Just completed, the new home of Agog and Aghast. Raehan recently decided to make the switch from Blogger to WordPress on her own domain, and I’ve spent some time recoding her template and moving her archives into a new place for her family writings, and then creating a whole new blog and design for her to hang her literary masterpieces in Stammtisch (loosely translated from German: a table at a restaurant that is reserved for a group of regular customers).

Please, stop by and have a Cuppa with Raehan in her new space, you won’t be disappointed.

Our neighbor has two big beautiful apple trees in their backyard. We stopped over the other day and he filled a grocery bag full of yellow and red apples for us. This weekend I peeled and sliced well over 10 cups of apples, and I still have a sink full. Catybug and I made this lovely deep dish apple pie, and I made 5 loaves of apple walnut bread. We shared the loaves with the neighbors, of course!

In other news, and as you can see (unless you’re feedreading), I’ve finally completed the blog design to match my new gallery design. Please let me know if anything is broken – or if there are regular features that you can’t find.

Now that the weekend hustle and bustle and slicing and dicing is over, I can resume normal activities – and munch on some tasty goodness during breaks!

What have you been up to? And more importantly, when is the last time you made (or ate) home made apple pie?

MmmMMMmMmmmmm…

Every day, I doodle a little something on the girls’ sandwich bags. It’s always different, always just a cute little surprise to remind them I’m around in the middle of the day.

Today, I doodled this little girl. I thought she turned out so sweet and cute, I knew she’d be appreciated.

Sure enough, when I picked up the girls from school, I asked my daily question – “did you finish your lunch today?” and got my standard answer, “Nope”. I asked “why do I keep making you sandwiches if you never eat them?” and her reply just tickled me and brought a tear to my eye.

“I didn’t wanna finish my sandwich mommy because I didn’t wanna throw my bag away because the girl is too cute!”

No wonder she comes home and eats me out of house & home – I’m starving my Chickeymonkey! Maybe next week I’ll doodle full bellied little girls throwing away bags with doodles on them.

I really love gossip. I’m normal, I’m a girl. I do not like drama, though. Drama is meant for professional actors.

If you’ve got gossip, I’ll listen. I love to know stuff, stuff that seems naughty to know. I even love to know stuff that’s nice to know. Am I going to form an opinion on anybody based on that gossip? Probably not. Gossip is what it is, word of mouth that has very likely been altered by the perception of the person dishing it. I take it for what it is.

Drama, however, I’m not so fond of. I don’t take anyone’s side other than my own. I know what I know, and I know that I don’t know the truth and I probably never will. Really, there is no truth – there are only opinions and perceptions.

Lately, there’s been some drama. There are dramas between bloggers – other bloggers, that I will not be part of. I do my best to like everyone, and stay out of the middle. I am not going to take sides on issues between people, the only thing that comes of that is an opinion, and that’s only based on the perception of exactly half of the people involved.

I’m not saying I’m not going to lend an ear or friendship to the one sharing their side of the story, but I’m not going to be one to get sucked into being on someone’s side over anything.

There’s been drama in my own life, too. I don’t like it, either. I can tell you that I’m glad I have the friends that I have, who I can share things with and they are intelligent enough to look at the situation objectively, and as much as I’d love for them to smother me in lavish “you’re so right’s”, I wouldn’t ever expect it. I realize that even in my own drama, I’ve got one perception and someone else has another. I wouldn’t think any of the people I’m close to would treat someone poorly over any feelings or opinions I’ve shared. In fact I’d prefer they didn’t.

No one is ever right, really, and I’m not too proud to apologize just to have peace, regardless of who I think is right or wrong.

There’s only common ground – be it one square inch – where you have to find some peace for the sake of sanity.

For everything else, there’s Mastercard.

A while back I got to working on my new gallery layout. Well, it’s done.

I launched the all new & improved (makeover #6? #7? Anyone?) Intricateart.com -slash- ArtistbyNature.com this evening. Phew. It’s a doozie of a website – and I’m quite pleased with how it all came together. (with WordPress, of course!) I’m especially tickled about the search feature and results, I’ve spent a lot of time in each of my paintings detailing out the notes to pick up any possible search terms so searchers wouldn’t miss anything.

I’ve added the primary menu to the top of my blog, too. See it? Right up there? No, down a bit. Over. Yep, that’s the one. If you ever want to head over to my gallery to have a peek and (ahem) leave me some very nice comments on my work, you can do that. Or you could even (nudge) check out my prints and (ahem) start thinking about the holidays! Alright, alright. Knocking it off.

What else can I do to make your stay in my gallery more enjoyable? Lemme know, wouldjya?

P.S. I’ll be adding the last 5 projects I completed to my gallery tomorrow. Must. Go. Sleep. Now. zzzZZzzzZZZZ

me and all my friends
we’re all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there’s no way we ever could
now we see everything that’s going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don’t have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it’s hard to beat the system
when we’re standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television
what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that’s why we’re waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it’s not that we don’t care,
we just know that the fight ain’t fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we’re still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

I’ve had a huge crush on John since before he was “popular”, this new album, though – Continuum, is perfect, especially today. If you love his guitar, his soft deep voice and his lyrics – it’s just another great CD to add to the collection.

I am going to miss my flowers.

I turned the heat on lastnight, for the first time, and I mourned the loss of summer. We’re expecting our first frost in the next few days.

I woke up this morning and put on a cozy warm fleece shirt. My nose is cold. My fingers are cold. My toes are cold, and I’ve had socks on for three days in a row. In another month, I’ll be buying bundles of stargazers to keep me from dropping off into a snowy cold depression from what appears to be a long winter coming.

I go through these transitions every season, a few weeks of “icks” and then it passes, after I’ve gotten all the summer clothes packed away, all the winter sweaters, jackets, coats and gloves washed and ready to go. I’ll get over it.

I’m just a spring and summer girl, that’s all. If I lived in a warmer climate, I’m certain I’d be happy all year.