Tuesday

I don't have any pictures to post today. Nothing happening!,

I wonder if I am (or have been) sick. I don't feel bad, but I woke at 4:00 yesterday morning, and that did not make for a good day. I also can't seem to keep warm. So last night, I took an over-the-counter sleeping pill to help me sleep through the night. Whooo! I woke up at 11;30 today! I can't even remember the last time I slept that late! It's probably just old age, right?

Tomorrow and Thursday, I get to have Kasey. What fun! I am going to take her with me to the painting group at Rendezouse Pointe tomorrow. Barrie has to come early and get the car seat situated in my pickup.

Tomorrow is the day Barrie goes to her "Climb" group. Probably none of you are familiar with this. It is a program for single mothers to receive counselling and therapy, and also provides job training and job placement. I am very impressed with what they do, and it has meant a lot to Barrie. If you are interestsed, check out http://climbwyoming.com/.

I finished the book "Centennial" last night, and put it in the garbage, in pieces. I never throw books away, but I'm afraid this paperback has seen the end of its life.

Monday

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A pen and ink "stipple" technique bull elk.

A photograph of an artificial poinsetta. I wish I had written down the steps I did in Photoshop for this framing effect. I know it involved using layers, and using the eraser tool.

I spent several days looking for this little book for Kasey. I used it in kindergarten, and it seems to be out of print and no longer available. I suppose I could find it in the catalog from the publisher of this reading program, but I found one on E-Bay.

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I have absolutely no ambition today. Slept fine until about 4:00 this morning, but not much after that. Probably a good day for a nap!

I am reading Michener's "Centennial". I have read it before, but it has been so long that a lot of it seems new. I think maybe this paperback has been read too many times. Both the front and back covers have fallen off, and about the last 30 or 40 pages have come unglued and are falling out. Hope I don't lose any of them.

Sunday

Quakie Trees

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I enjoy painting quakies. In these studies, I used torn masking tape strips to mask out the trunks. I tried several techniques on the trunks, and am happiest with applying the color with a pallette knife on damp paper. I also tried painting the branches with a pallette knife in the third one, and I kind of like the effect.

Another piece I just "found". Don't laugh, but I "found" it on my downstairs bathroom wall. It has been hanging there a long time, and I am so used to it being there that I don't even notice it. Maybe it's time to hang a different painting in there! This is about 12 x 14, and is done with colored pencils. I must have spent hours and hours on it!

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Yesterday the kitten discovered its tail, and spent a long time "playing" with it. He became a little frustrated, and that made his tail switch even more. He must have figured it out by now, because today he ignored his tail. Instead, he found that he had a shadow, and spent a lot of time trying to catch his shadow.

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Tracy called yesterday and we had a good visit. We usually talk every weekend, but we missed last week for some reason. I forgot to ask her if they made an offer on the condo in Florida.

We don't seem to know what we are doing for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Don't know what Bill and Alice are planning, or if Barrie will be able to go out of town. Guess we better all make some plans.

Bill and Alice just got high speed internet. He says it is so fast he doesn't know what to do with all his spare time now! I am so glad they finally don't have to deal with a slow dial-up connection.

old movie

Yay Sally! Just read on Gina's blog that Sally is doing well, is up walking some, and will be home soon. That's very good news.

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Here is the photo of my white water trip on the Snake River. It certainly doesn't look as wild as the photo I posted yesterday.

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I found a rather large folder in a box in the basement this morning with etchings - some artists proofs, some signed and numbered prints, and some original pencil drawings. I didn't remember doing all these! This is an etching of a tree from a sketch I did along the shore at Fremont.

This is a pencil drawing I did. I have no idea who he is. Maybe a picture from a magazine.

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I have an old movie on TV, "The Day the Earth Stood Still". It's an old black and white science fiction. It's kind of corny, I guess, but a refreshing change from much of the stuff that is on TV. I just can't watch the super realistic special effects violence on much of the new shows. Hmmm - do you think I am showing my age?

I am in the mood to paint today, so am going to get at it.

An Owl Drawing

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I have discovered another old drawing I had forgotten all about. I think there are a few more from the past in the basement.

Tracy has told me she had a nightmare that I died and she had to come clean out my basement. Of course, a lot of the things down there are hers, but she doesn't want them. She is not a "keeper" or "collector" like I am. I have steeled myself and thrown out a few things she specifically told me to. But it's sure hard.

I don't keep things like my mom did, though. She couldn't throw anything away, and still had every photograph, old receipts and cancelled checks from about 1930. She thought they would be interesting to someone some day.

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Lunch Counter Rapids on the Snake River

I took pictures at the Lunch Counter Rapids in the Snake River Canyon, and here is one. Later, I did this trip. It was not on one of the large commercial rafts, but on a 9 person raft with a group of friends who worked at The Learning Center in Jackson. I can't begin to tell you how scared I was when we got near the rapids and could hear them. But as soon as we were through them, I wanted to take the raft back up river and do it again.

A photographer from Jackson is on the bank all day every day in the summer, photographing the rafts, and then sells prints. I have a picture of my trip, and will scan it and post it.

Thursday

Best wishes to Sally, who is having

surgery. Get well soon!

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Some more old photos:

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This photo always makes us laugh. Tracy loved hiding Easter eggs for Barrie. I think on this particular Easter morning, we woke Barrie up a little too early to hunt for the eggs. She looks like she could have used a little more sleep.

