If you share my Boomeresque age demographic, you have learned, probably repeatedly, that the Scottish poet Robert Burns had it right when he wrote in his 1786 poem, To a Mouse, that:

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

This sentiment was echoed by Woody Allen some 200 years later when he said:

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

While we’ve all experienced our plans derailing no doubt multiple times during our lives, this time feels different because the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have people all over the world, simultaneously saying, “Now what?” as in “Now what do we do since our plans have gone so seriously awry?”

Alternative planning is difficult because there are so many unknowns, and even possibly the dreaded “unknown unknowns”. Does my job still exist? Will there be any children’s summer camp? If so, can we still afford to send the children there? Will they be returning to a brick and mortar school in September? What do we do about childcare if we are able to return to work outside the home, but the children are expected to do remote learning? We have 3 kids and one lap top computer. How are they all going to be able to “attend” their virtual classes simultaneously? Or, if you’re empty nesters like we are, when can we reschedule the trip to visit our son in Mexico City? At our high risk ages, should we even be contemplating getting on an airplane?

U.S. states and countries around the world are trying to figure out how to lift their Stay at Home orders so their economies can “safely” return to the new abnormal. Epidemiologists have determined that the majority of people who test positive for Covid-19 are asymptomatic, yet still capable of infecting another person.

In the U.S., the national Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recommended we wear face masks to cover our mouth and nose when in public as a measure to protect others. Somehow, even mask wearing has become a political issue in the U.S., with some Americans taking the position that being asked to wear a mask to protect others infringes on their Constitutional personal right to liberty. As an almost (but not quite all the way) recovered lawyer, I would frame the issue for the Supreme Court as: “Does a state’s responsibility to protect its citizens in the time of a major public health crisis outweigh an individual’s 1st amendment right to be an a$$hole?”

Meanwhile, I’m still not sure what the new abnormal will look like for me because of vertebral compression fractures that continue to cause pain and limit my mobility even within the confines of our 3 room apartment. Vertebral compression fractures should heal themselves within 2 to 3 months. Therefore, Mr. Excitement and I were hoping my back problems would resolve with the “tincture of time”. Unfortunately, it has been over 4 months since my back problems have essentially confined me to home.

After I have new imaging studies, we will be able to consider whether there are any medical procedures available to reduce my pain and mobility problems. I’m grateful my pain is largely relieved at rest in bed, but the hope is I’ll be able to attain meaningful pain relief sufficient to allow me to resume some version of a “normal” life.

Enough about the new abnormal and back pain. Fortunately, one activity that my back condition hasn’t halted is that I am still able to tangle even though most of my work of late is Zentangle Inspired Art rather than the creative meditative process of the true Zentangle method.

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #32 – Mandalas (Zendalas)

In Sanskkrit, the word mandala actually means “circle”; however, in the Hindu religion, it is imbued with religious significance. For me and many other tanglers, it is a circle filled with all manner of tangles. For this week’s challenge, I’d like you to work on a mandala. It is possible to draw a circle on an official 3.5 x 3.5 inch tile and then use that as part of your string. It is also possible to purchase  “official Zendala” tiles already cut into circles. (Affiliate link). You can also purchase Zendala tiles with a string (affiliate link) design already pre-printed, leaving you to decide what tangles you use. I mostly use circles I draw with a compass. I then use a Helix Angle and Circle Maker (affiliate link) that is basically as a round protractor to mark off the size of even sections around the circle. This device also let’s you create circles within your original circle. I sometimes use it for this purpose although I often just resort again to my compass. 

To date, my most ambitious mandala project used Zentangle 3.5 x 3.5 tiles. In size it is 6 tiles by 7 tiles. I used only a black felt tip pen, a shading pencil, white shading chalk and Sakura gold and silver metallic gelly roll pens. (affiliate link)

 I’m now working on another zendala mandala mosaic using 6 x 6 inch Strathmore Bristol vellum tiles that I pre-painted with watered down acrylic paint. It’s a work in progress:

Finally, here’s a mandala I did in black and white on a 6×6 inch tile:

The border type tangles I used starting from the outside: phirst. The next one I made up, but I figure it must be a published tangle somewhere. (Can anyone provide that information?) Next in is one of my favorites, Sand Swirl, then the ever elegant Akoya, and Coil. The tangle in the middle square and the tangle outside the circle is Knightsbridge.

