Weekend recap - RTT style

The backstory:
Keely start Random Tuesday Thoughts.
Everyone loved it.
Keely's life got busy.
Stacy graciously took over.
Everyone loves it.
Giving Keely a much needed break.
You got all that? Yeah, me too.
Let's get down to business


I made food this weekend.  This may not seem like a big deal but I've been gone quite a bit in the last few weeks so all cooking, painting and cleaning were put on hold. Since, I consider cooking a creative outlet, putting it on hold is very hard for me. But I'm back in the saddle and have come up with something I think will be awesome! An egg baked in an avocado half. Topped with a little lime and cilantro. In fact, I'm jonesing for it right now. Except it is Tuesday; I don't have any avocados right now, shopping day isn't until Saturday and this sounds like breakfast to me. Not that breakfast food can't be dinner. Damn! I'm now convincing myself to stop at the store.

Doesn't this look like dinner?

Oh look! The California Avocado Commission has a recipe. I think this will be on Saturday's breakfast menu with a few vegetarian tweaks. Considering my love of all things avocado, (except maybe the avocado colored appliances that my mother-in-law had...ewww..whoever though THAT was a good idea?) it looks like I'll be culling through their recipe website soon.

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I painted.

 I thought I was done with this but I want to fill in a little on Sprite's bow and Jen's shirt. Other than that I think it came out really well. It is hanging on my drying wall. Jen's wonderful husband John takes the most amazing and heartfelt photos that he could keep me busy for a year trying to paint them all. Damn.You.John! (and I mean that in the nicest way because I love all of you)

This gray scale is of a friend's sleeping baby. I adore the look of it. JR wasn't sure what it was at first and I LOVE that about this painting. You really sort of have to know what the subject matter is or unfocus a little to figure it out.

Next up is the "We can afford that" banner and one of JR's grandmother boarding a train back in 1910. I'm planning to paint that one in a post-impressionism style. That ought to really confuse JR.

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The weather was a little hot and muggy on Saturday which encouraged our hibiscus to bloom.

Thankfully, it cooled down. I'm seriously hoping that we don't start summer until at least May this year.

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I've been working out very consistently for the last week and a half. While my scale and I are not agreeing, I say I can see/feel the difference. My clothes are fitting a little better. After all the travel food I've been eating I needed to get back into shape. Eating all those calories isn't hard but burning them off sure is.

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I love yoga.

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Nessa is spoiled.

In a sweet cuddly fuzzy type of way that is impossible to resist.

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That is it for me. Please take a few minutes to pop over to Stacy's place to visit other RTT participants.

Love,
M

RTT-shameless self promotion

I totally plan to shamelessly self-promote today.

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 Paintings:
This is the one that I've been working on for a week or so now. It is coming along. I need to let the painting dry a while longer. I'm mostly working on the hair right now and blending the flesh colors. The blending stage takes the longest time. Sketching takes a little while mostly because getting the perspective right is difficult for me. Slapping the first layer of paint on doesn't take any time at all, a couple of hours at most. The blending and layering stages takes forever since you can only work on a little bit at a time. From now on I'll be adding highlights, low-lights and detail.

This is the second one that I am working on. As you can see it is another grayscale piece. I really like the abstract quality of it, JR not so much but than JR doesn't really like any abstract paintings. It is not a true abstract, of course, more of a study. This painting is of a baby's eyelashes. Which I think is kind of cool. My friend Lacey took the picture of her son while he was sleeping. I cropped it a little closer and chose to paint it on a 12 x 12 canvas. I think it gives it an interesting sense of motion and emotion. Once again, during the coming weeks I'll add the details. What do you think?

I have two more paintings in the drawn out phase. One is the banner from the "We can Afford That" site without the text. The other is an old photograph of JR's grandmother and her friend/sister (I'm not sure which) boarding a train home from boarding school for Easter break. Obviously, the photograph is in black and white since it was taken around 1910, but I'm going to painting it in color. I'm going for a very impressionism style with this one. It will be interesting to see how it comes out. I've found that paintings tend to take on a life of their own. I'm sure these two won't be any different.

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If you haven't watched it or if you have but found it so compelling that you just HAVE to watch again or if you have time on your hands or you just can't get enough of University of Houston during WWII history or you are so bored that you will watch anything even mildly interesting in an effort to relieve your boredom. Here is the documentary film I made with some others.



