Thursday, April 30, 2009
Grand Tetons Farm House, Finished
Well, it's finished. (Until Ross comes home and points out something I missed!) Painting water with acrylic is not easy! But it was fun doing a landscape, and I feel great about finishing 3 paintings in 3 days.
Grand Tetons Farm House, So Far
I started this landscape yesterday and I hope to finish it tonight while Ross is in the city. This is acrylic on an 11" x 14" gessoed art board.
Still have to put in the fence posts in the field on the right, finish the stream, and fill in the plants in the foreground.
Still have to put in the fence posts in the field on the right, finish the stream, and fill in the plants in the foreground.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Bowl of Tomatoes, Still-Life, 12"x9"
I took a break from miniatures yesterday. They are small but they take sooo much forethought that they can be a real chore. Instead I pulled out an art board an the acrylic and jumped into painting this still life. What I like about acrylic is that you don't have to be perfect from the beginning, like you do with watercolors, you just slap it on and if you don't like it, don't worry, it will be dry in minutes and you can cover it up! Makes for a much looser and more intuitive painting process. This one took 5 or 6 hours.
There are some things I need to touch up and then I'm calling it done.
There are some things I need to touch up and then I'm calling it done.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Cat and Mouse (Miniature)
Ink & Watercolor, 2.5" x 3.5"
An orange tabby kitten sits in a warm, sunny spot with her favorite toy.
An orange tabby kitten sits in a warm, sunny spot with her favorite toy.
Pictured with lipstick for scale.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Not so bad!
It's Monday so of course it's cloudy, but it's also balmy which is a very nice change. I'd rather have hot and overcast then cold and overcast any day!
The weekend didn't go quite as planned. We've had rain moving through the area on and off all weekend so the raking/bundling/weeding didn't happen. But it was still a great weekend.
Saturday we went to church for week 2 of Celebration of Hope. Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, didn't make it to the Saturday service because of the weather but Kuyasa Kids from South Africa were there and they were awesome. We found out that the food packing project has already packed more than 2 million of the 4 million projected meals and over 17,500 Creekers have signed up to participate.
The sermon was out of Luke 12:13-21. In that passage Jesus warns the crowd, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Bill talked about the real sources of happiness (research has found that in "happy" people wealth and possessions rarely make it into the top five contributors to their happiness) and the insidious and pervasive nature of greed. Since Stearns didn't make it to our service he also told a little of Stearns' life as a self-made man and his decision to leave his comfortable life as the CEO of Lenox to take over World Vision and how, under his leadership, World Vision has gone from feeding something like 400 million to 1.2 billion people! I thought of our little Lieketseng in Losotho and felt so grateful for what this man has done. She is one of those 1.2 billion and I can't imagine what her life would look like without World Vision.
At the end of the service they made Stearns' new book, The Hole in our Gospel, available to every family. I'm so glad they did. When you stop distracting yourself long enough to see what is going on it can be really depressing. The enormity of the problem is overwhelming, and a feeling of impotence is almost inevitable. But as long as you can keep making one conscious decision after another to engage, learn, give, etc. you can keep both the denial and the feeling of impotence at bay - and possibly even make a difference in the process.
I'm only on the second chapter but already I'm pretty impressed with how accessible and compelling it is. And I love the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Here are some of my favorites:
After church we went to visit Mom and Dad. They are leaving for a road trip to Georgia on Wednesday so we brought Mom the pretty green suitcase she lent me for my first trip to North Carolina ages ago and sat around drinking Dad's excellent iced tea and catching up.
From there we went to see the Stangers. Mark's mom, Donna, was in town and we wanted to say hi before she had to head back home. Because of the time I spent with Steph in Iowa while she and Mark were dating, and because I've known her longer, I feel closer to Donna than my own mother-in-law. I guess she's like my mother-in-law-in-law. After putting Mally to bed we all sat down for a game of Acquire in which Donna thoroughly pummeled us all!
Sunday we did some grocery shopping and picked up two kites for a dollar at Deals. We plan on making fools of ourselves with them at the park very soon, I'll try to remember to bring the camera :P
The weekend didn't go quite as planned. We've had rain moving through the area on and off all weekend so the raking/bundling/weeding didn't happen. But it was still a great weekend.
Saturday we went to church for week 2 of Celebration of Hope. Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, didn't make it to the Saturday service because of the weather but Kuyasa Kids from South Africa were there and they were awesome. We found out that the food packing project has already packed more than 2 million of the 4 million projected meals and over 17,500 Creekers have signed up to participate.
