The foster puppy is keeping us very busy ... not going to share doing what! That and doing dishes ... that has become my thing. And keeping the floors clean. In other words, just living in a clean environment is a full time job.
I love the colors, the textures, the depth. I would like an entire wall painted like this in my house.
Rebecca Crowell is an American abstract artist known for the rich, complex surfaces she creates with oil paint and cold wax medium. Her work is included in hundreds of art collections–private, public, and corporate, and she exhibits regularly in fine art galleries across the country.
Crowell travels extensively for workshop teaching and artist residencies, both in the US and internationally. These experiences have significant impact on her work. The coastal areas of County Mayo, Ireland have been a particularly important location for her; she returns annually to Ballinglen Arts Foundation to teach and paint. Crowell lives and works in the dramatic, rugged landscape of northern New Mexico, another strong influence on her work.
I was watching a Gene Wilder documentaryand thought, I need to watch Blazing Saddles again! Bri has not watched or heard of it, or Young Frankenstein ... she has not watched any of the Harry Potter movie
Have moved passed Hallmark Christmas movies, been watching some really stupid disaster movies
I think I am losing my mind, but then I wake up the next day with my mind intact! Why can't I just lose it and go on to the mental hospital? LOL I watched the most depressing show on Hulu last night about a woman who was an addict. You just know eventually she is going to end up dead. She keeps stealing, shooting up fentanyl, she has a child who is very bright who she never sees, her parents are a wreck and her mom also in prison. They spend most of their time in halfway houses, then start using again and are marched back to jail. But when you look at her childhood, you can see the writing on the wall. Just like my brother who could never break free.
This is the foster Chihuahua. These dogs are NOT allowed on the sofa but when the parents are at work ... I just let them stay there. And now Bean has taken up napping there too. Bean LOVES Murphy and follows him everywhere. Bean woke me up around 4am harassing Pixie so I walked him outside and he went potty ... outside! The 3lb dog is a shitting machine. It is a crazy house here.
It goes from being hot to cold lately. I haven't had any wine since before Christmas and I had 2 glasses yesterday and fell asleep! I am such a cheap date.
I am still binge-watching disaster movie on YouTube. 99% of them are laughable. Maybe that is why I am watching them. To take my mind off the political shit-show we are living day to day. I keep asking myself, "what if he wins".
Bri made the best Chicken tortilla soup last night. Very simple and very satisfying.
On my agenda today, besides collecting kids from school (this is my Funday) is to take that much-needed shower. The kids will be out for the summer very soon so let the chaos begin. They got bored yesterday and most of the house and backyard is a disaster. FEAR bored, smart, inventive kids!
I saw these and was mesmerized ... I want some! From Dutch Grown ... Hairy Allium.
Grab a drink, this is a very long video but so worth watching!!!
Is it possible to live in temperatures over 175°F? It is if you're a Pompeii worm. The Pompeii worm, the most heat-tolerant animal on Earth, lives in the deep ocean at super-heated hydrothermal vents. Covering this deep-sea worm's back is a fleece of bacteria. These microbes contain all the genes necessary for life in extreme environments.
Giant tubeworms
Yeti crabs. These guys it seems farmed sulfur eating bacteria for food on their hairy arms. A whole ecology based on chemosynthesis.
Sometimes I get caught up in a loop of stupid silliness. As is the case watching these nightlife videos with hardly dressed or too drunk to walk. Or even better ... can't walk in their stilettos being drunk. Seeing too much breast and definitely NOT enough pants to cover their rump. It is all very fascinating and funny. I notice you can always tell what girls are in a group because they all dress alike, denim, or short shorts, or sequins.
In my day this would be akin to making the drag, driving through the Dairy Queen then up to the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. (yawn) Except my parents would not have let me leave the house dressed like that.
Vera Kober shares “To paint without rules, to paint how you feel”
I love to experiment with different combinations of colors. Bright colors giving me freedom.
Painting on border of reality and abstraction showing in one time my feelings and inspiration
My first night at the hospital I ordered an apple from the menu for part of my dinner. It was half of an apple in slices (although it was listed as "an apple" ... which meant to me an entire apple NOT just 4 slices. Which I brought to their attention and from then an they sent me one large apple, not sliced. Then I had to ask for an entire apple sliced ... but a after a week they went back to just 4 slices of apple packaged in a plastic bag, kind of like the kind you get from McDonald's kid meal).
