The idea that the same firm resolve that stiffens our chin and straightens our shoulders while uttering the words would remain strong during everyday life that tends to get in the way of  firm resolve is a tad ridiculous.  Yet we repeat the tradition each year.

So, in keeping with tradition, here are my New Years Resolutions:

1.                                         and,

2.                                        and, most importantly,

3.

If I can’t successfully keep these resolutions, then I just need to hang up my intentions…good or bad. Unfortunately, the only resolution I can remember keeping in my lifetime was to quit smoking for three months every year.  I read an article that claimed when a smoker stopped smoking, their lungs would be clear within 3 months.  So I quit long enough to clear out my lungs….but April 1…fresh pack, new lighter.  Every other resolution I’ve ever made was history before the ink was dry on the resolve.

Now, rather than deliberately beginning my year as a failure, I choose to let life and Murphy’s Law handle it for me.

Too late.  The damage was done.  I will forever see myself as a scattering force,  shoving people, things, opportunities away from me…with the exception of my grandchildren who apparently don’t care how detergenty I am; they come running, loving my hugs and kisses and wackiness.

Perhaps the key to success is to not fight who we are, as unflattering…or perhaps flattering, as that may be.  I’m an artist…an abstract artist.  I used to be a journalist.   Never would have been a CPA (although I love money) or librarian (although I love books) or technical type person (although I love…well probably nothing positive about technical stuff).

Having another artist, or several, critique my paintings is helpful to me as an artist.  A different set of eyes can see flaws, foibles and faux paus of which I didn’t pick up.  A different set of eyes can also pick up spots of great color or composition or design that I may not have noticed and really need to appreciate.  It’s  not so easy when the critique is directed to you as a person, however.  It’s hard to have your foibles highlighted.  And it seems to be difficult for people who can point out your design flaws to focus on your great areas of composition as well.  Why do we find it so easy to tear down, but impossible to build up?

When I find the answer to that question, I’m going to write a best selling book, go on the Tonight Show, or Letterman, or both, and retire with a mountain of money…and all my flaws and imperfections.

“Falling Leaves”                                                                  ”Figure in Fuschia”

Falling Leaves was painted during a time when I was stuggling with a geometric obsession…my brush kept painting geometric shapes and I didn’t want to be that kind of artist.  I had just taken a workshop with MaryAnn Beckwith who said I might very well be a geometric artist and should quit fighting it….Fortunately it stopped after this painting.  My daughter, who doesn’t like or understand abstract art said I should paint little VISA and MasterCard logos on the corners.  My soon-to-be son-in-law just said “Leaves???”

Figure in Fuschia just happened…what can I say?

“Aqua Harvest Rain”                                              ”Purple Umbrella”

“Purple Umbrella” was great fun to paint.  A young lady posed for live drawing at a workshop and this painting emerged from one of those drawings.  Fortunately she wasn’t insulted…probably because it looks nothing like her and she wasn’t afraid of being recognized.

Aqua Harvest is one of my favorites. 

“Cocktails” – in the private collection of Amy and Jeff Longspaugh

“An Afternoon Stroll ”                              “Circles”

I was there for a check up at which I received good news and old news. Good news…Whoohoo! Old News…reminder of some more time needed before the next step..not bad news, just reminder news. So…this would be a perfect time to….burst into tears???

I could feel them welling up, despite mental threats, mental bribes, mental promises to disown my hiney the very moment we (me and the hiney) left his office. None worked.

I’m sitting in his exam room, having just been told good news and much to my horror – and his – there’s tears all over the place. And snot from tears. There’s also Dr. Wonderful making sounds of reassurance, while looking over his shoulder mentally willing his nurse/PA to come walking it and save him…which she didn’t.

So…I’ve left the office, with tears, sniveling and snot under control…until I stop at the grocery store and some elderly lady in the produce section asked me how my day is going. I smile, tell her it’s going peachy while tracks of tears start pouring down my checks. I quickly escaped to the frozen foods section (with intent to stick my head into a freezer until all potential tears freeze inside my head.

Needless to say, I escaped very quickly to my car and to my house where I locked all the doors to keep whatever force of nature turning my life into one large snot bubble out and me protected in. Then I began looking for the rest of my brain because it was obviously MIA.  Hubby came in the house about that time, took  one look at me,  started to do  something really stupid, like walk over and hug me,  took another good look at the expression on my face and thought better of his original decision.  Detouring through the side door he left the house rather quickly.   Who says men aren’t capable of making smart decisions?

