Meandering 2.26.2016

"Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous. A blog post about a variety of things; a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

I have a "thing" for office supplies. I love to walk into an office supply store and wander the aisles and ponder all of the new crisp papers and folders; the variety of planners and products to organize my life; labels, dividers, envelopes, pens, pencils - the list goes on and on. I don't exactly get what the appeal is, but I'm hooked! It is no great surprise then, that office supplies have made their way into my art practices. I shared previously that a stop on day one of our sisters road trip provided a wonderful supply of new and vintage office supplies. So once I was home I started playing and using these new found items in my art journaling projects. One of our great finds were two dusty boxes of old ledger paper. I had fun the other day stamping and stenciling on it.

Along with the ledger paper I have used some other office supplies in my art.

Hole reinforcements decorated with ink and paint

Mailing label, plus ledger paper as a background page.

These office supply goodies have made their way into my Etsy shop too. I now have a few Office Supply Ephemera Packs available here.

I have written posts about my recent road trip with my sister  here and here. I didn't get much of a chance to visit any parks and do any birding while on vacation, but I did see some birds. One of the highlights for me was on a walk on the trail behind my daughter's when I spotted an Eagle!

I saw a few birds that we don't have in Ohio:

Northern Mockingbird

Best I can tell this is a female Boat-tailed Grackle

And then it was just nice seeing some of the water birds again since they have migrated from the north for the winter.

Last Sunday after church Sai'Vion and I and my friend Rox went to the Window on Wildlife to watch the birds for a while. Sai'Vion is very interested in animals and is really enjoying birding. He is doing a great job of remembering the birds names and how to identify them. I, of course, am a biased god-grandma, but I'm pretty impressed with how engaged he is for a nine-year-old! We're ready for Spring to come and bring the migratory birds back to our area.

Well, that's all the meandering I have for today. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Sister's Road Trip Part 2

Charleston was perfect the week we were there...sunny and in the mid-60's - low 70's all week with only one day of rain. Perfect for two Midwest ladies in the middle of winter! Our official tour guide, a.k.a my daughter, offered us everything from historic walking tours to antique shopping to beach walking to auto tours of the islands. Plus great food in spectacular restaurants. We ate every kind of food on our wishlists! So, a few of our highlights:

The best way to see Charleston is by foot and we covered a lot of ground!

I broke a record on the step counter on my phone that day. 17,336 steps, which equal 8.5 miles. 

And the start of my travel journal:

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Let's Start This Road Trip!

My sister and I have wanted to do a road trip together for almost 25 years, but one thing or another (mainly parenting related) never made it possible. Sure, we took day trips and weekend adventures with our girls, but the two of us traveling across multiple states for a week-long adventure ~ that just never happened. This past summer, however, we were determined that now was the time and we scheduled a week in 2016. On January 29th we began our adventure to Charleston, SC to visit my daughter, who is the only one of our kids to live far away from us. We took two-and-a-half days to make the trip down so we could meander and shop along the way.

Our first stop was just two hours into our trip at a great shop called Hollo's PaperCraft in Brunswick, OH. They have rows and rows of paper, envelopes, craft supplies, and office supplies to explore. Here is just a sampling of things I found:

I made travel journals for our trip and many of the above items will make their way into them.  The rest of day 1 was mainly driving as we made our way through Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia to Greensboro, NC where we stayed the night.

Our first stop on day 2 was a wonderful shop called Betty's Creative Studio in Greensboro where we spent a few hours combing through paper and art supplies. Then on to Durham, NC where we spent the rest of our day. Our original plan was to go to a large flea market in Raleigh, but Durham turned out to be such a wonderful town that we stayed there all day. We bounced around to thrift, antique, and art stores. The Scrap Exchange was the best! A warehouse full of recycled items - everything from old books and magazines to old paint and paper.

Durham has done an incredible job of restoring and repurposing historical buildings and downtown districts. The area we stumbled on was the Central Park district.

There we found restaurants in restored auto dealers and old filling stations as well as the original Durham Bulls baseball stadium where the Kevin Costner movie, Bull Durham, was filmed. 

We chose to eat at "The Pit" for North Carolina barbeque.

Delicious Pulled Pork!

We will have to return to Durham someday. There is so much more to explore! Day 3 was a four hour drive down to Charleston .... but that begins a post for another day. :)