Happy New Year!

I wish you all a happy New Year! To start the year right, I have some movie recommendations. The King's Speech is excellent. I hope the movie and the actors win Academy Awards. They deserve it. I also enjoyed True Grit. (If you go see it, there are two parts where you should cover your eyes. Jim's not as quick at that as I am...) I had mixed feelings about going to see a remake, but my new philosophy is to give it a chance if it seems to have potential - treat it as if it were a play.

I also have a rental to recommend. It's called Easy A. It's hilarious. I love the actors and the dialogue is very clever and funny. I almost didn't rent this one because I was afraid it would be too silly.

Yikes! We go back to school on Monday. We had a great vacation. I guess I'm ready to go back. I love my job.

A Christmas Gift and A Christmas Card

When Randi came over to take care of her furry brothers and sister while we were out of town, she noticed that the toilet seat in our guest bathroom was cracked. She got an idea for Christmas. She bought us a new wooden toilet seat and had our three granddaughters make some fun art. The girls made butterflies with their hands, signed and dated their work. There was no way I was going to put the girls' art on the toilet, so it will hang in our hall. Jim came up with the idea of taking a family Christmas portrait and putting it under the lid using the seat as a frame:) This is possibly the strangest, most fun Christmas gift we've ever received:) Thank you, Randi. We really like it! Jade (8), Ivory (4), and Lucy (2), Grandma and Grandpa think you're wonderful artists!





I also wanted to share the Christmas card I received from my friend Charlotte Lang, an artist who lives in Mesquite, Nevada. She makes lovely watercolors and also does pottery.

Saturday

Mom arrives from North Carolina on Tuesday, soooooo... guess who's been cleaning the house? I haven't even started my Christmas cards. I've done a little shopping. I haven't started decorating. Yikes! Here I am talking to you:) It may not be what I should be doing, but it's want I want to be doing! I hope everyone is well and is further along with holiday preparations than I am.

I read about a wombat book on Mimble's blog and checked it out. The author is Jackie French and she and her books are delightful. I ordered a book for Jade, my granddaughter. If you have time, check this out. Thank you, Mim. This made me laugh. http://www.jackiefrench.com/wombat.html

I'm Still Here

I read about The Little Art Club on Katherine Thomas' blog, so I have become a follower. I hope it will inspire me to get some painting done. I want to do some Christmas cards. Katherine's drawings are awesome.

I just finished Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny. She's an award winning author whose work I love. If you're in the mood for a good mystery, pick up one of her books.

Jim is reading Battle Cry of Freedom. It's about the Civil War. For awhile, he was reading mysteries and I was reading history books and now we've switched.

We went to North Carolina to visit my mom for a few days at the end of October. I'm posting some photos. I want to paint the one with the bird. Is it some type of heron? We sure had a wonderful trip. We went to the Biltmore, toured the mansion and walked the lovely grounds. We also hiked at Chimney Rock Park - absolutely gorgeous!

Gratitude Friday or Who Was That Woman?

Who was that woman who said, "Our granddaughter is staying with us while her dad is out of town, so there will be art galore"? Yikes! We're having a blast, but we haven't made any art. We've been reading in the evenings. She has a log for her teacher and we sign off on what she reads. Last night, we read a chapter from It's Raining Cupcakes. Wednesday night, we read Little Beauty and a story about farm animals who enter a talent show. All three of us spend a lot of time laughing.

We do a kind of relay in the morning trying to get to school on time. Jim isn't in the classroom any longer, so he has had the responsibility of getting Jade to her school because his schedule is more flexible than mine. I help her get ready and drop her off to Jim on my way to school. He handles the final leg of the journey during which they stop for hot chocolate:)

I am very grateful for having the opportunity to spend time with our lovely little granddaughter.

A Lazy, Lovely, Rainy Day in Las Vegas

Yesterday and today, we had some rain and a few hours of overcast skies. It was a nice change. Up until now, we've been having temperatures in the 100s, which is unusual for this time of year.

I've been reading a novel by Julia Glass on my Kindle. Thursday night, Jim fell asleep before I did. I felt like reading, but I didn't want to wake him up by turning on the light. I used the light on my Kindle cover for real for the first time. (The times I just played with it don't count.) It gives off just enough light to illuminate the page. It's a really cool feeling to be surrounded by darkness and read with this tiny light.

I kind of fell out of blogging mode the last couple of weeks. I have to make the rounds to see what you've been up to.

A Quick Note

I haven't done any painting because I'm trying to get back in the groove of school. I have wonderful students as usual, but I've been tired each day when I get home.

The only artsy thing I've done is Jim and I went to the Harvest Festival with a friend of ours. We'd never been to it before. It was a lot of fun. They had arts, crafts, food and entertainment. It was a very relaxed atmosphere. We bought two prints by Richard Curtner. He does collages. Check out his work on the Internet. It's beautiful and it's different.

A cool thing that happened is our Kindle arrived on Friday. I played with it yesterday. It is an amazing piece of technology. You can download about 3,600 books on it. You can download magazines and newspapers, too. A lot of books are free because the copyright has expired. Newer books are cheaper than the print editions. For me, it won't replace the library or bookstore, hardcover or paperback books, but it's a wonderful supplement. It's wireless, so you can download books at the airport, etc. It will fit in your purse. It's approximately 5"x7"x 1/4". As I discover all of its secrets, I'll share them with you. I'm in love. This was supposed to be shared with Jim, but I think he'll be getting his own one of these days:)