howdy campers!!!....so i did get the great room painted and am in the process of putting paintings back up on the walls....yeah...still have a scaffold in the middle of the room, but it kinda works for me right now....of course if i keep it much longer i might make it into a loft for the grands.....how great is that,  a rolling loft???...you don't like it on that side of the room, move it to the other....fab idea!....hey it's even a fort underneath.....oh my gosh the things you can do with a scaffold!....rock climbing...swings underneath....it's a mobile playground in your home!
       anyway...still trying to figure out how to make actual 3 dimensional tree limbs....so the trees are flat against the wall....well painted on the wall, but then i wanted the tree limbs to come out from the wall into the ceiling....so i tried to make them with chicken wire and i wrapped joint tape...the mesh kind, around the limbs so the concrete would stay on and not fall through, concrete does not stick to mesh joint tape, had to wrap it again in guaze....that worked better....by the way..i know you were wondering about this..... concrete and cement are not really the same....cement is an ingredient of concrete...and portland cement isn't a brand name it's a generic name for well portland cement...things i know now and will retain only abit by next year....anyway.......just  store that away for when you go on jeopardy.....wow that is a weird spelling of a word....it's kind of like geo-pardy...cept with a j.....had to look it up cause i kept spelling it jepardy ....and the red line shows up..........
         so back to tree limbs.... i was trying to use my masters degree in youtubery, and try to find out how to make these tree limbs....ya know this has nothing to do with art marketing and everything to do with the detour my brain took.......anyway, so there is this thing called being a "rocker"......are we talking hard rock, classic rock, pop rock......or pop rocks...they are so fun...a little snap, crackle and pop in your mouth..........wrong....the rocker that i'm talking about.....being a "rocker",  is someone who has been trained in rockery or rusticage.....it's the art of making fake trees....kinda big in the 19th century.....it's also really big in france, so all these sites have to be translated cause i do not speak french...mon ami.......so now i have to see if i can contact a rocker in france, who might be willing to teach my to be a rocker...how groovy...!!!....or tell me what i am doing wrong cause the concrete...that might be the problem, i might just need cement.....is not adhering to my chicken wire frame...i might have to learn to be a welder too....which is kind of something i have always envisioned being able to do.....i tried it once and that welder thing, sticks to anything it comes in contact with ....and ...oh yeah...you have this big helmet on that makes it so you cant see anything until you light the welder thing that remember....sticks to everything......let's just say i was not allowed back.......
​          anyway......so on to concrete and cement and rocking this rockery thing....all done on a scaffold!!!....have a groovy day!!!

          good morning campers...i hope everyone is well ....this new normal we all have going on now is full of so many different emotions....it's hard to pin point exactly how you are feeling because your emotions change as frequently as the weather...well the weather in virginia...snow in the am, rain 2 hours later, another hour and it's sunny and 70, then after lunch it's a hailstorm, then cloudy, and then follow up with a hurricane.....normal weather pattern.....very similar to our ever changing emotions during our (major sound effects coming up) ..... life styles of the hermits and hibernators....
        so it seems that all of a sudden most everyone is interacting through social media......very strange, cause the 1 thing that kinda bothered me with my grands was their constant need to be on a device.... or a gadget....ha ha remember inspector gadget?...go go gadget arms........great tv show......anyway... here we are, all doing the same as them....funny...well to them......it's so weird to not be able to go anywhere......wanna read a book...libraries are closed....gotta use a kindle.....but i like real books......so reread one of your own books.....but i have read and reread all of my books so....i sound like my kids did when they were home and with nothing to do except tell me how bored they were, then i would say, "i can find something for you to do if you are bored, something like having a toothbrush to clean the toliet with, that would keep ya busy"......ya know i said that my mom used to tell us to do this, i'm not real sure if we ever actually did or it was just threatened so many times that we feel like we did do that....hmmmmm?
