You're just a pack of cards...

said Alice.

I read a great quotation yesterday that seems to fit my life to this point.

"I may not have gone where I wanted to go, but I seem to have ended up where I wanted to be."

I'm happy with my life. Dont know anyone I'd trade places with. Are there problems? Sure. More than I like to remember. But I am blessed beyond words. My wife loves me and has tolerated me for thirty years. There's a lot to be said for that. We have a big family and make it a point to love them all, as well.

Next week ends the class on James and Elijah. I dont enjoy this lesson because it shows us the end of Ahab the king. His life spent in self-gratification, he dies without fanfare. An arrow let fly at a whim in the midst of battle. It's a sad life and I dont like telling the story, but it is what it is. While the uplifting of Elijah is so joyful, for my heart there is no balance or consolation for such loss.

I've almost finished the commission piece. There are a few minor touch ups to do, then it will be ready for framing and delivery.

Motivation again...

See what I mean? It's been a week since I blogged. Yes, a lot's been going on, but really, dont you think I've had fifteen minutes to do this.

Last weekend was the firm picnic. It was a lot of fun, at Hyland Hills Adventure Golf. It's one of those groovy mini-golf setups with a total of 54 holes, plus go-karts and a kickin dragster ride. Beth and Derek rode together, but D wouldnt ride again. Leah road with me and went three times!

I took Thursday off and went up to Winter Park with Wes Hyde and Griff Jones. They're a couple of really awesome painters from here in Colorado. They each did two really nice pieces. I got one, which needs just a little touch up. Then it wil be super cool.

Speaking of super cool, one of the first things I did there was to fall in th creek. Yup. Just went head over heels into the crystal clear (and rather chilly) Rocky Mountain spring water. We were just below a beaver dam, so the water wasnt freezing, maybe 45 degrees or so. The cool thing about it was that I didnt have to worry about getting wet. I could tromp through the stream to whatever places I wanted. As it turned out, though, I stood in the middle of a lovely mountain meadow and painted some trees and distant mountains. It really was a great day. The dumb thing is that I always wind up in a hurry and forget my camera.

Not so super cool...Have you been watching your 401k? The last month has wiped out all the progress I'd made since January. I know I'm not supposed to watch it, but I do. Up to now, the thing has been rockin! like 12% or more. Now the annual return will probably wind up at about what I could get on a savings account. (Quick note: HSBC offers an online savings account at 5.05%. There's no minimum balance to maintain and you can start it up with just $10.)

The Carrot at the End of the Tunnel...

Yes, it's a mixed metaphor. I love these and thank God for the people who collect them. Here's one link..http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engl/lang/mixmet.htm

A few of my favorites from this site are:

"too many black sheep in my closets"
"I'd like to be a fish on the wall at that meeting."
"too many oars in the fire"
"a pandora's box of worms"

One my personal favorites, not listed on the site:

"Dont count your chickens before they cross the road."

Well, it's kids night here at the old homestead. Here you see the girls, along with their cousins, Josiah and Derek. What a lot of memories this brings up.

My cousin was the first girl I ever kissed on the lips. We were both five or six years old and had seen so many people kissing on TV that we just had to try it.

I fell in love with my neighbor's cousin the summer before seventh or eighth grade. We got kicked out of the public pool for kissing too much. We tried it while she was floating on her back. Sitting on the edge of the pool. I picked her up in the shallow end and carried her, kissing, until I couldnt touch bottom. That's when we tried it underwater. When we came up the lifeguard made us leave. I'd have killed my kids if I found out they'd done it. Cant imagine what her dad would've done.

Today I cut branches off our big old maple tree. They've been hanging down over the sidewalk and the street. Had to get up on a ladder and have Beth hold the end so I could get up high enough for some of them. Our neighbor next door makes walking sticks, so I saved a few good ones for him. We took the girls the the $1.25 a scoop Chinese place. It wasnt bad, really. Better than I'd have expected for the price. The kung pao veggies were a little over cooked. I wont complain, though, when I can feed all five of us for less than $15...

My Girl

More great choreography from the Temptations.

The Cat's a Killer Diller...

It's a line from the Drum Boogie, which is sung by Barbara Stanwyck in the film Ball of Fire. It isnt necessarily a film I'd recommend, but the song is filled with vernacular of the times like killer diller, knock yourself out, it's really gonna send you.

This is Leah. She's the oldest and tomorrow's her birthday. She'll be seven. Leah knows all the words to My Girl because I've sung it to her from the day she was born.

It's bedtime now and the girls have requested that I find I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. I'm surprised at the people who have recorded it. Apart from all the karaoke singers, there are the Jackson 5, Jessica Simpson, even John Cougar (Mellencamp) and Twisted Sister (not with Twisted Sister). The original Jimmy Boyd version didnt show up at all, which isnt surprising, I suppose, as it was recorded way back in '52.

More Thunder and Lightning...

