Happy Monday – Trying to Keep the Ship Afloat!

February 13, 2017 by 2 Comments

Hello, everyone! How are you all doing? I apologize for my absence but this past week was a whirlwind.  Last Sunday, my team won the Superbowl and I was so excited and ready to celebrate. I had so many deadlines and things to do last week and bam – a major snow storm hit simultaneously with my oldest son, getting sick and then it’s been downhill since then. The photo above was taken during our first storm and we have had a lot of snow since. We have had three snow days (including today) which I secretly love. But then Leao got sick on Friday and now I am pretty sure my hands will fall off because of all the washing I have been doing to avoid going down with the ship.  You know moms can’t get sick so I am doing my best to stay ahead of this stuff.


Despite the sickness, we have been having fun. We read African American poetry, watched a great movie called “The Watson’s Go to Birmingham” which is based on a best-selling book of the same name that touched on race relations in this country and we watched the NAACP image awards on television together. So despite the occasional cabin fever, we have been able to celebrate Black History Month together.

I will cut this short because I have to get to work but I wanted to connect and wish you a blessed day!

Belinda

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Kicking off Black History Month with a Little Poetry

February 1, 2017 by 1 Comment

Hello, everyone! How are you today? I am well rested and ready for a month of celebrations and inquiry. Happy Black History Month!!

As most of you know I love books and reading is one of my favorite things to do. On Monday, I went to my local library and picked up some books to read with Apollo during Black History Month. One thing you may not know about me is that I am not so versed in poetry. My mother loved poetry and had even memorized some of her favorites. For some reason,  I have shied away from it often out of fear of lack of understanding. So I thought what better way to kick of BHM with my boys than to celebrate some poetry written by African Americans. I chose these books because they seemed like a nice entryway into poetry.  So here are the four books I plan on experiencing with my boys throughout this month:

The first is I, Too, Am America by Langston Hughes (this book even one a Coretta Scott King award) -“Caldecott Honor artist Bryan Collier interprets one of Hughes’s most powerful poems, using his breathtaking and compelling illustrations to show how far we have come as a people in realizing a vision of equality that Hughes once dreamed of.”

Ashley Bryan’s ABC of African-American Poetry – “An A to Z look at twenty-five poems and one African spiritual from a wide range of African American poets.”

Thanks a Million by Nikki Grimes – “Poems that reminds us how wonderful it is to feel thankful and how powerful a simple thank you can be.”

Poetry for Young People: African American Poetry – This book includes poetry from African American poets over the last 200 years. What I like is that each poem has brief contextual notes that accompany each one to create a better understanding.

I look forward to getting into these books with the boys over the course of this month. Feel free to share with me what kind of activities are you doing for Black History Month. I would love to hear them!

Belinda

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My 2016 Netflix Binge Craze

January 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment

In reflecting on 2016, I have thought about a lot of things but one thing that I thought would be fun to share with you was my binge watching shows on Netflix. First, you need to know that I don’t watch television during primetime (with the exception of football). I have a few shows that I watch on-demand typically on my lunch break.  Part of the reason is I don’t watch much TV is I don’t have time.  I also don’t watch television before bed anymore and opt for reading my fantastic collection of books.  Frankly, I don’t care for much of the shows I see on television.

We’ve had Netflix for what seems like forever. When we first got our membership we really took advantage of getting the DVDs sent home and the kids even picked selections for our movie nights.  Somewhere along the way, we stopped selecting DVD options and I began to really love watching the streaming shows.  I haven’t rented a DVD in I don’t know how long.  I often watch on my Kindle during my lunch break. So I thought I’d share a few of my favorites from 2016 that can’t be coming back or kept me pushing ‘next episode’.

The first would be Mozart in the Jungle: I heard about that show on one of my NPR podcasts that I subscribe to and went and checked it out and never looked back. The show focuses on a New York symphony orchestra and the soundtrack is beyond amazing. I could Watch the show simply just to listen to the soundtrack but the story itself is really interesting. It follows this a handful of orchestra members and their maestro. But it gives you a cool inside look at the life of a person that’s a member of the symphony, the inside politics and gives you a deeper appreciation for not only their talent and perseverance and their ability to show up even when times are sometimes unpleasant and unsure. You get to watch the characters lives unfold while experiencing the most amazing music.

