What A Month!

I had SO MUCH painting time blocked off in my planner. My hands felt better, and I was desperate to catch up on, well, everything!

Then came August 9th.

A severe thunderstorm with 86 mph winds ripped through our town. Cue nearly two days without power, an intense initial clean up, and nearly two weeks of related efforts. Our castle thankfully survived unscathed, for which I am forever grateful; our yard and trees, however, were trashed. The two trees in front of the house broke in half VERTICALLY (!), with the fallen sections just one foot shy of the roof. The remaining halves, we cut down ourselves over several days using first an ax we owned, followed by a borrowed chainsaw.

Much of my ornamental garden--namely my sunflower wall and morning glory arch--had to be finished off and put in the trash. Of the edible garden, the corn was knocked silly or broken off completely, but everything else endured.

Add to that keeping up with scheduled appointments for our cats and ourselves; finalizing an unplanned car replacement for my husband (his ride died on the side of the road in a plume of engine smoke in late July); recovery time from all of the above (parting out trees with a high heat index = not my favorite); plus trying to stay on top of general life stuff, and this August has not ranked highly for me.

That said, there have been highlights!

-We've probably given away as many tomatoes as I've turned into soup, sauce, and salads, and I've made A LOT of all the above. I wanted to grow enough to share with those who've shared with me, and so I have!

-We found a great used car for my husband that he genuinely loves driving. I'm not crazy about our first ever car loan, but we handled that unfortunately timed surprise as best we could.

-A friend rescued a box of truly amazing frames that had been set out on the curb and passed them onto me. I owe to their kindness at least 1/4 of the frames shortly to appear in my Meadowlark show. Speaking of which....

-Come September 1st, you can enjoy my show and purchase framed prints at Meadowlark all month long! They're located at 16th & South Streets in Lincoln, NE. Because it wouldn't be Labor Day if I wasn't setting up my traditional September show at 6 AM. ;P COFFEEEEEE!!!

Needless to say, what spare time I've had has gone to prepping for this show. Yes, I'm slowly going mad from lack of painting. Thanks for being along for the ride! ;P

In all seriousness, thank you all for your support. As always, I understand completely if the cobwebs around here lead to you go elsewhere; I'm grateful that you stopped by, regardless. For those who keep hanging on: So soon as I've a chance to free the paintings in my head (and there are some doozies just waiting ), you'll find them worthy of you. May I be.

PS--I've been so overwhelmed offline that, when I sat down to write this, I discovered that both my laptops' batteries were dead.* This post was courtesy of my tablet, so forgive any typos! I proofread but don't doubt I missed at least one.

*My two laptops are both old enough to run pre-AI / pre-subscription dependent programs. Being frugal / a Luddite has its advantages. You can pry my Photoshop 6 from my aching hands!