THAT SATISIFED FEELING

You know that satisfied feeling you get when you have a "room" all figured out.

The color scheme.

The Art work.

The furniture.

The accessories.

Have you ever experienced that?

What does it feel like?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found this cool very marked down rug that is mostly green and I've thought of painting everything in the kitchen white and the walls this green color and my accents being plants and apples in a bowl on the kitchen table and green Perrier bottles

and Apple Jacks cereal boxes with the green showing in the hutch. 

(and obviously hiding my Shredded Wheat and Cocoa Krispies behind cabinet doors)

and then painting the walls the green color and of course painting the hutch white.

There is not a lot of wall space in the kitchen.

The north wall is double windows

and the south a single window.

The west wall has kitchen cabinets on one side of a doorway and the other is the big hutch

and then the east side is barely there. It consists of  the arch way and a refrigerator that stands between that and the basement door.

Yep, hardly any walls to be painted at all. 

So it would be mostly white woodwork, furniture, appliances with POPS of green.

Or

I got an additional rug that's mostly grey, with orange and teal and gold/yellow and white in varying width of stripes....ok, that sounds awful but it's cool and modern.

Very trendy.

and I could put THAT in the kitchen and paint the walls grey and the hutch gold/yellow 

and put the green rug in the living room and it would pull the green out of some of the paintings in there.

... EVER SINGLE DAY I've been going back and forth between these two ideas

and sometimes I think I will put NO rug in there and paint it all WHITE.

But no matter what, I must paint the HUTCH because several years ago when the house used to be white and black with red touches,

I painted the darn thing RED.

  

A while back I scored this cool mid-century mod hanging light for $15.00!

It fit in well with my white theme and touches of black and brown and metal.

I like how it looks in the room and then the tulip chairs below it.

Yep, love it.

So...maybe just stick with White.

Then last week after breaking my self-imposed ban on thirftying, I stopped at Goodwill.

I meant to pick up some sweatshirts for doing yard work, painting and such.

But I instead found this thing with cubbyholes for $5.38.

I instantly thought it would be useful in my Art room.

So I drove around with it all week in the back of the van and finally today carried it inside.

I set it down in the living room and stared at it.

Then I went into the laundry room and dragged the old cabinet that holds the dog towels into the kitchen and put it on top of it.

Hmmm.

I could leave the walls white and leave the cubby thing as is (after I scrub it) but what color to paint the dog towel cabinet?

Or I could paint them both white and paint the walls green.

Or I could lug it upstairs and store my tubes of paint or jars of stuff in the cubbies 

OR......

A HALLOWEEN STORY REPEAT

Today I worked a half day.
I had hoped to get some of the many many bags of mulch that I still have, spread on my backyard hill.
The temps were in the high 50's and who knows how long THAT will last.
But as I got close to home the raindrops started to hit my windshield.
By the time I got inside, it was really raining.
At one point the thunder rolled so long and loud that all the little dogs were all running around and barking in a panic.
It does indeed seem like the night before Halloween.
Unfortunately this year I am totally unprepared.
I haven't painted any Halloween paintings or pumpkins except the ones for work.
More importantly, I haven't come up with anything to scare my sister with.
I did get her really good last year when she drove to her third shift job at the hospital and got out of her car in the dark parking lot to retrieve something from her back seat.
Yeah, I had left her a few "friends" (dolls from Goodwill with repainted faces) who had come along for the ride.

Sadly I stymied this year.
Maybe I will just have to be happy with the thought of her looking over her shoulder for the next couple of days. 
Sigh... and I can't seem come up with a good spooky stories either.
Well, OK  I could talk about my Mom and the freaky superstitious stuff she used to tell me but...no, then I will be spooked out tonight.
So, like an old person who keeps repeating a tale over and over again, I will refer any newish Followers to my Halloween tale of when I lived in the Looney Mansion.

My apologies to all those that already read this post.
(and...I don't know how to re-post it without losing it or making it pop-up as this date, which would be confusing to at least me.)
Here's the link to that Tale:
http://oldblackcatboo.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-lived-in-this-house-and-halloween.html

and Have a Happy Safe Halloween and remember to keep your black cats inside!

Scary Legs

Have you seen this one yet?

DEADLINES

Deadlines.

I need them.

Someone at work asked me to do a painting of their dog.

"No rush" she said "Whenever".

That's been months ago.

I had it almost finished and she brought her dog to work and I looked at him and said

"Why is his face so skinny!?"

and of course it's always been a narrow little face

and I had painted a round-faced dog.

