Working too much...

Sorry I haven't been posting. I'm swamped at work trying to get year end stuff done. I have 1099's to get out, workman's comp stuff to do, employer stuff to do, the list never ends. I haven't had much time for posting. I'm thinking of you all and missing having time to keep in touch. I'll be back as I can for a quick post or a quick comment or two. I knew I would get hooked on blogging and looking at all your blogs and seeing what all you great folks have to say, and enjoying sharing your time, your thoughts and lives, and I actually thought (for about 2 seconds) about cancelling my blogspot cuz time is such a commodity these days for me. Can't do that tho. I'll be back as I can - take care all! Vickie

More paintings

Ok here we go again - let's see if it takes me as long as it did last time. I'm going to try some more photos of my paintings. I have been painting a long time, since I was a teenager, watercolors, pen & ink, pencil, charcoal, a little acrylic, but my real love is oil painting. I have had to take a few breaks from paintings especially when the kids were little, and right now, I'm having to work full time, but I will get back to it. I crave it.This painting is at the Tyler, TX, Rose Garden. There is a beautiful arbor covered with little white roses and the day I was there, I painted a small 8x10 on location amid onlookers, then went back to my studio and did this 22x28. I went with my art buddies that I talked about earlier. It's called "plein aire" painting which means in French "open air" painting. It's so much easier to see and feel and touch the vibrant colors and the mood when you are painting on site. It's also nice to have a little study to go by when you want to enlarge something in the studio. There you have all your colors on your little study.

My husband and I are huge fans of Mexico travelling. We absolutely love it. Our church has Mexico missions several times a year, with men's building trips, the high schoolers building trips, and medical campaigns. I have been going on trips for about 10 years and my husband and I have vacationed up and down the Mexican coast. We have dear friends that have a beautiful vacation home in Akumal. Will show you photos sometime. Anyway, over the years I have learned Spanish (since highschool) and I can get by quite well. Not completely fluent, but certainly know what I am talking about. This painting is called "Waiting on the Padre". I have done several mission paintings. I love the architecture, the stucco, etc. I have several friends in Mexico from our travels.
This is my little darling, Cookie, of which I have spoken several times. She was a red Pomeranian. I had her for 13 years and she died this past year. I miss her so much. She could read my mind. We were inseparable. I went through a time where I was doing pet portraits for the public and loved meeting new people and getting to know their pets. I can do portraits from a good photo, too. But I don't do people portraits - too difficult. It takes a special person with a LOT of patience to do people portraits.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Here is one of my favorite spots in the entire world. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAkumal. We spent a week at our friends' beautiful vacation home there on the beach. It is all done in Spanish style complete with a little Indian couple who take care of the home and cook for you if you want. It's called "Casa de Suenos" - House of Dreams. And it is. I'll have to see if I have a photo that I can scan and show you. Or you can google it I think. OK, now, I put in a link for you to go look at. Eat your heart out - I've been there and plan to go back.

Ok, that's all for today. We're fixing to go out to eat with my husband's parents for his dad's 80th birthday. I have the cake all ready and his can of Sir Walter Raleigh, which he always gets. We're going to eat catfish - Bepa's favorite and the kids are going (except my oldest of course, who lives in Nashville - I will assume that he's already called his Bepa to wish him happy birthday) I'll be stuffed tonight! Later - Vickie

My Paintings

Thought it might be time to post a few of my paintings. I tried to edit on Picasa but the light was terrible today to try to take pictures of pictures... There was a glare, but maybe you can see a little. I have worked all afternoon on this so be patient with me. I still haven't gotten this photo thingie down. The first is the Rio Grande River, Colorado. It's 24x30 and oils. Oil painting is mostly what I do now...The next is called "Baile de las Velas" or Candle Dance. You may have seen the senoritas do this dance before. They do the entire dance with lit candles on their head and try to get through the whole thing without dropping their candle. It's quite exquisite! Next is "Puerta Azul" which is 24x48 I believe. It's kind of a loose palette knife painting that was a fun painting to do to loosen up and be a little free. Most of the time, I do tight realism, but I enjoyed this so much I decided to do another. You'll see it after this one...

Guess I'll try one more photo. This is "Koi Pond"... It's a bugger to get these moved around where I want them. If anyone can give me any tips on moving photos, I'd appreciate it! I haven't figured out how you can upload them in order where they post in descending order. They always appear at the top and then I have to try to move them down... ugh. ok here goes...

Ok, there you are. That's all I'm going to wrestle with today. It took me an hour to do 4. Sorry. I hope to get better at this and have a spot on my blog or set up a store to sell my work at some point. I have prints available of some paintings from when I was in an online gallery a couple of years ago, but not of all my paintings. I'll post some more another time.

