georgia pollen

The pine pollen is so heavy here that my normally white car looks vanilla-yellow. It is so gross looking, and there's no use hosing off the car, it will be covered again with the yellow pollen within an hour or so. I wrote "Pollenmobile" in pretty lettering on my car's back window using my finger. Hopefully it will give someone a laugh on the road.

It is very bad for anyone with allergies. A lot of sneezing going on!

This site will give you the pollen count and weather for your area. LINK

Magic Pictures

This is so cool...I've got to figure out how this works! At first I thought it was the frame/glass that was doing it, but apparently it is the prints themselves...because you can order reprints and they'll change just like the first one you order. The picture will change when you walk past it or tilt it. Pretty fun! Check it out at their site LINK

Daily Schedule

You know how important it is to keep children on a schedule. Here is my 17 month old son's daily schedule lately.

7:15 am: Wake up
7:30 - 7:45 am: Eat, throw dish and spoon on dog, splattering leftovers on kitchen cabinets and floor. Watch dog freak out then return to lick up whatever he can.
7:45 - 7:55 am: Squeal and flail while mom tries to clean me up.
7:55 - 8:00 am: Climb up on sofa, trying to do everything my 3-1/2 year old brother can do. Tumble off sofa headfirst, cry and get hugs and kisses from Mommy.
8:05 am: Climb up on sofa again.
8:07 am: Fall off sofa again headfirst, cry and get hugs and kisses from Mommy.
8:09 am: Climb up on sofa again
8:11 am: Fall off sofa again headfirst, cry and get hugs and kisses from Mommy.
8:13 am: Climb up on sofa again
8:15 am: Be caught by Mommy mid-air in headfirst dive.
8:20 am: Mommy carries him off for a little 'rest,' I don't know if it's for me or if it's really for her.

9:00 am: I never sleep so it's up for a snack.
Repeat climbing up on sofa and falling off sofa and hurting myself until it's lunchtime....

Repeat climbing up on sofa and falling off sofa and hurting myself after lunch, until it's dinnertime.

You get the picture.

what's up

What's up blogging world?
I have been meaning to post to the blog for several days now, I've just been busy working. I will try to catch up on the blogging when my work is caught up.

georgia pre-k

<--- Little Man has been accepted into a Georgia Pre-K (Pre-kindergarten) program. I had heard that there are sometimes shortages of openings, so on the advice of friends I registered him at three different locations. Some preschool daycare centers have only one day they register students - only handing out exactly the number of applications for which they have openings. They'll only hand you the application packet if you have your child's birth certificate and Social Security card with you (I did, luckily).

Other places hand out as many application packets as they are asked for, and then they do a lottery to fill the spots, just randomly picking out applications. I favor the random picking, because it creates less of a frenzy for the center. The place that had the one-day registration was chaotic, with lines of parents waiting to get the application packet, then parents sitting or standing all over the place filling out the forms, then another line of parents waiting to turn in their paperwork. I can't see how this would not negatively effect the children in the center. I don't think it's very safe to do it that way, either. Of course, it had to be a dismal rainy day too!

Little Man will start pre-kindergarten in August. It will be a 6 and a half hour long day for him.
I think that is too long for preschool. I wish there was a 4-hour option. He'll probably do fine, it's me who will suffer during that long day - he's the light of my life!

Georgia's Pre-K is funded by the Georgia Lottery, so I will only need to pay about $17 a week for food costs. I think he will really enjoy it. Still working a lot on potty training him...sometimes I think we're almost there, and then other times I am afraid he'll go to college wearing Pull-Ups!!! We'll work on it even more this summer, and he should be totally ready by the time PreK starts.

she puts the fine in fine art jewelry

Fiery Lion Designs is a one-woman fine jewelry crafts business, and she sells her beautiful jewelry on Etsy. Most of Caryn's jewelry is sterling silver over stained glass, but she has also done some over guitar picks, and the results are just wonderful either way.

She was featured on That's Clever (formerly Crafters Coast To Coast) on HGTV a few months ago and it was really neat to see her create a necklace. The cut-out design takes a lot of work to cut and file.

See her shop : LINK

mother nature's nursery reborn dolls

This Etsy seller, mothernaturesnursery, can use photos of your baby as reference, and create a baby doll to look like your child.

So adorable...I'd love to have 4 of these done!

LINK

the cajun bag lady

Theresa is a talented mom who loves to sew, but doesn't like many of the storebought patterns available, so she started designing her own. I think this tote bag that holds the coloring books inside and has pockets just right for crayons on the sides is brilliant! She makes bags of all types, and her husband is a talented wood turner! Check out her Etsy shop CajunBagLady.Etsy.com here: LINK

PS this bag is on sale for $12 (it was $18, and if you have any sense, you'll grab it before I do).

book illustrations

Added the notes on the illustrations for Lady Alice Lisle and Lord Nelson to my Portraits in Progress blog today.

A E Ruffing's Gorgeous Art

Every once in awhile, I run across an artist's work that just really fascinates me.

