A Couple of Creative Days

First I'll start with Adam, who's been working on English muffins and a Kitchenaid mixer. Do you have a Kitchenaid Mixer? Aren't they wonderful? Yes! Well ... until they start to rattle and shake and ominously drip black grease into your cake batter. We got rid of a Kitchenaid mixer many years ago for these reasons and bought another one for $250. Now they're $350, I think.

Adam made a repair video for Kitchenaid mixers, to replace the grease and the gasket, so you can spend $12 on a DIY repair, instead of buying a new mixer. Here's the video, if you ever need it! Kitchenaid recommends you replace the grease every ... five years!

He also attempted English muffins from the recipe in the "Baking Bible" cookbook, but they turned out like lovely biscuits.

 Quite yummy for breakfast.

He will try again for the nooks and crannies of an English muffin.

I've been painting (again). I saw the sweetest watercolor on facebook of a dog. It was painted by Colleen Reynolds from Nevada.

Oh my goodness ... she is GOOD. She painted this wet-on-wet, which means the paper is very wet with water, and the paint is watery too. That means the paint is quite unpredictable, but look at her results!! She made a youtube video of this painting, so I watched it too, and I felt challenged and inspired.

If you enjoy watercolor, do watch it. She is amazing.

Anyway, I had a photo of Beau, and I decided, "Why not try? What's the worst that could happen? I waste a morning and a bit of paper and paint?" Well, my results are not glorious as hers, but it was good practice. Here's a few photos:

the original:

somewhere along the line 

when the paper was quite wet:

I can't tell you how hard it is to get anything useful from a painting when the paint is running everywhere! Here's the end result:

I think he looks more like a ferret than a dog. But then maybe Beau does look more like a ferret? Haha. We joke that he's more cat than dog. 

Learning how to paint is a long process (like many things), and one goes through lots of paper and paint and produces many worthless things before it's much good. But it's fulfilling even when it's mediocre. I'd like to paint a corgi like Colleen did, and give it to my mother, who loves corgis. 

I also spent about an hour today chatting with Anna on facetime and grinning at Isaac. I love facetime video - how could I survive being a Nana without it? We do that about once a week at least. It makes me so happy.

I hope your week is beginning fine. It's hard to survive the cabin fever of January and THEN February too. We all want spring, both in the garden and in our hearts, don't we? May you all feel springy today!