Off to Brighton

I am going down to Brighton today to spend a couple of days with the boys and, of course, their Mummies. I will have my camera and will post pictures when I get back.

Another course

I decided it was time to get serious about doing some writing. It's all very well to say you do writing but the truth is that I never seem to get around to it. So, I started a writing course last evening and we've got the old phantasy thing going again. I told you about the art course. Well, I turn up at this place last night and realize that everyone else in the group is considerably younger than I and everything seems to revolve around Sci Fi. But, like the art group, I am going to stick with it to see what happens. Perhaps I can write a story in one course and illustrate it from the other!

My Monday evenings at BK continue. The meditation suits me and the discussion group is useful. I try to carry things I hear into daily life and sometimes I succeed.

I have been going along great with Flylady. My Zone this week is the kitchen.

Adam

We are in the middle of an Adam style sleepover. We started off yesterday afternoon with a trip to the cinema to see the new Planet of the Apes film. The first half was pretty good (not great) but it then turned scary so we left. I told Adam he could choose our dining venue and, god love him, he picked KFC. It's my favourite fast food so we made the five mile drive down to the A40 service area and indulged ourselves. We got Krispy Kreme doughnuts (only one each) to bring home and treated ourselves while watching Madagascar which was way better than PofA. We were in bed by 9:30 and now we are up waiting for Starbucks to open so we can indulge in a little more self indulgence.

A True Brit

Good news. I spoke to an immigration lawyer today and she tells me that my background, assets, family, and general and specific wonderfulness mean that I can apply to become naturalized and there should be no problem having it come through. I can get a British passport and, equally important, I can change my name. For those of you who don't already know, I will be Anne Richards when this happy day arrives.

Earnley

I spent the weekend at Earnley Concourse. I was doing a course called Fantasy Art in Watercolour This was chosen on the basis of time - I wanted to be away this particular weekend and the word 'watercolour'. What I didn't take into account was the word 'fantasy'. I was thinking about daydreams and making stuff up. This is what it is but the emphasis was/is on faeries and dragons. Great wings and tails everywhere and sexy girls with long wispy curly hair twining around their scantily clad bodies. "Oh dear", I thought but I didn't give up. There were only two of us in the class plus the teacher. She was terrific and I learned a lot about watercolour techniques. The other student was an older man who had taken up painting when he retired ten years ago. The first task was to choose a picture from the many books that Sharon (teacher) had brought. Barry quickly found himself a dragon and this lady and got to work.




I was searching frantically for something that didn't have fire coming out of its mouth or big doe eyes and I came across THE RABBIT. I knew immediately that this was my picture.



I used Rabbit to learn about tracedown paper, masking fluid, salt technique and, most importantly, blending and blurring and outlining. It was a terrific weekend. I also bought some decent supplies. I used to assume that it was pretentious crap to go on about sable brushes. Not so. They are wonderful so I now have a set.

This is a partially finished picture by the tutor. She was using it to demonstrate various techniques.




By the way, we were told that we should always give our pictures names. Mine is called 'Redundancy'.

Rosie's Birthday Party

The Jungle Cake



Today Rosie is four and I went to her house a for birthday tea party. Her mother made and decorated the cake. The woman is amazing and this is only round one. She will have her friends for a party on Sunday and mother will be mixing, baking and decorating yet again.

Flylady

I have discovered a new 'get things done' guru. It is called Flylady and Alison told me about it. This is a follow-on in my feeble attempts to get organized and to get my life going smoothly. She, Alison, started me with 'Eat that Frog' which concentrates on defining the worst job you have on your list (I live with lists) and doing it first. I then moved on to 'Pomodoro' which is a 25 minute timer that you use when you have a long drawn out job; i.e. sorting the bookshelves or wardrobe. You set the timer and when it goes off, you can take a break for 5 or 10 minutes and then reset it and get back to work. The latest 'improve yourself' effort is called Flylady. You start off with a 28 day program of gradually getting things in order and keeping them that way. Day 1 was easy. It was called 'shine your sink'. The idea is that if you always have a clean shiny kitchen sink, you will feel good about yourself. Before I went to bed last night, I cleaned and polished my sink and I have to say that when I got up this morning, I did feel good not having to face dirty dishes. Day 2 (today) was to start the day by getting dressed. My usual routine is to sit at the computer in my nightwear drinking coffee and wasting time. Well, not today. I'm still wasting time but at least I'm showered and dressed whilst doing it. The Book Club is meeting at my house tonight so I have to be both tidy and intelligent. We are reading "Mother's Milk" by Edward St. Aubyn. I won't say here what I thought of it because I must save my opinions for the group.