Spring Peace Symbol- coloring page

It's been a while since I've drawn anything this delicate, but I'm really feeling the spring vibe right now. There are seeds started on my shelves and in mini-recycled greenhouses on my porch and the weather is getting warmer even if there is still a ton of snow.

So I hope you enjoy this simple spring inspired quick coloring project!


Click the images below to print and color.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

Get this peace symbol on a shirt in my Redbubble shop!

Also just for fun- yesterday my husband took me out to see the ducks because it always makes me smile.

And this one of my little recycled greenhouse seed starters-

Common Goldeneye Ducks (photo post)

I'm not a serious bird watcher, but I do enjoy watching birds, it's relaxing. Today was a very pleasant day here in Anchorage so after going to the Eastern European Market we went looking for the one of the kinds of duck that will overwinter for as long as there is open water sometimes.

Common goldeneye, easy to identify, they have a big white spot on their cheek, a distinctive black and white pattern and they are fun to watch because they are pretty active. They don't just float around looking mellow and comfortable. They dive underwater, completely. Diving down to get food and come splashing up a little distance from where they started from. Sometimes 2 or 3 go down in the same area and all seem try to come up in the same place. There is a lot of flapping.

Along with ravens and magpies, they are some of the most active birds to just watch. For ravens and magpies, I just have to step outside my front door. These are in a few places around Anchorage, but the one of best places to view ducks easily in the Anchorage area is Westchester Lagoon. It's very accessible.

I'm looking forward to it getting warmer and getting out to see the sandhill cranes and other birds that will come back, but it's also nice to see the ones that don't seem to mind the winter so much. 

Young ducks, geese and seagulls- photo post

Today I had an eye appointment. Close to my eye doctor is a little man made pond that's teeming with ducks, geese and seagulls. This time of the year, you get to see lots of adolescents! You can click through to larger versions, but the larger versions are still resized to 25% of the originals.

These ducklings are divers. It was adorable watching them disappear under the water to pop back up a foot away.

Young seagull. Just fyi- they sound adorable squeaking out the normal seagull cry. It also kind of reminds me of  Felonious Gru! 

Really reminds me Gru.

Mama diving duck and her ducklings.

Just a seagull, but I loved the colors in this picture.

This duck seemed as baffled by my daughter wearing heavy, steel-toed boots on an 80 degree day as I am!

Goslings!

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Ducks, geese, and World Book Night (photo post)

Last night was World Book Night. The second annual one, and my family had a blast doing it last year so we signed up again this year.

It's a great project, and if you go to the site you can sign up for the newsletter and apply to be a book giver for 2014.
Even though we did it last year, my dad, once again didn't understand the concept. The stumbling block for him is the idea of me giving away books. He knows me too well. They aren't my books. They are published expressly for giving away, special editions, paid for by various publishers, printers and contributors. The authors give up their royalties for this special printing. You choose from a list of books which contains all sorts of things, classics like Mark Twain and current best sellers like Tina Fey's Bossypants. You pick 3 books, and agree to read the one you get if you haven't read it yet. The list has had books we've read before both times. Last year we choose Stephen King's The Stand, which my husband and I had read, but the kids hadn't. So they had to read it before giving it away. I bought them each a copy, and they knuckled down and both finished in time. This year, Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief was on the list. This is a book that TATG can give away very enthusiastically because he's her favorite author. To be fair, he was her favorite author BEFORE he put a photo of her on his website.(she's Anubis) But that just sealed the deal. So that was my first choice.
It was a drizzly, freezing rain, but that didn't deter anyone. We had so much fun doing it! If you do sign up for it, check out their resources. Sometimes it's very hard for some people to understand the idea of something for nothing. They think there has to be a string attached of some sort. If you're doing it with your family, practice conversation starters. Dress for the weather and pick a safe spot to give away books.

After we handed out books, we decided to go get something for dinner. On the way we spotted the surest possible sign of spring in Anchorage. All these photos can be clicked for more detail. I did not edit them other than cropping and resizing, so you can really get the effect of the drab, grey and brown mud. Ah SPRING!

Are they looking for spring?

Wanna see some ducks digging in the mud?

Not retouched. The legs are really that bright!

 I have another Kindle book out.

It's 5 cross stitch patterns for keys, and you can find it here. 

Fabulous week- with photos!