The University of Houston: War and Growth, 1939-1950 from UH Memories on Vimeo.


I figured out how to actually embed the file! Yay me! I'm feeling oh so clever now.

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As a Goldendoodle Nessa doesn't shed. Which is a good thing. What is a bad thing is the amount of money that it costs me to take her to the groomers every 3 months. Since, I have become very cheap this year I've decided to groom Nessa myself. I'm proud to say that she doesn't look too much like a lawnmower cut her hair and I've only nicked her once. The groomers can't say that. Now, if I could only be more proactive about bathing her every couple of weeks and brushing her at least once a week she'd have to have less mats cut out of her fur.


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As many of you know, my one New Year's resolution was to do one random act of kindness every day. This has now become sort of mantra for me and it has spilled over to JR. We were doing our (what has now become) bi-weekly grocery shopping trip and another driver was being a jerk. I said to JR, just let him cut in and don't get all huffy about it. Then call it your random act of kindness for today. Which he did. JR has been getting more on-board with this philosophy. Pretty soon we will either be the nicest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse (name that paraphrased movie quote) or biggest suckers to ever live. I'm okay with either.


That seems to be the limit of my random today. head over the Stacy's place by clicking on the button at the top of the page to read more random posts from other exciting bloggers.

Love,
M

Paintings over the weekend

I worked on several paintings over the weekend. Which means I really didn't get anything else done, anything such as; there was no cooking done, no cleaning done, no shopping done. Just a bunch of paintings. Oh and a little this and that but let's talk about the paintings. They are much more interesting.

Galveston and Nessa paintings

I finished the painting of Nessa. This one took the least amount of time. All I did was change the background color. The green makes the painting seem a little less angry. It is hanging on my drying wall. Along with the Galveston painting. About the drying wall, I have found that hanging the paintings in various stages of doneness means I can work on more paintings at one time. I have an easel and an art table. If I kept a half done painting on each than I couldn't work on anything else until these were dry enough to work on some more. If I hang them I can start two more in the meantime. It is all about rotation and efficiency.

Guiding

I finally finished this one. For a little 11 x 14 it took forever. All that those grid lines were a nightmare. I do like the way the dad and boy turned out. This is a commission piece that I'll be sending out on Saturday. The owner will be happy to see it. She's been waiting a long time. Our move totally screwed the timeline on this painting.

Caleb

I drew out this one. It will be the second gray scale painting I will have done in the last 12 months. Once I get started this one shouldn't take too long. This is the way I start paintings. I draw in a brief outline just to get perspective. I use to free hand this process or basically just start in with paint but I found that I was having to go over a lot of paint. This saves time and paint and frustration.

Peace

If you are friends with me on Facebook (and if not why?) you would have seen the progression of this painting from drawn in to partly done to this stage. It still has a lot of work but I think it is really coming along.

The last two are photographs that a couple of my Facebook friends posted. I borrowed them as inspiration. Just an FYI to all my Facebook friends...Your photos might become my inspiration. At least I ask permission first.

Oh another FYI to my friends that I steal borrow from, you are under no obligation to buy the painting unless you want to but I am one of the cheapest painters you'll ever encounter.

That is how I spent my weekend. We went to the RV Show on Saturday. I still have to process the photos from that this week. We were pretty amazed at how fancy RVs have gotten.

How was your weekend?

Love,
M

Productivity over the Turkey-day Weekend

We were really productive over the long weekend. It was like we had all the time in the world so let's just slap it into submission. The list of our weekend accomplishments is amazing and it is little wonder that JR is snoring away at 6:40 tonight.

Here's the play by play,

Thursday:
*cooked like a mad woman. I know I said I wasn't going to work that hard but it seems I can't help myself. Though I have to say that our dinner was wonderful. Roasting your vegetables just to make stock for the gravy was the best idea ever. I'll be repeating this for other holidays. And, it makes a ton so I have it frozen for future use.

*JR tried to replace a bulb in the truck headlight but was totally defeated. They just don't make vehicles that an owner can really work on for themselves. It is a sad fact.

*We cleaned the garage out. There are only 3 more boxes that need to be gone through and put away from the move but now the garage is clean enough to get the car in. Of course, it is a two car garage but we are not going to let a silly thing like one whole side of the garage stuffed with boxes deny us a sense of accomplishment.

