Long time, no see!

Whooeeee, time flies when you are not having fun too!

Spring is the busy time for General Meetings of the two art groups I belong to.  As I am on the board of both, I am very involved.  One group is setting up their annual show and I am the Applications Co-ordinator and have been spending hours and hours with that.

I injured my hip again with the move in December, and am still, five months later, in severe pain and it has slowed me down to a crawl, not that I am very fast to begin with.  It is hard to be inspired and work on art when you are exhausted from dealing with constant pain.  DH has been a life saver with the help he gives me around the house, but he can't create art for me. 

We are both avid gardeners, and we are looking forward to turning this yard which is presently all parking lot and weeds:

into a respectable flower garden with fruit trees.

We have doubled the width of the sidewalk on the right, put in posts for espaliered trees (apple, plum, cherry and two honey berries) tilled it all and discovered that the back twelve feet of yard that we are not leaving for parking is 8 inches deep in gravel!!

We had the gravel dug out, saved some in our garden planters to use as paths, and we had enough left over to fill all  the pot holes in the back lane!  A good three and a half yards of the stuff.

We then had the top scraped off the dirt at the front and pushed it into the hole left by the gravel removal.  I am now plotting out the paths and building them up with gravel upon which we will put the broken pieces of patio tiles in an interesting pattern.  Then we will have twelve yards of good topsoil mixed with manure spread over everything, then dig down to find the paths, thus making raised beds.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?  NOT!  I am good for filling and placing three half filled pails of gravel then I sit for a while and watch the birds!  The paths are inching their way along slowly.  My Dr. has told me I can take a lot more Tylenol 3 than I normally do, and with that easing the pain when I work, I really think that the exercise and weight lifting is actually helping to heal my hips.  That and my weekly massages.

(You don't have five deep therapeutic massages in twelve days!  Ask me how I know!  That is a whole 'nother story!!  I thought I would get a jump start on it since our Income Tax refund arrived and I can now afford it.  Another NOT!  I am down to once a week and trying to be patient.)

In the studio I am working on a "hat".  I have volunteered to do several hats for an exhibit of a hat collection.  Various artists are taking the life time collection of hats to turn them into something wondrous.  My 'Buttoned Down Winter Wedding' is almost done, base is ready to have the Outrageous added!

I am also decorating some shoes.  The smallest and most impossibly high heeled shoes I can find at the self-help will be turned into more Outrageousness!  I am hoping to sell these at a gallery as table ornaments.  I also have some commitments for art quilts, and need a lot of new pieces for the show at the end of October.  I think I will have to chain myself to my sewing machine!

I will also try to blog a lot more often.

Happy Spring!