Notes from the State Fair...

...and some art.

First the fair. Chip and Shira were kind enough to let me tag along on their day at the state fair on Tuesday. I usually go with Doug and Kellie, but they are kind of busy with school, work, and moving, so I went with Chip and Shira and had a really nice day. The weather was gorgeous, but we spent most of our time in the air conditioned South Wing, so it wouldn't have mattered. We did have a lunch from the food tent out front, Mike Linnig's fish (and chicken for me, the fish non-liker) that was as good as usual, but much more expensive than in their locally famous restaurant. I was interested mainly in the fine arts and crafts, of course, and saw that neither my entries or Alissa's won any ribbons. I wasn't disappointed and discovered that there were some really great artists entered. My stuff was neither the best or the worst, which is fine with me. It was exciting to see my paintings displayed in such a large setting. Of course, I was dismayed to see no less than six portraits, all the same pose, of Barack Obama, and three of them won honorable mention ribbons. Even though they were in different media, they essentially all looked alike, like the cover of Time magazine. I don't know how they picked just 3 for ribbons. As for Alissa's photos, there were so many good ones I don't think I would have wanted to be the judge in that contest. Alissa's were just as good or better than the winners, in my opinion. Guess that's why nobody would ask me to be a judge!

We went from the fine arts displays to the commercial booths and the community service booths and collected some stuff. After several hours of walking, I was done in. It seems I don't have the stamina that I used to, and it was getting to where I had to rest every 10 minutes or so. I think that Chip and Shira were ready to go, too, and didn't seem to care that we didn't hit the midway or see the animals. They had brought their daughter over the weekend and saw animals then. So the last thing we did was get cotton candy for Aiva and Shira and a funnel cake to share (but I ended up eating most of it-yum!)and a pork chop sandwich to take home to Dad. All in all, I had a great time!

Second, the art. You can see I tried something different this week. I tried abstract. The first one you see is swirls using leftover paint from the main painting I did. On the second, I started with pure ultramarine blue, and kept adding white to change the value of the color. The whole painting was done with just those two colors and one brush. I used wavy strokes, and when it was done, it kind of reminded me of being in a plane and looking down at the clouds. Now I need a title for it. This is a great departure for me, and I probably won't do it too often, but I will try it again from time to time. I had fun with it, and it only took me about 40 minutes to complete. Life is good...

The Birthday Finale (and Other Stuff)

Here you see the last two birthday children of the family with their children and their grandfather. It looks as if they were having a good time, and I believe they did. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the party, too. The whole family- except for Andy, who never seems to be able to make the family parties because of his hectic work schedule-attended. As much as I love birthday season, I must admit I'm glad we are at the end of it. Between the chips and homemade dip and the birthday cakes and ice cream, the season is very fattening. The meals themselves are usually pretty healthy, but the pre-dinner snacks and the desserts are not. Now we won't have such an elaborate celebration until Christmas time, and we'll be ready again for it. It also seems as if we have always been on the go, especially with all the stuff we've been doing around the new house and the old one. I am ready for things to slow down all the way around.

In other news, we had a small patio installed outside our sunporch. It's just big enough for a few chairs and a table, but it's great! Much as I love the sunporch, in the summer the windows remain closed to keep the hot air out and the cool air in. It will be great in the other three seasons, but for summer I love the outdoors. The little patio gets the morning sun, but by 2:00 in the afternoon, it is shaded, and there is always a pretty strong breeze. After last week's busy schedule and the party weekend, I spent almost 4 hours sitting out there yesterday afternoon reading a book (with a little bit of eyelid-checking). It was wonderful! It was peaceful and quiet, and the temperature was perfect. It was a much needed respite, and I started this week refreshed instead of stressed. I was out there again this evening for about an hour. It was definitely a worthwhile investment. Hopefully, after we get a little more landscaping done, I will remember to post a picture.

Tomorrow I am off to the fair with Chip and Shira to check out Alissa's and my pictures on display. I don't imagine I won anything, but it will be fun to find the pictures amid all the other entries and compare them in my own mind. I love going to the state fair, exhausting as it can be. Life is good!

Wow!

Look! I received an award! AND I figured out all by myself how to put it on my site. Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks? I am to pass it on to 5 people, but I don't have 5 commenters, so I will gove it to my commenters--Alissa at Life's Little Adventures, Susie at Susie's Space, and Kate at Shambles Manor. I would also give it to Judy at Living on the Other Side of the Hill, but she already has it. Thanks!

Olympic Fever

Here I sit, watching the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games. We used to really watch a lot of the Olympics when they were on every four years, and coverage was just in the evenings. However, like everything else these days, the Olympics have grown bigger and more extravagant every year, as well as being on every two years, alternating winter and summer games. Terry always likes to watch the pageantry of the opening ceremonies, but at the moment he is watching them through his eyelids, and I am only watching them with one jaded eye. While it's visually fantastic, it's in a language I can't understand, and the sheer amount of people involved boggles the mind. The cost of such pageantry must be staggering, and yet so many of the Chinese people are poor and politically repressed. While I don't usually spend a lot of time worrying about such things, the juxtaposition of this humongous and decadent performance with the pictures you see of poor people toiling away in the fields is incongruous, at best. It makes you wonder if the money for these ever more extravagant opening ceremonies could not be better spent on pollution control (in this case) and better lifestyles for more of the people who live in the country hosting the event. I think the opening ceremonies would be more interesting and impressive if they just did the parade of the teams and the presentation of the Olympic torch. Instead, each time there is an Olympics, the host country tries to outspend and outperform the countries who preceded it. Very wasteful...

Now for the next sixteen days, we will have endless coverage of events large and small on the several networks owned by NBC. And not only will we see the sport performances, we will be "treated" to heartwarming and heartrending backstories of the athletes and more about China than you may ever want to know. I root for the American athletes, but I must admit that all the hoopla becomes tiresome in short order. There are lots of other things to watch on television. For example, I am missing new episodes of two of my favorite shows, "Monk" and "psych," tonight. However, the old guy in this house likes the Olympics (even through his eyelids!), so I am glad we have DVR on our cable. I can watch my favorite programs at our convenience. Life is good...

Oh, and the picture above has nothing to do with the title, as you can tell, but I painted it this week, and it's rapidly becoming one of my favorite paintings.

Running in Place

It seems that I have been very busy lately, but when I look back at what I have accomplished, it seems to be very little. Our days have been spent going, but mainly to the mundane places like Curves, the grocery store,the farm, and Lowe's (Terry's favorite place to shop.) I did manage to get to Michael's to pick up some more canvases, since I am down to small sizes, and frames for my pictures that are going to the state fair. I did get to paint these two pictures. The first is a small acrylic of Lake Cumberland and the newspaper photo that inspired it. Of course my colors seem brighter than the real thing. The second is a watercolor of a mesa in Arizona. The colors in the photo were this vivid.

We also did some more birthday shopping, as we are deep into birthday season here. Between my sister's family and mine, including Dad, we have 15 birthdays between June 4 and August 15. We hosted a party for Kellie, our daughter-in-law, on Tuesday, the day after her birthday. Our nephew Matt has a birthday on Sunday, my dad will be 85 next Wednesday, Chip and baby Grant share August 9 as their day, and Alissa has hers on Aug. 15. We have already had 10 family birthdays this summer, and each was the occasion for a party. We are people who love to eat and celebrate! I hardly make a cake all the rest of the year because we have it so often in the summer. We do have 4 renegade family members who dare to have birthdays in October, January, February, and May. I don't know how this happened! Actually, they joined the family through marriage. :) Our family will probably continue to grow. I wonder if we'll spread out the birthday season then..

Meanwhile, life here goes on, and of course, it's good!

Monday Muse-ings

I have been fortunate enough to be able to go and paint at the library for the last several weeks. This watercolor is last week's effort, and the first watercolor I have done in some time. I tried very hard to make my watercolor look like one instead of having it look as if it were painted with acrylics as my watercolors are wont to do. I do like the way this one turned out. Unlike most of my acrylics, this painting actually looks better in real life than it comes across on the computer. At any rate, I am pleased with it. I do get pleasure from painting. It's very relaxing. Of course, I am amassing a large collection of paintings that are unframed and that I have nothing to do with. However, there is a meeting of the local arts council this week, and they are going to discuss ways to get the work of local artists on display. There is a gallery in our small convention center, but it is rarely open, and works are not rotated in and out much. They have promised to find a way to keep it open more often. I suspect that it will be a co-op effort with the artists that display taking turns manning the gallery. I wouldn't mind taking a day every few weeks and doing that, at least until I see if people actually will buy the art. I guess it will depend on how many people are willing to participate. I think one day every two weeks is often enough to work, and once a month is even better, but we'll see. They may just keep the gallery open on the days that people are willing to work. Of course, I imagine my better half won't be too happy to see me go off and do this, as he seems to like having me around ALL the time. You'd think he'd want to get rid of me once in a while, but this is not the case. It's nice to be loved, isn't it? Life is good..

Our Newest Addition

In our last house, we had no less than three flagpoles with American and/or Marine Corps flags on them. You can tell it is very important for Terry to display his colors. However, we lived here a whole month before we had a flag, and it was attached to the house on one of those poles you often see decorative flags attached to. We had that up in time for Independence Day, but Terry had been mulling for months on how to put up a flag pole that would be sturdy and clear the house and be in a spot that was unobtrusive, yet noticeable. We bought PVC pipe so that he could construct his own pole as he had done in LJ, but after much consideration, he decided that would not work out well. We rode around to several neighborhoods to see how others displayed their flags. Finally, after several weeks, we found a flagpole kit at Lowe's that he thought would work. (I had pointed that same kit out a few weeks before, but he didn't remember it.) It was costly, but something that seemed doable. Then we waited for the boys to be available to help, but they are very busy. At last, Terry took the bull by the horns and dug the hole all by himself. Together, he and I mixed concrete and he put it in the hole and set the bottom section of the post. He was very careful to make sure it was level because, after all, he is a perfectionist and getting to be more so all the time. A day later we assembled the pole and erected it. Then the flag went up. It was a very long and laborious project, but it is finished and looks very good. However, it sways a little bit in the strong breezes we get around here. I contend that it is designed to do that, but my perfectionist worries about it, so he has designed in his head a bracket to hold it to the house and stabilize it. I hope he gets the materials and gets it done soon so that he can quit fretting about it. Meanwhile, here it is with its proud owner. Doesn't it look nice? Life is good...

This and That

Isn't this a lovely plant? It is a night-blooming jasmine, aka stephanotis, that Kellie and Doug gave me for Mother's Day. It is a prolific grower and bloomer. It had grown to the ceiling on our sunporch and was taking off across the ceiling when Terry decided it was ungainly and gave it a haircut. I would have liked to let it grow and see how tall it would get, but he likes everything tidy, so the scissors came out when I wasn't looking. I was afraid it would hurt the plant, but it has not. It is just loaded with these waxy, fragrant blooms. I love to sit out on the porch in the morning and just admire it and smell the sweet smell.

When Kellie brought the plant to me, I told her this was the flower that was in my mother's wedding bouquet, but after further thought, I remembered that they were the kind of flowers in MY wedding bouquet. Mom's were mock orange. I guess that shows I'm getting old when I don't even remember what kind of flowers were in my own wedding bouquet 38 years ago.. It was made mostly of these stephanotis flowers in a cross shape with detachable orchid corsage in the middle. That was the style then. I detached the corsage and wore it on my "going-away" outfit, which was a beige linen dress with a matching coat. I haven't come across it in the move, but I did save the bouquet in a box somewhere. It is probably lost. I do still have my wedding dress and the cake topper, though. I don't know why I saved the dress. I certainly can't fit in it anymore, and Alissa wasn't able to wear it in her wedding, either, even if she had wanted to. I don't have any other daughters to save it for, and it has stains that didn't come out when I had it cleaned several years ago. But I won't get rid of it, or the cake topper, which is taking up valuable storage space in a box in the garage. Some things you just keep, whether you use them or not, especially if you are sentimental, as I am wont to be sometimes.

Well, this rambled all over place, didn't it? Oh, well, life is good...

Welcome to My Dreams

Doesn't this look like a lovely spot for a picnic? There's a picnic table right under one of the palm trees there on that little spot of beach. This is a scene from Oahu, a place that I'm highly unlikely to ever see in person. Doug swears he and Kellie will take me one day, but since Terry has no desire to go, and I don't see me leaving him home, I will just have to keep dreaming. It's hard enough to get away to the library to paint or out to lunch with a friend without him, let alone go all the way to Hawaii! Not that I don't love spending time with him or anything, but once in a while, it's nice to have a few hours on my own.

It took me two sessions at the library to complete this painting because it's bigger and more detailed than most of my pictures. However, I really like the way it turned out, and so does Terry. This looks like my Kentucky State Fair entry. My Dad's painting can remain on his wall, after all. He had said I could enter it if I didn't finish another one that I liked as well as his, but now I have. So along with this one, I will enter a miniature of palm trees at sunset and a watercolor of a flamingo and its reflection, which I have posted before, I believe. That's my three categories. I have no expectation of winning anything because there are many professional artists who enter, but that's okay. I will enjoy having my work on display in a large setting like the fair. And, who's to say? Alissa won a blue ribbon with her very first entry.

I guess this means I could take a few weeks off from painting, but after almost 2 months without going, I am really enjoying my sessions, even though today I was the only one there for most of the session, and lately usually only one other lady comes. I guess everyone else has a busier and more interesting summer going on. I hope they are off traveling somewhere and not having problems. Meanwhile, I am happy to hold down the fort...Life is good!

Mundane

Here I am again with nothing much to talk about. In spite of the fact that I seem to be busy much of the time, it seems to be with all mundane activities. Right now that's a good thing. Sooner or later I will get bored with it, but for the time being I am enjoying the slow pace of life. I manage to get in some form of exercise every day, three times a week at Curves and the rest of the time at home riding stationary bike pedals or walking in my neighborhood when the weather is nice. I am finally having time to read and paint. Of course, there is a large table in the garage full of things I have brought home from the farm that I could and should be sorting through and labeling to store, but I figure it's not going anywhere. I'll get it done this week or next, but there is no rush to do so. Once I have accomplished this, I will be the most organized I have ever been in my life. :) We have lived in this house a little over a month, and so far I have managed to put everything away that I get out. The house has stayed neat, and either Terry or I sweep the floor and dust the furniture frequently. Despite the dust from a new house, this place is amazingly easy to maintain and keep looking nice. Hooray! Maybe now we can find time to travel ( I wish!) Life is indeed good...

Finally...

Monday I finally returned to the library to paint, only to find that just one other lady had come. That was okay. We kept each other company, and she worked on her picture of an Indian village, and I painted this picture of cactus at dusk. It is from a photo that my friend had found and felt sure that I would enjoy painting. The coloring is a little different and more subdued than I usually do, but it is pretty faithful to the photo. I had some trouble with the clouds, which is par for the course. Overall, I am satisfied with job I did, but not necessarily with the picture itself. I don't think I would have chosen it myself because I like more vibrant sunsets. This won't be for the state fair. I'll try again next week...

Meanwhile, here are the pictures I won with in the county fair. Both of those stickers say first place, as you can see. However, the ribbons tell a different story. Terry has made a gallery wall for me in the den where we are displaying some of my winning paintings. The paintings will rotate if I win anything else. Hopefully, it will rotate often! :) My gallery wall is opposite his Marine Corps wall. Something for both!


I guess it's on to the State Fair! Life is good...

Long Time, No Post

I seem to be suffering from the proverbial writer's block, or I have had nothing profound to share, one or the other, but here goes. I think after all the moving out and in, followed closely by a few birthdays, I have just been worn out. Like Alissa with her vacation, one day I just thought to myself, "I am done with this moving." It seemed I just couldn't summon up one more grain of energy or desire to do what needed to be done. For the last few weeks, we have only been to the farm about once a week, and I have been working in a desultory manner inside while Terry cuts grass outside. I have accomplished something each time I've gone out there, but it seems the more I do, the more I find that needs to be done. Finally last night, Doug and Kellie took the bull by the horns and went out to the house and gathered all the stuff that was left and piled it in the living room for Terry and me( MOSTLY me) to go through and decide whether to keep it, give it to the Goodwill, or toss it. I hope to finish that up this coming week sometime, but there is still the stuff in the garage and the stuff in the storage building that will have to be dealt with at some point this summer. Whew! Will it ever end?

On a more positive note, I picked up the pictures I entered in the county fair tonight. Both of them were marked with a blue #1 on the tag. However, when I got the prize envelope, it said one of them was a first place, and the other was a third place, which is still pretty good. When I questioned which was right, I was told the third place was right because it was "in the book," whatever that means. It seems to me that the handwritten book can be just as wrong as the stickers placed on the tags attached to the painting, but it wasn't worth arguing about. Since I didn't attend the fair to see them when they were on display, I can't say anything about which is which. On to the state fair, I guess! I did take pictures of the paintings to post, but I can't seem to upload pictures from my newer Kodak camera to the web. The Kodak software doesn't seem to interface with the picture program already on my computer, and the pictures must remain separate. Not only that, I can't figure out how to get the pictures from the Kodak software to the blog. Bummer! Maybe one day I will figure out how to merge files, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm just not that good. Meanwhile, I will look for my Sony camera and try to take the photos again tomorrow. If this is all I can find to complain about, I know life is good!

Catching Up, part 2

The house tour, continued... another view of the bedroom. We bought the furniture at a store where Alissa's friend works. Isn't it pretty? The room is a very peaceful and cool blue..
This is the second bedroom. Here it is ready for Alissa and the boys to camp out. It worked out perfectly, I do believe, and Nick enjoyed staying there by himself when his mom and brother went home. He chose to sleep on the floor rather than the futon or the air bed. How funny! His mom and uncles used to do that, too, in their case because they didn't want to have to make their beds...
Our enclosed sun porch. It is a lovely place to sit and eat breakfast in the morning. See the beautiful jasmine (stephanotis) plant that I received for Mother's Day? The hydrangea that I got is right about where Alissa is standing.
The hall bathroom. This is the bathroom Terry uses most of the time, and the "art" on the wall is an original piece we got in PCB, too, and he loves it. That is a whirlpool tub, and the boys loved using it..I haven't tried it out yet. I'm afraid I won't be able to get back up and out once I sit there, but I'm going to brave it one of these days, as I love the whirlpool.
Master, or in this case, Mistress bath. Terry doesn't use this one much, which is fine with me. It has a shower stall with a seat. Behind the door is a large walk-in closet, with my clothes lining the sides, and Terry's on the back rack. He just doesn't understand why I need so much room for clothes, or so many clothes, for that matter...

Well, that's the tour. It took a long time, but I finally got it up here. We are very comfortable here. I particularly love that it is new and bright and sparkling. I have the best intentions of keeping it that way, but we'll see. After all, I am a slob! Life is good...

Catching Up...

Finally, courtesy of Alissa, some pictures of our new house. I will use two posts in order to give a full view of the house, which is finally practically all decorated. Here are the kids posing in front.
This is the view that you see when you walk in the front door. To the right of the matching recliners is a corner fireplace. Above the doorway to the kitchen is my favorite painting, one of the beach that we picked up at a restaurant in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Here Alissa is standing in front of the fireplace looking into the kitchen. There's my painting again..
Our bedroom. All new furniture in here except for the chair in the corner that you can't see..

This room is designated as a dining room, but we aren't formal diners, so it is a den and showplace for Terry's Marine memorabilia. There is a small table and two chairs against the left wall. The door you see leads to a sun porch...

Home at Last!

Sunday night we spent our first night in the new house we had owned for a month. By the time we actually stayed here, most everything we needed was here and put away, which is a good thing. I admit that I was losing my usually exceptional patience with the constant driving back and forth and ending up at the old house each night, but overall I am very glad that I didn't push the old guy into moving in before he was ready. Now he can never say that I rushed him into doing something he was not ready to do. I think that he got ready a lot faster after the cable was turned off on Thursday. After 3 evenings of watching old movies on video, he was ready for his cable television again, I'm sure. Tomorrow they will come and install our new custom window shades, and that will make us both more comfortable here. The drapes we have at the front windows are filmy, and they don't afford much privacy.

Of course, this is not to say that we are done with the old house-not by a long shot. There are still boxes sitting in the middle of the floor waiting to be transported here for storage. There are places where years of accumulated dust needs to be cleaned up. There are leftover odds and ends that must be disposed of, either in the garbage or the Goodwill bags. So we still go back and forth--we just end up here! :) I must say after a particularly grueling day today on which the old guy rode his tractor around the field cutting grass, and I packed boxes, cleaned out closets, filled garbage cans, and packed up the truck, only to have to take it all out and unpack it when I got here, I am whipped. I know it wasn't easy bouncing around on the tractor for 3 hours in the heat, but I still believe I had the worst of the work, especially since I unloaded the truck and unpacked the boxes by myself after we got here while the old guy hung a picture and fiddled with a cabinet bracket. I can honestly say that I have had enough of this and just want it all to be DONE! I am hopeful that by this weekend, it will be. Then we can get back to a normal routine with home-cooked and nutritious meals and time to pursue leisure time activities. Life is good now, but it will be better then!

When all the rooms are unpacked and arranged, I will post a photo tour. Just waiting for the last piece of furniture in the last room...

The Neverending Story...

No pictures tonight. We are still in the moving process, and it's really beginning to wear on both of us. EVERY day since we closed on the house over 2 weeks ago, we have gone 25 miles to the new house with a backseat full of stuff. We spend a few hours there putting the stuff away and then return here, where our bed is still in residence, and our cable is operative. We have had a few furniture deliveries, measurements for shades and area rugs, and a trip to Alissa's to pick up furniture that we bought down there, including a new bed. The bed was assembled by our intrepid son and daughter-in-law the very evening we brought it home, and it sits in splendor in the bedroom sans mattresses. It will be at least a week before our sons can get together and move the rest of the furniture out of our old house, including the mattresses. So today we decided to get new mattresses, which will be delivered Thursday. One problem solved, but we still can't stay there without cable. Terry is television-dependent, and without the cable, we can only pick up one channel, the one we watch least. He'd never be able to survive.

I had been hesitant to call about the cable before we were going to be staying there because that's an expensive bill to pay for two houses. So I called about the cable last Monday, thinking they could get it done in a week, and I was told that because this home is a new construction that they would have to send someone out just to see if cable was available to us. I assured the man on the phone that it was, as I felt the builder would not have put several cable outlets in if it weren't, and there is a box in the yard that says "television" on it. He said that nonetheless someone would have to check it out, and they couldn't possibly do that before May 14, still 2 days hence. After he has checked it out, I'm to call the cable company again and make an appointment for installation. The man wouldn't go ahead and schedule it while we were on the phone. He did assure me that it would only be another day or two, but we'll see. I am hoping we get to be living in the house by this time next week, but I'm not holding my breath.

Of course, once we are staying there, we will still have to come back to the old house to finish getting odds and ends and cleaning up so that our son and daughter-in-law can start moving their things in. It just seems that no matter how much I do or accomplish, more and more needs to be done. Both Terry and I are wearing down and have sore spots in parts of our bodies that we weren't aware existed. Both of us fall exhausted into bed each night and get up tired in the morning just to start all over again. One of these days it will all be done, and we will be able to relax and just enjoy our beautiful new home. It can't come soon enough for me. Surely, this neverending story will have a happy ending sooner or later--sooner, I hope! :)

A Short Hiatus

We closed on our new patio home last Friday, and for the next few weeks I doubt seriously whether I will have time to stop and prepare a nice blog post. I am skipping my painting sessions, so there is no artwork to display.

We are moving some things each day, and we are trying to put things away as we take them to the house. We also spend time there waiting for various tradesmen and deliveries. Therefore, we are not at this old home much during the day, and by the time I get home at night, it's all I can do to read the paper and get the next day's things boxed up. I do try to read e-mail every few days and check on the blogs and comment, but I am not much inclined to find pictures to post and write something myself. So if you don't see a fresh post from this site for a few weeks, at least I have explained to you why not. When we get all moved in and settled, I will post a pictorial tour. Meanwhile, life is good...

Back in the Saddle Again! 2

Last week it was the baby lawn tractor. This week it was the daddy tractor. Terry spent about 8 hours spread out over three days cutting the pasture on his big (for us) tractor. This was the first time he'd been on it in three years, and he loved it, although he could only take so much bouncing over ruts at a time. Every day in the last week we have visited the new house. Several of those days he came home and cut grass in the pasture while I tried to pack away some things in the house.

We found out today that we will close on the new house on Friday. Terry wants to take his time moving, so we won't be out of this house for almost a month, by his reckoning. He would like to take something to the house every day and put it where it belongs. He thinks it will be easier and keep us more organized. He may be right, but I feel impatient. I would like to get moved sooner rather than later. However, our bed is in a store near Alissa's house, and it will be a few weeks before we can down there to get it. And we have no window coverings, and we will need to get those before we live there, too. We are ordering them and we have to wait to have the windows measured until we have easy access. So it will be at least two weeks until we can be staying there.

At any rate, things are gearing up around here, and I am becoming a little overwhelmed by the enormity of the task which is facing us. I am ready, though, to jump in and get it done. By the time July rolls around, we should be well settled in the house and enjoying our new neighborhood. I guess I am just going to have to grit my teeth and get down to brass tacks! Life is good now, but it will be better in a few weeks...

Idaho?

Here you see my latest effort at painting. It is a picture of a lake in Idaho. I have never been to Idaho, although I would certainly like to go sometime. You might be wondering why I chose to paint a picture of a lake and mountains in Idaho on a misty day when I normally paint sunny tropical scenes and/or sunsets. I am drawn to the tropics, but sometimes I like to branch out--not enough to try entirely new subject matter, mind you. I still mainly do landscapes because that seems to be what I do best. This one is a little different from my usual choices in that it is all in tones of blue, and that is the main reason I chose it. It has the colors of blue that go in my new bedroom and bathroom, so I thought it would be a good addition to the decor.

You might also be wondering where I got a picture of a lake in Idaho to paint. A few years ago, Doug brought me some travel catalogues that he had gathered when preparing for a Caribbean cruise. I loved the pictures and collected several of them that I saved to paint, and I actually painted several of them. That led me to send to other states for their travel guides, and soon I was inundated with colorful publications. Terry immediately suspected I was planning a vacation, but I gave up on that long ago. I paged through them all and marked pictures that I thought I may paint someday. Then I stored them in the closet. Last week when I was cleaning out the closet in anticipation of moving, I found all the books. I sat down and found all the marked pages and tore them out to keep in a folder to save space. This was on one of the pages, and it caught my eye for the aforementioned reason.

I must admit that I looked at all these guides quite wistfully, imagining that I would someday get to visit those states. Not likely, I imagine, for most of them, but at least I can enjoy painting the picturesque scenes from faraway places. Life is good...

Back in the Saddle Again!

Spring has finally made an appearance around here. The temperature today was in the 70's, and the sun was shining, for a change. And see what that brought out. All the rain we have been having has made the grass grow like crazy. So today the old guy climbed back into the seat of his trusty zero-turn mower and cut the grass. You might say there's nothing unusual about the first grass-cutting of the season, and you would be right. The unusual thing about this picture is that the old guy is at the helm of the lawnmower for the first time in at least three years. He has been unable to mow the lawn due to various ailments and aches. Doug had to come out every week during mowing season to cut the grass. Now Terry is finally feeling well enough to get back in the saddle. Ironically, in about 3 weeks, we will be closing on a new home that has just a patch of lawn, and that patch will be mown by others. We will have very little outdoor responsibility in our new home, which is what we were trying to accomplish because neither one of us was really up to the task of yard maintenance. And now he feels like cutting grass! Go figure..

The next machine he wants to tackle is his beloved tractor and bush hog. He has decided to reserve a patch of our farm property for wildflowers and tree growth for me, so he will cut it himself, he says. I don't really know why I need a patch of wildflowers and trees since I will not be living here to enjoy them, but he is having more than just a bit of anxiety about leaving this farm, which he loves. He professes to be eager about the new house, and indeed, we visit it every day to check on its progress. I think he knows it is for the best for us to move into a home that we can get old in comfortably and not have to worry about maintaining. However, he is having a hard time letting go of the land. He doesn't much care about the house, but he is adamant that he wants to keep the land. He is perfectly willing for Doug and Kellie to use it as they wish, but he keeps reminding everyone that he still owns it, and it is ours. I feel sure that in a year or two he will find other things to occupy his time and attention, but meanwhile poor Doug and Kellie may have to have him around a little more often. He says he will cut the grass for them. We'll see how long that lasts. While it might be helpful to have a grass-cutting "elf," he might be a pest. This sounds like a good time to interest him in the travel that he promised me when I retired three years ago.

At any rate, our new house is coming along nicely, Terry feels well enough to get out and cut the grass, and it seems that spring is finally here. Alissa and Andy and the boys are enjoying a great Arizona vacation, and I had time to actually sit in the sunshine and read a book today. Life is good...