Friday
*JR had to go to work. I met a coworker at the local Goodwill for a little thrifting. Then we went to Micheal's Craft store for work related holiday decorations. We scored big.

*We made this

That is two boxes of 18 candy canes glued to a very narrow vase. I think it is adorable.

*Later on in the day we decided that we just had to go to Hobby Lobby for more crafty stuff. We didn't find anything for the work holiday party but we did come up with these:

Little jewel colored hanging pots. I love the way they glow when the sun shines in. I saw some really pretty bottles in the same jeweled tones. I'm thinking of going all the way over the top and hanging them here also. You know, because more is more.

*We ate leftovers and all was right with the world.

Saturday
*I made tomato bruschetta topping, herb goat cheese spread and another batch of mushroom pate. I had to make another batch because my friend and I polished off the first batch. We had friends coming over in the evening so I wanted to be prepared.

* JR sanded and painted an old bench.

*We did all our food shopping.
*I hung the little pots.That was actually a little harder than it looks. I had to come up with something fun. Turns out some old beaded curtains came to the rescue. Sometimes it pays to be a pack rat hippy.
*JR tried again (unsuccessfully) to put in the headlight lamp.
*I installed a magnetic knife holder and under-counter light both of which I had been hauling from place to place. So make that pack rat hippy handy-woman.

Do you have one of these magnetic knife holders? No? Go get one ASAP, unless you have bloodthirsty children then I would wait until they go to college.
*Then we cleaned a little because we had friends coming over and the place was kind of a mess by this time.
*I made a Christmas present for Dr. Boy. Since, he reads my blog occasionally I can't show it to you but it is terrific. Now, I want to make some for myself.  Make that pack rat hippy handy-woman crafter.

Sunday

*We cleaned up from having friends over because by the time they left it was all we could do but go to bed.
*We gave Nessa a bath and trimmed her up a little.

Doesn't she look gorgeous? And, she is so soft.

*JR stared at the truck headlight in frustration. Then opened the hood and stared and fiddled in frustration. I'm pretty sure there was some swearing. He was once again unsuccessful.
*I finish one painting, started a commissioned painting and got a good deal of this one done for Dr. Boy. I had been promising to him for forever. The next month will be taken up with painting, painting and more painting.

I've got a bit more to go on it but I think it is looking pretty hawt! I've never painted in just shades of gray before. It is interesting and edgy. I love edgy.

Well, I think that is about it. We were in bed by 8pm which is an example of what we got done and our age.

How was your weekend?

Peace and love and off to the dealership,
M
the pack rat hippy handy-woman crafty painter

RTT - New Converse, Colonial America, socks

You know sometimes it is the little things that can make you the happiest. For instance my new tennis shoes.


I, now, own 8 pairs of Converse Chuck Taylor tennis shoes. In fact, I have a pair to match just about everything I own, this includes dresses and skirts. I'm a firm believer that Converse tennis shoes go with anything. Sure, I have the standard issue pumps (I keep them in my credenza at work) to wear when I have to meet important people but normally I just wear my Chucks with whatever I decided to wear for the day. Case in point, today's outfit is a black and white flowered skirt, black t-shirt (also, a staple in my wardrobe) and I've paired it with my black Chuck's with a purple, green and red heart pattern. Stylish and comfy.

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This is a cool blog post by A Media Specialist 60 websites on colonial America. If you are a history buff like I am you'll spend a happy hour wandering through these sites. I'm crazy about the rare maps link.


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I tidied up my sock drawer on Sunday afternoon. Wow! What a mess. Now, it is all orderly. I used my new Converse shoebox to make a drawer divider. It proved to be the perfect size. I found 12 ankle socks that had no mates. These mate-less socks will not go into the trash. They are destine to become cleaning rags and assorted other second purpose items. As cleaning rags, they are great for cleaning horizontal blinds, windows, and dusting the furniture. Just slip one on your hand and off you go. I also use them as iPod, cell phone and small electronics cozies. I cut the ribbed elastic part off for a cheap scrunchy for my hair. I've been known to cut 5 holes for my fingers  for berry picking scratch guards though knee socks work better for this purpose.

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I've finished a painting for a friend of mine. It is another reclining nude but this time she is facing away from the painting. I'd show you a photo but I need to upgrade my picassa account so Blogger and I are having a little bit of a tiff. Then again, Blogger and I have had several tiffs before so I should be use to it.

