It is a good day today, the sun is shining and I went out and played with my Bobcat,

I finished my butterfly drawing and have been working on revamping my website and opening a new Etsy store for prints and notecards.

Smile for the day:

What a lovely day today!!! The sun is shining, it’s almost 20° and there’s a 40° day in the forecast! And my bobcat is coming today. I’m really looking forward to this summer and using it for landscaping etc.

I’ve been working on more murrini,

Some new listings on Etsy,


I finished the drawing of my latest butterfly, so now comes the magic of putting down the watercolors,

Some funny pics,

It has been a rough winter here, like so much of the rest of the country. What’s been different for us is not the amount of snow, although we’ve had enough of that, but the repetitive waves of frigid air. Normal high this time of year is in the 30s, instead last night it was -15°, with that bitterly cold northwest wind.

I went down to the cities Wednesday and bought a used bobcat, which hopefully will be delivered Monday.

By the time I got back home four hours later, our driveway was drifted shut. I called Christian to see if he could get through with the truck, but it got stuck, so I parked our van at our neighbor’s and Christian hauled groceries back to the house on the sled.


Yup, definitely stuck, and hung up on solidly packed snow. Thank goodness our neighbor was home, so he fired up his bobcat and cleared out our driveway Thursday. We had to dig out quite a bit of snow from underneath the truck to get it out. And even better, Friday the propane truck came and we got enough propane to hopefully last until spring, which can’t come soon enough!

I’m still working on my butterfly drawing, it’s progressing slowly but surely.

Suka gets to lick out the containers of sour cream, and here he is happily napping with the latest container,

And some funny Internet pics,

It is just wicked, wicked cold, with a NW wind whipping. Sigh, just about March, just about spring...

Snow, snow and more snow, looking out from our garage

That drift is about 3 1/2’ tall,

That’s our driveway. No way is UPS coming today with my Amazon order.

Our path to the barn, that drift at the right is well over 2’. The 5’ piles to the left are the snow that’s been plowed so we can get to the barn. Yup, so ready for spring.

Two lovely, sunny warm days!!! Yesterday I was snowplowing with just a short sleeved shirt (pants and boots, of course), no gloves, no coat, no hat. I loved it!!

Sigh, blizzard warning tomorrow through Friday, with temps back below zero for next week.

Some new beads,

Snow, snow and more snow. Well, at least Pyr, my big puppy, is enjoying it.

Speaking of which, I really need to get a picture of him sitting on my lap like he used to, just to see how much he’s grown. He’s a HUGE fuzz ball.

I got into a murrini zone for a few days, but nothing ‘WOW’ came of it.

I’ve started a new drawing, a butterfly again (I think I’m REALLY reading for spring),

and a couple of funny Internet pics,

Winter just won’t quit. Yes, I know it’s only February, but by this time of the year we’re all so sick of winter, well, you get the drift. Speaking of which, more snow coming in tomorrow night, and then after that, another cold wave with -0 temps coming. Yup, so very, very ready for spring.

Not too much beadmaking going on here. With propane being so expensive, I turned down the thermostat even more, so this a.m. it was 51° in my studio. WAY too cold to be creative!! But I did finish my drawing of Baxter.

A funny pertinent Internet pic,

-20° here, BUT next week they’ve got four days in a row over 30°!!!!! Spring is on the way!!!

I’m REALLY sounding like a broken record, but we have another cold wave coming in, -17° tomorrow night. Getting really, really tired of it. At least it’s been sunny.

I’ve started on a new drawing, quite a bit smaller than the last, just 5 1/2” x 4”, so this one won’t take nearly as long as the elk. This is Baxter, our kitty that we just had to put down this past fall, when he was a kitten. He had such pretty blue eyes. This is in progress,

I just listed some new beads, and have several that I really like, especially the last one,



And a couple of funny Internet pics,

I’m going to sound like a broken record, I’m tired of winter and want warm weather!! It’s headed down to -14° tomorrow night, we’re going to have a warm up of one day with a low of 0°, then back down to -14°. Tired, tired, tired!!!

I finished my elk drawing, and am not really happy with it. I got too involved with the pen and ink in the foreground, so it got too dark, and the colored pencils dull the ink.

So it’s back to the drawing board to find something new to work on.
Funny internet pics!!

So very, very tired of winter. My studio is too cold to be in, so torching glass hasn’t been very enjoyable (although that might change for a bit. I have a new shipment of glass coming in today with some new colors).

More snow this a.m., and the NW wind is blowing in some cold air again. My bedroom the other night was down to 41°, so you can be sure my electric blanket is going to get turned on early to make my bed nice and warm. I so want to be outside in some warm air and dirt; white snow is kind of pretty the first couple of times, but by this time of the year, it’s wearing thin.

The nicest thing I can say about January is that it’s usually much sunnier than the other winter months, so I can sit in the south room and soak up the sunshine while I’m drawing. Here’s the progress I’ve made on my elk drawing. I’m not totally satisfied with it, I got too lost in all of those dots and overdid the grassy areas in the front of the landscape, so now I have to decide how to work with that. I’m not too happy with using the colored pencils on top of the ink either, since they cloud the ink. I like working with them, but they don’t fit in too well with my style right now. The next drawing I do I’m going to try using watercolor pencils and see if I like them. Yup, already mapping out the next drawing I’m going to do, and it won’t be any 10”x12” either!

One day of seasonable weather, and now we’re heading back into the deep freeze. Propane prices have skyrocketed, so we’ve got the thermostat turned down and are keeping the wood stove going good. I just can’t believe the price of propane; a month ago 300 gallons cost us $430, now 100 gallons is going to be $520, and with this weather, that’ll last a couple of weeks.

I’ve been doing a lot of drawing during the day, since my drawing table is in a south facing room, and I can soak up the sun in there. I’m hooked on a new author, Laurie R. King, and her Mary Russell series (been listening to the audiobooks while drawing). She writes a bit like Elizabeth Peters with the Amelia Peabody series, although her books are darker, especially the one describing the WWI period. Here’s the latest progress on my elk drawing:

I’ve still been working on murrini tests, but nothing spectacular so far. Maybe once I get them into beads where they’re really hit with a lot of fluctuations in heat/propane/oxy they’ll look more interesting. Here’s what I mean, the first picture is just a test of the murrini,

but here’s what it looks like worked on a bead,

I really like the way it spread in the encased murrini (the left one).

I’ve got some nice beads that I’ve got to get listed,

And here’s a couple funny Internet pics,