Twitter

Okay, y'all. I got a Twitter account today for my art endeavors. 

Why is it that I feel so old trying to figure out a new social networking trick? I was very comfortable with my Facebook-ing ways and then I think I did pretty well with Instagram. Let's hope that I can catch onto the birdy quickly!!

Enough beating around the bush! Follow me: @ellenvt_artist

Cooler Weather and Fall Refreshments

It finally feels like fall here in north Texas! With a ten-day forecast of upper 60's to lower 70's, the cooler weather may actually be here to stay until spring.

I don't know about you, but the cooler weather definitely lifts my spirits. I think the word that best describes is "refreshing." There is something so pleasant about not sweating every time you walk outside...go figure.

Since the weather is now actually fall-ish, I can let myself have a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks! Pinterest has lots if recipes for different fall drinks, including the Pumpkin Spice. What's your favorite fall drink? Apple cider? Hot chocolate? Homemade or store bought?

Let's have some fun and share fall drink traditions!

ARTWORK GIVEAWAY!!!

Just so you know...I'm holding an art giveaway contest! I'm attempting to get more "likes" and spread the word about my art in general. What's a better way to do that than to hold a contest?!

Here's the official flyer: 

Here are photos of the three pieces the winner will be able to choose from:

To see close-up photos and see specifications you can go to the Fall 2013 Giveaway album on my Facebook page. 

 If you have already "liked" my page all you have to do to enter is "share" the page or giveaway photo. If you are a newbie to Ellen Van Treuren Artworks, you need to "like" and "share."

Don't delay! This contest ends October 7th! 

 

Ellen

Tourists

Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist in your own city...especially if you just moved there! 

Last weekend Tim and I took a little trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens and visited the Japanese Garden. It was a fun little adventure and way less expensive than the Dallas Arboretum. Some of the gardens are actually free, but some (like the Japanese Garden) cost a little bit. 

I took my camera and was hoping to get some reference photos for future artwork. I'm not sure how successful I was since my camera really doesn't take great photos, and since everything was one color--green. It was a little disappointing that there wasn't a bigger variety if colors in the garden. Maybe there will be in the springtime.

Here's one of me and Tim. I'm such a lucky girl 😊

Tim was the official map reader. He wasn't happy with me that I wanted to see the sites out of their numerical order on the map.  

Btw...he wasn't really mad. I told him to pose like that.

Until next time...

Life Since the Move

Two weeks ago Tim and I moved. We are now enjoying a more pleasant area and 200 more square feet.
While he started graduate school, I started a new job at Hobby Lobby.

Moving means lots of new changes and it also means the opportunity for new decorations!
We had plenty of those old ugly, laminate book cases so to spruce it up I added some color.

Nice, huh? This was loosely based on a Pinterest project that I saw.

This next decorating project was directly based on something I saw on Pinterest.

 

This I had seen on Pinterest. It's a photo of me and Tim during out first dance with the lyrics of the song to which we danced.

 

This one I thought of all by myself! Here he are exchanging vows and rings. The words are the actual vows that we wrote for each other. It was very sweet and sentimental to look at them again. I am very glad that they will now be up in our apartment where we can see them. I think it will be a good reminder to make sure that we are actually honoring those promises through the years to come.

 


P.S. Being married is the bomb.com!

Turning Back into Humans

In my last post, I talked about how my husband and I had gone on a seven-day cleanse diet. Well, that lasted about 1.5 days.

The second day I was irritable and just didn't feel good in general. Also, I was hungry.

We ended up quitting the diet and had a delicious dinner of breakfast Pita bread which usually includes scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese broiled on top of Pita bread.

Come to find out, it wasn't necessarily that I lacked will power to complete the seven-day diet. Tim discovered while talking with a friend that we probably did not have enough protein in our diet and this was making me so moody and feeling weak.

I guess a cleanse like that takes more research than we did, and it takes a better plan. There is hope in our future for a cleanse-diet, but we might start out with a three-day trial and than graduate from there once we find meals that contain all the nutrients our bodies need to function properly.

Until then, I will enjoy my cheeseburgers and chicken fried steak.

Turning into Rabbits

So if you've missed the memo, "cleanse/detox" diets are the new fad. I generally try to steer clear of fads, but this one has the promise of being healthier. That being said, I jumped on the band wagon.

Tim agreed to join me in this mini quest and we did a little research as to how exactly you do a cleanse diet. We decided it basically boiled down to cutting out processed foods, dairy, sugar, and meat (with a few exceptions such as lamb, organic chicken, etc.) Detoxing is like exercising though: everyone has their own way to get the "perfect arm muscles" that they swear by. This link seemed to be a pretty good source of information so we are basing our diet off of it: Detox Diet Plan.

Sunday we had to eat all the "bad" food we had in the house that would spoil before next week, so our diet included half a box of cookies 'n cream ice cream, Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, a bag of candy and other frozen TV dinners.

Monday we had fruit for breakfast (I had made a smoothie to take with me to work but I did the 'ol mug on the car trick and drove off with it on the roof of my car...oops), a huge salad with homemade salsa for dressing for lunch and stir fry for dinner.

I'm not going to lie. It was rough for both of us. I would consider us to be pretty healthy eaters, but we do LOVE food. Turning into rabbits is hard when you're hardcore meat and dairy eaters. Poor Tim was gung ho about the cleanse on Sunday, but less than twenty-four hours later said, "You know what I miss most...?" No, Tim. What do you miss most after twelve hours of being on our diet? His answer, "Cheese." He subsequently listed all the things you could do with cheese--kind of like the scene in Forest Gump where Bubba informs Forest of all the ways to cook shrimp.

The stir fry turned out to be pretty good even without the salty soy sauce we love so much. We used brown rice (not the speed cooking kind) as the base and then added carrots, cabbage, celery, red bell peppers, sugar snap peas, green onions and broccoli. As seasoning we used some sea salt and fried it in sunflower oil.


We do have some things on our menu coming up that we are excited about, so stay tuned for those! Cross your fingers that we make it that long.


Only six more days until a McDonald's double cheeseburger and greasy French fries...