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 :)