Art & Food & Time Off.... Oh My!

I'm back! I can't believe it's been two weeks since I posted last. The time is flying so fast this fall. Summer was slow till August and then..... ZIP-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!.... the months since then flashed quickly before my eyes and were gone!

This morning I got up late because I went to bed late last night, like usual, playing at my art desk. Surprise!?.... of course not. It's the weekend, so for two nights I get to do what I want, WHEN I want.

Like normal, when I got up I went to the Loo and when I went to wash my hands, everything went fine for a number of seconds and then my water slowly turned to a trickle and stopped! What tha???? Have I been bad??? LOL.... so my water is on a well and it seems, it is only slowly surging some water up whenever it feels like it. I called my Aunt to let her know. She was already going to call the plumber Monday morning because my tub facet is leaking, so they can add resolving this other water issue at the same time. I'm guessing it is the pressure tank or pressure switch, but for real, what I know about wells wouldn't fill up a sewing thimble.

It looks like I now have a valid excuse not to try to run the dish washer or the clothes washer today. Poor me.... right?? Good thing I have lots of clothes and dishes.

I guess I'll just have to play at the art table all day. Poor me! (Like there is nothing else that needs to be done around here besides dishes and clothes ha ha)....

So here's a recent piece of art that I think is finished. I can only think that because who knows if something else will show up randomly that wants to jump on. It's odd and a bit whimsical I think, but does have many layers of colorful paints and papers. It's mixed media, so parts of it are painted on and parts of it are painted collage papers that have been glued on.

This funky still life is all collage papers except for the small gold circles at the top of the paper that the vases are sitting on. Once again.. .complete??... not quite???....We'll see.

I saw someone else had put a sail boat (of sorts) on a an atlas page. I thought it was neat. They had cut and mounted theirs on an art board to sell it. Since I liked the idea of a boat on the water on an atlas page, I pulled out an atlas that I had gotten at the thrift store a couple of months back to use for collaging, went through and found a page with open seas and tore it out. I wasn't really in a mind to mount it, just to paint a boat on it and Vwa-LA!.... here it is. Seems I'm sailing to Brazil this time. It's kind of fun, right? I'm not much of a representational artist, but I was happy with the way it came out.

Art and Food, my two favorite things! 🤣

Before one of my teeth rebelled previously, I had bought a bag of raw peanuts still in the shell at a local Garden Market. I had only eaten half of it when my tooth interfered, so the other half had been hanging out in the pantry since then. One evening this past week I decided to shell the rest of them and fry them up like my Dad used to do. (now that all the dental work is completed) Once I took them out of the hot oil, I salted them good and then had them for a snacks over the next several days. They were SO good! I've shown peanuts I fried another year before, but I can't remember when and.... here I am doing it again. Of course you can tell they are not the same nuts... right?? RIGHT???

Or maybe you are thinking it is ME that's the nut. You may be right about that.

I have fried the peanuts above in some peanut oil.... how fitting and after I lifted them out and the oil was still hot, for the first time ever I cracked three eggs and dropped them in the very hot grease. Now... sure I have made the normal fried eggs before, a little butter in the pan, flip them over... cook some more, but in this case, the hot oil was deep and those eggs fried nicely, in the deeper oil. I did still flip them once. The whites were cooked nice and solid and the yellows had thickened some, but still runny.... and OMG! They were the best fried eggs I have ever had. Makes me want to deep fry them from now on. I actually did fry two more the next day. I could get addicted to that.

Ok... on the home stretch here, a random photo of some papers I painted last night for collaging. I had no purpose, just colors on the back two and the front, I was thinking I might need a little red for the upcoming holidays.

This past week was a very happy week. At the end of the week before, I found that a program they have at work was worth more than I thought. Even though I had been awarded from several different directions over the last few months because I was such a great asset to my department 🙄 I knew I was awarded points, but it was a new program and I had never paid any attention to it. I said the appropriate "Thank you's" and carried on. So...I found at the end of last week that the points I had been given over time were worth a dollar apiece and I had 120! What?? (again).... so I went into the program and found that one of the things I could buy was an Amazon gift card, so I preceded to do just that. I had been toying with the idea of getting a new green artificial Christmas tree, so when that money went on my Amazon account, I went shopping, chose the tree I wanted and ordered it. With my work money going against the price, it only cost me $55. Now THAT is a price I could live with! The tree came last Monday and you guessed it.... it's up! It is pre-lit and came in three pieces, the bottom two of which have hinged limbs, so it was a quick "put-together". Of course it needed fluffing some as nearly all artificial trees do, but all in all, not too bad. I'm not quite done with the decorating, but you know it will show up here sometime later.

The other thing that made the week different and good was that our department kept running out of the work I do the week before, because we had it "too caught up".... is that a thing for real??? They have been hiring lots of people, but anyway. I had already taken off Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to avoid phones (you know the story).... and Monday afternoon our manager emailed and said if anyone that still had paid time available wanted to take a day off this past week, they would approve it, even if we asked for the next day! Whoa.... ok... we need to let the work get behind again. 😂 So.... I asked for Wednesday and Friday afternoons off too and they gave it to me. That means that after I worked all day Monday, I only worked till 12 noon the other 4 days of the week. Honestly, it was nearly like having the whole week off to me, because from 8 to 12 goes by fast! You can see now, why it all felt like a good week. I could get used to that!

Next week though, back to the 5 normal days, but.... it was still fun and I'm basking in the afterglow.

That's all for me for now. Hope you are all doing well.

Love you!

Jacey