The Beauty Salon

In our quest to look beautiful and my quest to fend off the grey, Jennifer and I went to get our hair done. It is the one place that everyone publically admits that they are not satisfied with what they have! Our salon now has a plastic surgeon who is doing botox injections in the back room where they also do massages. The call it a day spa now. It a one stop beauty shop. Jenn and I are both fighting our roots, hers are brown and mine are grey, but either way we want them gone. It amazes me as I look around, the lengths we will go to stay beautiful! They have girls doing nails, hair, permanents, curlers, waxing eyebrows, bikini lines, upper lips, the botox, restilane for plumping your lips, massages to help the stress we must feel about having to do all this to look good. Last year, or was it the year before, Jennifer cut off all of her long blonde hair and donated it to locks of love, this year she hasn't decided to part with it yet.

So thankful for......

I am also doing an ATC exchange. It is called "So thankful for......". I did an oil pastel (my first) of my coffee cup. Thankful for my husbands loving hands that bring me coffee in bed every morning. The cup is pink and was given to me by a friend. It is a Longenberger cup signifying breast cancer awareness. I have painted it before because I have a friend going through radiation after her lumpectomy. I pray for her when I see my cup in the morning. This holiday season my sister told me that they found a lump. She is now going in for a biopsy on Feb. 7th, we are waiting to see. I pray for her now too, all the time. I am now thankful for the huge survival rate when detected early. Lets take better care of ourselves and have our mammograms!

Dinner with Friends

I invited Marta and Rudy over for dinner last night. The weather was getting quite blustery and waited to hear if Marta had to work or not. They arrived about 6ish and she brought me a beautiful colander from the cooking store, filled with lemons and blood oranges from her tree. We had a wonderful dinner. Randy braved the elements to barbecue our steaks and I made rice pilaf and a salad. We sat and talked about their trip to Europe over some wine and dinner. It was such a wonderful relaxing evening, dreaming about all those exotic places that they got to see. Cheers! I am so excited to get two more pieces of fruit for my fruit series! Thanks Marta and Rudy! Here is the sketch of my gift with fruit, done in my handmade watercolor sketch book!

Second in my fruit series

Today the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day! It is the calm before the storm according to the weather casters. Another big storm is expected tonight through Sunday. I love that we are getting this rain, it cleans everything and makes it seem new and fresh. We put in drain lines throughout our backyard so we are not getting any flooding, that also helps me to relax and enjoy the bad weather! I love a day or two of gloomy but I am sorry for those who live with months of grey skies, pouring rain that never stops and extreme cold. They say it leads to depression when you don't get enough sun, I know it would for me. I love that its cold enough that I can light the fire and have a cup of hot chocolate at night. Then the next day the sun is usually out and warming the air. We live in an irrigated desert! Ok, enough about the weather, don't you talk about the weather when you have nothing else to say?

This is my second piece of fruit in my series, the banana. The banana is often called a tree but in fact it is not. It produces a psuedostem which grows quite high and then produces bunches of either green, yellow or red bananas. After producing its bananas the stem dies and then it send up another psuedostem and the cycle repeats. Grown mostly in the subtropics and tropics since they cannot tolerate freezing temperatures. The yellow banana is often called the dessert banana while the plantain is considered the cooking banana. And thats our lesson on bananas! Did anyone noticed that I ate the banana first then painted it? Sometimes its just too tempting.

My first series!!

I decided to do a series for the postcard exchange that I am doing. I don't usually do series because I easily get bored. I decided I needed to work on discipline so I will do 25 pieces of fruit, there has to be that many, right? I also am looking them up and learning more about them, and sending the information I find. It is an effort to learn something new everyday, my brain is turning to oatmeal these days. I don't have enough (intellectual) stimulation, a common problems of young, stay at home moms that are dealing with little kids. I am determined to try and make myself exercise my brain too! My challenge will be to see if I can retain any of the information as I add it to my blog! Here is my first postcard, tangerine. Citrus riticulata, good source of vitamin C. Main growers are China, the US isn't even on the top ten list. Clementines,mandarins are also in the same class, just different varieties. They are ripe now, during our winter and I love that they bring a ray of sunshine into the kitchen when its dreary outside.