       so i compare this virus to poison ivy......bad and bad.......so a couple years ago i was cleaning out weeds at my moms...the one time she let me do something....go figure.....and my aunt was there helping too....my aunt says "oh that's poison ivy, make sure you wash up afterwards".....yeah.....i did not.....and guess who is allergic to poison ivy now?.....yep...that's me....never had a problem before, but i became full fledged allergic to poison ivy the next day........so strange.....it was just on my hands and forearms, but if anyone has had poison ivy before, even a little bit is awful!....i said this must be what h***  is like....you scratch and scratch and scratch but the itch never goes away....and try running hot water over it....yeah that will send you somewhere not so fun.......believe me i tried everything......insane itching......i researched poison ivy till i knew everything there was to know about it....forgot alot of it, but some things did stick with me.........it's like people will tell me something like" the llama saddle has a small tear in it and we used the purple glue, worked like a charm, and by the way gracie's duck is named tootsie pop" and i will hear " small, llama, purple duck charm, tear, tootsie pop".....so anyway i retain only so much, and i never really know what i retained till i need it.....so now there is a small llama with a purple duck charm that tears up tootsie pops .....could be worse...... but back to poison ivy.......
      my 6 facts about poison ivy...told by someone who did research a couple years ago and retains very little.....also...disclaimer...i am not a medical professional...ha ha that's just funny to even think i am....so take everything with a grain of salt...or a pinch of pepper.....turmeric works too......
     1) you can't see the poison from poison ivy (similar to the virus) (but , if i remember correctly , there is a scientist in california who invented this liquid that when you spray it on something that was touched by poison ivy you can see the poison ivy oil on it, so you know not to touch there...i tried to buy a gallon of this, but it wasn't for sale yet) ....
      2) if you touch poison ivy,  you can transfer it to other things (similar to the virus), ...(your dog brushes their furry body up against poison ivy and you just hug and cuddle your dog and end up itching the next day or that night)
      3) poison can stay on other things for an indeterminate amount of time..(similar to the virus).....(i believe i heard poison ivy can last up to a year on some surfaces...yikes)...(remember my retaining of facts on the time limit)
      4) the best way to not get poison ivy after you might have been exposed to it,.... is to wash with soap and water, thoroughly, between fingers, tops of hands, arms, fingernails, etc...or anywhere you touched or might have been touched, use a wash cloth, scrub twice (similar to the virus...not sure about the wash cloth thing).....
      5) the best way not to get poison ivy in the first place...is to stay away from possible poison ivy sources (similar to the virus...the whole isolation, social distancing thing)......( of course see items 1-4 again)
       6) but ya know you could do all the above and still get poison ivy (similar to the virus).........

              so basically it's a be safe, be smart and trust God kinda thing ....
              stay in touch with family and friends, by arrgghh..social media, phone, or yelling outside
              and remember if it's raining, give it a couple hours, things usually change
              take care and beeeeee groovy!
​
    ps- my orange couch series are particularly relevant at the moment....love that

     good morning campers......what a terrific tuesday it is!.......so i did not get the paypal thing going by april 1st...april fools on me...ha ha.....still working on figuring it out.....what i hear is that it is an all at once kind of thing......like it's not, i start with putting paypal up, then the next week i work on how to ship, then the next week i work on taxes, etc....nope it's once you start it's the who shebang .......which is a very odd word.....so i guess i'm dragging my feet....a little.. and it's hard to remember what day it is to keep on schedule.....i thought it was monday, but nope it's friday, of the next week....my bad 
           so my lack of knowing what day it is, i feel, is due to the major project i've got going on in my house right now...... retaping and spackling the ceiling....of a great room....with a cathederal ceiling.......that's extra high.....like 16 ft...........by the way....spackling.....strange word....very interesting though...the word, i believe, came about because these cave guys were trying to fix a hole in their cave and they were just standing around staring at it while the wind whipped through the hole, and this cave woman named spack came over and put clay in it, then the cave guys go " wow, spack just added clay and fixed the problem,  that was spacktacular, (i thought that was funny) we should call that spackclay, or maybe spackle for short", so spackle was born........so know you know....
