Little One

When I started this painting I was planning on creating a bird with many more details than I ended up with, but somehow the simplicity of the painting at this stage was super appealing to me. It added to this little one's innocence. I think I may try to have this image put on infant size onesies. :-)

Through October 20th I will be donating 50% of my original art sales to the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), Texas 21 Chapter. More information may be found here. Let's make the climate great again!

"Little One"

Miniature easel included in the price of the painting.

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

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Eruption

Volcanoes symbolize creativity, rebirth, energy...as well as destruction and violence. As will all things, all people, all experiences, there are at least two sides.

Through October 20th I will be donating 50% of my original art sales to the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), Texas 21 Chapter. More information may be found here. Let's make the climate great again!

"Eruption"

Miniature easel included in the price of the painting.

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Outfitted

It's a funny thing what happens to art when it's framed. When one of my pieces is bought or if I buy someone else's work, and the piece happens to be framed, well, it's like it just got a huge promotion. Like they went from being a high school graduate to completing their master's thesis. It never fails to amaze me what a difference an "outfit" makes for art.

Now do I generalize this fabulous information to my own life and my own outfits? Nope...or at least hardly ever. I like to think of my style as being always ready for a workout or for getting dirty.


This piece was an exercise for a class I'm taking. We're focusing on the artist Marie Laurencin. Loving her style and I cannot wait till we get to her watercolors!

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Hair

I have wacky hair. There's really nothing I can do about it...or at least nothing I'm willing to do about it. But every once in a while someone says something charitable.


As I entered the YMCA...

Nice counter guy: "Look at you coming to the gym with your hair looking great."

Me (after looking behind me to see who he was actually talking to): "Um, thanks. Just wait till I'm done working out, then it'll look really great."



After I'd been working out for about half an hour...

Nice counter guy who was now a nice floor guy: "Your hair still looks great!"

Me: "Thanks, you're sweet."


I'm pretty sure he was fulfilling a personal challenge to say something nice to a bunch of strangers that day, but it was super nice of him anyway.

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Peaceful

Peaceful...that sums up how I've felt throughout this holiday season.

We've had our years of the big decorated tree in the corner of the living room, the abundance of gifts underneath, the staying up way past my bedtime to do Santa duties, the being woken by wee ones mere hours after I'd finally gone to sleep, and the blissful exhaustion that all of that was.


But now that our kids are big (16 and 19) the holidays are delightfully easy going and low key. We had no tree, only lights thumb tacked to the walls in a delightfully whimsical way. We purchased absolutely no gifts for one another (just transferred money to the kids' bank accounts). We all went to bed when our own beds called to us. The teenagers slept till close till noon. And we were all well rested.

I treasure both experiences, but I gotta give peaceful the win.

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No Shave November 3 - American Cancer Society Fundraiser

Sometimes I think I'm quite the tough old middle-aged broad.  Here's what I can do.


I can be texted a photo of my kid's latest injury...a lovely bloody gash down his shin "I think it goes all the way to my bone"...and never miss a beat whilst eating my potato and chick pea soup.

That, and I can also watch an episode of "The Walking Dead" with no eating hesitation.


Yup, tough.  I have my kids to thank me for that.


Again, I'll donate the sales of these bearded wonders to the American Cancer Society in memory of my wonderful and totally not bearded, yet cool as all get out, Nana.

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No Shave November I - American Cancer Society Fundraiser

So obviously I can't quit shaving my face for the month of November, though I could easily blow off eyebrow plucking for thirty days and I will.  I can also give up shaving my legs and pits for the month.  But I can do even better than that.  For the month of November I'll be featuring a series of awesomely bearded dudes and I'll donate the sales of these to the American Cancer Society in memory of my wonderful and totally not bearded, yet cool as all get out, Nana.

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Batty for Austin, Texas

They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder.  And maybe that's what's been happening to me.  Although for me it's more like the anticipation of distance.  I've been thinking a lot about my upcoming trip to California (the little guy and I leave first thing tomorrow morning).  So I couldn't help but create something that celebrates this city I love and one of my favorite things about it. 

I absolutely never, ever tire of watching the bats emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge (I think they now actually call it the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge...a totally rockin' name to be sure.).  But what I love even more is being on that bridge just before the sun rises and I can still see the last of the twinkling stars above.  The bats return home in a flurry that to me, is even more beautiful than when they emerged the evening before.  They're tired.  They're tummies are full.  Sleep is the next thing on their batty agenda. 

