Valerean

This may not look very impressive, but it's a slice of something I've been working on all year. Backstory: my favorite cake happens to be plain cheesecake, and when I was diagnosed with diabetes it was one of the things I had to give up. I suffered greatly! Ha. Actually I thought I could eventually come up with a sugarfree version, but that turned out to be quite a journey. The crust was the real issue for me. The cheesecake filling (a half-size version of the filling from this recipe by the Sugarfree Diva) was fine, but I tried five different variations of the almond flour crusts and disliked all of them. I cheated and used ground up graham crackers, but that wasn't sugarfree. Finally I thought, why not use sugarfree Oreos? That was the tweak I needed, and now I have a mini cheesecake I can indulge in without any guilt whatsoever. :) Sugarfree Oreo Crust Mini Cheesecake For the crust: 6 sugarfree Oreo cookies 1 tablespoon margarine or butter, melted For ...

My guy and I drove out to Brownwood in the Villages last weeked to walk the farmer's market, and on the way home stopped in at Wildwood Antique Mall so I could look for some things for October decor and projects. Of course I came home with a little haul. :) I found another ghostly framed picture at the same booth I bought one last year , and had to own it. I might have to do a whole wall with these eventually. This pumpkin brooch will be adorning the October tote for my calendar project. I also invested in a mystery bag of jewelry, and got a nice set of silver and pearl pieces. I considered cutting up this kitchen towel for its Halloween colors and using the pieces for my tote, but I think I'll keep it intact and use it in the kitchen this month. I want to make some prim stuffies for Halloween, but I forgot that I used up almost all of my quilt pieces for my 2025 calendar project, so I looked for and found some very cheap to bring home. This is ...

Recently I read some fiction in which a terribly abused character regarded death as a dark, quiet room. She doesn't die during the story, and in fact her life turns around in a huge way shortly after that. The imagery of death as she viewed it was what stayed with me. In a bright, loud world where life is perpetually coming at you (and constantly subjecting you to some form of abuse) death as a dark, quiet room seems quite appealing. Being finished handling all these exhausting people and their demands does, too. It's where all the pain stops. You're finally alone (and I do understand that longing more than I realized.) As a writer I've thought of death in a zillion ways, probably, but I keep coming back to crossing a finish line. The end of a life is that kind of end -- we're finished with this whole beautiful, disastrous mess of existence. I don't want to debate what happens after death, because (assuming consciousness survives) we'll never know...

It seems like the latest hurricane will slide by us without much fuss, but folks in the Big Bend and nothern Gulf aren't going to be so lucky. Please do visit the National Hurricane Center for the most accurate information on Hurricane Isaias, and if you're in the strike zone, please get ready and take care.

After making the pearl wave kit and having more fun (and success) than I'd imagined, I jumped on the Halloween diamond painting kit ($9.99). This is a children's kit, btw, but I am not ashamed of getting it for myself. Often children's kits are easier for my arthritic hands to manage than the huge, complicated adult versions. Plus it's Halloween themed, what's not to love? This picture wasn't difficult, as expected, and while it got a bit monotonous with the black drills I mostly enjoyed putting it together. It also came with its own frame, so once I finished and trimmed it to size I could frame it right away. It made me happy, which was the whole point. I definitely need to do more Halloween projects. :)

I decided to invest in a simpler diamond art kit to practice some hand-eye coordination. This kind of craft, like mosaic art and paint by number, is great dexterity therapy. At the time I bought the kit it was on sale for $5.59, so pretty cheap, too. This wave picture is only highlighted by the pearl drills in the kit, so it took only about an hour to complete. The trick for me was not dropping the pearls, at which I was fairly successful, and placing them where they were supposed to go, at which I did much better. I applied some glass coat mod podge over the pearls to hold them permanently in place, and this is how it came out the next morning. Quite happy with the results.