This week

This week I've been busy getting ready for the Holiday Faire at Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School here in town.  It is a really beautiful event.  Friday night is adults only and then Saturday is for the entire family. They actually have chestnuts roasting on an open fire outside the school!  The school is decorated very festive and cheerful, they have live music, an organic lunch, kids crafts and activities, along with wonderful holiday shopping from local vendors. Usually I'm just an attendee, but this year I thought I would be a vendor, hopefully I will have some time to do a little Christmas shopping.

 

Back in July when it was about 98 degrees, I was working on some Christmas paintings.  Fischer was wondering why in the world I was working on Christmas paintings in the middle of summer.  I told him that it made me feel cooler!  Here is one of my favorite pieces that I did.  It is similar to my painting called "Our Town",  this one is titled "Winter in Our Town"  

available here

This piece makes me dream about a warm and cozy fire after a wonderful day of snowboarding or skiing or any kind of winter fun.  

Doing the turkey tiptoe!

Amelia has been listening to her Dan Zanes and Friends:  House Party  CD  a lot lately, like 2-3 times a day, lucky for me it's a really great children's CD.  One of our favorite songs on there is "Tennessee Wig Walk" which is a remake of Bonnie Lou's 1953 version.  If you've never heard this song you can listen to a snippet here.  It is a very cheery and fun song.  Amelia will stop what she's doing when this song comes on just so she can dance!  This afternoon I was busy drawing turkeys while we had this CD on  and I was wondering how I should draw the turkeys.  I thought it might look kind of funny if they looked like they were tiptoeing away so they wouldn't get eaten on Thanksgiving.  After I finished the drawing I  kept looking at it and it didn't quite look like they were tiptoeing and as I kept looking, "Tennessee Wig Walk"  was playing in my head( as it has been for the past few weeks),

I'm a bow-legged chicken, I'm a knock-kneed hen
Never been so happy since I don't know when
I walk with a wiggle and a giggle and a squawk
Doin' the Tennessee Wig-walk.
To a tune on a fiddle on a hardwood floor
Tho' I'm broke and I'm weary and my back is sore
I walk with a wiggle and a giggle and a squawk
Doin' the Tennessee Wigwalk.
Put your toes together, your knees apart
Bend your back, get ready to start
Flap your elbows, just for luck

Then you wiggle and you waddle like a baby duck.  

Dance with me honey, tap your toes and glide
And we'll always be together side by side
Walk with a wiggle and a giggle and a squawk
Doin' the Tennessee Wigwalk.
Repeat all above.
Walk with a wiggle, wiggle with a walk
And you're doin' the Tennessee Wigwalk
Doin' the Tennessee Wigwalk [fade]
Doin' the Tennesse Wigwalk

I then realized that my turkeys looked more like they were dancing, like they were "doin' the turkey tiptoe" (of course sung to "Tennessee Wigwalk")!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

(don't forget to walk with a wiggle and a giggle and a squawk)

Peppermint and Pine

Just a little holiday happiness to share with you.

Looking around

Outside:                             

 

Inside:

The hunter and the hunted

Opening day for deer hunting tomorrow and its a big deal in these here parts!  (not so much in our household thank goodness)  Here's a quick little drawing I did this morning as I was waiting for everyone to wake up and was thinking about our modern day hunting culture. 

 

 Have a great weekend! 

A little reminder

One of the first things I noticed when moving back to Wisconsin from Idaho was all the different birds that you hear, even in winter.  The bird that stuck out the most for me was the blue jay.  Blue jays are really quite noisy, but can make quite a variety of different sounds that are pretty cool to listen to.  Blue jays tend to get a bad rap because of their bold and aggressive behavior, but they are really a beautiful bird.  Once in awhile we find  blue jay feathers in our yard or out on a walk and I'm always amazed at the beauty of it with  the different shades of iridescent blues, with black stripes and tips of white.  I think one of the main reasons too that I like blue jays is that they remind me of my grandma.  I didn't know this until I moved back and heard them.  It immediately reminded me of my grandma and especially fishing with her.  It's amazing how as a kid I didn't even notice this, but somehow it was got stored subconsciously in my memory.  I love how our senses are so in tune with our surroundings and can trigger long lost memories.

So I guess you could say I painted this one for my grandma!

available here

Looking around

 Outside:

Inside:

ps.  Amelia finally got to enjoy a birthday cupcake two days after her birthday.

 

Rain check please

Amelia's 5th birthday was yesterday and this is where she spent most of the day,

on the couch.

 

She woke up yesterday morning with the stomach flu.  It doesn't seem right that she was sick on her birthday, so I think she deserves a rain check.  

These are such sad birthday pictures.

k

There was a glimmer of  happiness when she opened her birthday presents, but it didn't last long.  She didn't  get to eat a cupcake on her birthday, and she was just too sick to even care.  

 

Luckily we gave her an early birthday present on Sunday, a new little kitten which she named Biscuit.

I think this is going to be one spoiled kitten.  Amelia and Fischer have been fighting over who gets to hold the kitten.    In the picture above, Fischer tucked her in for her nap in a doll carrier with a small blanket. 

Amelia loves bags.  So I made her a little bag that looks like a house, which opens and closes with a nice hidden zipper so she can carry all sorts of important things such as fairies, little dolls, letters, pictures and whatever else a 5 year old likes to carry around.

 

 

Although she's feeling better today, there still has been a lot of lying around and kitty snuggling.

Forgotten

I've been busy updating my Etsy shop,  rewriting titles, changing tags and decreasing shipping costs all in hopes of bringing in more traffic to my shop.  I just can't seem to figure out Etsy.  My shop has been open for 2 years and I've had 10 sales.  Pretty sad isn't it?  Anyway, today I found an image that I thought was listed and wasn't.

I painted this one back in July or August.  It was one of the few paintings I did this summer.  Inspiration definitely went on summer vacation, somewhere far, far away I think.  (luckily she did return this fall feeling refreshed)

                                                                        "In the Thistle"  available here

 So while I didn't paint much this summer, and choosing not to fight with inspiration not being here, I chose instead to focus on getting back in shape and socializing.    I finally started going to our local bike shops (Blue Dog Cycle) women's ride, which got me totally hooked on mountain biking and loving it.  Every Wednesday we would bike and then go to the wine bar afterwards.  How awesome is that?  Besides biking I've finally gotten into a wonderful running groove.  I've always ran, but its been so hard to have any kind of exercise routine since having kids, but now that they are getting older its becoming a little bit easier.  (it still takes some will power though, like getting up at 5am today and heading out into the very cold darkness to get my run in before the kiddos get up for school)  So while it bothered me once and awhile that I had zero inspiration this summer, there was plenty of other fun things to do this summer to keep me occupied, cookouts, picnics, bonfires, late summer nights with the kids and neighbors.    For the most part I just accepted that I wasn't inspired  and knew it was for a reason and it would of course return and it did.

Have a wonderful weekend, I hope you find something fun or inspirational to do.   I've been busy sewing a little birthday present for Amelia and have also started some holiday crafting that I'll share next week.