Another subject....... I had a blast with Margo and Tina at Canton this weekend. We had fun and Margo made a haul on junk. I found a few items and managed to break the little cute black sprinkler boy (of which Margo has a photo on her blog). It's supposed to spin around and I gave it a spin and it broke off of the base!!!!!! The vendor ran over, a quite gripey old fellow, and gave me what for and claimed it was worth $500!!! I doubt that, and I felt TERRIBLE about it, but he didn't insist that I pay for it. Oh well, it was sitting right smack out in the front of his booth where any child or cart or buggy could come along and take a swipe at it. But it was my lucky day to do that. I would have paid him something for it, but he just grabbed it up and stomped off back to his perch. Then I knocked a glass bottle over on the pavement - thank goodness it didn't break! Later I paid for something and walked off without my purchase and had to go back and retrieve it! What a goofball I was Friday afternoon. I am usually not so scatterbrained. First time to go with Margo and Tina. Hope I gave them a good laugh. Guess they can take me along again just for entertainment.... Well I had fun anyway. I also got to meet Linda of Linda's Blue Gate (whoops - I don't have her link yet.). Her conservatories are beautiful - check her out. I bought one of her little fork chandeliers and am going to hang it in my kitchen window I think. We had great Mexican food after shopping which was the icing on the cake! Thanks Margo and Tina!

I have to tell you this before I go get ready for church. My Princess who is 19 has never met Margo or Tina called me right before we left for Canton and asked me where I was going. I told her I was going with two of my blog friends to Canton. She said,"mom, you mean you met them on the internet!", I said, "well, I met Margo here at her barn sale, but yes, Tina is an internet friend sort of". She yelled at me,"MOM, does dad know about this? Do you know these ladies? They could be serial killers for all you know!" I laughed until I had tears coming down my face, and said, "Yes, Dad knows and no, they are not serial killers! They are very nice ladies I've gotten to know on their blogs." She went on and on. "Well, you would never let me go meet someone that I'd met on-line!" to which I said "No, I wouldn't"..... I told Margo and Tina about it and we all got quite a good hee-haw on that one. I'm here to tell you Margo and Tina are very nice ladies, and not serial killers - we had a great time together.

Well, I'll be back - time for church and getting ready for the work week. Ugh.... wish I could quit my job.....

Canton, TX - Here we come!

Going to Canton today with my new friends, Margo (Robolady) and Tina (Stitching in Texas). I'm looking forward to spending the afternoon with them. I'm so excited - It's been too long since I've gotten to look through any good junk! Hopefully, we'll find some bargains and get new ideas and meet some new friends along the way. I'm ditching my job today - well, the boss is gone to the deer lease as well as all the other folks. So, I thought, what the heck - Well, wish us luck and have a great weekend!

More Christmas...

More photos of our Christmas at the farm with my husband's parents. (I have yet to figure out how to move photos around and get them in the right order - any suggestions? I have tried dragging them, but oh well...) They are probably backwards from the way I wanted to show them... Here's our dinner table. Our little table is so small, we had to pull a card table up and put the two tables together. My hubby is hiding behind me because he loves getting his photo taken so well. Princess is taking the photo.

Next shot is Princess supervising the carving of the
Christmas (Greenberg) Turkey we always have. Best smoked turkey in the country. Funny how we've eaten it all our lives around here and think nothing of it, and then Oprah makes it even more famous! It's old hat to us! I'm sure Princess is doing a taste-test, too...


Jake is laying in the pasture behind the garden shed catching some rays. He loves to dig for gophers at the farm. We can look around and just see a brown dog rear end with a tail going 90 mph sticking up in the air just above the hay and know he's found another gopher. One day he'd dug a hole so deep that we had to go look for him. He was almost underground completely. He found a beaver on our pond one day that slapped at him and managed to avoid getting caught. Jake was determined to catch him - jumping in and out of the water and diving deep to look for him, but I would hate for him to have gotten ahold of that beaver. We'd have one Lab missing a nose for sure! The beaver moved to somebody else's pond we suppose. He never returned after that one day...

Our little homely looking dog is Bug. My two younger kids talked me into getting her from a lady at Canton. I have never EVER done anything like that before - not talking about it with the hubby first. We came home with that little hamster sized pup and we never did tell hubby how much she really cost. Be careful when buying pets from flea markets. They told us she was an apple-head Chihuahua, but turned out to be a deer-head. I personally think she looks like a 'possum-head. But we love her. I am her person. She loves me. I thought about giving her to a friend of mine a few years ago, but I decided that since she is so attached to me it might break her little heart to do that. I have actually grown more attached to her since my little Pom, Cookie, died a year ago. Cookie was my baby. I miss her so much. I had her for 13 years. She went everywhere with us. She loved everybody and loved traveling and meeting new people. She was never nervous or hyper. They say, if you have one good friend in your life you are really blessed... well, I say if you have one good dog in your life you are blessed, too. There'll never be another like Cookie. I'll have to see if I have a photo of her...
Bug shakes all the time. She was excited about Christmas and seeing all her family but doesn't like the noise that goes along with unwrapping presents. She finally fell into an exhausted sleep in my lap.

So did we all later that day. Wrapped up in blankets all cozy on the couch and full of turkey, ham, coconut pie and all the trimmings, I felt so content with the world to have my family all around me. Is there a better feeling than that in this physical mortal life? I think not.