Neil

          I started painting Neil last week and worked on him for two days before the weekend hit. Then it wasn’t until Wednesday of the following week that I was able to get back to it.

          To refresh your memory, here’s Neil.

          And this is at the end of two days’ work.

          After I finished with the hand and foot, I put it to my peeps on the watercolor page on Facebook.

          “What can I do to improve this?” I asked

          The two comments I heard most often, other than “nothing” or compliments, were, “His foot is confusing. Commit to the knee or lose the foot. It’ll just look like he’s lying on his belly instead.”

          I was asked to paint the photo so I put the foot in. And they were right. I needed the knee to justify the position of the foot.

          The other thing I heard was to add a warm wash over his face.

          Because of the lighting he did look too yellow, but he wasn’t really that yellow. I did, however, add a warm wash anyway.

          “I’d like a darker background,” my client said.

          I darkened the background and it was too dark.

          Aye-yi-yi!

          That’s the reason I tried — for the very first time — a bokeh effect. That’s lifting in a pattern, like circles.

          The client thought it was still too dark. I went to work and lifted off more of the dark paint and added white.

Many watercolor artists say using white, or black for that matter, is a no-no. I’m such a rule breaker when it comes to art. If I think it needs white or black, I’m gonna use it.

After five days of work, this is what I have.

          The colors in the photo are not true, but they’re close.

          I may not be completely 100% done but it’s really, really close.

          Some people think that because I transfer the image I’m “cheating.” Transferring only gives me the skeleton, it doesn’t paint the portrait for me. It’s really important to have the proportions correct and transferring helps me do that. Besides, it’s not drawing that I want to do, its painting. Transferring frees me up to focus on the color, value, likeness, and expression. You might be surprised to know that even a serious portrait artist like Norman Rockwell used projectors and transfers throughout his career, not because he couldn’t draw, but because he cared more about accuracy than proving he could sketch everything freehand. It’s not cheating, it’s a tool. 

We put the gates up this week.

Mike used a rope and the tractor to hold the gate while he clamped it.

          Then he drilled holes for the screws. 

          We couldn’t leave the gates to the mercy of Mother Nature. Mike hammered in a piece of rebar, made a loop at the end of a rope, and now the gate won’t be swinging in the wind.

           “Peg, Mike’s choked up pretty far on that hammer,” you say.

Yes. Yes, he is. But it’s because that’s all he had to work with. The handle was broken. And since he sent me for a heavy hammer and he didn’t want to use the sledgehammer, you get what I find, and that’s what I found.

Let’s head to the kitchen next, shall we?

          I walked out into the kitchen one morning and found a present from one of the cats.

          Waking up to a headless mouse isn’t my favorite way to start the day.

          “Why do they just eat the head?” you wanna know.

          Instinct.

They eat the most nutrient‑dense part and the brain is high in fat and protein. He didn’t eat the rest because he wasn’t hungry.

I’m just glad he killed the mouse. He can kill them all day long and I’d be happy to pick’em up by a foot or little tail and toss it over the fence. I’m sure the possums will be happy to finish it off for him. 

On a more pleasant note...

I was making a taco salad for my lunch on Saturday. I use lettuce instead of tortilla chips and had the lettuce sitting on the counter ready to go.

I moved over to the other side of the sink, where the microwave is, put the taco meat on a plate, covered it with a paper towel, and popped it into the microwave. Then I went to the fridge for the salsa and saw a bowl of leftover green beans sitting there. Well, they weren’t getting any younger and I do like green beans. I took the bowl and set it beside the microwave.

I’ll put them in when the taco meat comes out, I thought.

I’m standing there, waiting for the time to be up, and I’m thinking about dumping the taco meat on top of the lettuce.

Well, silly me! When I took the meat from the microwave I promptly dumped it into the bowl sitting right there — the bowl of green beans!

Aye-yi-yi!

I was committed at this point. I put the green-bean-taco-meat bowl into the microwave and gave it another minute and a half. Stirred it together, dumped it on top of the lettuce, added salsa, and ate my lunch. Not exactly the way I would’ve chosen to eat it but you know what? It wasn’t half bad.

And that’s how green beans ended up in my taco salad. Life keeps things interesting, doesn’t it.

On a sweeter note...

