
I hope you are enjoying a peaceful, JOY filled day!

I hope you are enjoying a peaceful, JOY filled day!

I am laughing at myself. I got all excited about the snow. Little did I know a blizzard was on the way. The beautiful scene above is from two days after the storm. It may not have been a blizzard officially, but we were asked to stay off the roads for about 24 hours. We had a good solid day of heavy, blowing snow. It was AWESOME!
My window was covered in a layer of ice.


I’m sure this is the most snow we have had in the 5 years we have lived here. Scottsdale and Phoenix even had a dusting! Wowzers! By the second day, roads were dry and clear in our area.




We had more snow today, briefly. Then the sun came out and the cleared a bit. There was a roll of clouds hovering over Mingus. Then it spread out and moved forward, closer to us. I looked again, and it had collapsed, and was in the original hovering position.

I increased the vibrancy on this photo, but the clouds really were blindingly orange. It has been a BeAuTiFuL week in Arizona! Amen!
Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem. William Hamilton Gibson

December 10th. The date of my last post. Ay caramba! Time continues to be a steamroller. Hijole!
The winter weather has given us some beautiful views. We had an afternoon of snow, our first of the year. On December 28th. Haha. Lovely, big fluffy flakes floating down. It was fairly heavy for a while but it did not stick. Mingus disappeared behind a veil of white and reemerged powder-coated. It was heaven while it lasted.

We have had gorgeous pink sunsets.


My birthday week was filled with appointments. Blood tests, breathing test, bone test. Mostly standard bi-annual stuff, just all happened to land in the same week. Eesh! And here we are, in the middle of the month already. You know what that means. The February 30-Day Creative Gathering will soon be here! Oh my!
After another mini organizing binge, I made three starts. Art supplies and papers are at the ready! Paint pens and pencils. Scribbles to ease the intimidation of a fresh clean sheet of paper. I plan to add a few more layers to these backgrounds. And I hope to have 6 to 12 starts ready before next month. Knock on wood.



Our trees are still holding on to their leaves. I keep meaning to look up the reason why. I am sure it has something to do with how dry the past year has been. This photo is a few weeks old, but the tree looks pretty much the same.

I ordered a pad of Strathmore watercolor paper after watching an artist use it online. Cold Press, 140 lb., acid-free, 100% cotton. 12 – 8 x 10 sheets. It was about $10 on Amazon. I did see it later at Walmart, for a few dollars more. It has a grey cover. I played just to get a feel for it. This is a tiny sketch. I like the paper, the tooth is nice. I’ll talk more about it in another post.

Thinking of my father today. Missing him on his birthday. Truth be told, I think of him every day. We are still in limbo due to COVID. My best friend in high school lost her father the day before mine passed (on July 14th). He was our high school principal.
My dear friend from California lost her dad the Saturday before Christmas. We also lost my Dad’s elder brother Willie, the Sunday before Christmas. Heartbreaking.
Horrible, heartbreaking six months.





Looking for quotes brought tears to my eyes, this short one will have to do.