Watercolor and Some Inspiration

Every year, the school I work for closes for half a week for back-to-school cleaning and organizing and we have an in-service which usually consists of some type of team building or class. This year it was an art class with a Child Development teacher at a local community college. One of the assignments was to think back to a time during our childhood and visualize a self portrait. It didn't have to be our face; it could be a location or something physical. Next we were to cut out a piece of black paper. In no type of pattern, just cut. Once we were finished the professor handed us a piece of watercolor paper, a paint pan, and glue stick and asked us to glue the pieces of black paper into the self portrait we saw in our minds and then paint around the black paper with the watercolors. 

Every summer growing up my sister and I would stay with my uncle in Pacific Beach, CA at his condo for one or two weeks. We basically lived at the beach the time we were there and this is what I pictured when the professor asked us to go back to a memory of our childhood. After I cut out my pieces I realized there was this strange llama/dog/horse looking shape I had cut out. I decided I would make that piece my corgi, Clementine, because she ties in to the previous beach scene I had remembered. I love to take her to the beach.

The sun, the ocean, and Clementine.

Clementine at the beach! Derp!

After we watercolored that day, I found some inspiration to watercolor paint myself. It's funny because my entire life my grandmother has always pushed me to paint. Any kind of paint. Watercolor, oil, acrylic. It didn't matter as long as I was painting. She is a painter and I guess wanted to push her love on to me. Because she pushed and pushed, I believe I never really gave it a shot. That and I am not a creative person AT ALL so I figured, why try?

I went to Michael's yesterday and picked up a watercolor pad and some brushes. This morning I looked on Pinterest for some ideas and found a beautiful picture of poppies and decided to give it a go. I'm proud to say I actually really like it and I'm quite proud of myself. 

Watercolor poppies.

The only thing I would change would be the two randomly large ones at the bottom :/

I posted this photo onto my Instagram after and a lot of people have liked and commented about how I should frame it. I'm happy with how my first try has turned out.

Moral of the story?: As Nike says, "Just do it." JUST DO IT. I don't think I would have picked up a brush and painted hadn't I taken that in-service but you can. You can try right now if you'd like. You might be surprised with the outcome :)

Have a wonderful day,

Samantha 

Avocado Chicken Salad

Okay, now most "salads" have some type of cream whether it be mayo or greek yogurt, what have you, but I made this completely no cream as I am not allowed any dairy and I simply don't like mayo :) As usual, everything mentioned is from Trader Joe's-
2 Bonless Skinless Chicken Breasts (found in the cold section, usually the wall, in vacuum sealed bags. There are 4 breasts total, each in their own bag.)
1 large avocado
1/4 onion
Sea salt
Half of a lime

You can easily add more if you are feeding more than one person but I made this for myself and there is enough for two meals.
I put the avo, salt, and onion in a bowl and mashed it up then added the chicken and lime and stirred it all together. Delicious and addicting.

Mushroom Turkey Meatballs

I recently went Paleo and kind of experimented with these meatballs. I figured instead of bread crumbs I'd use mushrooms and it worked!
I don't really have exact measurments I just kind of threw things in and hoped for the best but here is what I used (everything mentioned is from Trader Joe's)-
Ground turkey
Half bag of mushrooms
1/4 onion
2 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1 egg
Italian seasoning
Sea salt

I rolled them into balls and placed them on a cookie sheet on tin foil. Oven set at 375 for 35 minutes. I made 10 meatballs but they were pretty big so you may be able to get 15-20 out of this recipe if you make them smaller. I put them in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch and I plan on using an organic mushroom marinara with them. I hope you try this recipe out and like it :) Let me know if you do!