Busy-ness has just about done me in!

Lord, have mercy on this tired soul. . .

Not to say that I haven't enjoyed the past couple of weeks.

But MAN, I'd really like to be sitting on my swing with an icepack on my forehead right about now.
The icepack is for the headache that keeps returning.

Since my last post I've conquered several hurdles.
One: House/dog/horse sitting for a neighbor down the road.
Two: Senior Sunday
Three: Sitting in as substitute secretary for the church

Denise, the neighbor down the road, has three horses, two cats, and three large dogs. The cats got to spend the week at the vet, but the rest of the animals got the privilege of MY company.
Here's a few pics from my house sitting job from last week:

Suete, the arabian

Sierra, the old lady

Pia, the affectionate jokester

Morning fly mask time. . .and fresh hay!

The dogs were almost as much trouble as the horses were to take care of. Don't get me wrong, none of what I did was terribly hard or back-breaking. It just took time, and I nearly always ended up filthy afterwards.
I only got pics of two of the pups, Flynn and Dylan.

Dylan is a 14 year old lab mix who recently had neck surgery. As old as he is, he still has plenty of energy and is always openly affectionate. Couldn't leave the house without giving him a belly rub.

Dylan at the bottom of the stairs

Flynn is a year old Doberman with trust issues. Denise had me come down twice to interact with him before this particular house sitting job. She was actually a little surprised that he took to me so quickly (my only explanation is that I wasn't afraid of him, and I also didn't make a big deal out of him either).

Flynn, nose up!

I was done with that particular job on Friday morning. I started the secretarial job on the Wednesday before. It was very stressful trying to do both at the same time. Mainly because the horses and dogs require such specific care, and I had to be in the church office by 8:30a. Which meant that I had to be up by 6:30a to take care of all of them. Oh, and did I mention I still had to go back to my house to take care of Toby?
He of course was not thrilled with me or the fact that he had to spend each night in his kennel. Poor baby!

Senior Sunday fell at the end of my first week as substitute secretary, which meant that on top of my duties in the main office (answering the phone, creating the bulletin, printing the bulletin, and dealing with church member issues) I also had to continue with my normal job of worship slideshow, website, facebook, and being a youth counselor. Spent a TON of time uploading old youth photos to facebook, mainly so that I could dig through them more easily next year when searching for senior pics. Then I had to create two different photo slideshows, one for the two worship services, and one for the reception in between.

Why then, I ask you, did I schedule to take the senior high girls of the TNT youth group to Rock Springs on Saturday? We had been trying to get together to do something for a while, and I guess I just decided I might as well fill out the entire week with things to do.

Anyways, we attempted to go to Rock Springs, but it was closed for an event. So instead, we went around the bend to Wekiva Springs. Fun for the girls, naptime for me!

Now if I could just get rid of this headache!

Simple fun

Monday I had volunteered to take a friend to a doctor's appointment over in Orlando. So I took mom along for the ride and while our friend was at her appointment, we went over to the downtown library.

We used to love going to this library. Mom, Russ, and I loved to haunt the used bookstore as well. I snagged four Dean Koontz books on this particular trip!
The other thing we loved was their AWESOME kid's section.

On Tuesday, I had the brilliant idea to take a road trip to St. Augustine. I had heard an ad on the local public radio station about a Pablo Picasso exhibit at the visitor's center.  Shirley got to come along for the ride!
So here's some pics of that fun. . .

Castillo de San Marcos and lunch at the Spanish Bakery

Pics in front of the fountain. . .

Fun wandering around the old city. . .tacky tchotchkes, an old old old cemetery. . .

Pigeons EVERYWHERE. . .and a look down St. George street. . .

 Mom and I hamming it up in front of the Fuente de los Canos de San Francisco. . .

 Now, the real reason we came to Northeast Florida for the day. . .
This particular show for Picasso's work focused on his prints regarding bull fighting in Spain.
It was neat for me, because I actually have experience making lithographs. . .although I wasn't really any good at it. Plus, my back could not handle the weight of the stone or the continual bending over.
Anyways, though mom and Shirley weren't really thrilled with the show, I loved being able to see some of his not so popular work. It made it that much more interesting to me to be able to dive into the lines and shapes.

"The world today doesn't make much sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?"
Loved this quote!

After viewing the art, we strolled down to Kilwins to buy fudge slabs, required for every trip to St. Augustine.
Then, we took a moment to sit at an outside table and enjoy the wonderful weather and each others company.

Shirley and mom talking

Shopped a little more, but my feet and knee were killing me.
So, here's a little backyard garden at the art glass shop to end with. This is what I want my yard to eventually feel like.

Exhausted by corn

First off, the steps to my front door rotted through at the platform.

So, we called Richard in to build me a new set. I got the opportunity to request a wider platform and more shallow steps. So happy with my new set of stairs!

 Pics of my old and new steps, and the wood spirit face that features at the bottom of my railing post!

Freaky, huh?

Now, on to the corniness of the weekend. . .
Julie and I got the privilege of bringing the rest of the corn crates down to our festival site on Sunday morning. Upon starting to go down the sidewalk I heard Julie say from behind me "Oh, oh, oh no. . .no. . .Jamie . .Oh man!" and I turned around and saw this. . .they fell down off that cart exactly like you see in the picture.

Here's a couple more candid shots from our booth. . .

 And, to tie it up. . .I bought the first and really thought about buying the second. . .or maybe making it myself!

Air plant hanging for my swing

Old gas can bird house

Struggles with Inspiration

Way back in December, I asked my friend Monica if she wanted any kind of artwork from me.
Funnily enough, she said YES. . .I was actually kind of surprised. Usually when I ask people that, they say uh. . .yeah sure.  .what are you going to paint/make for me. However, Mon had something specific in mind.

