Where the heck I’ve disappeared to

Let me start by saying I think I have a mildly addictive personality. When I get excited about a new project, it’s full speed ahead. And lately my obsession has been painting, which doesn’t really go hand-in-hand with the computer. But I have missed you all!

I spent a week in Athens, Ga., helping Chris decorate his place. One of our projects was to create something to go above his bed. If you remember from this post, I already made one painting for him for his birthday, and that was to go in the living room. He chose not to listen to me and put it over his bed anyway, which totally didn’t go on the wall and the vertical stripes in the pillows didn’t work with the horizontal stripes in the painting. No worries though – it was the first thing I fixed last week when I got there. I purchased a much larger canvas to go over his bed – so large, in fact, that Jeff had to drive it down in the Jeep because it would not fit in my car.

I had no idea what to put on it until the first night I was there when Chris pointed out his favorite photograph for sale at a local bar. “The green is wrong for your house,” I told him, “But wait! We could paint that!” And so I did. It’s very minimalist but I’ll repeat I’m no artist – I’m totally making this up as I go – so I know simple is best for me. Here are the results:

I spent the rest of the week helping him organize office things and closets. I’ll post pictures of that as soon as he puts the cabinet on the wall and takes some – Chris and Lowe’s are becoming very good friends as they try to figure out how to mount this thing. I’ll also tell you about the kick-ass bargain on a desk we got at West Elm. Ooh, the suspense!

I also was able to bring one of my dogs, Breanna the beagle mix, down for the week. She’s the one that likes other animals, and Chris has a cat, hence why I brought her and not the doberman mix. And lemme tell you – I was in heaven. Jeff has banished the dogs to outside only, and there are times that I just long for them to cuddle with at night. It’s not even a secret that’s the main reason I enjoy camping so much. Breanna was inside with me for 2 years before we moved in with Jeff, and she used to sleep with me every night. Well, at 8 years old she’s even more cuddly than she used to be, and I was in heaven. I spent a lot of time lying on Chris’ couch pretending to be asleep because she wasn’t awake yet. These are the days.

Then I came home and went shopping with Colleen on Sunday, where I was telling her about the painting I did for Chris. I then mentioned to her how Binders is having a sale on canvases until the end of the month – and I told her one of the only things I know how to paint are stripes. Well, stripes just happen to be about Colleen’s favorite thing in this world (in fact, she just acquired a new turtle and named him Stripe, not to be confused with my turtle named Spike) … so it was off to Binders for us! We grabbed some canvases and more paint. The main reason for the shopping expedition, however, was to get decorations and a gift for my sister Jenny’s baby shower this weekend. As I looked at her registry choices at Babies R Us, I saw a common theme to the day here: Stripes! And circles – hmm, I can do circles!

So we went to Michaels to pick up more canvases, and then I’ve been painting her paintings the past couple of days. Here are the results (it’s 2 canvases, meant to be on the wall next to each other):

Then Colleen came over last night and we started on her canvases and some more of mine. Results to follow (ooh, more suspense!)

Unfortunately so far I’m kind of a one-hit wonder. I can do messy stripes. I can do cleaner stripes. I can do circles and I can do solids. I can only do simple and I’ve learned the hard way I need a plan before I start working on the canvas – otherwise it looks like a 5-year-old did it.

So, in a nutshell, that’s where I’ve been! More painting pictures to come later (if they turn out decent, of course).