       anyway, i've got this ...............wow....i just completely went brain dead on what is in my great room.....i keep saying spackle......scaffold........oh my gosh....well i guess it was close to spackle.....so anyway this huge scaffold is in my great room......we just walk around it, or under it, or through it, to get from here to there (funny things are everywhere...thanks dr suess)...kinda like going on a bear hunt.......so after i have pulled the majority of the tape down, and retaped, and spackled....3 times.....and i'm not the best spackler....is that a thing?....there is spackle from one end of the house to the other....plus on the dogs and numerous cats.....and me.....then comes priming.....which is the hardest thing to get off your skin .....little dots of primer are everywhere too......mostly on me....i  have white freckles now.......plus i not only redid the ceiling but some of the walls needed retaped so all the walls got redone too.....kinda like ," if you give a mouse a cookie"...great book by laura numeroff...had to look that up..........now i have this great big white canvas to paint on....really excited about that!!!!
         so i told my mom what i was doing and she says, "so are you going to paint your room white?"......as normal as that sounds to most people....no i'm not.....i know she knows the answer before she asks the question, but i gather she's hoping normalcy will happen over here at some point.....ha ha ha......got a good laugh out of that
        an example of how our house is painted is... our addition (we added a large room on awhile back) is a beach...nags head actually, one bathroom is underwater (just painted, not really underwater, that would be bad), the other bathroom is a beach (my fav place, well not the bathroom, but the beach), kitchen is gypsy circus wagon (i'm obviously ahead of my time with my decor)...... so of course the great room will be the woods!.....3 dimensional trees and all.....very excited about the trees, haven't ever done them, so we will see what happens...might be spackling again...........
​           ya know i had always wanted to make molds of hands, arms, and knees, and have it look like someone is falling through my ceiling.......but i'm thinking i would just creep myself out in the wee hours of the morning seeing that.........
           anyway...trying to keep up with my art marketing, scaffold walking, and tree making........it's gonna be a great thursday.....spackle over that........i mean tuesday.....be groovy!

      good morning campers!..happy april fools day!!!....go eat some brownies...or brown e's....ha ha.......hope all is well with everyone!....so i had a post about all that's going on in our world right now, but decided to nix it and instead give you a fun filled story about "my world and welcome to it"...thanks to james thurber for that little quote....some of you might remember that......so sit back, well sit up cause you gotta read, well you could always sit back, or lay down and hold the laptop or whatever over your head and read,.... of course when i do that, with a book,  i sometimes get tired and the book falls on my face, so a laptop might leave a dent....in your head......no good can come from that....anyway....here goes
      well, i have no idea what i'm gonna write about...ha ha.....usually i just start and something comes to me.........like pork chops!......ok....so when i was in high school.... well even before that....rewind to elementary school age..........so, i never liked the taste of meat......ok maybe bacon and hamburgers....but not much else.......up north casseroles are a big thing......throw everything together and call it a dish...yum.....not......down south there are alot of different dishes and vinegar is very popular to pour over greens......which wilted cooked greens is kinda disgusting too......so besides our casseroles, our mom would make things like fish sticks....gross.....gag.....i guess that was the tv dinner of the day.....flounder...ok more disgusting...what is it with fish in ohio?.....anyway, when we lived in columbus, i would always be the last one at the table cause our mom would say "you can't get up till you finish all the food on your plate"......so of course the meat was always the last thing on my plate....everyone has left the table, i waited a sufficent amount of time to say i gagged it down...and then pushed the screen out in the window and fed the dog....."look mom , i'm done!"......i'm guessing she had to have known but probably was tired of dealing with me.......i don't know why, i was an angel.........anyway, our dog got very fat...... i should have been a vegetarian, but back then i didn't even know what that was............so fast forward to high school....bypass middle school, (ha ha i just wrote missle school instead of middle school....that would have been an interesting couple of years) ....anyway...middle school....no good came from that......being 13 was a bad year for me ........so high school years...i'm still avoiding eating any meat....by now i have heard of vegetarians......so i tried to convince my mom to let me become one....she probably thought i would die of starvation or turn into a hippie and join a  commune......ya know, that really has it's good points......but anyway......so my mom, my evil older sister, and bratty baby brother (who got to eat chocolate chip cookies all the time cause he's the baby) were eating dinner.... my dad was already finished and off doing whatever dad's do......so they were all finished eating ...yeah, pork chops......wait a minute, i think i just threw up a little in my mouth...ewww..........anyway, our mom was yelling at me to finish eating cause everyone else was done and they were waiting on me....why , i have no idea....cause i was also the dish washer so it wasn't like they needed my dish....remember i was the middle child ....who did everything....... ...anyway...my mom is getting madder and madder so i finally (my evil older sister who is reading this is laughing hysterically right now)......get the nerve to cut into the pork chop.....i really can relive this everytime, and it's still traumatic........i put the knife into the pork chop and my evil older sister leans over and says.... "oink"...........yeah........there aren't even words to describe the chaos that ensued after that.......pork chops flying, chairs falling, drinks spilled, plates breaking,  i'm completely traumatized, in tears, running to my room, my evil older sister is laughing hysterically falling off her chair, my mom is probably doing the same thing...i'm sure, my bratty baby brother is still eating chocolate chip cookies, oblivious, my dad is still doing his dad thing............good times...........
