art goals

Not only do i make New Year's Resolutions every year, I also give myself specific goals in various facets of my life.
Some of them i declare loudly to be accountable to whoever'll listen, some of them i never share because they are for personal self-improvement and some -like my art goals- i don't share until i have achieved them.
This year i had 2 art goals and i finished one in February and the other i committed to finish in March. Oh! That means i get to count them as "new things" as well.
Firstly, i wanted to sell cards and/or a piece of art in a physical store. During the week of Valentine's Day (around the snow) i sold 16 cards at Objects Found.
Yippee!
I think i sold more in March, but i haven't received the check yet to be sure.
Next, i wanted to display a piece of art in a public forum. On March 30th i submitted my paperwork to showcase a piece called Secret Revelation in the Catonsville Bicentennial Fine Arts Exhibit. I'm not sure i'd consider my assemblages "fine art" but the coordinator has already called me to accept my application (it's local; i'm pretty sure they accepted everyone who turned in paperwork). The actual exhibit takes place in a local church in June and July so i guess technically i haven't achieved this goal yet, but i can't really back out now without moving to another zipcode. When the time comes i'll post details about place and times. I might have painted notecards for sale there as well.
Until then, here are a few peaks of the piece
(it didn't photograph particularly well; you'll just have to come see it in person.)

What's the best day of the week?

MATTDAY!
We all have people in our lives who make us happy with their mere presence.
I am super blessed to have several people like that; however, many of them live far away or far, far away or far, far, far away from me.
And none that bring me joy live farther away than fTM Matt.
Luckily, his favorite person in the world (his 3 year old niece) only lives 40 minutes away from me so i get to see him on a regular basis. We have a standing airport date; if he's in town i'm on airport duty, which pleases me to no end.
On Wednesday he was flying back to the third ring of hell (SoCal) out of Reagan National so we decided to hit some DC sights before his flight. Of course, he wasn't at his sister's house, he was at his dad's house in Dover, DE so i had to fetch him before we could explore.
You might recall that over the summer Matt and i had the best exploration day ever with the coal mine and the trains and the huge bridge: everything went perfectly that day. This Mattday was the opposite of that. Everything that we wanted to do was gone or closed or missing (how the heck do you remove a 100 foot long, 17 foot high multiple-piece statue installation, people?), traffic was ridiculous, and parking was a joke, even for DC.
But it didn't matter.
Any other day i would have been frustrated, but it was Mattday and Mattday is always a good day.
Finally we ended up in the Enid Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle which was lovely in sunshine and purple tulips so that we could do a quick tour of the National Museum of African Art.
We only had an hour, but it was enough time for him to get a taste of the collection (i've been there before) and for us to tour their current exhibit on animals in African art.
 It was fabulous.
Matt is considering spending his summer break in Africa volunteering at a medical clinic;
 i requested that if he does go, that he pick up
a human-sized bird puppet for me.
It would look great in my sunroom.

golfcart constitutional, nature edition

While at my dad's house this past weekend, he informed me that the local sand hill crane couple that lives in his park hatched babies since i was there over Christmas. I've only ever seen them around the lakes, but apparently they go foraging in people's yard sometimes.
You know what that means... jump in the golf cart and go looking for them.
Hello there.
It looked at first like all four of the birds were foraging for themselves, but once i watched them for a while i could see that each adult was teaching one of the chicks to forage by going through the motions to peck out and catch some tasty morsel, but then the chick took it from their beak. Each pair continued in that way until one of the adults caught sight of its reflection in the living room window and proceeded to go peck at the window to chase it away.
teehee...
Back at the house we were talking about the various wildlife around the park, including the resident alligator, while watching the ospreys dive for fish and Dad said Well, you've seen the turtles, right?
Turtles?
What turtles?
Back into the golf cart we went, down to the gazebo on one of the lakes.
I expected a few sliders or painted turtles so i was surprised to see this long-nosed guy swim by. Nope, i have no idea what it is, but there were several of them in various sizes. Once i tossed in some crumbs they were quickly joined
by sliders and mud turtles as well as some really fast fish.
In fact, it got to be a bit of a frenzy
with animals swimming in and out of frame like mad and piling right on top of each other.
I never got a good shot of the mass, but at one point there were 21 turtles in about a 3 foot square area with who knows how many fish.
That's some wildlife.

