Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 9

Had the day to myself today, so it was back to painting in my studio. I'm forging ahead with my original plans with the piece, even though there are still kinks that I haven't worked out. Added the 'fog in the valley' and the gray sky. The sky is a much grayer than it appears here, at least on my monitor.

The 'fog' is looking a lot like water splashing, so maybe I'll just call it rain.



I do see a couple of problems that I'll fix later, not sure if that will 'fix' my overall problem with the piece or not.

See this entry for a photo of the original inspiration for this piece. And see this entry for an image of the last time I worked on this piece.

Oops, almost forgot to add that cat box relocation is now complete—I removed the box from the old location yesterday morning, and there doesn't appear to be a gift of any kind left for me. In the mean time, the box in the new location continues to be used regularly. Quite the success story if you ask me, based on what I read on the net, about the difficulties and impossibilities of such endeavors!

Cat Box Relocation victory!

For almost a week, I've been taking the cat down to the new litter box spot two or three times a day, 15-30 minutes after I feed her or give her a treat. And she had steadfastly (is that a word?) refused to go in. In the mean time, I noticed that the box in the old location has been used for #1 at least a couple of times, but no #2's. (It had been at least 2 days...)

This morning, I came downstairs to check my mail, read the news, etc. Only when I was finished did I remember to check the box. And miracle of miracles, apparently sometime during the night, she used it, for a #2!

Now, aren't you all happy that I don't have a real baby. Just imagine the stuff I'd talk about.

I had already resigned myself to the necessity of locking myself and the cat up downstairs for a few days until she cooperates. And now it seems that we have both escaped that fate.

This being a typical Sunday, full of the usual chores, THAT was the most exciting news.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 6

Spent a goodly part of the day working on the LO Chronicles piece. I think I finally figured out why I'm having so much trouble with it. So here's where I am — there's not a lot of excitement going on in the bottom 1/2 of the image, not even after I worked on the flowers quite a bit:



Here's a mockup of where I think I'm headed — adding a robin's nest at the bottom, and adding either lights or snow on the right. I like that the oval shape of the nest picks up the shapes of the fireworks, which have now been underpainted.



I'll probably wait until tomorrow morning before I continue. Here's where it was last I worked on it (wow, 11 days ago!).

On other fronts, my sofa bed ad on craigslist has not received a nibble!

And about that Cat Box Relocation...kitty continued to refuse to use the new and improved box, even after I removed the swing door. So today, I further disturbed the force by switching the locations of the 2 boxes, and now the new box is at the old location and her old box (favoriite?) is at the new location (so I can debug if it's the box or the location). And all day, she has not used either one. I made sure my bed is set up so that if she should decide to use my bed, I could detect it pretty easily! (Would she really do that? See Stupid Human Tricks.)

MiT, 2nd senior, day 2

My 2nd senior ROCKS!

When I got there today, she had already made b&w copies of several different things she was thinking about gocco'ing. She was also thinking about the words she wanted to layer on top. Then the two of us spent the rest of the afternoon gocco'ing 2 prints. *I* was tired when we finished, and she seemed a little worn out. She was cheerful and interested, and very inviting and open.

Now, I did start the day pretty tired — I stayed up until 2am last night/this morning, working on the screen for the guest bedroom, which was why there was no entry from last night. I'm almost finished, just need to hem. It's starting to look like, hmm...how shall I put it...option 1) a Bollywood bridal chamber, or option 2) a belly dancer exploded in here (as the Good Prince likes to say about my home decorating style). I practice the One Thing Leads to Another style of sewing: something doesn't quite work, so you do something else to hide it, and pretty soon, it's embellishments everywhere.

And you know things are getting serious when a project you meant to do almost a quarter of a century ago is now getting to the top of the stack. (Yes, it's a stack and not a queue.)

When I left graduate school and started working, I furnished my apartment for $300 — a used bed, dining room set, sofa sleeper, chair, and a smattering of leftover college dorm room shelves. (It's true I did buy a brand new mattress for another $xxx.)

Here's the chair:



Bought it from a woman about to move into a retirement home; it, and its companion chair, were part of her wedding trousseau from 1940. I figured I'd use it for a couple of years and reupholster it. So that was 1984...

It's in a much sadder shape than you can possibly see in this photo. The piping has mostly worn off, exposing the ropes underneath. I think various rats and ferrets have done their deeds on there too. I've mostly used it as a studio 'comfy' chair in recent years.

Anyhow, all this redecorating had me thinking about this chair again and I dropped by The Whole 9 Yards yesterday. Picked out a few samples, and now I'm in a quandary — my most favorite fabric is just so nice that it would be a shame to use it for a 'studio comfy chair', unless I want to go with the I'm Worth It! route. It also happens to be the most expensive, by far. But the 2nd most favorite doesn't even come close to how much I like the first favorite, although it's nice enough, and it's fair amount cheaper.

I almost want to put off the decision, but then it might be another 25 years before I get here again.

And advancing along in the Cat Box Relocation Program: I moved the new box into its intended position, filled it with fresh litter, and put some of her 'stuff' from her existing box. Brought her to the box a bit after I fed her and, nope, no interest whatsoever. She did give it a good sniff and looked kinda puzzled.

Cleanliness is an infectious disease...

And it has infected my car!

I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed that my car, which has been in my possession for about 9 years now, got cleaned for the first time today. I don't mean just the removal of used kleenex or old parking stickers, spent coffee cups and google maps. I mean it got a vacuum and a windex.

In what was yet another one thing leads to another category — I mentioned yesterday that all kinds of things were staged by the door waiting to go to the Goodwill. Some of those were pretty large items, a chair, a suitcase, and they were really in the way. I went to load them in the car this afternoon, and figured, oh heck, I'm cleaning the house, I might as well clean the car.

When we bought the Carr, it came with 2 sets of floor mats (that's 8 of them). When I bought the Saturn 9 years ago, it did not come with mats, you had to buy them separately. I was outraged. So I figured, hey, the Subaru got totaled, it was about to get towed away, it wasn't going to need them mats anymore. So all this time, the Saturn had been using Subaru floor mats from 1980.

And now it has 2008 Subaru floor mats! It practically looks like a new car!

So yes, it's been days since I've done any work in the studio, but the house is looking preeetty good! Spent the afternoon and evening trying to make a screen from this old sari I have (I always knew I'd find a use for it!). Only problem is that it is stretched out of shape a bit and does not want to hang straight, but I think it will be fine for what it's for.

Cat Box Relocation Program has begun. The new box has a swing door, which is different from the current box, so we've just set it up with no litter in it, and have been trying to get the kitty to go in and out. Not sure about the psychology of playing with the box, she's probably thinking, "OMG, this is the best toy I've ever had, I'm never going to poop in it!"