Sunday

Very hard day today - I cleaned the cat's litter box and completed a painting I started weeks ago. I may need a nap after all that hard work!
 

 

Another "iffy" painting.  I kind of like the trees in the background, but that's about it. 

 

After ignoring it for a couple of months, the cat has suddenly started hanging out on her "kitty condo".  She sleeps on this top platform. 

 

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I'm reading an interesting (free) book on my Kindle.  It's about the life of a twenty dollar bill.  Who would think to write about something like that? It's stolen, spent in a grocery store, a bar, given in change to new people, etc.

 



Saturday

I woke up this morning with the urge to accomplish something.  So I completed the background of a pencil drawing I am doing of Boomer, our famous St. Bernard dog.

 

I also completd this so so watercolor I started last week. Everything in this painting is either an experiment or just practice. 

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Barrie and her power washer in action.  It sure is noisy, isn't it?  I uploaded this video just to see if my higher internet speed would help in uploading a ideo to Blogger.  Either it helps, or Blogger is just in a good mood today.



Friday

Nothing to write about today.  I started two watercolors yesterday in art group, and haven't touched them today.  I did a load of laundry, and pulled about a dozen jigsaw puzzles out of my downstairs closet to send to the Food Basket.

It's a little cloudy today with a breeze.  If the wind comes up just a little bit, yellow and golden leaves start floating by my windows.  It's very distracting, and it almost hypnotizes me. 

I posted a picture of my great nephew and his bride a while back.  Here is a picture of Tyler, his brother, and Hadley, who is their niece.  Hadley was the flower girl.  What a lineup of bride's maids!!

And if you are thinking of buying a horse, this one looks like a good prospect.

Thursday

Barrie's latest project is to paint or stain the exterior of the house.  She thinks she will only do the front side first and see how it goes before she starts on the south side.

 

She rented this power washer for the day.  They told her it would be an easy job for two people to get it up the stairs.  It took only one Barrie.



 

And the front of the house gets a bath.  The little porch got interesting. It was added on after the house was built umpteen years ago.  I think Barrie got a little wet in that small space.  Today she bought a new sander to sand the logs.

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I just found that my phone bill has not been paid in four months.  Good grief.  I don't even usually look at the bill when it comes in the mail.  It is on automatic payment to my credit card. I always look at the billing from my credit card company to make sure there is nothing weird on it.  But I never even missed seeing the payment to Century Tel.  And they never notified me the payment was being refused. The card has a new expiratioin date, and that was why the payment was being refused. 

 

Spent some quality time on the phone with them and got it all straightened out, I hope.  Talked to a nice lady who spoke English.  I did have to argue with her a bit about changing my TV and cell phone plan to their bundle.  I figure if something works, don't fix it.  She removed the late charges, and I got it set up for automatic payment again with the correct credit card information.

 

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While I was on the phone with Century Tel, I inquired about a faster internet connection.  I ended up having my speed increased (with an increase in cost, of course)  with the assurance that if I didn't think it was worth it, I could cancel it. 

 

I enjoy watching movies from Amazon on my computer, and have always had one bar showing for connection.  You know, like on your cell phone.  Well, I watched a movie last night, I had four bars, and the picture was sharper.  Haven't tried any YouTube videos yet, but the higher speed made a difference in my movies. 

 





Wednesday

New things in the art group today.  Conley brought masonite he has cut in different sizes to tape watercolor paper to.  I took 3 sets of Inktense pencils (which are already gone).  Using EBay is wonderful for us.  I got the pencils for $25 per set, we sold them for $30 (making a little money for the art group). Miriam said she saw the exact same thing in Idaho falls, selling for $40 plus per set.

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I almost got a new Dodge truck (and a dog) today.    When I left art group, I backed up (forgetting the trailer hitch Barrie had put on), and hooked the ball under the bumper of the pickup behind me.  The Dodge wanted to follow me home.  At least four men and two women ended up out there, telling me which way to turn the wheel, go forward or back, etc.  I was relieved when Chuck showed up and guided me out of it.  The ball is now in the back of the pickup, and Barrie can put it back on if she wants.

 

 

Several of us painted dark skies today, using either indigo blue or paynes grey.  This is what I ended up with.  I waited until the shine went off the wet paper, and give it a very light spray with water.  I don't have any idea what I will put on the horizon or in the foreground.

 

 

 

 



Monday

I think my urge to knit may be short lived.  Finished one slipper, and it is too small.  I thought I would start a sweater.  I only had two rows done, thank goodness, because Kat got the urge to knit in the middle of the night.

