A busy day yesterday: I weed whacked and then, as so often happens, I got sucked into something else, in this case, pruning. The wild roses (aka brambles) are all over the place. If every plant grew as fast as the brambles, we’d be in spectacular shape around here. So, I got out the pruners. Then I watered the seeds in the chicken wire fence garden. There are already tiny zinnias emerging, as well as a few morning glories. I’ve found it helps when I put down a layer of topsoil, which I did this year. I didn’t do it last year because of lockdown.

Other than my usual impatiens, lavender, hanging plants, and geraniums – all in pots – I only added one perennial this year, a clematis. I put it in the bed under living room window. That bed gets a lot of sun. So far, it seems to be doing well.

Then I painted.

Taking a cue from some oil painting enthusiasts that I follow, I decided to do some small studies. And by small, I mean, about 3 x 5 inches. I used a sheet of Arches oil painting paper and cut it into smaller sizes. The idea is to play, have fun, try new things. Since I’m new to this, everything  is a new thing. I felt the pressure I had put on myself evaporate. There is no right or wrong.

Here are the two mini paintings:

The one on the left is just something I came up with, it’s not based on a photo or another painting.

The one on the right is my interpretation of a photo I took last week as a storm came in over the mountains. I was on the porch and this huge, dark cloud was over our neighbors’ house. I might tweak this one a bit more today. I have to remind myself that they are studies and an experiment. I’m going to play some more later today.

In the meantime, Don and I are discussing buying a used car. We haven’t used the CR-V in nearly a year. Why? The muffler is hanging by a thread. The CR-V is 21 years old and the bottom is rusted. The door on the drivers side doesn’t open consistently, and the anti-lock mechanism does some weird thing that makes it impossible to start the car without going through about seven steps and even that isn’t always successful. We love the CR-V and it’s served us well; 3 trips across the country, countless adventures, reliable transport for the dogs and recycling. But it’s tired.

Can we really afford a new car? We have to. Don needs to be ready to drive to NYC, to shooting locations, etc. We need something that is more of an SUV, because my low-slung (too low!) Honda Accord has a nice trunk, but since my dad went with a sporty coupe in his late 80s, it has an impossible back seat area. No one could sit back there comfortably unless they were under 10 years old. I can transport certain items like groceries and bags of mulch, but anything larger is impossible.

Anyway, we’d rather buy something used that has the stamp of approval of Don’s mechanic and he’s got a few cars on the lot that we’re going to see later this morning.

We’ll see. But we are increasingly aware that it’s time, especially since work is about to start again.

And we need to work!

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.