Dad's Birthday

This painting was done for my Dad's birthday. This photo is of him and me a LONG time ago. It has always been his favorite. I really struggled trying to think of something to give him this year, and then I thought I'd try to paint a version. You can see my painting on the left and the photo on the right. I'm not really great at painting people, but I was really happy with how this turned out. Dad seemed to really love it and that's really all that matters.

Well, it seems I've been a very bad blogger and not posting in a long time. I've been busy enjoying my summer. My harp lessons are going well and thankfully I'm improving quickly. I don't feel quite so uncordinated now, but I still cant play what I want to since I'm still learning. Its definetly been a good thing to do, and I think it'll help my teaching when my piano students return in the fall. I know fully remember what its like to be brand new to an instrument.

My piano is progressing nicely according to my last report. The soundboard is in good shape, so I'll come in under the estimated cost! Wonderful news. I'm anxious for its return. I find myself walking into my office and wanting to just play and not having it there is so sad.

In other summer activities my softball team is doing well, we're tied for first and we're still having fun. My art has been a little slow. I had a week of not being inspired to do anything. I think that has passed now. Maybe I just needed a short break. We went to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs this week and saw so many great artists. What talent all gathered together.

I'm off to run errands. Have a wonderful weekend.

Harppy Days

I have the harp and I've finished one lesson. Its very weird for me to feel awkward at an instrument. Its been a very long time since I started learning a new instrument from scratch. I'm finding my posture unsure and strange, but I am really loving trying things out. I've played through the songs I was assigned so many times and was to eager to move on so I went to the library and checked out another book of music and I'm challenging myself to do more. I hate being bored when it comes to music. Music should be inspiring and soothing, not boring and tedious. Anyways, I am having fun with the challenge. The only down side to the instrument is that I'm spending all my free moments at the harp instead of making art. It will balance out after the newness of the instrument wears away. I have sketched some things, but haven't finished anything.

Its been hot here. Really hot. We've also had some horrendous storms with winds like I cant remember ever having before. They actually were strong enough to blow a train off the tracks the other night. I'm thankful that we've not been one of the many who has lost power lately. I'm also thankful that the new fence has withstood the winds in its incomplete state. Having the fence up for about half of the yard so far has made an incredible difference in the atmosphere out back. It feels very secluded and private already. We are loving it and have returned to eating our meals outside which we did not do at all last year because of the new neighbors and their yelling. You can see the fence in the background of the rose garden. Wow are the roses ever in bloom. I just love how thick and lush they are this week. They smell fabulous too!

That's about all I've been up to. I haven't even made time to visit anyones blogs this week. I have a softball game this evening but I'm going to try to do some visiting before I leave. I hope all of you are doing well. Thanks so very much for stopping by.

The rewards of nature

The neatest thing happened yesterday. I started to work on this garden sign as soon as I got home from church. I found it at the craft store and it had the ugliest picture of a life preserver with the quote "Welcome Aboard" on it, but I loved the idea of painting on a garden stake. I quickly covered up the ugly and started sketching a butterfly. I was using a picture from a magazine I picked up early this spring. I worked on the painting all afternoon while my hubby and FIL worked on erecting a privacy fence. I stopped occasionally to talk with my SIL and nephew, but mostly painted for about 5 hours. It was a beautiful day here and I set up everything at the patio table and enjoyed being out in the sun. Anyways, after working on it all afternoon I was finally finishing up putting the sealer on when a butterfly flew over me and into my garden a few feet away. It was the one and only butterfly I'd seen all day and it landed on my purple weeds that I love and let stay in the garden every year since its a "pretty" weed. I walked over to look at the butterfly and nature rewarded me by sending a real yellow swallowtail to match the one I had just finished. It even landed on the purple flowers like I had put in the background of my painting. What a neat moment. I had to run in the house and get the camera so I wouldn't loose the memory. Even my husband thought it was pretty cool. My heart was so happy with the whole thing.

My piano finally was moved on Friday. It was a moment of mixed emotions watching it being loaded up and leaving. I was sad yet excited at the same time. My harp will be arriving on Wednesday along with my first lesson. I'm hoping that having a new instrument to play with will ease the seperation anxiety of the piano being gone. I'm sure I'll be relaying updates on the piano as they come, and also progress on the harp.

It's going to be another busy week here. I started out by playing a funeral today and have many other tedious things that must be done soon. Luckily there are some fun things thrown in to lighten my days. My nephew graduates from Kindergarten on Friday and I'm going to go watch. I think that will definetly be the highlight of the week. Its such fun to be an aunt! I hope all of you are doing well and having fun. Thanks for stopping by.

Busy busy

Edited to add that Janet won my birthday drawing and received the polymer lion. Congratulations to my lovely blog friend and thank all of you for stopping by and the well wishes.

Life has been really busy lately. Its not bad, just a bit different for me. Things for the loan are done and approved and we'll sign the papers on Friday so that means hopefully the piano will go out next week to begin the restoration. I've also been playing the doctor shuffle and going for lots of tests. I'm confident that nothing super bad is going on, but they need to check something and make sure its still ok. Hopefully after todays test and the follow up visit life can return to normal.

The recital I hold for my students yearly performance is Friday so I've been busy perfecting everyones songs and easing their nerves. I finished teaching last night and I am free from lessons until my piano returns hopefully close to Labor day. Mentally it will be wonderful to be away from teaching, but financially I'll have to be more careful than I have been lately. Again, this isn't a bad thing, just different.

In preperation for the piano to be moved, I've been cleaning and organizing my office. This is a monster task as I'm far from an organized person. I bought some inexpensive storage units and assembled them to line one wall of the office, and sorted through my stacks of stuff. Its looking really good in there. I actually wanted to spend my evening in there and laid on the futon and read a book for a bit last night. Its amazing that I didn't think the mess of that room bothered me, but now that its all neat and arranged, I absolutely love it. I sure hope I can keep on top of things and keep it nice.

So my exciting news is that I'll be starting harp lessons the last week of May. I've commited to 3 months of lessons and rental. I figure by that time I'll know for sure if I want to continue to persue learning another instrument. I've wanted to learn the harp for about 10 years, but just recently found the opportunity to rent an instrument. It seems like this was meant to be considering that my piano wont be here for the summer and I was worried about how I would deal with that. I played the organ for a wedding last Friday and they had an aunt perform a harp solo in the ceremony. It was really beautiful and made me even more eager to begin my lessons.

My softball league started up last week. We played a fun game against the team we lost the championship to last year. We won and it was a very sweet victory. I was catching and every throw they made to me when there was a runner trying to score I was able to tag them out. It was a good fielding day for me. I didnt hit so well, but it was the first game so hopefully I'll get back in the groove. I at least got on base and scored twice. It was fun and that is the only reason I play. FUN!

The 2 pendants pictured today are made of polymer clay. I have tons of molds that I have made from many buttons and charms. We made these pendant together in class so I also had access to some other molds. Anyways, we pushed the clay in the molds and then sat them on a sheet of clay in a pleasing arrangement and then cut out the shape we wanted. We filled in any open space with little balls of clay to make it appear more complete. I did the orange one in class, but wanted to see what an all frog one would look like. I used a color to imitate jade for the frogs. I actually like the orange one better, but the frogs are cool too.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a wonderful birthday complete with a trip to a winery and finding a hopping dog birthday party in full swing. To say that I had fun would be such an understatement! I'm sorry this post is so scattered, but that seems to be how life is at the moment. It keeps things new and unexpected and makes for some fun and interesting times. I hope you are all doing well and experiencing lots of joy in your lives.