I hope you don’t dislike working with mandalas/zendalas. Admittedly, if you want even patterns, just preparing your string can probably demand too much of your brain to allow for the meditative aspect of the Zentangle method.

Share Your Work

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge32 on your social media posts. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier. Please also feel free to leave the URL to your blog or website if you post the challenges responses there.

Carpe Diem. Stay safe out there. 

(Note: This post contains some Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase from this link, Boomeresque receives a small commission that does not affect your price.)

I’m Baaaaack

Actually, I was never physically away even though it looks like I last posted a Hump Day Zentangle Challenge for Valentine’s Day. My body has remained at home, my brain—-not so much. Judging by my Facebook Newsfeed, I’m not the only person whose brain has been off somewhere else as it deals with the new abnormal imposed by the Covid 19 pandemic “Stay at Home” orders.

I’ve been under a double Stay at Home order as my problem with vertebral compression fractures has not resolved. Until mid-February, I felt my back pain was growing ever more tolerable, and I had resumed some of my duties such as walking the dog and cooking. However, one day I had such intractable back pain that we had to borrow a wheelchair and go to a hospital emergency room. My husband, a physician who used to work in emergency rooms, would rather have 4 simultaneous root canal procedures than go to a hospital emergency room, so I must have convinced him that I couldn’t handle the pain at home.

I had an xray, and the attending physician who saw me thought my thoracic compression fractures had extended. He sent me home with some narcotic pain medication that I reserve for very special pain occasions; that is, when the pain makes me somewhat really, really unpleasant to live with.

About the time my upper spine started feeling better, I felt something “snap” in my lower spine as I was getting dressed one day. Now, I rarely bother getting dressed. I can get around our apartment, using our wheelchair as a walker. While most people aren’t moving about their living space using a wheelchair as a walker, from what I read and see, I am not alone in thinking it’s not necessary to don street clothes because I’m staying at home. Those who have to participate in video conference calls for their jobs may brush their hair and put on a presentable shirt, but chances are they’re still wearing pajamas on their bottom half and may be cradling a small child or cat on their lap.

My world has become very small. I alternate between bed and the couch, occasionally making a foray to walk in the hall outside the door to our apartment. I still watch too much cable news. Zentangle helps to keep me somewhat sane.

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #31 – Paisley

(If Zentangle is a new concept/word for you, start with this: What is Zentangle and Is It Habit Forming?)

If you look at my last few blog posts, you’ll see I’ve been pretty much Covid 19 obsessed. So, for this week’s challenge, I thought it would be good for my mental health (and maybe yours) to forget about the pandemic for a time. I’ve decided that this week’s challenge is to use the paisley form in our tiles. Most people know what the paisley shape looks like, but I was having difficulty characterizing it. Given that this is not a paper for a school assignment, I turned to Wikipedia which has a fairly in depth exposition about the paisley form and its history:

Paisley or paisley pattern is an ornamental textile design using the boteh (Persian: بته‎) or buta, a teardrop-shaped motif with a curved upper end.

…………………………………………………………..

Although the pine cone or almond-like form is of Persian origin, and the textile designs cramming many of them into a rich pattern are originally Indian, the English name for the patterns derives from the town of Paisley, in the west of Scotland, a centre for textiles where paisley designs were produced.^[3]

As often happens to me, I became fairly paisley obsessed, using the paisley shape as a string, but I bet some of you can find other ways to incorporate it into you composition.

My first tile uses the Zentangle method mostly and uses paisleys as a string. I did this on a blank Strathmore Watercolor postcard.

Then, I decided to cheer myself up with color. I used Castle Art colored pencils for the first time. I was looking for a colored pencil as an alternative to Prismacolor Premier colored pencils which put down rich color, but don’t last that long. Further, I’ve had trouble when sharpening them. I found the significantly less expensive Castle Art pencils to still have a soft core of color, but they are a little harder and, therefore, hardier.

