Hola, fronds. Here I am last month at Goo’s 7th birthday party, which we held at our house, our usual. He went through a phase or two of thinking that he wanted his party at Chuck E Cheese, but LUCKILY sort of forgot about it. We did go to a kid’s party at one of those places and I was pretty disappointed. I made Goo a strawberry cake, Josh made the buttercream frosting, and two of his school friends came, the babysitter and her niece, three out of four grandparents, and two great-grandparents. Not a bad turnout for January!

The ol Adventures in Hair Color: this was the last little bit of my pink hair. On a whim I purchased a permanent dye at Sally’s that looked platinum blonde with the TINEST hint of pink on the swatch, but instead turned my hair…purple. Purple! A color that I did not anticipate, or particularly want.

My mother volunteered to take the boys to her place to spend the night and Joshy and I went on a DATE, yes a DATE. We went to a nice restaurant called “Tavern on the Square” in Bothell, dimly lit and full of dark wood, mmmm. Lots of comfort food and many many drink options, if you’re into booze.

My only complaint is that Josh ordered a seafood chowder and they didn’t provide him with a spoon (?). I ordered seafood salad on a crisp buttered roll with a side of mashed potatoes (again, would have been nice to have had a spoon) and it was yummy.

In Artist News, I am the featured artist for the entire month of February at “Cup and Crepe”, a cute little cafe in Everett. I hung up 25 original paintings for sale! I have no expectations of selling anything, but if I did, hey girl hey, that would be fine with me. Goo insisted that one of the Mandalas was HIS, so I set the price high so that no one will buy it, ha ha haaaaaa. And really at 300$ for a 20 inch Mandala, that’s not bad.

Some old; some new. The only painting of Louise I’ve never sold. Twiggy has gotten a ton of interest over the years, but somehow never sold.

Three out of four grandparents showed up to check it out! I appreciate the support. Also Goo, who told people “Look at my mommy’s art!” Love my hype man.

The owner took this photo of me. My hair is fading purple here. I used some sort of “glow” filter on this photo, which I probably wouldn’t do again.

Joshy and I during one of our rare visits to the gym together, working on our fitness. Currently I am running in place twice a day while reading my Kindle. It counts! It counts!!!

In terms of cost/benefit analysis, this little Amazon “Fire” has saved me lots of lots of money over the past couple of years. I read probably three books a week. I’m always reading! I love that I can discard a book immediately if I can’t get into it, without having to spend any money. I exclusively use the Libby app so I can access the local library for free. I tell everyone about it. I LOVE IT.

Feeeeeling up all the sequined fabric at Jo Ann’s, like I do. Jo Ann’s has a mushroom-themed collection out right now so I had to purchase a couple things for my mushroom-obsessed son and I.

I recently joined the subreddit “Black Labs” and it brings me so much joy! I created this helpful chart of Rosie’s happy places (and mine–behind her ear smells sweet) and shared it with the group. Goo is petitioning hard for a Golden Retriever next. “You can vacuum the dog hair,” I told him.

Back to life, back to reality. Back to blonde! I was VERY impressed that one application of the color remover “Color Oops” took 95% of the pink and purple out of my hair. I didn’t even have to use bleach! Hooray! It certainly didn’t work when I tried to take out that awful copper-colored “Overtone” two years ago. Live and learn.

And finally, the current painting is a BIG ASS FLORAL! I decided it was time to take a break from tiny portraits and branch out to BIG ASS FLORALS. I’m enjoying the process, painting one flower at a time, then adding the leaves. I will resist covering it with glitter (maybe). Ta ta, blog-logs!