Egads!...

When will this endless class ever end?



At least I spent LAST weekend with my family so I had absolutely nothing else better to do over this entire Thanksgiving weekend. "Thankfully" I had no need of a clear dining room table...

Here's what's left of my pencil...

A Thankful Mom...

I was just thinking today about all the things I have to be thankful for... (how timely!) There is just so much! A warm home, a job, health, family, friends, two cats... a fun and fulfilling past and present...

And then I squint my eyes... and what I see MORE clearly than anything is how thankful I am to have had the wonderful privilege of raising two beautiful daughters... and of all the memories I have of them growing up. And then.. I think about how it was in those moments of sending each of them off to college, and being scared to death knowing they were now out there all alone and facing the world on their own... and missing them. It was really hard! And sometimes it all seems like just weeks ago!

So really, what I ended up really thinking about today is how very thankful I am that both of them (as impossibly far away as they could ever be from me nowadays) are at this moment now each surrounded by their own wonderful family... who love them every bit as much as I do! At least!

So... not too shabby a thing for a mom to be thankful for on this day of thanks, eh?

Comfort Food...

Today is one of those days that reminds me of all those cold and chilly Sundays growing up. It was always grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch after church.



I tried to continue the tradition for years with my own girls until one of them put her foot down and made it perfectly clear how much she hated tomato soup. So then we switched to quesadillas.. which then somehow became the new tradition and ended up being pretty good comfort too.

But now all alone on these cold and chilly Sundays I, again, get to fix whatever I want for lunch...

I'm just really missing my girls today. All of them! Here's my newest one.



I have this thing about color coordinating....

A Charcoal Effort...

This was my first time doing anything like this, and it's not perfect... but I still have tomorrow night during class to fix it.



I started with a blank page of pure 40% charcoal and then just added and subtracted... Interesting that you can do that and come up with things like this, no? Just wish I had more and better artistic tools...

Meanwhile... I miss my granddaughter Rachel! What a beauty! Didn't get any great pictures on my trip to Idaho since I was pretty sick the whole time and plus, my camera sucks. But I still feel like I should be sharing pictures of HER right now... and not just a drawing of some tea-kettle.... *sigh*

Waiting for Whit to send me pics...

This Is Harder Than It Looks... or maybe not.

Basically, it just involves an entire Saturday of crosshatching... from sunup until sundown. Wash, repeat on Sunday.

Yardwork? pffffft...