So…what was the problem?  Don’t know. Also don’t know where it went.  It just went.  An artist friend of mine told me to take pain pill and get over it.  But then she frequently tells me I’m a much more pleasant person when I’m  on pain pills. 

I guess that’s one  good reason to renew my prescription….or I could just pick

8 Seconds on Fu Manchu                                                 Study in Red

I couldn’t come up with a name for ‘Fu Manchu’ until I was talking with an artist friend who used to ride bulls.  He remarked that my painting reminded him of the view he had from the back of a bull named Fu Manchu.  I personally thought that particular view would be filled with black and blue and red…and tears, but then the only bull I’ve been on the back of was a mechanical one at the stockyards.  And it still kicked my butt. 

Centerpiece – in the private collection of Ms. Wendy Cooper

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.” Mark Twain

My favorite quote used to be “It’s along story and even longer when I tell it.” by Winnie the Pooh. It just seemed to fit for me. Not because I talk alot (which I have ocassionally been known to do), but because I can…well, I sometimes…not always do I… okay. It’s probably because I talk alot. But it’s also because I have this inability to tell a short story. It’s not the complete story unless it contains details.

Life is in the DETAILS. It’s not enough to just know what someone said, you also need to know what their facial expressions were when they said it. What were the circumstances? What led up to their comments? Unfortunately I am married to a cop. Well, a retired cop, but once a cop always a cop. He delivers information on a need to know basis. He just doesn’t understand why I need to know and why what I need to know is everything. I can be my own filter, thank you.

Oldest Daughter is another one of those non-detail people. Or maybe she’s detail with everyone else, she just isn’t with me. I can tell when I’m halfway through a story (one that I think is going well) and her eyes start rolling up into the back of her head and her hands start fluttering and looking for something to do to distract her from the remaaainnnnderrrrr of the story. Most times she’s polite and keeps her twitching to herself, although it’s hard to stay focused on what you’re saying when someone is having a mini seizure right in front of you. Others times she breaks in and says, “Mother, will you get to the point. I have to start dinner in three hours.” Which is fine.

Now Youngest Daughter is a fellow story teller. She, like her mother, loves the actual story and all the nuances of each and every detail. Sometimes you can enrich a story with the proper details and still leave it a semblance of itself. Face it, most people can’t see the potential for a good story. Those are the ones who recite the words but not the embellishments, the words but not the voice inflections. We still want to hear the story, but be aware that when it’s repeated, the rest will be added!

Which gets us to the reason behind my new favorite quote. It’s a good one because it’s not just any quote that can take down Pooh. But it’s taken so long to get to the point that my pain pill has kicked in and this story will have to wait until another time….

I’m still keeping the IRS fooled into believing I am an artist by profession.  It’s only a matter of time before they pay attention to the fact that someone’s profession usually generates income and mine doesn’t quite qualify for that.  When they catch on, I guess I’ll have to figure out what else I want to do when I grow up. 

I know a chef will not be in the running for next profession. My son-in-law recently laid down the law and said I was not allowed to make cookies with my granddaughters. I did not, repeat, DID NOT use bad ingredients and give anyone food poisoning. I also did not act carelessly and allow one of them to burn themselves or fall off the counter or anything else harmful.

So, you may be asking, what would cause my normally easy-going son-in-law to make such a firm decision? Apparently taste. Possibly form and function. Perhaps I should explain….

You may recall my mentioning that my daughter is a wonderful cook. A cook from scratch cook. In fact she has this mixer that does every thing but iron sheets. She will decide on the spur of the moment to make cookies and start pulling things out of the pantry, fridge and cabinets, throw it all in this magic mixer and VOILA! cookies. Darn good cookies! The girls each have their own chairs and spatulas and help mom all the time.

One day the girls were at my house and I told them we were going to bake cookies. Izzy excitedly ran into the kitchen, drug a chair up to the counter, picked a spatula out of the utensil holder and waited expectantly. I actually felt rather bad as I explained we didn’t need the spatula and showed her how to break apart the preformed frozen blobs of dough and place them on the baking sheet. She seemed to have fun; she and Annie ate some cookies and took the rest home with them.

Apparently there is a big difference between blobs of frozen cookie dough and made from scratch dough using only the freshest ingredients. And at the risk of confusing the kids and causing grave emotional upheaval…I have agreed to not bake cookies with them any more. I’ll have to come up with something else that doesn’t compete with homemade stuff they learn at home.

I’m thinking of homemade from scratch fried egg and peanut butter sandwiches on toast….

