Back to basics

Sitting in the shop

I got up too early today because of the time change and I'm sitting in my little grooming shop. While I'm here, when it's not busy, I can do my computer work, or paint or work on the things I sell. Then I started thinking about that. How many different things I do. I opened the shop so I could have a rest—hang out with dogs and have a day job. Something odd about opening a shop to get a rest. When I go home I'm done. I can even leave all my projects here. Not the painting though; I like to paint by the fire at night. Plus—do I really need dog hair texture in my paintings?

All I have to do for my shop is show up and try to outsmart dogs. They're so sweet. Some of them are trusting and happy. Some of them are scared and need a hug and reassurance. Even the growly biting ones have a soft spot and will love you if you find it.

Puppy v.s. soap and scissors

Go to the Wellspring Pet Grooming site and see our latest customer!

http://wellspringgrooming.blogspot.com

Another new business!

Being an oil painter has required a day job lately. Trying to think of something you really want to do isn't always easy. I have a theory that if you decide what you want to do and go after it, whether it's impossible, unlikely, foolhardy or really hard, is the secret to happiness. That's why I'm an oil painter.

But I also like having enough money, so I'm creating a day job. The self-employment thing has been one of the conditions of my life. I just can't go someplace at a certain time and work for somebody else. How do people who do that ever get to the gym or the post office? How do they ever stay up really late? I just don't get it. So here's what I did.







I did give it some little clubhouse touches so I'll like being there. It's only been open for eight days. We get giddy every time someone comes in or calls. I think it's going to be fun. I love dogs and cats and I think when I go home after work I'll have a clear head from looking into all those soulful eyes and I'll be able to light a fire and paint. That would make me very happy.

New portraits

Bunnie

Puppie


Briny




Sparki Goss


Maggie Goss

Berserk plants

Have your plants gone berserk?

My strawberries are big and sweet and warm and juicy and about two weeks early. The spinach has been excellent, but also a couple of weeks early and has gone to seed already. I'm eating delicious Swiss chard every day. There are beans, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes starting on all the plants. My blackberries are already ripe. At least they're too early for bears. Blueberries are out and the flowers are amazing. But what's going on? I have a few Chrysanthemums starting to flower and those usually flower in October if I remember correctly.

Can there be a hole in the ozone layer over my yard? I'm starting to wonder if I should replant a second crop. Will my yard become a jungle or turn into the the great 2010 dust bowl of Summer Street?

Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Carried Away—again!

We just got back from another book reading/signing. This time, instead of a book store, it was at the Heritage Towers Senior Center.

Kate and a friend


Lois and Kate signing books


All proceeds benefit the Postal Employees Emergency Relief Fund. Copies are selling at an alarming rate, so If you are interested in buying a copy; do it here
http://carriedawaytruestoriesblogspot.com

Carried Away—True Stories from Postal Carriers Across America

How exciting to do our first book reading/signing at Bertram and Oliver Book Sellers in Amesbury, MA

The hairy one is Briney Berkenbush, our spokesmodel and a mail carrier's best friend…

All proceeds benefit the Postal Employees Emergency Relief Fund. Copies are selling at an alarming rate, so If you are interested in buying a copy; do it here
http://carriedawaytruestoriesblogspot.com

The rhubarb that ate my house

Strawberry rhubarb garden

LAZY Sunday

Oh dear… The party started at two in the afternoon, and I didn't get to bed till 3:00 am. Friends and food and wine and a campfire. Gelato cake—my new favorite. I was supposed to be at the gym at 10:00 this morning. If they called me I didn't hear the phone.

What a beautiful day. You gotta love summer. i saw the first hummingbird at the feeder. I'm going to weed the garden (sitting down) and then read a book in the hammock. When I smell one of my neighbors grilling supper, I'll drop by with a jug of nice fruity ice tea and try to look really hungry. Hope nobody reads this until after supper.

I love it that when our neighborhood starts to get all shady, I can look up and see airplanes, so high up that they still reflect the sun. I love airplanes. I even love airports. From the minute I leave the house I feel like someone just yelled "Road Trip!"

Glorious day.

Ha, Ha! Squirrels fear me!

It's true. Now that I can trap squirrels and I already own a chainsaw, if I buy a snowmobile, they'll let me move to New Hampshire—but enough about my intellectual pursuits…

Spill of the day

May 14th 12:45 am Decided I needed more vegetables in my life. Watching a video, I gave a can of V8 a big shake and popped the top. Good movie. Five minutes later, I went to give the can a big shake and pop the top…

Three Squirrel Day…

Three squirrels entered my witness protection program this Tuesday. If they can find their way back, I'll move and they can have the house. Three times I heard the cage rattling and pretty much put on a hazardous materials suit before touching the cage. Oh sure—they're cute and fuzzy when they're tearing your house apart or digging up your new garden, but up close they have dagger claws and hurl squawky little insults.