I made a snack mix that has been renamed to Marry Me Snack Mix. I sorta wish they wouldn’t do that. There wasn’t anything wrong with the old name!

“What was it called?” you wanna know.

It had lots of other names, including Coconut Crunch Mix, Almond Coconut Crunch Mix, Coconut Chex Mix, Caramel Crunch Mix, Sweet & Crunchy Party Mix, Bake Sale Crunch Mix, and Church Social Snack Mix —take your pick.

It’s a good recipe that seems to be enjoyed by everyone.

One of the ingredients the recipe calls for is sliced almonds. I didn’t have sliced almonds but I did have a whole bag of natural — or raw — almonds. I couldn’t see buying more almonds so I just roughly chopped and added them. No one seemed to mind but I wish I’d’ve toasted them first. 

The neighbors are up this weekend, working on the old place they bought. Eventually, it’ll be a retreat when they come to hunt or just need a weekend away from the city.

Some of the guys were working in the house while Lou and Zack were clearing the huge tree they’d cut up.

They’ve put on a new roof, put in new floor joists and new floors, new walls, all new kitchen, added a half-bath, redid the wiring and all the light fixtures.

Mike rescued this guy from the trash for me. It was covered in sawdust and dirt so he power washed it for me.

“What are you gonna do with that?” you ask.

I don’t know. Even if I hang it in the cat room, at least it’s not in the landfill. 

While we were at Lou’s a whole herd of ducks waddled up into the yard. I reached for my camera and they took off.

We took a short ride on the golf cart and I took a few pictures for you.

“Is that a wire leaning against the tree?” Mike asked.

“Where?” I hadn’t seen it.

Mike backed up.

“It does look like wire,” I told him, “But it’s a vine in an almost perfect circle.” 

The barren hillside at the lower bridge.

“That mailbox has a door on the back,” I told Mike.

“Why would it have a door on the back?” he wondered.

“Well, if it’s in front of your house you wouldn’t have to walk around it to get your mail,” I said. It makes perfect sense but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one before. 

Leaves are falling.

Moss on top of an old wheel.

I took a few more pictures on a trip out to get groceries.

A new gas well. 

I couldn’t figure out what this is on top of the roof of this truck. It looks like a rubber mount with an eye hook in it and a piece of wire. I assume the long rubber bumper is to keep a cap from rubbing.

And one more picture. Big cranes at the factory in Wysox. At first I thought it was another gas well. 

We were watching a movie the other day. It’s been longer ago than the other day, it’s been a couple of weeks now. We were watching the credits scroll through so at the end we could give the movie a “like.” That way the algorithm will pick movies like it in the future. To pass the time we’ll read the names.

“Look at that one! One of the unit movers.” I said and spelled it before it went to the next screen. “m-Y-k-Y-t-Y-sh-Y-n! That’s a lot of ys!”

According to Copilot, my AI buddy, it’s pronounced mih‑KIH‑tih‑shin and it’s a Ukrainian surname. It comes from the given name Mykyta (the Ukrainian form of Nikita), which itself traces back to the Greek Niketas, meaning “victorious.” The ending ‑shyn (or sometimes ‑ishyn) is a common Ukrainian suffix meaning “descendant of” or “belonging to.” So the name roughly means “descendant of Mykyta.

I write my letter blog in Microsoft Word before I copy and paste it to my Blogger site, and over the years Word has given me my share of fits. If I forget something and go back to add it, the pictures will jump around. If I’m at the bottom of a page and try to insert a picture, Word decides to put it someplace else — at the top of the page or even on a different page — and then I have to go hunting for it. Trying to put two pictures side by side can send them skittering all over the place, and no matter what I do, they won’t stay where I want them. The pictures jump around and let me just say that my biggest frustration has been the pictures jumping around. But not my only frustration. Lately Word has been turning off my spell check right in the middle of my writing sessions, then I have to figure out how to turn it back on.

Jenn, my friend and editor, sent me this, and I laughed right out loud. I can absolutely relate — Word seems to have a mind of its own sometimes.

Let’s call this one done!

Done!

Loved

 

          I was working on a portrait of my mother and my aunt. I’ll call it “Sisters” if I ever finish it. It’s currently at its ugly stage. I can see my mother and my aunt in them, I just need to pull ‘em out. Whether I can get beyond the ugly to something I’d be pleased to show remains to be seen.