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I've been retraining myself to cook these days. Recipes that made 6 to 8 to 10 servings are out for us now that we are going to be empty-nesters.  This has been an interesting transition for JR and I. In the last 29 years we have only been without at least one child in the house for 8 months. Dr. Boy went to visit his uncle in the Dominican Republic this last week so we have had some practice time but our this new phase in our life becomes official around the first of July when he leaves for school. We shall see how we feel about this in September when the honeymoon phase wears off.

For now with regards to cooking, I am cutting back recipes to 4 or less servings. If I make enough for 4 I have some leftovers for breakfast or lunch. Usually, it is breakfast because as far as we are concerned there is very little that doesn't go with eggs. Example: today was leftover yellow squash, tomato and smoke Gouda casserole scrambled with eggs. Yummy and filling! Tomorrow will be an omelet with leftover wild mushroom ragout (last night's dinner). I can hardly wait.


I think that is about all that is rattling around in my head these days. What's up with y'all?

Love,
Michele

Spin Cycle - Things I love

This weeks Spin Cycle is things I love. This actually is kind of hard for me. There are just so many things I love. Let's limit, mkay?

Now, in no particular order here are some of the things I love.

1. Old stuff. Looking/watching/listening to historical images/movies/recordings. I know I'm a geek this way but I love me some history and nothing turns me on more than the fact that more and more libraries, museums, and historical societies are putting their materials online. It is an awesome age we are living in! Just check out some of these links and tell me you aren't intrigued.

Library of Congress  -  For every flippin' thing historical.

Pepperdine University in California - among some cool sound recordings they have a historic surfboard collection.

UC Santa Barbara - they have put online some of their wax recordings. Seriously, you have to listen to some of these. How totally hot are they?!

2. Paining. You all have seen my stuff so I won't bore you with my finished nude. Oh wait! Yes I will.

I've kind of falling in love with her but than so has Dr. Boy and JR but for far different reasons I think. I offered to let Dr. Boy take her to school with him but he declined. Something to the effect of; how creepy it would be to explain to his roommates that his mother painted it. Oh and then he would be compelled by his smart-ass nature to tell said roommates that it was a self portrait. He just didn't want to start out with that kind of awkwardness. Coward!

3. My dog, Nessa. You've all seen her before. She's adorable. She's lovable. She's a bed hog.

4. My family, JR, the Boys and the DIL. I love them all greatly.

5. Being creative in some fashion. Whether that is a painting a picture or painting a wall. Cooking, sewing, cutting out pieces of paper for collages (or what I like to call "mixed media art"), or taking pictures, I don't really care. I just need to create.

6. I'm loving my iPad though it doesn't take as good of photos as my smarty-pants phone. Which I love also or more correctly, I love my smarty-pants phone more than my iPad. Either way i love them both so much that if someone wanted to get them away from me they will have to pull them from my cold dead hands.

7. A good glass of red wine. While I never turn my nose up at a nice dry martini or a tart margarita, I pretty much start salivating like Pavlov's dog when in comes to red wine. 

Let's call that my "I love" list for today. Exciting, no? meh. Anyway, go visit Gretchen right away, like right now! She has all they deets on visiting other Spinners.

Love,

M

Happy customers

I know that you can't really tell by these babies faces but they were actually thrilled by the painting I did of them.

So completely disregard the adorable sleeping boy on the left and the just barely awake darling girl on the right. Their lack of enthusiasm has nothing to do with the painting and everything to do with full tummies and nap time.  According to their mother, "We all like the painting. I held it over their playpen this morning and Nora took particular interest in it."

An artist can't ask for better than that!

As baby gifts go I think this was a hit.

Love,
M

RTT - paintings, flowers, music and food.

The three day weekend went very quickly considering that I spent one full day of it in Phoenix. Doesn't that mean I get an extra day?

I've got more than a small bit of random today since I was away most of last week. When you're done go visit all the others that play along.

Stacy has been hosting it for awhile now. Click on the image to read more random posts.

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While I don't miss the cholla (jumping cactus) I do miss some of the other cactus' in Arizona. This would be one. Isn't it cute? It's wearing a hat.  Maybe one of those crazy ones that the British women are wearing these days. Don't they have a name for them?

