My Rambling Report On The Color Green + My Art Project For Zazzy’s Challenge

My Rambling Report On The Color Green

a spunky hosta growing among the stones underneath the deck

Well paint me green and call me a cucumber!

Someone on social media said the above and I got laughing.

Then I realized that I’ve been inexplicably drawn to the color green lately, seeing the color everywhere I turn. It’s summer here so it’s outside my window, but I’ve also found myself drawn to it inside the house.

Bought some drapes, white background with a vertical vine pattern in a color called Pine.

Bought some oval place mats in a color called Thyme.

Bought some bath mats in a color called Celadon.

[Even looked at, but didn’t buy, nail polish in a shade called Happily Evergreen After.]

Yep, I’m in my green phase now.

image via @grantdraws on IG

So what does the color green mean?

• According to Sensational COLOR green is “the most common color in the natural world, and it’s second only to blue as the most common favorite color.”

While green can be associated with money & envy, what I’m enjoying about green is its calming influence that symbolically represents freshness and progress.

• According to the Crayola Crayons wikipedia page, there are 22 Standard shades of green and many Speciality shades. Most of the crayons have basic predictable names but a few have unusual names such as: Inchworm, Asparagus, Fern, & Shamrock. My conclusion is that green means variety.

• An article from The Cleveland Clinic about chakras explains that there are 7 “places in your body where energy — in yoga terms, prana — congregates or is concentrated.”  

The chakra associated with green is your heart chakra that’s located, somewhat predictably, in the center of your chest. Keeping your heart chakra open is important if you’re to maintain balance.

made me laugh so here it is

“It ain’t easy being green.” 

Kermit nailed it when he shared his burden of being green, like leaves, in his mellow soulful song “Bein’ Green” [HERE].

Is there anyone among us who doesn’t understand that blending in with other ordinary things, instead of standing out like splashy sparkles in the water, can be frustrating?

Of course he goes on to say that green can be cool and friendly-like which is where I’ll end this scintillating, marginally informative, blog post brought to you by the Universe nudging me to notice the color green.

And who can argue with that‽

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My Art Project For Zazzy

Zazzy of the blog zazamataz has challenged us, her bloggy friends, to create some art. In her post [HERE] she shares a video in which an artist shows you how to use water color paints, a roll of painter’s tape, and a black Sharpie to manifest art.

The video, like Zazzy, is encouraging so I decided to see what I could do, adapting as I went along.

First I bought some watercolor paints at the grocery store, forgetting to buy a few extra paint brushes. Then I found notebook paper in my desk drawer, discovered a roll of masking tape in the kitchen junk drawer, decided to use Q-tips in place of paintbrushes, and substituted a pencil, then an ink pen, in place of the Sharpie I didn’t have.

In other words I used what I could find around here.

Below is my masterpiece.

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Questions of the Day

Do you like the color green? Where do you see green in your life? Do you see it literally and/or do you use the word figuratively?

Do you *MOO* when you see a cow thereby announcing its existence? If not, what’s wrong with you?

Considering I’m not an artist by training or inclination, how do you like my artwork? Are you willing to try to create some art, just to see what happens when you try?

• • ❇️ • •

The One About Celebrating 2024 New Year’s Day A Second Time Today

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Here’s what you need to know.

Regardless of the day of the year I’m not one to make resolutions, a word I’d define as an official proclamation announcing what you plan on doing henceforth.

However I do, from time to time, set general goals about what I want to accomplish in the future, but I don’t think of these general goals as hard and fast objectives. They’re more like gentle nudges in a better direction.

My nudges aren’t SMART [specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound], an approach to setting goals that I remember learning about in college. Instead my nudges are DUMB [doable, useful, memorable, and basic], an acronym I just invented in this moment.

As creative people often do.

Making it up as you go along, noticing the possibilities at hand, relying a bit on your intuition.

Being a pantser, in a word.

Anyhoo… 

Today, if I understand this correctly, is a significant day according to astrology, a belief system based on celestial bodies such as moon phases. One leans into astrology to explain what one should expect in one’s future.

[And doesn’t the use of the word ‘one’ instead of the word ‘you’ sound pretentious? I suddenly feel like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, speaking formally, being haughty.]

Moving along, the bottom line here is that today’s new moon will be the last new moon for 15 years that we’ll see in Capricorn [the time frame starting December 22nd, ending January 19th]. Thus it’s a big deal for astrologers.

Meanwhile according to numerology, the belief that there is a correlation between certain numbers and coinciding events, today’s date, 111, is a number that means new beginnings. And that, too, is a big deal in certain circles.

You may read more about how these two concepts dovetail together here: The New Moon In Capricorn Is Here To Start 2024 Off Right

Regardless of my ambivalence about astrology and my nonchalance regarding numerology, from the foregoing I learned that today’s message to one and all is: “It’s go time!”

And I like this message. Don’t you?

I feel empowered.

It gives me the opportunity to have what I’m thinking of as a 2024 New Year’s Day do-over, secure in the fact that this time I’ve got the planets behind me, or above me I guess, and that I’m ready to be determined to reach my 2024 goals nudges.

