Hard Boiled Eggs

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I hard boiled some eggs this morning, so we can color them tonight. This handy dandy little egg cooker is a great gadget. It holds eight eggs on a rack, has a pin in the center to prick them, and you can set it to how many eggs, hardness,etc. It has a buzzer that goes off when they are done. I know they still make these, much fancier than mine, for $30 to $40. I bought mine at a garage sale years ago for a nickel.

A humorous picture from the past. We used to color eggs and hide them in the living room in the morning before Barrie got up. She really did have fun hunting eggs, but I think she maybe got up too early this time.

I don't remember what I told my girls about the Easter Bunny. I don't think we made a big deal out of him. I asked Barrie how I explained the fact that the eggs she had colored the day before were hidden all over the living room. Did the Easter Bunny come take them out of the refrigerator and hide them? She has no idea.

The Easter Egg hunt on the courthouse lawn never worked out. It was always bitter cold, and I think I only took Barrie once. Tracy was furious - she saw older kids push Barrie out of the way and get all the candy. Barrie came home with an empty basket. Tracy had already been to Falers and bought candy, and had hidden them around the yard for her.

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We don't make too big a deal of Kasey learning to feed herself. She has been perfectly content to just open her mouth like a baby bird. She has just recently become interested in doing it herself.

Monday

Happy Birthday, Betty!

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A friend sent me this Calvin cartoon, and I thought I would share it. I am a real Calvin fan.

I am still fussing with the two pastel portraits, and I think I have figured out what my problem is. I don't know what I am doing!!

The new Unison pastels are much softer than my old Rembrandts, and I'm having a hard time with that. Also, I am trying one painting on yellow velour paper, and the other on blue pastel paper. Neither surface is doing it for me.

Instead of trying to come up with a finished painting, I need to grab a big piece of white paper and just "play" with the pastels. See the colors, see how they layer, and blend, etc. I can't believe I forgot that important step in learning. I certainly knew that when I was teaching.

When I taught kindergarten, we had so many "collections" of neat things, like a big box of buttons for example. I knew better than to expect the kids to do anything "constructive" with them when they were first put out. Geez, I can still remember what it is like to sit on the floor and play with a big pile of buttons, let them run through your fingers, etc.

One small group of kids were really enjoying the buttons, some just looked at them and handled them, and some had started little collections of buttons that were alike. I thought they were doing great - no one was throwing them in their friend's hair or swallowing them or putting them in their pockets or anything. Then a mother arrived early to pick up her kid, and watched the kids with the buttons. She went over and took all their buttons and put them back in the pile in the middle and made them start counting them.

I made a copy of the page from the math program manual that explained how you had to let small children "explore" on their own before giving them directives, highlighted the paragraph and handed it to her the next day. She never said a word, but she did quit coming into the room and trying to take charge of activities. She also moved before the year was over!

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It's a beautiful sunny day, and almost above freezing. I think it's 31 degrees right now.

I've got a load of stuff for the Recycling Center - milk cartons, magazines, egg cartons, and plastic bags, so better get those taken. If there aren't many cars at Ridley's, I might stop and get some bananas for Kasey. We are also out of potatoes. On the other hand, Specialty Meats has those items, so I might just go there.

A Real Oldie

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Boy, this is really an oldie! I must have painted this about 25 years ago. It is on a half sheet of what I think is 300 lb. paper, and probably done with Grumbacher watercolors. I never signed it, so it looks like I never considered it finished. Not sure what I intended to do with the pile of rocks down in the corner.

I'm not quite to the point where I can say the two pastel portraits are ruined, but they are pretty close. One is on pastel paper, and the other on velum surface paper. I just made up my mind to get the pastels out and use them, and not worry if I ended up with anything. I just need to learn how to use them again. in the past, I know I did quite a few acceptable portraits for people, and also portraits of their dogs.

Barrie's dad stopped by for a while this morning. Boy, does Kasey ever have him wrapped around her little finger! It was fun to watch them together.

Tracy called this morning, and said they had about two feet of new snow, and it was still snowing. (Silverthorne, CO) Paul had gone skiing, and she was settling down in front of the fire with some books she just got from the library. It looks like half the roads in Wyoming are closed or have advisories. So far, all we have here is an overcast sky

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Kasey is napping and Barrie has gone out to take care of her dogs. They plan on going to the "Aniel Daniel chile cookoff" this afternoon. I plan to be like Tracy, and stay home with a good book.

My New Cat

No, I don't have a new cat, but it seems like it. I'm sure she is still kind of sore and recovering from being spayed on Tuesday, but what a quiet and mellow animal she is! Please remember that I am still pretty new at being a house cat owner, so I never know what to expect.

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I called Bill and Alice today - they had planned on being here for a visit this weekend, and I wondered (hoped) that they had changed their travel plans. They are still in Mesquite, and have not ventured any further north. They will wait until next week to see what develops with the weather. April is too early to come back to Wyoming, and I didn't want to see them driving that big motor home pulling a pickup until the roads are good.

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I did a new "spray" watercolor sky today, and it turned out fine - after I diluted my pigments a bit. I plan on using it for a desert landscape with the old rusty car.

But in the meantime, (because I probably have "adult ADD disorder", ) I got my pastels out and have started two portraits. I feel really awkward and helpless with them, because it has been so long since I did pastels. But paper is cheap, right? Lynn told me to use my new Unison pastels, and they are really nice.

