Huck Finn in school, but don't remember much.) 

The second loose challenge has to do with children's and young adult literature. I took classes on both topics and while I felt the classes were okay, I wouldn't say I got as much out of them as I was hoping to. So, I decided that I am going to read all of the Newberry Medal winners in reverse chronological order. So far, I have read the winners from this year and last year. I am sure I have also read some of the older ones previously, either in childhood/young adulthood or later with my kids, but I intend to re-read them when I come to their year of winning. What will I get out of this? A better understanding of children's literature and what makes it good, which will be helpful in my own writing journey, as well as, I hope, just a good reading time in general.

Blog Blog

 I switched the template of this blog, but it's still a placeholder at this point. I've been putting off and putting off and putting off changing up the look of it. I have used a couple of different plain white ones at different times, both of them un-customized default blogger templates. Whenever I'd actually look at the blog, I'd be reminded that I needed to prettify it. This, too, is a default template using one of the provided backgrounds. I mean, I like those poppies, but ultimately I want something more unique to myself.

The bones of this blog are Blogger bones. I use it because it's what I've always used. And I used to have no problem customizing the look of things. I don't know what my problem is now.

I've been blogging on this platform since 2002, apparently. I just went to look at my old (private) blog and I came across this gem:

"Today I ate at Long John Silver's for the first and last time."

And you know what? As of right now, that's 100% true. I'd like to congratulate past me for her prescience. 

If this post feels very filler-esque, it's because it is. I want to catch up on my challenges. I am determined to get to the point where I can go back to doing things on a weekly basis by the end of this month. In the meantime, it means my blog posts are both numerous and pointless. If it makes you feel any better, I have a Plan (with a capital P!) for when I go back to blogging weekly.*

*that is a joke, because I have never blogged weekly, blogging weekly is for people who have their shit together, and my shit, alas, is separate

Oh, and here is an Ordinary Beauty photo I forgot to share:

Thistle

Go Back to the Beginning

 In looking at my old writing books, I decided that the best way to deal with my lack of motivation to write regularly was to reach back into my past and try to tap into some of the enthusiasm and excitement I used to have about it. That book, What If?, that I talked about in my previous post was a book that I bought when the idea of being a writer was fresh and new and untainted by the harsh reality that writing is hard and getting published is harder. I was falling in love with words and relishing my own self-assigned brilliance when I was able to string those words together in a way that pleased me. 

The first exercise in the book involves writing a series of first sentences. These are just that, first sentences, with no expectation that you will take it any farther. It's about gaining experience in starting a story in media res, or in the middle. The most compelling stories are the ones that (ironically, for this post) do not begin at the beginning. When I was a teenager and had just purchased this book, I did this exercise a lot. It was fun and I enjoyed coming up with sentences that were surprising or funny in some way. 

To try to kick-start (again) a regular writing habit, I thought it would be a good idea to try to go back in my mind to that time, so I started by returning to that exercise. And it was fun! I enjoyed it. But I have to admit, I also had a hard time with it. There's something different about a middle-aged, jaded brain tackling this exercise as opposed to an optimistic young brain (that is, perhaps, obvious). I reveled in it then; I found it more difficult to get into the state of mind needed now. 

What is that state of mind? Open, careless, playful. That's where I need to be to write regularly because that's the state of mind that gives the practice a sense of joy. I need that state of mind for all of my creative endeavors, really. It's a matter of letting go of all the thoughts that bog my mind down (what will people think? is this too weird? nobody's going to get this) so that I can approach it weightlessly. Easier said than done.

Here is a photo I took yesterday that I will add to my Ordinary Beauty Photo Challenge. It's taken at the Hoover Dam. I don't consider going to the Hoover Dam to be ordinary, despite our relative proximity to it. But I wanted to look at some small un-noticed area and capture its beauty. Some small part of the whole that isn't the most obvious photo opportunity. I like the curved line of the shadow, the blues and greens, the tiny wavelets. 

Writers write.

 

This is a photo of all of the books about writing that I have collected over the years. Some of them I have read more than once. Some more than twice. Some I have never finished and at least one I never started. That one called What If? near the top of the stack was a book my high school English teacher used when she was teaching a unit on creative writing. She had a well-thumbed copy on her desk and I asked her about it, found it at the bookstore, and bought one for myself. One of the few teachers I had who left a lasting, positive impression on me. Just today I discovered that there is a longer, more involved version of that book that is used in college writing classes and I am tempted to get that to add to my pile. 

