November 11th’s Art Every Day sketch, colored in for November 13.  Title:  Urban Landscape.

My crayons wear down.  It has been years since I’ve had to peel paper off crayons to get the color I need.  My inner child is delirious with delight.

Jana colored in the mandala from my first AEM day for her AEM a few days back.  Others are encouraged to pull down the uncolored sketches and color them and post on their blogs.  I love seeing the outcomes!  They all look so different!

Am playing catch up with everything today after doing the show all weekend and being Nana yesterday (do I need to tell you what a well-behaved, beautiful, angelic grandson I have?  Well, I do!!!).  Am cranking through my list and realize I need to get the blog up (it’s dark out – my measure).  I think I’m going to make it through almost everything on the list and that makes me feel pretty good.  There are a lot of things on that list.

The major things were to make small items today to fire tomorrow to use Friday; make raku glaze so I can do at least one raku torso tomorrow; do a bunch of little niggly things that have been sitting waiting.  Oh yes, and not on the list in the morning but done anyways, go rescue Husband who’s car blew out its water pump.  So he had to drive my car which is leaking transmission fluid from somewhere but we aren’t exactly sure where since he needs to jack the car up and crawl under it and working 18 hour days (his busy season) isn’t conducive to that.  And then there’s the van, which he says is nothing more than the dimmer switch (but which still can’t be used at night and oh by the way my key has stopped working in the ignition).  And it’s raining so he has to have a car instead of riding his bike to work.  So you see how that goes.

In other words, life as usual marches on, and it’s all very good.  I woke this morning with Sacred and some large new work wiggling into my vision space.  This is very good news.  It has been a long time since anything new wiggled into my vision space so it makes me very happy.

And then, this evening (I knew I didn’t post for a reason), the mail came and lookie what I got! Andrea sent me a copy of one of her mask sketches all the way from Paris, France!!!!  This isn’t a good picture because I don’t want to take it out of its sleeve yet (here’s her post on AEM 3).  And all you collage artists out there – look at those yummy stamps!!!!  Is this not the coolest?  I am SO BLESSED to have this blogging community that is so kind and generous to me!  Thank you all SO MUCH!!!

Now someone please tell me how I can get something posted from Paris, France (!!) in 5 days and I can’t get my deposit to my Fla bank faster than 8 days.

And Christine, at Passion for Painting, posted Daffodils for me! (my favorite of all flowers – and she didn’t even know!).

Have I mentioned, life is great?!

thought for the day:   Recognizing our inner rhythms is a major part of self-acceptance and an important lesson of Tao.  As each plant has its own cycles, so do we.  Judging ourselves in comparison to others is unnatural and unjust.  Daffodils bloom in early spring while chrysanthemums grace the gardens of autumn.  A wildflower blossoms for only one season, an oak tree may live for hundreds of years, and California’s giant sequoias have endured for thousands.  like the trees and flowers, we each have our own rhythms, our own time of fruition.  Who is to say what pattern is right for us?  Only we can know.  Diane Dreher, The Tao of Inner Peace