           after the pc incident (we don't speak of it too much, well i usually don't).....my mom took me to the doctor (not the shrink, just a medical doc, shrink came later) to make sure i wouldn't die if i became a vegetarian.....i think at that point , me becoming a hippie on a commune would have been a plus for her.......so i've been a veggie since 78.....yes the evil older sister still says "oink" in passing to me at times.....because she is the evil older sister........and my bratty baby brother still gets chocolate chip cookies anytime he wants.......life is good!....be groovy!

          good morning you fabulous peeps!....i hope yall are having a wonderful day! it's terrific tuesday!!!........so some posts ago, i brought up the whole frozen blueberry thing.......well let me explain....cause it's really a toast to all southern women and their inescapable charm .......
         my mom is an extremely independent person.....did i emphasize extremely??........so i was at my moms house, i guess i had been doing stuff for her, following her around the yard, filling bird feeders, running from wasps, etc...........you see my mom will call and ask if myself or the evil older sister can help her do yard work or house work that she says she can't do.......the bratty baby brother gets away with alot cause he lives so far away, until he comes to visit....then it's his turn...we save the big jobs for him....anything involving getting up on the roof for instance.........so some years ago i was helping my mom or better yet following her around while she does the stuff....i'm not kidding, my mom will call and say  " i need the yard mowed and some plants dug up"...i get there, and she has already done it...it's this back and forth of my mom and her independent ways saying  "i don't need anybody, but, i really might need somebody"......so now she has to find something to keep me occupied....cause i get into too much trouble on my own.....so i follow her around the yard and pick up tools or move something from here to there....she exhausts me....she has more energy than anyone i know..........when i do yard work at my house, i'll start something with great intent on finishing, then realize, yeah 3 hours was more like an all day project, so i'll leave stuff where it is so i can finish it up the next day........not my mom.....everything has to be put back where it belongs....which explains why her house is so neat and mine is ....well...lived in.............
          so its one of these weekends that i'm following my mom around, we get everything picked up and then head inside to just relax...............i'm not lying...well i'm laying...ha ha...on the couch when my mom comes in from the kitchen and hands me a bag of frozen blueberries, and says something about her and my aunt picked them and she hopes i'll enjoy them...then leaves the room...................what?..........so here i am with a bag of frozen blueberries, looking around the room in a daze as if..... what am i supposed to do...these are frozen ...they are going to unfreeze if i don't get home.....and it's a big bag of blueberries....does this mean its time for me to go???......i'm so confused? .......so i get up and tell my mom i'm heading home, and she tells me, " oh your'e going so soon...ok ...bye now" ..........i'm dazed and confused....
        yes,  i was the first to receive the frozen blueberries......but not the last....many others have been privy to the frozen blueberry au revior......i have even looked in her freezer for these blueberries and they are nowhere to be found......i don't know where she keeps them, but she can make them magically appear, which then makes you magically disappear........so my awe and praise to southern women who have the nicest way of having you decide to do something that they have already decided for you to do, but you don't even realize that they have decided for you to do what you're going to do till after you've done it....i know, right?...... and then you become....dazed and confused.....yep, you've just been blueberried.....
       have a groovy day!