          And no, I don’t feel inclined to show it to you. Not yet.

          “I’d like to commission you to paint a picture of my nephew Neil,” Goldie, one of my church peeps said. “He died when he was twenty-one and this is my sister’s favorite picture of him. It’ll be her Christmas gift.”

          Neil actually lived with Goldie in his teen years before returning to New Mexico after he graduated school. She loves him like one of her own.

          Goldie sent me the picture and I saw that sweet face and knew I wanted to try. I felt honored that she trusted me with something so precious.

          I put “Sisters” on the back burner and started Neil.

          “Would you like to title it something other than ‘Neil’?” I asked.

          “Loved Beyond Words,” she said.

          And that says it all.

          This is Neil after three days of painting, and I have to tell you, he didn’t have an ugly stage.

          Even when he didn’t have eyes at the end of day two.

          It’s not done.

          I may come across as prideful when I show you my paintings, but nothing could be further from the truth. When I look at this... when I look at what my hands have created, I feel amazed. How is this even possible? How did this come out of my hands?

          And that’s how I felt after painting “Trish” too.

          I’ll never forget that this is truly a gift from God.

          God made me wait a long time before He gave me my heart’s desire.

          “Maybe God waited until your life had the space, the maturity, and the tenderness to receive the gift fully,” I was told.

          I had the weirdest thought yesterday. You already know my quirks and how my mind works, and you’ve never made me feel any less loved because of them. With that in mind, let me tell you the thought that popped, unbidden, into my head.

          Is this how God felt when He created the world?

I’m not comparing myself to God, not even a little. But maybe the joy I feel is just a faint echo of the joy our Lord felt. In Genesis 1, after each act of creation, God looks at what He made and says, “It was good.” And after He finishes the whole world, He steps back, takes in the full picture, and says, “It was very good.”

That’s delight.

Satisfaction.

Joy in beauty.

Pleasure in the work of His hands.

And that’s how I feel.

          I always tell people, when they praise my paintings, that all the glory goes to God. I’d like to reflect that with a Bible reference on the back of each of my paintings.

I actually got the idea from an egg company that sells to Aldi. They print a Bible verse on the inside of their cartons, and every time I open one it makes me smile. Something about that simple little witness stuck with me, and I thought, “Why couldn’t I do the same with my paintings?”

          “What’s it say?” you ask.

          “This is the Day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24”

          I don’t know why they capitalize Day and Let, but they do.

          Here are three suggestions.

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory.” Psalm 115:1

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.” Romans 11:36

“Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

          Would y’all think about it and tell me which of these you like or maybe you could suggest something more appropriate.

         

          Not everything I do comes out right.

          Let’s go to the kitchen. Yeah. That’s where we’ll go next and I’ll show you my failures, although they weren’t so bad they had to be tossed.

          “What did you do now?” you wanna know.

          I’ve been collecting things to send to my best old friend in West Virginia. I love surprising her with little pretties and yummy goodies. She’ll call me and we’ll open the box together.

          “Since I’m making you a box, can I bake you anything?” I asked her.

          “I’ve been hungry for some of your homemade bread,” Trish said.

          Who’d’ve thought mixing together flour, water, salt, and yeast, then baking it could make something that someone can dream about?

          There’ve been times I’ve sent her boxes of goodies and it took a full week to get to her. Once it took the scenic route and went to Indianapolis, Indiana first!

          I always try to send the box on a Monday so it stood a chance of getting there before the weekend.

          It takes three hours to make my daughter’s bread recipe. Then cooling time. I got the idea that the truck would leave the Wyalusing post office in the early afternoon.

          I can make it in the morning, I thought.

          I made the bread and decided to use the proof setting on my oven. I guess I should’ve known to check it before an hour was up. It rose — and fell. I know bread can rise a second time so I left it as long as I could before I felt like time was running out.

          I gotta bake it so it can cool, I thought. Putting warm bread in a plastic bag equals soggy bread and if it stays that way the whole way to West Virginia, it could very well arrive moldy, and nobody wants that, not even the birds!

          I called the post office to see exactly how much time I had.

          “The truck’s just leaving,” Anna told me. It was ten thirty.

          Unless I wanted to get up at two in the morning, there was no way to make my plan work. It would just have to be a day older.

