Presenting ... Lots of Random Stuff

Blogging is a habit.  When I do it often, which hasn't happened in quite a while, it feels natural to sit down and put together a reasonable post and get on with life afterward.  When I put it off, and get out of the habit by letting other things take my blogging time, it's not so easy to get the old juices flowing.  I'm rusty, but I'm going to give this a go ... and I'm going to catch you up on all sort of stuff that has happened here in the past few weeks.  

I will start with "Roses, Wines, and Canines," our Greyhounds Rock fundraiser gathering that was held here last Sunday.  Our weather was perfect (cloudy and mild, with a light breeze) and our guests and vendors (and volunteers) had a really great time.  We raised about $1700 for GRF to donate to The Greyhound Health Initiative ... and we are already planning ways to make things even better when we do it all again next year.

We set up a big party tent ...

... and a designated fenced play space for our guests' dogs.

Anu and Myth waited patiently in their ex-pen while we set up on Friday.

My favorite part of our events, The Blessing of the Hounds.  Can you find me in the crowd?

While I'm on the subject of Greyhounds Rock ... I have been spending at least one day per week sewing collars to keep the GRF inventory up.  Sugar Skull collars continue to be the biggest seller, and it's difficult to keep a selection of them in stock.  Last week at the fabric store, I picked up two new skull fabrics.

A view of part of our collar inventory at our table at the recent Fredericksburg Pet Expo.  See Ruby in the background?

Dorothy was helping, as I laid out fabric to cut the strips that would be turned into collars.

This new fabric reminds me of the art used for The Beatles "Yellow Submarine"

Ruby is modeling the other new pattern, which I am calling "Hearts and Roses Skulls"

I am also making fleece dog toys for the GRF store.  I have a ton of fleece in my stash, and this is a way to use part of it and clear out space in my sewing room.

Fleece toy, which sells for $10.

Maggie thinks the pile of fleece is a high-rise cat bed.

It's not been 'all work and no play' for me, not hardly.  I make time to do fun stuff, too.  A few weeks ago, my husband and I skipped out for the day and went to see the NASCAR Xfinity Series race in Richmond.

It was an evening race.

Dinner is served.

Dessert, which lasted almost until the end of the race.

Post-race ceremonial burn-out by the winner.

Speaking of cars ... I have been spending some time re-learning to drive my Mustang.  Over the summer, it went to the shop and had a transmission transplant.  The car started life its life in 1966 as an automatic, and that's what it was when we bought it in 2002.  Now, thanks to the genius of my mechanic, it has a factory-correct 4-speed manual transmission and a very sporty Hurst shifter.  It has been decades since I drove a stick shift, and I was pleased to find that the muscle memory of clutch and shift is still there.  

Oooohhh ... shiny.

This new shifter is not so foreign to me anymore.

Lots of people I know go all out to decorate for Halloween.  I am not one of those people.

I got a colorful sugar skull wreath at Target for the front door ...

... and a haunted house nightlight plug in at Bath and Body Works.

Halloween and haunted houses makes me think of Poe, which brings me to my next bit of random-ness.  In May, Sharon (Goth Gardener) and I spent an evening at the monthly Unhappy Hour at the Poe Museum in downtown Richmond.  We had our picture taken in their photo booth ... and it was just posted on the museum web site earlier this week.  We were being so silly!

Photo booth photo.

Sharon took this one of me with a new friend.

September is a very busy time next door at Hartwood Winery.  My husband and I spent two Saturdays over there, harvesting grapes from the vineyard with other volunteers ... total harvest was six tons of red grapes and seven tons of white grapes ... all used to make Hartwood's wines.

Picking red Chambourcin grapes on September 13 ...

... with my husband and my sister ...

... and white Vidal grapes on September 26.

Yesterday was my birthday ... 56.  It's a number that I wear proudly.  I am what I am ... no sense in skirting the issue.  Besides, thanks to my parents and some fortunate genetics, I have never really looked my age.  That was a bit of a problem when I was younger and got carded all the time.  Now, I think of it as a blessing.

My husband's present to me was this cow that was painted by his friend Ed King.

I spent part of the day gathering and editing the photos in this post, with Dorothy chilling in my lap.

That brings us up to the present ... which is cold and rainy, as the remains of a coastal storm passes through our area.  There was concern that Hurricane Joaquin would affect us tomorrow and/or Monday, but that storm has turned eastward and should not be a factor for us at all.  My garden loves the rain that it has received (with this current storm and with a previous one last week).  Happy garden = Happy gardener.

