I'M READING MORE...

lately than I have been. I just finished Angel Time by Anne Rice, which was really good. It is the first of a series, and the second book came out in November I think, so I'll need to see if I can get it soon. I got the first one from Paperback Swap.
Today I just started (or restarted, actually) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. I had checked it out from the library a long time ago, but was too busy to enjoy it at the time, so returned it after barely starting it. I got this one from a swap tag on Swap-Bot.
Thirdly, I have It's My Church and I'll Stay if I Want To by Lonni Collins Pratt. It's okay... I guess I'll finish it, but it'll probably be after I finish P & P & Z. I have quite a que of books built up, so periodically, I hope to show you what I've finished and what I'm reading.

BACKGROUND PAPERS

These are some background papers I've made lately. I'm involved in some Yahoo art groups and have been actually doing some art with them again. I've already used some of these papers on some artist trading cards and inchies.
I love the style of the top one with the numbers and circles. Actually, earlier tonight I decided there was a little too much white on it, so I gave it a yellow overwash and sprayed more brown walnut ink on it. I'm waiting for it to dry now.
The valentinish one is cool too - very texturey. It turned out a lot redder than I intended since the white tissue paper pretty much turned clear after it all dried. Oh, well. I still like it.

OUR DECEMBER

Honestly, our holiday photos get worse and more skimpy each year. I think it's because I get too tired to try to take better ones any more. But our December was good and we had a great Christmas. Our Christmases are a lot more quiet and low key as we get older.

We were thrilled that Shabree was here to celebrate Christmas with us this year. This was taken Christmas Eve. Garrett made me this fantastic owl house. He'd been making and putting up a lot of them this winter. This one that he made me has a plexiglass window in back. When you look inside, you can see the carpeting and a "God bless our home" sign over the front door. I love that!

Garrett and Ruth do a lot of vintage shopping and they found this "Hoss" hat from back in the day when Bonanza was the big thing - around the early 60's, I think. So they bought it for Mathieu and had it cleaned and refurbished, leaving the original hatband with the brand and all that intact. VERY cool!

Samantha was working on Christmas Eve, but Andrew and Lyric came. Lyric enjoyed the bows and wrappings as much as she did the toys.

I've really been getting a lot of enjoyment out of my windowside bird bath and bird feeder again. We've had lots of sparrows, of course, but also male and female cardinals, mockingbirds and my two favorites golden fronted woodpeckers and green jays. This is one of the green jays. Not a very good photo at all, though. Recently we had 4 of them at once in the feeder. I wish I would have gotten a photo of that.

Chuck had been seeing quite a few men on packed down bikes on the highway at one place or another heading south, looking like they were homeless. So one day he was at Papa's when one of them - Larry - stopped and they got to talking. So Larry came to stay at our cottage, down the road a bit from us, for a few days over Christmas. When he left, he was heading to Choke Canyon and from there to Corpus, I think. He was a really nice man and we enjoyed having him visit. This poor photo is one I took through the kitchen window when Larry was getting on his way again.