I used the Castle Art colored pencils and Sakura metallic gelly roll pens for the background. This was done on a 6 x 6 inch Strathmore Bristol Vellum artist’s tile.

I then went a little crazy and did this, again on a 6 x 6 inch tile:

I admit to being pretty bad at remembering the names of tangles, but I know I used Sand Swirl, Cadent, Phirst, N’zeppel, Noom, Tipple, Slinky (which may also have another name), Knightsbridge, and a modified Printemps. Again, I used the Castle Art colored pencils and Sakura Metallic Gelly Roll pens for the background.

Share Your Work

I would love to see what you do with Paisley themed tiles. Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge31 on your social media posts. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier. Please also feel free to leave the URL to your blog or website if you post the challenges there.

I’m writing this while under a “Stay at Home” Order issued by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This Order requires people to stay in their houses, leaving only for essential activities like food shopping. The Order was issued in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the pandemic caused by Covid 19, a novel Corona Virus that is sweeping around the world.

Meet Viru, a Tangle in the Time of Covid 19

The Covid 19 virus has been the main story on the cable news stations I watch too much. They usually display graphics of the virus. As devastating as the virus has been, I often think the graphic representations of the virus are pretty. So, I decided to see if I could come up with a tangled version.

This is what I came up with:

My “artistic” representation of the Covid 19 virus. I named this tangle Viru.

This composition with the added color would be considered Zentangle Inspired Art (ZIA).

My husband, Mr./Dr. Excitement, is on the faculty of the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where he is a member of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division. He usually grunts when I interrupt whatever he’s doing which could range from reading or writing a scientific paper to watching a science fiction series on Netflix. However, he seemed genuinely interested in my Covid 19 tangleation. He shared it with the Chief of the Division who included it as the final slide in his weekly staff Covid 19 update presentation. Hopefully, they have a better idea of what this virus really looks like because they are the on the front-line in caring for Covid 19 patients.

I contacted Linda Farmer who publishes TanglePatterns.com to see if she would be interested in adding my Covid 19 inspired tangle to her website. She has published other of my tangles, but she said she is too disturbed by the sadness and disruption caused by Covid 19, to share it on Tangle Patterns.

I can understand Linda’s preference not to include it, but in some ways, deconstructing the virus into a Zentangle tangle feels oddly empowering — but not so empowering as to keep me from continuing to follow the Covid 19 mitigation guidelines.

Here are the step-outs for Viru:

My deconstruction is a little wonky which I’ll blame on the raft of medications I’m taking for my vertebral compression fractures. If they make no sense, please let me know.

I’ve already shared the colored Zentangle Inspired Art version of Viru above. Here it is on a 3.5 inch square tile adhering more strictly to the Zentangle method:

So, give Viru a try and let me know what you think. You can share comments and the URL to where we can find your Viru online below.

Other Boomeresque Tangles

Here are links to the other tangles I’ve published on Boomeresque:  Phirst, Segundo, Tercero, Aurabead, Aloha, Spearator, Springish, Spangles, Dinoflor, and Shorely.

Try some of the Hump Day Zentangle Challenges on Facebook. I’d be happy to add you to the group.

As it does for many people, my birthday usually prompts some introspection about where I’ve been and where I’m heading. My 66th birthday has arrived with most of the world under Stay at Home orders to try to at least mitigate the effects of a a global pandemic triggered by the spread of the novel corona virus, Covid 19.

On a good day, I can use the wheelchair as a walker and try to regain some cardiovascular fitness and strengthen muscles I never thought much about before. As you can see, the dog is much more interested in seeing if some food or food like substance is on the rug.

Due to the fortunate confluence of two unfortunate events, I am one of the people least affected by the Stay at Home order. For several months I’ve been dealing with multiple vertebral compression fractures caused not by trauma, but by “age related osteoporosis”. “Age related”, making my 66th year an inflection point.

