A brief doggie moment

After a bit of a sucky year losing a couple of dogs to accident or ailment, I am going to look on the bright side here. My 2009 litter ( the X pups) are pretty lovely (all 2 of them) so I am sharing a photo here thanks to my friend Leonore with whom they are right now. The male who is pictured is Trek (Avalon Xpedition) and the girl Xpo (Avalon Xplorer) are in New Mexico growing up, Xpo will be making her way to Montana this fall to another good friends home and Trek is in the land of enchantment for good. I relish his growing up with a good friend where he can someday chase jackrabbits. They are a handsome pair to my eye. Their sire is BIF FC Avalon Dark Voyager of Ryhka SC, LCM and their dam is Avalon Radioactive Dreams SC who needs 1 single point to finish in the ring. Thought I had saved the photo of the girl but it must be saved somewhere else.

Jackson Day in Tennessee

Once a year the TN Democratic Party has a "Jackson" day to honor President Andrew Jackson who is widely considered the founder of the modern Democratic party ( although I think that may really belong to Jefferson). At any rate Archie and I went this year. The keynote speaker was President Clinton, with speeches by Vice President Al Gore, Governor Phil Bredesden, former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. Brilliant evening, and I would encourage everyone who is having the Republican propaganda about health care thrown at them to please READ information from other sources for yourself. There is NO DEATH PANEL, all of these things are the only agenda the Republicans have to prevent everyone from accessing health care since they no longer have the votes for a filibuster they have to try and scare the masses so that everyone runs and tells their congressman, oh no Obamacare for me. Read the offerings for yourself. The link above under Jackson Day has links to explanations about the health care reform bill. I managed to get a couple of photos of Clinton while I waxed nostalgic thinking of how good things were for this country both here and abroad when the Bill and Al show was in office. My retirement investments were doing well, I was probably online to retire after 30 years, of course once W took office and tanked our financial system, and borrowed from SS that doesn't look remotely possible anymore. Gas was just over a buck a gallon, I did a lot of traveling. Another thing of the past. Clinton spoke with that wonderful accent, and wry sense of humor that even 8 years of being hounded by the angry party could not manage to squelch. He reminded the audience that the Democrats are the can do party and that they "only hire us when this country is in a world of hurt". When Clinton/Gore was in office over 22 million jobs were created, during the booming W years 2.5 million were created. For the "spending party" Clinton/Gore managed to save money and have a surplus during their administration, but when the Republicans were completely in charge during the W admin. we have the biggest deficit and biggest government EVER. Don't let the Republicans ever claim to be for small government after that fiasco unless you gag right in front of them.

Gran Quivara Ruins Painting

The above link has some more photos to Gran Quivara. This is the last of the Salt Missions paintings, I did it a little larger (9 x 12) . I was a bit worried about how different it is but actually it was a lot of fun to work and easier than the two first ones.

2nd of the Salt Missions "Abo"

Here's the 2nd of the Salt Missions, Abo. I've been working on it and Gran Quivara on my lunch hours the last week or so.

Painting Delicate Arch, Arches NP UT

This is one of the places I hope to go see next year on the big tour of the West either right before or right after the bull riding finals.

Facebook

I think the above is a link to my Facebook page. I debated adding one of these BUT the cool thing is it is so easy to upload and tag photos so what the hey it's free.

PBR Clysdales (Express Clysdales)

Another cool thing about the PBR events is when the OK black Express Clysdales show up. The horses were at this event, and the 6 below are the world champion 6 team draft horse precision driving hitch for this year. The arena wasn't big but the horses WERE. Oh MY! It was amazing to watch those horses turn in tight tight circles and figure eights in that small arena. There was also a session of meet and greet the horse outside so of course I was sucked into that being an ex horse owner and forever and always horse lover. The big black gelding I was petting liked me and started nibbling on my belt.

PBR Nashville Augsut 15 and 16

Archie got to see bullriding for the first time this weekend. I took some photos not as good mostly as the ones I took in Vegas last November but I am still learning this new camera. All PBR events start with lit letters and flash like this. Then we get down to the bullriding. There was plenty of that to be seen. Forty great bull riders on the Built Ford Tough Series, and the top 15 ride 2x on Sunday.

