WHAT FUN LIES AHEAD

If you ignore the teeth-cleaning on Friday, the week ahead is looking mighty fine. On Tuesday, the Muses are doing one of our gallery-hopping excursions over to San Antonio. I don't get quite the thrill out of spending hours in art galleries as they do, but I do love snapping photos of them all while they are together, doing what they love, so it works out quite well. And, there's always the food.

But wait until you hear what I'm doing on Thursday! High School Debbie and a group of her friends have rented a room at a place they call the Quilt Ranch, which I'm not familiar with, and they have invited me to join in the fun. We won't be quilting, however. Instead, everyone will be bringing their art supplies, a dish to share at lunch, whatever project they are currently working on, and of course, chocolate!  Just think -- an entire day of art without interruption, and the chance to hang out with, and be inspired by, other artsy friends. Why, it will be like a mini-version of that art camp I am going to in the fall! Brilliant, no?

Now all I have to do is figure out which project to work on while there. I've got a hankering to do another color-mad piece similar to that picture of the Muses above, which, now that I think about it, was taken on one of our very first gallery-hopping trips to San Antonio! Only this time, I want to play with this pic of Fiber Woman, taken at her 60th birthday celebration.

I don't know about you, but I see a Flamenco dancer lurking in there somewhere! Yep, the week is looking mighty fine indeed.

SECRET #4: LAYERS OF INTRIGUE

My fourth class taken as part of the whole 21 Secrets experience was led by Aussie artist Tracy Verdugo, and it was more about self exploration than about creating a wall-worthy painting.  If you had x-ray vision and could see down through all the layers, you might find: an entire page filled with loosely painted words that describe me; a layer of collaged bits and pieces that resonate with me for one reason or another; a color palette made up of three favorite colors (plus black and white) in their myriad combinations, which have been stamped onto the page using my one-of-a-kind thumbprint; and an image of someone I admire or feel a connection to (Meryl Streep, in Mama Mia).

Sisterhood

Living in Color

My Story

It's a wonderful loosening-up exercise, to get those creative juices flowing!

I Belong Here

EVERYDAY EPIPHANIES

 "Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it." ~ Anne De Lenclos

Today I woke up feeling grumpy. I've had two killer headaches in a row this week, the AC wasn't working right yesterday, and the wind was howling like a son-of-a-gun, and tossing everything on the porch around, all. night. long! So this is what I started writing in my journal, while I was waiting for the sun to rise:

"Do you ever start to feel like the universe has it in for you for some reason? First it was all the visits from plumbers and septic people, and several thousand dollars down the drain (literally), trying to stop the poop floods downstairs. Then the well crapped out on us, and we just had to put that on a back burner for a while, thanks to expensive work done on both the AC and refrigerator, a bunch of really expensive dental work for both of us this year, and that mountain of hospital bills that were still left after the insurance company did their thing. Now, just when we are finally getting a handle on all of that, and thinking about tackling the well issue? The fridge and AC are both acting up again. It's never ending!"

But then I got to thinking about the call we got last week -- the one informing us that the new cleaning lady we had just recently found, and were so, so excited about, had died over the weekend, at only 57 years of age. Suddenly my list-making took a twist, and started to sound more like this:

"Still, I've got my hubby and my kiddos. I've got the view out this window. I've got books. I've got my art supplies. I've got an able body. I've got siblings, a BFF, the Muses, and all the artsy inspiration I get from my friends in the blogosphere. Best of all? I've got time!"

Once I'd finished with that, I opened up Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance, and turned to today's essay. You'll never guess what it had to say. "Sometimes we are aware of the poet who dwells within us and registers every precious moment of our lives. More often, however, we move through our days in a fog or a frenzy -- until we're startled into consciousness by an unforeseen threat to something that we hold dear and have been taking for granted. I call these luminous moments 'everyday epiphanies,' because they jar us into a profound awareness of how much we have, and how much we have escaped, and how much there is to be grateful for." And then the sun came up.

