Monday Again Already?

I have little to show for the past week -- it was too cold to go exploring on long walks, or to go look for birds.  The Hounds were lucky if they got a quick hike around the block.

As for art, I had every intention of doing some sketching and painting, really I did.  And although I did do some quick demo drawings of gardens and plants for the friend who comes over for art lessons, they were nothing to write home about (or take photos of!). 

What I did do was buy art supplies:

New watercolor palette, some colored pencils, a few new brushes, and new paper.  The paper is hot press watercolor paper, which is very smooth, as opposed to the cold press paper that I normally use.  Cold press paper is a bit rougher and is great for watercolor mixing, but not as good for pen work.  Since I really enjoy the pen work more than the painting, I wanted to give it a try. 

I even got a bunch of new pens:

Look at all these different nib sizes!  Whee!

But did I actually get around to using them this past week?  Well, that would be no.  I spread them all out on the dining table and stared at them a lot.  Does that count?  I even drew lines with each of the pens to see how thin or thick each one was -- surely that counts, right?  And I arranged watercolors in the new palette -- I know that counts for something.  I'm just not sure what.

Anyway, I fully intend to use them someday soon.  Any time now.  Maybe tomorrow.  Or Wednesday.  Or a bit later in the week.  If I feel like it. 

In the meantime, I have been wasting my time ... er, being mildly creative by working on a needlepoint project.  I bought this set of four lighthouse needlepoint kits, one for each season.  They're on plastic canvas so you don't have to frame them, just hang them right on the wall.  Here are Winter, Autumn, and Summer:

And here is Spring, which I started first in anticipation of real Spring, which can't come soon enough.

That's kind of creative, right?  Even though I'm simply following the chart?  Well, at least I'm making an effort of some sort. 

Oh, and I'm also continuing my home decor efforts -- I'm sure that requires at least a little creative thinking.  Recently I found this lovely plant stand at an antique mall:

At least, I'm assuming it's a plant stand, because that's what I put on it.  Sort of.  You see, while real, live house plants are quite nice to have around, I don't want them around, since my plan is to spend two months or more per year up north visiting friends in the Summer, and any real, live house plants would suffer accordingly.

So I got this instead:

It's made of silk.  Imagine that.  No way I can kill it through overwatering or from neglect, and it won't attract those tiny flying insects that real, live houseplants always seem to attract.  The place I bought it had both real, live plants and lots of faux ones, and I couldn't tell the difference most of the time.  There may be more of these things in my home's future.

So that was my week:  not taking long walks, not sketching, and buying stuff I don't really need.  Such is the lively life of the retiree.

And of course, I spent a lot of time admiring dachshunds.

There is a sunny patch that appears on the living room carpet in the afternoons.  Pippin adores it.

I always, say, when you have nothing to write about, always end with cute dachshund pics!