Where am I going with this blog post? I don't know. I've just been thinking about writing. I've been thinking about all the years in which I have wanted to be a writer and all the years in which I haven't written consistently. There have been huge gaps of time in which I didn't bother writing any kind of fiction at all. 

I started and finished 4 (maybe 5?) stories when I was taking a couple of fiction classes in my 40s that earned me a creative writing associate's degree. Over the past couple of years, I got a good start on a couple of different stories, but just that--starts. No finishes. Most of the time I don't even have starts. Most of the time I don't even have random exercises. 

I really want to change that. I really want to figure out how.

The Other Finished Objects

 My catch-up schedule (as referenced in the previous post) says I need to finish 3 creations each week in July. My previous post showed you one; here are the other two.

These two hoops are re-makes of a couple of hoops I made previously and sold. My customer (who shares my name and has an awesome collection of whimsical, colorful art on her walls) asked if I would revisit these designs. It's actually the first time I've re-made a cloudburst hoop like that. I usually just grab some fabric that catches my fancy and add elements as I go, without any definitive plan. I do think I prefer doing it that way more, but I also enjoyed the idea of re-creating something specifically because someone liked the original. And these two are designs that I really did love how they turned out the first time around. All in all, a good experience.

So, I'm going to make two posts, one after the other...

 I got to the end of June without catching up on my challenges, but that was fine because I did get closer. And, honestly, I was being a little unreasonable with the timeline anyway. Whatever. New plan! I'm going to catch up on all categories by the end of July! I made myself a little schedule that told me how many whatevers I needed to do/make/watch/listen to in each week and then promptly set about not doing them. Today is Thursday which is the last day of the week (you might think the last day of the week is actually Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, depending on your particular philosophy of day-counting, but you would be wrong--at least for the second half of 2026...hello, welcome to my brain), which means I can catch up to my schedule by catching up to this end-of-week checkpoint. Which means I need to make two blog posts today. I'm sure this all makes perfect sense to everyone in the world, including, and especially, to me.

I also needed to finish creating some object or other by the end of the day, so I wrapped it up with this beauty.

And by "beauty" I mean "nope" because, through no fault at all of the pattern, I did not do a very good job with this piece. As it's a holiday piece, you can probably tell there was some amount of avoidance going on with it, but what would you say if I told you I started this piece in 2022? Probably nothing, as it's not really that interesting of a fact. It was a free pattern meant to be done as an advent piece. You stitch one element every day of December until X-mas has arrived. Obviously, I didn't do that. I did a few elements, set it aside, picked it up years later, did a few more, set it aside... and so on. 

But it's finished now! Too bad my stitching is so inconsistent and weird. Too bad my color choices have created absolutely no cohesiveness whatsoever. It's done and it's going on the list. 

Finished Object and How Goes the Catching Up

 I posted this one the other day thinking I was finished, or possibly that it just needed a couple small things added and to shift the hoop frame because the top was off center. So I shifted and added and it turned out I actually needed to add quite a bit more. But it's done now and I'm calling it Orange Crush.

I'm currently stitching two additional cloudburst hoops that were a custom order of two designs I had previously made and then sold. This custom order made me think I could probably make a custom listing for this size of cloudburst hoop, made-to-order style, in which one can order from a variety of designs I have previously made. So I'm working on getting that together, but first I need to make sure I have the materials. Then I need to decide which designs to offer. I do not normally offer commissions or customs, because it stresses me out. But remaking something tried and true is different and something I think I can enjoy.

As for my catching up with my challenges, I am at the point where I need to catch up with my catching up. Oh, well. No matter what happens at least I have made progress. And I do think I will get to where I want to be by the end of the year.

Broken Records

 With an order that I took today, a custom request for two cloudburst pieces that are essentially re-making two cloudbursts I made in the past that sold, I have officially surpassed my highest year's revenue since I opened my Etsy shop. I won't mention what that amount is because my business is still really at the hobby level, but I just wanted to make note of it because having gotten to that point when the year's still not quite to the halfway mark feels really good. 

In other news, yesterday Pat, one of our kids, and I went out to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge for some nature therapy. It was over 100 degrees, but there was shade (in places) and a breeze so the heat didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There was a lot to see and hear (Merlin told me there was a Blue Grosbeak! (birds became interesting to us when we turned 50, that's just how it goes)) and I took the time to really notice the calm, peace, and happiness in my body that was purely the result of being in nature. Sometimes I think I forget how profound that feeling is and it surprises me when it washes over me again.

 

Packaging Personal Touches

 I've sent out a handful of orders in boxes that I upcycled by adding posca pen decorations to appropriate sized boxes I had received myself in the mail. I loved doing that and felt like I was adding a fun element for the person who had ordered my art. Not only did it give me a chance to reuse something that was essentially garbage, but it added something personal to the experience of buying some of my art.

