Vote for New Prints!

It's been a long time since I had some new aceo prints made up and, as usual, I'm having a hard time making a decision about which 4 (or 8) pieces I want to have prints made of. If you could so kindly pick 4 images you really really dig, it would be a huge help to me!

And to keep things interesting, I'll draw a voter's name at random for a free aceo print. So be sure to either check back in a few weeks or make sure I have a way to get hold of you in case you are the winner!

So here's the contenders. Please choose 4!

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Memory Lane (House Style)

So here's a little refresher for those of you who weren't on our house-hunting journey in '05. Our house was only the second we looked at, but we were familiar with the neighborhood and this block in particular (our block is fabulous--so many great neighbors) and the price had just dropped and was VERY reasonable. If you want to know the price, I'll tell you, but it might make you want to move to KC. But we had some work in front of us:

*this is the house as we viewed it for the first time--this isn't our furniture or anything. Just in case y'all were wondering :)

Look how little Esther was!

I seriously forgot how bad the yard was. Scary.

Next time: some after photos.

Painting and Stuff, but Not the Artsy Kind

I've decided that we've lived in this house long enough, and dammit, the living room and dining room MUST BE PAINTED. I'm tired of the musty gross paint job we inherited when we bought this place. The interior was originally painted insane colors.
Wait, let me stress that: INSANE COLORS.
I guess after the house had been on the market for a matter of months, the sellers decided to paint over the insane downstairs colors and paint the trim dark poop brown and "leftover white paint surprise" on the walls. It's a sad greyish, puttyish sort of color that the paint manufacturer never intended, I'm sure.

So it's been almost four (FOUR!) years and I'm tired of not dealing with it. So it's getting done, sooner rather than later. Mostly because we're expecting a baby in November. SURPRISE!!!

(Yeah, it was a BIG surprise, considering we were only gonna have one kidlet. The universe likes to be funny). But it's all good, I feel great, we find out the baby's sex next month, and we're all excited.

Okay, now that's out of the way.

So yeah, we need to paint and here's a little preview of the awesome split-pea-soup-baby-barf green I found. It's exactly what I wanted and I'm gonna write Behr and tell them they should change the name to the one I coined. Hell, that's what Martha Stewart would do.





Isn't it purty? Don't you wanna just lick the walls? Hahaha, kidding, kidding.
Also, the trim is going to be the same pale pale cream color that's on the dining room trim. The dining room is going to be a warmer, slightly darker cream than the trim. It's such a sunny, wonderful room--it needs a light, reflective color. Especially in the winter.

Things are growing like crazy in the garden: the tulips and irises are long gone, and the peonies and roses are in full swing. Tomatoes and eggplants are blooming, the lettuce is almost done, and I still need to plant the green beans. I'll post some pics of all that soon. It's been a busy spring.

Hope you guys are all doing well!

Win One of My Paintings!

This is pretty cool:
The owner of the Blue Gallery, Kelly Kuhn, is a guest blogger at The Katillac Shack. Kelly's latest post is offering up a chance to win one of two new pieces from the gallery--one is a new oil painting from me entitled "Tant Pis", the other is a mixed media piece by R. Sawan White. All you have to do is comment on her post and you're entered into the drawing. The winner gets to choose which piece they want! (You'll pick mine, right? RIGHT?!)
Here's that link again:
Kelly's post

I'm just tickled that she chose one of mine to put in! Also, there's a shot of my painting "Come Back, Come Back: You're Out Too Far" hanging in Kelly's loft.

Speaking of paintings, I'm super behind on posting photos of new pieces. I shall remedy that, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Spring is Under My Skin and I am Neglectful as a Result

So Spring has finally decided to stick around here in Kansas City. The weather has jumped from the 50's to the 80's in just a few days. Arrrgh!!! I'm already running out of time to get green and growing things into the ground!!

Anyhoo, I'm focusing on the gnarly yucky side bed this season. When we moved here three (almost four!) years ago, it was overrun with virginia creeper, scrawny spindly rose of sharon, vinca, and basically a ton of other weedy, unhappy, ugly plants. Plus a bunch of broken glass and big chunks of concrete and trash.
It gets weird light (mostly shaded by our neighbor's house to the south, but full sun the rest of the day) and the soil was a mess. After one season I gave up trying to do things the natural way and basically just sprayed everything with Roundup. Now two seasons later, the soil is amended and ready to transform. This fall I planted five Sike's dwarf hyndrangeas along the foundation, and in the last few weeks have begun planting bronze, purple, and amber huecheras and bronze and black ajuga in front of them. They're all sturdy, reliable plants that have done really well in other weird light areas in my garden, so I hope they do okay here.






I've put in some more plants since these photos were taken and the hydrangeas have really started to leaf out in a big way.

Spread, ajuga, spread!!


My tulips are beginning to fade and look sad, but these pics are from a few weeks ago when things were young and happy. I have quite a few bare spots in the beds where the bulbs either got eaten or refused to grow. I don't know that I'll be ordering any bulbs from catalogs this year--last year about half the tulip bulbs I planted came from catalogs, and almost 2/3 of those haven't come up. I guess you get what you pay for.




I love species tulips--they just keep coming back. Yay! But I do like the fancy ones, too. Tulips are awesome.

And I've got new paintings I need to post here! Maybe this weekend...

In Anticipation of a Blizzard... Sort of

It's already cold outside, and the rain that fell last night has become a thin sheet of ice on cars and porch steps. It's also encased all my hyacinths and daffodils in ice, and all my tulips that are about to bloom. They're forecasting a major snowstorm for tomorrow and some bitterly cold temperatures. I say "Boo" to that! I brought all my potted pansies and violas up to the porch to cover up tonight, and took a few photos of the blooming things because I'm afraid after this weekend they'll be flattened.

I snipped some muscari to bring inside--they just started to open up a few days ago. I love their smell. It's a subtle, grapey kind of smell--almost like grape soda. Plus they're just so diminutive and sweet.






My poor little redbud's blossoms are *this close* to opening up--we'll see if they make it through the ice.



Say buh-bye to the daffodils! I think their days are numbered.

Brr! I'm gonna make a run to the grocery store after getting Esther from school and do a little stocking up, just in case we do get dumped on. Then we can stay home and have cocoa and be cozy all weekend. I love snow when I don't have to go out in it. Although I do get a little stir-crazy after a couple of days!

Finally!

Finally finished this piece I started months ago. I wish the photo were better. I'll have to take it outside on a cloudy day and shoot it again.

"She Could Hear the Shrieking of Distant Sea Birds"

oil on masonite, 16 x 20 inches

This will be going to the Blue Gallery as soon as it's dry and framed.

In other news, today I'm nursing a poor little sick critter with some sort of awful stomach virus. I guess there's a nasty bug going around. When I called Esther's doctor's office this morning to ask a nurse about her high fever, the nurse said she'd already had a ton of calls that morning about the same thing.
Her fever's down a bit, finally, and she's on the couch trying to sleep. Poor kid. We were all three of us up all night, and we all certainly look it!