Work In Progress

"Fresh Powder"

Hopefully I will be finished with this one tomorrow, I have a few more touches to do. It reminds me of the old Vintage Ski Posters. Can't you just feel her breathing in the winter air about to exhale all of her tensions?!

I don't ski but I love going up the hill to Lake Tahoe & watching the skiers, getting bundled up, getting a cold rosy face & breathing in that Ponderosa Pine . If we don't drive home the same day, we always stay at the same place which is at the bottom of Heavenly Ski Resort with a room facing the slopes. I don't ski or go to the lodge because I hate the lifts. Whenever I have been coerced "forced" to be in one, the whole time I am in a near panic state. Dangling from wire freaks me out. So yeah I don't like elevators either. I did go hot air ballooning several years ago. Now that is extreme dangling! *heart rate going up thinking about it* Once I was in the basket, floating, comprehending the reality of no hope of survival, floating, completely stripped naked of any control what-so-ever, floating, the terror so bad it was hard to stand, gently turned into a what the heck attitude, floating, today is a beautiful day to go if I have to, floating, and I kind of relaxed a little, gently floating. However, that doesn't mean I let go of the basket. Oh no. I had to peel my hands off of the basket pole at landing one finger at a time! Not kidding. haha Flying, I have to do, ballooning I don't, so it would be difficult to imagine that I would do it again, but I'm so glad I did.

I took this video while driving home from Lake Tahoe...in living color!...

A BIG SHOUT OUT goes to Terraworks for featuring my art in one of her awesome Etsy Treasuries! Thank you Terraworks!

Burrrrrrrrr

This week it's been all about keeping warm. With a party tonight & gallery show on Saturday I have been squelching the urge to pull out my needles & yarn. Our electricity went out about 3am on Monday and it was turned back on about 11pm that night. The house is all electric so it's really miserable but we are so blessed that our power was restored & had water. Many in our area have wells so not only do they have still have no power, they have no water either. Photos & article. We are not strangers to snow, it's snowed a few times at our elevation, & have occasional power outages but this week was out of the norm.
Even though we were chilled to the bone & could see our breath when we talked while sitting on the couch Monday night, we had the most fun! The house glowed in candle light & I had my own private concert. My youngest son played the guitar while my hubby sang. I'm so lucky. When the power was booting back up it went on & off a few times and then our main heater quit working. Ugh. We don't know what's wrong with it yet. Fortunately we have a pellet stove in the fireplace but it doesn't heat the entire house so we are still cold. We still have snow in the yard & it was about 32 this morning. I can't believe how many things are breaking all at once around here. Very aggravating. One thing that isn't broken anymore is my computer! YEA!!! Santa stopped by yesterday! After the gallery show I am going to be doing a lot of catching up, listing new pieces and I will be catching up on you too!

Feels & Smells Like Christmas!

I bought an extra turkey at Thanksgiving and took him out to defrost the other day. I figured I would cook him up so I wouldn't have to do much cooking over this busy weekend. I was feeling lousy was was heading off to bed when I had a brainstorm. I would just let him cook in the crock pot while I slept. Lazy. I've never cooked a turkey in the crock pot but thought that was a brilliant idea. Not! As I was washing him my husband kept telling me he wasn't going to fit in the pot. I insisted he would. HA! I tried everything to get him to fit. I finally had to cut him up. Ugh. I felt like Jeffrey Daumier. I hate cutting up a big raw turkey. He still didn't fit! So I kept the back part out for soup stock. I felt so silly I actually took pictures! haha

When we woke up this morning it smelled like Christmas and during the night it snowed so it felt like Christmas! This may not seem exciting to you but it really is for us. It's the big thing on the news today! I live just below the snowline so it has only snowed here about 3 times in the last 15 years. It was so pretty. It's melting now. I wish I had made a snowman earlier when I had the chance.

How was the turkey? The turkey was so dry he had to be raised in Arizona. haha I shredded the breasts, put the breast meat back in the crock pot and smothered it with bbq sauce, mustard & vinegar. We'll just have to have pulled bbq turkey sandwiches with it. Better than tossing it away. It's smelling like the South in here now and I'm getting homesick! With the rest of the turkey I think I will make some more Turkey Tiki Masala like I did after Thanksgiving. That was so good I took a picture of it and posted it.

I ended up staying up late. I needed a kitchen angel last night. I had sketched this one out to maybe paint in the future. I have a notebook full of sketches of things to do! Maybe I'll get her done.

I listed 2 ACEO Trees this morning in my Etsy shop.

Fat Chance...

I thought they said there'd be snow! Everything was frozen this morning, it's cold... but NO SNOW! The sun is shining!

Thank you VinK for my new "Blog Bling"! It's always such an honor and surprise to get a Blog Award. They mean a lot to me and I will proudly add to my bling below. I will post my nominees soon to pass it along soon.

I made paper clay this morning but it's still super wet so I don't know if it's going to turn out or not. If it does, I will post my recipe and picture of my creations. So stay tuned...

Let it Snow!

Told ya I'd say it again......I hate shopping! I am on a mission now. I pretty much know what I am shopping for and that is actually a good feeling. It's when I don't know what I'm buying, running down the isles, with my eyes wide and crazy on Christmas Eve that I really hate. So I talked myself out of going out today and instead I packaged gifts to mail to my family in South Carolina. I love flat rate boxes! It is cold today too! Jim was headed to Walmart to buy wood pellets so he even mailed them for me. We have a pellet stove in our fire place and pretty much heat our house with it throughout the winter. A bag of pellets cost approx $6 and lasts for 2 or 3 days. This year the pellets are plentiful but last year they were hard to find. People were buying them up like crazy because the news media said that the supply was low. If the media says something is running out then people run and gobble it all up which makes it worse. Remember the rice several months ago? The news said we may get snow tonight in this case I hope they are right. Our regular heater may come on because it's cold cold cold out there! It does kick on if the stove it's keeping it warm enough. I live just below the snow line, 9 miles up the mountain in Placerville there is always snow but we've only had it snow at my house only handful of times in the last 13 years. It's always exciting but never lasts long enough. This picture I took in January while Jim was taking the chains off my car. We were on our way back from Lake Tahoe. I'm looking forward to a snow day!