Human Garden

Convo between Matthew and me when we came upon a butterfly garden:

Me: "You can plant specific flowers that will attract butterflies to the garden. Isn't that cool?

Matthew: "Yeah. And butterflies probably say to each other, 'You can make a human garden if you build a Starbucks.'"

Hahahahahaha!!! So true!

Le Artiste

I have no idea if I really typed a French phrase for my title or not, but it sounded good. :) Anyway, Natalie's been in art camp this week and is learning how to paint with watercolors. So I've been driving there and back every day this week (except for Tuesday, when I had to drive to Maryland and back). Drive, drive, drive...blah.

But, the classes are in the country and the drive is GORGEOUS! This picture does not even come close to doing it justice, but you'll get the idea:



The mountain that you can't really see in the back is breathtaking. It's just such a peaceful, tranquil place.

I stayed for the first class and listened to the different techniques closely. Then I decided to brush up on my own watercolor painting and used this for my inspiration:



And came up with this:



I blurred out my last name on the photo, so that's why there's a weird blue at the bottom. And those three blue dots to the left that look like a Picachu (sp?) face annoy the crap out of me. I tried wetting them out of there but it just faded the area around them.

Natalie's teacher thought it was fine and didn't need to be removed but she's probably just being nice to me. :)

There's a long story behind the meaning of the swan to our family after the loss of my uncle, but I am going to give this to my mom since we all think of him whenever we see one.

Now if I only had the time to study up and practice more. When my kids are grown, I want my own studio and I want to take dozens of classes. And my dream come true would be to have ONE piece in an art show.

My sister is an art major and her drawings/paintings have won numerous awards. She's now into glass blowing, though and made this vase for me for my birthday:



And she wrapped it in this paper that she painted herself:



So the desire to create obviously runs in the family, which is why I enrolled Natalie in these classes in the first place.

And finally a shameless plug, for my other artwork. Check out my Etsy widget in my sidebar to see the personalized children's wall art I sell at my store. The three on "display" are the ones I created for Natalie's room.

I've had zero time to promote my store so I have yet to sell a piece. At least I'm telling myself that's the reason. :)

We Miss You Puppy Monster

It's days like this that make all of the blog drama seem so senseless. Today is the one year anniversary of the loss of a very special little boy, NYC Watchdog's son.

Please head over and show him your love and support. Today, I will be counting my blessings and remembering a smile that was etched on my heart forever one year ago today.

(Thank you to Adam for the beautiful graphic).

AP Coverage of My Video

The AP is covering my video now!! I'm not the star of the story but still. :)

This particular news story is spreading all over the Internet (AOL and such) since it's AP. And in all the places I'm finding it on the net, it features my footage as the main still picture. Here's the video:



Mine is the "amateur video" they're referring to just after they show my footage. The footage following mine is just a storm front taken from ABC 7's helicopter.

The video is getting passed all around my neighborhood and I'm getting tons of emails. Are you sick of me talking about it all yet? LOL