Starving Artists

Last Wednesday night, I met up with some friends - Mary Elizabeth, Meghan, and Stephanie - to enjoy a night of painting together. I don't remember how we found out about this, but we immediately signed up for it. I was veeerrrry excited a) for a night out with the girls, b) because I love all things crafty, and c) because I was kinda curious to see how a real artist painted a canvas. The class was very relaxed - we were able to bring wine and snacks to have throughout the night. So maybe the "starving" part of my title to this post isn't necessarily true...

After snacking for a bit, it was time to get to work! We started by painting the background orange.

Don't forget to get the edges!

Our next step was to paint randomly sized and spaced white circles and then outline them in blue (or red, in my case). Then came the tricky part - attempting to paint two straight-ish lines across the top. Our teacher showed us how to use our paint brush to mark it off before we painted it.

And while we had our little paint brush out, we also outlined our circle flowers.

Steph wasn't so sure about this part...

And Mary let the instructor take over while she had more wine. (We discovered that more wine = better looking painting.)

This was probably about the time I dropped my paint brush and it rolled all the way down my canvas.

The last step was to add birds to our wire. We were pretty nervous about those birds. I mean, you can't really mess up flowers. They can be any shape you want. But birds? Well, they should probably look like birds. The instructor told us we could just freehand them OR she had some stencils if we wanted them. Yesssss! We cheated - no free-handed birds for us.

After a few last finishing touches, all we had left to do was let them dry!

Ta daaa! Our finished masterpieces. So similar, yet so different.

I, personally, can't wait to go back again. Anyone want to come with me?

Saturday and Sunday

I took lots of pictures Friday night. I did not take lots of pictures on Saturday and Sunday. Sorry. But we did have a very good, very productive weekend. I don't have much time to write right now, so I'll leave you with these two lists of events from the weekend. Things that made me glad:

   --   All of our trees got trimmed

   --   The kids gave the boxwoods "haircuts"

   --   New grass was planted and watered

   --   Dancing in the street while singing "Kokomo"

   --   Pictures finally hung on bare wall (pics to come)

   --   Kids' closet cleaned out

   --   Jewelry box cleaned out

   --   Donation for Vets bagged and ready to be picked up

   --   Sewing project was successful (pics to come)

   --   Spring/Easter decorations around the house 

   --   Mini shopping trip with lots of bonus bucks

   --   Church together as a family

Things that made me sad:

   --   Losing in a game of Horse

   --   Realizing the kids have outgrown all of their summer shoes and clothes

   --   Dropping my camera and breaking it

See how I just threw that last one in there like it's not a very big deal? Yea, it's a pretty big deal. I've had my new camera for two and a half months and have not even so much as scratched it, and then on Saturday night, just two days before my photography class starts, I dropped on the bathroom floor and messed up the lens. Just my luck, huh? I spent a good part of Sunday driving around trying to find someone who was open and could fix it, all to no avail. Doc was able to drop it off somewhere yesterday (Monday) morning but we have't heard back from them. Right now we're out $95, don't know if it's fixable, and I didn't have my camera for my first class. Luckily, I have a good friend with the same camera who graciously let me borrow his for the night.

So that was our weekend. How was yours?

TGIF!

The kids have not been here very long and we've already done so many things. Who knew Friday nights could be so productive? To start, we patched some holes and cracks in the walls.

Then we painted some color splotches on the exterior of the house. We still don't think we've found the right color yet.

We made sugar water and hung the new hummingbird feeder.

We cooked dinner and ate it.

We learned about our ancestors.

We matched in our cherry aprons.

And finally, since we had all been good and eaten a good dinner, we made cookies and ate them too.

After all that, we were exhausted. Lights were out at 10:00 on the dot.

Now, as I finish writing this, it sounds like everyone is finally stirring. The sunshine's out so who knows what today has in store for us!

Book Recommendation

Do you need a good book to read? If so, I'm here to help. I just finished reading a book that was so good I could not put it down.  The Help was written by Kathryn Stockett and was published in 2009.

I am definitely not a writer, so I will probably not be able to give this book the credit it deserves. But I will try.

The Help is set in the 1960s and is written from the point of view of three different women - two "colored" (her word, not mine) maids and a white recent college graduate.  It took me a minute to figure this out. I was appalled by the fact that the very first sentence of the book had a grammatical error in it, but then, as I kept reading, I realized I had to get my mind-set to read a "colored" woman's dialect.  It did not take long for me to get in the groove of things and become completely drawn in to this woman's life. And yet, as soon as I figured out the way she thought, the book switched to the next maid and I quickly became engrossed in another person's thoughts.