I hope this is a temporary state of affairs, but for now, I can no longer care for myself, and more importantly, the dog. I am most comfortable in bed (where I’m writing this), with brief forays to the bathroom (sometimes by wheelchair) and the living room couch. In other words, I didn’t need a Stay at Home order by the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I’m not going anywhere. By mere coincidence, most of the world isn’t going anywhere either, and as they say, misery loves company.

The new “normal”. Setting out to go food shopping.

Fortunately, my husband, Mr./Dr. Excitement isn’t going anywhere either. He stopped caring for hospitalized pulmonary patients two years ago. For now, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is handling its surge of Covid 19 patients, so his services as a clinician are unnecessary. He continues to run a research laboratory, studying mesothelioma and lung cancer. Like the majority of schools in the United States, the University of Pennsylvania sent its students home and shut down all but Covid 19 laboratory research. Hence, he became an employee who could work from home—and take care of his, for now, invalid wife.

I’ll admit, I’m a little miffed at Dino, the dog. I used to be his main person, but now that I can’t take him for walks, and more significantly, can’t feed him, Mr. Excitement is his main person. At the risk of anthropomorphizing, I see the little balloon over his furry head when he passes me. It says, “What have you done for me lately?”

What? I’m getting ready for a nap.

One less than happy coincidence is that I can’t have the examinations and potential medical interventions to treat my back pain. Hospitals are still only seeing medical emergencies and Covid 19 cases. Non-emergent “elective” procedures are on hold. I’m starting to feel more “emergent” every day. Intellectually, I understand the reason for this policy. Emotionally, I’m not used to being this limited.

My first hint of back problems started with painful spasms early in September 2019, but by some miracle my pain had resolved by September 20th when we set out (tried to set out) on a five week, around the world “bleisure” trip. We were able to string together Dr. Excitement’s multiple international speaking engagements and research conferences, starting on Crete and ending in Sydney, Australia, with free time in between. Fortunately, I could do unlimited walking. We walked almost 10 miles in Melbourne, Australia one day, and I even climbed the 700 steps to a monument in Bulgaria. However, soon after our return from that trip, I had a second round of more intractable back problems that scuttled a planned trip to visit our son in Mexico City in January of this year.

One of the stops on our 10 mile walking tour of Melbourne, Australia: The Royal Botanic Gardens

Travel bloggers and travel anythings are feeling the strain of nobody being able to travel. The hospitality and tourism sectors of world economies have ceased operations. Most countries have closed their borders. Airlines are using airports as airplane parking lots. Cruise ships (and aircraft carriers) have proven themselves to be floating petri dishes, so no one will be going on a cruise anytime soon.

On a macro scale, the world is reeling from the Covid 19 pandemic. On a micro scale, here are the pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned from my coterminous affliction:

• I’m not invincible. I kind of knew this already, but now I’m reminded of this every day.
• Our dog loves the one who feeds him. In some ways, this has made him the perfect dog for when we travel(ed). He quite fluidly turns his allegiance to the person filling his food bowl twice a day. As we leave, he looks up as if to say, “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”
• I spend some time worrying about what happens if even modern medicine can’t get me back to baseline or near baseline. I have dark thoughts when I think my current condition could be as good as it gets. Then I remember that Laura Hillenbrand wrote the best seller, Sea Biscuit, (affiliate link) when she was bed bound with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. On the other hand, given the amount of angst expended in writing even this brief essay in bed, I don’t think a mattress will ever be a reliable muse for me.
• I’m glad I discovered Zentangle, a meditative art form. It keeps me semi-sane no matter where I am: waiting for our next flight of 13 in the Singapore airport; watching cable news; or in bed, hoping I can move without triggering a painful back spasm.

Covid 19 depicted in my Zentangle Inspired Art

• I’m heartbroken for my 95 year old mother who lives in a nursing home where no one is allowed to visit during the Covid 19 lock down. My brother-in-law works there as a nurse practitioner, so at least he can visit her, albeit wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that makes him look like an alien from another planet.

And, oh yes, I gratefully think someone still loves me.

How are you handling the Covid 19 pandemic where you live?

The 2020 appearance of Covid-19, a novel Corona virus, has infectious disease experts recommending ways to try to contain the spread of this highly communicable disease. I propose adopting namaste as an appropriate greeting and farewell.

