Arizona Trip - Part Three

     Day three was a Saturday and the plan for the day was to head to our cousin Norrie's home in Arizona City which as you can see by the map below was a little more than 1 hour away from Copa's home in Phoenix. You can see where cousin Stella lives in the top left corner in Surprise. They are very lucky to all live so close to each other. 

    Lucy was again our designated driver and it was so nice getting to spend so much time with her. Once we girl cousins grew up and started getting married and having kids we stopped having time to really get together, seeing each other only at wedding, funerals and family reunions. Now as we've gotten older, our kids are off on their own, we have all grown so close and I'm so happy that has happened. Below is a picture of my mom's parents and her siblings, minus Uncle Tino who was missing from this picture and Aunt Eliza who had passed away several years earlier.

L-R: My mom Tomasa, sisters Casimira, Leonor, Herminia, Maria, brother Jesus (brother Tino was missing), sisters Elena, Nicolasa and their mother and father celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary, Tomasa and Eustino.

    Back to the plan for the day. Norrie had offered to take us to the Tucson Museum of Art and after the museum we were coming back to her home to have dinner with more cousins.

    The Tucson Museum of Art was amazing! Aside from seeing all my beautiful family members, this was my favorite thing to have done in Arizona. What made it even more special is that Norrie had not told us that our Aunt Ninfa was coming with us. Aunt Ninfa is the widow of our Uncle Jesus. In the photo above he is the tall man with the black hair in the middle. 

At the Museum: L-R Me, Aunt Ninfa, my sister Lisa, our cousins Norrie and Lucy

    Aunt Ninfa is an amazing, loving, generous, funny, beautiful woman and big part of many of my childhood memories. She was the first person to ever make me a grilled cheese sandwich and served it with dill pickles...I still eat it that way to this very day. I was so happy that we were going to share this day with her.

Tia Ninfa surrounded by amazing artwork. She is a very devout Catholic and any image of the Virgen Mary is special to her.

    We no sooner got there and started walking around when we got in trouble! There are no signs anywhere that you CANNOT TOUCH THE ARTWORK! I won't name names, but a few of us (not me) touched the artwork. Security quickly came and asked us not to. Some of us forgot and continued to do so...that's when a security guard had to start following us. Once she saw that we had learned our lesson she quit following us. At the time I was mortified, I'm a rule follower, but now I can laugh about it.

Aunt Ninfa was very interested in these. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign that said what these are and who the artist was but they appeared to be very old and I'm assuming they are beaded leg coverings for Kachina Dancers. They looked as though they are made from some type of animal hide and beading, they were amazing. 

    There was a lot of Arizona type art and I will do a separate post with photos of the artwork that I took; in this post I mainly want to post photos of Tia Ninfa and the cousins enjoying the museum.

Tia Ninfa standing in front of another religious piece of artwork. She really loved this one.

Me and Tia Ninfa. I love this lady so much! I really need to remember to take my purse off when I take photos!

My sister Lisa with our Aunt Ninfa. Both so photogenic, loving the look on Tia Ninfa's face in this one. 

Lisa taking a picture of me while I took a picture of her. The artwork is canes that have been painted and bent. My favorite thing about this photo is Cousins Lucy and Norrie and Aunt Ninfa behind the wall laughing at us crazy California girls!

Cousin Lucy and my sister Lisa posing in front of photo of Lucille Ball cooking. This was a special piece of artwork for Lucy because of the name and for Lisa because she adored Lucille Ball and the I Love Lucy Show. 

Photo of me taken by Lisa in front of the canes. You can see the canes much better in her photo.

Photo taken by Lisa, L-R: Cousin Norrie, Aunt Ninfa, Me and Cousin Lucy

Is she beautiful or what! Tia Ninfa on the ride home, tired but happy!

    After we had seen all that we wanted to see at the museum, Norrie took us to a little cafe next door to the museum called Cafe a La Cart. She had planned for us to have lunch there before heading back to her house. What a great idea! We loved it, so cute!

    We all decided to have the Chilled Artisan Tomato Soup and Salad. Aunt Ninfa said she just wanted a bowl of soup so I told Lisa who was placing our order, that Aunt Ninfa could have my soup and I just wanted the salad. Lisa didn't feel that was enough food, so she order the Chilaquiles for the table. 

