YAHOO!! And can we hear it again!! YAHOO!!!

There has been a delay on the posting of this blog due to some unforseen circumstances beyound my absolute control -- that is -- this old computer has been giving me fits, spits, ulcers and other assorted things that I wont go into here ---- suffice to say that today is the first day that I've been able to get back HERE!!

I've been working away on lots of little projects -- and probably will be able to post them tomorrow. I've gotten my frames all done, and am hoping that the weather will cooperate enuf so that when I take some pictures of them, the sunlight will show some of the detail I've made on each of them. I've gotten so sick of painting little pieces of tissue to adhere to the wood of the frames, that I started to question my sanity. I mean, I know I'm sorta cracked, but after tearing pieces that were sometimes less than 1/4" in size, and tearing LOTS of them, I really sat at my little table and wondered if this was the best thing that I could be doing. Time consuming, sure, but the overall effect was well worth it. I may even make a couple more using the same method but I have to take a break from all the little scraps and give 'er a rest.

We've gotten our vege seeds in the mail, and now that the weather is finally cooperating, I've started lots of little pots of seeds...3 pots each of 3 different varieties. I've gotten away from using slicing tomatoes for paste and salsa, and have only used paste tomatoes for the last couple years. We grew so many 2 years ago, that the freezer has been stocked ever since. And just this last week, my youngest said we're finally down to the last 6 quart bags of frozen tomatoes. So, my planting was done in the nick of time. Roma has always done really well here, and I've got those in little pots. Speckled Roman tomato is one that I'm going to try this year, and I've had success with Banana Legs too, so those are all comfy in their little pots. I found some good prices thru Pinetree Garden Seeds for a long time, and bought some Basil, Oregano and Chives seeds this year too. I had some hollyhocks in the garden a couple years ago, but they finally died out, which made me sad. So this year, I got some more of those, and a packet of Monets Sunflowers. They did really good in one of our flower beds along a big fence last year, and after The Husband staked them up after a tropical storm tried to knock them down, they bloomed EVEN MORE!! So those are going in the front yard this year, and along the backyard fence again -- kinda hides the thing so it doesn't look so ugly.

I got some little signs made up for the vege beds and the flower beds this year too -- I am ALWAYS forgetting what seeds I plant in different beds every year...no matter how hard I try, I meander out in the garden, pop the plants out of their little pots, (where the label clearly says what each one is) get 'em in the ground, and promptly forget which plant is which. The only way I can tell the tomatoes from one another, is once they start to develop the actual "Fruit" ~~ then I know. But in the meantime, I'm as lost as can be. It drives my youngest to absolute fits with me -- "You can't remember what you have out there??!!" "Uhhh...well, actually...uhhh..." Makes me feel like an absolute toad...and speaking of toads -- We've had a REALLY large toad living in the front flower beds for years ~~ Every now and again I'll see him and it sorta freaks me out...this big ol' brown creature popping up outta the mud...but I had an even bigger Suprise the other day while weeding the bed for the St. John Wort...got to pulling some clover out (Which got put right back down for mulch) and was setting some dried leaves back in the bed, when something got flipped around in the air with the leaves, then plopped back down in the middle of them. I took a second look to see what it was, and at first all it looked like was some sort of maybe large coin...sorta grey/brown, round with little bits of yellow edging. WELL -- I came to an absolute STOP right then, and veryy gingerly picked up whatever this little thing was. And lo and behold -- it was a baby TURTLE!!! OH! my Stars and Garters!! It was the cutiest little thing I've seen in a long long time. I turned him (HER??) around in my fingers, and it stared at me and actually blinked it's eyes at me. That made me feel terrible, like I disturbed it's routine or something (Do turtles have a routine?) So I very carefully laid him (her) back in amongst the leaves, and ran in the house to tell my youngest.

Ever get a look from somebody like, well, maybe you've had too much to drink, but in actuality you're absolutely stone sober? That's how I felt when I started to tell my son that there was a baby turtle in the flower bed. There was this...SIGH...then he came outside to see for sure that I wasn't making this story up. HA!! Wasn't HE suprised when he saw the little critter too!! An me being me, I'm gushing all about this little thing, walking thru the leaves at their SLOW pace.."AHhh...LOOK!! at his little tail!!" I'm nearly yelling....The youngest wasn't all that impressed and went back in the house to check some prices on baseball cards...humph....shows what kind of wild animal lover he is....NO -- he really does love things in the yard, but he just wasn't all that excited about the turtle. Maybe this just shows that perhaps I need to get a life or something....

Well -- it's off to the art store to get some more poster board and a sheet of mat board too....I've got to get some paper painted this afternoon before driving over to the truck terminal to get The Husband...he's got his truck back after it needed some work done on it...the alternater (sp) was trying to burn itself to pieces 2 weeks ago, while The Husband was sitting in traffic, so the dispatcher decided to give him another truck in the meantime...I'm too chicken to ask how much it cost to make the repairs...actually I'm glad I DIDN'T have to pay for it!!

