monsbrick

Happy May!

What are you up to today? Tell me about it.

Thank you for rating me. Grateful also, that you are reading my profile. Welcome, cozy up and get comfortable.

Please do let me know if anything I send to you smells bad or moldy. I have a horrible sense of smell but I can obtain assistance to help monitor what I am sending. I will of course try to refrain but if I miss I am happy to resend or make it right for you.

Please let me know if I send you a postage due item! I’m happy to make it up to you. My local post office has reduced hours still:(

I am 55 years old and live in Alameda an island town in the San Francisco Bay in Northern California.

One of you pointed out that I don’t write about my family here in the profile. Ok! Here it is. Carl is very private but helps my husband and we’ve been married for 5 years and together for 12 years! He has a daughter, my stepdaughter Sabrina. She’s 20 years old and attends UC Santa Barbara studying Physics. She also teaches kids and tutors in her spare time. And dances competitively in ballroom dance for fun.

A few of my favorite things: Free random things Library books Surprises All the colors of the rainbow and more colors that are in mind's eye but not in the material world Dreams Films Cooking channels Glamping at home like a princess!

Handmade anything. Dabbling in drawing, doodling, some variation of zentangles, watercolor, gel plate printing, stamping, collage, acrylics, sewing, painting, coloring, knitting, and other fiber arts, beading, cooking, and more.

Penpal writing and journal writing are some of my favorite pastimes.

💜Bella Grace & Daphne’s Diary & Somerset Studio are magazines I read.

Here are some of the YouTube people I subscribe to: Maremi Smallarts, Nik the Booksmith, Mystele, Ana Bondu, Susanne Rose Art, Pam at The Paper Outpost, Creationsceecee, Helen Colebrook, My Arty Heart, Lisa Oxley, Joie de fi, Gel Press, and Gelli Arts, and Tim Holtz.

Food: Cooking and nutrition are big for me. My current big project is on my recipe and family menu scrapbook.

Postcards: naked or in an envelope. And all postcards are loved here. I recycle them. ♻️

Paper: I love stationery and all kinds of paper.

Art, spiritual diaries, junk journals, funky scrapbooks. I'm not that organized though I do constantly try to get organized! My style is eclectic and messy and Bohemian. But I love to save all kinds of little bits and pieces. Ribbons, book pages, washi tape, wrapping paper, home made paper, yarn, tissue, packaging, found objects, even washi tape.

Thank you to all the 100’s of stickers, ephemera, and extras in my swaps. There have been so many beautiful and thoughtful gifts from you all!!!

What are you reading or listening to? Would you recommend a book to me?

Listening to the audio version of Poem of the Man-God the Gospel as Revealed to Me by Maria Valtorta. I’m relishing it. It’s very difficult to find this book in print versions they are very expensive like hundreds of dollars but I’m overjoyed that I can order the audiobooks all the volumes! There are more than 5 volumes.

Another book I’m physically reading is Waterlog by Roger Deakin. I have a visual notepad for all the botany and bird references and places he visits. I am learning like I’m in a traveling Biology class! And my sort of personal blog is beautiful with images of wood thrushes and hidden ponds and new plants. It feels like you are on a secret solo adventure swimming across England Im trying to get my guts up to swim here on my cold island. Maybe as the days warm up I will wade in the water. There are many who come here just to do that and the water is pretty shallow around much of our island. I’ll keep you posted if I crawl out of my heated club pool and into the brackish estuary! Or open bay water!

Oh it was after listening and reading Bonnie Tsui’s book entitled Why We Swim, that I was inspired to start this book. She is a local San Francisco swimmer. And she sells the benefits of cold plunge or long distance cold swimming. I am a swimming addict though I prefer my water around 80F. It feels like an alien or other world when you swim especially wild swimming but even in the holographic prismatic water of a swimming pool. It’s like magic but scientific. It’s heavenly. You can fly in the water.