golf cart constitutional, driveway edition

As i have mentioned before, when you are hanging out in retirement communities in Florida it is customary to make several laps of the park in the morning or evening or both to touch base with neighbors and check out what is going on.
On my morning constitutional -via golf cart of course, cause if you are gonna act like a native you should really act like a native- it struck me how varied and ornate the driveways were. I am used to plain concrete or asphalt, but i guess if you don't have to worry about snow or plows then the sky is the limit.
Talking to my dad when i got back to his place i was informed that people pay thousands of dollars to have their driveways done.
Really? 
Can i tell you how crazy that seems to me?
Anyhoo, let's take a look at the ways there are to spend your discretionary driveway cash - shall we?
You can go with plain paint,
paint that matches your house
or a nice two-paint stippled effect.
You can have it lined to look like blocks
or tile
multi-colored tile;
honeycombed,
plain diamonds
or colored tile diamonds.
Perhaps you love the look of FormaStone:
  no problemo
Maybe a nice inset bamboo pattern is more your style;
if so, you'll be delighted to know it comes in green
as well.
Is an all-over pattern too much, you think?
Okay, how about popping a few friendly dolphins
  over a subtle painted tile line?
And for those really discerning driveway aficianados there is this:
  Words fail me.
I mean, it looks great, but how much do you think a sealed, multi-colored, irreagular tile-lined driveway with pelican, palm tree and mama/baby dolphin insets goes for these days?
There are some days when i can't wait to retire.

reverting to childhood

Sitting on my mom's screen porch on Saturday afternoon, delighting in the breeze and waiting for the Men's Club Picnic to start (mmmmm... bratwurst...) i suddenly wanted to dye Easter eggs. I mean, i reeeeeeally wanted to dye Easter eggs. As an adult with no children who lives alone there hasn't been much reason to dye them for the last few years, but when i suggested it to Mom she jumped at the idea. As she put eggs on to boil, i ran to the store to get dye. Do you use the Paas kit? We have always, always used the Paas kit. The year after it was introduced we tried the Dudley shaker kit as well, but we never bought it again. We are a Paas family. I wonder if they make anything else besides Easter dye kits... I was delighted to see that little had changed with the kit. There are the same characters on the box and the stickers. Every year they include some new, supposedly cool decoration for the eggs; this year it was shrinky plastic jackets for the eggs, which looked interesting, but seems to defeat the purpose of using the dye so i ignored them. There was also the tool we refer to in my family as the metal dippy thing For as long as i can remember each kit has come with this piece of wire. Who decided that octagonal was the right shape for an egg dipper? I hope they made a lot of money on a patent cause once you bend it up, it really IS perfect for egg dunking. Of course the box had to have its bottom punched out to become the drying rack. I think i love getting ready to dye the eggs as much as i love the actual dying. The process hasn't changed for years. Mom pulled out 6 coffee mugs and i added the vinegar with my Grandma's measuring spoons - i think they are older than i am and i look forward to inheriting them. The dye tablet is dropped into the mug effervescing like mad. I really love this part, watching the tablet bubble and color swirl out into the cup. Once the vinegar is uniformly colored and there are no bubbles, water gets added and it is time to dye! Except that the eggs were still hot... sigh... Once the eggs were cooled [yes, i did run cold water over them to speed up the process; i was too excited to wait] it was time to dye! Dontcha love how they look like tiny blank canvases, ready to paint? Look at them sitting in the dye, absorbing the color I can't explain it, but the little flash of egg that you can see when you swirl the darker colors (like in the left cup above) really amuses me - it is like you get a glimpse of surprise just waiting to be revealed. It will be no surprise to you, however, to find out that i am a bit of an unconventional egg colorist. I like to do multiple dips, vary the time in the dye and hold the eggs partway submerged to make color stripes Sometimes the experiments work really well and sometimes you get crazy, kinda ugly marbled things. I used some page protectors and scotch tape in an experiment that turned out pretty well. Some of our eggs had cracked in the pot but we just dyed them and then added the little cardboard stands included in the kit to give them little egg skirts Mom was a bit bummed out that there was no clear wax crayon in the kit to put names and messages on the eggs that appear once they've been dyed, but she made up for her disappointment with tons of stickers. All too soon there were no more white eggs and once they were completely dry we found a basket to nestle them in some fake grass. Not only was it fun and entertaining to take a journey into my childhood traditions, I found out that if you dye Easter eggs it attracts the Easter Bunny. He showed up in the night and left me a bunch of unexpected goodies. YIPPEE!

Florida weekend

I am back from my brief, but lovely sojourn south. Last year at this time my life was like being in a very special episode of the ABC Afterschool Special It's A Very MRSA Easter. Remember this? Ohhhhh, the fond memories of bygone Easters... Blech. Needless to say this trip was better (it basically had to be) and mom and I spent our time not at the hospital, but at the beach, where she held down the fort and i struck out into the Gulf to play my favorite tidal swimming game Who's Stronger - Niki or the Moon? Guess who won.

FYI

Just in case you were wondering if you should feed that gator You shouldn't. I am in Florida for the weekend. Maybe there will be blog posts while i'm here; maybe i'll lay on the beach instead- who knows.