Learning a lot today

Well, it's just about time for lunch and already it's been an interesting day.

I was awakened by my cell phone ringing, and ringing, and RINGING! It was my son- his car had, quite literally, exploded on the way to work. HE IS FINE! That's the important thing. But the car "threw a rod" whatever that means. He tells me there were smoke and flames, and that when the tow truck came you could see underneath that it was all "shredded metal".

This is not good news. DS is back in school, and while his job pays for his classes, they do that only after he successfully completes them. He just paid tuition for a new semester that started last week for two classes. We just got back from Disney World, which was TERRFIC fun but an expensive trip. When we got back said car was waiting at the mechanic's from the yearly inspection, which cost him about $500 to pass. This, at the time, was ok news as the car was physically in great shape and looked to be good for several more years at least. But now he is basically broke and must have a car ASAP as his work is not in an area served by public transit.

Now for the real surprise! I called DH after I talked to DS and they had already chatted. DH was AMAZINGLY sanguine. "So, he needs a car, and we'll have to loan him the money. Oh, well, things happen." I am shocked, but THRILLED that he is being so calm. This made everything so much less stressful- if having to find a new car, by Monday, over 4th of July weekend, can be said to be less stressful, lol! But, that's DS's problem.


Now for my crafting learning. Being a little OCD, I set up a binder for lots of stamping/scrapping/crafting information. I printed out all the color charts from all the different kinds of coloring media I own. Then I make color swatches using the pens, paints, etc since the swatches that print out rarely match what the color really looks like. Today I sat down to update my binder- I recently bought a big batch of Prismacolor markers on ebay and also had two new sets of twinks to swatch. Here's a picture of one page in my binder.

I made swatches on the Prismacolor marker printout and was amazed a little later. These are my first alcohol based markers and I have only tried them out once. I will definitely have to go back and re-look at the image. The alcohol markers were a NOTICABLY different color after they dried than when I put the swatches on- and I mean a WHILE later. I really, REALLY like the way they look after a while.

So, I learned that I need to do some reading and studying- these markers may be more interesting than I originally thought!

Time for lunch, then some reading, then some more playing.