January is all about the blue... 

Blue dawns ~ 

Blue landscape ~ 

Blue walkways ~ 

Blue backgrounds ~ 

But not blue moods thanks to visits with funny friends ~ 

Puzzles and wine time ~

And our annual birthday party hosted by Chris' sister, Pam who makes everyone feel so special. She brings us all together and I think I've never appreciated that more than I do right now.

She even makes my cat feel special, she calls him her "Neph-meew" ❤️

She sent him some feathers she had been collecting, what a lucky boy! He had to smell each and everyone of them... several times. 

And taste a few too. :) 

February 2nd marked Chris and my 19th anniversary so I baked a flourless chocolate cake, I think the first cake I've ever baked if you don't count "helping" Mom with the Betty Crocker cake mix back in the day. It was pretty looking, but I'm not a fan of the texture so that's the last flourless cake I'll bake. 

As you may or may not know, I've been teaching myself Spanish, through Duolingo, for the last 2 years, and as a sweet surprise, Chris enrolled me in a Spanish class so I could actually talk to real people in Spanish instead of practicing online. It was fun, the teacher spoke Español the whole time and I actually understood her, yay! 

Mickey had yet another ear infection this February. He seems to be getting them annually, most likely he's allergic to something that builds up. The vet recommends just treating it as it arises because it's so challenging to find what the allergen or allergens may be. So that sucks, it's a twice daily ear medicine for 10 days minimum and he is so not a fan, but he forgives us quickly. I feel for the little guy. 

On a high note, I went to visit my bestie in Airdrie in early March, before the Coronavirus was declared a pandemic, which now seems like a lifetime ago. I'm really grateful we had a chance to visit. I hadn't seen her boy, Sully since last summer and it most likely will be a long time again so I'm grateful we got some in person time together.

And we played our last D&D game with real people on March 7th. We are going to try playing virtually later this month, so, I guess the one bonus is that I don't have to clean my house prior to our friends coming over.

Chris and I had booked a trip to Nashville and Memphis, leaving March 16th, which we decided to cancel on the 13th when Prime Minister Trudeau told all Canadians to come home. It was a total bummer... wasn't this year supposed to be smooth sailing? 🤷‍♀️

On the bright side, Chris still took the 2 weeks off and worked on some basement renos, including building a wall and putting a pocket door up to the laundry room:

I took a week off before starting to complete some long, overdue projects like looking into grants, organizing photos, finishing taxes and cleaning my studio.

I started a "deep clean" of the kitchen back in March as well, tackling a small section such as the toaster oven or one cupboard every day:

I literally just finished two days ago. 🎉 I am so over that project, but at least everything is sparkling... for the moment.

I also started the book, "Artist's Way" - it's more like a 12 week course, each week you read a new chapter and do the tasks required of you. I am now on week 3 and it's mostly just a whole bunch of writing exercises, but you're also supposed to take yourself on an "Artist date" each week, such as going to the museum or a paint store or the library.  Since I'm not going anywhere, I decided to start a correspondence with my neighbours, who have 2 young daughters. My cat, Mickey always hops up on our window and stares into their window and I guess the girls get really excited to see him. So "Mickey" has been making notes and taping them to our window ~ 

And they have been responding ~ 

Mickey's having a lot of fun with it. ;) 

One good thing about this self isolation is that we can still go outside and it's finally looking like Spring around here. I've been going out on walks every morning. I love to see the water moving! 

Gardening season is just around the corner and I have a ton of work to do in the yard, so I'll be staying busy for awhile.

We aren't really sure about new jewelry at the moment. I haven't been able to turn my glass fume fan on since the renos started, but once it's warm enough, I can open the windows and I should be able to work without drawing up all the dust from downstairs. I do miss torching and I have some ideas bubbling, so I'm sure I'll return to it soon.

I hope you all are well and safe. This is a really strange time. I'll leave you with this quote that gives me comfort and a photo of Mickey looking fierce under the morning moon:

"Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay."   ~ Maya Angelou

Take care xo