Unfortunately I don't get appropriate-sized boxes that often. My usual go-to for sending out a piece of embroidery hoop art is a bubble envelope. But I want to keep my whimsy level sustained for all of my packages, not just some. So, I decided to pre-decorate a couple of them yesterday and today. The rainbow is cute, but basic. The butterfly, though--! I'm enamored with how that turned out. 

I'm going to work on creating a small stock of decorated packaging, so I have it ready for any and all sales. 

Games, Movies, Music

 I wanted to talk about some of my other 52 for 52s. These are the ones I didn't talk about in any previous blog posts because I was trying to keep the blog focused on art and creativity. But, a) I don't really want to limit myself like that anymore and b) watching movies, listening to music, and playing games is actually part of the creative process. It's part of the input phase. The things we experience go in and the creativity comes out. A creative person takes inspiration from all kinds of places and I don't want to discount that part of the process.

So, games. We have a lot of board games. This picture shows only some of them. Another couple of shelves were cut out of the picture. This picture actually kind of sucks, but I don't like to make a blog post without a photo, so...

We actually used to have more, but last year we did a challenge in which we played all of our games in alphabetical order (one game night per week, playing two each time--you can do the math) and we culled some of the ones we didn't like very much. We did that because we were feeling like we never got any use out of the games we had. We bought them, played them once, and then let them sit on the shelf gathering dust. And then when we did pull one out we'd say, okay now, how do you play this again? And we'd have to relearn it all over. (I mean for the more complicated ones--we do know how to play Uno.)

I was still feeling like I needed some structure to make sure that we made use of our game collection so I included it in my 52 for 52 challenge. One game played per week. Only, you know, I'm way behind. I'll get caught up by the end of June. Yesterday we played Uno and Scrabble. Today we played Tsuro, and in a few minutes we will play Kingdomino and Zombie Dice. When I say we, by the way, I mostly mean me and Pat (the husband), but occasionally our youngest joins in. 

Movies! I used to watch movies a lot more often. I have been feeling for a long time that I have let that particular pleasure of mine slip away. Maybe it's a problem of loss of focus due to too much social media. Maybe it's something else, I don't know. But when I was in classes at ASU finishing up my degree recently, I had more than one class that required me to watch some films and they kind of rekindled something in me. I have realized that I need to make time for watching movies. Time to appreciate the storytelling, the acting, the visuals. It can feel so good to just sit there after a good movie and let it settle in your brain. Again, I'm behind but working on catching up. Currently we have Apple TV (I like to rotate through streaming services) so I am trying to find films available there for these final days of June. So far, Pat and I have watched Outcome and On the Rocks. The first was okay, the second was better. To me, anyway. Pat thought On the Rocks was painfully boring.

And then there's music. We pay for a Spotify family account, but I feel like I don't listen to it often enough. Again, this feels like a thing that I used to enjoy more but that has inexplicably become something that I do less and less. It might have been a situation in which I listened to less and less over the years because it bothered the kids and the kids were who I was spending almost 100% of my time with for so long. But they've gotten older and I have more time to myself and listening to music isn't going to bother anyone, so I want to make it more of a habit. I'm trying to listen to both new-to-me music as well as tried and true stuff. I'm using the alphabet as a guide and listening to at least one album per week, with the first 26 weeks being albums whose title start with A, then B, then C, and so on, and the second 26 weeks I will listen to albums by artists whose names start with Z, then Y, then X, and so on. This is one 52 for 52 that I'm not behind on. I might list them all at the end of the year here, just for... I don't know, for the sake of something to post, I guess.

Back to the Challenges

 At the beginning of the year, I came up with a series of challenges, all related to the fact that I was turning 52 this year and there are 52 weeks in a year. 52 for 52. I intended to create 52 things (art/crafts), read 52 books (that's actually my usual goal number each year, so not exactly out of the ordinary), take 52 photos of ordinary beauty, blog 52 times, play 52 board games, listen to 52 albums, watch 52 movies, and...um, I think that's it? No, that's not it. I also wanted to write 52,000 words of fiction by the end of the year.

I have fallen behind on almost all of them. I have changed my internal rules about many of them. But, today I am determined to get back on track. There are 12 days left in June and when June is over, the year is halfway done. So, my plan is to use these 12 days to catch up on everything. Then I will get back to a more manageable weekly schedule for these things.