I just traded lamps - brought a table lamp up from my downstairs bedroom.  The floor lamp I've been using up here has a three-way switch, which I guess doesn't work any more.  It had a 50 - 100 - 150 watt bulb in it, but I think it only turned on the 50watt.  Kind of dim., and I hate dim rooms.

This is such a cool lamp.  Tracy got me a pair of these years ago.  It is heavy, rustic metal.  I still remember the name of the store.  It was "The Quiet Moose" in Breckenridge.

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It's cloudy today, and we got just a little rain during the night.  I slept through it.

 

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Sunday

 

Finished the last two pages of my little 3 1/2" x 5" Moleskine book.  Then I looked in the cupboard where I store my paper and discovered I have another one, just waiting for me to mess up all the pages!

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What am I thinking?  When I sorted through yarn to send to the Food Basket, I didn't do too well.  Some of that darned yarn just wouldn't stay in the box, and ended up begging me to make something.  So I have started a pair of slippers with some of the yarn left from old projects.

 

But then I hit a real snag.  I have some nice, nice yarn, enough to make sweaters.  Do I really want to start a sweater?  Well, there's a pattern and the correct size knitting needles laying on the table by my chair.  I have no idea who put them there!

 

 

 

Saturday

I knew it was a mistake when I started going through my knitting magazines and patterns.  But I did pretty well, only saved back a very few things.  I still have yarn in my downstairs bedroom to sort through.

 

 

The dancer in the family.  I used to scoff at this sort of thing for little girls, but that was before my granddaughter became one of "them".  She loves the dancing, and especially the costumes.

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Barriei is sick and is on antibiotics and other good stuff.  She says she feels a little better this morning.

 

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I have been painting a little this morning, and Kat is glaring at me because her drinking water is dirty now.  I should be a little worried about her.  She hasn't been attacking her tail lately.

 



 

 



 

 



Friday

Summit County Sheriff's Office Annual Inspection. 

 

A recent photo of Tracy in front of the Summit County Seriff's Office in Breckenridge.  She is second from the right in the tan jacket.  Tracy is Public Information Officer for the department.

 

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More cleaning and purging.  I think this is the last of the yarn and knitting magazines.  No, wait!  I think there's more under the bed in my downstairs bedroom.  And there's more in the copper tub, along with a lot of knitting needles.  There's no end to it!

 

Actually, I did save back a little yarn for small projects, and a pair of socks I had started.  Just in case I felt the urge to knit some night.

 

A hint:  Don't try to sort and untangle yarn when the cat is awake.

 

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This painting has been sitting around for weeks, and I got sick of looking at it.  It used to have a nice soft blue sky with puffy white clouds, and no foreground.  Sure changed the mood of this painting.

 







Thursday

It's really smoky today - my eyes are itching and burning.

It would be embarrassing to tell you how late I slept this morning, so I won't.  Le's just say I woke up very rested.

(Picture taken from window above her head)

Barrie is removing all the caulking from the front side of the house.  She is going to recalk it, and wants to stain the house dark brown.  She wants to do the same to the south side.

Our house only has two exterior sides that are log.  The west side is covered by the garage, and the brick addition covers the back side.

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I didn't finish the watercolor snow scene yesterday, and will probably ruin it this afternoon.  There is something about it that didn't work out the way I wanted, and I will have to repaint the entire sky to fix it.  

Wednesday

I did a snow painting in art group this morning.  Not quite finished yet.  Am I thinking snow?  YES!

I think we had ten in art group this morning.  Pretty good crowd, and banana cream pie and cookies too!

Conley has brought out big mat cutter back into the art room, but both the manual and the instructional video are missing.  I was able to find the manual on line and printed it.  I e-mailed the company to ask about buying a replacement video. 

I came home and ordered some more watercolor palettes for the art room, some kneaded erasers. I have three sets of inktense pencils coming from EBay.  I guess I am the unofficial purchasing agent!

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I snuck up on Barrie and took a picture of her from my upsairs bedroom window. She was installing a new starter in her work truck.

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Tuesday

 

I finished this little (5" x 7") buffalo this morning.  I've drawn some fair buffalo in my time, but this isn't one of them.  He's not scruffy enough, and I don't have enough dark against light.  More fighting with values.  Although my reference photo doesn't have a large range of values, there should be more.

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Miss Kasey got to come home after school yesterday instead of a visit.  It is fun to hear to chatter about kindergarten.

