March 11, 2020

Staying at Home as much as Possible

March 11, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The CDC guidance for people at risk for serious illness from COVID-19 has changed over the past week. A few days ago, the first bullet basically said ‘stay at home as much as possible.’ Now that advice is the last bullet and it is only if there is a COVID-19 outbreak in your community. There are some disconcerting cases near where I live (a rector at a church and at person at a large conference) that are not travel related; I guess we will know in 5 or so days how contagious the individuals were. There does not appear to be a lot of testing happening in my area yet so it’s hard to know if there is an outbreak of not.

So - I am trying to chart a middle course….

I am in the higher risk group because I am older although I rarely get sick, so my main concern is for others close to me that are also older and have chronic conditions. I don’t want to be a carrier of COVID-19! At this point I am:

Stocked up on supplies (food, household supplies)
Avoiding crowds (when I do need go for groceries, going in the early morning; not going to classes; thinking more about ‘social distancing’)
Not flying
Washing hands frequently and practicing not touching my face during times I am out and about.

This is a change from the norm for me….but one that I am enjoying so far. The sudden shift to being at home more has me savoring the place….noticing the red maple blooming as I look out my office window, cleaning out the basement, pulling weeds/grass in flower beds and noticing the bulbs planted out in the yard by squirrels. I’m getting a lot done that I have been meaning to do but never seemed to have the time available. I’ll be posting more about my ‘living in COVID-19 times’ over the next few day

January 09, 2020

30 Years Ago – January 1990

January 09, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

30 years ago this month – my daughter was 4 months old and I was still taking unpaid leave from my career at IBM. We visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the first day of the year. My husband took pictures of me and the baby near the elephant in the rotunda! She probably couldn’t really see the whole elephant clearly, but she was wide awake for most of the museum (napping in the car on and from).

That January had enough snow and ice that we didn’t get out very much. I had a scary fall on an icy driveway early in the month. It was icy. I thought it was just wet when I headed out to get the mail. My feet slid forward; I fell backward and hit my head. I lay on the driveway for a few seconds assessing….then crawled back up/to the side to the grass…kept to the grass to get the mail before I went back inside.

The view from the front of our house shows a newly planted Bradford Pear near the street (still has stakes on both sides). The neighborhood had organized to plant the trees along the street, and we went along with the idea. Now Bradford Pears have become invasive in our area – coming up everywhere as Callery Pear. Aargh!

In the back of the house we had some larger evergreens. One leaned way over the woodpile. We were using our fireplace more that January than before or since.

Our one PC and keyboards were in the basement. We had a full house upstairs with a bedroom and sitting room for my mother-in-law, a room for the baby, and the master bedroom.

There were two baby milestones during the month: she started eating baby cereals and rolling over. At the beginning of the month the rolling over was occasional and took a lot of extreme effort on her part. By the end of the month it was so easy for her that she rolled until something stopped her…and then figured out that she could roll away in the other direction.

January 06, 2020

My 2019 in Review - Volunteering

January 06, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I am looking back at the volunteering I did in 2019…what was like prior years…what was the same…how might things change in 2020.

Howard Country Conservancy is where I did more than half my volunteering. I enjoy the school field trips at Mt. Pleasant, Belmont and the streams around the county – “connecting people to nature”. The variety of locations and age groups keeps my interest. The field trips evolve to stay linked with curriculum in the schools but being out in the natural world is a continuing learning experience for a lifetime. In 2019 I changed the activities I did with summer campers…and volunteered more frequently during the summer than in previous years. Looking forward to 2020…it will be more of the same, but I’ll add the expertise I gained from the “Flying Wild” and “Growing up Wild” workshops to summer camp activities. The HCC staff and other volunteers are engaging and thoughtful. HCC is a great place to volunteer over the short and long term.

Three years ago, I added Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy to my volunteer activities. I’ve increased my hours each year. In 2020, I’ll probably do about the same as I did in 2019: 1-2 shifts per week when I am in town. The butterflies, interactions with the visitors to the exhibit, and helpful staff members keep me coming back.

Toward the end of 2019, I started volunteering at the Robinson Nature Center – specifically for the Touch Tank. I’ve enjoyed the shifts so far (I am still learning something new every time I volunteer!) and will continue volunteering in 2020. It’s an indoor venue…different from my other activities. Right now my strategy is to volunteer more frequently at Robinson in the cold and hot months….less frequently in the spring and fall.

Overall – volunteering is my best way of connecting to my community…helping to make it a good place to be for everyone.