Lady of The Tulips -- who has The Dog laying next to her on the floor..we had a little rainstorm and she naturally came in here to hide..if she was snoring any louder I think my youngest could hear her in the front room....sheesh...

You may be thinking that The Dog is listening for the Easter Bunny to come thru one of the windows to the Studio/Sunroom, but in actuality (glad I wasn't an English major in college with that spelling...) she was listening to the wind that has suddenly picked up outside. She has this thing about the wind..and even worse, if there happens to be a storm brewing. When wind is combined with rain, and Especially THUNDER -- this animal turns into an absolute WRECK. I've always written it off to the fact, that she was a Rescue Shelter animal; she'd been horribly abused at the "home" she was taken from...so anything that sounds extremely loud sends her into fits. If a dog could cry, I've always felt that she would have an hysterical crying jag every time there's a thunderstorm. She will go to any length to crawl into a closet and hide; barring that she'll crawl under my son's computer desk and squish herself under the computer slide-out shelf. Actually, that's where she is right now...she quit shaking, but I can feel her warm body right next to my right foot.

I know some people have wanted me to get a picture of her on my Blog -- so here she is. She is a very sweet dog...spoiled rotten and has The Husband totally wrapped around her little (or not so) paw. She has HIM trained, so that the minute he walks in either the front or back door, she immediately jumps to the edge of the kitchen floor, gives him this absolutely PITY - PITY POOR ME look and naturally he falls all over himself, and promptly gives her a dog biscuit. She then gladly waltzes away with said biscuit in her mouth, eats the thing in less that 2 minutes, lays down on the floor and looks at The Husband as if to say, "You're such a wimp over me.." And, yes, he admits that he is a wimp as far as she's concerned. She is really a trip. What's really funny is to see her romp around in the back yard..she'll run around the pool and get herself around the edge of the backyard fence REALLY fast...how she does it really confuses me. I mean, she isn't the smallest animal I've seen, yet she's able to zip around out there like she's in training for some sort of Animal Olympics. I have actually seen her run to come in the house when I call her. But that's only when she's been outside for most of the day, and she really wants to come in the house. Amazing I tell ya.

Lady of The Tulips ~~ who is now so comfortable with The Dog keeping my feet warm that I don't wanna move...but have to go out in the Studio to get some paper's cut for a collage I'm starting on. ** OH!! ** And I do want to wish all of you out there a Very Happy Easter!! Maybe what The Dog heard really WAS the Easter Bunny...how would I know if it was or not?

"Le Mer" -- Copyright 2006 Spring Bay Studio

This is one of the pieces I got finished just before the crush of the holidays last year...I'd been looking at some pictures of mermaids that some artists had done way back in 1918 or so. I was amazed by some of the oils and watercolors that I saw in a book that my middle son was given a few years ago...this isn't anywhere close to how wonderful the paintings are in the book, but I felt the freedom that the mermaids looked like they had in those paintings.

I'm trying to get a picture of the frame I just finished painting the other day, and have this piece set very carefully in said frame...but I keep having problems either with the camera, getting the frame to behave itself with some hot glue I used to attach the glass...or else some little teeny bit of paint gets chipped, and it's back to the fine liner brush to spot paint the chips. My nerves are getting the stretched-thin-treatment and it looks like I'm either going to go scream at The Dog innocently laying down in the grass next to the backyard fence, or I'm gonna take it out on some poor soul who calls the house trying to sell me some type of magazine subscription...never mind that I'm on the Federal Do Not Call list...

It's a Holiday today, for some people who have "regular" jobs with a salary and parking space set aside especially for them. However, in this house The Husband doesn't have a salary, but an hourly wage, in a job that doesn't care 2 cents about holidays . There's freight to be moved, never mind that the highways are getting PACKED with people going somewhere to relax an' have a good time. What it'd be like to go on vacation is something I've been pondering for a few years...and The Husband is sitting in traffic trying to move 75,000 pounds of "Freight All Kinds" no more than 4 miles down the Interstate. I'd love to know what the people sitting in traffic are thinking while their on their way to Relax and Have A Good Time...probably cussing the truck drivers who can't get out of their OWN way, let alone get up enuf speed to get out of the way of a speeding car. But -- for those of you with Vacation time...WOW!! I'd love to be out relaxing an' layin' around some place...Definetly would be something literally out of the ordinary!! So -- have a good time...take lots of pictures of where ever it is that you've picked to relax at/in. Don't get too sunburnt (for those going to warmer climates!) and don't come back with stories that you can't really explain all the details about...cause those WILL come back an' haunt ya!!

The Dog is absolutely amazed -- in her own way -- I cleaned out the Studio/Sunroom the last 2 days. I'd been dancing around some big storage boxes that my youngest had set near the french doors. He kept insisting "I'll get them up in the Attic..." but there they sat..taking up space and making it clever for me to hop around. It got pretty dicey when The Dog wanted to go outside, cause I'd have to sorta hop/jump around the boxes, make sure The Dog didn't knock anything off the top of said boxes (stacks of seed catalogs, books with no home to go to...that kind of thing) and then get to the back/side door an open it FAST when The Dog had to go out NOW...