Tracy carrying a flag in a rodeo in Pinedale. The horse is Bars.

This is one of the last photos I took of my Mom. Her great grandson, Braxton, is showing her his new toy truck.

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What a lazy day! I have done nothing except make the bed and feed the cats. I haven't touched my painting projects, and would rather read. The kitten has become so easy to care for - No more bottles to fix, and no more helping him go to the bathroom. He has become pretty independent.

I really need someone to hit me in the head and ask me what I am thinking!! I don't want to give up the kitten. With my allergies, it would be stupid of me to keep him. But both my girls remind me that we had cats in the house when they were young - and I survived. I still don't know if the kitten is a male or female. I see nothing extra, so "he" is probably a "she". I'm not sure he's old enough to tell yet.

I need a friend who is a real cat lover to beg me, "oh please, let me have him"!

Painting Day

A Tree Study

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I did these exercises on a piece of 10 x 16 watercolor paper, taped off into four sections. The first is done wet on wet, the second is wet on dry, the third a combination, and the last was done with Daniel Smith Primatek colors (earth minerals.) I think these studies will help me a lot in my larger paintings. Today I started four small studies of quakie trees.

There's a cat on my foot!!

Scanned from a slide of a photo I took at Murdock's branding. Tracy is giving the calf a shot, and I think the wrestlers are Lars and Delta.

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Today was art group at Rendezvous Pointe. Pam brought beautiful tomatoes from her greenhouse for us, and banana bread. Conley brought homemade jerky. Vicky brought cookies, and Barb brought cashew nuts. Also, they make popcorn at the center on Wednesdays. It was a good grazing day!

Judi asked about the old gun and the skull. We were on Mocroft's land when the gun was found, and the gun was given to Mr. Mocroft. I was teaching with Ellen R. at the time, and when she saw this little boy pointing a "stick" at other kids and yelling "bang, bang", she told him to put the stick down. He called back "It's not a stick, it's a gun". That sure gave us a jolt!!

The Sheriff's Department went out to where the skull was found, which was at the bottom of a steep bank along the creek. They found no more skeletal parts, and think probably anything else that had been there had been washed away when the bank collapsed into the creek through the years. I don't know where the skull was sent, but they thought it was a young Indian girl, about 13 years old.

More Slides Scanned

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This photo is for Judi. She had a photo of this sign painted on a car hood at the old dump, which I remembered. When I was scanning slides yesterday, I found that I had photographed it too.

This is an old pistol found by a first grader while on our end-of-the year picnic along New Fork Creek on the Mesa Road. We thought we had a real exciting find -- until the second graders came in from their picnic, and they had found a human skull!!

This was left at the front door of the old elementry school one Halloween.

Another old building in the Daisy Pass Area, near Cook City, Montana.

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I just had to get up and change channels on the TV. If I have to listen to one more political speech, I will puke!

I left the kitten downstairs last night. I turned his box on its side. This morning he woke up, looked at me, stretched, then snuggled up to his fuzzy monkey and went back to sleep.

Monday

Almost an X-Rated Picture.

Where are my pants?

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This is the old photo my sister-in-law found while cleaning out some drawers last week. We are sitting on the couch at my mom's house with Bill and Alice's daughter, Sheri. Good grief!! Yes, that's me with my butt hanging out and a cigarette in my fingers. Tracy must have been about three at this time, and we lived in Laramie, where I was going to college to get my degree in teaching.

Yay! I think I may be through with the kitten bottle, as well as the going to the bathroom in the sink! The kitten has used a litter box for two days now. I put some of the weaning formula and canned cat food in the blender this morning, and he happily ate it out of a dish (jar lid, actually). Kasey followed him all over on her hands and knees, and he is getting over his fear of her.

One of my cats that I thought was gone showed up on the front porch this morning. She was one that I had spayed. In fact, since it snowed, I wonder if all those cats that are coming to eat are mine? Chloe came in the house for a little while and rubbed against everything - then went back out into the cold.

I don't know for sure where these cats sleep. I think some of them stay in the doghouse, but they have found warmer places. There are two houses next to mine that they can get under . And of course it is a lot warmer so their pipes don't freeze. I don't even want to think about what the cats are doing under their houses.

Kasey is with me today. Barrie has the day off and is going out to run her dogs.

Snowy Sunday

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This is what I saw out my bedroom window when I opened my eyes this morning.

The bird feeder was covered with snow, and the Chickadees were scolding me

As soon as I cleaned the snow off, they came in to eat.

I put Kasey in the recliner yesterday, and she was delighted that she leaned to rock it.

Kasey really posed for me yesterday. I very seldom use the automatic settings on my cameras, because I don't like to use the flash. I had to in these pictures, and I think they came out OK. This is one I printed out 5" x 7" and put in a frame for Barrie's desk at work.

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A milestone in my career as a mother cat! He actually drank some milk on his own today. I used a small lid. I tried putting some cat food in with the milk, but he didn't want it. He also used the litter box!! That one had me stumped - I thought a cat should just naturally do that, and I guess he was ready.

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Nancy S. had an interesting question a couple of weeks ago - she wondered why the people always clapped at the closing of the stock market every day. Last week was supposedly the worst week in Wall Street history, and the people stood there with smiles on their faces and clapped and clapped. What on earth do they have to clap about? Let alone smile while they are doing it.

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"If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received $214.00."