Now that’s really something!

You just never know the twists and turns that this life is going to take. I won’t drag it out and make you all guess, we are having a baby! Yes, not a grandbaby, this one is ours. Number seven. We will be expecting him or her sometime late in January.

How’s that for a surprise?

20 Days! I can’t wait!

Yep, I am officially counting down to our vacation at the beach. I just love this time that we have away with just us.

Today I made a LONG list of essential things to take camping with us. I haven’t actually packed anything yet, but my list is made. I did replenish the med kit that we take and have a good idea of what we have and what we still might need. Starting on Monday, I plan to go through all of our camping stuff and see what needs patched, batteries, make sure the beds still inflate, run camping dishes through the dishwasher, etc.

Chuck and I got a sweet little wicker picnic set for our wedding 11 years ago and we have never used it, it goes with us this time and we are going to use it. Now the kids are all old enough for picnics and I know that Rachel will just love having a picnic with this set and a sweet little red checkered tablecloth. It will build memories for us all.

We are camping at a little cabin which sits on a bluff about 20 feet up from a shale beach at Lake Erie, just west of the town, out in the country. Two weeks. We have two glorious weeks.

Here are some photos of the cabin and the area:

This is where the kids will be spending a lot of time

And Rachel wants to try fishing:

This is the outside of the cabin:

And this is part of the inside, you can’t see the bathroom and the bedroom, but that area with the railing above is the loft where the kiddo’s can hang out. This year we will take inflatable beds for them to sleep on. Last year they slept right on the floor.

We would like to try to take the kids’ bikes and our bikes, but we have to find a bike rack first that will fit our van. Money is a problem, so I don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. I did post on freecycle, just in case anyone has one to lend or give away.

Do I seem just a little excited about this?

We plan to visit the zoo, stop at every single playground that we can, fish, bike, walk all over the place, enjoy the beach at Presque Isle, take in some sunsets and just generally relax with the kids. Man, I can’t wait.

As for the recent question about my fitday journal, I still have two weeks before I am “allowed” to diet, so I am just letting it ride, probably until we get back from vacation. I will kill the link so that people aren’t drawn there without anything to see. It’s too hard to fit “normal” foods into fitday. My old custom foods were fine, but these foods are a pain to journal.

What Happens When You Run Out of Canvas?

Click on the photo to enlarge image.

Summer Cottage

I did this one today, this one is an acrylic landscape. It’s of a cottage in Ireland, there are tiny pink and yellow flowers surrounding the water. I just loved doing this one this morning. It made my day.

I am making it available on my art site, so if you would like to have a print or a gift made with this on it, visit my site and select it! I double posted today, so feel free to scroll down to read more.

Shades

I am responding to the questions about painting on the roll up shades, with questions of my own. I liked doing it, but if I was to do it for others via mail, I would have to determine how much to charge, in excess of supplies.

I can’t paint everything, or at least I don’t think that I could, but I guess I could pretty well duplicate most designs, but I don’t much like doing faces or fur. They make me nervous, too intricate. People would have to send their shades because I don’t want to end up having to run here, there and everywhere to find them. We don’t have too many stores here in The Big Woods. They would have to send samples to paint from and I would buy the paint. They would have to ship to me and then I would ship the finished product back after about two weeks to allow for curing.

I tried painting on a old shade that I had here and it had little horizontal lines all through it and that was horrible. The ones with just a bit of texture or slick are much easier.

I am still not sure what the longevity of these shades would be, although they are sealed with a matte finisher.

I guess the big question is, what do you think I should charge? I put about ten hours into the last one, but didn’t charge her for my time because she is a church buddy. Give me an idea here, what would you be willing to pay for a custom job like this?

Got Bugs?

I have been painting like mad to finish a job that a friend asked me to do. It is a roll-up blind and I painted the design (from a wallpaper sample) freehand using acrylic paints, I varied the design, and enlarged it to about twice the height, trying to maintain the correct proportions.

This is a new style for me, since it is less smudgy than what I usually do and it has a lot of geometric patterns in it. The dots are very precisely placed, the plaid flowers are very precise, the proportions are all related one to another. I didn’t think I could do it, so I was thrilled when it turned out nicely. I wish I could have done the entire backdrop in the pink, but I didn’t want to do the whole blind and have it stick to itself and flake.

Now I want to do blinds for my own house. Look at the colors. I have so much paint that I had all the colors on hand and was able to mix paints to make a great match, I have to charge her for the paints so that I can replenish my stock, but wasn’t it great that I actually had what she needed? I was amazed.

Want a set of blinds? Let me know. This I can do. Oh, and I want to start painting rocks.

Gas Prices

Every week, sometimes several times per week, the news headlines scream, “New Record Gas Prices!” or “New Record Oil Prices Per Barrel!“.

You know, we freaking get it all ready. We’ve all have minivans and the SUVs, we can’t get rid of them and we can’t afford to fill the tanks. It’s going to keep skyrocketing every single week until finally, as a nation, we do something about it to make lasting changes.

Touting this as a new record over and over simply rubs the salt into the wound. Let’s just say it’s spiraling out of control and we are shoulder deep in national inflation that our government refuses to acknowledge. Let’s be done with that.

It’s not just gas, it’s food and everything else that is through the roof. This week I shopped at Aldi, spent $220.00 and filled two carts to overflowing. The store is over an hour from my house and I wanted to be sure I only had to make that trip once. Shopping at the traditional store would have cost me more than double. I can’t control gas prices, but I can go to where they sell bread for $.89 a loaf and beef for a buck ninety nine. Heck, I can make that bread myself.

I find myself walking a lot more. Maybe this crunch is good for one thing, maybe it will help more of us get onto our feet. Maybe it will have people mowing their lawns with reel mowers that require some physical effort. Maybe this is what’s needed to get us healthy, but I think that it is going to hurt a lot. Jon has ballgames, some of which are thirty miles away. You know, I am not doing that next year. I am not committing to these long drives for extra-curricular activities. That’s how this affects us. We stay home or we walk.

I play a new game at home which I call, “How long can I stretch a tank of gas?”. What are you doing to beat inflation?