Chilaquiles

    When Aunt Ninfa saw the Chilaquiles she said "I want that!" So we told her she had ordered the soup and tried to put the soup in front of her and she said "No, I want that!" We all thought that was hilarious and she could have the world if we could give it to her, so we let her have the Chilaquiles and I have never seen anyone enjoy food as much as she did. It was a joy to watch her eat, she cleaned her plate!

    We had a wonderful drive home, it was so nice for me to have someone else drive. Once we got to Norrie's house we helped her get things ready. I was put in charge of making the Sangria! I had never made a Sangria but I found a simple recipe online and I made the best darn Sangria ever, in my humble opinion!

Sangria - wine with fruit. The cookies pictured were purchase at the little Cafe in Tucson and we had leftovers so we cut them in quarters so everyone could enjoy them. 

    I wish I had taken pictures of the food that Norrie and our cousin Michael had made for us. I know there was Mexican rice and beans and three different types of Enchiladas. The typical red enchilada, a green enchilada with chicken and what they called an Enchilada Sonorense which is a stacked enchilada with layers of meat and cheese, it was delicious with home made tortillas. Michael and Norrie make quite the team!

Enchilada Sonorense - https://www.maricruzavalos.com/flat-enchiladas-sonorenses/

A few people came and went before we remembered to take a photos. But I'm glad we got this one. L-R: My sister Lisa, Lucy, Me, Cousin Tito holding a bottle, Norrie, Cousin Michael in the yellow shirt, Cousin Tino the Honorable because he's a Judge and seated is Norrie's husband Lacho and her grandbaby who was just amazed by my beauty and only had eyes for me! 

    We finally headed back to Copa's house, Copa and her daughter Daniella were at the dinner, but they had left prior to the picture. We were tired but happy and so full of delicious food. It was bittersweet to say good-bye to the ones that stayed behind in Arizona City and Eloy. We love you guys!

    The next day Lucy, our every faithful and beautiful driver took us back to the airport where we caught our flight and Lisa didn't even need alcohol for the flight home. I'm so grateful we were able to make this trip! Thank you Arizona Family!

Paint Night, Baby J and Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread

     During the Pandemic lockdown I really missed sharing a paint night with my sister Lisa and our friend Lupe. The three of us are like the Three Amigos and at times like the Three Stooges, depending on how much wine and how many shots of Agavero we've shared. But no matter what, we always have fun.

    Here's a photo of the three of us, it's pretty old, I believe from 2019, but I just love this one. 

    Because of the health of my mom she and I were very careful to stay in quarantine to prevent her getting sick, so paint night was put on hold until this past Saturday night, June 11th. 

    We had planned to get together at 5pm at my house, but Lisa and Lupe surprised me by showing up at around 4:30! They caught me still prepping and I didn't even have time to change the grungy t-shirt I was wearing, so needless to say there are no pictures that I allowed to be taken of me that night!

    However we did take pictures of almost everything else, but let's start with the food we shared. 

    Lupe brought our appetizer, a veggie tray with snap peas, carrots, broccoli, celery, baby tomatoes and ranch dressing. Wish we had a picture!!! Picture or not, it was so good!

   As for a beverage, we started the festivities with a shot of our favorite tequila, Agavero. It was delicious. I had bought two kinds of wine because I know some people don't really like wine and I didn't remember if Lupe did, so I bought a very mellow and sweet Stella Rosa, cause everyone loves Stella Rosa wines. I also bought a 2019 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon as I'm partial to Cabs. I don't remember who had what but after a shot of Agavero and half a glass of Cab I was not so worried anymore about people showing up early!

    By this time the Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread was done and we had that with a mixed spring salad on the side with Italian Dressing. Again no photo, but I have blogged the recipe, so here's a picture and a link to the recipe is HERE. 

    We then cleaned up and what I like best about these two ladies is that they jump in and help! Then it was time to get down to painting.

    But before I talk about the painting, we had a special guest. Someone that has made multiple appearances on my blog, someone near and dear to my heart, Baby J!!! She is Lisa's granddaughter. Here's one of the first pictures I posted about her on the blog back on Sept, 2014. 

    She and I have done numerous Art Projects every time she visits and it was so fun to have her join us for the first time ever for Paint Night. Here she is, all grown up and beautiful!

    I'll show her artwork first. She painted a bunny rabbit peeking out from the left side of the canvas. She's only halfway through in this photo, but you can tell she's pretty pleased with her work so far!

    Here is her final piece, she did an excellent job and she is the smartest, funniest, most insightful child ever. She astonished us with her knowledge and her vocabulary is over the moon. I know she's my niece but I'm not exaggerating, it's a flippin' genius!