Thursday

I have been meaning to congratulate Gina on her book. I definitely will be picking up a copy!

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Kasey was very disappointed that Kat wasn't ready to play ball after her surgery.

I am through with this one - and I really thank Hank for posting the photo. I kind of lost the front end of the car, but am pretty well pleased with the rust color and texture. No sky, background or bushes in this, but I am planning to use this car in a landscape composition.

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I tried a new sprayed sky yesterday, but it was a failure. For some reason, I thought the last one should have been "punched up" a little, so I added more pigment to the spray bottles. I overdid it, and the new one looks more like a circus wagon than a soft sky. It will go on the shower floor, and I will weaken the colors in the spray bottle and try again.

Wednesday

I enjoyed art group so much today. It was video day, and Lynn brought a really great video to share with us. It was on the work of Maynard Dixon, and we really enjoyed it. Thanks, Lynn.

Lynn was finishing up a beautiful pastel piece of a cow and calf moose. I hope she photographs it and shares it on her blog.

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Won't Work!

Now it works. Thanks for the batteries!

Barrie doesn't work on Wednesdays, and usually uses the day to catch up on things that need to be done with the dogs, her snow machine, pickup, etc. Today she decided Kasey would "play hooky" and stay home with Mom.

They were just finishing lunch when I got home. Kasey laid down for her nap, and Barrie went to the Food Basket. She came home pretty happy. For $10, she got two really great toys for Kasey, some shirts, and about five pairs of jeans - plus a few shirts for herself. The clothes look really good, and she put them in the washing machine right away.

One of the toys is a "push" toy. It has a basket to put thing sin , and big buttons with flashing lights to push and it plays two different songs. Plus, the round plastic thing in front has plastic fruit in it that makes noise when it is pushed around. Every Grandma's nightmare, right? Wonder what happened to that lady who used to live here who said she would not have garish colored plastic noisy battery-operated toys in her house?

Tuesday

Today is bright and sunny, and just a lilttle bit windy. It's still below freezing (27 degrees), but nice. The news says another storm is coming in.

I was up pretty early this morning (for me, anyway), to take Kat to the vet to be spayed. She was not happy being put in the airline carrier, but behaved herself very well when we took her out to weigh her. I will pick her up this afternoon, and I know she will have no control over which way she is walking, she will run into things, and will look very panicked. Now she will be able to spend some time outdoors without having to worry about her meeting a tom cat. She has never been outdoors beyond the front porch since we found her last fall.

I keep seeing the shadow of the Red Tail Hawk, and have gone to the window a few times to check. I saw "him" once go into the nest with something in his mouth. It looked like it could have been a little gopher. So the mate must be sitting on the nest.

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This is what I ended up doing with the "sprayed" sky that Conley showed us how to do. The hills looked pretty good yesterday, but I fiddled with them too much today and don't like it as well. Also, the yellow part of the sky isn't showing up very well in this photo. I want to do another sky like this. The sky and hills might make a good background for the old rusty car Hank photographed.

I got a new watercolor book in the mail today called " Capturing the Magic of Light in Watercolor". It is one of the best watercolor books I have ever seen, and I can sure put the information in it to work in my paitning.

cold and windy day

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When Kasey first went into her room, she opened the lid on the aquarium, and started to put her hand in the water. Then she noticed the fish, closed the lid and backed up a couple of steps. They scared her at first, and she didn't want to get too close.

It took her a little while to decide they were fun and she liked them.

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i had a lamp in the living room that wasn't being used. It was just sitting in a corner and not plugged in. Kasey accidently knocked it over the other day and the plastic inside the shade got cracked. I had it off the lamp and waiting for a trip to the dumpster.

At the exact moment the power came back on this morning, I heard what sounded like books and dishes falling off shelves, and the cat came tearing upstairs with her back arched and her tail all fizzed out. She must have been playing with the lampshade and somehow got it over herself and thought she was trapped. The top picture shows that she hid under the bed for a while.

Snowy Sunday

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I don't think I'll be barbecuing today.

Wolf in the snow.

Finished the pencil drawing of the wolf, finally. I may go back and darken some areas, but it is officially "finished".

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I'm not sure how much snow we've had today, as the wind has come up and blown it around. Maybe I'm crazy, but Pinedale really looks ugly in the spring - all brown and muddy. And because I don't have to get out in it, I enjoy these spring storms. Everything is white and clean again.

Pam loaned me a book a couple of weeks ago and I finished it last night. It is called "What You See in Clear Water". It is about the water rights conflict between the tribes and the white settlers on the Reservation. Lots of familiar names in the book, some people I know, and even some I was related to. The author included a lot of history about the Reservation, and it was interesting.

Yellowstone Buffalo

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I have the Old Faithful Web Cam in my "Favorites" list, and like to check it occasionally. This is what it showed about 7:00 tonight. Pretty neat image, I think. There are often snowmachiners standing around waiting for the geyser to erupt. I wonder if the buffalo will still be hanging around there in the morning?

Barrie bought some fish for the acquarium today - 3 neons, 3 platys, and 2 gouarmis. The platys are live bearers. Kasey will be home tomorrow evening, and I can't wait to see her reaction to the fish.

I worked on a pencil drawing of a wolf today - one I started quite a while ago. It's probably finished, but it got too dark to get a good picture of it.