Though I have to say I came back to the magnolias blooming. Very little beats the smell of magnolias in bloom. They are sweet without being cloying like orange blossoms. And, the flowers are gorgeous! All creamy white against dark green leaves. Spectacular!

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While in AZ I went into the local used bookstore...you know I had to, right?
I wasn't looking for anything particular and didn't really find anything. I did come across the shelves of cookbooks and these caught my eye. Not for the recipes in them but for the text on the spine.

 Yes, that does say; "The Way to a Man's Heart". 

I guess it is all about the era in which you are living because while JR loves my cooking I can't say that it had anything to do with winning his heart. I hadn't actually cooked for him before we got married. I think I had other attributes that won his heart.  

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While in AZ I went to a very small family owned Mexican place for lunch. The margarita was good, the burrito was okay but the red salsa...

OMG! It was awesome. 

I wanted to bath in it (though now that I type that it sounds creepy). I could have drank it straight. It was that good.

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Another place that I popped into while in lovely dry Arizona was a music store. I ogled the ukeleles on display. They had the coolest ones and if I had had extra money I would have picked up a new tenor uke. Alas, I was broke. I did pick up these.   

Ukelele song books! I'm all jazzed to tune up the uke and get playing now.

Interestingly enough they had a display case of old accordions. I immediately thought of JR. He probably doesn't want me to tell ya'll this but  he played the accordion as a child/youth. I keep wanting to get him another one. Wouldn't that be the start of an interesting Christmas tradition...me on the uke and him on the accordion. Think of the sing-a-longs. Who's up for the holidays at our house? What instrument/talent can you add to the mix. I think I'm going to insist that Jan's husband bring his cocktail shaker and his mad cocktail creating talent.

I think that is about all I can come up with at this time. In fact, knowing me I've probably exhausted all my ideas for the rest of the week. 

Love,

M

Spin Cycle - Picture, Painter, Artist

Most of you know I paint pictures. My progression as an artist (and I use that term loosely) has evolved from dabbler to something else. I would hesitate to call myself a real artist because I equate that term with Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso, yet I create art. The Free Online Dictionary defines as artist as:

art·ist  (ärtst)

n.

1. One, such as a painter, sculptor, or writer, who is able by virtue of imagination and talent or skill to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts.

2. A person whose work shows exceptional creative ability or skill: You are an artist in the kitchen.

3. One, such as an actor or singer, who works in the performing arts.

4. One who is adept at an activity, especially one involving trickery or deceit: a con artist.

Using this definition I am an artist but I didn't start out that way.

I can't say I'm a natural artist though there must be some natural creative talent there.

I'm not a trained or skilled artist since I've never had an art class since elementary school.

I could be a con artist since what I seem to have done is convince people that I am an artist. This was wholly unintentional, I swear! 

I started out drawing with pastels about 4 1/2 years ago. I decided one day that I needed a hobby or something to do while on business trips. So I went out and bought a set each of soft and oil pastels. I figured out right off that oil pastels were not for me but the soft pastels were just what I was looking for. They were like drawing with chalk. I figured that if a six year could draw with chalk so could I. What I liked most about them was that I could blend colors and erase them if I screwed up; which was often at first.

I went through a period where I drew nothing but lighthouses. I must have drawn 7 or 8 lighthouse drawings. I'm not sure why I chose lighthouses. Maybe because they were architectural, gave me a chance to work on perspective and because they are romantic. For whatever reason, I went through a lighthouse period. I once likened it to Degas' ballerinas and wondered when it would go from quaint, to weird, to just plain creepy.

Obviously, I still like this one since it hangs in my office. In a frame, of course.

I moved on to watercolours. Could I have picked the hardest medium ever? The only thing I can say about watercolours is that they are portable and versatile. They are my go-to travel paints and practice paints. I also use watercolour pencils to sketch out subjects on canvas to paint later in oils. At last count I have three sets of watercolour pencils, two travel sets of paints, and a plethora of tubes of paint. All for someone who really hates to watercolour. Weird, huh?

Bill Evans

I swore at the time that I painted this Bill Evans (from a CD cover that my son had) that I would never do another person again. Yeah, never say never. I think that this was the beginning of defining my style but I could be wrong. I frequently am. My son doesn't have this hanging in his room right now and I'm not sure if I'm going to let him take it off to school. I like it more and more everyday.