          I pulled the poor, sad, pathetic first batch from the oven, flipped a loaf out unto my hot pad, then flipped it back, crosswise, on top of the bread tin to cool. It’s the way my mother would do it.

Aye-yi-yi!

It made such a mess. Where the bread rose and fell and rose again (but not as far) created crispies that broke off and scattered across the top of my stove.

          I had all day for a do-over and the result of the second batch was much better.

          But, like I said, the first batch didn’t go to waste. I shared it.

          “It’s still good,” Miss Rosie said.

          My second SNAFU was equally as dramatic.

          My beautiful friend Annette came to visit. She and her handsome husband recently returned from a trip to Alaska and I wanted to hear all about it.

          In celebration of her visit I made a coffee cake.

          “You’re my guinea pig,” I told Annette. “My mother liked it baked in a nine-by-nine pan instead of a nine-by-thirteen, so I thought I’d try it that way,” I said. Then added, “Besides, I don’t need that much cake.”

          Okay! Okay! I know it’s technically the same amount of cake. Kinda like the old joke, “Cut my pizza into eight. I don’t think I can eat ten.”

          I had it timed so it would be baking when she arrived (and make the house smell good) and we could have warm cake. When the timer went off I got up to check it. Then went back to the table where we were having our chat. “It’s not done. It looks far from done! I’ll give it another ten minutes. I knew something was wrong when I poured it into the pan. It’s almost like I only put one cup of flour in it instead of two.”

I did think that, when I was pouring it into the pan. I couldn’t remember if I’d put in two cups of flour or not, but I figured I must’ve. In my memory, the batter was supposed to slide slowly from the bowl into the pan — thick enough that I’d have to spread it across the bottom. Not this time, though. This time it looked more like a milkshake than a coffee cake.

But it had been a long time since I’ve made a coffee cake.

Maybe I’m misremembering, I told myself, and continued anyway. At that point, I was committed.

After another ten minutes it was done. I let it cool some before I cut it. When I went to plate it I realized all the crumb topping had sunk to the bottom, so I flipped them over.

          “It’s still good,” Annette said.

          I put some in a to-go container for her husband, flipping one piece over so you could see all the gooey, nutty, sweetness.

          Mike took us on a ride-about, ending with a quick trip down to deliver some of this mess to Miss Rosie and Lamar.

          They also thought it was good.

          That night, while making my TV-watching bowl of air-popped popcorn and getting the pups their nightly snack, what I had done wrong flashed in picture form across my mind’s eye.

          As plain as day I saw myself measuring out two cups of milk.

          Two cups.

          I glanced up to the recipe permanently tacked to the wall behind my counter.

          Guess what it said.

          “One cup?” you guess.

          Yep. The recipe only calls for one cup of milk.

          OY!

          It wasn’t a complete disaster. It still baked up. It still tasted good. It just wasn’t the coffee cake I usually make.

          “Could you have added an extra cup of flour?” you ask.

          I’d have to ask the wizard of the culinary world, my sister Phyllis, but I bet I could’ve. And who knows? I may even make it that way again. A gooey bottom layer isn’t what the recipe intended, but it sure didn’t hurt anything.

Around the house...

Mike dug the holes around the base of the poles for our drive gates, preparing them for concrete.

We have a concrete mixer but Mike prefers to use the bucket of the tractor to mix and haul the concrete in.

“It’s easier,” he said.

And I can see that. The water and electric are at the house and the place we needed the concrete was near the end of the driveway. There’s no way we could’ve mixed it right by the holes so he would’ve had to tote the mixer the whole way down the driveway. The tractor was definitely the way to go.

Mike broke the bags in half and dumped the concrete out. It made dust.

“Don’t breathe that,” I warned, “or you’ll have concrete coated lungs.”

I operated the hose and added water as Mike turned the concrete.

Mixing concrete by hand reminds me a lot of shoveling snow — it doesn’t look like much until you’re halfway through and wondering why your back hurts and your arms feel like wet noodles. Mike had to take a break and sat on the golf cart, which was nearby.

Rather than stand there and do nothing, I took a turn.

I was surprised when I stopped for a breath and heard the click of the camera shutter. Mike took a picture without me asking him to! And that, my loves, is why you get to see this old woman mixing concrete instead of cake batter.

