Fifteen Years Ago

Do you know where you were, and what you were doing, 15 years ago? Thanks to blogging I know....and can actually show you!

Here's a post from 15 years ago, today:

Doc's Diatribe

We were just returning from the southeast - which was an annual thing at that time.  We were living in Colorado, but the Mister's family was in Florida. 

I was introduced to blogging by a neighbor in 2010. I didn't realize at the time how valuable blogging could be to me personally. I now appreciate being able to search on my Blogger feed to find out when, where or why I had done something. There are many times when the Mister and I are chatting and one of us will ask, "When did...." or "Where were we when....".  A quick trip to the computer...and ta da! There's the information. 

I was a frequent blogger for a few years, but then my posts grew fewer, and farther between, hitting a low of 5 posts in 2021! 

Part of the slowdown in my blogging was the platform itself. Uploading pictures was more challenging, and when we were traveling and had sketchy Internet, there were days where I couldn't access Blogger. Additionally I caught the bug to capture my life by sketching and writing in a journal. 

Somehow, in 2018 I was introduced to an online "Sketchbook Revival" through an email. The 'revival', coordinated by Karen Abend, offered two videos a day, for about 2 weeks, showing how different artists use sketchbooks. I was instantly enamored with urban sketching as presented by Liz Steel. I wanted to be able to do THAT! 

So I bought a few sketchbooks, a small watercolor set and a few pens and began practicing! 

We had a European trip planned in a year, and I wanted to document the trip in a journal with my sketches. What a fun challenge! The pages on the left are from that trip. 

My journaling has morphed through the years. I only write in it occasionally, and rarely take out my paints. I fell back into blogging on this platform instead.

I'm not sure which 'platform' I prefer.....if I were to stop blogging....maybe you'd know I was using my journal and paints again!

So, that's the past. And the present?

It has been cold. We actually hit a low of 22 a few days ago. Our southern plants were not/are not happy! We covered many of them - some we just shrugged our shoulders and let them be; they had already been damaged by a previous cold spell. We used a lot of bed sheets and some moving blankets. I know, one is supposed to use fabrics made for covering plants...but we have never bothered to purchase them. 

In the wee hours of the night I was thinking about the coming day; we are expecting rain - hooray. We need it. But wait!!! There are felted blankets and sheets on many of our plants....what a mess trying to dry them out. I didn't get up at that hour....but first thing in the morning we were both up, dressed and outside gathering the plant coverings. 

Let it rain!