A nice family day yesterday, we went out for lunch, came home & relaxed a while, then all three of the kids worked on puzzles! 🙂

Yesterday was awesome. Beautiful weather, the party was wonderful, the food was great – everything was perfect!!

I hope you are all doing well and having a great weekend. Sorry I’ve not gotten in to reply to all of you, please know that Mark and I appreciate all of you that are here sharing his mini-vacation with us. Huge hugs and kisses all around!

Here are the pics of the day! (That last one is precious, Jay has been saying for weeks that she wanted to share her cake with daddy, and she fed it to him! Sweet!)

Today is PARTY DAY!!! Fun Fun! Jay’s 3rd b-day combined with a little surprise guest welcome home party for Mark. I have yet to get a great pic of Daddy with Caitybug, will work on that today. Enjoy!

Just a quick stop in to say “HI!!!!” and I AM SO GLAD HE’S HOME!!! Wow it has been wonderful so far!!! Très romantique!

Hehe! I am not going to finish painting him before he gets here, he’ll be arriving in just a few hours!!! YAHOO!!!! So here he is, and here I go! I will check in as soon as I can and maybe even have some pics of us TOGETHER! 😀

Oooo the hotel we’re staying at tonight – I called them to arrange some special little things and guess what?! They’re COMPING everything!!!! Free chocolate covered strawberries, free white zin, free room service…. oh my! This is going to be a fun evening!!

Ok I better go get ready! Love you guys!!!

Good morning!

I woke this morning before 6am. I could not fall back asleep, I think the excitement is really kicking in! I’ve cleaned the house top to bottom, including the studio. I even went so far as to pick up some trays that work nicely on my drafting table, and arranged all of my oils by hue. Nervous energy perhaps? LOL

I met my goal for Mark’s arrival, lost another 1.5 lbs. which brings my total loss up to 51.5 lbs. 😀 I imagine with all the energy I have right now I will lose another pound or two before he arrives!

He’s scheduled to arrive on Thursday evening now. His current itinerary (as of yesterday afternoon) has him scheduled to depart Oct. 9, which gives us 16 days! YAHOO! And the bad part of it, he is very adversely affected by anything happening to his team while he is not out there with them, and yesterday it sounds like a couple of the guys in his unit were injured. 🙁 I hope they’re ok, it has been pretty rough over there lately and I just wish I were in charge, you know? I’m sure a lot of you feel that way, seems like we all would have a better plan to fix things there and prevent what’s going on than what is currently being done. Yea, I say put a woman with PMS in charge. We’ll take care of stuff pretty darn fast!! 😉

My version of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is dry, and I scanned it this morning. I have a couple more images (linked) that you can look at, the first one is the work in progress collage from start to finish, I think 12 shots? It looks so wierd, different lighting makes every revision look like I did a major overhaul, so just consider the features and not the colors. LOL

Then the last one, I promise, hehe! A full scan of my painting (larger view) beside Vermeer’s.

And that concludes my 3-week long tribute to the Master!

I will finally get caught up on my e-mail now, and I would like to make a couple of revisions to my site, specifically the ordering information page. It is waaay too wordy! I will probably be removing a few things, rewording, and stop offering other medium for a while to work only in oils.

Okie dokie then! I’ve got nervous energy to spend, so I’ll catch ya later! 😉

xoxoxoxxo

I just turned the cam on, and will be painting today!!

Stop over & see me! 😀

cam link——–>

Hey Lolo, we were at a clothing store this morning and I found a cute shirt with a Lolo label!! You’re designing clothes in your spare time, eh? 😉

P.S. Mark loves the new car! I took the pics down yesterday because I hadn’t hooked up with him yet to let him know I got it, didn’t want to shock him you know? hehe! He snuck in and saw the pics before I took them down, the stinker, didn’t seem too surprised that I did it, either. (Gotta love a man who knows his woman!)

Ok I gotta go, I gotta go, I GOTTA PAINT!!!

XOXOXOXXO

I have to thank you guys, Paige, Carrie, Erika, Mom… you all gave me the sniffles yesterday! I don’t get mushy all that often, but when I do it is really awesome to see how much positive impact it has on people we’re close to!! Erikie you are right, too, I could not ask for more as far as the support and encouragement, Mark is the best!! So thanks to each of you, so much, for being there for me and for us! HUGE kisses & hugs for you!!

I dropped Jay off at school and she was miserable and wanted to go home. 🙁 It was reeeealy hard to leave, but I know she needs to be around other kids her age more often and sitting around the house watching me paint can’t be much fun for a 3 year old! My truck was leaking when I left there so I stopped at the oil change shop and I have antifreeze leaking down the back of my engine again. 🙁 After I pick Jay up today we’ll head down to a shop to find out if it’s the heater core or a hose or something. fooey on this big stupid expensive Isuzu. Don’t ever buy one of those things, they are way to expensive to maintain! BOO!!!

psst…I added a subscription box over to the right there, you can enter your e-mail addy and get e-mail notifications when I update my blog!

I ended up not painting yesterday – partly because I want to drag this piece out for some reason, I think it’s because I love painting her! It was also stormy and gloomy all day yesterday and the flourescents in the studio really alter the flesh tones so it’s something better done in daylight.

Now today is nice, lots of daylight out there so I am going to get back to the studio! I’ll be turning the cam on momentarily. I keep repeating myself, I know, but for anyone who doesn’t already know…

webcam link is over there—————–>
(right click on the image and zoom for full view)

or

yahoo IM: add user ID ‘intricateartist’
(might have to wait for me to add you back)
then click on “watch me paint!” next to my ID. 😀

Back in a while!
xoxoxo

I still have some work to do! I created a transitional gif lining up Vermeer’s work with my work in progress photo so you can see what I’ll be tweaking. I will be painting in a little while, it’s storming right now and kinda gloomy out in the studio. This may take a few moments to load if you’re on dial up:

A week from today, Mark will be on probably his 5th layover on his way home!! I was talking to my girlfriend lastnight about how excited I am. My heart still skips and I still get “twitterpated” when I see him or hear his voice! (Twitterpated, is that from Bambi? Can anyone confirm that? LOL) I can close my eyes and picture myself at the airport watching him walk toward me. Awww you would think that after 15 years the weak kneed part of the relationship goes away, eh? I’m so grateful that is not the case for us, as I know it is for so many couples. I can see us 50 years from now, much like his Dad and Stepmom, we were just destined for eachother.

Have any of you seen Serendipity? Yea! We’re a lot like that! If you haven’t seen it, it’s an awesome lovey dovey movie with John Cusak. I highly recommend it!

This is probably going to be the coolest part for Mark, I’ve lost 47 pounds and I’m down 4 sizes since he last saw me in March. WOOOOOWIE! Of course he’s seen me, and pics and stuff, but I think it’ll be a lot different in person, yea?

All that being said, now I’ll ask you all to keep him in your prayers, that he remains focused on his job until he’s safe & secure in the air next week! Grazie, friends!

One of these days I’m gonna have to do a roll call, I know you’re reading this, so speak up! 😉

Have a great afternoon/evening, I will update again when I start painting!
xoxoxo