Cheerily, cheer up

I think Mother Nature decided to play a bit of an April Fool's joke on us here in Wisconsin.  I opened the blinds this morning and was shocked to see a totally white landscape spread out before me.  Fortunately it melted as the day went along, but what a dreary and damp day.  I had to keep reminding myself that yes, it is spring and it will warm up.
There was one day a few weeks ago that Amelia kept saying "cheer up, cheerily, cheer up", through out the day.   She had learned this little saying for the robins last year when we would listen to our bird CD, but it had been a long time since we had listened to it.  A few days later after she had been saying this , we saw our first robin.  It's kind of a strange little coincidence wouldn't you say?
I've always wondered why the state bird of Wisconsin is the robin, it's not the prettiest bird out there and it leaves us  for the winter.  Why not the bold little chickadee or the vibrant cardinal or even the noisy blue jay? They all brave  the tough Wisconsin winters, unlike the robin who heads for warmer weather.   This spring more than ever, I've come to realize the significance of the robin.  Everyone both young and old always looks forward to seeing their first robin of the spring, because it always means the same thing, that spring is here.  I love that their song is described as  "cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily", because that is what we do when we see our first robin of the spring.

Making the Cut

I've been working on this robin painting for the last few days.  I really didn't have much of a plan for it but I had started painting in a color palette that I usually don't use,  kind of a gold and a seafoam green type color, I wanted to try something different.  Well slowly the green turned to mostly aqua and the gold turned to a nice light yellow and I added some nice red, and some daffodils.  Over the course of the day I started to like the piece less and less, and then started painting over things, pasting things, but the little robin seemed to be getting lost.  At first I thought I should try to salvage it and started painting yellow all over the place and for some unknown reason I  tried some pink which really pushed me over and I grabbed my scissors and cut the little guy out.



Whew, what a relief! I felt so much better after I got him out of there.  Poor guy. 



He looks so much happier in his new little home where he's telling me to "cheer up, cheerily, cheer up," for all is not lost.