What Painting with a Man and Two Cats Looks Like

We have the luxury of having a "bonus" room in our house into which many items make their way. There is organized chaos in the various forms of: wrapping paper and gift bags, piles of books waiting for a shelf, archived files, unused instruments, fishing poles and memories from yesteryear. Around the organized chaos are more organized areas where there is an office on one side of the room and art studio on the other.

Many nights Mike and I go to the "studio" to paint. He sits at a table in one corner and I stand beside him at my fancy desk/easel that Mike and his dad made for me. We listen to whatever music blares from the iPod or computer and spend (sometimes) hours in our own paintings, resurfacing from time to time to converse, critique and offer suggestions to one another. I love it.

It was this week that I busted out my old (and new) oils and paints. I hadn't used any of the media since my senior year of high school. It was a little intimidating at first. And to be honest, at this point, I couldn't tell you the differences between the specific oils. I know each one has a different drying time and gloss, but those are to be relearned.

The girls, Charlotte and Pearl, usually join us so we're one happy family in the bonus room. The girls spend their time napping, scratching and preening themselves. Mike and I create new memories that are sealed within the colors on our canvases.

Sleepy Pearl with Mike behind her at his table.

Charlotte observing from under the desk.

Mike working on creating a coyote with ink, watercolors and acrylics.

A picture of manatees I just finished using acrylics.

Passed out Pearl.

My next endeavor... the picture above is its inspiration.

Night one: a fine, basic layer of paints and a paint thinner.

Night two: adding the oils. The bottom half of the picture and part of the fence is with oil and paints.

Night three: adding more background and making the man shorter.

Piloting a Mountain with My Best Friend

Two Sundays ago Mike and I took a drive to Pilot Mountain, NC, after church. The weather was perfect: low 70s with only a few clouds in the sky. We stopped at Jersey Mike's on the way there and did a repeat (kind of) or our engagement day... minus it being at Hanging Rock and Mike proposing.

One awesome thing about living in NC, and being so close to the mountains, is being able to take advantage of the different seasons. North Carolina has beautiful roads lined with a gorgeous, natural quilt in the fall. We drove the hour+ drive to see how the quilt was faring so far.

I really was hoping the leaves would be a bit further along, but what we did see was beautiful. It's probably peaking this weekend and next, but we still got a preview of some of the majesty. Check out our pictures!

Lots of green still...

There were *some* orange leaves!

He "posed" for me...

I held it up all by myself!!

From Yard to Plate and Back Again

One attribute (of the many) that I really appreciate about Mike is his love and curiosity for gardening. He's done an amazing job of working part of the yard into a prosperous garden full of delicious fruits and veggies. We've spent some time the past couple of weekends digging up potatoes, harvesting peppers (green ones, habaneros and Thai peppers) and plucking watermelon from their vines. Still out there to be plucked and processed: basil, oregano, rosemary and sage.

From clockwise: large crate of sweet potatoes, green peppers and three bowls of habaneros.

Mike checking out the habanero plants.

Habaneros on the vine.

Our best looking watermelon this season! (We only had two that didn't die on the vine- the one above and one below)

Yes, folks, that's a baby watermelon... and a confused man. Aww!

It wasn't the sweetest watermelon I've ever had, but it was pretty good for being harvested in mid-October!

If you'd visited our house this week, you would have noticed the smell of peppers as soon as you walked in the door. From Sunday until yesterday we had the dehydrator working its magic on Thai and habanero peppers. Mike dried the Thai ones and I did the habaneros. We only had a few coughing and sneezing fits between the two of us!

First in the dehydrator: watermelon. Mike claimed that dehydrating it would make it taste sweeter.

Watermelon jerky! And Mike was right- it tasted sweeter.

So many habaneros!!

The yard has been a source of entertainment for us and there are many times I can't believe that just a  year ago my yard consisted of a patch of grass that was "mowed" with a weed-wacker and before that it was even smaller- sporting a small bush, a tree, some wild mint and whatever flowers we'd managed to plant that season in the 3x6 foot patch of yard outside our row house.

When we have veggies, fruits or bread that goes bad before we can eat them then we have the luxury of throwing it to our "ladies"- the four chickens that will eat just about anything you give them (although they surprisingly don't eat peppers). So, it's kind of nice to know that some of our food doesn't go to waste, but rather gets turned into eggs! In case you were wondering what a chicken prefers between spaghetti noodles and bread, noodles trump bread. I think it's partly because they probably look like juicy worms. Mmm.

Below are pictures of  some yard "friends" we've come across in the past couple of weeks. (Warning to my grandma: the last three (of these six) pictures have a snake in them, so don't scroll to the very bottom!).

We have these huge brownish red spiders all in the yard and eaves of the house. Gross!

A rather intimidating in size garden spider. It was probably about 1.5 inches long!

Cool web designer though!

A corn snake!

We let him go into the fig tree.

What he thought about us holding him...

Sisters Half-Marathon #3

On Sunday, October 7, Mal and I completed our third half-marathon together. What started off three years ago as a challenge to ourselves has evolved into a tradition. Each year we've done a half-marathon together and it's been a fun way to connect as sisters.

There's nothing that brings folks quite together after dining over a pre-run pasta meal, doubting those training sessions (and lack-of training sessions), getting up early and walking to a start line and then finishing with sore parts (feet, hips, knees... insert body part of choice).

It could be argued that the finish is the best part of it all, but it's not. It's another run completed with my longest-running (see what I did there?) best friend.

Our friend Teresa ran with us!

Mal's one year dessert fast ended that weekend. What a perfect time to end it- the night before our run!

Thanks to donations from friends, I was able to take a trunkful of shoes to donate to needy people in third world countries.

Yay!! Sporting our completion medals after the run.