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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