Ahoy There, Mateys. Arr!

I don't draw well without photo reference. When our instructor told us to "draw something simple", I thought "oh good, I'll draw a mushroom". Then another class member couldn't decide what to draw so the instructor said, "draw a pirate, in fact everyone draw something to do with pirates."

Panic.

I don't draw well out of my head. I drew a blank. (no pun intended) I started drawing a parrot, but he was ugly so I erased him.

I started drawing an anchor. You'd think an anchor would be easy, right? NOT

I started second guessing myself. Does it have 2 spikes or 3? How far should the spikes go out?

I erased the anchor.

I decided to do an eye patch. ha ha Now that's what I call simple! I then tried to draw a part of the pirate's face around the eye patch. It was mediocre at best.



That was it. That was my whole drawing. I know the instructor thought I had zoomed in on part of his face when he walked past. Nope.

Today in class we have to show our pirate piece. I redid mine last night. I didn't know what to do until I was at my mother's house. I was telling her about class and my eye patch drawing. I told her I needed to find something else to draw. She dug out a picture of her grandson, Michael, all dressed up like a pirate. As I was looking at it I could see my mom's beautiful fluffy cat sitting there watching us. My brain starting connecting dots and I remembered about our poor one-eyed cat at home. Ta-Dah! Captain Winky was born.



I like it. I guess I'm more of a kitty person than a pirate person.

Hurry Hurry....

Winter's coming and you'd better be prepared for a rainy day.

Yes, It's Time......

...to squirrel away food for the winter.

A Real Swinger

I miss my grandson. I wish he didn't live so far away. 90 miles is far, isn't it? I'm just very thankful that they don't live 900 miles away. David has about a year left and then they can repent and move back home. *grin*

In about 4 months my little swinger here is going to be a big brother. Baby boy number two is on the way.

Mini Rant

I turned right falling in behind a small sedan. The car was moving abnormally slow. Two blocks down it slowed to a stop at an intersection. No stop sign there. The stop sign was for the driving going across our road.

I looked.

Sure enough. The driver was on a cell phone.

A few intersections later I pulled up to a stop sign. I was going to turn right, but a car was coming from the left very fast so I waited. Right before the car reached my intersection it quickly slowed down and turned before it got to me.

No turn signal. Just stomped on the brake and swerved around the corner.

Sure enough. Once again the driver was on a cell phone.

There ought to be a law.

Dang Government

Something is very wrong.
I don't often get on a political soapbox, but when I read this article in the newspaper I was pretty disgusted. This is the part that really got me.

Christie and Steve were divorced a few months ago and now live in separate households, enabling Christie to receive some state help with Jackson's medical costs. It was a heart-wrenching decision, as Christie and Steve are still very much in love.

A family had to break apart so that they could qualify for help?

So sad.

Don't Look if You're Squeamish

Poor Burns. His eye swelling had gone done a lot in just one day, but he could not close it. He just layed on a bed and acted loopy, but he couldn't shut his eye. Joni very faithfully put in eye ointment every 4 hours (a good use of her RN degree) but he just wasn't improving.








Yesterday she took him back to the vet. The nice doc sewed Burns eye shut!







It looks worse than before, in my opinion, but today Burns is driving me nuts! He wants to go outside SOOO badly. He follows me from room to room mewing and pawing at all the doors. I can tell he feels a lot better, even though he looks like he's been through the wringer.

Joni says if they had to sew it shut permanently she was going to start calling him "Patches O'Houlihan" or "Captain Winky". I'm pretty sure they were able to save his eye, though. I think he had so much pressure built up around his eye socket that it was causing him pain before, so he just layed there, but now?.....He wants to get on with his huntin' and prowlin' and stalkin'. It's nice to see him get back to normal. It might even be worth it when we get the vet bill.

Burns, not Mr.

This morning while I was at work I received a phone call from Joni. She was very upset. Burns came in and was torn up pretty badly. His eye was bulging and lacerated. His nose and lip were bleeding and he had a gash on his ear and head.

I told her to take him straight to the vet. They fixed him up pretty good. The swelling in his eye has gone done quite a bit, although he still can't close it. He doesn't really care, though, as he is in La-La-Land. His purring away on Abby's bed. He'll probably be a bit onory once the pain medicines wear off.

