AN ARTY AFFAIR

Wednesday evening was a really big night for our Arty Woman (a.k.a. Julie Underriner or Paint-Pouring Woman). After months of hard work and planning, she and two other Wimberley artists are having a month-long showing of their art in Austin, and Wednesday was the opening reception! The Muses turned out in force to support her, except for Spirit Woman, who was off on an adventure of her own in Santa Fe.

We began the evening with dinner at the original Chuys on Barton Springs Rd., where we met up with daughter Alexis, then it was just a short hop down the block to Dougherty Arts Center. Julie works in everything from enamel and inks to encaustics, but she's best known for her ginormous "pours" (center, above) where she drapes unstretched canvas across chairs and stools, then pours on layers of paint, tilting it this way and that (back wall, below).

Outdoor Woman and Outdoor Man

Fiber Woman and Outdoor Woman, Next to One of Julie's Paintings

I did my best to get a good photo of Arty Woman and her Opera Man, but...

that dang shiny bicycle in the background thwarted me at every turn!

The show will be up until November 8. Do go see it, if you get the chance!
 

FICKLE PHOTOS & SELECTIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography is a funny thing. You can take ten photos of the same thing in the same spot on the same day, and every one ends up looking completely different. Take these selfies for instance, which I took a few years ago when I needed a profile picture for something.

Same hair, same make-up, same everything, but in the second one I took a picture of myself in the mirror, which gave it a little bit different angle and, woah! Needless to say, the first picture never saw the light of day, ere now. In the olden days, we gals could snatch a photo like that out of the packet and trash it, as soon as we picked them up from the developer. Nowadays, with everyone snapping photos right and left using their i-phones, and posting them to Facebook and Instagram before you can blink an eye, well, it ain't so easy!

We bloggers, on the other hand, have an edge. We get to pick and choose just which photos go into each and every post, and we utilize "selective photography" at every opportunity. For example, if I were going to post a picture of the big pot out on my patio, I would be sure to photograph it from this angle, focusing on that beautiful Dahlberg Daisy in full bloom...

rather than this one, which shows that all the other daisies in the pot are dead, dead, dead, and have been for weeks!

And, if I wanted to show you one of my beautiful succulent pots, I would choose this one...

instead of the one right in front of it, which the deer took a liking to.

And of course, both inside the house and out, I make sure that stuff like this...

is always just outside the viewfinder!

All of this is just to say, don't believe everything you see on the internet. Despite all appearances, no one actually lives in a perfectly decorated, perfectly clean, perfectly organized house. Or, if they do, it's only because they live there all alone, for they have surely driven their friends and family away, with all that obsessive cleaning and organizing!

MORNING HAS BROKEN

There are times when it gets to be too much -- when our water keeps cutting off for some unknown reason, and we have no idea who to call, since it seems to be a pump issue rather than a plumbing problem. When the asphalt driveway needs to be repaved, and the gravel driveway is no longer even navigable. When not only has the dang cinder block wall been sitting half-painted for at least five years, but now the entire house needs repainting, inside and out. And all the metal porch rails too! When the attic over the garage is still chock-full of stuff that was crammed up there 10 or 11 years ago (including a precious cradle handmade by hubby's father), has never been opened since, and can only be reached via a precarious extension ladder, which neither of us has any business climbing up or down -- especially with a heavy cradle in our arms! It's at times like these that I start wondering what it would be like to live somewhere in town, or where all the maintenance chores are taken care of for you.

But then, something like this happens...

 

and I wonder how I could ever possibly leave.

(All photos were snapped, first from our balcony, then on my morning walk around our own driveway, with my handy little point and shoot, in the sequence in which they occurred.)

CINEMA BUFFS

Hubby has been attending a film fest over in Austin all week. Everyone wonders why I didn't go with him. Perhaps these photos will help you understand. I believe they must have been aiming at a younger, geekier crowd. Perfect for my hubby, right?

His favorite movie of all was that one on the right.

He had a total blast, and plans to go back again next year, but...five whole days of having to be up by 7:00AM, driving back and forth to Austin during rush hour, and sitting on his tushie all day long in a darkened movie theater?  It Wore. Him. Out!

So what did we do on his first day off, to help him relax and recuperate? Why, we went to a movie, of course! By the way, you should definitely go see The Intern, with Robert DeNiro. We both enjoyed it thoroughly. Plus we can't wait for the new Bill Murray movie, which they showed trailers for, to come out.

We just might go see The Martian today.