November 01, 2019

Zentangle® - October 2019

November 01, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Lots of ideas tried in October...31 tiles.

I did some experimented with not filling in all the spaces on a tile. What do think? Which one of the two do you the best from below? It’s easy to save an intermediate version on the iPad and then continue to fill in the blank areas.

On my iPad, I continued to experiment with colors and simple patterns.

Probably my favorite tile of the month was done on black paper with gel pens….no shading. I like the irregular black spaces too.

b zen 19 10 (17).jpg — I discovered that my hole punch works on the paper coasters I am using as tiles…and they are thick enough to make a pattern on both sides. I’m buying some red pens and will make ornaments for my Christmas tree or to thread onto ribbon to make a garland for the stair railing.

The square paper tiles vary in size from 3 inch to 4.5 inch…impossible to tell after I scan them since they are all square. There are still a lot of gingo leaves this month; It may be my favorite pattern from now on!

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

October 27, 2019

30 years ago – October 1989

October 27, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

I’m starting a new monthly post: “30 Years Ago.” It will feature some high points gleaned from my notes and pictures of that time. As I prepared this first post, I realized how vividly some of the memories are…how the notes and pictures provide a level of exactness to when things occurred but not as much detail that my memory holds.

I was just settling into motherhood 30 years ago…still very aware of the learning curve. I marveled that just when I thought breast feeding was becoming easier, my daughter would have a growth spurt and be voraciously hungry – again. It happened at least twice during the month.

My metabolism was still somehow high, and the early part of the month felt hot most of the time. Later in the month it was cooler, and the baby enjoyed a wakeful outing to the back yard with the leaves falling all around. A little while later she slept, and I raked some leaves.

She started making facial expressions during REM sleep before she made them during awake times: smiling and laughing. Being around her enough to notice those developments is something I cherish.

I used the stroller a few times for a short walk around the neighborhood before I had enough confidence to take her Brookside Gardens.

I learned to warm the crib with a heating pad before gently lowering the baby I’d rocked to sleep. She cuddled into the warm place and didn’t startle awake! The heating pad was an old one my husband had for a very long time. It warmed just the right size space…could be easily removed with one hand before I lowered the baby into the crib. We still have that heating pad and it still works…it’s probably over 50 years old.

I read books while I nursed the baby…. sometimes I read them aloud when the baby fidgeted. Hearing my voice often calmed her and she would settle down to her milk meal.

The biggest disaster during the month was when I decided to bathe the baby in the bright sunlight shining in the sliding glass door. With the weather getting cooler, she been chilled during previous baths. The baby bath was very portable, and the sunlight made the area the warmest in the house. The bath proceeded well…but disaster struck when I put her on the towel beside the bath. As I wrapped the towel around her – cat hair – everywhere. I realized that our vacuum cleaner was not adequate for our carpeting. I managed to recover the situation with several towels I had not put on the floor to be ‘ready’ for a wet baby...and I didn’t do her bath there again.

By the end of the month I was still 5 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight. I wasn’t dieting except to make sure I was getting enough calcium to support breast feeding.

At the end of the month the fall leaves were swirling and beautiful. I was glad the outside temperatures were getting cooler.

June 02, 2019

Zentangle® - May 2019

June 02, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

May was a busy month…but I made time to keep my Zentangle-a-day plan and did more than one on some days. 18 of the 31 tiles I picked for May were made on the iPad. My favorites are still the black background with white ‘ink’.

There were some with a different color background or ink.

Toward the end of the month I started experimenting with complex loopy strings and mixed patterns that made some different looking tiles than my usual.

Switching away from the digital tiles - I am still enjoying the 3-inch round coasters. I did a lot of experimenting with the phicops pattern in May.

I made very few square tiles. I will probably be making more in June in preparation for my first ‘class’ as a CZT to dry run the module I will do with summer campers during the counselor training in mid-June.

I’ve been making small tiles (2” squares, Bijou size) with single patterns that I will use as prompts when I’m teaching…or to help select patterns for my own tiles.

As usual – looking back at the Zentangle tiles I produced in May is very satisfying. It’s awesome to see all of them collected together…realizing I made all them…savoring them again.

May 01, 2019

Zentangle® - April 2019

May 01, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

At the beginning of April, I was in the Certified Zentangle Trainer class…creating tiles as we learned best strategies for teaching others the Zentangle® Method. The tiles were put into a journal with corners like were used for pictures in old scrapbooks. My two favorite tiles that I did during the class were the ‘creature’ tile and the triangular tile (the different tile shape and color).

