Hello hello hello! I’m so happy it’s spring. My favorite time of the year. The flowers all blooming, the occasional afternoon in the mid-60’s, sunshine…it’s all good! My mother reminded me once again about the Tiny Art painting show at the local library this year. The little paintings are up for the entire month of March. Which reminds me, now that it’s April, we probably need to pick them up. This year, the whole family participated.

Even my mother! She used oil pastels instead of paints.

Last month I was piling on some make-up, as one occasionally does, trying yet again to draw a nice Twiggy-esque lower lash on (why can’t I do it? It’s frustrating) and WHAT should I see behind me?

BOO! The little redhead, piling on my old Urban Decay palette until he resembled a sleep paralysis demon. We howled with laughter but it took a LOT of work to get all that eyeshadow off of his skin.

I love all the flowers in our yard, currently. The almond blossoms are out, the crocuses have been out for a while, the magnolia tree, the daffodils.

I finished up this big ass floral painting. I would love to frame it–frames are so expensive! I talked Josh into buying a table saw from FB marketplace for 100$ so he can start making frames. I wanted unfinished frames anyway so I could do the finishing myself, so this is perfect.

Finally I started a project I’d been wanting to do for a long time–converting some of my grandmother’s earrings from clip-ons to posts. It’s not too complicated–you snip off the clip-on part with wire cutters, and glue posts on the back of the earrings. I did have one failure at first using some questionably old glue, but my jewelry-making Aunt Lisa suggested a particular glue that I bought and have been using ever since with no issues.

This miss turned one year old in March! One year of Rosie. She goes to work with Josh every day. I do experience some guilt for not walking her every day, like I used to do with Maggie and Bear Cub, but kids complicate everything.

Mmmmmm sunshine. That weekend was wonderful, we all played outside the whole weekend. I bought myself a new floral bikini. It has a vintage sort of look but the bottoms, unfortunately, do not cover my entire ass. So I bought some little board shorts to match it! I prefer my butt cheeks covered.

Mumsie and I took the boys to a local mushroom shop, where they had many many varieties of mushrooms for sale, as well as lots of adorable curated mushroom merchandise. Goo pressured me into buying him a mushroom coloring book, and the little redhead pressured me into buying him some sort of “Emperor” mushrooms for 8$. Then my mother mentioned that she wanted to buy a Lionsmane mushroom-making kit for us and I felt guilty so I bought that too.

My husband will be FIFTY in a couple of weeks, that’s right, 50. Adorably, instead of getting into sports cars or World War II he’s gotten really into gardening this year. I mean, big-time. Herbs, vegetables, fruits, flowers. Rosie’s currently on his Shit List because she dug up and devoured the strawberry plant and zinnias already!

I invited myself to participate in a little art show last weekend called “Who’s A Good Art Show?” in Ballard, at a dog-friendly bar. It’s like half bar, half doggie daycare. People with beers and dogs running around–what could be better? I realized that I did not, in fact, have a lot of dog art to sell–I’ve either sold everything or made it for friends and family. I quickly whipped up two little pieces on wood that I already had, featuring Rosie.

Here’s the second one, which I ended up adding glitter to. Well, it needed SOMEthing. They didn’t sell–I arrived second to last and my position was sort of off in the corner, not the best placement.

Although blaming the placement is a cop-out because the woman next to me was doing very simple line dog portraits for 20$ a pop and she had a steady line of customers before the show even started at 4 pm! Too bad I don’t do live drawing, huh?

My nearly 50-year-old husband accompanied me, of course. We dumped the kids off at Auntie Brenna’s so he could be my wingman. He felt kind of sick when we first arrived, but after he ingested a sausage egg breakfast sandwich, beer and pretzels with cheese he miraculously recovered.

I’m okay with the fact that I didn’t sell the three paintings I had for sale. The show was only 4 hours long, I got to meet some cool artists, chat with gays about Drag Race, pet about 30 dogs, and even meet up with an Internet friend. I’d say it was a good evening!

Besides altering jewelry and painting, the other hobby I’ve gotten into is…candlemaking! I even bought plain labels and printed some out so I could label the first candle NOT make for myself, for my mother. She said she wanted to feel “close to me”, mawwwww. She’s been undergoing a battery of blood/urine/bone tests lately to try to figure out what’s wrong with her, mainly: fatigue, nausea, frequent urination/smelly urine, insomnia. So far she’s ruled out bone cancer, a huge relief because cancer runs heavily in our family. Tomorrow I’m driving her to the hospital for a “dexa” scan.

I discovered a local business that actually sells candle making supplies, who knew? This is all new to me. I bought a giant bag of soy wax and a few scents from the supplier. Someone gave me a ton of wicks on “Buy Nothing”, and everything else I’ve purchased online. Yesterday I went for it and poured four candles–honey, coconut, “winter cherry” and “Maui Mist”–a pineapple floral, mmmmm. I poured little candles this time because I prefer them to the big, double-wick candles I’ve poured so far.

On Easter, Josh put the plastic eggs out in the backyard and our rotten Lab smashed them open with her dog paws and ate the contents. Can you believe the nerve? Luckily, Josh had thought to put several of the eggs up high, and those are the ones that the boys ate. Goo was very generous and shared with his little brother. Later in the afternoon, we dressed up (my outfit is above) and went to GG’s for Easter “dinner” (at 4 pm). I didn’t take a single photo, but remember eveything I ate: ham, cheesy potato casserole, green salad, deviled eggs, and Brenna’s frosted sugar cookies for dessert. YUM.

This is the current painting. Yesterday I had the brilliant idea to add sparkly pigment to the flower petals, and it looked so good I did the leaves as well. I’ll be finishing this baby soon and moving on to the next! Happy spring, blog-logs!