    Here's the piece Lupe started, none of us really had time to completely finish our art piece, except for Baby J, but we got a good start. Lupe is wanting to try stenciling designs on some of her walls at home, so she took the opportunity to stencil on a canvas board and we all loved where this is going and hope she frames this once she is done. (You can see the intensity on Baby J's face in the background as she works on her painting.)

    Lisa decided to work on what was to me a very difficult piece, but I love what she's got so far and it's going to be beautiful once she is done. There's a waterfall in the middle part there that is not painted in yet.

    I had purchased a book for Lisa when we had our road trip to Ojai a couple of weeks ago and there was a photo in that book that I really wanted to try painting, here's the photo.

    And here's what I've done so far, I have quite a ways to go and in the photo it looks like the sun setting behind the tree, but in mine it looks more like dusk already, so I may add some stars and then paint the tree over it, not sure yet.

    We also had a surprise visit from Baby J's dad and Lisa's son Sean, who is a police officer with our local police department. Since he was there my mom took the opportunity to give him a handmade quilt she was making for his birthday but she couldn't wait until January of next year. She's so proud of him!

    He just stayed for a second as he was on a break and had to go back on duty, but it was wonderful to see him and I am so grateful to him for sharing Baby J with us all these year. Love you Sean!

    I will end this post with a photo of the joyful chaos that was on my kitchen table that night. I hope Baby J remembers this night, but if not this blog post will always be here for her, as well as all the other blog posts since 2014. 

    Thank you Lisa and Lupe and when can we do this again!

My Art Featured on Art Group - Bloom Where You Are Planted

      I'm a member of a prompt related art group on Facebook called The Mixed Media Emporium with Nina Ribena & Kylie Coo. 

     The group has over 10,000 members and out of those 10,000 members my art was chosen for a special honor and picked to be the masthead of the group page for the 4th week of April, 2022. 

     Everyone in the group congratulates you and it really helps to inspire you to work hard to continue to create artwork that people love.

 

     I am so honored to have my art featured, here's the art page I did that was chosen. This is a page in my art journal. 

     This is a two page spread that I made for my homemade art journal. The art journal is made out of a recycled Fruit Roll-Ups Box, covered with fabric and the decorated, it's a whole process and I may do a blog post for it another time. 

     What we do in this group is called Mixed Media Art, anything and everything is fair game. In this piece I used leaves cut out from an box of tissue paper, here's a picture I found online of the top of a box. Once I cut out the leaves, I peeled off several layers so the leaves would not be so thick. 

     I took a page out of the art journal (the pages are removal of ease of use). The page I decided to use already had the background on it. It's what we call a "mop up" sheet. As I am doing other projects I have a sheet of paper either underneath to protect my desk or sometimes to the side and I clean off my paint brush, or try paint colors, so eventually it's got a beautiful blend of colors, in this case I felt it had a bit of a jungle look to it. So I started gluing the leaves around the top and bottom of the page to make a border. 

     I added a flower I had made following another YouTube channel and started gluing the sentiment "Bloom Where You Are Planted" and then added butterflies, because I love butterflies!

     And that was it. I was surprised that something so simple to create was worthy of the honor of being the masthead, but hey, I'll take it!

     Not to toot my own horn, but "toot-toot" this is actually the 4th time my artwork has been chosen. You can check out the first time HERE, second time HERE, third time HERE. 

 

My Art Featured on Art Group - The Mixed Media Emporium

 I was honored yet again to have my artwork featured on the masthead of the Facebook group page for The Mixed Media Emporium - with Nina Ribena & Kylie Coo.

This is a prompt related group on Facebook. Every week on Sunday morning there is a YouTube video from Nina Ribena and another from Kylie Coo that features a specific prompt. It's what I look forward to most on Sunday mornings, grabbing a cup of coffee and watching both videos and then visiting Facebook to see what others have done.

This prompt was for the month of June, Week 4 and the prompt was Watercolor Doodles. I started out with a piece of watercolor paper that was 6 inches x 5 inches and I added watercolors in shades of pink and green and grey and a touch of turquoise and yellow to add some brightness. 

I knew that what I wanted to doodle was roses so I left certain spots pink on purpose.

I just finished the 100 Days of Zentangle 2021 with The Tireless Tangler, Cyndee Pulley and the Tangle pattern we did on day 96 was one called Pozer by Beth Snoderly and it's so easy and yet you achieve such a beautiful design that it looks like you spent hours on it. The easiest Roses I've ever drawn!