      good morning all you fabulous people....doing all your fabulous things.....accomplishing your fabulous goals!!!.....and my goals?....well.... i'm thinking that getting things streamlined starts with a ton of chaos.........so the closest i've come to being slightly streamlined is my instagram.....and not all of it...oh no, just the hash tags...ha ha....i wrote them up and put them in my notes so now all i have to do is copy and paste...........
           so back in the day....probably should be more specific on when back in the day was........i think everyone has a "back in the day" now.......well it wouldn't be "now"... it would be "then".......but anyway back in the 60's, when your teacher said to copy  something, it was putting paper on top of something to draw the design underneath it....... sometimes you'd have to copy with the help of a window, with the picture under the paper on the window so you could see through it..and the paper would keep slipping down so you'd have to keep re-adjusting....alot of hand eye coordination going on there.......and then to paste something you would get this big glob of white paste on a stick that you would slop on the picture but the glue was never smooth so you always had lumps in your paper and then you would try to smooth them out with your hands and rip your paper.....good times...........yes well, hash tags.....what an odd name, i wonder if whoever thought of that name was from the 60's.....no reason......................anyway that's a big help.....now just have to go after the million other things that need streamlined...........one thing at a time........yes it can be done! (big time voice effects on that!!!)
           so i've been focusing on 3 social media things....facebook, instagram, and well my website....not sure if a website is social media?......anyway, i have added 1 more.....wescover....it's this site that shows artistic things in context...(i linked that to my site by the way).....like what is around it, what's on the wall with it, etc....and tells you who created it and where you can find other stuff by that person...........so if maybe you are at a hotel and you see this great purple couch with silver llamas.... and your'e like, "where did they get this , i need one".....go on wescover and it might be there, or i think you can send suggestions in and they find the creator and reach out to them.....that's what they did with me.......last year they saw a post from someone about a mural i did and they contacted me......pretty groovy....super easy site to set up.....i just plugged my info in and they made it beautiful..........so yeah.......now it's 4 social media sites to keep up with.............once again, i need to streamline..........and yall keep up the good work and smooth out those lumps !!....be groovy!
            

     howdy campers, what a fabulous day it is!...and by the way, how are your'e goals going?......well if you are struggling remember, today is a new day!!!....you can do it!!!!......and my goals?......well, this whole streamline thing is working but taking alot of time....so it's like i try to streamline something, which in turn makes something else not so streamlined, so now i have to redo that thing too, which means the first thing i did that worked is now obsolete, go back to square one and fix that and now anything i've done since then is all off kilter, and then i don't know where i am............and that took all day...ha ha................i guess this is where having a secretary comes in handy...................so i plug on.....
          hey remember that comic strip...the pluggers...or i think that's what it was called......kinda of a comic approach to blue collar life.......which i guess if you are living the blue collar life....count me in.......maybe it's not so funny......but really if you don't laugh at yourself you'll go crazy......or in some cases both things are happening at the same time....once again count me in...ha ha..............see, that was a "laughing at myself crazy laugh".......and to add to my streamlining,  i put on my website that i would have prices and payment info ready to go by april1???? .....could this be an april fools day joke?, but no it's not......i can do it.............or it might have to become an april fools joke.........i love april fools jokes.....
        so years ago i called my husband (this is on april fools day) and he was in a meeting, nothing he couldn't step outside for a minute...right?...so i told him that somebody named mr. lyon had called and wanted him to call him back, gary's like.."i'm in a meeting can it wait?"...i said.."i don't know the guy sounded kind of mad, but call whenever"....so gary sighs "sigh"...and says "ok, let me call him now"...i give him the number and i hang up.....the number was to the zoo....ha ha ha.......it was hilarious.....the guys in the meeting were laughing, gary not so much, and the zoo probably got alot of those calls that day......i can hear the zoo now.."no, mr lion is busy eating mr deer, would you rather talk to mr bear?"...ha ha ha....by the way the zoo now has an automated answering machine..........
         another one was when i was with the grands and we made "brownies"......no, not those brownies, i was with the grands.....these were "brown- E's"......e's that they painted brown....ha ha.....we put them on a plate and they took them to school....so funny.....ha ha ha
        another really good one that keeps on getting people is "i have a leak"....well it's really "i have a leek"...ya know the veggie.......i put it in a sink and had a teacher call the custodian telling them, "there's a leak in the sink"....priceless....your neighbors car....."hey you've got a leak under your car"....ha ha....the fun goes on and on............i have found that with the leek you have to leave the tag on it that says it's a leek,... alot of people don't know what they look like....
          so back to streamlining .......one thing at a time...right...and hopefully that thing isn't connected to another thing that's connected to another thing, etc.........just plugging along.......be groovy!

