Can anyone ever get everything done?

The three wives from "Big Love"

If someone can it's not me. We have so many projects here in the Brady Bunch house it's making our heads spin around and our bodies stationary with shock. (Now that was a weird sentence).

Poor G. she has been quite discouraged at the slow pace of creating house beautiful. Tonight I walked her from room to room to view all we had done, even though it's still pretty chaotic now that all the boxes and furniture are here.

Maybe we need 3 wives. Maybe not. We've been watching season one of "Big Love", the series about polygamy. It's growing on us. It cleverly looks at the practice from a "modern" family who have to hide their lifestyle from the world and the huge compound of hundreds where 15 year old girls marry 70 year old men. Persecution with a twist. Good acting, good characters. Anyone else watched this one?

In the midst of all this busy I'm feeling happy. It's so beautiful here in May. Blooms upon blooms. And the king sized bed is from heaven. We all fit. Two wives, and four animals. Everything will get done, even without another wife.

Irrelevancy

Michele tagged me to list 7 irrelevant things about myself. This is really hard, because in my self-obsessed world everything seems relevant. And I'm kinda boring... oh well...

1. I have been stepping on snails rather than re-locating them. This disturbs me quite a bit.

2. I had/have no sympathy for Nancy Kerrigan, the ice skater who Tonya Harding whopped on the leg. She reminded me of all the perfect girls who all the teachers loved and who won the "best of..." awards. I seem much more like poor Tonya, talented, yet a bit deranged.

3. My first love was Vivian Vance, sidekick of Lucille Ball. I wanted to bury my head in her bosom and swoon.

4. I never read comic books as a child.

5. I was obsessed with "Gone With the Wind". I read it over and over.

6. I like Big Macs, but don't eat beef. (but sometimes I eat one)

7. I love bad poetry, but it's hard not to laugh.

My life feels like the dump...

G. is not afraid of the dump, or pushing the brush over the edge into the pit...

Rusty metal clotheslines pose no threat to her well-being.

While I have a distinct fear of falling in the pit of garbage and never re-surfacing.

I'm feeling rather dump-like. Awash in giant piles of possessions. Ever since moving all our stuff over here on Monday I feel mired in household chaos. What to keep? What to pitch?

It's exciting too. Making a whole new space. We bought a king-sized bed last night. It feels very eighties like we need a disco ball and Donna Summer music.

I just need to let go. Of lots and lots of stuff. Or wallow in the pit of chaos. (Now that's dramatic!)

Who was Betty Rubble?

Who was Betty Rubble ? We know she was married to Barney, a nice but not too smart guy. She had a son named Bam Bam (caveman code for ???) There were a lot of Betty Rubbles living in my suburban neighborhood. I hope Betty had a secret life. She had to have been someone. After all they made her into a plastic toy.

It's Sunday and I'm pondering the how and why of how I got to this present time.

Thanks for reading.

Hot weather and Big Waves at the Coast

G and Monty doing what we do best at our coast house... relax!

We are back from the coast. Monday we moved all the rest of our stuff from the old house into the garage of the new house. Our nice, calm, vacant spaces are now full of boxes and piles. I can't cope with with mess so it took all the stamina I had to follow Ginger's advice and get in the car, leave the piles behind and drive to the coast house for 3 days. Wise move. We rested and watched movies and played with the dogs on the beach.

Yesterday eve we had our coast neighbors over for pineapple-upside-down cake. The cake didn't co-operate too well, it was raw in the middle and brown on the outside. We cooked and cooked it! It was good to laugh about it and when it was finally done it tasted just fine. As an old friend says, "can't go wrong with sugar and butter". When everyone got up to leave we all noticed the sound of the ocean... We usually hear soft wave sounds, but this was a roar, really loud and it scared me a little. I called the coast guard and the very polite man on the phone told me we were having 10 foot swells, very unusual for this time of year. (I was worried we might be having a tsunami) And sure enough, when we got up this am the waves were huge, it was 90 degrees at 11am, and a strong warm wind was blowing. Goodness. In Southern California where I'm from we call that earthquake weather.

I painted a lot at the coast. Now I'm home and it's get the house and the studio in shape. And buy a new bed. Hooray! This feels kinda disjointed, but then I am just not all here yet...

Celebrations and Sore Knees

Here is G. holding up the "we sold the house" celebration cake I made. (Fudge cake with fudge icing, yummy) I'm still nervous about the house completing escrow, it feels a bit scary to celebrate until it's a done deal. But, we need to act as if and get all our stuff moved and sold and after 6 MONTHS!!! begin to live in our new house versus camping in it!

Today we had a garage sale at the old house which was rather surreal. Everyone was so nice... and chatty... and bought up pretty much everything we had. I think it was the prices which were below the cheapest of cheap. (We really wanted to get rid of it all) And despite selling almost all our furniture and tons of other stuff we still have a boatload of possessions at our new house. Now THIS is the disturbing fact. I swear to all who read this blog that I am nominating February as the month in which I go through the whole house and prune and discard. I NEVER want to accumulate this much again. It reminds me of this book I once read where they have households around the world put all their possessions they own out front and then they photograph them. In some countries people own 1 cooking pot and a few blankets but in developed nations... well you get my point.