Except, actually, the writing. It was a really low bar I was giving myself there. 1,000 words a week is less than 150 words a day. For this one, to catch up, I'd rather just increase my word count goal for each day for the rest of the year. I subtracted the small amount of words I've already written from 52K, divided it by the number of days left in the year and came up with 245 words a day. I might/probably will write more about the writing stuff here later, but for now that's enough about that.

I've written about some but not all of these categories because I wanted to keep this blog focused on art and creativity, but I think I'm going to let go of those parameters and just let it be whatever it wants to be. Since I am going to need to write a blog post every day for the next twelve days in order to catch up to where I want to be on the blogging part of the challenge, I'll probably talk more about some of those other things soon. Or not. Who knows?

Anyway, I finished this hoop today.

Except for the part where I need to shift the fabric's position so the hoop hardware is actually on the top. Also, looking at it right now, I feel like I might want to add another orange bead in there. And one more sequin rain drop? Hm, maybe I'm not quite as done as I thought I was. Let's just say I mostly finished it.

I chose orange batik fabric for this because I was using one of my already wrapped hoops that I was recycling from a previous project. (I love glitter ribbon and need to get some more.) I started laying down tapestry wool French knots, ran out of what I was using, got some more, and only then realized that I was mixing blanc and ecru (white and a little less white). It was very subtle, but I could tell the difference in the colors when I looked at them in the light. I decided to lean into it and just make the whole cloud an even-ish mix of ecru and blanc and I think it turned out nice, though you can't even really tell from the photo. When looked at in the light, it reminds me of buttered popcorn. 

I know I've probably said it before, but orange isn't really at the top of the list in terms of colors I like to work with. But I feel like I've reached for it often enough lately that I ought to rank it somewhat higher. Orange can be really vibrant and lovely and I'm coming around to appreciating it more and more. Also, looking at this is making me think I could make a rainbow set of cloudburst hoops, maybe. Maybe. 

"Currents"

 

Okay! Now it's time to tell this one's story. I feel like I'm going to struggle because I'm not sure this one has as much of a story as the previous one. I don't want to go into the thinking behind every single minute decision I make on each piece, but I do want to hit the important bits. 

So, I started off with the blue ribbon-wrapped hoop. A while back I went through all of my embroidery projects that weren't either on my wall or in my shop and took a bunch of embroidery art out of the hoop frames they had been in. The embroidery itself either went into a pile which I will use to create... something (I'm thinking some kind of book so that I can look back at my embroidery journey) or, (not really that) sadly, to the trash. So I ended up with a lot of hoops available for re-use. Some of them had ribbon-wrapping, some didn't. This one did and the ribbon's color went really well with some green and blue batik fabric I had recently bought. 

The batik print was so pretty that I wanted to make sure to not fully cover it up with my designs and to just use it as a jumping off point for my stitching and line choices. 

I braided a length of tapestry wool in blue and aqua and messed around with the placement before stitching it down to the surface. 

After that there was a long period in which I didn't take any process photos, so no illustrations, sorry. In adding the line of tapestry wool and the stitched lines that followed I was attempting to follow the curves of the batik print as they already existed. I have a thing for swirls and whorls and spirals, so it was really pleasing to me to build upon the print. The center of the spiral on the fabric has a white spot, almost as if it is shining and that gave me the idea to place a nice, shiny, medium-sized, clear glass bead in that spot. 

As I continued to add elements, it occurred to me that the piece was reminding me of moving water. Specifically, it reminded me of the little pockets of life you can find in a stream or creek where the flow of water is slowed down into a little pool. I decided I wanted to call it something reminiscent of that and ended up with "Currents."

These little pockets are typically teeming with life and activity; tiny fish, dragonflies and other bugs, reflections and shiny pebbles. I wanted my piece to bring that to mind. I continued adding bits and pieces here and there, lines and swirls, beads and chain stitch sections, and a smattering of various types of shiny thread and sequins so that the piece would catch the light in places in the same way that the flowing water of a creek will catch the sunlight and toss it back toward your eye.

Sometimes it's really hard to know when a piece is done-done and this one, I think, is somewhat more minimalistic than other abstract pieces I have done. But it was very important to me to let the batik underneath shine through in all of its glory, as it was the thing that guided and inspired everything I did.

This piece took roughly 8 hours combined to stitch (I think, I'm actually pretty bad at keeping track). I'm super pleased with how this piece turned out. Green is not one of my go-to color choices, but this fabric was just calling to me. This piece will be listed in my shop by the end of the day. (6/9/26) 

The Observer

 For a long time I have wanted to use this space to tell the stories behind each of my art pieces. But there wasn't much art making going on to tell the story of due to most of my time being taken up with my return to college. I have finished that now, earned my bachelor's degree, and my art-making time has increased. I have even completed a few pieces of embroidery hoop art and so I will now tell the story of this hoop, which I am calling, "The Observer."

That there is me, with my art, including my face so you can see the artist behind the art, gathering up all my courage to do so because it makes me uncomfortable to put my face on the internet. Here is a better picture of the art itself.

I started stitching this piece in October of 2025. The idea was that I wanted to recreate a previous digital artwork of mine in embroidery.

I thought this particular piece would give me a good opportunity to practice layering several background fabrics at once. I've previously made pieces with layered fabric, but usually it's only two layers and this one required six layers. I had to figure out how to get all the pieces to stay where I wanted them to stay and how to make sure that the resulting bulk didn't make it impossible to close the embroidery hoop. 

I basted the layers into place and then used a wonky cross stitch to fully sew them together. I don't do cross-stitch, but I liked the way the lines looked as a row of little x's. 

And that was just about where things stopped. I set the piece aside and didn't pick it up again until March when I finally decided to add the sun. Five months she waited for me!

After that I dove in and started working on the swirls whenever I had some time to stitch. I decided to use different stitches for the swirls of each section and started off with a chain stitch (peachy-orange on purple) and then tried out a running stitch with alternating colors (magenta and purple on orange). Still, I was very nervous to add the girl because I didn't want to mess it up. I liked the way she looked in the digital art so much and I was worried I wouldn't be able to replicate that with floss.

But, bit by bit, she came along.

It was at this point that I started to think of this as a self portrait of sorts. She doesn't necessarily look like me, but I identify strongly with the way she's watching but not participating. I suppose it could be seen as creepy, but I prefer to think of her as blending into the background and observing. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I am not a joiner; in large groups I very much tend toward quiet observation. That's what this art represents to me: quiet observation. This is not a quality that is prized in our society. But, here there is no judgement around the fact that she blends into the background. She isn't unhappy to be there. She fits into her environment naturally. She observes and thinks. And if you are paying attention, you will notice her. Sometimes the insights she's gleaned during her observations will surprise you. She's worth seeking out.

After this it was just a matter of adding the rest of the swirls, which I did with three additional stiches (whipped back stich, stem, and split), and then the rays of the sun.

Once that was done I wanted to add some gold details with diamante thread. I wove gold into each ray of sunshine plus into each of the chain stitches that made up the main part of the sun. Then I added a line of gold to the tops of each mountain and the top of the observer's head, as if the setting sun were casting its last rays of light at the top of each curve. Golden hour.

And with that, the piece was complete! Another thing I want to start doing is keeping track of how many hours I spend on a particular piece, but alas, I didn't think to do so with this one. If I had to guess I'd say maybe... 11 hours total? Anyway, she's all backed with a signed piece of craft felt and she'll be available in my shop by the end of today (6/2/26). I hope you like her!

 I am currently dragging myself across the finish line where my college education is concerned. I am in the last couple of weeks of the last session of the last semester of my journey. On May 11th, I will have graduated officially and I will finally have a bachelor's degree. Will I carry on and get a higher level of education? I don't know. All I know right now is I'm a little bit over it. Ready to be done.

As such, my creative output has increased a bit in anticipation. I finished the cloudburst hoop I showed in my last post and now I am working on finishing a more involved hoop (I showed what I had done of it as well on the post before the previous one). I'm excited about diving back into things and devoting more of my time to my creativity. 

I know I haven't been posting weekly even though I said (somewhere) that I was going to. I know I haven't kept up with the challenges that I was so excited about at the beginning of the year. I struggle with this so much because I create imaginary situations in my head in which people are disappointed in me, rolling their eyes at my lack of follow-through. So my inclination is to come to this space with apologies and explanations, and I know that's neither necessary or helpful. I may or may not complete the challenges I set out for myself. My creativity will continue to exist in its own ebbs and flows (as I have remarked upon before) and absolutely nothing important (outside of myself) hinges upon it. Anyone who would look upon such things with judgement is not someone whose opinion would carry much weight with me anyway. So, why is it so hard to start strong, falter, and then show up again without apologizing for it? I do not know, but I am working on it.

Anyway, I'm going to share some of my photos over the past month or so with you and hopefully next time I come back to this space I will have a finished piece of hoop art to share. I've decided to switch up my rules on my challenges so that I end up with 52 [whatevers] by the end of the year because it will free me up from needing them to be completed in each particular week.

Cactus Bloom-to-be

Prickly Pears

Once Grand

Electric

Drive

Libe