On the Weather Channel today, they interviewed a woman named Susan Strom- The Lightning Lady. She makes her living shooting photos like these. They say she can smell when a storm is coming and knows where to set up for the best chance at this kind of stuff. Click the image to visit her website.

Lightning and thunder bring God to mind for a lot of people. I suppose it's because of their inimitable power. It might be because of the thunder and lightning atop Mt Sinai when Moses went up to confer with God, in addition to the pillars of fire and cloud that led the Jews through the wilderness. Maybe its the combination of incredible beauty and along with all that power.

God seems to like doing that. Think of killer whales, tigers and leopards, cobras, or black widow spiders. It's like He's telling us, even through nature, things arent always what they seem. Beauty doesnt mean goodness. Most prey animals dont see in color, so the patterns of these animals serve as camoflage, but for those creatures who do, the bright colors get our attention right away and tell us to hoof it before something really dangerous catches up with us.

Mythbusters did a couple of shows using lightning machines. In one episode, they built a little house and strapped a phone to Buster's head to see if lightning could kill someone talking on the phone during a storm. With a machine that can generate bolts of 200,000 volts and some really faulty wiring, they dubbed the experiment plausible. The man who ran the lightning machine said that real lightning can reach over one million volts.

I love Mythbusters. What a great way to make a living. They've done some of the most outrageous stuff I can imagine. I suppose I dont have a favorite episode. The truth is, I'd just like to know how they got so connected. They have ex-FBI guys coming out with superduperexplodingsilverpaintthat'llblowyourpantsoff. And they can blow up cement trucks and safes. I probly couldnt even get a permit to set off an M-80.

I'm not afraid of lighting, but I also dont go out and give it the opportunity to hit me. Understanding the danger and avoiding it is not the same thing as being afraid.

We'll probably find some of Daisy's little turds on the floor in the morning.

Somebody get me ladder...

I remember seeing a movie about Jesus once and as the soldier climbed up to nail the sign over His head, someone in the theater said, "Hey guys! I can see my house from here!"

That's Longs Peak over there. I get to see it every morning, except when it shrouds itself with clouds. It's one of three fourteeners I can see from my neighborhood. Mt. Evans and Pikes Peak are the others. But I like Longs the best. It just looks so majestic and regal. They say that on a clear day you can see Kansas from the summit. I think it's rhetoric, but I'm not good at distances.

It's been a typical homeowner weekend. Cut the grass. Dug up a little volunteer bush and put it into some water. I'll let it winter in the house and then plant it in the spring. It looks deciduous, so that might be deceiving as time goes on. I'll keep an eye on the roots and make sure they're growing. I dont know if trees lose their leaves indoors. Ficuses (Ficii?) dont.

It's been quiet this weekend, too. The girls are with their dad. Julie's been working and Sharon is house-sitting. It seems kind of surreal to be just Beth and I. Wonder what we'll do after they all move out again.

Take the A Train...

It poured downtown today. Just before the rain, though, there was an awesome lightning storm. I say awsome, others might say awful. What was so cool was to see the lightning striking the 50 story buildings all around us. Of course, there was no delay of thunder, just FLASH and CRACK-KABOOM! I thought it was fun to stand, waiting for the bus, and watch the show.

Had a little chat with Laurie Pace this evening. She's on her way through to Glenrock Wyoming where she has a show opening tomorrow night. We're going to try and get together over the weekend.

Last night I bought some cheap frames at Michaels. Now I think they're ugly and I'm going to return them, if I can.

But wait! There's more...

I love listening to Norah Jones. There's a nostalgic feeling in her music that takes me back to nights when I was a kid. We'd have people over, or visit some of my parents' friends.

Those were hot nights. Most people we knew didnt have air conditioning. There would be fans all over the place. The old reciprocating kind with wire frames wrapped around metal blades that would "cutcher fingers plumb off". Of course, they'd have Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Hank Williams, or somebody on the Hi-Fi and play bridge in the kitchen while we kids ran in and out, slamming the screen door, and they'd holler at us about it.

What I remember most, though, is how bright the moon was. Most nights we'd run all over Oklahoma chasing "lightning bugs" or playing hide-and-seek, just by the light of the moon.

I watch my grandchildren play now, and I wonder what memories they'll have, if the Lord tarries.

Motivation...

I am acquainted, via the internet, with a very good artist named Laurie Pace. She paints every day and sells some through galleries, some through the web. This is one of her pieces, Evening Waterlily. Dont you just love the way she uses color? She really is an artist, and so versatile with style. Click on the image to visit her website and you'll see what I mean.

I dont know that I could make a discipline out of painting every day. I started at the beginning of the year, but life took the motivation out of that in short order.

Now I think I need to work on that. The truth is, I am not a patient person most of the time. There's no problem waiting for something that's beyond my control, but if there's a way I can speed things up, I'm usually right there to make it happen

As it happens, I'm that way with art, to my regret. No matter the size of the piece, or the subject matter, I want to get it all done alla prima. That's fine for painting en plein air, but with studio work it isnt a good idea for me.