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So Much Coloring
December 17, 2024
So hi, I did indeed lose the thread with Holidailies. Mr. Karen and I just got back from nearly two weeks away, and unlike some other Decembers when we’ve traveled, I decided to leave my laptop at home and not try to keep up my daily posting here. I’ll share more about the trip in due time, meaning once I’ve decided how to navigate doing that with also doing my photo a day posts week by week.
Today, just a quick look at how the Happy Color app and I are getting on, as I had a cross country flight yesterday that meant lots of time to poke at those pictures. How I go about decided which images to color hasn’t changed a whole lot since last year. I’m still doing as many holidays pics as I can (though I don’t always know what the holiday in question is for some of the more obscure ones), and the dailies, and the mysteries (there are two a week now, on Thursday and Sunday), and the pics of the week/month, and coloring all of those in pairs that have some connection even when I have to go looking for the right mate. The past several major holidays, there’s been a temporary tab just for that holiday which makes it easier to find all the relevant pictures, though they don’t let it linger very long so one has to keep up. Right now there’s a Christmas tab that I haven’t started yet (unless the image has otherwise come to my attention). I’ve also been doing seasonal groups, finding a bunch of pictures for the season across various categories and working on them a little at a time over the months of that season.
I have many pictures in progress at any given time. Right now, my in progress feed looks like this:
1) Daily/mystery (some paired, some not; I’ve only just started some of the ones from December as I’ve been busy with other things, both coloring and not)
2) Pics of the week for the first two weeks of December (they’ll get finished in January, after the pic of the month for December is announced)
3) Thanksgiving that I’m saving to finish next year because I didn’t start them in time (there are now bonus pictures in WhatsApp and I keep forgetting to check, so got those late, and overlooked another couple in the main feed somehow)
4) Squirrels, Non-Autumn (found these when looking for autumn but these are more spring/summer based on the leaves, so I’ll save them for another time)
5) Four pack of cats in a window, one for each season
6) Birthday pics (I’ll do these around my own birthday time)
7) Easter/spring/bunny/sheep (this started with a couple of Easter pics I didn’t get to this past spring and just kept growing as I’d notice pics that fit while looking for pairs for other pics)
All these groups are separated by pairs of complicated patterns I use as spacers. Eventually I finish the spacers but there’s no rush.
If I’d done this list at the start of my trip, there would have also been an Autumn group, with all the pics I started for the season from many categories (I did finish one group of fall pics earlier in the season, mostly from Fashion). I completed those during the trip, including this squirrel doing some acorn shopping:
I’ll start on the Christmas tab soon, but think I’ll wait for January to get serious about gathering other winter pics. At some point, I’m going to lose my attraction to this app, same as I did with Candy Crush and Pokemon Go, but until then I’ll be tap tapping away getting my tiny hits of dopamine from filling in the colors.
On this date in 2023: Happy Color Hiccups
2022: Baubles
2021: Southward
2020: Some Snow
2019: Fall Road Trip Loop, Part 3: Onward to California
2018: Shoes I Did Not Buy
2017: Winter Risks and Rewards
2016: Second Verse, Same as the First
2015: Might As Well Fail Big
2014: I’d Rather Be Limited
2013: WDW Day 1: Arrival and the Studios
2012: Inside the Envelope
2011: Paying It Forward
2010: No entry
2009: Alien Dessert
2008: The Secret to My Success
2007: Done and Undone
2006: No entry
2005: Nothing Ice Can Stay
2004: ABC Spin Quilt
2003: I See You When You’re Driving
2002: Older Than Dirt
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