But I digress. I was not trying to be picky but when you advertise "an apple" and get 4 slices in a prepackaged plastic bag, one feels cheated.
But since that one taste of apple that night, I have been eating at least two apples a day, sometimes more. It is like I can not get enough applc!
All but one in the last two weeks have been good. I do not like the mushy kind of apple! It must be crisp and cut into slices. Sometimes I but the peel off if it is tough and chewy.
Which made me start thinking the other day ... that should be another description they add to the brief when you are reading about the applc you are buying ... a description of the outer peel.
I am buying varieties and trying to make notes which ones I like the best.
I don't think I have tried Ambrosia yet. These
apples are delicate and sweet, and their origin is somewhat of a
mystery, having been discovered growing randomly in the wild. They are a
mostly buttery yellow color with red patches. They are on the sweeter
side and less acidic with a slight honey taste.
Uman’s visual vocabulary reflects her expansive cross-cultural experiences. Born in Somalia and raised in Kenya, she emigrated to Denmark as a teenager and later to New York as a young adult. Now living and working in upstate New York, Uman paints lavishly detailed, opulently colored worlds replete with gesture, geometry and evocations of the sublime.
I ran to McDonalds to get Pixie a double cheeseburger, two for one. When she will not eat her regular food, I can rely on a cheeseburger!
It is a cold, cloudy day but the flowers and bushes are bright and beautiful. The barberry bushes look extra red today, leaves look like they are glowing. Is it nature glowing or am I just feeling better?
Years ago after going through a 5-year depression due to a horrible break-up ... I had another moment similar to this. I had survived the break-up, found a place to be after being kicked-out, found a great job at the Dallas Times Herald (also worked at Rio Airways). I was gassing up my car one night. I looked out to the horizon, all of a sudden, it felt like saran wrap had been pulled away my eyes and everything, the world was so bright. In a second I was okay ... the world was right, my life was back, I felt human again. Was it the end of my depression, was it a religious experience? I don't know but I have never felt that dark depression again. And from that moment on I thought, life is a gift and I am living it like that!
Did I mention I have been addicted to Fruit Punch Gaterade?
Matt smoke a brisket for 2 days and it was delicious. For the first time in a long time, I had seconds of brisket and coleslaw. The BBQ sauce was little spicy-hot and the coleslaw was perfect to cool that down.
Ran across John Grade mentioned on FB this morning. He has some sculpture installation at Washington Park Arboretum. Inspired by a fallen western red cedar in Seattle’s Discovery Park. The top of the trunk of the fallen tree was divided into two slender leaders. Broken by the fall, both leaders revealed their concentric growth rings. Focused on the similarities and differences between each of these cross sections, Union is a magnified representation of the cell structure of each of the two leaders.
Reservoir:Suspended above a clearing in a grove of pine trees, Reservoir is made up of five thousand individually heat-formed, clear droplets framed in steam-bent wood. The delicate droplets are attached to a pair of clear filament nets that are supported by tree trunks above. As rainwater or snow accumulates in the droplets, the position and shape of the nets lower and change. As collected water evaporates, the sculpture rises back to its original configuration. Sheathed springs below pulleys limit vertical range of motion so the sculpture remains at least ten feet above the ground. Even a very light rain creates enough downward movement to be comprehended visually by viewers below. When dry, the sculpture weighs 70 pounds. When filled by a heavy rainfall, the sculpture can exceed 800 pounds. Periodically the sculpture will be manually manipulated to rise and fall to engage with the movements initiated by dancers. The varied topography surrounding the site of the sculpture offers viewers both a vantage directly below the cloud-like mass as well as a view looking across the mid-line of the sculpture slightly above its changing center of mass.
Men are really trying to control women. Nothing new but the U.S. had come a long way in women's rights. I mean, we don't have to wear a burka and we can drive, we work and support ourselves and we don't have to listen to what men tell us to do ... until recently. The changes in women's health care, IVF and other radical right-wing bullshit are really getting to me as I am sure they are to the rest of you.
