Parents

I've been thinking about my parents lately. They have both passed over, so I am now the "older generation" in my family. Here they were with my oldest. Picture taken some 21 years ago. She looks pretty happy to be in the arms of a loving grandma. 

Selling my mommy's house part two

 The city of Tukwila hired a contractor to replace the storm drain alongside mom's house. It took three weeks. Here are some rainy day shots of the day they took the big hemlock tree down. Iplanted that one when I was in the 6th grade after a trip to Camp Waskowitz. Back then, they stopped the schoolbuses alongside I-90 LET THE KIDS OUT, and we used our lunch milk containers to dig up seedling trees (with a spoon, I recollect) and we got to bring them home to plant them. That neighborhood has quite a few trees of the same era. This one had to go, though.

Day one and Day two

How to steal art like an artist

Austin Kleon is a writer, and I've seen this posted by others twice this week, so here it is. Awesome. I love this!

I think I should stick to little sketches instead of writing. I'm not a wordsmith, and I love to doodle.

The Boundaries of a Breakup

Facebook and how to get or lose your "friends"...interesting article. Ok, it's an old article, but I just found my note on a scrap of paper, and wanted to share it here in November....so here it is!

Best Soup Ever

Lawsuits over advertising are up. Just look at how Verizon and At&T changed theirs...

How fun was this? Super fun. Gary Faigin's book, the Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression is the basis for his class. Above, notes on the board from day one of a five day workshop. GAGE is the school that Gary started with is wife, Pamela.

Getting Lost

I get lost sometimes, even with my navigational device in my car. Especially in Lake Forest Park. Apparently, the address doesn't exist in the map my car has, so each time I go to my friend Diane's house, I end up calling her in a panic, saying I am lost again, where she calmly guides me through the neighborhood while standing on her porch on her walk around phone, saying soothing things, like, "you are almost here, I can hear you, get ready to turn left." I blame getting lost in Lake Forest Park to the city "planners" who named the streets and decided the logic in the names and numberings. I've been lost there so many times, I think I am getting somewhere, because the scenery seems familiar. I only just realized it's because I've been LOST there before.



I have another friend who says she has a form of dyslexia where her brain doesn't understand spacial relations. She sent me to this website: http://www.gettinglost.ca/ where some scientists are putting a name on that.

art for everyone

Here is my friend, Tim, holding his little bird sketch he got at my first art show. Tim is a wonderful cook and an interesting man. He wanted another bird I painted but someone else got that first, while he was serving the marvelous food he prepared for my party. Thanks, Tim!

Dead Dads

My sweetie's dad died this week. He was 99 years old. What makes a good life? We are quite bad at death and dying in the U.S.A.

My dad made his transition to the other side last year. I am still amazed that I can't see him or speak with him. My dad died even though we all tried to keep him alive, with drugs, food, and whatever we could conjure. I still miss the guy.

A father's gift is complicated...How to be a man, a husband, a father. In some cases, how not to be, but the gift is the same. It's what they do or don't do that molds us.

Rest in peace, dear dads.