The sermon was out of Luke 12:13-21. In that passage Jesus warns the crowd, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Bill talked about the real sources of happiness (research has found that in "happy" people wealth and possessions rarely make it into the top five contributors to their happiness) and the insidious and pervasive nature of greed. Since Stearns didn't make it to our service he also told a little of Stearns' life as a self-made man and his decision to leave his comfortable life as the CEO of Lenox to take over World Vision and how, under his leadership, World Vision has gone from feeding something like 400 million to 1.2 billion people! I thought of our little Lieketseng in Losotho and felt so grateful for what this man has done. She is one of those 1.2 billion and I can't imagine what her life would look like without World Vision.
At the end of the service they made Stearns' new book, The Hole in our Gospel, available to every family. I'm so glad they did. When you stop distracting yourself long enough to see what is going on it can be really depressing. The enormity of the problem is overwhelming, and a feeling of impotence is almost inevitable. But as long as you can keep making one conscious decision after another to engage, learn, give, etc. you can keep both the denial and the feeling of impotence at bay - and possibly even make a difference in the process.
I'm only on the second chapter but already I'm pretty impressed with how accessible and compelling it is. And I love the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Here are some of my favorites:
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. -Frederick Buechner
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. -C.S. Lewis
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. -John Berger
The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes--a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low. -Dallas Willard
After church we went to visit Mom and Dad. They are leaving for a road trip to Georgia on Wednesday so we brought Mom the pretty green suitcase she lent me for my first trip to North Carolina ages ago and sat around drinking Dad's excellent iced tea and catching up.
From there we went to see the Stangers. Mark's mom, Donna, was in town and we wanted to say hi before she had to head back home. Because of the time I spent with Steph in Iowa while she and Mark were dating, and because I've known her longer, I feel closer to Donna than my own mother-in-law. I guess she's like my mother-in-law-in-law. After putting Mally to bed we all sat down for a game of Acquire in which Donna thoroughly pummeled us all!
Sunday we did some grocery shopping and picked up two kites for a dollar at Deals. We plan on making fools of ourselves with them at the park very soon, I'll try to remember to bring the camera :P
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday
Amazing. The sun has been gone for hours, and it is still so warm that I'm sitting here in my shorts with the windows up and the ceiling fan going. I love it!
This is great gardening weather. I transplanted my remaining impatiens and lavender plants into larger containers, pulled some weeds, and fed my irises and peonies. I'm really pulling for the peonies and irises this year because last year they were absolutely sad to look at. The peonies were patchy and small, not even the ants were interested, and only one of the irises actually got around to blooming. Tomorrow I want to rake (again), pull more weeds, bundle up sticks to take out on trash day, and do some prep work for the veggie garden. I'm putting off mowing until the last possible moment because we have a clover problem and I heard letting the grass grow tall early in the season helps keep clover under control.
We also made it out to the Half Priced Books today. Books are not, strictly speaking, a necessity in these tough economic times. But when they are used and discounted I always manage to leave the store with one or two. This time I got Seeking the Face of God by Gary L. Thomas (author of two of my favorite books on marriage, Sacred Marriage and Sacred Influence) and Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith (one of the best Southern writers around.)
Right now Ross is on his way back from the city where he was networking with other video game developers. It's been a pretty good week in the job search and we are feeling hopeful. He had a phone interview today with a San Francisco based company and has an on-site interview with a local company next week. Praying hard!
Tomorrow is supposed to be another deliciously warm day. We're going to try to swing by the Stangers' for a visit before Mark's mother, Donna, has to go back to Iowa and then it's on to church in the evening for the second week of Celebration of Hope.
Finally, if you haven't already seen it over on iblogo, here is a little video for your viewing pleasure:
This is great gardening weather. I transplanted my remaining impatiens and lavender plants into larger containers, pulled some weeds, and fed my irises and peonies. I'm really pulling for the peonies and irises this year because last year they were absolutely sad to look at. The peonies were patchy and small, not even the ants were interested, and only one of the irises actually got around to blooming. Tomorrow I want to rake (again), pull more weeds, bundle up sticks to take out on trash day, and do some prep work for the veggie garden. I'm putting off mowing until the last possible moment because we have a clover problem and I heard letting the grass grow tall early in the season helps keep clover under control.
We also made it out to the Half Priced Books today. Books are not, strictly speaking, a necessity in these tough economic times. But when they are used and discounted I always manage to leave the store with one or two. This time I got Seeking the Face of God by Gary L. Thomas (author of two of my favorite books on marriage, Sacred Marriage and Sacred Influence) and Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith (one of the best Southern writers around.)