Covid -19 is an airborne spread pathogen. When we sneeze, cough or even talk, tiny droplets are released into the air. They can then settle onto people, and even inanimate objects, waiting for an unsuspecting person to grasp a contaminated door handle, keyboard, writing implement, etc. When that person then touches their face (which apparently we all do, all.the.time), it’s possible to unwittingly infect oneself. A possible silver lining flowing from the pandemic could be fewer people stealing walking out with other people’s pens (of which I’m guilty as sin), and food from the office refrigerator (I swear it wasn’t me ).

A medical artist’s rendition of the Covid 19 Corona Virus. So pretty to be causing so much civic pain. (Photo credit: CDC Public Domain).

Public health officials have suggested ways to slow the spread of the disease. We have been instructed to do frequent hand washing with soap and water for 20 seconds.  Counting one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, etc. all the way to 20-Mississippi can be tedious, so public health officials have suggested singing a 20 second song. A Google search reveals a range of appropriate ditties, some written specifically about germs,. However, if you’re not inclined to want to learn a new hand washing song, apparently, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) instructs you can sing Happy Birthday to You two times. Personally, I’d feel more comfortable if they provided a metronome setting, but in the absence thereof, I’m going with a moderato tempo, rather than lento or allegro. Hopefully, when you are standing there at a public restroom sink, washing your hands while belting out Happy Birthday to You — twice, you won’t be embarrassed when someone pops out of a toilet stall. I’m not sure if it’s less embarrassing if one sings Happy Birthday to two different people (i.e. dear So-and-So, and dear “what’s his name”) or if “dear Rover” twice is more appropriate.

When I was growing up, my father carried a handkerchief (gah). By the time our sons were in elementary school, we were invited to donate boxes of tissues for their classrooms. They were also taught that it’s good manners to sneeze or cough into their elbows, rather than to spray offensive droplets into the common air. Hopefully, they learned that lesson well since it is now an official CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guideline for preventing slowing the spread of Covid-19.

Finally, we are being urged to unlearn the Western convention of handshaking as a polite form of greeting and farewell. (If you’re from a European culture where a kiss on each cheek is de rigueur, you have more to unlearn.) Many of us can recall being taught a proper handshaking grip — not too hard, not too soft. We were going for “just right”, while looking one’s co-handshaker in the eye so as not to come off as lacking in self esteem a shrinking violet. (When I was a baby lawyer, a large opposing counsel who looked like the KFC colonel, once actually growled at me as he stuck out his hand. I gave him a Jedi grip handshake while staring into his eyes like a laser beam. (Um, no I didn’t, but to this day, some 40 years later, I wish I had.)

Greeting Techniques in Lieu of Handshaking to
Combat the Spread of the Covid-19 Corona Virus

It turns out that despite our being drilled in the proper germ destroying hand washing protocol, we are to avoid shaking hands at all costs. Various techniques have been recommended to replace handshakes. One technique favored by politicians who want to lead by example is an elbow bump. Personally, this seems like a bad  an odd idea if everyone has also been walking around sneezing and coughing into their elbows.

An alternative greeting is the toe tap where each participant extends the toe of their right footwear to tap the right footwear of the other person. This makes it difficult to maintain eye contact since there is an involuntary reflex to look down when extending one’s foot to meet another’s foot. This technique could also be painful awkward if one toe tapper is wearing steel tipped work boots and the other is wearing, say, flip flops (a/k/a thongs in Australia, and jandals in New Zealand). I suspect Donald Trump could reverse the stock market dive caused by Clovid-19 by pointing out that the toe tap greeting will result in more robust sales of shoe polish.

Some Trekkies (Star Trek afficionados) like Mr. Excitement are pulling for the Vulcan salute to become the acceptable replacement for the handshake. I see several problems with this. Some people have been living under a rock have never heard of the planet Vulcan even though it’s sufficiently embedded in popular culture to have a Wikipedia entry.  Others have a hard time getting their fingers into the double V position. There is actually a physiological explanation for this difficulty that I shall spare you.