Vitamins for the elderly

According to my friend John, Vitamin I is the thing—Ibuprofen…

I am officially elderly. Out on a sidewalk I told a teenager to: "Put that cigarette out and pull up your pants!" Hee, hee… I've been wanting to do that for SO LONG. His first reaction was a teenage look of mild fear of authority, but then he managed enough composure to spit out the standard two word answer. It was totally ineffective because he wasn't ready with it right away. He's gonna have to work on his delivery unless he wants to seem like Peewee Herman.

Squirrels are evil

I'm obsessed with gardening. I've been gardening full time for a month. We had such warm weather, I dove in and figured I could get a lot done before the mosquitos came out. I started seeds in the house and although it was supposed to be too early, they're all outside, happy and growing like crazy.

I planted veggies and herbs, hostas and lilacs, irises and then I went around and planted Nasturtiums on everything that couldn't run away. my whole yard is going to be yellow and orange and red for the hummingbirds.

There's an opening on the back of my house way up on the third floor. It used to have a cover over it it and the squirrels got it off and they're living in there now. This time of year, there's probably little baby squirrels in there. I think I saw one, but I'm not sure. I got out my binoculars to get a good look and a huge squirrel popped his head and upper body out. He stuck his paws out and I'm pretty sure it waved to me.

Earth fights back

Isn't there something primordial and spooky about volcano clouds halting air traffic?

The results are in

Thanks for taking the time to let me know which paintings are your favorites. The Veil, The Kid, Marsh Storm and Fade were the top four, in that order by a huge margin. All the others fell behind in a group. I'm trying to decide if I want to repaint the Veil because I believe I can improve it—or show the Kid, because it is more my style and the only one that isn't sold. A little bit of a commercial/non-commercial thing going on there.

My favorite is Feathers, lucky rocks and plastic baby. I can't sell it.

As for my arrest poll:

The #1 crime, with seven votes, was mouthing off to a police officer. ME?

I was a little surprised by how many people remembered my plot to paint an extra leg on the heron on the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant welcome sign. That was a long time ago. Nevertheless, #2 was defacing public buildings, including one charge of defacing of the Statehouse with a "beautiful, but controversial" mural. (Thanks Deb!)

#3 was trespassing. Ok, there's one I can agree with. I'll go anywhere to see something odd or pretty that I want to paint. I got caught photographing in the old Danvers mental hospital before it was converted, but they only threatened to arrest me if I came back. It was the end of the day and I was getting kind of spooky anyway. So many people have blocked lovely oceanfront views or vistas with their houses. I should be able to look too. All are welcome to come view the weeds in my yard or to use the hammock…

Kate Drury suggested I might go berserk and get arrested pouring cream into the coffee makers at Dunking Donuts. That's just silly because I never go to Dunkin Donuts. I like Common Grounds, Andy Man's and Paul Newman coffee from McDonalds. So I don't know where she would get that idea!

I am proud to say I was not suspected of any traffic violations.

Personally, I think I am most likely to be arrested for taking the baby Jesus from the Christmas creche around the block from my house. Every time I pass by I am reminded of that joke where you steal a lawn gnome and photograph it traveling the world. I know it would be considered evil and offensive by many, but I get horizontal vertigo and have to fight the wheel when I drive by. I can almost hear it calling me. Could be the voice of God. Maybe he wants me to figure out how to photograph the baby Jesus in North Korea or someplace. Mysterious ways and all?

Note to self…

Close car windows driving on busy roads with large puddles.

Are you ready for April Fools day?

I'd like to suggest a discreetly placed elastic band around the kitchen faucet sprayer. Trust me…

I need objective opinions

Help! I need your opinion. I'm entering the biggest art show ever and I can't decide which paintings I want to show them as my entry. Will you please let me know the top three in your opinion?

Click on the kid to see the paintings

Thanks!

Has this ever happened to you?

I was up late last night spring cleaning. I 'forgot' the last two years; so now it's a really big job consisting of taking everything out of a room, washing everything, throwing about a third away and then putting it back in. I think it's going to take me a week if I do the cellar. It seems kind of dumb to have empty shelves, but I've got a thing about clean closets. My rooms might be messy, but you could eat in the closets—although I don't want to give the impression that I do that—because I don't. I digress:

I got up tired and I wanted that cup of coffee. I put the coffee in the filter and grabbed the jug of water out of the fridge. It seemed lighter than I remembered, but who keeps track of stuff like that? Right? I poured it in the coffee maker and realized it was the milk that I had just poured in there. Crap! I poured the milk right back out again into a cup because I needed it for the coffee, causing the coffee grinds in the front of the coffee maker to pour out at the same time, into the milk and all over the counter and sink and floor.

Now I really NEED the cup of coffee so I poured the milk through a strainer, put on the teapot and used a Melita filter to make the cup of coffee. It didn't taste right. Not enough milk either. Blah. No joy.

Now it's really late for lunch and I'm hungry, but I'm afraid to go back in there. Anything could happen. Someone could get hurt. It's all fun and games until you put your eye out with a sandwich or something…

Monsoon is here

Wow! We're having a northeaster and we've had 10" inches of rain since yesterday. At least it's nice and warm. I didn't even realize there was a problem until my neighbor called me to make sure everything was alright at my place. I checked the attic and the cellar, which is always a good idea in a really old house and everything was fine. I went out to the gym and to buy some milk and it was like a ghost town. Kind of nifty.