Once I figure out what they might be. 😉

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Are you celebrating this second 2024 New Year’s Day today? If so, how?

Do you have any goals [or nudges] for 2024? If so, what are some of them?

Are you finding that this is the most uninspiring January that has ever existed in all of time? If not, which one was worse?

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A 5-Question Multiple-choice Pop Quiz About A Power Outage That Rankled Ms. Bean

Yes, my little huckleberries, today I have a pop quiz for you. Anyone who answers all 5 questions correctly will receive a gold star ⭐️ which, I think we can agree, is quite nice. What more could you want? 

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Q1: What was Ms. Bean doing when the power went out at 6:00 p.m. on Friday?

A. Editing a new blog post about the meaning of life.

B. Playing an old-time word game, UpWords, with her sweet patootie whilst enjoying Classic Vinyl on SiriusXM.

C. Making a chocolate soufflé to celebrate the weekend.

D. Writing a strongly worded tweet criticizing Space Karen for ruining Twitter.

Q2: What caused the power to start flickering and turn off in a dramatic ending to a long week?

A. A roofing shingle on our house came loose, crashed down onto a utility line, and *bam* no power.

B. A crazed squirrel a few blocks over ate through an electrical line and *shazam* no power.

C. Torrential rain and high winds knocked over an old tree onto an electric substation and *kapow* no power.

D. Thor the God of Thunder, son of Odin and Freya and source of the name for Thursday, had a hissy fit and *poof* no power.

Q3: What did Ms. Bean mutter when she saw realized what had happened?

A. Now what?!!

B. Where is that damned squirrel!

C. The end is nigh, repent ye sinners while ye may.

D. Holy Fricking Mole-y! I’M. NOT. HAPPY.

Q4: How long did the power outage last and what was the temperature inside the house when it came back on?

A. A few minutes then all was well again; temperature remained at 68ºF.

B. A few hours just long enough for Ms. Bean to fret about the food in the refrigerator going bad; temperature went down to 65ºF.

C. 16 hours meaning that Ms. Bean slept fitfully knowing the food in the refrigerator had gone bad, but not the freezer… yet; temperature plummeted to 56ºF.

D. over 24 hours thereby causing the food in the refrigerator and the freezer to go bad; temperature bottomed out at 54ºF.

Q5: Did Ms. Bean and Zen-Den go to the grocery store on Saturday and spend mucho dinero to buy food to replace what was in the refrigerator when the power went out?

A. Yes, of course they did.

B. Nope, the power outage was just a blip.

C. Maybe, but first they went to buy a lottery ticket feeling it’d be the best way to finance the unanticipated expense of buying food for the refrigerator again having been grocery shopping on Friday afternoon.

D. What makes you think they went grocery shopping on a Saturday?

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A Thursday Thirteen List: Stuff & Things I’m Waiting For, Late Winter Edition

Carpe diem? If only…

1. the kitchen table is in need of repainting [the pedestal part] and refinishing [the top part]. waiting for a bunch of sunny days in a row to do that.

2. an old diary written by my great-grandfather sits in a box in a closet in a spare bedroom. waiting to have the time to approach the historical society about it, hoping to donate it [and a bit more of his stuff] to them.

3. the last birch tree in the front yard has died and needs to be removed, stump included. waiting for dryer weather so the tree company can do that.

4. my desk is piled high with books, papers, stuff plus my normal pens, pencils, notepads. waiting for the muse of organization to move me to sort through the mess so I might feel less scattered.

5. the railing on the stairs between the first and second floors needs to be repainted. waiting for the gumption to do this tedious project whilst trying to decide which color to paint it this time.

6. the granite counters in the kitchen and laundry room are due for their annual sealing. waiting for a convenient time when we won’t need to use the kitchen for a few days to do that.

7. a few restaurant gift cards for places with lovely outdoor patios are taking up space in my wallet. waiting for the weather to get clear and warm, like into the 70s, so we can dine al fresco.

8. the posts that support the deck are going to be encased in the same Trex fascia that we used when we had the deck built. waiting for the product to come in and the exterior home improvement company to have the time to install it.

9. many old mirrors + framed art are sitting in the basement ready to go to Goodwill. waiting for the local donation center to reopen after its renovation is finished mid-March.

10. the husband is not really as unemployed as one might think he’d be after retiring. waiting until he gets his side hustles up and running to his satisfaction so that we might talk about going on vacation.

11. an ancient laptop sits uncharged in a guest bedroom that I hope to turn into my exercise | meditation | reading room. waiting to figure out the lighting in that room so that I can see the screen and start doing yoga daily in my own space.

12. our lumpy bed needs to be replaced. waiting to do a deep dive into information about and the expense involved in buying a new bed: mattress & frame + pillows & linens.

13. many paperback books that we read years ago are in need of being re-homed. waiting for sunny days so we can go for walks in city/county parks with little free libraries where I plan on leaving the aforementioned books, one at a time.

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SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

[Also any words of wisdom about any of my Thursday Thirteen items?]

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