Reading: Hokusai's Landscapes

I recently finished Hokusai's Landscapes, a coffee table book, with lots of wonderful works by Hokusai, the most famous (I think?) Japanese artist in the West. Best known for The Great Wave off Kanagawa, which I actually have as a cross stitch pattern in my little cross stitch art book. He also did The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, which should be inspiration to all of us tentacle smut-peddlers. I photocopied about 20 pages from the book for my inspiration collection and these two were among them.

Into the Void

Things are humming along. It rained most of the day. When the rain stopped, I took the boys out for Minsculus to ride his bike. On the second lap, Minor fell and scraped his knee and started crying so we had to go back. So I won't get my 10,000 steps today.

We continue with the Star Wars crafts: Minor's Mechno-Arm and Minisculus' Death Star. Tomorrow we will head to the craft store to buy a strong magnet for the Death Star (to draw the Millennium Falcon to it). And I need more XXL bandages as Minor used up the last of our supply with his injury.

We also continue with the Pokemon puzzle. The border was done yesterday and now we are on the interior. And the boys with their worksheets. I made Minor write a haiku, which he did. And he correctly identified a sonnet as a sonnet without clues or prompting so for that he and Minisculus won 1 hour of screen time in the afternoon.

Yesterday we went to the library and went inside the building for the first time since last March. It was stressful because I have to wrangle the boys. They had a scavenger hunt activity in the Children's section which was good. And the boys got 28 new books (their Mom-issued quota because any more and I have trouble carrying the bag to the car). Mininsculus wanted to climb up and down the staircase (so we did) and I returned to the Children's Section to find Minor trying to explain to the Children's librarian that he wanted Midsomer Murders (it's free with adds on IMDB TV on the Roku at home) and her not understanding who Barnaby was. It was embarrassing.

But I got 2 whole hours of screen-less peace and quiet when we got home with them perusing their new books.

I am making progress on the cross stitch for my sister. I have about a third more to go.  

The boys' father hates the rock tumbler so we have it going. Stage 1 is 5 days which ends on Thursday so there is a continuous RRRRR in the apartment. I tried to put it as far away from an adjoining wall as possible so it's where we eat.

I am reading Women Artists at Work by Mason Currey, which is fascinating. Lots of little vignettes about how women artists (of all varieties) organize their art, work, and lives.

I am also reading Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime and watching the 1980's episodes that match. Today it was "Finessing the King." I finished Christiana Brand's Death of Jezebel and now have it on in the background on replay. I don't know what British expatriates from Dutch Sumatra and British Malaya would sound like but I don't think it's like that. Not a problem but just an observation. And Then There Were None went back to the digital library.

The boys' father put a new messaging app on my phone Telegram and we are using that to communicate. It works very well.