.......good morning campers!!!!....have you ever had a word that just describes what you are about?......well this word just jumped out at me and said" hey, let me be your word for the next 7 months"....the word said this in a really high pitched voice, and was really insistent that i use her....i'm guessing the word is a she, cause of the high voice...but could be a boy and it's going through puberty.......do words go through puberty?....well anyway, my word is ..."streamline".....very groovy....makes you think of a fast train, or a supersonic jet, or of course,  a chaotic artist............didn't know i even needed a word, but my word decided i did........so we are in this together for the next 7 months.....i gave myself 7 months to get through some goals since the last 7 months worked pretty well....no major tantrums on my part...and 7 is a good number
          so, do yall have a favorite number also?....7 wasn't really my favorite number.....my favorite number was 6........you see i used to be a spy.....i can tell you that now, cause i'm retired......went by the code name of "b6"....i could of been a vitamin...ha ha....that rhymes .....ha ha.................anyway, i was probably around 10.......i kept a spy notebook, that yes, i still have....very interesting info in there by the way....good stuff on what the evil older sister was doing...............so i would wear my spy clothes, red turtle neck sweater and jeans....and walk up and down the block spying on people........oh i was a favorite with the neighbors.......can't imagine all the calls my mom got..... cause back then most moms stayed home.....so how lovely to have a kid peering in windows everyday......well from the sidewalk......so my spy obsession took off after reading, yep you guessed it , harriet the spy.........sometimes my friend audrey, who was "a6"....not the shoe asics, but a6..ha ha, would spy with me, but mostly it was me........i wasn't the most adventurous kid.....but i had an adventurous imagination, i basically stayed on my side of the sidewalk and walked our block, back and forth.......i was obviously an amazing spy cause no one ever confronted me about spying......
               but you wonder, well i wonder , when did we lose the whole, "my favorite number" thing.....ya know when your'e a kid you have a fav number, color, animal, etc, all kids knew everyone's favs........it says so much about who you are ...but as we get older somehow we ask...."what do you do for a living, whats your job"...blah blah blah.....it's becomes more about what you do that who you are...........i think everyone oughta ask the next person they meet what their favorite number and color are...maybe even be so bold as to ask their fav word.....what?!....just see what response you get..................could be a strait-jacket might become involved......but anyway....
               so streamline it is for me...and yeah 6 is probably still my fav number (me and my hubby and our 4 kids)....course could be 9 for grands....i guess that one changes...ha ha .....or it's doing a cartwheel...........and blue and confetti are my fav colours!....and speaking of goals....well i wasn't really but now i am.....have you been working toward your first goal???.....you can do it!!!!......have part of it done by next tuesday....i could sic my bg on you if that would help!.....................take care and be groovy!

       well hey there all you fabulous people!.....time marches on...well it basically runs on.....and at a way faster pace then i have ever gone.........well that's not saying alot.......so...it's been over half a year since i started this blog and i'm still at it!!??...what??!!..........i know, amazing for me....the excitement of things die out quickly......i have the attention span of a gnat....so...am i progressing?....hmmm...... let's just do the 7 month recap......................
         dun duh dah....drum roll please......
         so i learned how to.....
       1) start....and continue (that's the big part for me) a blog...in general...or lieutenant..maybe sergeant....anyway.....maybe not every tues, but close....well for me
           2) upload pics to blog
           3) put text and pics where i want them on the blog.....alot of frustration from chasing around images on the computer
           4) make a copyright symbol
           5) worked through some grief....as charlie brown says "good grief"
           6) figured out price by sq in for artwork
           7) not pass out from trying to do math
           8) met with an author!!....nita sweeny...yeah she's my friend...just name dropping
          9) get and work with a business guru or bg....katelyn johnson of capital cakes ....i sometimes ignore the constant texting
           10) create a link for other people to my blog....like the above 
           11)  have self discipline.....ok still working on that
           12) create an instagram account.....alright so the bg got most of that up
           13) create a google business account......ok same thing and yeah i don't really have that one going.......well it's created just haven't used it
           14) work out alot and i mean alot of issues with instagram.......still working out issues
           15) do that google photo thing
           16) keep a schedule....ha ha skee-doo-lee
          17) take closeup pics of my artwork with a macro lens......still working on figuring out the part about taking multiple pics and putting them back together
           18) oh yeah and big one....create artwork on a semi regular basis......well better than my semi basis....which is kinda worse than non regular basis...which would really mean no basis at all........does "basis" look weird to you too?...........