Now it's your turn.  What have you been up to since we last 'talked'?

My Husband's Art

My dear husband has always been an artist.  His mother tells me that, as a child, he was always drawing and copying pictures from the comics or coloring books.  As a teenager, he was the art superstar of his high school ... I wonder if his murals are still there?  As an adult, his career took him into the computer field, but art remained a hobby.  (He is the brains and the artistic vision behind my nursery web site and quite a few others.)

On a whim last year, he signed up to take oil painting lessons at a local art gallery.  The instructor, a successful Fredericksburg artist, has taken my husband's raw talent and helped him shape it into so much more.  Please indulge me this morning, while I take a moment to brag on him a bit.

This is a painting my husband did for me ... a mama hen with three chicks, representing me and our three daughters.

Anything he paints that has wrinkles or shadows or shiny stuff is guaranteed to be exceptional.

He is also very good at capturing personality and expression ... especially in dog portraits (he hasn't tried a cat yet, so I'll let you know how that goes when it happens.)

This next one is my favorite dog portrait, and not just because I took the photo that this was painted from.  One of his Facebook friends said it best.  She said, "I expect that if I touched this painting, the nose would be wet and the ears would feel like velvet."

The paintings that he enjoys most are the ones where he captures a story of people.  His most recent painting is this one, from a photo I took while we were on vacation in Key West last November.

Isn't he fantastic!!

To see more of my husband's art, and to get details on how you can have one of his paintings for yourself, click HERE to visit his web site. 

Happy Friday, Everyone!

The Art Festival

For weeks, we had been planning and preparing to host artists and art lovers here for a plein air art event.  Saturday was the day, and the weather didn't cooperate.

We woke up on Saturday morning, and it was chilly and cloudy and damp, with a threat of rain showers in the forecast.  This probably scared away most of our artists and spectators.  A few came, and we were happy to see them, but most stayed away. 

Let me show you a few snapshots from the day.  We set up an information and display booth to tell people what Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg is all about.  In our booth, we displayed some literature and dog paintings. 

The yellow lab painting is by Ed King, and the painting of TJ is by my husband ... it's not quite finished yet.

Let's take a closer look my husband's awesome portrait of TJ.  Here is the photo he used:

I took this photo of TJ in January.

... and this is what the painting looks like so far.  It's almost finished.

TJ's mom, Kim, didn't know about the painting, and she saw it for the first time on Saturday.  She cried ... I knew she would.

We had plenty of dogs to visit with the humans who came.  Here are Emma, Daniel, and TJ waiting at the kitchen door while we finish the last few details of set up.

Our non-greyhound representative was Marley, a super sweet Labrador Retriever.

I love this photo of Marley, in spite of its unfortunate background.

(Going off on a tangent .... have I ever told you that my first dog was a Lab?  Maybe not.  I'll have to dig out some photos and tell you about Murphy one day soon.)

Back to the subject at hand.  Even though we had few people at our event, it was still a lot of fun.  The people who did come were great ... I even had a couple of rose customers drop by.  What could have been a total bust turned out to be a really nice day.

Two More Barn Paintings

Ed King came back yesterday afternoon to paint again.  He captured the barn from a slightly different angle this time, and he included my garden of English roses in the composition ... not that you can tell that they're roses, you understand.

Michael Dean, another artist that we know, came by to paint in the afternoon ... just as Ed was leaving.  Michael's style is totally different from Ed's.  Ed's paintings have a distinctly impressionistic style to them, while Michael's work is bolder and much more expressionistic. 

This photo doesn't show Michael's painting well ... it is wonderful and incredibly lively in person.

I met Michael years ago when he was recommended by a friend to restore the plaster in this old place ... In addition to being an artist, Michael is a preservationist plasterer who does things the old school way (meaning the CORRECT way, with lime/sand/horsehair ) and he thoroughly understands how an old building works.  He was here working on our plaster twice, once upstairs and once downstairs, each time for about a month.  He left town for a few years, pursuing his dream of a studio in New Mexico ... but he's back now and it was great to see him and reconnect.

(If you're local and you want to see artists like this in person, and you want to support a great cause in the process, stay tuned for details of the Hartwood open air art festival, which will be held here on September 17, 2011.)