What she wanted was paintings of a wine bottle and a martini glass to hang in the kitchen of her apartment.
Her only requests were that the background be sort of modern looking.

Geez. . .way to take the fun out of it for me. If there is one thing I'm not, it's a modern artist. I have extreme difficulty with painting clean and straight, which is at least one aspect of modernism.  Now, post-modern, that I can do. I'm all about messy painting. In fact, I don't feel like I've truly made an artwork unless I end up with some of the medium staining my hands.

 

But, this was Monica asking. I had to attempt to create what she wanted. If in part, because she spent a great deal of money acquiring my "Nightmare Before Christmas" hand painted Toms for my Christmas gift!

 

So, I started out with two canvases. I decided to try angled lines, much like can be seen in this Martini Glass painting I found online.

 

Ugh. . .I do like this piece, but WHY, WHY would I torture myself with something so NON-JAMIE? 
I couldn't paint this unless I had a final examination grade hanging over my head. I haven't had that kind of perfectionist pressure for about six years now, so I don't know why I was deluding myself into thinking that I could pull off something this tediously clean.

I persevered, though. Covered both of those canvases with diagonal, multi-colored lines, none of which were perfectly straight.
Then they sat. . . .and sat. . .and sat.
They tortured me.
The artist Jamie personality was refusing to go anywhere near them unless I did something to change the plan into something that was more "Me".

I let the problem simmer in the back of my mind for four months. Eventually something came through.
What if I covered the lines with one of my squiggles? I'd done several of these pieces back in college, they'd even managed to get displayed in an end of the year Fine Art Student Showing at UCF.  I could then put the wine bottle and martini glass on top of that pattern.

Nuts, right? If anything, I'd have to purchase new canvases in the event that it ended up being a disaster.

 

 As you can see, I drew the squiggle on top of the lines first with a yellow colored pencil. Then, I began the mind bendingly boring part of painting every-other shape white. Actually, I love doing things like this. Especially when I have a good book to read/listen to, which I did. Checked out the Dean Koontz audio book "Lightning" from the library.  Exhilarating!

However, I got both canvases painted with their white shapes and thought "I'll never be able to get the martini glass and wine bottle to pop on top of all that noise". So, I had to let the canvases sit AGAIN.

 

Neat huh? If it had bee a painting for me, I'd have left it like that. But, had to keep on keeping on.

I had the idea of toning down the white with a darker color, maybe a simple wash over the top. Something told me to keep thinking about it. Why I thought to purchase metallic blue and lavender paints, I'll never know. 

Here's what they looked like when I tried them on the white pattern.

Now that I had the base of the painting done, I now had the task of creating the wine bottle and martini glass. I had already made the decision that both would be made out of foam core and would be glued on top of the canvas.

Sorry, the pic is blurry, taken with my phone camera.

I cut them out before painting, because the paint can be scratched by the exacto blade. Here's the wine bottle painting in progress. I employed the technique of under-painting for both the bottle and the glass. That's part of what I love about acrylic paints. You get the thickness and richness of oil paints, but can still employ the wonder of transparent washes like watercolor.

Also I wanted to trace the shape of each onto the canvas. In order to make each pop even more, I had decided to paint a pure black "shadow" underneath them. Here's the finished wine bottle painting.

And the finished martini glass. . .

 

And the two together. . .

 

Enjoy those little moments. . .you'll need the memory later

Wow. . .what a weekend.

Thursday included a mid-week worship service.

Logo made by Jamie. . .lol

Always nice to get to sing praise songs on Thursday, whether it's at Praise Team Practice or at worship service. Plus, we got to share communion. So, fellowship, singing, communion, and coffee. Good Thursday in my opinion.

Friday had a Wedding rehearsal at 6:00p.
Then Richard and I met up down at Downtown Disney's House of Blues to see JJ GREY AND MOFRO!

Here's a few captures from that evening.

 I pinched the knuckle of my middle finger on my left hand in between the van door and some contraption that dad had in the garage. It looked worse than it actually felt. A kid at the wedding rehearsal actually thought that it was my broken finger (not my pinky).

Sat outside House of Blues at their outdoor bar and listened to a pretty good guitarist do covers while I waited for Rich to show up. The cold front that came through on Thursday brought some chillier temps by Friday evening, so it got a tad bit uncomfortable after a while.

If you like blues, honky tonk, "Blues Traveler", CCR, or the Blues Brothers you would love JJ Grey and Mofro. I first heard of them on "E-Town", and absolutely loved them. What an amazing show! I'm still riding the good feelings from the concert!!

Saturday morning came a lot quicker than I would have liked, seeing as how my head didn't hit the pillow the night before until well after midnight.

At 10:30a I attended a "Senior/Birthday Brunch" for a youth. We had a wonderful time eating at Mimi's and trading stories about Emily. I will truly miss having her around next year.

The wedding that I mentioned earlier was for one of my best friends. Shannon had moved to New York, and then Ohio about four years ago, but her family still lived here in Florida. So, they had the wedding here at the church. I was given the gift of running the sound board for the ceremony.

I did not get to attend the reception afterwards. I've been dog/house sitting for the past several days, so instead I got to return home to my third job.

This morning I woke early so that I might take care of the dogs again and be able to get ready for church in time.

Every Sunday starts pretty much the same way, but this morning was particularly gorgeous.

I treated myself to a Panera breakfast. Not in any way healthy, but COMPLETELY enjoyable.

I entered into worship this morning feeling full of the Spirit. Still feeling that way. Think I'll stop by LOWE's and check out the dead plant section. The yard is calling my name. Hope your week was wonderful, and that you find peace this weekend.

Start off your Monday with a song on your lips and with the assurance that you are TRULY loved by God.

If you're interested, check out JJ Grey.