 

 

I sent this photo to Tracy yesterday, and she loved it.  Although he was a little brown dog, I had a dog like this once.  He could smell if the gate was open, I think.  One morning, in the wee small hours of the morning, Tracy chased him down the street and threw a rock at him.  She couldn't even see him in the dark, but the rock hit him, and he never ran away from Tracy after that. 

 



Monday

A forest fire started up Horse Creek yesterday, and they are evacuating people and closing roads.  They don't know yet what started it.  It's burned almost 400 acres. 

The fire over the mountain on the Reservation has burned over 40,000 acres. and the fire at Jackson is 57% contained.  There are thirteen active fires in Wyoming.

This is a picture I took from my front yard the last time there was a fire up Horse Creek.

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Painted one small watercolor this morning, and am still cleaning pens. 

 

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I used to have such good taste in music!  Still listening to the iPod (which has about 1200 songs on it).  Listening to a bunch of Floyd Cramer right now.

 



Saturday

I got the humming bird feeder down, and put up the winter bird feeder outside my window last night.  This morning there's a steady stream of chickadees coming in for their black sunflower seeds.  It sure didn't take them long to find it.  It's a little early to start feeding, but I like to watch them.

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I'm giving my XM radio a rest today, and am listening to my iPod.  The Sawyer Brown playlist is now playing.  Sure like that group.

 

 

Finally got the Daniel Smith palette set up with fresh colors - and made a color chart so I know what colors I'm using. 

 

Now I'm cleaning technical pens.  I have a set of seven Rapidiograph pens and found that I've let the ink dry up in some of them.  Cleaning a pen of dried India ink is not something I enjoy doing. 

 

 



Friday

Relatively clear skies today.  Smoke from Jackson must be going somewhere else.

Someone posted this aerial photo of the fire.  Really clear picture, and shows exactly were the fire is in proximity to town.

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My new oil filled radiator electric heater came yesterday.  I had read in some reviews of these heaters that you have to run them about two hours by an open window or in an open space because they smell bad when they are being broken in.  And Barrie told me if hers has been turned off, it takes a long time for the oil to heat up again.   I plugged it in, it didn't smell, and warmed up immediately.  It came with a remote control, you can program it to turn off and back on at different intervals.  Thank goodness it's got a simple on/off switch, and I think I have figure out the temperature control.

 

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From Barrie's Facebook page: 

 

Kasey:  "I don't know what boys do, but I just like boys."

 

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Thursday

The smoke and smell from the Jackson fire really got to us yesterday.  It's still here, but maybe not as strong.  Come on snow!

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Kasey is home sick today.  New school, new kids, new germs.  She is watching cartoons on the couch with her mom.

 

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It was a good day for eBay shopping today.  Several persons in my art group are wanting a set of Intense pencils (water soluble pencils).  They are $34 in the art supply catalog.  I got three sets for $20 each today on eBay.  Not bad bargain hunting!

Here  is something I don't see very often - a squeaky clean palette.  It had a bath and thorough scrubbinb yesterday.

And now I'm setting up the tubes of paint to put on the palette.  These are the Daniel Smith watercolors I like so much.

Wednesday

Another sky painting I did in art group this morning.  I got a little carried away with some of the darks.  I'm going to watch the inspirational demonstrations on painting skies again today.  It puts me in the mood.

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Had a nice bunch at art group this morning.  Judi is gone, but Vicky is back from her cruise to Alaska, and I forgot to mention last week that Pam is back. 

 

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Kasey is excited to start her dance lessons again.  She started yesterday after school.  Can't wait to see the costumes they'll wear for the recital this year.

 

 

An old student of mine who lives in Alaska now posted this humorous picture.

 



Tuesday

Remembering 9-11 and the shock of what happened.

 

 

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A funky sky!  Finished this yesterday.  When I went through my files of reference photos, I pulled out of few more pictures of skies, so will be trying some more.

 

 

Monday

Partly cloudy and a little windy today.  There might be rain.

I hope Jackson area gets a good soaking to help put out the fire.  Pretty scary to have a fire so close that they are preparing to evacuate the east side of town.

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I got the pile of paper off the floor into a large garbage bag.  Was proud of myself.  I only saved 4 photos out and put them back in the reference files.  That's will power

 

 

I don't have any new pictures, so looked through my files on my computer to see if there was anything of interest. I took this osprey photo at Fremont Lake a couple of years ago. 

 

 

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Love this picture!

 





Saturday

Looks like our flowers have some time left to live before they freeze.  Perfect weather!

