Feel Like Complaining

 It's been awhile since I talked about anything other than painting.  Tony has to have a little laser zap on each eye, due to a little wrinkle in each of his new lenses. What a pain having to pay two more co-pays (which went up this year). I'll be having another root canal next month. Another tooth that has already been done, might have to be done again because I'm starting to have pain in it. We'll wait awhile and if I have it done, at least it will be at no charge. After asking my doctor to clarify because I was getting conflicting reports on whether I was diabetic or not, she said I was pre-diabetic but to still take my medication for it. They're also trying another bp med because the other one did nothing. I kinda feel like a puppet on a string. We hadn't seen Waldo in a couple of weeks, and just Saturday Faith found him on the dining room window. Mid January and we have no snow. An inch here or there but it melts soon after. Can't say I'm unhappy ab...

I've been wanting to set up my little art space downstairs for quite awhile now but the family room was still full of stuff. Our entire bedroom set that was moved down there after we got Mom's set. That was almost 4 years ago! It was going to be Faith's when she moved, but I just wanted it gone. I tried to sell it on Marketplace and even lowered the price to 100 bucks; but not one inquiry. Then I tried to give it away on Nextdoor, not one inquiry. Finally I went to Craigslist, which was my last choice, and the inquiries rolled in. A couple who was moving that day and had a truck ready, was able to be here in a few hours. They were so grateful saying they were just starting over...again. It made me feel so good that it went to a good home and I don't even care that I didn't make a dime. Faith and I spent the next few hours moving things around and vacuuming. My mom had a nice console table that we didn't have room for upstairs. I covered it well and it's perf...

You've heard of the cat distribution system bringing cats and people together? How about a Lady Bug distribution system? Sometime in October a lady bug got into our house, which is not uncommon. We usually just take them back outside to live out their life, but not this late in the year. When she (I'm assuming) arrived, she had no spots.  She just hung out on the window in our kitchen and Abe spotted her one day. He batted her around and she fell in the sink but we set her back up on the sill. She'd come and go throughout the day and Tony named her Waldo.   One day she disappeared for a couple of weeks and we were worried about her. On New Year's Day, she appeared again, but with full spots on her back! I thought she might be hungry and being short on aphids, I put a little chunk of apple right beside her. She actually went over to it and crawled all over it for a whole day, I assume eating. After the apple dried up, I cut a grape in half and set her on it. She did not ...

I finished the last two water ones. I made a duplicate of the palm tree to give to Steve's wife. I figure if they take cruises every year, she must like water. There were more tutorials on landscapes but I'm not going to do them all; they're too much like some I've already done, so these are two that I've finished so far. This one is on larger paper and I really love how it turned out. If I want to frame anything, they have to be matted so I'm not sure if that will happen; but I would consider to do this one. These two were something I was trying to duplicate but she made it look a whole lot easier (don't they all) Tony liked them though. I saw this cotton candy sky one afternoon before sunset as I was driving from home back to Steve's. Other than the sky, I didn't know what to put on it, so just drew in some Spokane things.

I joined Threads about a month ago. I had seen little snippets on Instagram and curiosity got the best of me. First I created another Instagram because I didn't want Threads connected to my current pet sitting account. I don't post a whole lot anymore because I'm just seeing the same clients and that gets kind of boring. Family and a few friends follow me though, and I just want to be more anonymous on Threads.  So far I really like it and many people voice the same feeling. It's like a bunch of strangers just sitting around and shooting the breeze. You chime in if you want to or just eavesdrop. My current algorithm of what's in my feed is: Cancer diagnoses/cures Breakups/new romances Depression Anti Maga Grief Cats and more cats either lost-found-passed-rescued  Christmas trees and Christmas blues Weight loss Chronic illness Introverts Local photography Very strong women who have suffered greatly but worked hard to find their way out LGBTQ+ Artists I still do FB be...

I did these while I spent 17 days at Steve's. I see my mistakes and mine don't look like Kolbie's; but why would they? She's taught me so much about just enjoying the process so I look at each piece as a learning tool and have no problem with just living with it, or throwing it away to start over. This is only 8 out of the 10 and I might have to wait until I get back to Steve's to finish up.  These few I did with other tutorials Now before you go throwing accolades my way, I painted Abe, ha!

I had continued on with the tutorials I had paid for. The next one was trees and then mountains. I didn't care for the mountain lessons at all! I needed a brain reset so I started painting my own Christmas cards; it's been a lot of fun. I also did a Hanukkah card for our neighbor Steve and 2 all-occasion cards.  I'm not sure how many I did, because I didn't take pics of the duplicates. I got a little burnt out so it was time to move on to something else. I loved the woman whose tutorials I bought; and found a bunch of free one's on her web site. Next week: Painting the wilderness, seascapes. But first, this is our new Christmas tree. As much as I loved our old one (26 y/o), it just took too long to set it up and I couldn't see 1/3 of the TV. This one is a pre-lit pencil tree and we still could load a lot on it, and I can see the TV! There will be no prezzies under it, because SF was our Christmas. Seems like a fair trade to me but just in case Tony and Faith are...