I haven't done this in a long time...too long in fact. So much has changed since the last time this blog was updated. I have gotten involved with working the Mid-South Con for the last couple of years, joined Malice in Memphis and am now the newsletter editor for the second year. I have joined the Mid South Buccaneers which makes me a Pirate, written a story about a murder on Mud Island that is set during the Pirate Faire and it is with the editors and probably bleeding red as we speak. If it is chosen it will be published in an anthology. I turned 50 in December of 2012 and my daughter took me to dinner with my closest friends and then to Pinot's Palette to paint and drink wine. It was the best birthday I have ever had. I discovered painting early in 2012 at Lord of the Beans when a local lady was having a painting party there. I painted an scene with 3 owls in a tree on 2 8x10's canvases.

I wanted to run right out the next day to get another canvas to see if I could paint a picture on my own. That idea was shot down by everybody saying I didn't need any more hobbies. Gee some people, they just didn't want me to drag them into another hobby. I let it go for a while. I attended the Memphis Comic and Fantasy Con at the Hilton Memphis and Pinot's Palette was there. I was able to paint another picture, this one of my choosing of a wolf howling at a borealis.

I didn't care for it as much after I got it home..so i bought some paints and I changed it...

I didn't let anybody deter me from diving head long into painting. I was still doing my embroidery and making items for sale. I have a set that I make for baby showers that include a baby wipes case, a pacifier holder, a bib and 3 burp cloths. I have a set for wedding showers too. 2 bath towels, 2 hand towels and 2 washcloths that are given to the bride and groom in a tote that I make. Their initials are on all the towels (usually in 2 colors) and on the bag. Usually my daughter buys the sets for her friends that have gotten engaged or married. Also ordered a few baby shower gifts. I have a lot of orders from my daughter, and my cousins. However I still wanted to paint. So my daughter planned my birthday dinner the weekend before at a restaurant of my choice, Colton's and she gave me a wine glass that said Birthday Girl and an XL wine glass that she and my friends (Lisa, Dee, Missy,and Missy's daughter Amber who was in on leave from the Army) had signed at the restaurant. She left the restaurant to go to the liquor store and picked up some wine and we all went to Pinot's Palette for a 3 hour class and painted Christmas Starry Night.

I am hooked on painting and I want to learn how to paint in oil paints and watercolor as well as acrylics. I have a wonderful watercolor painting of my daughter that passed away 28 years ago that was done by one of my mother's renters. It hangs on my living room wall between Nicole and Kevin's senior pictures. I always wished I could paint like that...and maybe one day I will. I have one last painting that I did for 2012 and I took the class with Dee and a high school friend Debbie Crowder so that I could learn how to paint glass and make it look real. It is called Wine Glass triplets.

I posted the picture of the howling wolf on Facebook and had someone ask how much I would charge to paint one for her brother as a Christmas gift. I told her and I painted the picture more like I thought it should be. She wanted one like the original one I did so I painted another one...she bought both of them. She also asked me to paint one for her daughter of a peace sign and 2 owls.

The ladies that I sew and knit with on Friday's from the church, liked the Christmas Starry Night paintings so one of their belated Christmas gifts was a smaller version of that painting altered so that they could hang it up anytime not just at Christmas. I think that 2013 will be a good year for creativity. Maybe I will improve my painting.