where's my fan, my men, my grapes?

"Suspicious Birds"


Suspicious Birds is a new little acrylic (9 x 12) on Ebay if you're inclined to view such things. There's no reserve and I've started it at 10 bucks (hyperventilates)...

This has been a shitty week, y'all. I have felt like aquarium scum for several days now. A week-long headache is just now beginning to subside along with significant pain in my right jaw muscle. Wah. Wah.

Wait, I'm not done.

And I've had a temperature. Now then, wah! wah! wah! wah!

St. Teresa's Pale Ale is probably the only thing that will cure it.

Hand me my icy cold medicine, quick. Oh yeah, and the men, grapes and fan would help, too.

one haute mama...

Well, feverish. I've had a slight fever for a couple of days. Could it be the near 100 degree temps outside have cooked my innards to casserole consistency?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I merged the Rocky Top Brigade listing into my regular blogroll, and I'm not sure I like all that mish-mashing, co-mingling and cross-breeding. We'll see.

I have three more paintings in the works...I hope I can get at least one of them up by tomorrow night. I wish I had more time to paint. I'm having so much fun. It's gratifying to have them purchased, but I'd do it even if none of them sold. Someone mentioned doing prints. If any of you have experience doing that sort of haberdashery, email me and share your experience. I'm a little wary of the whole thing...reproducing and such.

new stuff is up...

"Teddy's Last Dip"

"Chapter 27"

and I'm finally selling "Strange Bird Tales"

and dat's all for now :-)

that Yuki...

Whilst we were sleeping last night, Yuki was doing this:

Naughty, naughty, naughty...

I'm stuck at home today waiting on the plumbers to install our new hot water heater. They were supposed to be here between 9 - 9:30. They called at 9 to say they had an emergency and would be late. It's 11:15 now. The person who came to seal the cracks in our brick this morning actually showed up on time, thank goodness. I am really busy at work, so I just took the morning off because I have meetings in the afternoon, but it looks like I might get screwed all around.

Anyhoo. I'm going to put up two new larger paintings (12 x 12) on Ebay this evening if I can take some decent photos of them.

If you'll excuse me now, I have to go sit at the window and twiddle my thumbs...

cute-clearance...

You should have to obtain special clearance to have a puppy this cute. This little darling joined the home of a couple we are friends with. Good grief! Cutie-overload!

click the pics for larger versions (if you can stand it)

brrr...

Starting your day with an ice-cold shower is downright cruel. I'll be glad when we get our new hot water heater installed tomorrow. I have to soap up out of the shower stream and then grit my teeth while I wash off as quickly as possible. I do some mighty powerful yodeling during those few seconds. I suppose it could be winter--that would be quite a bit worse.

I put an old painting up on Ebay starting at $4, but it doesn't do much for me. How about that for salesmanship? Har.

Been kinda depressed this week. I think I'm just tired.

Hey Mamaw...

Last day for bids on "Hey Mamaw"...In other news, we have NO HOT WATER. None. Nada. Our hot water heater has been acting up and we're having one installed on Thursday morning, but two more ice cold showers stand between us and the installation. Brrrr. I was VERY awake this morning!

I made some blackberry cobbler last night from the blackberry patch at my father's house. The last few days have been kind of hard thinking about him...I feel his presence slipping away from me and it makes me feel sick inside. Over the next few weekends we are going to start emptying his house. I dread that more than you can imagine. Daddy's apple orchard is loaded this year. He was always disappointed in the yield of the trees and now that he's gone, the branches are nearly breaking with fruit. He grafted several dwarf varieties himself which always impressed me. There's also a dwarf pear tree in the yard. You've never seen such cute little pears. If the fruit doesn't get wormy as it ripens, I suppose I'll be making some more cobblers and pies...maybe I'll even learn to can something. Who knows.

and then there was Nana...

This morning I was disheartened as I drove to work. I saw five beagle puppies wandering alongside the road...in and out of the woods...in and out of the road. They looked like they were about 6 months old. Could I stop and herd them into the car? Would I only go a mile down the road to find more roaming dogs?