I was raised by both of my parents. I never had a maid taking care of me while my mother played bridge with her friends and I certainly never needed to receive love from hired help because of my mother's lack of it. And now, as an adult, my husband and I both work everyday and tend to the house ourselves. But this is all very different to the way of life during this time. The more I read, the more I realized that most of the time the one person that encouraged the children, fed the husband, cleaned for the wife, and kept the family glued together was the very person they kept at a distance and alienated.  These maids deserved credit for raising white children to become successful men and women but all they ever received was a below-minimum wage salary and occasionally some hand-me-down clothes.

Skeeter, the white college graduate, returns home from school to find that the maid that raised her, Constantine, has left their house without a word. Furious about not knowing what happened to her, Skeeter begins to interrogate her friends' maids to pump them for information about Constantine. Determined to become a writer, she decides to interview one of the maids about her life as a maid. And as she receives a good review of this first chapter of a book, she persuades Aibileen, the "colored" maid that she interviewed, to convince 12 other maids into letting her interview them too. During a time when segregation was everywhere and friendly contact with someone of another race was frowned upon, these women risked their lives to meet with Skeeter. This was their time, their chance to let their stories be heard.

To me, the book was eye-opening and wonderfully written.  I enjoyed reading and learning from the different points of view and watching as these three women blurred the lines between their different races. It was definitely a page turner and I really wish there was a part two so I could keep reading!

The Help is Kathryn Stockett's first book and the New York Times calls it a "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel."  I read in an article that Stockett (a Phi Mu!) thinks there will be movie out in the next three years as a script has already started circulating.

 So, what are you waiting for? Go get the book and read!

Weekend Recap

The weatherman had told us that we would be getting some nice weather this past weekend, and he was right. It was so nice to see the sunshine again! Doc picked up some purple tulips on his way home from work on Friday and they have been such a nice reminder that spring is around the corner. Colorful flowers just make me so happy. I love them!

Saturday morning my mom picked me up so we could go shopping. The purpose of the trip was so I could pick out some birthday presents, so you know I was up for it! We went to an outdoor shopping mall so we could enjoy the nice weather. Doc was also enjoying the weather out on the golf course with my dad. In my family we kind of have an understood rule - the guys can play golf all they want but that means the girls can shop all we want. It works out pretty well. :)

Can I tell you about a pet peeve I have? It's pretty silly, but I was reminded of it while we were out shopping on Saturday. I always forget about this peeve, but it always reappears this time of year and doesn't take long to make itself at home under my skin. Ok, here it is: it really annoys me when people rush the seasons. I know - silly, right? But I can't help it. It really just kind of drives me nuts when one day of sunshine makes everyone throw on their tank tops and flip-flops and head outside. It's still winter! I'm all for leaving your coat in the coat closet and going out to enjoy the weather, but it's really not necessary to pull out your summer wardrobe. Trust me, I'm just as sick of wearing my winter clothes as everyone else and my toes are just itching to go sockless too, but come on! If I'm not mistaken, the time changes next weekend which means spring and Easter are only days away. I think we can leave the tank tops in the closet until then, can't we?

Oh, it's not just about the clothes either. Since we had a few days of nice weather this weekend, my office building is now running the air conditioning. !!! Today it was cold, damp, and rainy outside but the air was still on. My productivity rate declines significantly when I can't feel my fingers and I'm shivering all day.

And I'll get off my soap box now. Back to the weekend...

By the time I got back home, Doc had already picked up A and W and they had early birthday presents for me. Super exciting! I got a fondu pot from A that we immediately put to use after dinner that night.

From W I got an accessories kit for my laptop. It has a ten-key so I don't have to use the top row of numbers anymore and a small mouse that I can plug in. I can also plug up lots of USBs now and I have a light attachment. Pretty cool, huh?

After opening presents, we decided to grab the football and head to the park. The guys tossed the football back and forth while we walked. Here's a blurry picture of W catching it. (I still haven't figured out how to use my camera...class starts soon!)

A was jumping rope and I was bringing up the rear with this sweet girl.

We took the back path to the park instead of walking through the neighborhood. Along the way we found this tree.

(Yes, I realize A's dress is springy...)

Here are some pictures from our time at the park.

On the way back home, my sweet furry girl was dragging and ended up having to be carried. Bless her. It's hard when you have little legs.

I love her even if she can't go on long walks.

And I love this little girl too!

Unfortunately, my pictures from the weekend end there.  As I mentioned earlier, we topped off our dinner with a fondu dessert. Poor W gave up chocolate for Lent so he didn't get to eat any of the yummy goodness.

Sunday started off with church where Doc read scripture. He read 1 Corinthians 10: 1-13 and did a great job. In fact, several people came up to him after the service to tell him what a great reader he is. We had pizza and buffalo chicken tenders for lunch afterwards and the rest of the day was pretty low-key. I headed to Lowe's with my dad while Doc spent another afternoon outside with the kids. After Doc dropped them back off at their mom's, we settled in to watch the Oscars and came to terms with the fact that our sunny weekend was over.