Mt. Susitna

The photo above was taken earlier this week. We hadn't planned on going to take pictures of Susitna, we actually went the other way for photos of ducks and other wild life. But while we were driving back into town, I was stunned by how pretty the sunset looked, and so we did stop for photos. Click on the photos to see larger versions.

I also saw this piece of graffiti-

Bee the love you seek, I love you all, Forever.

Here are some of the birds we saw at Potter's Marsh that evening.

Seagulls

Bald Eagle in flight

Ducks and a sandpiper

Remember when I said my raspberries had become a nice little thicket?

That started out as 3 canes 3 years ago. Next year should be amazing with all the second and third year canes. We plan to plant some of the smaller canes at my dad's house.

Raspberries and strawberries from my garden. Yum yum! The strawberries started a few years ago as a single hanging basket from Wal*Mart that my husband got me because I really, really wanted strawberries growing in my yard. They needed transplanting fairly quickly, the original plant wasn't in great shape. But it sent off lots of runners. I replanted some of the runners in 2 spaces in my yard. They've been coming back reliably ever since, and sending out more runners. So now I have 2 strawberry patches. Everyone loves to see the strawberries ripen. They are so sweet and big!

In fact, I'm going to go have some soon!

This weekend is our annual Greek Festival, it's always a lot of fun. Baklava and tiny cups of rich, dark coffee, music and dancing. Then Monday Michael has a job interview. My fingers are crossed!

I've been working on a pattern using ruffle yarn. It's a lot of fun.

The last week- with photos!

Yesterday was World Book Night USA, the first one we've had on this side of the Atlantic. I signed up for, and received my first book choice. Stephen King's The Stand. An epic post-apocalyptic story of good vs evil, and my husband's favorite book.

The way it works is that lots of publishers and writers waive their profits for specific books, and also help pay to get special editions printed. The people who signed up to give them were told where to pick up a box of 20 books with bookmarks. The goal is to give them to people who might not normally read, so it's very important to pick a book that you can recommend enthusiastically. William and TG were excited about the idea, and neither of them had read The Stand, so as soon as it was that I was getting my first choice book, they both started and finished it. They both liked it a lot.

We took our books downtown, to an area with lots of traffic of all sorts of people. Then we discovered something none of us had thought of, when you give away books for free, especially big thick books, people think you're trying to convert them. It's drilled into people's minds I guess that free books are things of a religious nature. Which makes me glad I chose a Stephen King book. His name being so well known helped convince people we were just giving away books.

William and TG putting bookmarks into the special edition copies.

I gave away the first copy, approaching a young lady and asking if she wanted a book. She told me that she saw almost all the movies based off his books and accepted happily. Then they started giving away copies. Walking up to people to ask if they wanted a book. We went through them fairly quickly once we found our rhythm. After it was all over, I asked them "So.. do you want to sign up next year?" and both said yes very quickly. It was so much fun!

Also this week, Michael and I went out on a tip from a friend to Potter's Marsh. We were looking for snow geese and didn't see any of them, but we did spot Green-Winged Teals, Canadian Geese and lots of nesting seagulls. I uploaded these pretty large, so click on them for lots of detail. 

Tonight, we had planned to see the aurora, but Michael's fighting a cold so we packed it in early when after 2 hours of sunset, it still wasn't dark enough. The sunset was gorgeous though. If you click through, you'll see the crescent moon over the sunset.

Alaska is even more gorgeous when it's summer properly. So far, the only thing coming up in my yard is my rhubarb. In the less gorgeous side of living in Alaska, there is also a bumper crop of newly revealed moose poop in my yard. Tomorrow I'm going to ask TG and William to  put plastic bags over there shoes and stomp it apart so it can be fertilizer instead of piles of nuggets. 

Rubber Duckie Box

My elephant box was the first box that I made in this size. It's 3 inches wide, 3 inches deep and 4 inches tall. Just the right size for the little amigurumi style toys I make every so often.
This one is a duckie box, inspired by a bead graphing article I wrote. You can find that here.
Click on the images for the full sized 100 ppi printable pages. It takes 2 sheets of card stock to make this box.

Ducky Love and Lost

Still playing with my new camera and we went back out to Potter's Marsh yesterday because some of the ducks are back. I got this set of 3 pictures that look like they tell a story. All pictures are resized to 50% but otherwise unedited. Click on the images to see the bigger versions.