The Purse

I bought myself a new purse at Christmas, I then wrapped it up and allowed my husband to give it to me as a gift. This way I wouldn't feel bad that I was shopping for myself when I was supposed to be shopping for everyone else. I have to confess that this was truly an impulse buy. I know I don't like two strap because one is always fighting to fall off my shoulder yet I bought it anyway. I knew that I liked to have some pockets on the side to hold my cell phone, but I bought it anyway. It was cute, and soft and had leather from Italy! So I bought it, against that small voice that was screaming at me "NO". I was good though and wrapped it up and put it under the tree for Christmas morning. I couldn't wait to get rid of my old purse and move over to the new one! Two days after Christmas I cleaned out my old purse, choosing only the best lipsticks and items to make the transfer. I went through the tons of receipts that manage to make their way into my wallet and purse. I placed everything inside carefully, using the cute side pouch for my lipstick and pen. One side was for my wallet, the other for my checkbook, sketchbook and phone. Officially, I have been using my new purse for almost a month and I HATE it!!! Everything gets lost in the sack part and there are only a few pocket which open too wide and things just fall out. The cute magnetic closure doesnt stay shut so it looks like a gapping hole, the black hole. Thats what I am calling it, the black hole. I have to pull everything out of it to find my keys, a pen, my glasses. Maybe if I use it long enough the bottom will fill with receipts and bring everything up higher where I can get to it. As I sat for an hour yesterday at the doctors with Jennifer I drew the black hole which took up the seat next to me. Its so soft it doesn't have any shape, it just lays there! Its hard to make out since I didn't finish it but I hope you get the idea of the blob purse I now will own for some time! Maybe I will do a purse series, one a week, it seems to be a love/hate relationship for most of us. Has anyone found the perfect purse??? Let me know.

My mom arrived home safely the other day and she called to tell me so. Then she said I can't wait to throw this purse away and get something else, I just hate it!! SEE....

So Thankful for.....

I am doing a ATC exchange at Wet Canvas. I love to do these cuz they are fast and fun and I enjoy getting surprises in the mail! Marta and I have our own exchange, its an TATC, which is travel ATC. We paint something from places we have been and send to each other. We started last year and to be honest, Marta has owed me one for sometime and she goes to all the good places!!!!! I received this beautiful ATC from her a few days ago. It is just beautiful and she wrote a little story of when she was in Paris with Rudy and how its her favorite city. We artists have this wonderful gift where we can freeze a moment in time and then share with others. I love sharing her travel adventures with her, I hope that this year we will have lots more to share. This is Notre Dame Cathedral. It also came in a great little envelope that she had done at Moo.com. On one side she wrote me a note and the other side was one of her tomatoe paintings. It was almost like two gifts.

Sinuses AHHH

My body is still trying to conquer this yucky thing. I got some antibiotics finally but they are just now starting to kick in. I am one of those people that hate to take medications. I hate to even take asprin,I don't know why. But I had to cry uncle and ask the doctor for help. I think today I may have rounded the corner on my way to recovery. I am so sick of trying to carry on a conversation with people while my nose is running amuck. There is one thing about being sick, it reminds me how good it feels to be well!

Check out my Slide Show!

Life Drawing and then the Quilt Show

Last night Dawn and I and Marta got together for Tapas and Sangria to celebrate Marta's birthday! We had a great time just trying to catch up after all the holiday business. Afterwards we went to the museum for Life drawing classes. It has been so long since I have drawn or painted I didn't know how I would do. The first few were pretty bad but then I got into the groove a bit. Still under the weather from this stupid sinus infection I pooped out pretty quick. Between the sangria and the medication and my runny nose, I fought to stay focused on the model. We had drawn her before, she is a robust black women, the last time she was our model I did a watercolor of her. Her hair was curly and she was a bit thinner. The unfortunate thing about painting someone is that you study their body and notice all changes. LOL I think she was a bit too overweight for modeling. I like a heavier model but too heavy and I think its harder to know if my porportions are right.

Tomorrow I have an all day class at Road to California, the quilt show. I have a quilt hanging there and am anxious to see it. I love to shop all the hand dyed fabrics and look for different things to incorporate into my quilts. I hope I feel better and can do this all day class. It should be great fun, its all about embellishment and creating different textures with fabric.

Christmas and New Years

Happy New Year!!! I have been so neglectful as far as blogging and I have had many wonderful comments. Thanks you for all the nice emails and comments you have left over the holiday season. I have been so caught up in all the holiday activities and with my mom still here I find my normal schedule is anything but. She doesn't do computers and can't even fathom the idea of a blog. I don't get alot of time with her so it has been so nice to have coffee together in the morning and dream over gardening catalogs. We have managed to buy some plants for my new backyard and even got them planted before the rains hit. Moms are so special, I love our time together. She has severe rhuemetoid arthritis and is on infusions every month. The risks to her overall health are so steep but she can not function unless she has them. I know our time together is never guarranteed so I cherish this time together. I miss everyone and hope to paint soon too!