Over halfway through the month and now consistently hitting my new goal of 7,000 steps/day. Walked to town today so earned a little extra. 👟👟 #proofofwalk #fitnessover50

Let the sorting begin!!! #jigsawpuzzle #someonehastodoit

And the 1000 piece Brambly Hedge: Autumn Story jigsaw puzzle is now complete! 🧩🎉 #jigsawpuzzle #familytime

GM - view from the morning mountain walk. ⛰️ 🥾 #proofofwalk #fitnessover50

Today’s treat: lemon blueberry scone Tea: Murchie’s Balmoral (blend of Ceylon and Assam black teas) #teastr #foodstr

FYI: There’s a free multi-teacher online watercolor event happening from April 21 and April 26, 2026 called Win with Watercolor:

Win with Watercolor 2026

Free Event (April 21 - 26 | 2026)

All classes are free during the event, or you can buy a $37 USD pass before April 21 to keep access past the event. You can also buy the long-term access during the event, but the price goes up. Name and email required to sign up. David Drazil of Sketch Like an Architect is the host, with 20+ watercolor teachers, including Anastasiia, whose Travel Sketching course I’m currently working through. #art #watercolor #onlineclass

10C, feels like 4C because of the wind. Good day for broccoli cheese soup with chicken and shredded cheese topping with cracked pepper. #foodstr

Eight watercolor painting techniques from the online class I’m working through. #artstr #watercolor

Instead of Sunday Rummikub, it’s now Scrabble Sunday. 3 games, the last of which included the pain of having a 7 letter word near the end of the game and nowhere to put it. 🫤 #gamestr #familytime

The magnolia trees up here are amazing! 🤩 #treestr #blooming

When it’s time leave the cafe but you stay, mentally singing all the lyrics to the song that just started playing …. #tunestr

The bakeries and cafes have the best treats up here. This is a blueberry oat bar. 😋 #foodstr

I bought a travel watercolor palette with the intention of filling empty trays with my tube watercolors. Ran out of time before my trip, so I brought the colors the palette came with. After I swatched them, I had some dismay. Fluorescent yellow? No forest green? Then I swatched all first-level combinations. Red vs every color, Peach vs every color, etc. And all the colors I was missing showed up. 😁 #artstr #watercolor

The 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Brambly Hedge: Spring Story is now complete! 🎉🐭 This is my favorite kind of illustration because of all the details. You can pick up a piece and find it on the mini poster. Mom and I did the Summer Story last year, and are moving on to Autumn next. More info on Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem:

Brambly Hedge - Children's books and gifts

BRAMBLY HEDGE

Brambly Hedge is a series of eight seasonal children's books for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, intricately illustrated by Jill Barklem

#jigsawpuzzle #details

Evening frogs, singing the song of their people. Softly, so increase the volume of your device if necessary. 🐸🎶 #tunestr #frogfren

Finished reading Martha Wells’ Witch King and the sequel, Queen Demon. First, these stories are in a unique magical fantasy world, so much more like Martha’s other novels than the popular Murderbot stories. I loved Witch King; it was one of those stay-up-waaaaay-past-bedtime books that I fell into. It could be considered self-contained, so you can read it, get a complete story, and not have a cliff-hanger ending. It tells the story of the characters in 2 timelines (past & present) in alternating chapters. Queen Demon takes place right after the end of WK in both timelines. Again with the alternating chapters, which didn’t bother me in WK. For QD, about halfway through the book, I did end up reading just the past chapters to the end, then went back and read the present chapters. There is an ending …. though it also very much a new beginning. I originally thought/read this was a duology, so I expected a WK cliffhanger (that didn’t happen) and expected more of a complete closure in QD (also didn’t happen), but that means Martha has more Rising World stories planned, which is exciting, because I really enjoyed my time with these characters. Side note: if you buy the ebooks, you do not get the world map, which is handy, so I included it as the last image. Cover art (tordotcom edition) by Cynthia Sheppard #bookstr #marthawells

Let the puzzling begin!!!

Hoppy Easter!!! 🐰

Wind, water, and wildfowl. With love, from Canada 🇨🇦 #vidstr #birdstr

American Airlines is getting more aggressive with their biometric scan to board the plane. iPad camera faces the line, little room to step aside…. But you can still move out of camera view and opt out of the facial scan. The attendant took it easily in stride this time, compared to the deer-in-the-headlights look I got last year. #travel