Where do I begin?

It has been a crazy up and down rollercoaster ride since my last post on here. Remember way back in my last post, I was telling you about my history professor and her "mmm k's"? Well, long story short, I forgot to keep tally during the next lecture so I did on a day where I was in one of those "moods" (very spacey and more or less, wanted to go home). The result? 144 times and no further comment on that.

I also celebrated my 20th birthday on October 30th and it was a fun day with just my mom and me. It had hit me that I am no longer a teenager anymore but I am very curious to see what the 20's bring me. I don't know why, but I found some photos of me blast from the past on my birthday. Here we go...

                                                   Throwback Monday anyone?

Aside from that, school has exceptionally busy but the only thing that is keeping me focused is that I'm Florida bound for New Year's! Super excited to get to warm weather and going to Disney for the first time in a long time (16 years?)

All for now..bye! :)
Lex

"Mmm k" and voice pitch changing.... 62 tally marks later?!

Okay, before I explain about the tittle, I just want to update y'all on how my personal life is going. So far, second year at the local community college is going great so far even though I am taking 4 classes this semester (one more than the last two semesters), which has kept me very busy. I'm still interning and it has proven that I have lost my sanity within the first couple of times. Is this how the work force really is? Oh the possibility....

Okay now to explain the tittle. You see, my history class (American history in particular) is a small small class of 9 people; 10 if you count the professor. You would think a class that small would be a good thing but it is actually really awkward. Anywho, the classmates and I have been noticing (in the 5 classes that we have attended thus far) that our teacher has done a lot of "mmmk" and voice pitching  change throughout the entire hour and 15 minute lecture. So, today, we decided to conduct an experiment to see how many times she does it during class time. It started off very slow then it got more frequent as time progresses and guess how many times within the lecture? 62 TIMES!!! That would be roughly 124 times between the two days....mama Mia. We're going to see if the results are roughly the same on Wednesday... stay toon.

Now for a deep thought until Wednesday....
If you were allowed to change your first name, what would you change it to?

Ramifications and Recent ZIA work

It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last posting and I hope everyone is doing well. To begin the rambling, I have been starting to work on a 3 month (may be shorter than three months if I find a "job job" between now and then) internship at the senior citizen I also currently volunteer at. To say the least, it had been keeping my mind busy which is always good. In addition to this internship, in a just a couple of days, I will be starting back up at the community college Monday morning. Although it is kind of sad that I won't be seeing my friend (and partner in crime) Angela, I can't wait to see my other friends and pick up where we left off from the spring semester :-)


Other than my ramifications, I have been doing some ZIA work to keep my mind pre- occupied. Here is just a couple

All for now but I will post more tomorrow :-)

Recent ZIA work among other things

As promised, I would upload my recent ZIA work when I got to a computer. Today's upload is brought to you by the word of creativity (at it's finest).

The red one is going to be in a swap for my yahoo group and the orange is one I did for

the heck of it; both of these were also done on my 20 hour hike to North Dakota.

In addition, I worked on a RAZ (Random Act of Zentangle) to put in the hotel business center. 

Aside from my recent ZIA, I have one thought (although not considered a deep one) and a picture it scene

A thought: When a contestant on a game show (such as The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal on CBS) say it's their birthday, do they mean it's their birthday on the day of the tapping or the day of the airing of the episode?

Now a picture it scene: A 90 year old elderly woman throwing her food at someone or something. Long story short, my cousin Andi texted me yesterday saying grandma (who I saw a week ago) threw her food the other day. You're saying that grandma almost started a food fight? WHAT THE HECK?!

All for now, have a nice week readers :-)

Sleep deprived after a (almost) 20 hour hike home

It is now 4:50 a.m. and I am currently typing this from my iPhone, somewhere in Indiana. Last week I made a 20 hour hike with my dad and my cousin from PA to the great state of North Dakota to see my grandmother who hasn't been doing the greatest. In other words, no memory and very frail to the point we couldn't tell her she was in a baptist home (Oops!).

Aside from that, I made a commitment to work on some ZIA since I was stuck at the Baptist home for a couple of hours one day while waiting for my aunt and uncle from Arizona to show up. Remember the ZIMA (Zentangle Inspired Messy Art) I started in my last post? I finished one but not the other and a RAZ (Random Act of Zentangle) to place somewhere for somebody to notice and hopefully take it. I don't think North Dakotans know what Zentangle is, per se (sorry if there is any North Dakotans reading this!). Since my phone won't allow me to upload the photos, there will be another post of the work I worked on while in North Dakota. I also have really cool scenic shots of the state in general because it is so beautiful and peaceful; even tried asking my Uncle Greg if I could stay until the weekend before school starts (August 23rd-24th) but unfortunately, I had to get lassoed back into Ohio.