The next one is called Grace and Frankie. I can’t remember where I heard about this one I think it might’ve just been a notice from Netflix of new shows. This show features the talented Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Need I say more? The show is about how they deal with the sudden announcement that their husbands fall in love with each other and want to divorce them. But it’s a lot more than that and the casting is brilliant. They do a great job of balancing serious scenes and injecting loads of humor. It will have you laughing at times but it will also make you think. I never watch just one episode at a time that’s how good it was. There are two seasons of it and I’m hoping that they’ll renew for a third season.

The next one is called Stranger Things. I think I heard about this one on a podcast and it sounded like a throw-back show similar to the movie Goonies or E.T. the type of show with a bunch of young boys that ride bikes, play games similar to Dungeons and Dragons (this will definitely date me if mentioning Goonies wasn’t enough). The filming it’s so cool because it actually looks like it shot in the 80s. The clothes the kids wear and even how they talk is so eighties. The story is about how one of the boys goes missing and we find out that it’s some type of being or some type of experiments that some secret agency may have created that have caused the disappearance. The focus is to find out what happened to him. I can’t say more for fear of spoiling it. It’s a bizarre show in many ways but it works. Winona Ryder plays the mother of the missing boy and she’s brilliant. I couldn’t stop watching and I’m really excited to know that they have renewed it for another season.

The next show that I watch was Luke Cage (by Marvel). I heard about this show from my oldest son who doesn’t watch it because it is a bit more mature for him but he’s read the comic books with this character. There are not many black superhero characters in Marvel so I thought I would give it a shot. First, I really enjoyed the soundtrack for this show – it’s funky old school R&B with jazz undertones. All I know it always has me bopping my head every time it came on. However I think because I’m a big Game of Thrones fan and I watch a lot of Roman Empire inspired movies, I am a bit more desensitized to some of the violence.  But if you can get past that, it’s a really good superhero show.  Season one has been completed and I believe there is a season two to be aired soon.

My final show I would like to share with you is Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. This was one of my absolute favorite shows that I enjoyed binge watching. It’s an Australian production. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries revolves around the personal and professional life of Phryne Fisher, a glamorous private detective in the 1920s. It is based on the novels by Kerry Greenwood. I have not read them but will be picking up some this year to see how close they stayed to the character. Phyrne is a real bad-ass heroine. But she does it with so much style and grace. There is so much to love about this show. Just watch and you will see. You won’t be able to watch just one episode per viewing and the cast is brilliant.

So those are a few of my binge-worthy shows I watched last year that I feel are worth a peek. Did you binge watch any shows on Netflix or Amazon? If so I love recommendations.

Did you binge watch any shows on Netflix or Amazon? If so I love recommendations. Have a wonderful weekend!

Belinda

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This to That: Packaging –> Valentine’s Accents

January 24, 2017 by 2 Comments

Good afternoon!! Wow, the weather is crazy today. Wild wind and rain for the entire today.  I am pretty sure my tea kettle is trying to hide from such excessive use but that is simply what I do on days like this.

So in order to fight the gloom, I thought I would share another ‘This to That” with you. I have been paying close attention to packaging lately and recently I decided to replace the bulb covers on my Heidi Swapp marquee letters that are in my craft room. I had clear and wanted to go to pretty fuschia colored covers. What timing, they were are on clearance for a $1.99 a pack so I put them in my basket. When I got home I changed the bulbs out but I have this thing about looking at packaging design and also simply for repurposing purposes.

I liked the thickness of the paper. It was like a heavy cardstock and it was a nice neutral color – white. The paper also has a nice coating that gives it shine. So I measured it and sat down to create the dimensions on my Silhouette.  I measured the logo on the top of the packaging and use a pink box to represent it on my cut file. The reason I did this is so that the machine would know where to begin cutting. I only wanted to cut on the white areas of the packaging.

I decided it would be great to cut out some Valentine’s accents since January seems to be rushing by so fast. I picked some cute files that I owned and right before cutting it I removed the pink box so as not to create an additional cut.

Do you see how it began cutting below the logo? The paper was thick enough and with the coating, I could have used the hearts and key as a stencil to create additional art.

I used the second one to create more hearts. Let’s face it, you can never have too many hearts.

I placed them in my hand so you could get an idea of the size of the accents I created.

I laid them on a colored cardstock so you could see them cut out. I am thrilled with how they came out and can’t wait to use them on some cards and scrapbook pages.

So now, I challenge you to hesitate before throwing away the packaging and see if you can make something fun.

Have a blessed day!

Belinda

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