About three miles later I saw a big black lump in the road. "Please be a tire. Please be a tire." But it wasn't. It was a big black lab hit by car not long before I had come along. I can't stand it when people just let their dogs fend for themselves in traffic. This "cut-through" road is kind of a rural atmosphere...along with rural attitudes. I see dogs and cats roaming all the time. I see them both, along with raccoons and opossums squashed on the roadside. It makes me so angry--at pet "owners" and at careless drivers.

Then I thought of Nana, the pup we transported from Memphis to Richmond, Virginia. We were part of an 8-person relay to get his precious little girl to her new owner in Richmond. I wanted to keep her! She was horribly shy, so the only pics I got were with my little camera phone. I sat in the back with her and she cuddled up on the floor instead of the seat. She had recently had puppies and I think she was a little sad. But, Nana went to a wonderful loving home with another dog to play with. I had to think of Nana to cancel out all the sadness. Lucky, lucky Nana. ***Big thanks to Leigh-Anne for hooking me up with the transport!***

And a sneak peak at at 12 x 12 inch painting I'm working on "Teddy's Last Dip"...it makes me laugh so hard. It will be up later in the week.

your comments

Oh! Haloscan has been very naughty and I have missed tons of your comments...I just now read about eight that I hadn't seen before. Sorry I missed so many. For some reason only a few of my comments are going through to email and none of them are getting counted on the post. Gah! I missed so many nice things. I love you all *sob* *sob* *blows nose* *snorts*

Anyway. Really I hate that I didn't get a chance to respond to some of the just sweetest comments.

*sob* *sob* There I go again.

I'm tying fast...I am SO behind. But I just want to tell you one thing. I am working on a 12 x 12 painting that makes me laugh out loud. It is so funny to me. I'll show as soon as it's showable. I'm almost done with my little 6x6 Noogies Goes to the Big Top...

And tomorrow is doggie transport day! Pictures will follow! Have a great weekend y'all. Back to the grind for now! :-)

and...

"Hey Mamaw" is up on Ebay. Sugar's whiskers are painted with a real cat whisker. What fun! I found a whisker in the floor (naturally shed of course) and taped it to a old crappy brush. It was great for getting fine little whiskers! The complete title is "Hey Mamaw, open up. It's just me and Sugar"--so I'm a little verbose--sue me. I'm still a little floored that people are buying these little things for some juicy bucks. I'm afraid it's a joke or something. Am I weird? (Don't answer that.)

Saturday excitement! We're (tentatively) going to be part of a puppy transport relay on Saturday! This little gal is going to a person in Virginia and we're going to be one of four "legs" of this puppy's journey to freedom. She comes from a "high kill" shelter, so she's one lucky puppy! We're awaiting specific instructions. It should be fun. I've always wanted to be part of one of these transport relays. It only takes 2 or 3 hours of your time if you're just one leg of the journey and a deserving animal is able to get to a new forever home instead of being euthanized. The new owner is spared a lengthy trip.

see?

I am making good on my promise of polka-dot toes...

It would be better if I didn't have short little stubs for toes, but surely you can forgive me. The funny thing is I have long fingers and short toes. That has to mean something.

little devils...

My little devil is up on Ebay...

Rooney seems really chipper since he escaped the university vet school clinic. He looks pretty awful with a shaved belly, back and right front leg, but he's been crawling under the covers, snuggling and begging for food like usual. I guess he had two days of IV fluids and enough aggravation!

Meanwhile, Pickles, our older pup, decided to get one of her nails stuck in the wire mesh of our patio glider. Rip. Off it came. All that's sticking out is the quick--like when you pull lobster out of the claw (not that I eat such things, mind you). Poor thing. Animals are so much tougher than we are. She's not even limping. But, you know she does need to get to the vet for some antibiotics. It's been a damn revolving door for a good seven months now. Whatever.

