En plein air, finally!

I've been wanting to find another artist to go painting outside with me, and last week I discovered that a friend of mine had recently started painting again, and wanted to go paint en plein air. So, last Wednesday three of us went downtown and painted a local landmark, the oak trees at Toomer's Corner. If any of you are aware of the Auburn/Alabama rivalry you probably read about the nut who poisoned the Toomer's Oaks after we beat Alabama last year. He most definitely does not represent Alabama fans, but he claimed to have done it because he loved Alabama and hated Auburn. Crazy!!

Anyway, the poor trees are definitely dying. After having done the painting last week and sold a bunch of prints and notes this past weekend, I read that the university is saying if you want to see the trees while they are still green, you need to come in the next few weeks.

Here is my painting:

I hope to go painting with Jill and Kim again in a couple of weeks! It was great fun.

Stuff everywhere!

These last few weeks have been pretty (!!) hectic and stressful, but with the very generous help of an amazing number of friends, we moved into our new home this past week! We spent the first night here Saturday. Whew! Now we are surrounded by boxes and trying to figure out where to put everything. We've determined that we are going to release a lot of these things that we haven't used in years to bless others, and we're going to start using things we've "saved for a special occasion."

One example is the nice china that we got as wedding presents- we've hardly ever used it! Why is this?? I've decided that it's silly. Of course, now it's all in boxes and I need to find a place to put it where I can get TO it in order to use it, but that's all in good time.

Meanwhile, why did I save that beautiful tea dress from our wedding tea 21 years ago when I've not been able to fit my left elbow into it for, oh, 15 or 16 years?? I've got the husband! I don't need the dress to remind me of the special occasion. But it is so beautiful...

This home is at least 32 years old, just a few miles out of town, surrounded by pecan trees and a couple of ponds we're welcome to fish in, daffodils are already blooming in the front and there are crepe myrtles at the corners (I can't wait to see what colors they are!) and azaleas near the house. The house itself has more space than we had, and a wonderful place to homeschool! We've been assured by many friends that our neighbors are wonderful, and we've already seen evidence of that. How God has taken a very stressful situation and used it to bless us mightily!

The back yard:



And here's the combo den, school room, tv room, family room. Take a look at the shelves! Of course we've already filled them and have boxes of books leftover to figure out what to do with... :



More good news is that our email address stays the same and so do our cell numbers. The land line had to change, but that's okay! We're blessed. David caught 6 fish yesterday, and we had them for supper last night after church!

Come visit in a few weeks after we've had time to sort out everything!