The Windy Day

Digital Painting of my cat, Oreo, watching the birds and swaying trees in the wind today.
She is sitting on a stack of books about Vivian Maier, one of my photography heroes.

Not much to report lately. I was hoping to have the results of our mold test today, but no such luck...at least not yet at the time I am typing this. I was hoping to have it by now so my doctors and I could nail down an action and treatment plan to get me back to better health. I guess patience is still something I am working on.

I happened to bump into a friend yesterday from back when I used to photograph the local high school football team. Her boys were on the team and they were always such gentlemen, so of course, I was curious as to how they were doing. One is now a senior in college and the other is a sophomore. She told me they both are doing really well and that her oldest son is going the NFL combine this year. I was so excited for her and the family.  How cool is that?  His lifelong dream to play pro football may just be around the corner. I love hearing success stories for young people. I hope he works hard and it all turns out for him.

I finished up the book Under the Wide and Starry Sky this morning. It was an exceptional book by Nancy Horan, who also wrote Loving Frank, which I read a few years back. It was a bit long and I felt it could have been edited a bit more to reduce the 474 page count.  At times it just seemed too drawn out, but overall it was a fantastic historical fiction. I learned a lot I didn't know about Robert Louis Stevenson and his family. He lived quite an exotic life to say the least. I also related to the main characters because Louis Stevenson had chronic illness and his wife, Fanny, was his main care-taker.

Now I started the book, The Choice, by Nicholas Sparks. Everytime I read a Sparks book I swear I won't read another. They typically follow the same pattern and are mindless. But, in this instance, I wanted mindless and effortless after tackling such a large novel. So, I know I'm slumming by choosing this book, and it's ok.  :) Since it is going to be coming out as a movie soon, I figured I better read it in case I ever decided to waste two hours watching the movie.

Sunday night at 8:00PM on BYUTV is the premiere of the show Relative Race, which I had the pleasure of being a part of back in September. You can go to Relative Race to read about the show and the premise behind it, but basically, I am related to Doug of Team Blue in the show. He and his wife, Margo, come to our home and spend time here getting to know us a bit. They don't come to our house until episode 9, but tune in for the whole show and root for my long lost cousin, Doug and his wife as they travel across the country meeting relatives they didn't know they had!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and I will catch you back here Monday.  Peace.

The Shell

I thought I would update you on some general-goings-on around here since I haven't done that in quite a while. Not much is really happening this time of year, but for many family and friends who follow this blog, I thought I'd catch you up.

It is a quiet time of year for me. With the recent blizzard and the snow today, things seem to slow down and get quiet, like we are under some sort of insulated blanket, waiting for spring. The twins are busy with homeschool, playing in the snow, and playing basketball. They start swim lessons this week, and are looking forward to that like crazy. They had such a slow start in learning how to swim due to their circumstances and then due to some medical issues when they were little, so I really really want them swimming well by this summer. I also decided that we were not returning to homeschool co-op this spring because of recent medical reasons...it was just too much on my plate. Sanity and rest are what I am looking for and need right now, so a few things had to go in life and that was one of them despite me really enjoying teaching photography.

While I have been busier than normal for the middle of winter with real estate photos, I am enjoying the quiet lull this weather affords me. I have been very busy with creating new pieces of artwork and have sold yet another piece at the gallery. It is such an honor when people buy my work to display in their homes and offices. I work at the gallery, Arts By the Bay in Havre de Grace on Saturday, so I will be taking a new piece in to replace the one that has sold.  12 new pieces have arrived from the fine art printer and I am in the process of getting those pieces ready for the next show in a few months.

In my down time I have been enjoying reading again. I made a goal of reading 20 books again this year and I am off to a good start. I am such a slow reader that this is a good goal for me considering I have a job, my art, homeschool, and a family with 4 kids. I don't have much quiet time besides my detox baths and late nights after everyone is in bed. So far this calendar year I have read The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope, The Catcher in the Rye, and Brooklyn. I am currently reading The Painted Girls.  I signed up for my local library's winter reading challenge, so I have to finish 5 books by March 4th so I can earn my free Snoopy coffee mug. Funny how we subject ourselves to challenges like this just to win a free mug. :) If you are so inclined, you can follow what books I am reading on my "Bookshelf" tab below the blog header. I am a member of Goodreads, so I frequently update my progress there.

I've been researching again on Ancestry and have made some amazing discoveries about my family, including arrest records, a mugshot, and FBI involvement with some of my distant relatives. It has been quite interesting and shocking to say the least, but I think I will make that a separate post for another time.

Speaking of Ancestry, I did want you all to know that the reality show we are on, Relative Race, is getting ready to air on February 28th, 8:00PM ET on BYUTV network (carried by Comcast, DISH network, and DirecTV, and also streams online on BYUTV.org). I just had to retape some audio for the production company because some of the phone audio from the show was garbled. It was so bizarre having to retape phone conversations 5 months after the fact. I have discovered that I am not natural and conversational when I have a script to read in front of me.  Good grief. I sound like a dork and I totally over-enunciate everything. The poor producer was like, ok, one more time and please sound like you are having a conversation instead of reading a script.  (The script was taken from my original phone conversation, so it was even really a script in that sense!) I think I ended up having to do it about 10 times and I am sure it still sounds dorky. Ach!  So much for my television and film career.  I think I will leave that to my oldest daughter. ;)

You can find the Relative Race trailer here (which we are not on, but my relatives are...TEAM BLUE! GO DOUG AND MARGO!) I am not on until episode 9 out of 10 episodes, so it will be a while before my television debut, lol. Before you ask, no, I don't know who wins the race...we are all under contract to top secrecy so even my own relatives couldn't tell me who crossed the finish line first! I will find out right along with you all as I watch the show!

That's it for now...I hope you all stay warm and have a wonderful snow day.