I love them...and I'm definitely Batty for Austin, Texas.


I've had this design, minus a few of the stars, set up as a T-shirt on Zazzle.  The back of the shirt says, "Batty for Austin, Texas".  Click here to go to the Zazzle link.  Scroll down to see images of the front and the back of the shirt.  Available in sizes infant to adult, guys and gals.

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Validation of Good Parenting

Know how I know I've done a good job being a parent?  Well, I'll tell ya. 


My little guy was in the kitchen singing the awesome tune from the "Star Wars" cantina scene...over and over again. 

Clearly he's been exposed to the most important things in life.


If I drag out all my old action figures I be he'd be willing to recreate the scene with me...gonna go get 'em now!

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Bee Awesome!

So I've been sporting a fanny pack again.  I rocked one in the early 90s when I was riding my bike everywhere.  Then again during the 00s.  But that fanny pack was big and bulky.  I could fit snacks, a wallet, my chap stick, and keys in there.  It bounced.  It jiggled.  It kind of drove me nuts.

Enter new fanny pack.  Very sleek.  Extremely tiny.  And it holds only my phone and car key.  It's awesome!


Dave (holding my new fanny pack up with a puzzled look on his face):  "What's this?"

Me:  "It's my fanny pack?"

Dave:  "What could possibly fit in it?"

Me:  "My phone fits just right."

Dave:  "You should call it a phoney pack."


Yup, that's my guy!  And you can definitely count on seeing me rockin' my phoney pack!

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Twin Sisters

This afternoon we took Hazel, our big dog, to meet her sister.  They hadn't seen each other since they were about two months old.  And there's a pretty darn cool, small world story behind all of this.

Dave, as is his style with new family dogs, showed up one evening with the cutest ball of black fur ever (and to be totally honest here, we had talked about getting another dog at some point, just not when).  I was instantly in love, of course, and proceeded to take tons of photos of this sweet little one and put them on facebook.  Not long after that, a friend from high school was posting very similar photos of her new puppy, and she sent me a message wondering where we had gotten ours.

And sure 'nuf, her mother-in-law and my husband had gotten puppies from the exact same litter and those dogs ended up in our homes.

So today my little guy and I drove out to her place to get the girls together.  And they were instant best friends.  Who knows if they remembered each other or not, but they were gleeful to be in each other's presence.

LOVE this small world!!

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What Sleep Brings

So the little guy has been attending a summer fitness camp thing.  I would have thought that he'd be raring to go in the mornings...you know, wake up easily, jump out of bed, gleefully get ready, happily eat a hearty breakfast, and give me a hug, kiss, and "I love you" when I dropped him off (after all, I'm getting up super early for his summer thing, too.).  But, no.  We grog our way through all those steps and I merely receive a grunt when I tell him "I love you!" at drop off.

But today we were rewarded with a little whimsy, a bit of humor as the fairies and elves had obviously been up to mischief whilst we slept.

The kid got up (after multiple requests).

The kid got dressed (under duress).

The kid ate one fourth of a bagel (with minimal resistance).

And as we walked out the door and he was shoving his phone in his shorts, "Hey, there's a teeny, tiny sock in my pocket!" And he tossed my sock on the table.


...and I just smiled figuring I'd keep the fairies and elves that live in our house my own little secret.

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Walk this Way

I rescue bugs a lot.  If you read this blog, you know it's true.  This morning as I walked on the hike and bike trail around the lake I spied a walking stick in my path.  It had stepped out from a crop of poison ivy and was just frozen there.  So of course I stopped, too.  I had to get that little guy out of danger.  I was on a mission.

I tried picking it up.  Nope.  I tried scooping it up.  Nope.  And then I tried poking its rear.  Yup!  Back into the poison ivy it ran.

My job was done.

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And then I Made a Grown Man Cry

Poor Dave.

Not only has every mosquito come to the conclusion that he is the tastiest source of blood in town, but he swells up in welts each time they get him...which is a lot.  Poor guy has even sworn off wearing shorts during the summer, which is a big commitment in Central Texas.

Anyway, today we were in the bedroom and I saw a mosquito flying around.

Dave:  "Get it!  Get it!!!"

And I'll be darned if that silly mosquito didn't land on the edge of a laundry basket that was directly in front of me.

"WHAM!!!!!"

And then Dave commenced crying with immense gratitude and appreciation.  OK, he may have been faking it, but only a little bit.