Sure, I don't think abortion is the greatest option but I also don't think it should be illegal OR that a women should be put to death for getting one. For the right-to-lifers out there that think it is horrible .... fine, don't get an abortion.
Just like my sister, who's daughter had an abortion then went on a rampage about how Trump would end abortion and that is why she was supporting him? Can you say hypocrite? Which is what I said to her in much saucier language. I mean, great ... YOUR daughter can have one but no one else? This is the main reason I cut her out of my life.
Okay, I am getting way off my purpose for this post.
I was watching this video (I happened upon ... wasn't so much watching as I was listening) about the prince of Saudi's daughter marriage ... when they were talking about the Greek mother of this daughter they were explaining when he was "traveling" and took a "temporary wife".
Wait, what?
So this is how a Muslim (or any other man) justifies having an affair while he is away from his wife? If you are away from home, you can take a temporary wife.
Here is the explanation I found online:
Nikah mut'ahArabic: نكاح المتعة, romanized: nikāḥ al-mutʿah, literally "pleasure marriage"; temporary marriage or Sigheh (Persian: صیغه ، ازدواج موقت) is a private and verbal temporary marriage contract that is practiced in Twelver Shia Islam in which the duration of the marriage and the mahr must be specified and agreed upon in advance.
It is a private contract made in a verbal or written format. A
declaration of the intent to marry and an acceptance of the terms are
required as in other forms of marriage in Islam.
According to Shia Muslims, Muhammad sanctioned nikah mut'ah (fixed-term marriage, called muta'a in Iraq and sigheh in Iran),
which has instead been used as a legitimizing cover for sex workers in a
culture where prostitution is otherwise forbidden. Some Western writers
have argued that mut'ah approximates prostitution.
Some sources say the Nikah mut'ah has no prescribed minimum or maximum duration, but others, such as The Oxford Dictionary of Islam,
indicate the minimum duration of the marriage is debatable and
durations of at least three days, three months or one year have been
suggested.
Some Muslims and Western scholars have stated that both Nikah mut'ah and Nikah misyar are Islamically void attempts to religiously sanction prostitution which is otherwise forbidden.[14] The Zaidi Shia reject Mutah marriage.
Not only did I laugh out loud ... I thought, wow, men have really some up with some doozies, every excuse to cover their bad behavior, in sexual desires, wars, controlling women ... it is unbelievable.
Of course, I must mention that The Emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed, has many wives ...
Tyler Thrasher is an artist, chemist, botanist, and explorer who aims to help catalyze curiosity and share his enthusiasm about combining art and science and the joys of experimentation. A combo of a made scientist and artist. But I love his plushie bugs!
Ali Wall - Beautiful made to measure fashion recycled from vintage materials.
“The story of an old fabric – where it has come from, where it has been, who made it – can take you back in time. Early fabrics sometimes have a naivety about them, and sometimes make you laugh out loud. What attracts me to the textiles I choose to create with is often their softness, patina and story that comes with age.
And also the colours – vintage fabrics often have subtler colour combinations than modern fabrics. I love to use military regalia and play with that sense of irony and pompousness whilst also appreciating the beauty of their decoration”
Dress in art - I
turn what I'm wearing into art. My body is my canvas and my clothes are
the paint. Style Coach, Fashion Illustrator, Colour Walker, Costume
Designer
Sulton Rogers was born in Oxford, Lafayette County, Mississippi. His father was a skilled whittler and taught him to carve animals and canes at a young age. In 1941 he married, and he subsequently fathered ten children. Eventually he moved to Syracuse, New York, where he worked at a chemical plant. He started carving again to stay awake during his night shift at the plant. Fellow employees were taking his finished carvings so he started carving coffins. He retired in 1984 and returned to Mississippi.
Rogers carved his figures from soft woods with a pocket knife. He would use a wood burning tool to add hair and facial features. He made creatures with animal features and human bodies, but his favorite subjects were people. They often had oversized grotesque features, long wagging tongues and noses and devilish grins. The men were dressed in suits and tuxedoes, the women were voluptuous with tight fitting dresses. His figures are amusing and disturbing. He referred to his carvings as "haints" and would sometimes make "haint houses" with many related carvings. Sulton Rogers said he carved human figures based on people he met in his travels and by his dreams, which he called “futures”.
