Oh 9.

We have high hopes for you, if you’re listening. And if you’re not, we may shout at you to get your attention. I think we’re all feeling hopeful, weary, leery, and more plucky. And aware.

So this is how oh 8 finished out for us here.

No fireworks, no parties, just a quiet moment in another day and a farewell to an era not any too soon.

We planned  house projects that ideally are best done when the Christmas Winds blow through here and keep the temperature and winds in the perfect zone for heavy lifting. We set aside these past few weeks to get grunt work done.

Unfinished back yard + 2 dogs that love to dig + endless dust blowing like a scirocco around the house + too many years looking at it = one woman on a tear. Pavers! The answer to the problem.

Except that our backyard is two full sets of steps DOWN from the driveway where they waited in the back of our truck. Pavers! They measure 16″X16″ and weigh about 25 lbs each and we had 60 of them. Bang out the number of trips up and down the steps ( 26 of them )  on your abacus. And add to that the buckets of gravel we shoveled at the quarry and carried down. Pick-ax the ground to break up the rocky surface, sift, smooth, lay in a paver, a spacer block, another paver and on it went. We had a good rhythm.

A gym? Nah.

A chiropracter maybe, or an orthopedic specialist.

Site inspector comes with level and football. Never can tell when it’s work or play and you should always be prepared.

There were activities that included and involved one of my favorite items of nutritional content: Pies-

Pumpkin.

Meals at friends, meals at the house, dishes, cooking, casseroles transported, cakes under plastic domes in air conditioned back seats, the island in full holiday spirit with minimal tinsel and abundant spirits. Simple, really.

Learned a feature of my camera that enables very low light photos to be taken without flash. I found these two curled up together for the first time in the dog bed during the night.

Enough fluff. I know, you’re all saying it. ” Where’s the damn paintings already”?

Mike Rooney wrote about the malaise of painting to produce works to sell instead of painting to learn the process and feeling good about the bad ones. I read it and re-read it. That’s where I’m at. He refers to it as pontificating as if he needs to be apologizing for being right and practical.

Oh 9, you’re gonna be the year I get over this hurdle.

I Asked Myself That Same Question!

What IS that?

It wasn’t pulsating. That was reasurring. There was no eerie glow.  I had no idea. I’d never seen anything like this anywhere. And where WAS this you might wonder ?  It appeared overnight in one of my outdoor flowerpots.

What IS this?

” Is this an egg “, I thought. What kind of animal produces an egg that does THAT ? Sort of builds itself a useless parachute and then puts holes in it. Didn’t make sense.

This induced nonsensical explanations in my head – Dr. Seuss was involved in crossbreeding a wiffle ball and a quail egg.

Another possibliity, not so benign -something already hatched out of that egg , will grow exponentially larger and by next week, we’ll be on the mothership,  abducted by the pod people.

The first call was to my friend Scott in Vieques, a writer and knower of all things horticultural, who knew what this was and gave me the Latin.

Clathraceae

They’re in the mushroom family. The fruiting body is the cage like formation which attracts flies to enter, feed and with their feet, spread the spores. Oh, goody. More of these.

The egg like structure has root formations from which this whole bizarre array of fungii originate. With names like ” Phallus ravenelii, Mutinus caninus, Phallus hadriani, how can you not go look at the link above!

Michael Kuo has great photos and writes well and knowledgeably.

They last a day and then they’re gone.

That cold front that blasted New England worked its’ way down here. I only mention it ( see how squally, windy and overcast it was ?) because it coincided hilariously with our local, early morning weather channel.

It showed our local temperature in Christiansted this morning as -10. Minus ten. Clearly the proofreader was busy doing other things. It wasn’t THAT cold. Even though there’s snow on my blog. Happy Holidays.

Yes, there’s no painting to post. But industry lives, as does creativity. I’m taking a small detour to do another furniture piece for a fund raiser-the same cause I did  Chairman Meow for last year.

St. Croix-nicity’s One Year Anniversary

Almost to the day, one year ago, friends came to visit. They both had blogs- one a photographic blog, the other a politically focused one. I’d read theirs and enjoy them but never thought of authoring one myself.

I didn’t even like the WORD blog. I knew it was an acronym for web log but to my ear it sounded more like a blending of ” blah and gag “. Not an attractive imagery, wouldn’t you agree?

My laptop was seized over breakfast one morning and the birth of St. Croix-nicity began.

Apparently friends don’t let friends go without blogs.

Mary Schwalm, a great photographer, set up the banner photo at the header. Her blog is a quick study- just great images, little text and very sharp, hip titles for her photos.

Judy Wolfe– whose movie reviews, photos and art pages and political insights I’ve loved for years, manned the keyboard and I had the pleasure of just answering yes or no to questions of layout, structure, gizmos, widgets and links.

I’ve been visited by people in:

Islamic Republic of Iran

Slovenia

The Green Zone- Iraq

Viet Nam

Bangladesh

Belgium

Japan

Portugal

Turkey

Five thousand eight hundred sixty two visits and 33,972 page views.

Brilliant outreach for someone who dislikes flying.

Amidst those 5,000s’ have been some wonderful exchanges of information, encouragement, tips, and generous sharing among and between other artists. The feedback, the teeth gnashing frustrations of scraping yet another surface, the light-bulb of an a-ha moment, and the connection to people otherwise unknown to you is the joy of this blog and the exoneration of those two kitchen witches who started me on this journey a year ago.

Am I ever grateful.

Two days from today those same two harbingers of fall visits and blog hostage taking, are coming back. I’d hoped to finish another painting before they got here but got only as far as the drawing:

Taken from a photo I took last weekend at one of our farmers’ markets.

Another Work in Progress, he’s got great shadows and lines but the painting will have to wait until these two conspirators leave.

This years visit will be the G7and G9 summit- Canon Camera owners all of us. They know how to use them, I’m just learning. I’m expecting 6 days of de-briefing in the kitchen but thankfully, no Katie Couric interview…….

A ” You Make My Day Award “

-This tribute was passed on to me by Paz of Pazs’ New York Minute. How could I not love that blog AND that award? Paz captures little jewels of unexpected surprises in an about NYC through her photographs.

The best part is that I can accept this award without the pressure of choosing a gown, a hairdresser, writing a dopey acceptance speech that I’d be flub-a-dubbing from a tele-prompter or a sweaty handed, partially crumpled note taken out of a too small purse in front of a fickle love you when you’re up, hate you when you’re down audience.

Second, her blog contains great little hits of NY pie slices of life in photos that make me wish for some seconds that it was still home.

-And then, of course I look out my deck and that feeling passes.

The suggested guidelines for this award ( no rules, remember this is without pressure ) are:

Award guidelines:

“Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.”

So to the following people, I pass on this icon of appreciation.

Some are new to me but new favorites:

1. Nathalie of Nathalie With an H

2. David of David Lobenberg

3. Bill and Lisa of On Painting

4. Of course, Paz of Pazs’ New York Minute

Some are favorites and always give me something to have with coffee or lack of original thoughts:

5. Judy of Lobos’ Rants

6. Terry of Livin’ on St. Croix

7. Linda of Linda Blondheim Art Notes

8. Carol of Carol Marine

9. Sue of Ancient Artist

10. Nancy of Nancy Moskovitz Fine Art

And because 11 is and always has been my lucky number,

11. Sharon of The Art of Horseracing