What Was I Thinking

The Ganymede front door project- more shots at the end of this post. If you enlarge this image you can see my work from 1980 on! (Some of it upside down, some backwards.)

And today, acting the part of My Conscience, it's the famous judgement-thrower, Molly !

I had a little time to myself Saturday night so I headed for the Maul to get out of the house and people-watch instead of tv-watch. Sometimes this little habit makes me wonder if the Maul is my way of getting socialization out of the way- I'm seeing people doing their people-y things, interacting somewhat when I say 'nothanksImjustbrowsing' to the offers of help from sales people, plus getting a bit of walking in to hit those 10,000 steps. When you go at dinner time you can't get near the food places, so eating is out too, a Good Thing.

But the Bad Thing is this:

The Debil Made Me Do It. 4" heels, right. With my back issues lately, right. I'm taking them back, ha! I need leopard shoes, yup.

I finally finished up the last of the scarves in this season's series for Christmas gifts. Now I must finish up the neglected alphabet book that is lying in pieces since mid summer. I want all these things done so I can get on with my real stuff, the mess awaiting me every day in the studio. We have solved the whole Thanksgiving/Christmas issue this year by making a trip back between the two and hosting a big family dinner out of the condo. It is just too unwieldy to try to get a dinner on the table for 25 people when there isn't so much as a stick of butter in the house. This seems like the way to do it, but it chops two weeks off my to-do list of gift making and shopping.

We'll have our favorite aunt and uncle over for Thanksgiving again this year, so I can't wear my new shoes since I will be on my feet on the stone floor. IF (and I did say IF) I keep them they will be sit-down shoes only so I don't fall and break a hip.

And decorating the Florida house with fall leaves and Christmas snow... as if. This year the three pumpkins I painted off white are still sitting by the front door and I will move them to a more prominent place as my Thanksgiving decorations before they hit the garage. Cheap? Yup. So, that leaves the turkey as the only other necessity of the season. I already made a batch of cranberry sauce, my favorite recipe with just cranberries, oranges and ginger. Lots of ginger.

I've picked up a few sparkly ornaments from Anthropologie to hang somewhere for Christmas, probably off the chandelier over the dining table again. They had the most amazing whale ornament this year so I bought several to give away if I can stand to part with them. I also got some felt ornaments to send to the babies- I used to have a whole pile of kids ornaments so they could help decorate without breaking glass- the trick was to just use soft animal ornaments so we all liked them. Over the years I collected only animals and hand-made things to hang so the tree was wonderful and personal. Guess I am still stuck with the animal theme.

(Didja notice how I avoided talking about the studio today? I stayed out for two whole days, and am proud of myself. Today I go back to finish cleaning the messes up and reinstall the new laser printer, and hopefully have enough energy left to work on the alphabet book and stay AWAY from the encaustics for a bit of breathing space.)

I take that back- I forgot to post these pictures of my new front door, not yet finished but I ran out of slide sleeves and have to go replensih the supply if I can even find them! They were obsolete at Office Depot the other day.

from the outside

from the inside

Looks really cool when the sun comes through the door, plus it's fun to look back over the years at my old work. Disclaimer: I also used a few ziplock bags of slides from my crit group- we are all cleaning out the boxes of old stuff we have kept for no reasons and they donated to my cause. And yes, I know that the sun will degrade these in no time- I have several decades worth of additional slides to replace them as they fadeout!