Thus sayeth the Universe.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

It was a typical spring weekend in the Hill Country -- crazy busy, with ten or fifteen things going on at once, from wiener dog races and plays to fund raisers and art fests. We started the day with an early run down to the Wimberley Arts Fest, which is always fun. In the past, it has been held down in the town square, which meant rerouting traffic and not allowing booths to be set up until the very last minute. Some vendors got booths with great visibility, while others got stuck back in a corner where they didn't sell a thing. This year they moved it over to the Blue Hole, and I think pretty much everyone other than the shop owners on the square, who missed the traffic it brought in, thought it a great improvement.

There was plenty of great parking at the old Baptist church, where they had the classic car show set up.

Our friend Architect Bob, and the cherry red cadillac he restored.

My favorites are always the vintage pickups.

From there it was an easy walk down to the festival grounds, but they also had a steady stream of golf carts making the loop, for those who wanted a ride. All the booths were set up in a large oval, each with equal visibility, and a bandstand with plenty of seating was out in the middle.

Strawberry Limeade -- Yum! 

The very best part, as far as I was concerned, was the lovely, permanent, his and hers bathroom facility, with each side having multiple stalls. I have never been a fan of port-o-potties. I just hope the vendors all had great sales figures in the new location. At least I know we did our share to help out!

From there we went to try out the new food truck that showed up in Wimberley a few weekends ago.

There are only five or six things on the menu so far, and we only tried one of them -- the burgers and some tiny little well-seasoned fries -- but what we had was absolutely delicious. I adore toasty cheese bits, and they had let the cheese ooze out onto the griddle around the edges, and get all crispy. To die for! Guess I'd better go back and try the fish tacos next.

Mid-afternoon, two of the kiddles and our grand-dog came over to spend the night. We had lured them over by telling them about the fundraiser they were having over at the Corral Theater (in order to upgrade some of their equipment) where they would be showing Monsters Inc. -- one of our faves.

As you can see, Hubby got really excited when they announced that they would be showing the new Monsters University as soon as it comes out in June.

MELTDOWN AVOIDED!

Can you believe it? Three days without blogging, and I didn't even have a meltdown! I think the only thing that saved me was having the 21 Secrets class to lose myself in -- Kate Crane's Journal Soup lesson, in particular. Oh my, there is some fun to be had with that one! I read not long ago -- in that delightful little book Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple -- that creatives must create. Otherwise, they just get crazy. I think my hubby has been witness to that on more than one occasion, which is probably why he was scrambling so to get my blog working again. Turns out my iPhoto program had picked up a bug somewhere, and had it's own little meltdown. He ended up installing Picasa, and had to transfer all my photos over. Sooooo, guess who had upwards of sixteen thousand photos stored? Yep, that's right. The very same girl who made her hubby do all the photo taking for this family until about four and a half years ago, when she started demanding photos to go with her blog posts, and he just wasn't filling her requests quickly enough! Now all I have to do is learn how to use Picasa --  and we all know how much I love learning new computer crap, don't we?

While we're on the subject of creatives (and because Hubby had already downloaded these photos for me when trying to show me how Picasa worked) I thought I would tell you about the wonderfully color-mad artist from New Orleans whom I discovered at the Wimberley Arts Fest this weekend.

His paintings have such an amazing sense of place. You stand there staring at one of them, and the next thing you know, you're hearing zydeco and smelling roux! Well, if there's anything I love, it's color-madness and sense of place.

So, of course, I had to bring one of his little prints home with me, to add to my Color Mad Corner in the kitchen. If only it were Fat Tuesday at Linda Allen's tonight. I've got me a serious hankerin' for some gumbo!
 

CURSES!

Lots of fun happenings this weekend, and tons of photos taken. Too bad I can't share any of them with you. A couple of days ago, when I wrote that post about Dillo Dan, every time I tried to add a photograph from iPhoto, all I got was a black square. I ended up having to tear the artwork out of my journal and scan it, in order for my computer to allow me to post it on my blog.  Hubby had no clue what was going on, so I mentioned it to Sonny the computer whiz. He said he'd take a look at it when he got here.

So yesterday afternoon we sat down at my computer, and I tried to show him what was going on. Only guess what? Everything was back to working just fine! Woohoo! Of course, we had lots of fun stuff planned for that evening and this morning, lots more photos to take, etc. But, as soon as they headed back to Austin today, I ran straight to my computer, downloaded all my photos from this weekend, and proceded to write a blog post. Well, guess what happened whenever I tried to add photos to it? AAARRRGGGHHH!!!