Looking pointedly at the handicapped sign, then to them, then back to the truck, I gave them my very best “now aren’t you ashamed of yourself parking in a handicapped spot when you aren’t even handicapped” stare. I just assumed they were being lazy and grabbing an up front spot instead of walking an extra 10 feet.

Can you imagine my surprise when, rounding the front of the truck, I discovered it had handicapped license plates! These weren’t just lazy ignorant people! These were people who actually had a handicapped person in their lives, knew first-hand the struggles with being handicapped and were being lazy anyway! That’s even worse! That’s just plain inexcusably FRADULENT! My “aren’t you ashamed of yourself” stare became a “you are lower than a gutter crawling piece of filth” death glare.

Shortly after that, I stopped at Walmart and began my belabored process of struggling out of my car just as a humongous truck barrelled down the lane, screeched to a stop, backed up into the only remaining handicapped spot and a tiny thing in workout clothes hopped out and ran…RAN…into the store! I mumbled and grumbled my way into the store, grabbed the few things I needed, gave the workout girl my death glare when I passed her in an aisle, refrained from ramming her with my motorized cart and headed back to my car.

This situation wasn’t one that needed to be swept under the parking spot, though. Grabbing a piece of paper, I began writing a scathing note to place on her windshield hopefully allowing a ray of intelligence to penetrate her pee brain and perhaps help change a selfish, self-aborbed behavior into one of desired service to humanity…or at least let me vent some rage and frustration…. Unfortunately, just as I was triple-underlining MORONIC, she came prancing out of the store, hopped in the truck and roared off.

I now find myself prowling parking lots looking, not only for cars parked in handicapped spots with no handicap permit, but for vehicles with permits being driven (and parked) by non-handicapped morons. And when I find one, I’ve got this perfectly written scathing note just waiting to change someone’s life.
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Snapdragon Flight                                                                          Blueberries

Two completely different paintings…odd that they would be side by side except they were both done around the same time period.  I think it’s good every once in a while to paint something that is easily recognizable…just to keep on your toes.  The problem is I get bored while painting “realistically” and have to keep going back to my “regular” paintings…so it takes me a bit longer to complete one.

“From Dreams to Wings”

This particular painting was a different venture for me. An underlayer of texture was lain on the canvas.  Then the painting was added, with no thought to the texture underneath.  The resulting painting is multi-demensional piece with random texture popping out at odd times in the flow of the painting.  Reviews for this piece have been either all or nothing; it’s fantastic or it doesn’t work at all.  Guess it’s a matter of personal taste.

While in the process of not even talking about politics – we were in an art group…we talk about pthalo blue washes and wondering what snacks will be brought to the next meeting – I mentioned I could never watch The Real Housewives of D.C. because they were all Obama supportors.  Okay, if you have to know, I was telling the group about being sucked into watching The Real Housewives of New Jersery while I was in the kitchen with no remote handy and before I knew it, I was on the couch watching this train wreck with absolutely no ability to turn away.  The conversation took its logical turn from New Jersey to Atlanta, stopped briefly at Orange County and ended up in Washington D.C.

After making my unfortunate comment about Obama supporters, this spitfire leaped across the tables with smoke pouring out of her ears, sizzling sounds coming from behind her eyes and suddenly-fanged teeth hissing words that sounded like “Bush…Muslims…history….fiery pits of hell….

Looking quickly around, I find myself armed with…a paintbrush loaded with cerulean blue.  The most I  would be able to do would be to tone down the flushed red of her cheeks with a light glaze of blue.

Several of us got her calmed down – me by apologizing for offending her and reminding her we could still be friends even if we didn’t see eye to eye…and then leaving the room and letting someone lead her back to her canvas and get her refocused on her painting. It took a few minutes, but eventuallly things were back to normal, heads were no longer spinning in circles and the group was back to painting and discussing the next meeting’s snacks.

It reminds me of another encounter with a Democrat, but it was Oldest Daughter’s run-in.  She walked into her first college government class and found the professor was a black, single mother…Democrat.  Now, my daughter could have written her papers the way she knew the professor wanted to read them.  She could have kept her opinions to herself in class.  She could have tucked her head low and safely navigated through the class.  But you haven’t met my daughter…we celebrated when she finished the course with a D…and the professor’s grudging agreement not to outright fail her.

Moral of this story????? If you want controvery, if you want yelling, cussing, name callling, threats of bodily harm, don’t talk politics.  Just watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey.