Zentangle Challenge #41 - Duo Tangle - Jonqal/Opus

This week's Diva challenge was another tangle combination - Jonqal is the straight one, and Opus is the curvy one. It was fun to think about for a few days, and today I finally got a chance to play with it. I was almost all done, when for some reason I checked the instructions for Opus again. My memory had failed me, so I had to start all over! Having to do another Zentangle is not the worst punishment in the world -- just another excuse to listen to classical music and go off into a world of peace, calm, and meditation. Hooray for Zentangles! Check out iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com to see entries from around the world. Just click on each name and be delighted! You can also get the directions for the two tangles there.

234 - 235 Fun Things to Do!

234 - I recently met a delightful college student who told me that she does Origami, and when she is taking a class that is a little challenging, she hides an Origami paper crane somewhere in the classroom so she can see it every time she arrives. I wanted to hug her and jump up and down when she told me that, because it is one of the most original and creative fun things to do I have ever come across in my 1,000 Fun Things to Do challenge! It wouldn't have to be a college classroom either, you could put a paper crane in all kinds of places. Paper cranes signify peace and hope. Hooray!

235 - Take up bricking! I had a wonderful conversation with a gentleman recently who collects bricks, and he calls that "bricking". He has been collecting for years, and he and his wife have a 3 foot wide walkway paved with the bricks he has collected. He told me all kinds of interesting information about bricks. For example, bricks on a street are vitrified to stand the heavy use. Vitrified means that the brick is exposed to extra heat to give it a glasslike substance. He also said that you can tell really old bricks because they are have raised lettering on them, while newer ones are engraved. Buildings are usually made with regular bricks, but sometimes with vitrified bricks. I always enjoyed bricks, but now I enjoy them even more!

If you have any fun things to add or any remarks, please click on comments. I would love to hear from you!

Zentangle Challenge #40 - Pinwheels for Peace!

There is an amazing website called Pinwheels for Peace. It originally started as an art installation organized by two high school teachers in Florida. They used the project as a way to teach kids how to express their feelings about the world and what's going on in it. Since then, it's grown from 500,000 pinwheels the first year to 3.5 million last year!! On September 21 of this year, millions of pinwheels were revolving for peace! Last week's challenge on iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com was in memory of 9/11 and was an international response of love. This week's challenge is a wonderful follow up -- peace! If you go to the Diva's blog, just click on each name for challenge #40, and you will see exciting entries from around the world. Thank you, again Diva Laura, for another week of Zentangle inspiration.

231 - 232 Fun Things to Do!

231 - Make a foamie house -- with a child, or by yourself! Usually foamie houses come with lots of little pieces, and no directions except a couple of pictures, so they can be a little challenging. Where's the fun in that, you might ask. The big fun comes when you finally figure out what odd part goes where, and the house is finally standing on it's own, ready to decorate with foam stickers, and foam pieces that need to be glued on! Here are our grandsons, Nate and Andrew, with our triumphant Happy Halloween House. There was another fun part -- the house was on sale half price! Hooray!

231 - Do bunny ears behind someone's head when they're getting their picture taken! If you look closely in this picture, Andrew (on the right) is doing bunny ears behind Nate's head, and his own head, too. If you even more closely, you will see that Nate is doing bunny ears behind the Halloween house!

220 - 230 Fun Things to Do!

220 - Ride on a ferry to an island! My friends, Linda, Rose, Kathy and I (foreground to background) took a ferry to Kelley's Island recently as the beginning of a day long adventure we will never forget.

221 - Buzz around on a golf cart that is not on a golf course. On Kelley's Island, there seemed to be more golf carts than cars, and it was a slow and friendly way to tour the island.

223 - Go to a winery for a tasting. It's fun to have a little sip of different kinds of wines. I bought a bottle of Shiraz at Mon Ami Winery on Catawba Island for my Dad and had to be sure it would be good enough for his refined tastes!

224 - Get a glimpse into a stranger's wedding. We got to see three different weddings in various stages. Of course, the most exciting thing is spotting the beautiful bride. We even got to see the bride and groom posing for pictures. It's even fun to be driving down the street and see a wedding party coming out of a church.

225 - Try something you think is impossible! What's the worst that could happen? You might not achieve it exactly the way you might have hoped, but I bet you would learn some interesting things along the way! And if you did do your impossible goal -- that would be a hoot and a holler, wouldn't it?

226 - Write something that is bothering you on the bottom of your shoe and then stomp your foot! Thanks to Lizzie for this great idea!

227 - Take photographs of your shoes. Your shoes have a lot of memories in them, and in ten years, you won't have them any more. I bet it would be interesting to look back at that pair of shoes you wore to your brother's wedding, for an important job interview, or when you proposed to your girlfriend!

228 - Take a spontaneous road trip! Plan an afternoon or a day and take off by yourself, or with friends, and explore some new territory. I know someone who loves to take off in his car and just meander around for a couple of hours, making turns here and there, with no destination in mind. He loves to see where he will end up. Then he uses a map to find his way back home.


229 - Photograph a flower when it is not at it's peak! Sunflowers are always fascinating to me, in all their stages of development. This one is the sunflower stalk that the deer left alone, so it is very precious to me.


230 - Take pictures of your garden every year. Even though the deer ate the main stalks of every single plant in my sunflower garden except one, the remnants of the plants they left sprouted sunflowers! Here is my miracle sunflower garden - 2011!

Zentangle Challenge #39 - Love is All You Need

In a response to the ten year anniversary of 9/11, this week's challenge is about love. Love is an antidote to hate, and also for all the love that was shown by firefighters, police officers, other rescue people, and how ordinary people in a disastrous situation helped each other, often reaching out to complete strangers. 9/11 is a reminder to us all about how precious life is, and how fleeting, and to keep love in our hearts for each other always.

218 - 219 Fun Things to Do!

218. Take a picture of a sunflower, especially one you've grown yourself! After two years of having vegetable gardens ravaged by deer, I looked on the internet to find deer resistant flowers to plant. I was thrilled to find that deer do not like sunflowers. Apparently, they must not like the sunflowers when they are in bloom, but they sure like the leaves and the stalks as they are growing! After the deer dined on my sunflower garden time and time again (even after I put out deer repellant and hung soap from hooks), I was left with one lone tall, untouched sunflower! Here it is in all it's majesty! But miracles started happening with the short nibbled down leftover sunflowers -- buds started appearing on the stems, even though the main stalks had been eaten! So I may have a sunflower garden with more than one sunflower after all!

219. Create a songbook! This morning I was getting ready for the day, when from nowhere, I started singing -- "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!" and I knew that I was going to have a terrific day! I was thinking how much I love that song, and how many songs mean so much to me. Then I remembered getting the lyrics to some of my favorite songs on the internet, so now I am going to create a songbook with the lyrics to songs that have been so meaningful to me over the years. It will be fun to gather them, to review them, and even to sing a few now and again when I am by myself.

213 - 217 Fun Things to Do

213. Have a slow/busy day! This weekend was hectic, and today is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. with lots of work responsibilities and a Zentangle (zentangle.com) class. It will be a great day, but a busy one, and while I was in the shower, I was trying to figure out how to get everything done without feeling overwhelmed. So today will involve classical music, cups of tea, reading break, perhaps a short walk and whatever little snippets of calm and peaceful short activities I can sandwich into the busy busy busy.

214. Appreciate your shower! I don't know what it is about having water cascade down upon my head, but it often gives me ideas, eases my anxieties, or lifts my spirits somehow! I usually leave a shower invigorated in one way or another! Someone once asked me -- who is in the shower with you? I thought that was an unusual question until I realized that sometimes when we are worried about something, or someone, we think about those situations and people while we are in the shower. That simple question has helped me clear my shower out so I can have full enjoyment without the company of other people's words or worry about things over which I have no control. There are times, however, when the shower is the perfect place to come to unexpected solutions to problems that seemed unsurmountable before. Hooray for the shower!

215. Look at your baby pictures! We were all darling babies once and most of us have pictures to prove it. You might want to frame one of your childhood pictures, or even do a collage frame with several of them. Honor your babyhood!

216. Go to the drive-in movies. I hope you still have some in your area. What a fun thing to do on a summer's night! Pack up some goodies, fill up your car with friends, or have a romantic date, and head on out to the biggest screen of all!

217. Eat at a drive-in restaurant. Root beer stands and hamburger joints still have drive-in restaurants all over the country. It's fun to eat in your car, listen to some music, and enjoy the company of fellow car diners.

Zentangle Challenge #37 - Kiss My Grids!

My friend Jean Rogers, who is also a CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher), just had knee replacement surgery. She just got home from rehab yesterday, so tonight we had a picnic dinner and did the Zentangle challenge for this week together. Even though we were in the same room, we sure came up with very different interpretations -- which was a big part of the fun of our Zentangle evening! The challenge this week was to put a grid on a string (the string creates the area where you put your tangles, which are the patterns). Jean and I both love grid tangles, so we we really enjoyed seeing how our Zentangles developed. Jean named her creation, "What's New Pussycat?" and added color with watercolor pencils. I even created two new tangles -- Pleez on the bottom, and Flex on the top -- at least they are new to me! Thank you, Laura for another great challenge!