I’m Having Too Much Damn Fun

I signed up for yet another Carla Sonheim class. Cats!

I’ve been overextended this month so I didn’t get around to it until yesterday.

I’ve only done lesson one so far and I didn’t really think much about it when I viewed the video.

Similar to her other classes I’ve taken.

Draw stylized cats.

Make watercolor ‘blobs’ and find cats in them.

So I just splattered around some paint and let it dry.

Went back in to ‘find’ the cats and……suddenly……here are these amazingly expressive characters. 

I don’t mean to toot my own horn (she says tooting her own horn) but I’m loving these three!

And as I was scanning them, these captions screamed to be included.

So here I sit, scanning and typing and giggling like mad. 

I’m easily amused.

Punny Monday

Why did the capacitor kiss the diode? He just couldn't resistor.

My Mother Thought This Was Terribly Funny

I had an impacted wisdom tooth.

They broke my jaw getting it out.

I don’t have any recollection of that whole week except:

            My mother thought it was hysterical and it HAD to be documented.

             I was on a liquid diet.

             I  prayed at the altar of Percodan. 

This is further proof I come from perverse genes. What kind of loving mother thinks this is funny AND takes pictures for posterity????? 

Throwback Thursday

The visual definition of ‘self satisfaction’! 

GUILTY

Jury duty is exactly that, a duty. Nobody likes it (well, almost nobody) but it’s something we all have to do.

I try and remember if the shoe were on the other foot I wouldn’t want the intelligent and reasonable people to shirk their responsibility to me.

But I gotta' say…..this time was a real eye opener.

The most interesting part about the whole experience (and I've been ‘voir dire’d’ more than a dozen times now) was how many people who were being interviewed to be impaneled had been arrested and how eager they were to say so, and why!

Out of a random group of 45 people more than HALF had been arrested multiple times!!!!

All I kept thinking was what a dull life I’ve lead! LOL

I’ve never felt so WASPy!

But the man sitting next to me was the most brilliant of them all.

He stood to say he couldn't serve because he was a Jehovah Witness and it was against his religion to sit in judgment of his fellow man.

You could see all the other people figuratively slapping their foreheads wondering why they hadn’t thought of that!

I'm thinking of converting.

(You know what else I was struck by during jury duty? The men held doors open for the ladies AND let us go through them first!! I had forgotten there were people with manners still left in the world!)

Well, This Makes It All Worthwhile…….

She says with tongue firmly planted in cheek…… 

In all the times I’ve served on a jury (six) this is the first ‘thank you note’ I’ve ever received!

I’ll be ever so much more anxious to go the next time knowing I’m going to get a personal thank you! 

Punny Monday

Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…….Con't

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming……..

Punny Monday

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Trying to draw a male face a day for the month of June. Some from imagination, some from reference photos.

Inspired by Ayala Art. She hosts the 29 Faces Art Challenge every February. 

This isn't an official challenge, just a little 'do it yourself' kind of thing. ;) 

Throwback Thursday

The day Son1 learned he could squirt us with the hose nozzle! 

Wordless Wednesday

I Killed Grandma

Have I mentioned I inherited my mother’s black thumb? I have. I am a total disaster when it comes to gardening. Outside gardens, inside potted plants, you name it and I’ve killed it. I even managed to kill an air plant! And that’s saying something!

Husband is the gardener in the family. And that’s a good thing because he is the one who kept our Christmas cactus alive.

It was a cutting from my mother’s plant, and hers was a cutting from HER mother’s plant.

It had been with us since 1998.

It lived on top of the refrigerator up north and thrived. When we moved down here it took a while for Husband to find the right place for it, but when he did it bloomed for my birthday that year!

The first time it bloomed was when we sold our house up north.

I joked that it was a sign that my mother approved of our life changing decision to uproot our family and move 1400 miles away to start a new life.  

Because of this we began to call the cactus ‘Grandma’.

Whenever Grandma bloomed or thrived we would say she was happy and content and pleased with whatever was going on in our lives.

All was well with Grandma until……..

I read an article that said Christmas cacti like potassium in their soil. Husband had run out of fertilizer and this article said to put cut up banana peels in the pot to boost the potassium levels.

Being the kind hearted, helpful wife that I am I grabbed a banana and tucked bits of peel into the pot.

I was very pleased with myself. ‘Grandma’ had been looking a bit droopy and she perked right up after a few days of my banana therapy.

So,of course, if a little is good more must be better! Right?

Apparently I may be wrong about this theory.

She did perk up…. at first.

Then she began to look a bit….stressed.

Husband couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

He watered.

He primped.

He fertilized.

He re-potted.

He gave her fresh soil.

All to no avail.

She kept fading. And losing leaves. And then whole stalks until she was a single shoot.

She kept losing the sections on her one last stalk until she was just a stump of her former self.

Then that withered and turned brown.

Yup, I inherited my mother’s black thumb alright, I kill with kindness.

Punny Monday

As the adding machine once said.... you can count on me!

Index Card a Day

I'm participating in the ICAD (Index Card a Day) challenge this year. 

It runs through June and July for a total of 61 days.

(I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stick to doing it though……..we all know what a short attention span I.....SQUIRREL!!)

You are challenged to create art on an index card every day for the two months.

Each week there are themes (a list of materials to use) and one word prompts to stir your imagination and get those creative juices flowing.

But both are totally optional.  

So far I’ve been following the prompts.

I’m not sure how long that will last……

One thing I do know, I will be spending the better part of my days on the ICAD Facebook page ‘liking’ all the luscious, wonderful art the group participants are posting!

There are close to 2,000 members!!!!!

Here’s what I’ve done so far this week.

The prompts were:  1-chevron 2-carnival 3-map 4-mailbox 5-owl 6-taxi

(A couple of these you might recognize from previous posts...but why reinvent the wheel, right?)

Throwback Thursday

Great Grandma and son (my Grandpa.)

Wordless Wednesday

War Stories

My father used to tell some funny stories about being a GI.

He hated being in the army.

Following orders was NOT his strong suit. Giving orders was more his style. He always had a ‘better way to do that’…..         

                                                      

This was obviously a sore point between him and his sergeant when he was in boot camp. 

One day the sergeant gave him an order, “See that pile of cement bags? Load them into that truck over there.” Pointing to a truck parked a block away.

So my father moved the truck next to the pile of bags and proceeded to dutifully load them into the truck.

The sergeant stood at a distance and watched. 

My father said it took him the better part of the afternoon to single handedly stack all the bags onto the truck.

When he was finished he moved the truck back and reported to the sergeant that he was done.

The sergeant walked over, inspected the truck, then told my father to unload all the bags back to where they were to begin with.

My father was, to put it mildly, miffed but did as he was told.

He moved the truck to where the pile had been and unloaded them all, moved the truck back to its original parking spot and reported to the sergeant.

The sergeant then said to him, “Now take those bags of cement and load them into the truck WHERE IT SITS, like you were told to do in the first place!”

He could never understand why he wasn’t commended for finding a better, more efficient way to get the job done!

Punny Monday

The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

(groan......)