I didn’t include the tiles from class in my 30 picks for April (I averaged over 3 tiles for each day of April…so had a challenge to pick just 30 for this blog post!). I’ve grouped them into 2 groups below:

The tiles I made on the iPad. I keep returned to black background and white ‘ink’ – even though I sometimes am in the mood for color…change up a little…temporarily.

The big experiment of the month was some round coasters I ordered from Amazon (here). They are 3-inch rounds rather than 4.5-inch that we did in class (and I found overwhelmingly large). The coasters are a good thickness and texture for Zentangle. I’ve used two pens: the Pigman Pen 05 (used for younger students…which I will have in summer campers this summer) and the Sharpie Ultra Fine (lots of colors). At some point I might experiment with a sealer and use them as coasters!

December 28, 2018

YE Thinking: Reducing Plastic

December 28, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

It’s impossible to stop using plastic completely – but I am reducing in every way that I can. Plastic on our land or in our water is not a good thing and it is a totally man-made problem that is becoming more apparent every year. Here are my strategies for reducing my plastic footprint at the end of 2018:

Buy products in containers that are not plastic (i.e. milk in cartons rather that plastic jugs, lemon juice in glass jar, peanut butter/preserves in glass jars).

2018 12 IMG_0669.jpg — Always have reusable shopping bags handy. This was probably the first strategy I implemented, and it’s been over 10 years ago now. It was very easy for the weekly grocery shopping. Doing it for the quick trips of one or two items - and to stores other than the grocery store – happened over time. I now carry a small bag in a stuff pocket attached to my purse.

2018 12 IMG_0668.jpg — Put produce in reusable produce bags. The challenge is that the labels spewed out by the scales don’t stick to the fabric…so I have a pad of paper to stick them too and the checker easily scans them when I am checking out.

Avoid single use plastic utensils. Go with plastic that can withstand many passes through the dishwasher or stainless flatware. My husband and I have travel sporks that we use for picnics on road trips.

2018 12 IMG_0663.jpg — Make your own body wash with slivers of soap with water in a plastic bottle (I have a bottle from purchased body wash that I like for it’s shape….it will last for several years replenished from time to time with bar soap slivers!)

2018 12 IMG_0665.jpg — Stop buying soft drinks and bottled water. I have been surprised at how easy this is to do for me. My husband is still working at it. It’s a healthy choice too. I carry my travel mug almost all the time – usually with just ice water. Another plus – it can reduce ‘grocery’ costs.

In the end – plastic is unavoidable. I try to choose plastics that are easier to recycle in our community.

Our recycling does not take clamshells like salad comes in so I rarely buy salad in that form. I buy the bundled organic full leaves (or plant) and put it in one of my reusable bags….or in a container that I can recycle (like a plastic bag).
I buy popcorn in a plastic bag rather than plastic container since I am more confident that the grocery store where I return clean plastic bags gets them recycled than the vendor that processes the multi-stream recycling picked up at our curb.
If there is an option to buy something I use frequently in a larger container (both plastic), I buy the larger container. My rationale is that larger containers probably get through the recycling process and into the correct bin (i.e. plastic) to be recycled.

One strategy that has helped me reduce the amount of plastic we are using is to look at what we put in our trash or recycle bins. I am fast approaching the point that I’ve done what I can do until packaging changes and I have more choices – choices that don’t include plastic.

December 27, 2018

YE thinking: Blog Evolution

December 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

2011 12 blog snap.jpg — My first blog post was back in November 2011. I recently went back to look at some of the older posts and did the mental exercise of noting what has changed…what has stayed the same. Some of the early posts started out with quotes like this one from the day after Christmas 2011. There was more text than pictures in those early posts.

The 10 characteristics of a matriarch…and me…haven’t changed. I’m more settled in all of them now than I was 7 years ago:

Past the drive to make a living. The prime drive to establish oneself in the world and make an acceptable home is probably from ages 22-55. It can vary but there comes a point in life where the focus on a career shifts to something else much more integrated with everything else life has to offer because the hard work has paid off and the prospect of doing something completely different can take precedence.
Children are living independently. Until ones children are living independently, you are a mother rather than a matriarch!
Healthy and full of energy. Matriarchs have retained their health through lifestyle choices and care for themselves. They often appear younger than they are because of their attitude toward life and their energy pursuing whatever interests them.
Understands herself better than earlier in her life. The changes that occur as children become independent and the long term career ends (usually intentionally) forces a period of contemplation about what is truly important for the next phase of life. The answers don’t particularly surprise our matriarch…she views the time to think about it to be the tremendous luxury of the in-between days.
Self-actualized decisions. As a teenager and adult, she may have followed the advice of her parents or mentors or managers. All that was good. Now she is much more in the mode of making her own decisions with inputs from others not being quite as important as they were earlier in her life.
Post-menopausal (i.e. past child bearing). The joy of not having a monthly rhythm…feeling great all the time!
Knows how to live within her means. Whatever her financial situation, she knows exactly how to make ends meet and sustain her home. After all – she plans to live to be 100.
Assertive. She is nice about it, but she is savvy and does not let people take advantage of her unfairly.
Lots of self-discipline. She gets up fairly early in the morning because she is enthusiastic about getting started on the activities of her day. Her rhythms of communication with the people she loves are consistent and thoughtful. The interests she develops are wide ranging and shared as she develops relationships with like-minded others.
Married. She is known for her long duration relationships….most notably a spouse…although it could be friends as well. If she is widowed she does not live in the past but she may not feel it necessary to form a new relationship that cannot rise to the same level of shared history.

I would add at a couple more characteristic based on my last 7 years:

Giving back. Matriarchs are always looking for ways they can be a positive influence in their community and the broader world through volunteering time (and/or money).
For the long term. At some point, taking a more strategic view of the world becomes easier. That translates into living my life thoughtful of what will continue after I am gone. It is the way of savoring the present cognizant of the impact on the future of people and the world.

The weekly gleanings posts appeared almost from the beginning but my picks have shifted a bit toward more visual and science rather than technology.

I started a monthly doodle post in 2012 then there was a lull after mid-2013 until I took a Zentangle class in January 2015 and started the month Zentangle post. Behind the scenes prep for the post changed over time from taking photos to scanning then to digital tiles on the iPad using the Apple Pencil beginning last spring.

Coursera came along not that long at a good time for me and I enjoyed courses that I’d not been able to take back in my college days. My posts about them started in 2014 and continued for at least 3 years. Now I am more focused on conferences and travelling than online courses…although I might go back to them at some point.

Photography has become a bigger hobby to me over the past 7 years and the blog is a major outlet for my images. When I travel – it’s always with a camera readily accessible. And then I have the illustrations for what I want to write about and a reminder of experience too.

Travel has always been good fodder from blog posts:

2011: road trip from Maryland to Arizona
2012: road trip to Shenandoah National Park in April, Tennessee parks in June, state parks in southern New York in October, Dallas in December
2013: Arizona in March, South Carolina in April, Norfolk and Richmond in May, Arizona in June, Utah in October, Florida in November
2014: Dallas in March, southern New York parks in May, Newport RI in late September, Chincoteague VA in November
2015: Tucson AZ in January, North Carolina wildlife refuges in April, Dallas in July and again in September, Staunton River State Park (Virginia) for star party in October, Hawaii in December
2016: Tucson AZ in January, eastern shore MD wildlife refuges in March, Dallas in April, Florida in September, Staunton River State Park (Virginia) for star party in October, Festival of the Cranes in NM
2017: Cross country from Maryland to Arizona with a stop in Dallas for my daughter’s conference, Dallas in March, Pittsburgh in March, Delmarva Birding in April, Dallas in May, Road trip from Tucson to Pittsburgh in June, road trip from Nebraska for solar eclipse in August, Staunton River State Park (Virginia) for star party in October, TX for Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in November, Pittsburgh in December
2018: Dallas in April, Dallas in June, State College in August, Festival of the Cranes in NM, Dallas in December

I’m sure the blog will continue to change – nothing stays the same and we shouldn’t want it to.

December 02, 2018

Zentangle® - November 2018

December 02, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Lots of colors – tiles and pens. At the end of the month I reverted to black tiles. I think I like the dark background the best.

The travel during November did not impact my tile creation; carrying the iPad and Apple pencil are very easy. I experimented creating a tile on the flight to New Mexico after I realized that Bluetooth connections were permitted on the plane. Creating the tile was not as Zen as I like; full planes are too crowded and often bumpy. The tile did not make it into my top 30 tiles for November.

July 02, 2018

Home Again

July 02, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I’ve been away from home for almost three weeks. This is my first day back and I hope some of my normal routines will be re-established quickly and easily. I’ll be posting the June month-end posts over the next few days as part of that return to ‘normal’….along with grocery shopping, yard work, and laundry!