I got 4 or 5 large trash bags full of old childrens books..some old college text books I haven't had the heart to throw away yet, and some old cow figurienes (butchered that spelling, didn't I...no pun intended after cow, by the way...) that I'd had for over 15 years...got em all packed up and now are sitting at the end of the hallway in the house, where The Huband sez he'll get set up in the attic. This remains to be seen, as he's also said he'll "Get to " some other things around the house that I've been waiting on for, oh, le's see...6 years...So -- this will be interesting to see. The large storage boxes that held some old books that just wouldn't fit on the bookshelf in the studio are so HEAVY that I thot I'd literally fall over when I tried to get them up into the dining room, drag them down the hall, and set at the end of said hall, right against the interior wall. I started to push/shove one of the boxes and realized the reason the thing wasn't moving was because it'd gotten hung-up on some carpet in the dining room that has never been attached to it's backing correctly...so there's always been this little "bump" between the front room and dining room. I'd always ignored it, thinking it'd just be THERE an' wouldn't bother me. UNTIL one of those days when I knew I'd have something to move across it. And wouldn't ya know it -- THAT DAY HIT YESTERDAY!!

I could feel the blood veins in my forehead starting to pop out, and it felt like my legs were gonna start shaking, I was tryin' so hard to move this stuiped box. Then I got stood up straight, took a look at the problem, an' said out loud, "WELL What The *** is THIS??!" Made The Dog look up from where she was lying down in the front room. Naturally I had to appoligize to her for that bit of rudeness...But -- all the boxes are now sitting at the end of the hall..all lined up like their waiting for a bus to take them somewhere. My back suprisingly isn't sore, an' when I thot my legs were gonna be REALLY in pain this morning, I was pleasantly suprised to find they were just fine. YAHHOOO and YIPPIEEE....Guess all the daily workouts have come in handy; haven't got the OH-OH I Did too Much thing goin' on.

So -- when the camera decides to get it's #"@ together, I'll take a couple shots of the wall of books an' all the other lil' goodies that are sitting on the bookshelf. it's starting to look less like the inside of a 3rd grade classroom, an' more like a Studio than it ever has. Sigh. Now for some pictures on those walls, an' I'll be in Business!!

Lady of The Tulips -- who just now realized she's got the front door open, an' even tho the storm door is closed, there's enuf gap in the doorframe that lets in the chilly afternoon air...an' now the heater/furnace is running to beat the band. Are those little dollar bills I see drifting down the hallway, or is it my imagination??

~~~ First of all ~~~ I must apologize for the post last week, because of the LOUSY way the picture came out after I downloaded it. Coulda fooled me. I thot that once my son had gotten it into my folder of pictures, that it would come out wonderful and clear once I popped it up on this blog...when you click on the larger image tho, it REALLY looked like somebody did something extremely Weird, an' it's all fuzzy. Kinda like if I try to look at somethin' without my glasses on...So -- please forgive the fuszzy-ness of the closeup of that picture. When my son comes back I'll ask him what the deal is with it.

I've got 2 more frames painted an' all ready to go. I was gonna take a while today to take shots of them so I could post 'em here, but in 'bout 15 minutes, I (just recently, after drivin' all over creation an' back already this a.m.) I gotta take my youngest to get a pass so he can start a new job at one of the local shipyards...he finally got one of the jobs he'd applied for in the last couple weeks. I think I'd mentioned how he'd appied to a few places, but there hadn't been any replies on one of them. He plugged along, an' got to check in with one of the employment agencies he's worked with before, an' lo & behold, they had a position available. It's on the bus route, but naturally the busses don't run as early as he needs to get a ride in the morning, so ME gets to get up at 4:00 to get him to the office for the company at 5:45...then they have a van to take the crew to the shipyard. This afternoon tho, I have to take him to some OTHER office so he can get a pass that'll allow him to get into the Yard, so he can work...I'm sorta tired from the 3 1/2 hours out drivin' around already, an it'll probably be another 3 before it's all said an' done. An' here I thot I'd get some more work done on a piece today...HA!! Shows what I get for thinkin' --

So -- one of the local art stores has frames on sale, so when I get a chance this week, I'll go an' pick up 3 or 4 of them...then it's off to the races with the paint brushes an' whatever else may be in my line of fire...or is it whatever is closest for me to grab an' slap on the wood?? Either way, it's gonna be fun to make up some more frames. I just CANT let a frame be Plain and BORING...Must have some Color an' LIFE to it... man - o - man. Dull is just not where it is... More fun color is what I like...maybe one of the new ones will have purple on it...well...maybe not...

Must run an' pretend that I'm excited 'bout driving around for the next 3 hours...can any of you see the grey hair popping up on my head? Oh -- an' that little cloud of smoke you may see off in the distance is just part of my brain frying because of the irritation I'm feeling from all the speeding crazy drivers...do not let the smoke bother you...it will dissapate shortly...

Lady of The Tulips -- who is now wondering if she has any change for putting gas in the car...I did have $5 but that seems to have disappeared, an besides, it won't get me too far down the road anyway...