And the fact that my knees are killing me from all this hauling...

ok, enough. good news is we sold the bed to the woman who bought the house, so we don't have to transport it out the window! And we think we are going to buy a king sized bed! How eighties!! or is it the seventies??? It'll be fun and us and the doggies will fit. (and kitties too)

Ok, this is enough for the evening. We are torn between going to the coast for the rest of the week, and staying here and putting it all together... hmmnnn....

Art Progress, slow but happening...

The coaster project so far. Almost 20 two sided paintings finished.

Layers and layers of ink, paint, collage and drawing. Fun.

I finished this series of 3 paintings on styrofoam blocks covered with paper.

Today I left work early enough so that I had time to paint for an hour tonight. How I long for an uninterrupted stretch of time. I wonder if I could do an artist residency. I have no credentials, no art degree, and only local showings in this little town. Does anyone know if anyone would take an artist like me? This may sound fairly pitiful... oops...

I'm actually pretty happy tonight. If all goes well with the house selling in a couple weeks we'll be a whole lot more stable with a bed to sleep in and less to do! Until then, I'll keep pursuing my project chunks at a time. I do love what I am doing, it's way fun!

Habitats

Bye, old house... may you have a wonderful new owner who loves you!

Curzonie Lesbionie who loves his new house!

We finally accepted an offer on the 10th street house. It's been a long 6 months of upkeep on too many abodes. Keep your fingers crossed that it closes easily in the next two weeks. Ginger and I were there yesterday because the realtor said there was a bad smell upstairs. Understatement!! There was a dead squirrel in the attic and the stench almost killed us. That and the zillion creepy, fat black flies all over. I couldn't do it. Poor G. she had to shovel up the poor creature.

I don't write about Curzon much, but he's a sweet fella. He'll be 14 in June. His mom was a barn cat, and in his heyday he could really hunt. When we moved to 10th street 8 years ago he wouldn't come into the house unless we forced him. He spent his winters in a pink kitty tent with a heating pad on the front porch. Last winter he got thinner and thinner. I'd come out in the morning and some strange cat would have stolen his warm bed. Other strays wouldn't let him eat his food. I thought we would lose him.

So, when we moved I feared the worst, and here's the shocking story: Curzie walked into the new house, laid on the carpet, looked around and has spent most of his time indoors ever since. I'm not sure he knew we had dogs before we moved here, but he sleeps on the bed with them and borrows their beds all the time. He's gained weight and we retired the kitty tent. So according to Curzon we were meant to live here. (I do trust his judgement...)

We are tired, tired, tired from all this real estate scramble. Two things left... sort and sell at the house, garage sale and Craig's list and move our furniture over! I can't wait for our queen sized bed!!!

And on a different note I sure am enjoying this blogging, both writing and reading. K.'s and Michele's are an almost daily treat and others that come along too. I'm doing more art since I've been reading about others doing art.

Off to bed... bye 10th street house... we loved you.

Jesus and the Giant Fish

Ok, now that everyone except K. thinks that I have fallen off the deep end for channelling Della Reese, I might as well post my photo of Jesus riding on a giant pink fish. I tried to paint this once and simply could not do it justice. It's my thing about stories... Poor half naked Jesus riding off into danger with only his trusty fish friend. And did the pink fish make the miracle of the loaves and fishes happen? Did all those people end up eating him? I can't help it, it's how my mind works.

After my last entry I looked up Della on wikipedia and visited her church website. All evening I have been saying I want to join the church of Della. Poor Ginger, she has been looking at me strangely. You see dear readers (I keep wanting to say that) I did not grow up in a proper church. And because of that I have been looking for church ever since. Della says that the voice inside us, our sense of what we are supposed to do is God.

Tonight our very kind neighbors came over for dinner. It's kinda good they didn't go into the studio. I never know what to do with the blank look in peoples eyes when they land on something like the pink fish. I guess I should ask: "What would Della do?"

I

I Channel Della

Yes, I channel Della. I admit it. It started when I met K. and when "Touched by an Angel" was on TV. I knew Della long before her TV hit. The Della of my childhood was a wicked good singer who showed up on TV variety shows now and then. Even the young Della was no ordinary angel. She was a bit bad with a lot of attitude under the music.

I really loved "Touched by an Angel". Who wouldn't? Della knew it all and counseled Roma what's her last name with the heaving cleavage who at the perfect moment every week was bathed in the light of sexual purity.

This is what happens to me when I bring up Della. I know with absolute certainty the answer to everything, all life's woes and problems. I see Della in her church and the wisdom flows in.

Good reader I cannot channel Della for you. The connection belongs exclusively to the one for which it was meant. The one who for some reason knew the right words to say, "what would Della do?"

K., you know that's you.