Then I progressed to oil paintings and found my medium of choice. There is just so much that can be done with them. I can be uber creative. I can paint seriously good paintings or seriously bad. Many a canvas has been painted over or just plain thrown in the trash and many of others hang in other people's homes.

Title: Total lack of perspective

When I painted this I was in my "give away paintings" stage. I believe Keely has this one. You know now that I think about it, I haven't had a painting giveaway in a while. Maybe, I should. What do ya'll think?

Then out of the blue I painted this:

Titled: Whatever Jen wants it to be.

Jen's husband John posted this painting on his Facebook page and I KNEW I had to paint it. I was compelled. I was driven. I was, probably the best word is, crazed. Those are some of the only words for how I felt about this photograph. I just knew I had to paint it. After many email conversations with Jen I started in. By the time I was halfway done I was told by JR that we were going to keep it. He had fallen in love with it (FYI, Jen, he still wants it back). There was some heated discussions between him and I that resulted in me sending the painting off to Jen. I'd promised, plus she was willing to pay for a couple of tickets to Disney World and a chance to meet face-to-face. THAT was a deal that I couldn't pass up.

After that I've done several paintings of people and every single time I am amazed that I can actually paint people and that the paintings I do for others are liked by them. It sometimes, okay almost all the time, baffles me.

Now, I am at a crossroads, do I continue doing this on a quasi professional basis? Commission and gifts only or do I go for the gusto and start an Etsy shop? Do I try to make a little money to offset the cost for doing gifts for friends and family? The paintings on commission on the blog thing really doesn't actual pay for itself, if I were to calculate my time, supplies and shipping. And, that is not even including the angst I go through every damn time about whether the painting is true to the subject or whether the person that commissioned me to paint it will like it. Since, the people that commission me are blog friends that I want to stay as blog friends and maybe real life friends. Do I want to start doing this on a more professional basis only to put myself through that whole thing every time.

See I can't make this decision on my own. I need you all!

Love,

M

PS: I'm calling this my Spin for the week. There are other Spinners talking about pictures. Head over to Gretchen's place to find them.

Just a couple of things

 A while back I bought this apron from a blog friend. I met Dana at Blissdom last year. She and some friends were wearing the greatest hats. I love hats. Which meant I had to meet Dana and her friends. Turns out she makes these gorgeous aprons (please do not judge the apron from my awful photo). You tell her what colors you like and what style you want and a few weeks later you start receiving photographs of fabrics and styles. It is so much fun. Then she sends you the goods.

JR thought I was kind of nuts. I have plenty of aprons but her designs are so pretty that I couldn't resist. Plus I think it is important to support other artists. Her being a blogger and someone I've met is a bonus.

 You can find Dana at Reading Rosie. 

Go check her out.

I finished the painting for Mama Badger in plenty of time for Christmas. She was so excited that she didn't even wait until Christmas morning to give it to Papa Badger. That makes all my angst all worthwhile.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love,
M

Whoops! I'm totally scattered these days.

I've been a less than fruitful blogger these days. I don't know why and I just don't seem to have the energy to dissect it. So I'll leave it at that.

I was in Austin last week for a couple of days. Austin seems to be my home away from from these days. I make the drive so often that it really only feels like an hour drive when it really it takes 3. This last trip was rather eventful. I got rear ended by a 30-something woman. No one was hurt but she was so emotional that I just felt that I had to hug her. I'm a hugger as any of you who have met me will attest to. The bumper of my car didn't fare quite as well. A quarter of it fell off. She must of hit it just right for that to happen. Anyone know of anyone that works for claims at Progressive (wink, wink) that can make this fix seamlessly?

Yesterday when I got into the office sitting on the floor was these 2 rather largish book boxes. I first panicked, thinking that I'd ordered some expensive books then forgot about it. Hey! it happens. I opened the packing slip to find that there were 16 free books in the 2 boxes. I was crazy surprised. You see, awhile back I helped out on a book that the Houston Chronicle did titled "Houston 175". (And, when I say helped out what I really mean is that I stuck my nose in, floundered around a bit and pretty much was useless.)These books were a gift to thank me, I guess. After passing them out to a few worthy people, i.e. my photo tech that worked as hard or harder than I did, my boss and a few others I'm left with quite a few books. I think I smell a give away. What about you?