       not so bad huh?!......i actually accomplished some stuff.......maybe for the next half of the year i oughta make some goals.....what??!!................this way maybe i'm not so random....who me?...be random?.......i also just want to thank yall for liking, reading, sharing.....all the "ings" you do....ha ha  that sounded like "things"!   i really appreciate it!  yall are the best!!!!
hey, maybe yall could join me!!!....yall could have 18 things to accomplish in the next 7 months too.....we could be an online self help group for the self helpers.......but if your'e a self helper aren't you really helping yourself?....which kinda negates the whole self help helping group thing cause you've already been helped .....what?....maybe it could be a helping others group.........get your 18 things together....lets do this!!! woohoo!....................
​      have a super groovy day!

         good morning campers....well i have kind of learned how to photograph my paintings.......kind of because i haven't quite grasped the concept of how to take multiple shots of different areas of my paintings and then put them back together....that involves photoshop or something like it i guess....so the reason for photographing my artwork is to cut my costs a little..... i don't have to pay someone to photograph and print....just print.....
       so my husband comes home to my inventive photo studio in the livingroom....i needed good natural light.........he says it seems that my art studio, (which used to be a bedroom, but became my studio) has regurgitated itself into the hall and livingroom.....well he actually said thrown-up, but anyway...i believe the problem happens at night .....you see my stuff is in one area one day...and the next day my stuff is somewhere else.......interesting......it couldn't possibly be me doing it?!....maybe i'm like a magnet and things attach to me and then get dropped off in different areas....
​              and speaking of things attaching to me....when i made my dinosaur living sculptures for the monument 10 k....i made them out of foam.....lots and lots of foam.....foam attaches to you and doesn't let go by the way......little pieces of foam.......so much foam that it was throughout the whole house and in the front yard and backyard......not really sure how it got out there........this was 3 solid months of making patterns, carving foam, gluing foam, going to buy more foam, carving more foam, gluing more foam, painting foam....you get the picture....foam was my life.......before this i had never made something like this with foam...i did have the help of stan winstons school of charactor arts....i took a class online from ted haines....mind you they are amazing and this was my first try at making stuff out of foam.....chicken wire yes, but not foam.......but hey foam is light , right??....easy to run in??!!....well foam is also very hot!!!....well to wear and run or walk a 10 k in a complete foam costume..........yeah, i made 3 dinosaurs ...we started with 3 people...and crossing the line were 5 people.....me in a complete costume, 2 people in bottom halves, and 2 people in top halves.......i almost gave people a heat stroke with the costumes..........
              but in the middle of making these....my husband would come home and just wade through the foam to find a seat in the livingroom or outside....hey that's how it got outside....gary took it there.....see it wasn't me after all.........we would be eating and he would flick off foam every now and then......sitting down on the couch would create a flying foam frenzy with small bits of foam and dinosaur parts strewn on the couch and coffee table....no problem, he would just scoot them aside......walking through the house,  little pieces of foam would accumulate on his legs......he really was a good sport about the whole thing.....i didn't really see all this going on with him because i was in a mad dash to get these finished before the race....and was neck deep in foam.......by the way electric carving knives are the best things to cut foam with.....they work like a charm....good thing i'm a veggie, no need to carve that turkey anymore......
            so gary's passing comment about my art studio i guess is really founded on the whole possibility of my stuff taking over the house again....what's wrong with that?.... who wouldn't want to live with an artist?....never knowing what will have been painted, glued, carved, created........so exciting everyday!...so my photo studio is not that big of a deal i'm thinking......ya know to really empahsize the whole throwing up part i could make the doorway to my studio into a large mouth....maybe a monster ...a cuddly monster with his eyes looking down from the ceiling........i haven't worked with fiberglass yet....how messy could that be?.............................be groovy