A little vacation

I am to be admitted into the hospital tomorrow for my surgery. One on the 7th and one on the 10th and hopefull I will be back to resume what every it is I do. I am going to miss reading blogs and doing my art. I am hoping for a really fast recovery.

Great Class

I took a wonderful web class tonight from Lydia Fiedler. She is the owner of Understand Blue and is a great teacher. Her class was on doing a blog. I was surprised at how well she covered the information and made it so easy to understand. At times I feel overwhelmed at the amount of information you can obtain on the web. It seems to go on forever.
I finished all of my preops today. More labs drawn, a urine specimen, and 50 papers, at least, to sign. All of that just to get into the hospital. It makes me wonder how many I will be signing to get out of the place. My surgery date starts on the 7th and ends on the 10th. I do believe they intend to fillet me. If anyone ever wants to compare scars I believe I will take them up on it. Mine will sure be a lot longer than the normal. It is a good thing Titanium is lightweight or I will come out of the hospital weighing 30 pounds more than preop. Modern surgical procedures are a thing of magic. I watched a whole operation done with a microscope and TV monitors and tiny, tiny, body parts. Our nerves are pretty slim.
I have a new collage I am working on, so it is waiting patiently. I want to get at least most of it done before I have to leave my art for a few weeks. A week in the hosptial just doesn't sound thrilling to me. I have to leave all of my art at home.
It is now officially TGIF............have a dandy weekend and enjoy all those fireworks. Be thankful that the noise is fireworks and not a morter attack.
Enjoy!

Really HOT

The weekend ended with a swelter y day. It was 107 degrees and believe me I knew it. I can remember as a kid running around all summer long without any shoes and today I wondered how on earth I ever did that.
I decided to try my hand at doodling. I found a site that gives instructions on how to doodle. I am surprised to find that doodling requires lessons. After I read the instructions I knew why lessons were necessary. I don't think I ever put much thought into doodling until recently. That is because I never looked at it as an art form before. I have hopes that it will help my drawing. I'm not much of an artist with a pencil and have always wanted to be able to draw. I have come to the conclusion that I have been too lazy to adapt to drawing. It takes some practice and anyone can draw with practice being the key word here. We will see what I can accomplish with my trusty pencil.
I did make make a card to welcome our new neighbor to the hood. I decided I would introduce my self and the family and not be like I was for 4 years while living in Oxnard. In 4 years I couldn't tell you the name of any of my neighbors except for one right next to us. It seems that was the way of living in the suburbs. We seem to have cultured the distance and aloneness for an awfully long time and I think that has caused our society some terrible problems. It always surprises me when I read about someone found dead after not being seen for 6 months by their next door neighbor. That is a sad circumstance. We seem to have distanced ourselves from each other until we are alone in a crowd. Change subjects quick, I don't want to write a research paper on the social problems of America.
For those of you that hate Mondays, bring out the pencil and doodle. Until next time.

Summer is here.

Yesterday I visited our local museum for the T-Rex and the Lego exhibit. In a little town like I live in (90,000) a T-Rex is a really big thing, of course it is a really big thing no matter where it is. The picture is of life size characters made totally of Legos. The artist is amazing to say the least. I will post more pictures this week.
I finally finished my shrine I started over the weekend. Once it was completed I had no idea what to dedicate it to. Well, as you can see I found a worthy creature to dedicate the shrine to, a Blue Footed Booby. He looks so majestic in his spot with a sand dollar behind him. I think he is just charming.
It has finally turned to summer. It has been about 100 degrees every day this week. My little garden, shared with my daughter, will be so very happy. We have picked one pepper, one squash and a hand full of green beans. It is city gardening at its best. My yard is about 40x40 feet and I have every spot filled with something that grows except for a footpath that gets smaller each year. My actual garden is 4 feet wide and 10 feet long with a healthy group of Cosmos ready to bloom and 2 tomato plants along with 2 Basil and 2 peppers. I had to stick my squash outside of the garden area. They like a lot of room. Every thing looks beautiful and healthy which I attribute to my talking to them and stroking their leaves. They love it! Of course my husband claims that I'm loony and the tomatoes are growing well because of Miracle Grow. But, what does he know?

Smearing all over

I have been painting on my assignment even thou the class has ended. I really enjoyed the class and learned how to smear paint the right way and get the looks I want. Thank you Julie.
I have had a little box around here for almost a year and finally decided to make a shrine. I thought I would look on the net and see what examples I could find. I have been living in the bowels of ignorance when it comes to shrines. I even found one made from a split walnut shell. It was actually very nice. I think my problem is I have no defined person, place, or thing to make the shrine for. I just want a generic shrine. This is going to be one of those fly by the seat of my pants things. What better way to learn than by the seat of my pants.
I have new neighbors moving in on both sides of me. It has been a really quiet place for about a year and boom both condos sold the same time. No more running out to the mail box in my boxer shorts and holey Tshirt. I don't want to scare them off before I meet them.
Last night about 2am my daughter came in from out front and said we had a Coyote casing the neighborhood. We've had a couple young gray squirrels frolicking around on the front lawn and I bet that canine wise guy is checking out a quick dinner of furry little meatballs. If you are wondering why my daughter was outside at 2am, she studies out side by the street light. We just call her the neighborhood watch.
Well, back to my projects. I am slow but steady. It must be the weather!

Beautiful day

I just can't believe the weather. It is just beautiful. A high of 90 degrees for the middle of June is almost unheard of. We are really lucky that we don't have tornados like they are having in the midwest states.
I worked some more on my pink assignment today. I guess I'm just not a pink person. I have added crackle paste, collage elements, and even stamped on it. All of that and it is still pink. What is one to do? I am posting a collage I did a few months ago. I really liked it but my daughter said it was questionable for good taste. Nope, I like it. Even an elephant can have intruders. Tomorrow is TGIF and I hope you all enjoy it.

Rough to do

This is my first attempt at drawing a face on a collage background. I am looking for better. The card I did with Versafine ink and a great sunflower stamp. Can't remember who made the stamp right now.

In the past week I have had my surgical schedule finalized. The closer it gets to the time for surgery the queasier I get. Then a day like today comes along and I want to run and hide under the bed. Of course the giant dust bunnies would over take me in seconds. It doesn't matter much what or how many pain meds I take........I still hurt and not in a small area but an all over one. Which leaves me with wishing my surgical date was sooner. I have been dealing with this pain thing for 5 years now and each year it gets worse. It is really nasty now when the weather changes. Add a few high clouds or a thunderstorm or two and every joint and muscle in my body hurts. I can see why trying to treat Fibromyalgia is like digging a hole in the desert. Hard and useless. My symptoms of pain from my back have created a fibromyalgia type syndrom. My GP is against me having my surgery stating that he has seen very few that worked. Right now I would settle for 50% less pain than I have now and think it was wonderful. Maybe that is the key....start hurting and let it expand and consume your body and any relief is wonderful.
I have been really slow in my painting class. I haven't started lesson 7 yet. That was my ambition for the day and it has fallen to the wayside. Maybe tomorrow. It is a good thing Julie is so understanding. She is a great teacher if anyone wants to learn backgrounds. I am totally dependant on art to distract me from myself. Some days it works and some it doesn't. I am hoping to expand my art to doing some actual drawing on my backgrounds.
I must end this writing and have a rest. Enjoy your midweek.

Sally