I'm supposed to be painting a sky, but instead, I got into my reference files and started pitching things out.  At one time I had a foolish notion that I was going to paint roses.  Didn't happen, and not going to happen.  And I found I had duplicates of many things.  Out with them!  I'm getting so I really enjoy throwing things away!

I love this photo of my nephew, Ryan, and his new bride Amanda. (Great nephew, actually.)  They live in Bentonville, Arkansas.  Amanda's feet must have hurt, as Ryan is carrying her shoes.

Thursday

I have been shopping for a long time this morning, and finally found what I think I want.  I just ordered an oil filled radiator heater.  I have given up getting my gas log stove upstairs fixed.  All Tech was here three times last winter to fix it, and it was never fixed.  Due to personal reasons, I won't call Bridger Mechanical.  But the last time I did call them, they had a message on their answering machine that they were taking no new work orders for three months.

Maybe I'll get it fixed sometime in the future, but for now, I ordered this heater.  Barrie uses one similar to this in their bedroom.

 

Just got a new propane delivery yesterday, and there was a $7.34 fuel recovery fee, and a $9.59 haz mat fee.  Good Grief!!  If only we could depend on our power, electric heat is looking better and better.

 

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The longer I work on trying to clean out closets and dresser drawers, the more hopeless it seems.  Who the heck put all that junk in there?



Wednesday

When Kasey got home yesterday afternoon, I asked her where she'd been all day. She declared "Kindergarten!" with a big smile. "I bet you hated that," I said. She looked at me like I was nuts and said, "Grandma, that's not funny!" Oooohkay.

My friend Judi knows how much I enjoy Calvin cartoons.  She brought me this book from the Food Basket.  Thanks, Judi!

 

 

I've hardly touched my watercolors in weeks, and today I wanted to paint a moody sky.  This is what I came up with.  Not quite what I wanted, and my alizarin crimson paint seems to have little granuals in it that leaves ugly marks on the paper.   I always have an excuse, don't I?

 

 

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Yesterday I shared a useless piece of information on the number of voters in New Jersey with tattoos.  Today I found a new study being done in Britain.

"Purple is the most amorous color, according to a new study which found that people who decorate their bedrooms in the color have the most active sex lives.

The survey of 2,000 British adults by a retailer found that those with purple bedding or furniture had 3.49 "intimate encounters" per week. lThe least active color scheme in the survey was grey."

So, what color are your sheets?

 

Tuesday

I just got home from Rendezvous Pointe, where we hung the artwork for the silent auction, which starts tomorrow (in conjunction with the Blood Draw). We don't have as many participating artists as in the past, but we ended up with a nice display.  I have twelve pieces up.

Kasey started her first day of Kindergarten today.  I got downstairs about 2 minutes after she had gone to the pickup, so didn't take her picture.  Barrie took some, though.  Of course, she wore her favorite rodeo shirt and her cowboy boots.  That backpack is loaded!

 

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Another earth shaking poll!:

 

"Nearly 20 percent of New Jersey's registered voters have at least one tattoo, a new poll conducted by Rutgers University ahead of the final season of MTV's "Jersey Shore" finds."

Boy, am I glad to hear that!



Sunday

After sitting in their camper two days because of rain, Paul and Tracy decided to head back to Colorado today.  The rain isn't what really drove them off, but it gave them too much time to think about all the things they  had to do when they got home.

When she called this morning, I told her to just leave my tent and our chairs there.  Barrie and Kasey might decide to go up and use the site.

Even though Paul didn't catch any fish, they enjoyed themselves.  They always love spending time at Fremont.

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Kasey just yelled upstairs to me that it's two more days until Kindergarten.  She said it used to be three, and now it's two.  Somehow, I don't think she's going to be one of those kids to clings to Mom's legs the first day of school.

 



Saturday

I didn't go to to the lake yesterday.  It was so nice in the morning, then it started to rain. 

Paul and Tracy planned on getting the boat out Sunday, and they have changed their mind and are taking it out of the lake today.  Barrie and Kasey just left with my pickup.  They want to use my truck to pull it out, because the water almost flooded their camper when they put it in - came up to within an inch of the camper door before the boat would float off the trailer.

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Has anyone told the wolves yet that they better hightail it back to Yellowstone as soon as they can?  I actually feel badly for the wolves.  They are just doing what is natural for them.  Man should never have interfered and brought them back to a  time and place where they couldn't fit in any more.

 

The chokecherry bush is finally starting to look a little bare, but there are still lots of berries left, and lots of birds.