There were new lakefront properties in my neighborhood and the water was running down the street so fast there were rapids cause the street drains popped their covers. The police put up roadblocks down by the river and on my street. My friend Diane showed up to use my computer. Her twin eight year old girls and I took a toy kayak and a plastic sled and slid down the rapids to the bottom of the hill in the dark. We screamed and laughed our asses off. Problem was, that when we got to the bottom, the sled didn't float and toy kayaks don't really keep you dry anyway. So all three of us got in trouble—but when we went out, Diane said; "Wear your boots!" She didn't say a word about not going swimming.

Ha, ha Diane! You KNOW better than to let your kids play with me!

Excellent photos to follow! Right now my camera and Simms card are opened up on the table drying…

Life

Life is short—use your xmas lights

Oooops!

Today was a nice day. I got up late. Happy to be rid of the worst cold in human history; I hung around the house, played on the computer, sent email, packed up some stuff I sold in my store.

Toward the end of the afternoon I realized that I had better hurry out to the post office before it closed. I grabbed the packages, my camera, a prescription, library books and the shopping list. I am a master of multitasking. Made it to the PO on time, dropped off the books, picked up the prescription and stopped to take photos of a little old building I noticed last week that I want to paint. While I was walking up and down the side of the road trying to get just the right angle, I had to be careful not to drag my feet because I was getting sand in my slippers—Oh crap!!!! I forgot to put my shoes on!

Now, at least they're not bunny slippers, but they are faux leopard fur and I was wearing bright red fluffy slipper-socks. The whole ensemble was a little attention getting. Aaaargh! Why oh why didn't I go to the grocery store first? Now I KNOW I look like an escapee from some type of institution, I'm too far from home to go back for my shoes and it's a huge grocery store where I always run into people I know.

At least everybody I passed smiled at me today…

Monsoon

It's been rainy and dark outside for days. Nice and warm though. I'm SO glad you don't have to shovel rain. After our rainy then hot summer last year, I've decided that the Gulf Stream is changing really fast and we're going to have another monsoon season this spring and summer. We're ready…


Don't try this at home kids.

Food Inc.

Wow! Go see this movie!

Wonder why you can't lose weight? I've been eating diet food and pounding away at the gym thinking about it. More likely corn subsidies have been causing part of the problem.

Who knew?

Goodbye

And they left as mysteriously as they arrived…


anorexia

Mysterious arrivals

Yay!

I sold another painting! It was in David's Tavern of all places. Whew! House insurance, car insurance and electric bill!

Je suis désolé

Woe. I didn't think I'd be this devastated.

Massachusetts! You replaced Ted Kennedy, the last champion of people who really need a voice, with another 'leave no millionaire behind' republican.

I bet hell has mountains of money. Ski

I got a new chainsaw

Next an axe. Live through that…

Hell on earth.

So Haiti is hell right now. A nightmare. A brain and heart numbing tragedy.

It's giving me panic attacks ever since I saw an Anderson Cooper report about "stupid deaths." The bureaucracy organizing itself while people are dying. Then, they show a food drop from a helicopter and watch the big guys run over mothers with dehydrated babies to take the food and water for themselves. There are people 'looting' looking for food—under the circumstances that may fall into the category of hunting and gathering. What else are they supposed to do? There are also guns firing, thugs raping and running with televisions instead of looking for survivors.

It's making me crazy. Why is my mind sticking there? It's not the time for justice. Maybe it's too hard to think about the broken sufferers.

Support?

No, seriously… Does anyone know of a support group for people who can't take their xmas trees down?

World War Three…

… has begun.

Better put your word in before it's too late.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/fcc-comments

In my opinion, there are so many knowledgeable young experts out in the world of the internet, that if the phone and cable companies decide they can control the internet for their own profit, their services will be stolen and their networks hacked. They should save us all the trouble of 'the third world war', because they will end up with a handful of ether.

Eggs

I was taking eggs out of the carton to make a pot of hard boiled eggs so I would eat breakfast before the gym more often. While I was doing it, I stuck my thumb through one of the shells. Being as quick witted as your average telemarketer, I dropped it into a nearby coffee cup. It was too mushed for a poached egg, so I decided to stir it up, sprinkle it with a touch of mozzarella and put it in the microwave for one and a half minutes to see if it would come out good enough to eat. I looked back around a minute or so and was horrified to see it expanding way up over the coffee cup. I grabbed it out of the oven and there I had a soufflé. It was excellent. That was weird.

Happy New Year!

Yay!

Now I have to decide how long to keep my xmas tree up. It's still pretty and fresh. I can keep watering it. Not as if there's a law about it. If I move it away from the window, nobody going by will know. I could add red bows for Valentines day, hang little colored eggs on it for Easter, disguise it as a Maypole, Flags and bunting for the Fourth of July…Somebody please stop me