I'm furthering my love affair with eggs. I even took some leftover fettuccine alfredo, made them into cakes, fried them then served poached eggs over top. Yeah, wasn't the best use of leftovers. Now, the leftover chili...that was a whole other topic.

With Thanksgiving coming up I will be making stuffed eggs. I love stuffed eggs and plan to mix it up somehow. Maybe, Greek style? A little feta cheese and some kalamata olives? It could work.

I think the signature cocktail this Thanksgiving will be a blood orange sodatini. JR picked up some of his favorite blood orange soda at Costco the other day. This is the only time of year they have it. Usually, he buys 3 cases but this year he refrained. Not exactly sure why but there you have it. Anyway, we've been known to mix this with some vodka and Grand Marnier in the past but we might have to try to mix it up. Any mixologists out there with ideas? Be?

The painting will be done this weekend. I worked on it this weekend. Faces! Bah! Never again. I'm dying here. I worry so much about getting everything right and if the owners will like it that I'm ready to chuck it. Even though JR says it is really good and that it looks like the little guys. yada yada yada. I'm not sure I believe him. Okay, I've said enough about my insecurities as a painter. I have plenty more about other things.

The last of the Halloween candy is gone. Thank heaven! I have no will power against the Almond Joy.

That is all I can think of at the moment. In fact, that pretty much drains my head. I still need to write up a story but that will have to wait a few days. My brain is in presentation mode. One from last week and two for next week. Because I'm not stressed enough.

I promise to stop into to visit ya'll as time permits.

Love,
M

RTT - because I'm not scattered enough

So the whole premise of Random Tuesday Thoughts is to write a post that contains a bunch of random things that wouldn't make a whole post of their own but fill out a single post when combined. It was started by Keely, then it became a monster and her life sort of got in the way. Life and blogs sometimes do that. At least, that's what I've heard. So she graciously passed it onto Stacy, who has steadfastly continued even in the face of life getting all crazy-like.

I don't really have a whole lot of random going on right now but I'll try to come up with a couple of things.

Eggs.
Just eggs.
No, really I want a big round of applause for eggs. There is not a leftover in the world that isn't made better with an egg. Want proof? Sure you do. I wouldn't believe me either.

Leftover mozzarella, grape tomatoes and caper salad I had leftover from a party.  I baked them all together.

I started by broiling the tomatoes and capers. Added a little butter and cream. Heated that up. Added a couple of eggs and the little balls of mozzarella then baked until they were done. Served with sweet potato hash browns. Yummy!

Need more proof? Poached over stuffed red pepper. No photo. Ate too fast.




I've started a new painting. Mama Badger asked if I would paint her boys. She sent me a photo that scared the crap out of me. It was a full face picture of her little guys and it is adorable. BUT...full faced! I sat on it for quite awhile. Mostly, screwing up my courage to take on this...

I'm a little over half done. Trust me, once I get the boys' eye color they will look less like zombies and more like the sweeties they are. I've still got hands and faces to finish up. I never realized how hard hands are to get right. I'm not quite ready to say that I can do faces but this is not too bad. They are starting to look like the  photo. The shirts need a little work but otherwise it's coming along.  I can safely say...I rawk rocks. I may have to start doing painting of rocks. Of course, I suck at water so my paintings will have to consist of just rocks. Maybe a tree or two but no water. 



Our cherry tomato plant has 2 tiny tomatoes on it and lots and lots of flowers. I am thrilled! Our zucchini plant is loaded with flowers. I'm getting my hopes up that we'll see some fruit from those. The herbs are doing well, except the one basil plant that I think the squirrels dug up.


So that is it for me. I've got lamp black and phthalo blue on my hands. I must be the messiest painter ever.

Happy Tuesday.
Love,
M

RTT - Paintings

We're like a gang except we don't tag buildings just blogs.

I've finished this one up. It will be on its way to Jan as soon as it dries. Probably in 2 weeks. The parts that I finished this weekend were the white of his hair and his sweet little ear. What a pain that was! Ears don't look all that hard but they are.

Which doesn't bode well for Captain Dumbass' ear in the next painting.

I've said before that I breed geeks. Want proof? Check out our smarty-pants oldest sons' blog. Could all of you leave a comment about his unqualified nerdiness? I do not know where this kid got his brains. It wasn't me or his dad. 

I should really buy my own domain name. 