Back down the driveway we went, Mike on the tractor, me following on the golf cart.

Mike shoveled the concrete into the hole.

Then smoothed the surface with a trowel.

After we finished, and before we cleaned up the tools, we took a quick ride to check on the township guys and let Mike rest for a few minutes.

They’re working on our road, digging out some washboarding, and had our road closed for a couple of days.

Right now it’s just gravel and whether they replace the tar and chip yet this year or wait until they do the whole road next year, we don’t know.

Ignore the guy standing in the weeds. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

We had such a nice visit with my cousin Lorraine and her handsome husband, Mark. They moved to Boquete, Panama four and a half years ago and love it there. Their house has no heating unit and no air conditioning — that’s how temperate the weather is.

          I think Mike is the only one who remembered to suck his gut in.

          I finally put something on top of my art cart that Tiger would lay on again. It’s my lap quilt that Trish made for me several years ago.

          And Bondi wanted to go out for some vitamin D. I tried taking her out and sneaking back in, but it didn’t work. A few minutes later she’d be coming back in the house, then standing at the door woofing. After the third time, despite the fact that I was busy writing my jibber-jabber, I resigned myself to spending ten minutes or so outside with her.

          The sun had moved past where it would shine on the patio so I leaned against the post and just... did nothing. I looked over at my troop and saw how happy and content they were and smiled.

          Sitting in the sun is such a simple thing to do for them and with them. Unfortunately, our sun-sitting days are coming to an end.

Bondi is okay, I guess, since her bout with paralysis. She still walks a little funny, but she gets around, and that’s all I care about. Mike and I are trying to keep her from re‑injuring her spine, so we discourage all forms of jumping — up or down, doesn’t matter.

Easier said than done.

We keep Bondi tied at night so she has to stay on the bed. She has enough leash to get under the covers and almost down to our feet, and she doesn’t complain. Not usually.

Until the other morning.

I’d stayed up until almost one, caught up in a story I’m reading. At four, Bondi started fussing. I was tired and didn’t want to get up, so what did I do? I unhooked her and put her on the floor, figuring she’d go out and do her business.

Wrong.

All was well as I came out of the bedroom. I glanced around the living room — nothing. Through the dining room — still nothing. Out to the kitchen — nothing there either. Then I went for food to feed the cats, and I found it.

“Bondi!” I called.

Raini, head down, ducked out the pet flap. She knew what Bondi had done and was getting out of the line of fire.

I called a couple more times, but Bondi knew she was in trouble and wasn’t coming willingly. I started toward the living room, and she was already coming out — on her belly. Poor dog.

I smiled inwardly, picked her up, carried her to the mess, set her down, and said, “What did you do?” And in case she didn’t understand, I said it again, “Bondi, what did you do?” She looked truly contrite.

“OUTSIDE!” I said in my mean‑mommy voice. I can’t have her thinking what she did was okay. She almost looked relieved when she got up, turned tail, and headed for the door.

She does use the pet door, so I don’t know why sometimes she chooses not to.

 

We watched The Wizard of Oz Saturday night on Svengoolie. During the breaks, Sven had all kinds of Oz trivia, and it was really interesting.

If you’ve ever read the book, it’s not much like the movie. In Baum’s version, Dorothy’s shoes were silver, not ruby. The ruby slippers were added later because they showed up better on Technicolor. And the Wicked Witch of the West hardly appears in the book at all — she’s only in one chapter.

Sven also does a segment called “Too Drawn Out,” and Sven actually draws pretty well. Sometimes I get what he’s drawing, sometimes I don’t. Last night he drew “hell,” and a hot dog — sometimes called a “frank” — and then a bomb. I got it right away: L. Frank Baum, who wrote the original Wizard of Oz.

Someone else who draws well is Trent. People send him all kinds of crazy things to draw, and he draws them. So many people follow them that they’ve made a business from Trent’s drawings, and all the money goes to support Trent, as he’ll never be independent. You can find Trent on Facebook and YouTube, but Sven might be harder to find.

 

          Fall is in the air.

          Here’s a taste of colors to come.

          Eating apples.

Even after the birds eat the pokeberries, there’s pretty stars left behind.

          I hardly ever see these guys and I saw two in the last couple of weeks.

 

Let’s call this one done!

Done!