Anne Ruffing's art is some of the most gorgeous I've seen. I just want to step inside the scenes of her paintings and just live there.

Check out her Etsy shop: LINK

I especially like this one with the bunny rabbit in it, what a wonderful Easter gift this giclee print would make!

Her daughter, Elizabeth Ruffing, is also an extremely talented artist! See her Etsy shop here: LINK

pizza cones

If you're a person who might walk up to me and say,

"Dang Darla, we just haven't had enough technological advances in pizza lately,"

well I have something for you today.

How about a special proprietary recipe for a crispy pizza crust, baked in a special oven to make it cone shaped and it won't drip, so you can eat pizza anywhere? (Maybe not in outer space or on a roller coaster...they don't really approach that issue).

Well check it out...Conopizza LINK

Richard Jeni dead

Really sad news this morning that comedian Richard Jeni shot himself yesterday morning, an apparent suicide.

Full Story Here

He was always one of my favorites, although R rated. The autopsy will be done today for a full determination of cause of death. I noticed that he hasn't looked very well in recent years. Very sad news.

Richard Jeni's Greatest Bits

google adsense

I still haven't found that paper clip, and I could have sworn I put it in my jeans pocket! (har)
Mental note to just buy some paperclips sometime.

I decided to add the Google Adsense ads to the top of my blog. What the hey, give it a shot and see what all the hubbub is about. So if you see something way up there at the top of the blog, please click it, and I'll get a penny or two. You don't have to buy anything, just click. The links are supposed to be complementary to what's here on my blog. So imagine my dismay when I see the one about "Toilet Blog...Tips, installations, photos, news" ... Where are all the great art links? Ah well, I'll give it some time. If you see anything weird or disgusting up there, let me know because apparently I can block ads if they are inappropriate. If I get rich from these Adsense Ads, I'll be sure to let you know. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I have made a little bit of money from affiliate linking, mostly from the DickBlick.com links (I get 10% of sales made through my links) and a little bit from Amazon.com links to their art books (that ad panel's on the left). The other little ads have yet to make me any money, so I change them out pretty often and just try to pick out things that I think are interesting and that my site visitors might find fun to check out too.

Other than that, I don't really have time for them but they brighten up the blog a bit with more color.

artist's life looks bearable in blog

I know now why companies pay people to blog for them (kind of like ghostwriting). Sometimes there are so many things to say, but none of them are really interesting enough for a full blog post.

"Yesterday I went to WalMart and found a paper clip on the ground" is true, but it's hardly an adequate blog post.

...oh no...where did I put that paper clip...?

art news

There's a lot of art in the news today:

Stolen Norman Rockwell painting shows up in Steven Spielberg's art collection:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2921647&page=1

Fine Arts Treasures Gallery - Satellite art sales show full of forgeries - big art scam.
I watched a bit of this show one time and it seemed a little shady to me at the time. I wondered where they were getting all these masterpieces from?!!?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_en_ot/art_scam

Scott Wade creates his art on the limestone covered dusty windows of cars in Texas:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070305/ap_en_ot/dirty_car_art_3

Catching up

I'm feeling much better, just working hard to get caught up on everything!
I am scheduling into June 2007 now...

drug madness

I went to the doctor on Wednesday because of terrible head congestion that was causing migraine headaches. I ended up with prescriptions for antibiotics, decongestant/expectorant, and steroids.

When I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions, I couldn't get the decongestant because the doctor's prescription was wrong (they don't make that decongestant in the strength she prescribed). Ugh!

So I asked the pharmacist what Robitussin he would recommend. I had been taking Robitussin but it just wasn't strong enough. I told him I have to have something to get rid of this so I can get rid of the migraines! He recommended Mucinex-D. I had to fill out a Drug Enforcement Agency form and show my driver's license. They keep this medicine behind the counter and you have to sign for it because people use it to make Methanphetamine.

I took the two pills of the decongestant as prescribed at 4 pm, and at 8 pm, I took 2 more pills. Later on, I felt jumpy so I re-read the box...and it wasn't to take 2 every 4 hours, it was to take 2 every 12 hours! I am so used to taking sinus medications, and they're usually every 4 hours, I did it like a dunce without thinking about it. Even though I had read the box at the time of the first dose, I guess the congestion and headaches had made my thinking cloudy and I was a space-case.

No wonder I slept only about 15 minutes out of each hour that night...I was all hepped up on drugs! I finally gave up on trying to sleep at about 3:30 am. I cleaned the kitchen and did laundry, and I think I could have re-roofed the house and repaved the driveway. LOL. I thought about working on some portraits, but I felt just too edgy to do that.

I kept drinking a lot of water to get it the meds out of my system. Later in the day I talked to the pharmacist and asked him about it. He told me it's okay if I did that once, but it's when people do it over and over that it harms them. He said, "Now you know what it would be like if you took Crystal Meth." He said that people who take Meth like it for how it gives them extra energy and that they feel that it heightens their awareness.

I guess I can see that, but I definitely don't want to feel like that again. It taught me a good lesson to read and then re-read all medication instructions before taking, especially when I'm sick.