i was rummaging around in my overcrowded bookcases searching for something terribly important.
which.
i’ve forgotten. but the point is… i came across my old ROD journal which i hadn’t looked through in years.
how good to go through it and reacquaint myself with life back in 2010.
i enjoyed it so much i started thinking of making a new one. travel journal style. kind of like THIS ONE, except different. hmmmm…
just a few ideas rattling around in the old nutcracker today.
oh! i found this scanned set of postcards from sweden. sharing because i love old postcards and i think you do too.
i’ve managed to clear enough room for my jumbo sized sketchbook on one of my art tables. if you look closely you may be able to find
a. another piece of shari elf art i picked up in the desert
b. my extremely large too big water pail which is really a wine chiller which i got because my old giant glass water jar rolled out of my bag and fell down my front stairs.
i’ve been doing an unusual amount of lounging about in bed reading this weekend.
thanks to melissa who recommended susan branch’s a fine romance. which.
i got!
and am reading!
in bed!
and loving!
rocket fuel for my peak district dreams.
and one more thing. about 18 raindrops just fell on the moss cottage porch aluminum awning. that officially qualifies as a STORM. going to batten down the hatches, make a cup of tea, and nestle back in bed to keep reading.
see you soon and toodle-oo!
Remains Of The Day is the PERFECT name for a daily journal! I’m going to go write it on the “title page” of mine! …and I loved, loved, loved “A Fine Romance”. Sign me up for that trip.
Oh no!!! I missed naked lesbian day??!! I love love love that. If I’d seen it I would have snapped it up myself.
oh i thought it was DELIGHTFUL!!
Oh Mary Ann, I do hope you will create another ROD style journal. I have missed your lovely ROD Journals.
I hope you will share if you do.
Thanks for all the many years of inspiration.
Catherine
i will and i will. definitely!!
My ROD journals are so much fun to look back through. It remains my favorite way to create and use journals, from everyday living to travels afar.
OK, after reading so much about ROD I finally signed up. It’s the only class here I haven’t taken yet! Needed something to cheer me up. We were up at the coast last weekend, but husband got sick and we spent the day at a sterile, boring hotel room without a view instead of making a boat trip on the ocean to visit an island.
You should come over to Germay, Mary Ann. Lots of rain, dark clouds, days getting shorter and shorter, leaves turning. We need the rain, summer was too dry, and September left with just 250 raindrops. I enjoy switching on the fairy lights, fire in the woodstove, candles and tea. But it’s harder to convince myself to keep up my daily walks. Especially when I have longer workdays and need to walk in the dark. It’s safe, but I don’t enjoy it!
germany sounds PERFECT right now. dark & stormy skies, bright leaves, wet walks. mmmmmmmm
Roll call: love the journal pages, love the desk still life, love apostrophe cat, love Susan & Fine Romance, love raindrops, love reading in bed. Well, I guess that covers it.
I love your sketch of that pumpkin spice cake. And the view of your desk – always fun to see! I am another huge Susan Branch fan. The other two books in her memoir trilogy are very much worth reading. She is currently in England/Scotland on another two month trip, and can be followed on Twitter for daily updates. The hope is she will write another book about that trip like she did of “A Fine Romance”. I’m excited about you possibly making a trip to the Costwolds, too. Dreamy place! May I send some rain your way? We’ve got plenty to spare right now… 🙂
Ever since I took your class I make a ROD journal every year. I use it as my “travel journal” for my daily life and write weekly. Adding photo’s, tickets etc. Love it. Best class I ever took.
I had the wonderful good fortune fo meeting Susan Branch this summer at a birthday celebration for Beatrix Potter. She signed several of my books! This trilogy is really fun and the fact that it is all hand written and illustrated by Susan is amazing and mind blowing!! She has a delightful blog and newsletter that you might want to check out!
i’m signed up for it…looking forward to her next dispatch. a pure pleasure to read her blog, books, and letters.
how fun that you met her in person 🙂
Enjoyed your post as always. We just returned from our trip to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. It was glorious, with amazing weather and fall foliage to die for! We snapped more pictures than the law allows, but that won’t stop me from downloading all of them to my laptop so when I am old and infirm I am can look back on some fantastic journeys to far flung places. I laughed out loud at your comment about the 18 drops of rain qualifying as a storm. It has been so dry here in NW Florida that our grass actually crunches when we walk on it. They kept claiming there was a drought in New England (and I am sure they were right) but the leaves would still knock your socks off with the array of colors…yellow, red, orange. Trees looked like they were on fire.
Enjoy the book, the snuggling and your tea. Looking forward to your next post!
thanks for catching me up on your adventure.
i want to make that trip myself sometime!
I always enjoy the view of your work table. Funny sign from Shari Elf!!
Hi,
I loved being reminded of ROD journals! I made one for my Africa trip and it ended up being so rich and also humongous! I think I will pull that out and reread it now.
Oh wait- I have to go meet my new granddaughter, Hazel, born last night!
The journal will have to keep.
If you like A Fine Romance, you will probably also like Susan’s second and third books-journal style also , about her life in California then Martha’s Vineyard titled Fairy Tale Girl and Isle of Dreams. They are good reads!
We have had soooo much rain here in Oregon that it’s too bad we can’t export a little to our neighbors to the south…
well to the world baby girl hazel!
i will read those other 2 books. oh definitely
I love “A Fine Romance.” You might also like Vivian Swift’s “Le Road Trip.”
I’m still working on my London travel journal. Still also must photograph the pages that are finished and post them on Facebook and in the TTV group on flickr.
I’m planning another trip there this spring!!! woot woot And I will definitely be making another journal! I did not know it would be so much fun to work in a journal I made myself.
so nice to return to a place you enjoyed so very much!
Maryann,
I saw your post about running low on those stickers…I am almost certain I have a decent amount of them at home, and they are not getting used. Please, may I send them to you? Your blog is such a joy to read, it would make me happy to send them.
My email address is: morningstar14(at)gmail(dot)com – if you will let me know your mailing address, I shall forward them to you gladly!
praise be to peeps with extra cat stickers. sending address!! thank you!!
I keep my ROD journal close, on top of the drawers, next to my desk. I often look through it for inspiration. I have never used it…. just love to look at all the various things I added to it. Loved that class. It was really the beginning of journaling adventure.
You must have sent the storm over to the Intermountain West, the high Mojave desert where we got give or take 547 drops, just enough to mess up the car and windshield.
I haven’t laid about in bed reading for many years. Wonder where that pleasure went? Hmmmm. I was up at 2:45 am, couldn’t get back to sleep so I read You Tube Knitting Podcasts…crazy pants over here, eh?
Oh MaryAnn, Rod journal class is my personal favorite because I became free and unafraid to express myself while building mine . Love my ROD journals. And it’s a great way to use any old thing for pages. Great for travel or every day arting/ journaling. Are you going to teach another ROD type class? That would be marvelous! Up here, in Southern Oregon, all the apples are picked or have fallen. Baby chicks have grown teenager feathers and a storm is on the way. I can smell the rain. I love Autumn. The leaves are bright and falling. My grand daughter and I made leaf people. She’s 4. Love your messages.
oh oh oh picked apples. baby chickens. storms.
i still have my peerless watercolor book you sent years ago!
xo
If you haven’t read these novels, you must! I know you will love them:
1.The Miniaturist by Jesse Burton
2. All the Light We cannot See by Anthony Doerr
3.The Signature of Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Cheers,
Vicki
mmmmm looking forward!
just saw the top one on the list today and wondered about it
Teehee @ naked lesbian day! I don’t do naked. I don’t like what I see staring back at me in the mirror. Also, now craving pumpkin spice cake, but you couldn’t know that would happen. Yes, very much, to old postcards. I adore them. I am doing as little as humanly possible today. Got the house tidied this morning, doing a little laundry, took a nap, waiting for dinner time bc hubby bought King crab for dinner. That is it…crab and garlic butter to dip it in. I too have been reading. I am supposed the be finishing up The Little Paris Bookshop, which, as I said, I didn’t care for, but still want to finish, and also reading a book about the Pacific Coast Trail, Oregon and WA. I guess there is a CA volume too. I became interested (fascinated, really) with the trail after reading the book Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. True story of her hiking alone from Mexico border to Canadian border on a trail I never even knew about until her book. I have also spent a lot of time watching videos about it on YouTube. I sure wish I had know about it when I was younger and willing to take more chances. So, I shall live vicariously through others, which is fine.
It is so fun to go back and look at older arty things we have made. I love the very tactile experience of running my fingers over pages…especially if crinkly paper is involved! I have only been art journaling etc for a few years now(not counting my hippy years of long ago) , but you must have many years of wonderful things to go back and peruse. How long HAVE you been keeping journals, Mary Ann? I would be fascinated to know your art history. You are definitely one of my top three fav artists! With you it isn’t JUST the art, but how fascinating you are are personally, and the adventures you make happen. But…your art just charms the socks offa me.
thank you for saying so karen! have been keeping plain written journals since i was 12. visual/art journals since around 2000. teesha moore got me started all those many years ago. i never mention it without saying her name, because all these years later i am still so very grateful.
ps
the fabric on my orange chair is really great.
i picked it up in guatemala just for you!
complete bliss
pouring rain ha
bed
book
well deserved
LOVE that book. She has 2 more about her life. Which I haven’t read YET. Reading A fine romance is bed is the perfect place. Here in New Hampshire we had about 18,000,000 raindrops this weekend, FINALLY a little drought relief. I spent Saturday morning in bed reading Burial Rites. I thought it might be sad but I manged to get half way through the book without realizing I had read so much so I can say it IS a good book even. What surprised me is my aunt was Mrs. I Schonbeck like on your postcard. I can’t tell if the letter was an I, J or G. And she lived in Massachusetts too, but Worcester, not Springfield. I was glad to think of her so thank you for that. 🙂 Erika
REALLY???!!! neato.
did she read swedish?
Ha ha. Had lunch on the patio of our favorite restaurant in Solana Beach……..34 drops. I guess we had a bigger storm than you. 🙂
about 382 more drops fell after i went back to bed to read. enough to wet my back patio. you get more?
Yes! It poured late yesterday afternoon…..twice. Now I don’t have to wash my car for another week. Ha ha. Hoping for more later this week. We sure need it here in the Golden State.