My toenails are brown with bright periwinkle polkadots. I know it's unfair to talk and not show, but I don't have my camera with me right now. You'll have to wait! I have a friend who showed up with a brown/pink combo she had done at a salon in Nashville and I just had to try it myself. I love it. Daddy would have shaken his head and snickered. It makes me smile when I think he would have laughed at something I've done.

P.S. THANKS FOR ALL THE E-HUGS FOR ROONEY...HE SAYS "MEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!" Purr.

coming soon...

to an Ebay listing near you...a snippet below of my "little devil"...

I picked up Rooney and he was sooooo pitiful. His back was shaved with his little vertebrae poking out, a bandage on his right front leg--just as sad-looking as he could be. He's going to get lotsa lovin' this weekend. Poor thing. Makes me cry.

poor Rooney...

Rooney is in the ICU for the night because his temperature dropped dramatically during his myelogram. Thankfully, the lymph node aspiration did not show signs of lymphoma, which was my fear. It does show lots of inflammation though. Now I have to take him back home for a few days until he has one of his lameness episodes; then take him back to the hospital so he can be evaluated while he's got the wobblies. Then they want to take some spinal fluid to pin down the neurological problem. In the meantime, he has to have an endoscopic exam and bowel biopsy to pin down the chronic diarrhea. The vet thinks we have two problems; not one.

Yippee-fuckin'-yea. Poor thing. I just hate this. When is the rain going to let up? I can't even think straight anymore.

A black and white I took of Rooney several years ago...

London, Rooney and ceiling cracks...

LONDON...heavy, deep sigh...Not a good way to start the day. My heartfelt condolences go out to all those poor people.

Rooney spent the night at the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital and is undergoing a battery of neurological tests. I don't know what is going to happen. Apparently there were some abnormalities in the radiograph and they are going to follow up with an abdominal ultrasound, nerve conduction test and myelogram (by the way, my right kidney is now for sale on Ebay). Hopefully, he'll get to come home this afternoon, but I'm not betting on it. There was a mention of a possible spinal problem. Ugh.

Meanwhile there are two buckets in the dining room to catch:
a) pouring water
b) falling plaster

The crack in our ceiling has gotten exponentially worse, even though the new gutters and other repairs are scheduled and/or in the works (the gutters have to go up first)...but hey, not before a tropical depression mows through the area. Glad I bought a new mop the other day.

Add serious medical testing today going on for another family member. I can't even go into that.

Let's see, where did I put that silver lining?

Well, at least I have two more small paintings in the works that I really like---one is "Noogie Goes to the Big Top" and "Hey Mamaw, Open Up, It's Just Me and Sugar," which will be listed under the much less verbose title "Hey Mamaw." There's a third--a little devil--but I don't have it named yet.

a circle of string...

Actually it was a circle of yarn that I found on Daddy's grave yesterday. It was the yarn I wound around the hydrangea and herb bouquet I took to him on Father's Day.

I have a little whisk broom and some garden shears that I take with me with I go visit. I pluck and shear weeds and brush dirt from his headstone. I do the same with my grandparents' marker next to his.

I didn't notice my bouquet was gone at first, but once I did notice I thought it probably had been mowed over or had been blown away once it had become fragile and dry. But then, as I brushed dust and dirt from the back of Daddy's stone I noticed something. The yarn. It was laying on the grave; still coiled. Someone had taken the hydrangea blooms, slipped off the yarn and left it there.

Next time I will bundle some new stems in my bouquet--dried up, very thorny, rose stems. I would have been much happier if it had been inadvertently mowed over. There are plenty of other real flowers left on other graves that have remained untouched. But I suppose dried hydrangeas are worth stealing...

if you're an asshole.

Lydia's House of Kibble...

I put up Lydia's House of Kibble on Ebay. She's an 8 x 10 canvas panel.

let's do the polka...

I sold this framed 18 x 24 this week, too. Not to ebay, but directly through someone.

I'm kind of stunned people are buying these. I have been thoroughly chastised by several people for having such an attitude. Maybe it scares me or something. Whatever...at least three more are in the works and should be up this weekend.

don't you wish it weren't so...

Sigh.