So I started over and then... just stopped.

I met my best friend for breakfast the other day.

Every time we talk I always end up feeling pumped up, motivated and ready to create something!

She is my biggest cheerleader and the most positive person I know.

We were talking about my Art and I was saying how I needed to get painting and then get my work out there.

I said that the vet clinic really needed some art work and that I had put some paintings up before and sold several but then I never made more.

I told her how the girls at work were always asking for my paintings.

But I haven't painted anything except for the Halloween pumpkins.

My friend and I got to talking about how I was missing a big opportunity

because most everyone that walks into the clinic loves cats or/and dogs.

I seriously don't know what my problem is.

Fear of Success?

Fear of Failure?

Massive Procrastination.

I don't think that I'm lazy, so there must be something stopping me.

Sigh, anyway -

I talked with the girls at work, I said that I needed to get a "bunch" of paintings done and then bring them in all at once and hang them.

I wanted to do it in one big swoop.

But when?

The clinic is always very very busy.

But the girls were so excited and that helped with my insecurities.

Then we got to talking how Doc would be out of town in mid-November for several days and that always slows the work pace.

He has a HUGE following. Mostly for his animal chiropractic procedures.

So that is the goal.

Three weeks to create as many paintings as possible.

Oh, the pressure!

But I think it's just what I need to get it rolling.

It's like my vacation that I just took.

I knew I only had a week and I crammed in as much work as I could.

So, I won't disappear. I will still need coffee breaks and paint drying breaks.

and there's the fact that I'm addicted to the computer! Ha!

Wish me luck!

and after these 3 weeks, I still have some other topics to ramble on about.

Stuff that I haven't shared yet.

Oh, and one last thing.

Is it just me or does that monkey 

kinda look like my Jimmy Chew?

Yeah, It's October, in the MIDWEST

and it's freaking SNOWING!

Neither Jimmy or I, are amused. 

Writer's Block

Have you ever had a week where so many things have happened,

so many topics to write about, that you didn't even know where to begin?

So you write...nothing.

I do have a couple of posts in limbo, floating in the drafts folder, waiting to be reworked.

Rambles that turned into rants, certainly not for enjoyable reading.

But there are also little blurbs of thoughts and saved links and photos of cool fun things.

My job has been overwhelming. The kennel is overflowing and it's pure craziness.

Everyone must have decided to use the same time for Fall vacations.

My own vacation was very productive, I accomplished quite a bit but

unfortunately I think there was a delayed reaction because suddenly
I'm physically exhausted. 

My mind can't entirely focus on anything.

The other night I was just idly scanning over Facebook posts

and suddenly I see a post, a comment in the form of a condolence.

What?

I stop, go back to read it again.

I click on it, the photo of a friend and find more condolences.

What?!

She was someone that was in my house almost everyday as I very young.

Someone who was my sister's best friend when they were small.

A girl, actually a woman now of course, but to me she is frozen forever in time as this happy little girl. 

All skinny legs and giggles.

She had been posting photos of her vacation the same week that I had taken mine.

I had not commented but had almost left one for her about how youthful and happy she looked.

And now she had suddenly passed away.

Apparently she had come home from vacation and told her boyfriend that she wasn't feeling well.

That she had some congestion in her chest and was going to lay down.

Later when he went in to check on her, she was gone.

Slipped away. 

It will be a few more days until they know what exactly happened.

A heart attack or an aneurysm?

I'm in shock.

Although I haven't seen her in person for quite a while she was one of the very few people

who shared our lives before all Hell broke loose.

My sister and I were there when she lost her Dad.

She was probably 9?.

And then she was with us

when we lost our mom the next year.

And to make it even more coincidental is that she passed on the same day as our mother

and she was the same age.

While one thing has nothing to do with another, but for some reason it occurred to me

and of course later, when my sister text me with the same thought

I let her know that I had thought about it too.

Yes, I have so much to write about

but not sure where to begin or if I should even ever try.

SPEKULATIUS, Memories and a Question.

So, I was looking at a grocery ad and I saw Windmill cookies!
OK, they were calling them "Spekulatius Spiced Cookies" but they were Windmill Cookies
and I immediately thought "OH! I have to get some of those!"
Then I stopped and thought how I actually like so many other cookies more than those, so why?
Then it hit me. 
My grandparents always had Windmill Cookies at their house.
Hmm. I guess I like eating them because they make me think of my grandparents who passed when I was 12 and that was a zillion years ago.
So I was wondering, what "food" do YOU like just because of the memories?
And WHO is the memory of?