What a wonderful day!

Today, this morning, I was having a big old pity party, laying on my bed crying. I was crying about one thing,
that led to another thing, you know how that is. But the one thing that I mostly have been crying about for years
was that I could not see, email, write, or have anything to do with 4 of my grandchildren. It's a long story.

My son, who is their father, and Ashley's father, has been visiting me and so when the news hit the family that
I was ill, he went to his wife, who was the hold out on this, and told her that he wanted to bring the kids to see me,
and her too if she wanted to. Well, it ended up that he brought Jamie and Kathleen, two of the prettiest and sweetest
kids I've ever seen and I was overwhelmed, and my other son was here with his son, and Ashley was here with her two,
and of course Robin was the catalyst! I mean I am one more happy person right now, and I hope soon to see my
other two, and of course his wife.

It has been 6 years since I've got to see them. 6 solid years of heartache. It's over now, I pray.

On another front, Robin talked me into listing some paintings that I did not think were much good, but she did,
and there is a lot of bidding going on over there!!!!!! That helps more than anybody could ever know because
money is extremely short right now.

So I'm going to take a nap and I feel pretty doggone good, there was no pain while they were here, not a bit.

Cia

CT Test Results

Well, my friends, we come to a place in the road where everything you thought was important is really not. We (Robin and I) saw the pictures from the CT scan. What we saw was amazing.
In no less than 10 months, since my last chest x-ray, growths have appeared. In my lungs, both of them, and my liver has 3 in it, it looks like, they are bunched together. My liver is swollen and way bigger than it is supposed to be.

I go in for a biopsy on the lung tissue next Tuesday. This is hard for me to write. But I made a decision not to close myself up and hide. I'm going to live, live, and have fun! More butter pecan ice cream! And I'm going to paint all the time, all the time, all the time. Anybody that doesn't like what I do, I don't care. Suddenly I feel quite free.

Love you all.

Life is a Beach

Life is a beach, they say.

Here's what I just listed, I am proud of this one. It's about 7.5" x 10" on Kilimanjaro paper, 140 lb. Cold press, bright white.

I was sort of urged (to say the least) to venture in this direction by my lovely daughter, Robin.
Man was I resistant!!!!!

But now I'm very glad and have plans for some more "beaches".

Also, today I go see a new doctor, he's a lung specialist. There are some odd nodules on my lungs and I've been in pain and pretty sick for about a month, actually. I had a CT scan yesterday,
so we will hopefully have the answer to what this is. And hope it is something that can be treated!

Later

Beach 1

Hello everyone! I've begun a series on "beaches" and this is the first one. We have beaches as a project in my teaching group right now. If you would like to be a member, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WatercolorLessonsbyCia/join
and join us! We are already at 109, world wide! Every month (which we begin on the 15th of each month) we have a competition. We've divided ourselves into 3 groups,
Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. This is all FREE! There are many, many demos and lessons in the files.

Here's my first "beach", called "Beach 1". Comments welcome!

Close to Finished

Here's where I am right now. Not much more to do on the Confederate Rose painting.

Full Sheet Confederate Roses WIP

Here's what I'm working on right now. This is a full sheet painting, although in the WIP you can't see all of the drawing. This editor really won't let me put this in the right order, right now it's showing up last picture first. So look from the bottom up!
Cia

"I'm So Glad"

I did this small painting for a group I belong to, Aquanet, for a theme called
"Close Up". Don't worry, I will finish the rose one soon, but this was kind of
urgent to finish.

This one is about 8" x 10" on Arches 140 lb. cold press bright white paper.

It was growing in my garden, and this represents what I did with one of
the photographs I took. I was standing with the sun coming over my shoulder,
I put the glad on my deck floor, stood on the steps and photographed it.
That is why the shadow is above it instead of below it.

Comments and Critiques always welcome!

Variegated Roses - WIP

Here's what I'm working on right now. This is a huge challenge because these roses are variegated in color! This is from a photo I took of my neighbor's garden last year. Stay tuned!