little things and lizards

Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference.

As you may know, I'm enjoy kitsch, particularly when it comes to my decor.  I have a bit of a thing for lizards and frogs and turtles and birds.  And I have seasonal decorations.  In the winter time I hang glitter snowflake ornaments from the ceiling of my living room, and in the spring and the summer I have a set of monarch butterflies and some hummingbird ornaments that I use.  The hummingbirds were Christmas ornaments that I found in Target like 5-6 years ago. I thought they were so cool that I bought all the ones they had that weren't broken. I have 14 of them or so.  They're resin ornaments, so I brought them home and painted them so that they looked like real ruby-throated hummingbirds, right down to using various shades of iridescent nail polish over their plumage to make them shine... 

Anyway, back around that actual beginning of spring, I took down all the snowflakes and put up my butterflies and my hummingbirds.  And then it snowed the next day.  It's been a long winter, and that's meant a lot of time in doors.  So much so that I started changing out and moving around pictures and artwork just to entertain myself and stave off boredom and malaise.

I thought I was done until I found myself standing in Hobby Lobby buying 2 more resin lizards (like these).  So, of course, I gave them a new coat of paint.  And after they sat around my work space for a week or two - on a whim I finally got around to hanging them up on Tuesday morning.  This of course also meant that I needed a new picture for over the computer...

I am definitely not a minimalist.  But I think we all already knew that...

Hopefully the weather starts acting like spring soon. As much as I may enjoy decor and pictures and knick-knacks and stuff, I'm ready to put on my good shoes and grab the camera and throw some extra batteries in my pockets and go out wandering around enjoying some budding trees and daffodils.

cold days are best spent indoors

The world's blandest chili
Ingredients:

• 1 16oz can dark red kidney beans
• 1 16oz can mild chili beans
• 1 26oz can tomato soap
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
• 1/2 tsp red pepper
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 lb ground chuck
• 1 8oz package shredded mild cheddar cheese
• 1/2 soup can of water
  

Brown ground chuck, drain grease. Add beans, add soup, add water. Stir. Add spices. Stir. Add generous handful of cheese. Stir until it melts. Serve garnished with cheese.

I'm sure this is full of calories and "bad" for me. But it's cold, and well, it's dinner. Plus, it's delicious, especially on a cold day in January.

I am the daughter of a craft project hoarder. My mother has hundreds of unfinished craft projects... and while I don't have hundreds, I do have a few. I did a bunch of paintings a few years ago for a project and just never got around to phase 2 of the project. So, they have been sitting in a pile in a cabinet in my office. They were sitting in a pile on a shelf in my office, but I "reorganized," so, yeah, they ended up in the cabinet... Not the greatest place to keep paintings.

So, I pulled them out, separated them from themselves... spent a morning with brushes and a bottle of alcohol and the exacto knife with the curved blade cleaning 'transfer' off their fronts (they're painted on illustration board; the backs are gessoed, the weight of the pile stuck blips of gesso onto the surface of the next painting...). I spent a morning scanning them (see last entry)... And yesterday I varnished them and signed them. Well, okay, there are still like 5 paintings I haven't scanned yet, but I got most of them.

So, now the place has that faint odor of varnish... I suppose I'll choose to think of that as the scent of accomplishment. It definitely feels more purposeful than shoveling the road out in front of the house - yes, it snowed again.

I'm ready for spring, how about you?