Challenge #8 - Heart for Artoo

A friend's baby son is experiencing some hard times just now - barely graduated from dual full-leg casts to boots and braces, the poor bunny has a viral infection with respiratory distress that has landed him back into the hospital.  Yes, I mean Artoo, the younger of our lovely Laura's two great boys.  With the upset and worry and activity, she was gracious enough to find time to keep us informed and even posted a challenge this week.  Thanks to her husband's inspiration, we are to create a heart for Artoo, combining any two of the previous challenges.  With such a worthy purpose OF COURSE I had to sit right down and do it right away, tonight, because no one should keep a baby waiting!  I've chosen to make my riff off of Challenge #1 - Simplicity, and Challenge #6 - Ixorus.  I am sending it with all my most concentrated, passionate prayers for quick healing and sweet health plus an extra dose of support and peace for the harried Mommy and Daddy:

Happy Monday!

Sinus Tangle Thursday

As always, one shoe drops and the other follows suit.  My daughter is coming along nicely and should be fully fit within a few more days - and thank you all for your well-wishes and kind messages!  Now of course, having expended all my energy in getting through that my poor sinuses felt neglected and had a "sit up and take notice!" hissy fit on me.  I've spent today (all I can afford to be away from the office) cuddled up on the sofa, sipping too much tea and apple juice, channel surfing (man, daytime television is LOUSY) and playing with Ixorus.  You see, there IS a silver lining!  Since I was stuck at home AND stationary, my trusty Zentangle journal kept me company.  I had another look at the directions for drawing Ixorus, checked out some truly WONDERFUL tangles the online community has posted and had another go at it.  I used Ixorus nearly exclusively and had a bit of play with tangleation, too.  In the end it kind of looks as stuffy and swollen as my poor schnozz feels, but also kinda fun... Not a bad way to get through a rough day, at all!  And here's the result:

Happy Thursday!

Monday Night In The Emerg

Sorry for the no-post Monday, folks.  My lovely daughter ended up in Emergency in the city where she attends University and I had to dash out there (three snowy hours cross-province!) to check on her.  I ended up staying overnight to be sure she'd be okay (and she will, thank you - one of those "women's issues" some of us face) then race back in time to book the boss' ORs for this week. Phew!!!!  Enough stress.  On the other hand, I reminded myself that a) my daughter WANTED her mommy (yay! - that'll carry me for awhile!), b) she is going to be just fine and c) she does go to school in a particularly lovely area of the country.

As a result, although I plan to use it more and vastly improve on this quickie version, I did pass some of the time between tests playing with Ixorus, as per Laura's Challenge of the Week (http://www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/).  I'm not very pleased with this particular piece, I think you can see how scattered my mind was and how poorly I selected the patterns to tangle - also how dark the overall piece became - but I present for your critique "Monday Night In The Emergency Department".

Happy Tuesday!