On a positive note – spending a period (like 2-3 weeks) with a different-than-usual focus is always a learning experience. It will take some introspection now that I am home again to internalize the nuances of the experience.

Stay tuned!

April 04, 2018

Accumulating News Feeds

April 04, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I use Feedly to collect all the RSS feeds I want to track all the time – looking at them via my web browser on my PC or the APP on my phone. It keeps my email from being overwhelmed all the time although there are some sites that only provide an email newsletter rather than an RSS feed. Most of the Gleanings I collect every week come from the news feeds. The HoLLIE course resulted in 3 additions to my list already:

Climate.gov News & Features
Maryland Environmental Health Network
NASA Earth Observatory

There could be others as I hone my follow-up activities for the class.

I’m looking at my list of 48 sources in Feedly this morning and remembering how some of them got onto the list. Coursera courses prompted 13:

Archaeological headlines – Archaeology Magazine
Center for a Livable Future
CleanTechnica
Egypt at the Manchester Museum
Europeana Blog
Free Technology for Teachers
In the Artifact Lab
Meatless Monday
Planetizen
Smart News Smithsonian
TED Blog
The Dirt
Yale E360

Others are part of my interest in online books:

Botanicus.org
Internet Archive Blogs
New Online Books

10 more came from books/magazines I read in the past or organizations I was interested in following:

AGU Blogosphere
Cool Green Science
Fitbit Blog
National Parks Traveler
ScienceDaily: Latest Science News
Squarespace – The Blog
The Scientist RSS – The Nutshell
Vegetarian & Vegan Recipes: VegKitchen with Nava Atlas
What’s Next: Top Trends
Wildlife Promise

I periodically go back through the list to organize the categories I’ve created…delete feeds that are no longer of interest. As I wrote this I realized that there are some that I don’t know how they got on my list…but I’m interested in their content so they’ll stay in my Feedly list!

February 15, 2018

Spring Cleaning (in February)

February 15, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

During my winter lull in volunteer activity, I always try to do some major cleaning out of the house. It never works out to be as major as I want it to be, but I try again every year. I’ve already had a charity pick up one front porch full of ‘stuff’ late last year and now I’ve accumulated another pile that is big enough. It was a real mess at first because I didn’t have boxes to put things in….then I had a box of ‘stuff’ that ended up being trash and decided to donate some luggage/backpacks – hurray! Containers to hold giveaway stuff.

Two questions that I ask myself about each item that help me decide:

Have I used it in the last year?
Do I want to take it with me when I move from this house?

If the answer to both those questions in ‘no’ then the logic becomes:

Does my husband agree (if it is an item that has anything at all to do with him)?
- If so – Is it something that could be used by someone else?
  - If so – Do I know someone that I wants it?
    - If so – Deliver the items as soon as possible to that someone.
    - If not – Put it in the giveaway pile
- If not – it goes in the trash or recycle for the week (or spread out over a few weeks if it is a lot of stuff or some items must be taken to the landfill directly in our area)

Of course – when we do eventually move from this house, there will be a lot of effort to clean out stuff to avoid moving ‘stuff’ that we don’t need (or want).

February 01, 2018

Zentangle® – January 2018

February 01, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I created 101 Zentangle tiles in January! The number surprised me so now I am thinking up reasons that I created so many. It was probably a combination of things:

I was at home more and creating tiles is something I enjoy doing when I have time.
There were new pens involved. I had bought a package of 24 Ultra Fine Point Sharpies and was trying to use up the last of the old set…which I did toward the end of the month. Then I was keen to use the new set. What a luxury to have pens full of ink…no skips!
The cleaning out of office supplies resulted in a lot of materials that could be made into tiles (via my paper cutter). I am overwhelmed with a variety of tiles at this point and a pile to of sheets still to make into 3.5 x 3.5 inch squares.

With the 101 to choose from – picking 31 was a challenge. 10 are from old business cards and 21 are from recycled materials (card stock, file folders, Seltzer water boxes).

January 18, 2018

Prius Prime – Year 1

January 18, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I’ve own my Prius Prime for a year as of today….and enjoyed the serenity of driving in EV mode for most of my errands. I took this picture just after I bought the 3rd tank of gas (it came with a full tank so it’s on is 4th tank at this point).

It has been an easy thing to transition from a gasoline powered car (my 10-year-old Acura TL) to a plug-in hybrid. I view it as a stepping stone toward and purely electric vehicle by the time I buy another new car…and maybe that will be self-driving as well. The plug-in hybrid has worked well for me since I do make road trips occasionally that would have taken more planning – changes to the way I travel – than I was ready to undertake. This car makes it easy since it just uses some gasoline when I am on the road for a longer time.