Oh the joys of pet ownership.

I was kind of funny when the vet called my cell phone to tell me that he was ready to go home.
" Mrs Mitchell, I took a look at Mr. Burns. No, not.... not.... oh yea it is. That's his name. What a minute, is it Burns or Mr. Burns? We have 2 of those. We're not sure which one that is. Anyway......."

Don't name 2 of your animals the same name. It just causes confusion.

Art, Slides, Cemetery, and People Watching

My poor baby. Abby came home for the weekend and was babied properly. I made her some homemade potato soup. Very yummy, and slides down swollen throats pretty easily. She moved back into her apartment last night. This morning she called and told me she was out of pain medicine and her throat still hurt very badly. I told her to call the student health center and see if she could get some more. They wanted to see her. Bad news. She had not improved at all so they put in an IV and gave her 2 bags of saline and prednisone to bring the swelling down and hydrate her. Her mono has not been kind to her, but she still has a smile on her face. What a trooper.

Yesterday Mike took me to Jackson. I heard they were having a Fall Art Festival and I was feeling the need for a quick get-away. Joni decided to come with us. Abby wanted to stay home and rest (the best thing for her).

We had a ball. We were not in a hurry what-so-ever. Every time we saw something interesting we would stop. I took a lot of photos all day long. I was trying to complete my assignment for my photo class, but I also just took photos for fun.

At the top of the Teton Pass we stopped and went on a little hike. I hiked up the hill and took some shots of Mike and Joni below. Then I took a lot of shots for my class. You can visit my other blog if you'd like to see those. I'll be posting them tomorrow.
I did see a couple of little chipmonks through the hillside plants.






Once we got to the bottom of the pass on the Wyoming side we stopped at a river and took another little hike. Here's a couple of shots of that hike.





In Jackson we visited the park where the fair was underway. It was great.


For a long time Joni and I just sat and watched people. I had to get photos. There were so many interesting characters. Everything from cowboys to high society. I'm posting them here for your gawking pleasure.























Then we went to the Snow King Resort where Joni and Mike went up the mountain on the chair lift....


....and came down the mountain riding the Alpine slide.



Right next to the resort was the oddest cemetery that I've ever seen. The plots were terraced and fenced. There were a lot of wooden headstones and the whole thing was wild and unkempt.













After we got back to Idaho we saw a truck hauling one of our potatoes out of the field.


JUST KIDDING! Our spuds aren't really that big. That truck has been sitting beside the road with his fake tater for as long as I can remember.

We were almost home when I spotted these sunflowers. As they are my favorite flower, Mike stopped and let me go snap a bunch of photos.







It was an awesome day. I needed the break so badly. I can't believe how much better I felt today.

Saturday

I survived my week.

I was so busy all week doing my job, the secretary's job, the student secretary's job, and starting 2 classes that came home exhausted at night. I'm hoping by Monday that I will not have to be doing the student secretary's job anymore. I really hope she's feeling better.

Abby has bee quite sick ever since she moved out. At first she said she felt sick to her stomach, then dizzy, then hot, then cold, then her throat hurt. I finally insisted she go to the doctor. She has a whopping case of Mono. Her throat is so closed off he told her to "go straight to the emergency room if it gets any worse". Through it all she hasn't missed a class and still went to work. Except last night and this morning. She is not working any more for a while until she feels better.

We brought her home for the weekend so that she could have more quiet and rest.

I went to my doc visit yesterday. I felt tired, but not sick, when I entered the waiting room. By the time they called me back however, I was starting to feel really ILL! They had a tv going in the corner that had little clips running about heart attacks, strokes, high cholestral, and on and on. As I sat there watching it the hypochondriac in me started imagining the worst!

My checkup went just as I expected. Everything looks good so far. I have to go in for more tests next week. It will be nice to get a clean bill of health. and if not that, it will be nice to be proactive and get things back under control.

True Confessions.....