Speaking of Ohio, it is now 5:09 a.m. and we just crossed into Ohio which only means about 2 1/2 hours until home and my cozy (dog haired covered) bed. Will post pics later on, so bye!

Here is a deep thought for the week: Is our life one big dream and we just don't realize it?

Zentangle Inspired Messy Art: A Lexey creation

Caution: Messy creation at the beginning but the outcome will be very relaxed afterward.

One of the swaps for the Zentangle Inspired Art yahoo group is Paint Blob/ Ink Blot on a tile, 3.5 by 3.5 inch square. I started the swap with the messy part which is getting the paint blob on the tile...

Example A:

And example B:

This is only the beginning of a messy project...stay toon for the final creations.

Saint Louis , Osage Beach/ Lake of the Ozarks and back on the road...

I can sum up my vacation to Saint Louis and Osage Beach/ Lake of the Ozarks in 5 words: Hot, Humid and Really Bad Sunburn. Aside from that, it was a fun trip and to be with my cousins made it even better.

Friday June 13th , my family and I departed and headed to Saint Louis which is surprisingly only 10 hours from us in Ohio. When we arrived, we got dinner then went sight seeing until it got dark out. From our hotel, we were only about half a mile from the Gateway Arch, Saint Louis' tourist attraction.

                                                   The Gateway Arch at night

After a good night's sleep, we woke up and did a little more sight seeing before a 3 hour journey to Osage Beach/ Lake Ozark. We went back to the arch and as it turns out, you can go in the arch and there is a museum and you could go up in the arch! Who knew?

                                      A picture of me behind the arch (at least part of it)

Like I said, you can get a bird's eye view of the city but you would have to huddle in a capsule like contraption both ways; otherwise it would be a climb of 1076 steps (Mama Mia)!

                                             The view from both sides of the arch.

After getting back to solid ground, we piled up and went to Osage Beach/ Lake of the Ozarks. Let me tell you: BREATHTAKING VIEW!!

This was the view at night from the condo we rented for the week. It was a wonderful, relaxing week to be with my cousins and I was a little sad to come back. We spent a day on a boat where we went tubing behind it.

                                          View behind the boat

Speaking of tubing, here's me!

In terms of REALLY BAD sunburn, I got burned on almost every inch of my body. I wanted to get some sun but not a lot of sun (if that makes any sense).

Fast forward to now, I'll be making a 20 hour journey with my dad to see his mom and possibly other cousins. His mom isn't doing well so I hope the visit will be an okay one..thoughts and prayers are much needed!

This was a photo from last year, my dad and his mom (aka Grandma Alice).

All for now, will write more next time!

Happy Birthday and other things...

First things first, I want to wish this person a happy happy birthday. I hope your day will be fantastic. Luv you "aunt" Marisa!!!!

Now, onto the other things. I will be departing for my vacation Friday morning to embark a journey to Saint Louis/ Lake Ozark, Missouri with my cousins. Really excited to spend a week with them and get to know them all over again (been about a year since I last saw them).

I would love to write more but I got to go pack, clean my room and do my household chore. Write more later!

So far away....doesn't anyone stay in one place anymore?

Carole King's song, "So far away" has been stuck in my head for awhile now, with so much going on physically and mentally. I don't know about you guys but vacation time is calling my name. In less than 2 weeks, that I will be in the great state of Missouri with my cousins from Nebraska...ahhh, much needed if I do say so myself.

2 weeks ago, I suffered my first nervous breakdown for the first time in a long time (since probably 8th grade). I usually enjoy my time hanging out with the elderly but that Tuesday night, I almost tried every possible way to get of going. Many times, I caught myself picking up my phone and texting one of my co-workers saying I won't be coming in but I don't hit send; I did the same thing with phone call but didn't tap the number. When I got there, I did my usual routine and went down to the skilled nursing (rehab) and went to say hello to the employee that was in charge of the activity on that floor tonight. She needed to go downstairs for something so I decided to tag along because I didn't need to be on the assistant living floor until 15 minutes before the activity started (assistant living is much easier to handle then the skilled nursing unit). After helping the skilled nursing employee, I was perfectly fine until I got on the elevator and saw the person I was working with. I caught myself saying, "Is this real? Where is Marisa? WHERE IS MARISA?!" over and over again in my head (Marisa is the one I usually work with on the assistant living floor). My nerves started creeping up a little bit but before I knew it, Marisa was right there. Marisa looked at me and asked me if I was alright because I had the look that I was about  to breakdown and hypervenlate. I could only find the words to say "my nerves are kicking in" but I really wanted to say, "I just want you to stay..please". Later that night, I ended up in a peaceful sleep and didn't wake up until late the following day. Because of this,  I didn't want a deja vu and backed out of the same activity for this month.

In more happier news, I managed to pull off a B in my language barring geography class resulting in a 3.6 grade point average because I got an A in English and Career Exploration class. Hmm...seems like English is my new favorite subject. My mom even gave me cash for my awesome grades.

I haven't been able to draw some zentangle inspired art work so this will be it for this blog post. Stay toon for another post of my recent doodles :)

"It would be so fine to see your face at my door. Doesn't help to know you're time away..."

Zebras, Seahorses and Butterflies...Oh my!

I haven't been up to par the past couple of days so to make myself feel a little bit better, I picked up my sketchbook and started to Zentangle© what I was seeing in my mind. Strangely enough, two animals and an insect were coming to mind. I created them by drawing the creature free hand and picked out tangles from Tanglepatterns.com. Here are the final creations

Butterfly

Seahorse

Zebra

I guess when I heard the name of Zentangle© 3 years ago, I didn't think I would be Zentangling animals but here is just the beginning of them!

-Lexey

¿Inglés por favor? (English please?)

Ever catch yourself wondering what in the world somebody is saying when you don't know the language? Or horribly bad English?

As you read in my first post, I am a full-time college kid but only go two days a week (for the time being). My geography teacher, who has been in the country for almost 19 years now, doesn't know perfect English. You would think after volunteering in the elderly field for almost 4 years now, I would be perfectly fluent in other language barriers but think again! He makes everything clear (as a bell) in his notes and take-home quizzes but when I take the tests, I question on whether or not I understood him during the lecture. Maybe it's a good thing, I'm usually two classes ahead of everybody else in the notes. In addition to the language barrier, he thinks I'm president's (entire community college corporation) daughter. I mean, is there such relation? Do we even look alike? Just because of the same last name?

In the mist of being ahead in the notes, I have been catching up on my lastest Zentangle© inspired art work for the yahoo group I participate in. A theme for one of the swaps was Ukraine Easter eggs. Here is one where I created an acronym of "THINK SPRING" and each tangle-like pattern (from Tanglepatterns.com) represents each letter.

Triangles, Hearty, Ixorus, Nine Patch, Knightsbridge,  Squares, Pinwheels, RainDotty, Interesection, Neuron and Gewurtz.

This was a two for two swap so I had to do a second one. This egg did not have a special acronym like the first one but it did have 2 sets of colors that are opposite on the color wheel.

At the end of the month into early next month, these little eggs will be heading to new "permanent homes". Looking forward to seeing where they end up going!

That's all for now, hope all of you have a good week!

-Lexey

First and Foremost

First of all, I want to properly introduce myself. My name is Alexis Johnson but I'm more commonly known as Lexey on the yahoo group,Zentangle Inspired Art. I'm 19 years old and go to the local community college two days a week in hopes to receive my associate's degree in Arts. When I'm not in distracted with my schoolwork and taking part in monthly swaps for the yahoo group, I usually keep myself busy by volunteering regularly at an assistant living where I do activities with elderly raging from 3-4 times a month; 6-8 hours of fun each month.

Once a year, usually during the summer time, I get out of the state I live in (Ohio) and go somewhere on vacation with my North Dakota cousins(my dad's nieces and nephews). We've only done it for the past 2 years but I always come home feeling bummed about it because I have to wait a year to see them again. Last year, I went to Mound, Minnesota which is right on Lake Minnetonka and the year before that, I ended up in Wisconsin Dell's, Wisconsin. This year is my mom's turn to pick and she's trying to get out of the Midwest and hopefully go south.

Speaking of vacation, here is a picture of my cousin, Andi and I (the one with the Orange T-Shirt) from last year's vacation on the pontoon we rented for the day. Isn't it weird that I have a cousin that's the same age as my mom?

This blog with have a mixture of zentangled work and personal stuff.  Thanks for reading this and hopefully I'll get to know my readers better :)