Apocalyptic Fiction:

*Hugh Howey *Paolo Bacigalupi *John Joseph Adams

Science fiction:

*William Gibson *Neal Stephenson *Scott Sigler

Horror

*Anne Rice *Chuck Hogan *Guillermo del Toro *Scott Sigler *Edgar Allen Poe

Teen Fiction

*Annette Marie *Sarah Cameron

Travel Writing

*Paul Theroux *Henry Miller

General Fiction

*Sue Grafton - mystery *James Baldwin *Jon Steele *Francesca Lia Block *Marguerite Duras *Anais Nin *Jack Kerouac *Gabriel Garcia Marquez *Danielle Steel *George R.R. Martin *Haruki Murakami *Robert B. Parker *JD Salinger *Jim Harrison *Ursula LeGuin

General Non-Fiction

*Oliver Sacks *Jeffrey Toobin *Angela Duckworth *Malcolm Gladwell *Jack Kerouac *Esther Perel
*Gabrielle Bernstein *Eckhart Tolle *Jack Kornfield *Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

Naturalists

*John Muir *Bonnie Tsui *Roger Deakin *Henry David Thoreau *John McPhee

On writing, mostly I write for myself. At Thanksgiving my family has found a small box of my old journals and diaries and I’m anxious to read these again. I’d given them up as lost years ago. Hmmm…that was stressful to relive and I shredded and composted all those old memories phew!!!

Sometimes I work with fabrics, found objects, ribbons, yarns and fiber art. I love words and I’m looking at ways to include more words and text. Instead of typical planner stickers I’ve mixed these ephemera into my daily planner like a scrapbook. The more I make art the more I use the tactile or visual images to speak volumes and less words I want to write. And it’s less analysis more fun.

Most recently I’m putting together a personal recipe and food journal. Omnivore when I was younger I was vegetarian.

If you have ideas and suggestions around food and cooking and food storage or organizing my pantry and fridge please let me know! I’m curious. Or how to succeed at meal prep please share them with me!

What are your food stories and food ritual secrets? What patterns have you made? Do you consciously entertain or create environment at your home around meals?

Swim, walk, run, dance and yoga. I Dance at my home work desk and I dance at my workout gym. I used to do all night dancing on little runner energy sticks and gel packs. I miss those days though my friends put on Glitch or other Zoom style events.

I keep sanity by getting outside in nature and breathing fresh air. And lots of 12 step groups.

Outside in our back patio, we set up a table and lawn chairs. I love to work outside and lounge. The bright jewel colors in my flower garden keep me inspired from lemon to purple lavender and Mexican deep purple sage blooms.

In our front yard, the white hawks come this time every year to nest and I adore them. 🌲

A few of my favorite films: Almost Famous, All the President’s Men, Gladiator, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Splendor in the Grass, Get Him to the Greek, The Last Emperor of China, Gladiator, The Hunger Games, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Marie Antoniette, The Seven Samurai, Hero, Mulan, Godard’s Weekend, Masulin/Feminin and Breathless.

A few filmmakers I like are both Tony and Ridley Scott, the Cohen Brothers, Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola, Jon Chu, Ang Lee, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Kasi Lemmons, and Jean-Luc Godard.

Send anything! I am dabbling in many formats. Send a creation or postcard you would like to receive.

Love all kinds of music, all genres. I listen to electronica, opera, soundtracks. Also pop, chill, jazz, blues, classical and more. I subscribe to SoundCloud, Apple Music and attend Glitch and other online sound events. I download all kinds of podcasts and news on YouTube or other online sources. Spoken word.

I love to change my daily playlist with my 5000+ songs in my collection.

Here are a few of my favs:

*Ben Watts’ Lazy Dog (Electronica) *Adele’s Easy on Me *John Lee Hooker’s One Bourbon, One Scotch. and One Beer *Dave Brubeck’s Take Five (Jazz) *Carol King’s You’ve Got a Friend *Billie Eilish anything by her

Blessed to live in California. Mache, onions, potatoes, kale, almonds, blackberries. Wild. Food foraging is all the local rage. Have you tried it?

My biggest sweet pea flowers this year! Usually I struggle to grow them 💐 I adore these in my garden. Rarely see them in stores or farmers markets here.

Kale is a big hit here. Other lettuce greens and sprouts, spicy and sweet peppers, 🍅 tomatoes, chives and various herbs.

Scented flowers like jasmine and lavender and rose. Have you ever bathed in rose petals or rose hips? You can also bathe in lavender though I'm allergic to it so I watch it from a distance. Try it you will feel like a QUEEN when You bathe in rose petals!! You can scoop them out with a mesh strainer when you are done. They are also high in vitamin C which is good for your skin.

What about you? Do you grow anything?

How are surviving Covid?