A couple of things.....
1. Yesterday after the first part of church, called Sacrament Meeting, I was sitting on the front row waiting for all the adults to clear out of the room. We had Primary in there right after, and I lead the music, so I was just waiting for Primary to start. The oldest man in our ward walked (very slowly and bent over) past me. I hadn't spoken to him for a long time, but I caught his eye and said, "How are you doing, Joe?" He reached out his hand to me and took mine. We talked for a few moments before he moved on. I had to get up and go into the bathroom for a little cry. His hand and arm felt exactly like my dad's did in the final weeks before he died. Very wasted and bony. It just brought up too many memories.

2. I don't know if it is totally because of having one of those years and the stress has been getting to me....

or,

if something is actually physically wrong,

but I'm having enough problems to prompt me to go to the doctor this Friday. It's probably nothing, but I just want to get checked out.

3. Take one 50 year old woman,
and add;
her job,
and her co-workers job, (she's out for another month at least)
and a new semester,
and one on-line photography class,
and one digital illustration class taken on campus,
and weekly water-media illustrations for Watercolor Wednesday,
and weekly any-kind illustrations for Illustration Friday,
and painting the outside of a house,
and daily 2-mile walks,
and .......
you get one very busy person!

I like the things I'm doing. I even throw in sewing, gardening, and once in a big while I even cook a meal or clean!

I'm not complaining. If I feel overwhelmed I just don't do some things. Ever since I decided to do that I've been accomplishing so much more. I don't understand it, but it works.

Last week I was feeling like I just wasn't going to get around to doing an illustration for Watercolor Wednesday. Time was running out. The prompt was "Beatrix Potter". I had ideas running through my head, but didn't feel like I had the time to do anything. Then one evening I thought, "I don't have time to do the illustration I wanted, so I'll just try drawing a rabbit for a little while." I didn't think I would get anything worth posting, but in about an hour I had a nice little illo done which I was able to put on. It wasn't what I'd originally planned, but it was better because I just enjoyed the process and didn't worry about it.


"Peter's eye caught on the jacket, all blue, in the shop window. He made the purchase, as he missed wearing the one he had in his youth."

If I don't get to this week's prompt I'm not going to feel even a little bit guilty. But I may just go doodle for a while, though. Who knows, something may turn up.

My Baby Girl Moved Out

Today my baby moved out. Boo hoo hoo. She thinks every time I make boo hoo noises I'm joking, but seriously I'm sad she moved.




I WANTED her to move. I practically rented an apartment for her so she would move, but still.......I'm sad.



I said to Andy, "aren't you sad your sister moved out?" and he said, "who's going to clean?" It's true. Abby did most of the cleaning, but that's not the only reason I'm sad she's moved out.



I hope we don't all run out of clean underwear cause Abby moved out. Yes, it's true. Abby did most of the laundry. But that's not the only reason I'm sad she's moved out.



I'm kind of sad she moved out cause she and I had a lot of fun together.
Good luck in school this year, Abby. I love you!

(and I think I'll live cause you're only 2 miles away, and I'll still probably see you every day.)

A Donated Life

This morning I had a wonderful treat. It was the first time I've seen my friend and art mentor since his liver transplant in May. He looked wonderful. I told him so, and he said, "I feel wonderful". I just can't get over how great he looks. The last time I saw him was at my dad's funeral. It was about 2 weeks before he got his transplant. The difference is dramatic. He posted it on his blog. You have to take a peak. And while you're there check out his published children's book, UnBrella.

I haven't always been in favor of donating my organs if and when the situation should ever arise. But when I married Mike it was a topic of discussion that came up quite frequestly. He was very pro-donation. We talked about it a lot. He would always make a point of telling me he had his driver's license marked that he was a donor and wanted to know if I was. He knew I wasn't, but the more he talked about it, the more used to the idea I got. Then I started knowing real people who benefited from donation. A heart transplant for the husband of my former boss, kidney transplants for a couple of other acquaintances and I was sold. This was a good thing. A very good thing. Maybe as I got older I became less attached to my physical body and knew that it was just a tool. When I'm done using this piece of equipment I hope some part of it can be "recycled" for someone in need. That would be a very good thing.

I've been a pro-donate advocate for quite a while now. This morning's encounter only strengthened my committment to it. I think about his family, wife and small children who still have him in their lives. I think about his art and the wonderful images he can still create and share with the world. I think about all the student's lives he will touch as he is once again healthy enough to teach.

And I am very grateful for the selfless donation to his life, and to everyone who knows him.