I like that the car charges overnight (I have it programed to start charging at 11:15 PM); I haven’t needed to upgrade the regular outlet in the garage since I don’t need faster charging. There have been a few times that I’ve come back from an errand knowing I had another later in the day that I’ve had it ‘charge now’ rather than waiting for the overnight….but it hasn’t been a frequent occurrence.

The only bad experience I had with the car was a tire blowing out (on my first road trip!) last summer. The passage of time has dimmed that trauma….and the car has been a wonderful drive for the rest of the time.

I’m still pleased with my decision from a year ago today!

January 11, 2018

Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers

January 11, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

When I spotted some chocolate covered graham crackers in the grocery store before Christmas – I quickly bought some….and then both two more bags in subsequent weeks. This is a food that reminds me of a person – a great grandmother. Every time we visited her, she had chocolate covered graham crackers to offer us as a ‘treat.’ I never ate them anywhere else so, in my mind, they were extra special.

These modern versions – more than 50 years after I ate chocolate covered graham crackers at my great-grandmother’s – are different. The chocolate coating is thicker, harder, and dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate. Those differences don’t matter. The ‘treat’ is wrapped in memory.

December 01, 2017

Zentangle® – November 2017

December 01, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

It was a challenge to pick 30 tiles from the 73 that I created in November. The first 13 I made while I was traveling in Texas for the first 2 weeks of the month. I used a clip board or the small box that I used to store pens, blank tiles, and stencils (from the Buntini boxes) as a support for the tiles. I made them in the airport, sitting in rocking chairs or on a bed, outdoors, early in the morning….wherever I was creating the Zentangle created a bubble of calm that made the stress of travel melt away.

I also continued to use the lap table that my daughter used for art work when she was in elementary school. It has handy storage areas on each side to hold pens and blank tiles.

I keep the lap table down in the den and usually am listening to news while I create my tile; I need the Zentangle calm to not be overwhelmed by what I hear!

10 tiles were created in my home office – the place I create the majority of my tiles most months…just not this November!

November 13, 2017

Birthday Cakes

November 13, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

My mother’s birthday was a few weeks ago and we celebrated over the course of a week while I visited in Carrollton. There were three cakes! I didn’t think to photograph the first one; it was purchased in a grocery store…a square carrot cake of about 3 servings with no icing on the sides. It was the old-fashioned kind of carrot cake with plenty of spices, raisins and pineapple (and carrots, of course). It was wonderful that the icing did not overwhelm the cake too.

The next cake was purchased by a granddaughter’s boyfriend from a specialty bakery – a Tres Leches cake decorated the glazed strawberries and Oreo cookies. Yummy! I just too the Lactaid…and enjoyed it tremendously.

A few days later, my sister bought Bundtinis – these are mini-Bundt cakes with a big swirl of icing on top. There were twelve each of red velvet, carrot, and cinnamon swirl. A good last hurrah for the birthday celebration.

November 07, 2017

All Day in a Symposium

November 07, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

Recently I spent a day at a symposium about the War of 1812. It was a learning experience for more than the topic!

I had not sat in an all-day meeting quite this dense with talks since I left my career about 5 years ago…and I was reminded how draining it can be. It is very difficult to be so sedentary for a day (and the chairs were more immediately uncomfortable). Did I used to just accept this situation as ‘normal’?

I also have assumptions when it comes to food – that containers will be opened/unwrapped, that napkins will be available, that there are some ‘healthy’ choices. Those assumptions turned out to not be correct for the meeting and I realized that my history skews my views of how food is presented as well as the food itself. Maybe 20 years ago I would have accepted that there were no veggies offered…I am more particular now.

On the plus side – the talks were interesting and well presented. I lasted from 9-4 and then was too achy from the length of time in the unpadded chairs to stay for the last 2 hours. It was a day too long for me!

November 01, 2017

Zentangle® – October 2017

November 01, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

Zentangles at Staunton River were done on a clipboard – newly purchased, with a compartment that was more than sufficient to hold all the pens and blank tiles. The light outdoors and inside the tent was very bright (sunny days). The Zen of creating the tiles different-than-usual. I picked 10 tiles I made during the 4 days.

I am still enjoying the tiles made from the Seltzer Water cardboard. The color and weight appeal to me. The paper cutter to process the boxes has a semi-permanent home on the island in my kitchen.