This is a piece I have that I scanned in from the piece itself and as you can see, it's too big for the scanner, but it shows what I want it to show.



Two days of hard work, scraped knuckles, sore muscles and I have an art space. I need to rearrange it, add my source books and find the box of missing supplies. Figures, right? There's always something you can't find after moving. There is a large box missing which contains my glass paints, blending gels, float medium, heat gun and sander, lazy susan and my palettes. I'm fairly certain they can be found somewhere at Youngests, either in his garage or cellar where they were stored. Sketch pads and transfer papers are also missing, but they may be in that box too.

The paints have been stored outside and appear to have separated pretty good. I can fix that I think. If not I'm going to have to replace them. I also have tube paints which were stored inside so I do have the ability to finish the painting I started 6 months ago and do quite a few others. Mixing paints isn't a problem for me, I just don't like to use tube paints for basecoats. It's too hard to mix the paint in a large enough amount to do 2 or more coats of paint on a piece that is 10 by 12 or larger. There is no way to remix a batch of paint and have it come out the exact same color the first one did. I've tried.

After Mom died I was not interested in painting the way I was before. She, more than anyone in the family, was interested in everything I did. Hubby is very supportive, but I needed to work through the grief process in order to feel moved to paint. Of course, I wasn't working through it the right way and then Dad got sick. I did a few pieces, but mostly started something, couldn't find the joy in it and ended up washing the piece off. Slate and rock are nonpourous surfaces when it comes to paint. They will absorb water, but paint washes off very easily. It's one of the reasons I like it. Mistakes can be gotten rid of without excessive overpainting. I tend to make mistakes.

I had begun to get the urge when we learned we had to move and of course it was interrupted by the packing process. Then the resettling, holidays, and changes we made in the way our home was set up inside interfered with doing what I love to do. Most of my creative energy has gone into my blog, but writing is not the same as painting. I can type words on the blank white screen and mentally create in other minds a picture. As the author of the written piece, I am concerned with grammar, punctuation and other aspects of the work that prevent me from seeing the color. A finished artwork appeals to the eye the way written words do not.

When writing, flaws are apparent to anyone who reads the finished piece. When painting, flaws are only visible to the artist unless they are glaring errors. Someone viewing the piece will see the totality of the artwork. It should draw the eyes to different places in whatever order the artist intended. When writing, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. Artwork has no end. I can paint the path, surround it with flowers, maybe some architectural details like a wall or fountain, and the viewers mind will supply the rest. The eyes truly become the windows to the soul and the soul is where art resides. With the written word I can describe my experience and help you see my truth. Only in a painting will you see a truth of your own.

During our move we made changes inside of our home which required a move of my painting space. We lost the use of an addition where my freezer was situated, so it was necessary to install the freezer in the dining room. Unfortunately that was where my workspace was. Once we had everything else situated we were in the holiday season so I had no time to decide where my art space would go.

I had a spot in mind but careful consideration of my needs made me realize that spot will not work. While watching the DIY network on television they showed how to use a closet for a sewing room. Like most people, I think I don't have enough closet space, but I'm wrong. There are only two people living here in this house, why do we need 5 closets? Well, the logical answer would be....we don't. We use 5 closets because one of them is filled with items we haven't worn in years. Time for some major clearing out, some minor demolition, and some renovating. Renovations will include task lighting, shelving for material storage, and installation of my Ikea gate leg table. We did the measuring this morning and it's going to work fine.

The clearing out process will start as soon as I finish posting this. The task will probably take a couple of days, as Hubby will be lending a hand tomorrow once I dispose of or find space for things that will be cleared out. I'm taking my lunch break to do this post and I do plan on being back on tonight. The urge to have a place to paint is getting quite strong, and if I'm not where I want to be in the clearing process it may not be until quite late. If I'm too tired from all this work, it may not be at all, I make no guarantees. Now, I have to go hunt up my big trash bags and get at it.

The new coffeemaker that Hubby gave me for Christmas is one that has a thermos carafe instead of a glass carafe. When you set the carafe in place it doesn't sit on a heating plate, which is supposed to make your coffee taste better since it isn't sitting there boiling away. When setting the pot up you have to be careful to match the two balls up, one in the basket and one in the center of the carafe cover. Matching these two balls up opens the bottom of the coffee basket and allows the coffee to drip into the carafe through the opening created by the depressing of the other ball down into the pot cover. Failure to match these two balls up results in a mess. I know, I had one this morning.

I set the pot up before I go to bed at night and Hubby starts it in the morning. We used to use the automatic on feature, but he doesn't always need to be up at the same time so we dispensed with that. I put everything together last night before I went to bed and somehow I didn't get the balls matched up exactly so the coffee didn't get into the pot. The balls were close enough to allow the basket bottom to open but not the pot top so I had coffee all over the counter, and the floor. I cleaned everything up and tried to make another pot of coffee only to find out that the electronics got wet and it won't turn on.

I have had overflows that happened to other pots before, for one reason or another, but I've never had one that ruined the pot. I've never owned this expensive a coffeemaker before...either. This is a situation where I received a Christmas gift whether I wanted it or not because Hubby liked the idea of not having a coffeemaker sitting there burning up electricity and boiling away his coffee. Our old maker would stay on warm for two hours and then shut itself off. Big amount of electricity being used there don't you know? Other than that, there was nothing wrong with our old maker, which actually wasn't that old having been given to me for Christmas 2006. Also, since I had one of those pump style thermos carafes, the hot coffee was usually poured into that instead of being left on the warming plate.

That coffeemaker also replaced another perfectly working coffeemaker for some reason which escapes me at the moment. Come to think of it, I've never worn a coffeemaker out because Hubby seems to decide that I need a new one every Christmas when Lowes has a sale of small appliances going on. Of course, there is the possibility that in a day or two when the mechanical and electrical parts dry out it may resume function. In the meantime I'm using a stove top coffee pot we keep for power outages. If it doesn't I may just take myself off to Wally World and buy the kind of coffeemaker that I actually want. It was, after all, supposed to be MY Christmas present.

My wishes for New Years are quite simple and plain
Please end the war and let them come home again.
Home to their families their lives and their jobs,
Home to their worried Dads and sad Moms.
Lets give the world food, shelter and love
Instead of the guns and bombs dropped from above.

Lets make politicians roll up their sleeves
Get down in the trenches just like you and me.
Trying to make their ends meet on a much lower wage
Might give them an understanding of why we're enraged.
Lofty ideals won't put food on the table
Nor pay their bills, they might have to give up their cable.

Heaven forfend!! No CNN!! Oh what a great tragedy.
Washington windbags down from the mountain living like you and me?
It won't ever happen and I know it well
This hair brained idea would be a tough sell
But my wishes for new years are still simple and plain
Please end the war and let them come home again.

moar funny pictures

Despite the fact that I have both step and half brothers, I was raised as an only child. I spent a lot of time in my Dad's household but I lived with Mom and Grandma. I had no siblings to feel jealousy towards at home and never felt that competitiveness against any of my other family. I don't experience it, and I find I'm uncomfortable when faced with it. My step and half brothers tend to compete among themselves and I ask myself why. They don't gain anything. Seems to me to be useless verbal jousting.

In some respects I suppose their situation may occur because the 3 older "boys" are not my Dad's blood, while the 2 younger are. Dad loved us all, tried to instill us all with his brand of ethics, and misused and abused us all equally. Not one had anything the other didn't have, not one escaped his wrath when they misbehaved. All of us were raised with the knowledge that it was HIS house we were in and we had to earn the right to live there. He was harsh but even handed. As his oldest and only female, I was never treated in his home any differently than the boys were. He was actually harsher with me because I didn't live there. He didn't approve of some of my mothers views and habits and he tried to see to it that I didn't acquire them. I didn't like it, but it never crossed my mind to think that Dad liked the boys better. I just thought he didn't know how to love. When faced with the bickering that those who experience rivalry participate in, I tend to escape. Unfortunately yesterday I couldn't. It was happening in my home, and it was Hubby's sons and our grandchildren behaving badly.

Granddaughter is 14 and grandson is 10. Typically grandson wants his sister's attention and he'll pick at her until she goes ballistic. Fourteen year old girls are at that emo stage and he knows where all the buttons are. If she stays calm, he brings the parent into it that will respond, by crying that his sister is being mean to him. It's usually their Mom that butts in and then it's all downhill from there. We had 5 of those meltdowns in my house yesterday just with them.

On top of that Hubby's two sons aged 40 and 34 started their usual bickering. I don't care what the subject is they can't agree with each other, nor can they just let it go and respect each others differing opinions. They don't yell or raise their voice they just get to the red faced with bulging veins point. There is a marked difference in their personalities, Oldest is like his Mom, Youngest is like his Dad. Of course, Oldest feels that Dad likes Youngest better. This misconception is a flame regularly fanned by Oldest's wife and Mother. Sometimes we can actually get through a family gathering without any evidence of the problem. Yesterday was not one of those days.

The party started at 11 and wasn't supposed to start until 2. First to arrive was Youngest with his children in the middle of a meltdown. The excuse for their being early was to lend me a hand. Actually in retrospect it would have been a much greater help if they'd stayed home until the kids got their act together. Seems that granddaughter had asked to do something with friends today and was refused. Of course feeling that she was being treated unfairly she was in a mood. Since she was in a mood, grandson felt that he was entitled to make hay while the sun shone and promptly proceeded to be a bigger pest than he normally is. Family dynamics at their finest. Granny got a head ache.

This was the situation when Oldest and his wife arrived. I tend to try to ignore those sibling meltdowns and not say anything. Oldest, on the other hand is a horse of a different color. He seems to feel, with no children of his own, that he is an expert on child rearing. So, of course, he stuck his foot firmly in his mouth by saying something. When he did, I realized I had a stronger role in his raising than I thought I did. He said, word for word, exactly what I was thinking. Headache lifted slightly.

The party was an open house and there was peace when others were here, but any departure that left us here with just the (adult?) kids and grandkids allowed for the opportunity to create another meltdown. I just enjoyed those periods of peace and kept my mouth full of food during the meltdowns. Mrs. Doubtfire's Lemon Yogurt Fruit Dip recipe and an ample supply of fruit chunks kept me sane...and out of trouble.

Finally Hubby received a call from a couple whose water pump wasn't working, leaving them without running water. He went out on that call to see if there was anything he could do. Once he'd been gone a few minutes everyone else decided that they needed to get going home too. I was left to clean the mess up and frankly felt that the peace and quiet following 9 hours of arguing brothers and alternately crying grandkids was worth it. I cleaned up some of the mess, came online and when Hubby got home he sent me to bed with the promise of helping me with the rest of the mess this morning. The house is clean, I no longer have a headache and Hubby's daughter will be stopping over in a little while to enjoy some peaceful time with us before she drives home. It can't get any better than that.