whirlwind

Yup, it's begun. The month of stress and worry and less sleep and too much to do and not enough time to do it. First things first, please come visit me at UPCOMING ART SHOWS!!!

Saturday September 8th, Second Saturday gallery reception @ Cje's Art and Fiber Printing, Fair Oaks, CA (this is for the Museum of the Chicken Art Show). 6-9pm. I will be there 6-?.

Saturday September 15th, Fair Oaks Chicken Festival in old town Fair Oaks (I do not know my booth location). 10am-5pm. Admission is free.

Thursday September 20th through Sunday September 23rd, Draft Horse Classic, Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley, CA

So.... Friday I took the birds to the fair (left here at 6:15am). Took three chickens, woo hoo. I usually spend the whole day there and see all the horse shows and everything else, but by noon it was over 100 degrees and after a cinnamon roll, a corndog, and a large lemonade, I wasn't feeling too perky in the heat so I headed home and zonked out on the couch. So, it was kinda crappy this year since I didn't see much and none of my chicken buddies were able to stick around. I got best and reserve of class with the birds, which isn't a lot to brag about at that show... I don't know how many birds were there but it wasn't many. I usually go back Saturday to watch the judging, but instead...

I left here in the morning with J&L and headed up to a family reunion in southern Oregon. I slept a little in the car but not nearly enough! It was a 5.5 hour drive. It was great to see the relatives. The Plumers are a wild bunch. Rude, crude, lewd.... thank goodness I'm there to be a good influence eh? ;-) Saturday night was the big dinner thing, followed by sitting around yacking til I couldn't keep my eyes propped open any more.

Sunday morning I was up around 9 and left around 11:30 or noon for a ride on my grandparents' pontoon boat out on a lake that I can't remember the name of. It was really super pretty out there, had a nice time on the boat talking to people, but probably got a bit more sun than I needed (no sunburn, just tired!). We were out there for several hours...no lunch stop...hmm. Got back around 4 or so and maybe 15 minutes later got tossed back in the car for a ride up to some rugged mountain property to check out a trip-camera (way awesome photos of a bear on that camera!). It was a steep and winding road but a lot of it looked like a great place to trail ride. :-) Back around 8, dinner, showed off the art portfolio, hit the hay at midnight and slept like a brick.

Monday morning we all went out to my grandparents' house (what a gorgeous place! right along the river!) and yacked for a while. Took off around 12:30ish, delayed over an hour on the bridge over Lake Shasta, home around 8, barely conscious.. I had a great time up there but it was exhausting! :-)

This morning I left at 8 to pick up the birds from the fair. Then JC arrived with the trailer to take Shylah up north. We hung out for a few hours and went to see an adorable newborn foal a few miles away, then J and Shylah left, I hit the couch for a half hour, and then spent the rest of the day setting up note card files for printing.

So now I'm getting into stress-out mode. Gotta get stuff printed and framed in less than a week. Gotta get stuff bagged and labeled and inventoried, pick up the tent, find someone who can take my art to Draft Horse Classic on the 15th since I'm tied up with the chicken thing (crap!!!!), need to get a few things photographed, aaaack. Two art shows back to back is really really a bad idea, this'll test my limits. I really don't anticipate getting much art done this month, unfortunately. I need to do the next stage on the color scrim tomorrow or Thurs. I want to finish a horse painting I started ages ago and maybe try to get some chicken paintings done (I had grand plans for that!) All commissions are on hold til October though.

I gotta go figure out some framing plans, I should try to head out to the shop tomorrow. Or maybe I can just phone it in, I'd better figure out what I need right now!

Here are some pics from Oregon: