The Cookie is Wise

Yesterday we had the office Christmas luncheon. We had P.F. Chang's to celebrate the merry time. It was delish, and a wonderful break from the usual meat-heavy holiday fare that is consumed this time of year.

So, of course, there were fortune cookies. Mine said "Your creativity takes you to great heights." Y'all the cookie is so very wise, for it has already come true. As my readers know, my dear friend owns a shop in Asheville. Asheville is in the mountains of North Carolina, so that makes Asheville "high." (Okay so there is also talk that marijuana grows wild in some surrounding areas, but I am getting off track.) She put my paintings out today, and two sold in the first hour! I cannot tell you how happy this news made me, and even now I feel giddy. Up to this time, all of my paintings were commissioned, or I made them to give as gifts to special friends. It is a great and strange feeling to know that my paintings are being enjoyed by people that I haven't met. I hope they love them as much as I loved creating them.

Now if the dang cookie will tell me the right numbers for the Powerball drawing, I will be golden.

The Land of Misfit Projects

I don't know what is wrong with me, but recently I have noticed a disturbing trend.

I have been completing projects that have been hanging over me, staring at me, yes even mocking me for many moons.

For example, I made my bosses very nice hand knit scarves for their Christmas presents. Our party is on Thursday so there was a deadline for serious.

Said scarves were completed on Saturday, and wrapped with care. Record time y'all.

Then last night I did some mending that I had been ignoring for over a year. Last night those garments were put back in the closet in their rightful place. Unheard of. How am I supposed to function without dodging that pile?

There is one project that is looming that I am not sure I will ever have the strength to do.

The dreaded editing of one's wardrobe.

I know that if you haven't worn something in over a year, the chances are pretty slim that you will not wear it. I have quite a few garments that fall into that category, and some garments that just don't fit anymore. I keep telling myself that yes, I will go on a diet, I will get motivated to exercise regularly, I will get a tapeworm, but alas these things have not happened. I would gain so so much closet real estate if I did this task. Y'all if you ever hear me say that I have done this I'll probably be committed to a padded room shortly thereafter.

But I am being realistic. This project will be done just as soon as I win the powerball, and I can hire Tim Gunn to be my bestest friend and shopping buddy.

I'm in the mood for bread

Dear Husband is on his way out to the east coast for a shoot. Although I hate it when he is away, having a precious Saturday to myself gives me time to do things that I usually don't have time to do.

I'm gonna make bread products.

I have the yeast, the flour and the inclination, so I'm going for it. Plus the smell of anything yeasty baking in your oven is the best house perfume ever.

So what am I making do you ask? I'm gonna make bagels, and if I am not too exhausted from that I might even make taralli. Taralli are basically Italian pretzels, and they are so fabulous. When I went to school in Italy, I first stayed with my traveling mate's Nonna (grandmother) in southern Italy. She gave us a bag of homemade taralli for our train trip to school in Perugia, and I'm pretty sure I inhaled the whole bag. Any savory or kicky spice is a wonderful accompaniment to taralli. Hers were flavored with rosemary. I'm going to make a batch with rosemary and another with crushed red pepper. These are so great with a glass of wine

So it will be just me, the kitties, flicks that my husband would never want to see (of the chick variety sans a lot of shit blowing up) and a whole lot of bread products this weekend.

Scooter and the Tree

Here we see Scooter, perched on the sofa by the tree. Usually she has her body turned around, so that she can see the tree, and all the shiny things that she would like to claim as her own. She did snag some silver beads, and promptly hid them under the tree skirt for future playtime. Although it is a lot of work, I really do dig how my tree turns out. It is filled with ornaments I love, whether they are vintage glass from my parents, or new ones that Dear Husband and I have collected on our travels. The room always feels so nekkid when I have to take the tree down, so I will enjoy the prettyness whilst I can.

In other news I have caught a sniffle.....again. I'm really getting tired of all these cooties. I don't understand it y'all. I take my vitamins, drink water like a fish, eat my veggies and fruits, and still I get sick. So unfair. Since my head is all clogged up, I am rocking the decongestant. We shall see if Eugenia decides to pay me a visit.

Hose the House in Christmas Cheer

Okay with my painting frenzy done, it is time to pay attention to other things. I'm sure the Southern Stepford Borg is wondering why my house was not festooned in holiday spirit the day after Thanksgiving, as most of those robot houses were, but they can bite me.


Tonight Dear Husband and I will attend a Christmas Party, and tomorrow hoo boy I will decorate the house. Now it will not look like we let elves on caffeine loose in the house, but it will look super purty. Dear Husband has some clients coming over next week, and we do not want them to think that we are present day grinches.


My cats will do their part to help.

Scooter is fascinated with cardboard boxes, and I will have so many in the living room tomorrow that I could build a pretty bitchin' fort. I'm sure she will figure out how to shimmy her robust self into some open cardboard crevice, and then I will hear muffled kitty noises, and try to figure out where the honk she wound up. Once the tree is up, she will steal the silver bead strands I use instead of tinsel, and they will be in all sorts of rooms, just waiting for a unsocked human foot to step on.



Inky is not so much into the whole tree thing anymore, but she does like curling up on the tree skirt - that is until the interloper presents get in her way. Now, if the tree had garlands of crunchy cat food, I'm sure she would be all about it, but yeah not so much. In her younger days, she had a penchant for chomping these funky, shiny wise men that graced my family tree, but so far she has not found any other worthy ornament opponent to pique her interest.

So that will be Saturday. Saturday night I will cook a lovely roasted chicken dinner, and enjoy the purtyness that is a house hosed in Christmas cheer.

Flowers on the Brain

Aaaaaand here are the last four paintings that will go to my friends store in time for Christmas shopping.


I am extremely pleased with how they turned out. These are 4"x12" and all the paintings I have shown on my blog are "gallery wrapped," which means the canvas continues around the side of the painting. On these particular works, I painted the color of the flower on the face of the canvas as the border color, so they all looked very finished, happy and bright.

So tonight I shall carefully wrap my paintings, and they will be delivered to my dear friend on Friday. As luck would have it, she will be in Nashville for a party. Yay for no shipping costs! I cannot wait to see these on display in her store.

It will be strange not to be surrounded by these 16 paintings. The corner of my living room where my easel resides has been an explosion of colorful flowers for so long. I will be sad to see them go, but happy to know that others will be able to enjoy them. Once these little guys have left, I shall return to working on my big floral work. It is 12"x14" (maybe bigger) and the background color is in shades of blue. I used my knife to apply the color, so there is a really cool texture going on. I think after this, I will have the flowers out of my system. Then on to the next series!

More Painting

Yep I am still in serious painting mode. Here are the works I recently completed.

These are all 5"x7":

And these are all 5"x5":

I love, love, love how these turned out. Still have to sign the flower head series, but since they are square canvases, I'm trying to figure out how I would like them oriented, since I always sign my works on the bottom right.

I have four more that I would like to work on before giving them to my friend for sale in her shop. The last four are, I think 3"x6" in dimension, so they are rectangular (duh). I have already applied the background color (a really pretty light blue) and I am thinking of doing four flowerheads per canvas, but the flowers will graduate deeper in color from left to right.