If Earth is ever invaded by Vulcans, Mr. Excitement is ready.

My suggestion is the namaste greeting, hands and fingers pressed together in a praying formation with elbows out, thumbs touching the heart space, and a slight bow of the head and shoulders. The namaste greeting is widely practiced in India. It is also used when parting. Although namaste is of Hindu origen, many people in southeast Asian countries such as Thailand also use it even though in those countries the dominant religion is Buddhism.

In Thailand, even Ronald McDonald uses the namaste in greeting.

In some cultures, touching other people in greeting is considered way too forward. Since, as is described above, I’ve never quite perfected my handshake technique, I was relieved to find an alternate socially acceptable greeting that doesn’t involve a handshake or more uncomfortable still, a kiss on both cheeks (quelle horreur!).  In Sanskrit (the Latin of Hinduism) namaste means “I bow to you” and is intended as a sign of respect. I’ll not go down the rabbit hole of opining whether using a namaste greeting will consign an individual to H-ll. (You can google that yourself).  I’m quite sure the CDC doesn’t want you to go there.

What is your choice to replace a germ filled handshake?

Next Friday is Valentine’s Day. However, I thought it would be a good idea to start thinking about it this week, so you can make some romantic plans or at least get a card ready for your loved one. If you need any suggestions, I provided some in this blog post entitled Romantic Escapes.

I’m feeling especially grateful to/for my loved one, Mr. Excitement, this year. As I’m dealing with the pain of four compression fractures in my thoracic spine, he has proven time and time again that he was serious about that “in sickness and in health” thing. In addition to his more than full time day job, he has taken over most of the dog walking, cooking, cleaning and food shopping duties.

Since my most comfortable position is adhered to the couch, I’m still working with color to try to keep myself cheered up.

I’m working on a mosaic using 6 x 6 inch white tiles that I paint with Golden brand high flow acrylic paint that I dilute with water and blot with a paper tile. I find that doesn’t transfer to a black Sakura gelly roll pen. (These are Amazon affiliate links. Boomeresque receives a small commission with no change to your price if you make a purchase via one of these links).

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #30 – Love Will Keep Us Together

Not surprisingly, I’ve noticed that people posting other Zentangle challenges this week have embraced the Valentine’s Day theme. As much as a I hate to seem derivative, the Hump Day Zentangle challenge this week also asks you to incorporate hearts in your composition. Yet again, I resorted to a mandala (zendala), this time with a plethora of hearts. 

For my tile, I traced a 6 x 6 inch Strathmore Bristol Vellum artist’s tile onto a piece of white cardstock. Color was done with Sakura metallic gelly roll pens and Prismacolor Premier soft core colored pencils.

I confess that I don’t know the names of my heart tangles. Do you have any heart tangles you like to use? If so, please share their names with us in the comments below. 

Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge30. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier.

There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below with your Pinterest name.

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!

During the winter here in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in the northern hemisphere, I usually fall prey to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Then, I feel guilty because I know I have been so fortunate compared to others. One way I try to cope is to plan a trip to somewhere warm during February. As I mentioned in my last Hump Day Zentangle post, this year, we were supposed to go to Mexico, but that trip was scuttled by my experiencing intractable back pain.

I shared that I underwent an MRI study to look for the cause of back pain. I received the results, and as my physician suspected, I have compression fractures in my thoracic spine — 4 of them. Yesterday I had some blood tests. As I walked home from the hospital, the world felt pretty gray—even this view of Center City Philadelphia from the South Street Bridge.

It’s at times like these that I am very grateful I stumbled upon the world of Zentangle, both the method and the kind and generous people around the world who share my enthusiasm for this meditative art form. There are times when I enjoy the calming mind space I can enter using the pure Zentangle method, “one stroke at a time”. At other times, I turn to Zentangle Inspired Art, using color to rock my world. (There’s a reason my family calls me Mrs. Excitement.)

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #29 – Color My/Your World

For this week’s challenge, share some Zentangle Inspired Art where you have used color. In the past week, I find myself wanting to add color to my Zentangle Inspired Art:

I usually don’t know what to do with the tangle Mooka. Here, I used it with some Fescu and “flowers” which may or may not be actual tangles.

Here, I also used Mooka in a colorful Mandala (Zendala). The other tangles you might recognize are Paradox, Sand Swirl and Cadent . The tangle in the outermost ring I believe is also a tangle, but I don’t remember the name. Can anyone help with that?

For the color in my Zentangle Inspired Art, I used Prisma Color Premier colored pencils and Sakura Gelly Roll Metallic Pens.  (Affiliate Links*).

Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge29. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier.

There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below with your Pinterest name.

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!

*This post has affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links, Boomeresque will receive a small commission without affecting your price.)

Have you ever had a compression factor? If so, is there any advice you can share?

I’m supposed to be writing this from Mexico City where we planned to visit our digital nomad son who lives there — and also escape some cold winter weather. Instead, I’m sitting on our couch in Philadelphia, trying to avoid triggering a back spasm. I’m leaning on a heating pad, downing ibuprofen (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for your pharmacy types), and wallowing in a bit of self pity. I’m also wallowing in guilt because this is actually last week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge which should have been published last Wednesday.

Instead, last Wednesday, I finally saw a Physical Medicine and Rehab physician. He thinks I might have compression fractures in my thoracic spine and he ordered an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) study. Many people find MRIs very difficult because you have to lay very still in a coffin-like tube that makes all sorts of loud noises for half an hour. I’ve had two other MRIs in my life. The key is to keep your eyes closed before you enter the tube. Five milligrams of valium (a tranquilizer) also helped.

This isn’t my first time being the poster child for Woody Allen’s observation:

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

My unplanned hospital stay in Honolulu, Hawaii springs to mind. The good news is that even with my back issues, I’m still able to tangle. The coffee table in front of my couch perch is covered with paper, pens, pencils and creations in various states of completeness.

One day, the idea for a “new” tangle came to me. Maybe it’s not new and has already been named and claimed, but I didn’t find it on tanglepatterns.com. I know there are other compilations of tangles. I already have 951 pins (!) on my Pinterest board named: Tangle Patterns for Private, Non-commercial Use.

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #28 – Use My New Tangle “Slinky”

For this week (really, last week) the challenge is to use Slinky in a composition. You can read about the genesis of the name for the tangle and find the step-outs here. It’s not a complicated tangle, but can “fancied” up. Here are some examples of compositions I’ve done using it.

In this mandala (Zendala), on a 6 inch x 6 inch tile, Slinky is used as the border in the outermost ring.

Here it is in color, also used as a border.

It can also be used to fill in a space:

Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge28. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier. Please invite others you think might be interested.

There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below with your Pinterest name.

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!

Do you remember playing with a Slinky in your childhood? Have you ever had an MRI? How did you do?

When I was a child, not only couldn’t we entertain ourselves with I-Pads, we even had to watch a TV show when it was actually being broadcast. In my family, we were allowed to watch one half hour “educational” TV show after school. The rest of the time, we could read actual books, do our homework, ride our bikes, and play with toys. (I know some of you rolled your eyes and thought “O.K., Boomer” as soon as you read, “When I was a child….”)

During my childhood, some of our “toys” were pretty simple. When our sons were young, they learned some of their first “bad words” thanks to their parents (i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Excitement) hopping on one leg while saying things like *&$^ or $&##@**%& after stepping on a Lego piece barefooted. We could elicit similar howls from our parents because we played with jacks, diabolical little pieces of spiky metal. We could also entertain ourselves with less lethal playthings; for example, Slinkys—basically, a metal coil.

One of the more fun things to do with a Slinky was to make it “walk” down a flight of stairs. (Credit: Wikimedia, Roger DeLassus, CC Lic. 3.0)

As a native Philadelphian, I was interested to learn that the Slinky was developed by Richard James, a naval mechanical engineer working at a Philadelphia naval shipyard during the Second World War. His job was to develop springs to stabilize ship instruments in rough seas. As with the antibiotic penicillin that was “discovered” when scientist Alexander Fleming accidentally contaminated a petri dish of bacteria with a mold, Mr. James “discovered” the idea for the Slinky when he accidentally knocked a nautical spring off a shelf at work and watched it “walk” across the floor. (Of course, I’m not equating the importance to humankind of penicillin and the Slinky, just the accidental nature of their discoveries.)

While idly “tangling” recently, I realized that one of the patterns I was using reminded me of my childhood Slinky. I searched all the tangles in TanglePatterns.com and did not find that this tangle had been deconstructed and published. If it has been published elsewhere with a different name, let me know, but I find it useful, especially for borders, so I thought it was worth sharing. It is also fairly uncomplicated and there are many some days when uncomplicated is about all I can manage. It can be illustrated in only 4 steps, so I think it comports with the requirements for use with the Zentangle method.

Here are the Slinky “step outs” with some examples of how I’ve used it.

Here I’ve used it as the border in a zendala (mandala):

Here are the other tangles I’ve published on Boomeresque:  Phirst, Segundo, Tercero, Aurabead, Aloha, Spearator, Springish, Spangles, Dinoflor, and Shorely.

Try some of the Hump Day Zentangle Challenges on Facebook. I’d be happy to add you to the group.

Copyright notice: You are free to “pin” these step outs to your or another’s Pinterest account as long as you link back to this post which will happen automatically if you pin from here. You may print these steps outs with attribution for non-commercial use. If you wish to use these steps commercially, please contact me. 

I think my ongoing back pain issues are playing with my mind. I thought Thursday was Wednesday for well into the night. If it had been, today’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge would only be one day late, instead of two days.

Since this is already late, I’ll try to keep my rambling brief.

What’s In A Name?

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

In this famous quote from Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare suggested  names don’t matter, but most of us get rather attached to our names. We spend hours agonizing discussing what we should name our children.

We named our older son, Benjamin. As a lifelong Philadelphia history nerd, I was thinking about Benjamin Franklin. It wasn’t until several years later that I learned my husband, Mr. Excitement, was thinking about Bennie Cunningham, a 6 foot, 5 inch tall tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers professional football team. I suspect this was wishful thinking on his part. One look at the vertically challenged Mr. and Mrs. Excitement would quickly dispel the notion that our children were bred for size.

When Ben was born, Mr. Excitement was still a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Once we had a child, I insisted he  convert to Philadelphia Eagles fandom so our children wouldn’t grow up confused—or worse yet, beat up in the schoolyard. Philadelphia is famous for the Liberty Bell, Rocky, cheese steaks, and poorly behaved sports fans.

Ben never complained about his name; however, his younger brother, Jeremy, went through a phase when he hated his name. When he was about 4, he bitterly opined that we should have named him Ben. When I pointed out that we already had a Ben and having another child with the same name might be confusing, he suggested we call him “Ben 2”.

When we named Jeremy, we had never heard of the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company. It was then a small company that distributed its product in New England. The first I knew of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream was when a Boston friend sent me a Ben and Jerry’s tee shirt after receiving Jeremy’s birth announcement. By then, it was too late. Jeremy was Jeremy. We nipped the being teased about the Ben and Jerry ice cream thing by calling Jeremy by his nickname, JJ.

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #27 – Tangle Your Name

(If Zentangle is a new concept for you, you can read more about it here.)

For this week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge, do a composition, using tangles that start with the same letters as your name. You can use your the letters of your first name or last name. If like Jeremy, you’re not overly fond of your name, pick a new name.

I chose tangles, starting with the letters of my first name. “Suzanne” has 2 Ns, but I only used one “N” tangle.

I did a mandala (Zendala) on a Strathmore black 6 x 6 inch black tile with Sakura Gelly Roll Metallic Pens. (Affiliate Links)

I used the following tangles: A=Abukas by Charlotte Carpentier, CZT; S=Sand SwirlSand Swirl by Karry Heun
Z=ZanzeeZanzee by Cathy Cusson, N= l‘NZeppel by Maria Thomas, E=Eternal by Katsuri Das, and U=I forget the name of the tangle I used .

Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge27. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier. Please invite others you think might be interested.

There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below with your Pinterest name.

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!