Cars, colored pencils and patterns...

It has been a week and a half now with the new to me wheels. Snow White is the 06 Jeep Liberty that I have found for the next phase of transportation.  She has plenty of room to haul around fabric totes, furniture finds to paint and what ever other creative goodies need haulin'.

Now that is out of the way, new projects are just around the corner and with the weekend, moving garages is the task at hand. The garages here leak. They flood in the wet season and then the heat of summer grows yucky stuff like a green house! We are moving to garages that the drainage is hopefully better and closer to our door.

Snow White will live in the garage, she is clean and well maintained, even under the hood and doesn't look like she lived outside in the elements much. I wouldn't want to stress her out. I need to be able to depend on her....

So, more boxes came in the house, it felt just a little too much like moving again and made me almost feel sick to my stomach. But.... it is just another chapter in the purging saga... Where does all this stuff come from? I have done a huge purge about 5 years ago... this one seems to be dragging on for ever.

So far there is no space set aside for any creative doings... with my creative overflow, I have been revisiting my colored pencils and coloring... it is relaxing and great for playing with color relationships and value.. I like the Berol-Prismacolor brand of soft core colored pencils. The color is fully saturated and they blend beautifully with one another. I have been focused on a seashell coloring book and some book marks that I bought at the Renaissance Festival late this summer. It is my end of the day winding down routine. It will do for now, but soon I will need to feel the texture of fabric at my finger tips and get back into writing again...As the idea of a blogging schedule would help me, so I thought, I found for right now... it paralyzed me. So random and inspired, seems the path to finding my voice again. To reacquaint myself, this is briefly what has had my attention lately... aside from the logistics of life mentioned above.

Lately the urge to gather my patterns has been nagging at me as well.  There is quite a collection from over the years and I am always on the lookout for some intriguing vintage ones. Clothes just inspire me... they always have. So, cataloguing, sorting and organizing those in one handy and easy to access system is working through my subconscious.

Well, that is the post for today, rather chaotic, but from this will come order... and then it will be time to move again!

How does your creativity get thwarted? How do you make promises to yourself and keep them? Or do you.....?

A New Vehicle for Navigating through Life... for now.....

Emerging back into the 'out there'. I have been hermit like for the past few months. More recently, not by choice.

My car of 11 years decided she was done one friday night a few weeks ago. I knew she wasn't feeling well. She was starting to really show her age. Age spots were starting to mar her complexion (rust). It was just beginning though. But moving quickly along her back door....  When she just had a bath, she looked pretty good on the outside. Inside, the upholstery was cracked and dirty. She mostly lived outside, only last year did she have a garage.

She always had a bit of a tick or knock when I started her. Like a bad cough. I was very connected to that car and have relied on it for the past 11 years. It got me around, except when there was an issue, we took it one thing at a time. She just had brand new tires and new belts put on 3 weeks before her demise.

So for about a week and a half, I was stranded. Literally, no way to get anywhere, luckily, there are stores like Target across the street, on the other side of our apartment complex. (We face a courtyard, so the trees are nice, not looking at Target parking lot!)

It was challenging, projects were becoming ready to install (or so I thought, that is another story, not getting into here). It is like having the water shut off for a day that you become aware of how much you need to use water, if you know what I mean?

Two friends offered to take me out driving to check out new to me cars. It is the first time I have opted not to purchase new. I had a specific dollar amount, years and mileage requirement. The first day, I drove an 06 Jaguar, it was a lovely car, but the maintenance issues that I heard about them steered me away. Also, they aren't the greatest on gas mileage. Then I drove a handful of other cars, Trailblazers, Muranos, Vibes. They just weren't it.

Then I drove an Audi A4. A beautiful red... great handling, pass through back seats, good gas mileage, higher mileage than I wanted and a bit older. Great price.

Then I went on to drive a While Jeep Liberty. The car was in good condition, clean, leather interior, low miles, priced higher than I wanted, but lots of room for whatever I might need to move around. That is the one I got. There are some issues, with the experience of purchasing that car. Would not recommend the dealership to my enemies actually. But, I won't have to deal with them any more, as they don't respond to any calls or questions anyway...

So now it is just me and Snow White, navigating the roads again. She eats a lot though... maybe once I get those new spark plugs, it will curb her appetite.