@Triduana , nice haul from your garden! Just goes to show what a little RAIN (are you listening National Weather Service??) can do for plants. And humans who are tired of watering the plants every day. Oh, and what is a "Fringe Festival"?
@Artyczar Congratulations! That is a terrific honor and your work is worthy of it. Take some time weeding out things you don't need in your life; the art will stay with you, promise. In fact, it sounds like you might be on the cusp of some art-changes- maybe new ideas, maybe new media, maybe a new genre- maybe all three. Doesn't matter, only matters that you let it happen, and sometimes, that happen starts by you literally cleaning out things in your life that just don't fit anymore.
And taking care of yourself. Don't make me lecture you in private messages- my degree is pre-med; I can lecture better than Nurse Ratchet.
@Terri , really nice flowers, and your butterfly visitors are lovely. The swallowtail on the cone flower is a painting ready to be made. We get Black swallowtails and Blue Pipevine Swallowtails here; lovely creatures that really like the Mexican Bird of Paradise bushes, and, dang it, laying their eggs on my Dillweed. THAT is an issue, but one I cannot fix, so I just try to harvest before destruction. Speaking of which, a Sphinx moth laid eggs on my Heirloom tomato plants, and I found two of those danged hormworms and tossed them over the garden fence before they could eat the stems bare- I'm having enough trouble keeping the plants alive, let alone blooming or setting fruit. it's just too hot.
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Anyway, what I am doing is working at the easel when I can; my
Dear
Husband (DH) is a retired disabled veteran and he has some issues that rear their ugly head at times; his neurologist tells me it's okay to call them "spells" 'cause that's what she calls them. It's a seizure-like problem linked to PTSD, which puts another layer of complexity into the problem because DH, the poster child for testosterone poisoning, always believed anyone who didn't face imminent, throat cutting death with a rusty bayonet probably didn't have PTSD, instead, they were a... word that starts with P and often means cat. So now he's hoisted on his own bayonet, and has to re-do a lifetime's worth of assumptions from Start. It makes him a tad... crabby at times. That's when I go in the studio, tell Alexa to play The Band LOUD and don't come out for awhile. After he has his spell (seizure-like movements and balance issues, mostly) he gets a migraine, and his sumotriptan. Good night Sweet Prince.
Which is where he is now. And I am just going to wait another hour or so, then go to bed myself and read myself into slumberland. The National Weather Service has promised me rain "tomorrow" every day this week- and they LIED to me- but this time, they say they mean it. They'd better because I am sick and tired of watering!
And, because I marvel at this, we have three dogs currently (down from five) and one of them is mine! It's surprising, I don't dislike dogs, I just always preferred cats, and DH liked dogs and kept collecting them, until we went to an adoption event and he saw this scared little lhasa apso-mix-ish dog, and we adopted him- Charlie. Charlie had been trapped in the desert by a rescue; they'd been trying to get him for almost a year; they figure he was tossed out when he went from cute puppy to chewing ElDestructo dog. People do that here- and will tell you, "Even coyotes have to eat". Makes me not like a lot of the people here. Anyway, Charlie always got really still and quiet at night, and sat up next to me, and when I would fall asleep, then he would, too. Because what Charlie had apparently learned in his short life was, when it gets dark, you get quiet and still, and that way, maybe you don't have to literally run for your life. We've had Charlie for about three years now, and Charlie is my dog, and I am Charlie's human, and I have never had that kind of relationship with an animal in my life. It's really a marvel to me.
Charlie, who I have told to stay with DH, and he knows what that means and does what he is told to do- unless there is a rabbit in the yard. Then all bets are off.
Cute little critter. 