The leaves are a Tangle pattern called Anuleaf by Lila Holter and the rose buds are a Tangle pattern called Buddy by Dorothy Allison. The little fringy things with dots are just something I like to do, not sure where I saw it, but it's cute.

So I was very happy that my artwork was chosen to be featured for the week! This is my third time to have my art featured. You can find the first time HERE and the second time HERE. I think I'm getting better with age...like a fine wine!

I find it hard to make time to do every weekly prompt, but I try to do as many as I can. It's a great group of super-talented individuals.

I'm going to try to share some of my favorite pieces from The 100 Days of Zentangle 2021 in another post. Stay tuned!

Inktober 2020 Challenge - Week Two

      Surprise! Made it to week two of the Inktober challenge! It was a bit tougher this week as work was super busy. For some reason we always get busier during the end of the year when everyone is taking vacations for Thanksgiving and Christmas and we're short-handed...but I stuck it out and did my seven inked drawings. So without further ado...here's what I did.

     Day 8 - Prompt was "Teeth" - Had a little fun with this one. I had an idea to do a pumpkin with braces on it's teeth, which I did and I think it's most excellent! 

     Both my children suggested since a lot of rap stars call their teeth their "grill" that I do something with that. So I came up with this little guy that I think is just adorable! I love the way the headlights are his little eyes. I thought about doing gold teeth, but he's fine as he is.

     Day 9 - Prompt "Throw" - This was a head-scratcher. I had not a clue what I should do. I could have drawn someone throwing a ball, but drawing people is not one of my favorite thing. Luckily a little saying my brother Fred would always say to his kids popped into my head "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit!" She reminds me a lot of me when I was a kid, and a teenager and me yesterday!

Day 10 - Prompt "Hope" - This one I knew what I wanted to do, but I did not do the picture in my head justice. But they can't all be works of art and the point of this project is to get better and to practice. What is more hopeful that a little flower soldiering through and growing in a crack in the street?

     I'm doing all these drawings on the back of a 3" x 5" index card, so they are not very big and there's not a lot of room.  In retrospect, I could have drawn this one smaller with some buildings in the background...live and learn.

     Day 11 - Prompt - "Disgusting" - Thinking I may ruffle a few feathers with this one, especially is you are a lover of mushrooms...I am not. I think they are gross and disgusting, have an awful texture and smell. But if you love them, then my apologies. They are beautiful to draw though, this one may be my favorite so far.

     Day 12 - Prompt "Slippery" - If I were a better artist I would have drawn a snail or an eel, but I just did my best and soldiered on with something super simple, but it fits the prompt. Hey...they can't all be winners. Poor guy driving, it's so slippery on that road that he seems to be heading off the sign itself!

     Day 13 - Prompt "Dune" - Oh I had fun with this one! Now normally I have a lot of problems with perspective and although the tires are not perfect, they aren't bad at all. A cute little Dune Buggy racing along on sand dunes!

     Day 14 - Prompt "Armor" - Oh wait! This one may be my favorite. I just think he's adorable! Isn't he perfection? 

     So that's it for week two. 

     I actually started this post more than a week ago, but I'm having some home remodeling done and the workers are here putting in a new closet in my bedroom and everything is in disarray and I can't find any of my art supplies and I'm going to have to put this on hold for now. 

     But it has been fun up to now.

Jack of All Trades....Master of None

One recurrent theme on my blog is the quote, "Jack of Trades, Master of None." I've always loved this quote and feels it applies perfectly to me and the life I've led. 

The complete original quote is, "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." Being the Master of One just doesn't suit me.  

My blog has never been about one thing. It's not a cooking blog, even though I have pages and pages of recipes posted. I've done table-scaping posts, book review posts, low-carb lifestyle posts, Iwanna Wednesday posts and writing prompts. I've just dabble in a little of this and a little of that.

Am I just easy bored and restless and fly from flower to flower taking the best of each one? Or am I more interested in learning many things rather than specialize in just one? Hmm, I don't know. I think I would say that I am just evolving. 

At one time this blog was the love of my life, what I looked forward to the most. I love words and writing, always have, always will. It's what I come back to time and again, whether it's writing on this blog or writing in a journal, which I've come to do more and more.

But back on May 3, 2016 I found a new passion in ART. I attended a Wine and Paint class as part of a group celebrating the birthday of a friends daughter. While the wine was fantastic, it was my own artwork that amazed me. You can read that post here. 

