Manfred Mann's Earth Band

If you want to start out your morning truly revved up, check out the live performance of Manfred Mann and his Earth Band on YouTube  - "Blinded by the Light".  If I knew how, I would post a link.  I'm not sure why I decided to go there this morning, but I found it, started singing along and rocking out.  I don't understand the song - I just like it:)  Jim has already left for school, so he missed my stellar performance.  Oh, well, there will be a second show when you get home, Baby. 

Good Night!

I hope that you will still stop to visit.  Good night!  I've been a very bad, bad blogger!  I have so much to tell you that I hope you don't fall asleep reading this.  (Are you still there?)

Next week is my birthday.  Hooray!  I would like to say thank you to Teresa at Blueberries, Art and Life and her friend Darnell for Darnell's Fresh Strawberry Cake recipe which Teresa posted on her blog a couple of months ago.  I've been saving it to make myself a birthday cake.  I began today.  I bought 4 pounds of the most luscious looking, sweet smelling strawberries on the way home, chopped up two pounds of them and put them in the refrigerator to let the juice flow overnight.

I also would like to thank Katherine Thomas for inspiring me to finally redo my bulletin boards at school.  They look pretty good if I do say so myself.

I never finished painting my African violet that I talked about in my last (ancient) post.  My violets are still alive (which I consider to be really cool because I've never managed to grow any before), but they haven't bloomed in two months.  I should have taken a photo so I could have finished the painting from that.  Excuses, excuses:)

We took our granddaughter to Wisconsin in August.  If you want to see what pure joy looks like, you have to see my dad on his new jet ski.  We went to his cabin.  We went for a ride on the pontoon boat (which is my style of moving on water) and then he got out the jet ski.  I knew there would be trouble when my 76-year-old father spun his baseball cap around backward, put Jade on the jet ski and took off flying!  It was great!  She was screaming, "Faster, Grandpa, faster!"  Jim and I were standing on the dock saying, "Thank goodness they both swim like fish and they're wearing life jackets:)"  Jim took the jet ski out for a spin later.  Dad tried to talk me into it, but no thank you:)

Well, I'm going to make the rounds to try to catch up with you all.

My Sister Told Me to Post Something

I've been inspired by a couple of things this weekend.  The first is that Jim is taking a rendering and illustration class and he's going to draw every day.  The second is the four artists going on holiday together in Provence and blogging about it. http://paintingprovence.blogspot.com/  What fun!

Today I pulled out the watercolors and started a painting of one of my African violets.  I also took photos of the art that is hanging in our living room, so I could show you how things look since we did all that work in the living room.  However, there is a great big honkin' flash mark in the middle of each photo and I don't know how to shut off the flash on Jim's camera, so...  I'll not post any photos today:)

We're going to have our granddaughter stay with us a few days while her dad is in Houston at the end of the month.  I'm going to get some of that jumbo sidewalk chalk and a long jump rope.  I have to brush up on my jump rope chants.  I can remember two.  Jim says he'll jump rope with us.  He knows a chant I've never heard of.

Well, it's time to do some lesson plans.

This is what I've been up to

We set the tile, grouted and sealed the grout.  The carpet layers did a great job installing the carpet.  We have to install the baseboard, stain the French doors, put furniture and art where we want it and ta-dah - we'll be finished with the living room. (Briscoe is looking in.  He and Rosie spent a lot of time outside or in our bedroom while we were working.)

Since I have no art of my own to share right now, please check out this show http://www.robertlangestudios.com/

I commented on Ali's blog that I think whoever came up with the idea of these two to exhibit together is brilliant.  I wish I could check it out in person.

I love this!

Check this out. This is one of the sweetest videos I've ever seen!

http://5thworld.com/Paradigm/Postings/!Wisdom/OrangutanAndHound.html

This is why I haven't been painting on paper

Jim and I have been painting walls. We painted the living room. We tore out our old carpet and old tile. We set tile in about a third of the living room. We've been having fun working on this project, but, boy, are we tired at the end of the day! We're going to have carpet installed in the rest of the living room. I've also taken a moment to watch the roses bloom in our backyard:)

Sarah Stilwell Weber (1878-1939)

This is from The Saturday Evening Post Jan/Feb 2011 edition. I found some more of her illustrations by googling her, but I've been unable to find a biography. I love her work.