good thoughts for Grammy

The painting above was birthday present for a friend of mine...

What's been happening in my life these past several days. My grandmother has had 3 strokes in six days. Miraculously, she's still with us, but has suffered significant damage. She is able to talk, but has widespread paralysis. Please send her good energy, say a prayer, whatever works for you. I feel so helpless here, so far away from my parents and grandmother on the east coast.

I also started my new job on Monday. I think it will work for me. It's started out very slow, but once I am able to get going, get calling on customers, it will improve. We'll see...

Here's a little something I did last week. It's not my favorite piece, but it was fun to do. I'm ready to get back to figure drawing. I don't want to lose the skills I gained in school. I need to do some investigating to find open studio times somewhere around town.

my walk today

A wooly bear caterpillar going about his day

A really cool tree trunk

An Osprey nest

A guaranteed blue heron sighting...on the mausoleum; go figure...

The beginning of the trail...

part way down the hill

view of the marsh

a beautiful complement of colors

the Willamette River

Today I walked the trail at Sellwood Park. It's hard to believe this is a city. Wild areas are everywhere! While I hiked, I saw all sorts of birds, most notably a little duck that was happily paddling away in a swampy area about 8 ft from me, and some great blue herons. There's something about those birds that fills me with awe every time I see one. Just gorgeous.

Decided I better take advantage of the beautiful sunny day we had and my last few days of freedom before I go back to work. I got my official offer today; I start on Monday. Yeah!

the finished scarf

Here's the flower scarf I finally finished. It was really fun to do, and I'm already looking for my next crochet project. I signed up for a knitted sock class with one of my crafty Portland friends in early October that I'm looking forward to. I'll post the results.

I'm fairly certain I'll be an employed person by the end of this week. That's a good thing. Tomorrow morning I'm thinking I'll take a walk on the trail I went bird watching on on Sunday. I'll post some photos. Then clean my house, do some grocery shopping and prepare to become a working stiff once again.

A quick post

Ok, so I'm back. I finished this self-portrait today and wanted to put it up. I'm pretty happy with it overall. It felt good to just paint. I've been feeling a little stuck lately, so this was a good exercise for me. I'm working on two other paintings right now as well, but am not happy with the way they're going. So it's nice to have completed something I like. It looks like me too!

I'm still looking for work and waiting for possible offers, so I'm making the best use of my free time while I still have it. Later I'm going to work on my crocheted flower scarf and finish it hopefully, while watching the WNBA finals game tonight (I'm finally going to finish that darn scarf, Dawn!).