Here's a photo of me with my first true artistic creation. Look at the smile on my face...you would think I had just painted The Mona Lisa!

Since then I've been creating art of some type. But true to my nature, I'm a Jack of All Trades and Master of None. 

I started with sketching.

Ballet Shoes

I've done Impasto Art with a palette knife.

I've painted on canvas with Acrylics.

I've done Art Journaling.

Staying true to form I'm moved on to something new that I want to share and  archive on my blog for my son and daughter to look back on someday when I'm old and feeble and just want to sit in my wheelchair and yell at the politicians on TV. Then they can remember that their mother was an Artist, a Writer, A Jack of All Trades, Master of none but she had passion.

Zentangle is my latest passion. For those that have never heard of Zentangle (I know I had never heard of it), Zentangle is an easy-to-learn, relaxing and fun way to create beautiful art by drawing structure patterns called tangles. Tangles are created using a combination of dots, lines, simple curves, S-curves and orbs. You can find more information about Zentangle here. 

My life was turned upside down on March 18, 2020 when the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-33-20 which directed all individuals living in the State of California to "shelter-in" and stay home except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of federal critical infrastructure sectors. Our world as we knew it descended into something we had only seen in movies or read about in books. 

The management team for the company I work for told us at 2 pm that day to shut down our computers, pack them into our cars and take our little butts home to begin sheltering-in and working from home, until further notice. That's what we did and that's what I've been doing since that date. In a few weeks it will have been four months since I have been working from home, venturing out into the world only to purchase essential items such as food and home keeping supplies. 

Needless to say all of this weighed heavy on my heart and mind because I am the Head of Household. My mother lives with me, my son and daughter both still live at home and while they don't realize it, I feel as though they were looking to me to keep them safe and fed and sheltered. 

Thank goodness I own my home and don't have a mortgage, I kept my job and my pay exactly as before so my lifestyle didn't really change except for the fact that I had/have no life. I work at home, I eat at home, I sleep at home...I don't leave home. If I do venture out or if any of my people venture out I've had to make sure that we all wore masks and gloves and use hand sanitizer and wipe everything down with disinfectant wipes. 

How did we get from being a Jack of All Trades and Zentangle to talking about COVID-19 aka the Corona Virus? Well I found that I lost my will to be creative because I was so stressed out. I really had nothing concrete to worry about but yet I had everything in the world to worry about. I would see on the news where elderly people were dying alone in hospitals without their family by their sides because they were in quarantine and I feared that happening to my own mother. I couldn't let her get sick and die alone, no-how, no-way! 

Everyday was something new. At first I was comforted by the fact that the virus was by-passing young people, but then all of a sudden there would be a report that it was killing young people. Some days you would hear the virus is on surfaces, then next day it was only airborne. You couldn't count on anything so you had to take ALL the precautions and this was super stressful. 

Luckily one day I stumbled on a new a "Stay at Home Zentangle Class" by a YouTube artist Hannah Geddes. Here's the first video:

I was amazed how something that looked so complicated and beautiful could be so easy and I has hooked, I had to learn Zentangle and I started Hannah's classes. 

I just started and didn't really research anything about tangling or Zentangle, but I learned as I went along. I learned from Hannah to slow down, to concentrate on the lines and to breathe and I found that even though the world was still in chaos, I was able to calm my mind and help myself to be more at peace and to sleep through the night again. I've been doing Zentangle ever since, soaking up all the different patterns and watching several other CZT's or Certified Zentangle Teachers. I've been having a great time.

I watch her do each design and then I have been using Index Cards that I've cut down to 2 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. Once I make them and get used to the tangle, I've been gluing them into a simple composition book that I've been using as an art journal, writing journal and tangle journal when COVID-19 began. Here's some of my earlier ones from weeks 1, 2 and 3. Each Tangle has a name given to it by it's creator.

DIVA DANCE

NZEPPEL

ENNIES

EMINGLE

MEER

Here's a few that I did today. These were just for fun, not part of Hannah's class.

MESHMERIZE

DIDN'T WRITE DOWN NAME OF THIS ONE...SORRY

THIS HAS SEVERAL DIFFERENT TANGLES

So anyway, this has gotten to be a rather long post and it's almost time for me to prepare for bed and work again in the morning. We are supposed to be back in the office on June 22nd, barring any further drama and chaos...wish me luck!