Saturday - Something New

Inspired by A Letter from Home (who shares her journalling on her blog) when I saw a social media post from the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy (below) I took a deep breath (social anxiety) and signed up. Then a couple of weeks later I asked husband to come with (chicken that I am) and signed him up too.

So, today we made our way to a new-to-us Nature Preserve and took a walk and had some fun. It was a really nice walk. Not a lot of colour but nice. 

First, we stopped at several spots along the trail and did some observation exercises. No drawing at first, just looking and listening and trying to notice all the things going on around us. Further along, we stopped and did a bit of drawing and writing. None of us in the group had ever done any nature journalling before. As our instructor told us, it's not about pretty pictures but observing and recording. I did more writing than drawing but she said that was okay. Perhaps as I became more comfortable with the drawing more would come.

It's dark as I write this and I haven't taken any photos of the drawings/writings I did. I'm no good at art, but I could see myself liking this. It is something I think I'll continue with. The instructor says she is going to send us more resources, so that will be good. 

We did do an exercise where we had to pick an Oak leaf, go off and draw it and then we put the drawings and the leaves on the ground (mixed up) and we had to match them up. After a bit of anxiety, it was rather fun. 

This was a free event, by a local nature organisation. It is something I enjoyed attending and something I'd do again! Not sure husband enjoyed the nature journalling, but he did enjoy the walk so I count that as a win!

June 1st - Book Decluttering

It's been a rainy sort of day here in Michigan. Warm, but stormy and rainy. We were lucky enough to make it out for a little walk around the lake at the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. There were cygnets born to a couple of swans and we were lucky enough to see them! So cute!

They seemed to hide once more people came out. They must have been really young as they had trouble standing and seemed to stumble as though they couldn't find their feet or weren't quite sure how they worked. 

I talked with Mum -  no Skype today. She had to have her modem changed and the man who came to do it must not have added the code to her computer as she can't get it to go online at all. My sister has been on holiday, but next she goes to Mum's we're hoping she'll take a look at it and add the security code for the modem. 

As today is the beginning of June (rabbits rabbits!) I took 12 photos for my A Year with my Camera group. On the first Saturday of each month we're supposed to take a photo an hour. I don't always manage one an hour but I took twelve that I have to sort out, edit and put in a collage. Also as it is the first of the month I had to sort out a book to declutter. It isn't as easy as it sounds - at least not for me. I won't tell you how many I looked through before I managed to find not just one book but two! Wahoo! I'm pretty sure if not for this challenge I wouldn't get rid of these two as I still would like to read, but realistically I've had them for a while so -  my thinking is - that if I haven't read them yet I probably should let them go to someone who would like to read them. I am hearing the Frozen song 'let it go' in my head as I type this.