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For Stuart Hutto

A dear friend of mine died several days ago.  I was eleven when my parents hired him as my french horn teacher, and he brought the most delicious, crazy sanity into my life.  He taught me how much fun it could be to do something you love, to always find the whimsy in everything, and to never take things too seriously.  That third one is still a challenge for me.  He taught me how to make a white Russian, that playing music really loudly while pointing in rhythm is absolute bliss, and that burping excessively while pulling ones own finger is one of the purest joys ever.  He turned me on to The Alan Parsons Project and delighted in calling me The Kali Parsons Project.  He adored me, cared deeply about me, and was pretty much the only adult at the time who saw the amazing in me simply for being who I was, not for the things I could do.

I will dearly miss sharing this planet with him and will forever remember my weekly lessons on life with him...during which every once in a while we even played french horn.

Love you, Stuart.

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A Good Thing

My fabulous brother and his wonderful family are in town right now.  My nephew is totally into trains which led us to get the big boxes of model railroad stuff out of the shed.  The kids paid a bit of attention to it before they wandered off...and that left me, my brother, and my dad to dig through it all.

With all that stuff comes oodles of memories.  Good ones!  My dad and brother were pretty much in charge of the controllers, track, and cars.  My mom painted the backgrounds on canvas panels.  And I painted all the little people and helped with the creationing of the buildings.

We did this for many years and were even in TV and magazine stories doing our thing. 

And to quote Martha Stewart, "It's a good thing."

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Grackles Rock!

I really like grackles.  I know they're the scroungy rats of the bird population, even lower on the totem pole than pigeons, but I think they're pretty awesome.  They're scrappy, they're resourceful, and they keep on truckin'.  Case in point, the grackle I saw the other day with only one foot.  He was the most adorable peg leg ever.  And that bird was fast!

While I usually see grackles that look like they're a bit rode hard, a bit ravaged by time, I saw two today that look like they have managed to live their lives in the lap of luxury.  As I leaned back against the edge of a pool with my little guy, two grackles landed at the pool's edge, and proceeded to take the most spectacular bath.  They dipped in.  They splashed a bit.  They puffed out all their feathers in the most adorable way.  Those grackles were livin' large!

And then one landed right beside me.  It had a pretzel stick in its mouth.  It dipped that pretzel stick in the pool as any kid would dip an Oreo in a glass of milk, and gobbled down his moistened treat.

Grackles rock!

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Smile

I go for walks every day.  Sometimes twice a day if I'm feeling particularly ambitious.  And when I'm walking I'm so, so, so happy!  Truly it's pure bliss.  And when I'm on my walks I always have a companion...one of my two sweet dogs or my iPhone playing podcasts from NPR shows (not the news).

What I've noticed is this.  I catch myself smiling or laughing goofily often throughout my walks.  I also catch a lot of other people not smiling or laughing.  And so one of my favorite things is to catch other people's eyes and share a genuine smile with them.  And I tell you what, I bet 90% of them return my smile...and if I'm with one of my dogs they got a big smile, too.

So go share a smile, they're seriously contagious!

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Matchy Matchy

This morning the little guy and I were in line at the grocery store.  We were behind a friendly guy.  A really friendly guy.  The kind of guy that goes on ahead and yammers it up with the customers behind him.  My kind of guy!

So we yammered on and on...and then I noticed something.  That friendly guy had on the exact same pair of shoes I'd bought for my little guy two days ago and my little guy was wearing them.  And that guy had on a gray shirt, just like my little guy had on.


Me:  "Hey, you guys are matchy matchy today!"

Friendly guy:  "Well, look at that."

Little guy:  "Oh, yeah."

Friendly guy:  "We called each other this morning."


And then the friendly guy left.


Little guy:  "Wow, he was sure friendly."

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An Unexpected Overnight Guest

I woke up this morning and discovered that we had a most delightful unexpected overnight guest.  Right by our front door sat a toad.  An adorable, lumpy, clearly missing the great outdoors as he was staring at the door, toad.

And right beside this toad was our kitten, seemingly just as puzzled by our wee little guest as I.

I picked that sweet little fella up, opened the door a crack, and set him outside.  Our kitten looked at me, looked at the toad, and then looked back at me as if saying, "Them's not good eatin', mama." I'm quite sure he at least gave that little toad a taste test lick.

Come back for an overnight any time, little fella!

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