Right now Ross is on his way back from the city where he was networking with other video game developers. It's been a pretty good week in the job search and we are feeling hopeful. He had a phone interview today with a San Francisco based company and has an on-site interview with a local company next week. Praying hard!
Tomorrow is supposed to be another deliciously warm day. We're going to try to swing by the Stangers' for a visit before Mark's mother, Donna, has to go back to Iowa and then it's on to church in the evening for the second week of Celebration of Hope.
Finally, if you haven't already seen it over on iblogo, here is a little video for your viewing pleasure:
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday
I'm just very glad it's not Monday anymore. I really do hate Mondays. Bad vibes.
Today is already better than Monday because I have bowling to look forward to! Mark won a bowling party at the Brunswick in Algonquin and invited us. I don't think I've bowled since we went to visit Noah and Lauren in NY, and that was years ago.
The weather here has turned sour again. The forecasters were predicting snow flurries over night and this morning. So my FMS is acting up again. The newest thing is foot cramps. Owwweeeee.
The crazy thing is that we could be in the 80s by Friday! What a roller-coaster Spring we are having.
Baby Peonies
Today is already better than Monday because I have bowling to look forward to! Mark won a bowling party at the Brunswick in Algonquin and invited us. I don't think I've bowled since we went to visit Noah and Lauren in NY, and that was years ago.
The weather here has turned sour again. The forecasters were predicting snow flurries over night and this morning. So my FMS is acting up again. The newest thing is foot cramps. Owwweeeee.
The crazy thing is that we could be in the 80s by Friday! What a roller-coaster Spring we are having.
Baby PeoniesFriday, April 17, 2009
Madison Meadows
We have an 89 acre park (Madison Meadows) just a block and a half from our house and, with a pond and a meandering path, it's a good place to go for a walk. It's also a good place to play tennis, which we are both looking forward to, and an ok place to play roller hockey, which only one of us is looking forward to :P
Friday's Random Ten
I haven't done one of these in ages! You set your music player to shuffle, hit play, and write down the first ten songs that play.
Vigilantes of Love (7) always reminds me of college, I used to fall asleep listening to V.O.L. and have the craziest dreams. Trains, bones, rivers, whispers, and wind. On the other hand, Bill Mallonee (2), formerly of Vigilantes of Love, reminds me of the slow unraveling that was 2001-2004, so I don't listen to him much anymore.
I love "My Name is Jonas" (9). Ross turned me on to The Blue Album in the first few weeks of our relationship. It quickly became a staple (along with a Red Bull) of the 40 minute drive from Elgin to Chicago to see him.
There's a lot of history with Delirious? (4). When I was a freshman in college I used to play U2 non-stop. I was sort of famous (infamous?) for it. So when my suite-mate, Darcy, heard about a Christian band that was taking the UK by storm with its U2-ish sound she had her boyfriend, a missionary there, send her a bootleg copy of Cutting Edge and gave it to me. I was a janitor at the time and I played that tape to death mopping floors and emptying trash cans in the Spoelhof Center. Nearly 10 years later a Delirious? concert was one of Ross and my first dates.
- Enemy Fire, Gold by Ryan Adams
- She's So Liquid, Perfumed Letter by Bill Mallonee
- Know My Heart, Conversations by Sara Groves
- One Man Wrecking Machine, Gangin' Up on the Sun by Guster
- Jesus Blood, Glo by Delirious?
- Yahweh, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2
- Glory and the Dream, V.O.L. by Vigilantes of Love
- Satellite, Gangin' Up on the Sun by Guster
- My Name is Jonas, The Blue Album by Weezer
- So Far Away, Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits
Vigilantes of Love (7) always reminds me of college, I used to fall asleep listening to V.O.L. and have the craziest dreams. Trains, bones, rivers, whispers, and wind. On the other hand, Bill Mallonee (2), formerly of Vigilantes of Love, reminds me of the slow unraveling that was 2001-2004, so I don't listen to him much anymore.
I love "My Name is Jonas" (9). Ross turned me on to The Blue Album in the first few weeks of our relationship. It quickly became a staple (along with a Red Bull) of the 40 minute drive from Elgin to Chicago to see him.
There's a lot of history with Delirious? (4). When I was a freshman in college I used to play U2 non-stop. I was sort of famous (infamous?) for it. So when my suite-mate, Darcy, heard about a Christian band that was taking the UK by storm with its U2-ish sound she had her boyfriend, a missionary there, send her a bootleg copy of Cutting Edge and gave it to me. I was a janitor at the time and I played that tape to death mopping floors and emptying trash cans in the Spoelhof Center. Nearly 10 years later a Delirious? concert was one of Ross and my first dates.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
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