All the cool kids have one. 

What? 

I can be cool.

First Stumble Upon for the day. I could be doing so much more with those empties.

I could do this all dang day. 

Thanks for visiting. Now, go visit the other Random Tuesday Thought gang members.

Love,

M

RTT - sort of, kind of, maybe not so much.

You all know what day it is. That's right. It's Tuesday. So we're random. Okay, so maybe you all are random. I'm random only by virtue of posting about Keely, who hosts this crazy thing.

I'm painting a picture for her. 

She sent me this:

Isn't it the sweetest thing?

I started Sunday morning.

Then I took it back up on Monday after I took Nessa to the groomers.

She looks and smells beautiful now, by the way.

I'm down about $100.

It costs less for me to get my hair cut.

This was where I was at by Monday evening when the light gave out.

I could have gone on since I have lights for my studio but
I have to wait for parts of it to dry before I can start up again.
Nothing screws up a painting faster than painting on it too soon.

 

 By Wednesday I hope I can finish Pooh Bear,

Xander's face and hand.

Xander's knees and his coat need to be more defined and then some shading.

And, if I can carve out the time, I'll finish the grass.

My plan is to have it done by Sunday.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it right now.

I'm doing another post about the differences in terms. This time it is about chess. Anyone who wants to play along you'll find the link to the terms here.

This is brilliant.  Wine-icicles. Wine-pops. Whatever you want to call them, How great would those be on a hot summer day.

That's it. I just wanted to show you what I have been working on. Please go visit everyone else. This randoming is hard work and they all deserve a little comment love as a reward.

Love,
M

RTT - McGyver's got nothing on me. Well, he did but not anymore.

All ya need is Keely

Ya de de da

All ya need is Keely

All together now

All ya need is Keely

Keely's all ya need.

(apologizes to the former Beatles, the remaining spouses, and Beatles fans around the world.)

I am a member of this committee to develop an encyclopedia on the web (does that make it a weblopedia?) of Houston and Harris county. Mostly, I monitor developments and do creative stuff when needed. This weekend a spat of emails were bouncing around the committee members about asking people to serve on the board. So who's name pops up? George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara. After my initial shock (okay a little horror might have been involved. The man won't eat broccoli! I'm not sure I can trust a man that won't eat broccoli. Not to mention his politics. Broccoli is what is important here.) I reconciled with this possibility with the understanding that while the Bushs accept tons of requests like this they rarely involve themselves. Which is good because the man DOESN'T eat broccoli! 

Painting's done.( Please discount the crappy picture. It was early today when I took it.) It is leaving today for sunny Florida. I've got a couple more lined up to paint. Not this big or on this kind of time limit  or framed (everyone's place is different. I checked with Jen before I framed it.) but a couple of more profiles of little ones. Those of you that I emailed please send me your pictures so I can get started on them after Christmas.   Those of you who might want one I barter real well. Mostly, because I have no idea what to charge. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

I hit a hundred followers! Thank you everyone. You are the best!

We had a conversation about this exciting news this morning.

Me: I've hit a hundred followers. (said rather boastfully I might add. I can't help it. I'm excited)

The Girlfriend: Think of the pressure? You'll have to write more now just to appease your fans.

The Boy: Don't sell out now.

Thanks kids. 

Now, the pressure is on to produce interesting and witty comments and posts. 

Oh No, I'm not sure I can stand it. 

Wait! You all come around no matter how pedestrian and witless I am.  

Whew! Scared myself there. 

I decided to try my hand at wine cork ornaments this weekend in an effort to reduce the embarrassing number of corks floating around the house. (why don't I just throw them out? Uh, yeah, well, it's like this. I was taught to never throw anything out because it might be useful later on. Thanks to JR's mother. Probably explains why I still have her candy tin full of buttons. Hey! They are cool. I'll someday have a use for them.)

I took some beads I had hanging around, the wine cork, and one of said mother-in-laws old costume jewelry earrings to make this:

I felt like McGyver.

Except for saving the world with a roll of duct tape, a marking pen, and 9-volt battery, that is. 

I've got a whole how-to post planned for this as soon as the wounds on my hands heal. Those corks are hard little buggers.


Okay, I'm spent. Please leave a comment (help a girl out about how much I should charge for a 18 x 24 inch painting) then go visit Keely and the gang.

Love,
M