Quarai painting

I decided what I really wanted as my next project was the three Salinas missions that my friend Nancy and I visited last November while in NM. I had taken a lot of photos of them. Now that I am playing with acrylics I have found several I think I'll paint, Quarai is the first of them. By the time I retire I should have plenty to put up in the coffee shop.

Enjoy

It's Official

Did not want to mention this anywhere until we were sure we could go but ...........on August 29th President Clinton will be in Nashville for a fundraiser for the Tennessee Democratic Organization (more specifically Jackson day as Jackson is considered the founder of the modern Dems by many). Anyway, Archie had heard about it and wanted to go, told me about it and of course I wanted to go unfortunately I had missed every opportunity to see him while he was President. Last night Archie got tickets for it. Wahoo!! so I am going to see Bill at the end of the month! An excuse to shop for a really nice dinner dress too!! Even better!

PJs in public or somethings sure have changed

These days there are all kinds of lounging pajamas to be bought at any store that sells clothing. TJ Maxx, Sears, Kohl's hell even Walmart has some great pajamas. When I was a kid pajamas were what we put on right before we went to bed. We might stay up and watch TV in them for a bit, but then off to bed with you because you weren't "dressed". If people came over you jumped up and ran and changed clothes. Mama never wore her gown around neighbors or visitors at home. There were a couple of exceptions to this rule of course. It was acceptable to be seen in public in your pajamas in two circumstances:

a. Your house caught on fire in the middle of the night when of course you were wearing your pajamas, and in order to save your life you had to race out into the public eye in your PJs.
b. You were stricken with some disease or ailment (perhaps had a heart attack or maybe just a "fit") in the middle of the night and did not have the strength or the sense to change into proper clothing before the ambulance arrived.

Now I go to Walmart and there are people wearing pajamas there shopping in the produce department. Archie and I were at a hotel in Nashville and we went downstairs for the continental breakfast and lo and behold there were scores of hotel dwellers in public having breakfast in their PJs. Someone recently told me that they were interviewing someone for a clerk position,and the gal showed up for the interview in pajamas. The interviewer told the interviewee to come back when she had time to put her clothes on.

What happens to folks that causes them to wander away from home in their nighties? Do they just get lost? Damn, I was headed to the kitchen to make some coffee and the next thing you know I'm in Walmart buying motor oil? Is that like losing your sense of direction or your moral compass? Or your common sense? WTF?

Devil's mittens

This is a pretty liberal interpretation of the mitten buttes in Monument Valley but what the hey, I'm a liberal kind of gal. I hope to go visit them for real next November but until then photos and travel information will just have me living vicariously. Just finished this piece today. Have another one started of an arch in Arches National Park that I hope to work on this weekend.

My students are aware of my someday hoped for desire to retire out West somewhere. I have laughingly told them that I hope someday to be retired and run a little coffeehouse where locals and tourist can come, and today between my students rolling the idea around and myself rolling it around we either came up with a name or a slogan for this future entrepreneurship. Bad Paintings, Good Advice and Great Coffee or maybe Great Coffee, Good Advice and Bad Paintings. Go ahead and weigh in if you have an opinion on it.

Magdalena, NM Depot

OK, here's my depot to go with the San Antonio Depot I painted. Enjoy!

Painting

Thanks to everyone for the comments (public and private) about the painting. I have often joked ( well its only partly a joke) that I would retire and run a little coffee shop at which I would sell "bad" paintings of the American West and maybe rocks too (or painted rocks as it were) . I figured if I plan on doing that in 10 years guess I better start practicing now, or building up an inventory. Started a new painting yesterday of a rock formation in Moab UT. Red rocks, blue sky you get the picture. Will post it when finished.

Unabashed Bill Clinton Fan

I love this guy. He NEVER disappoints me. Let's see you are a journalist in North Korea arrested by the psychos that run that government. Hmmmm decades of hard labor or a humanitarian visit from Slick Willie to spring you. Not a tough decision. GO BILL!! Still doing right by the people. If they were waiting from "W"'s help , I guess they would still have been waiting because we'd of had to declare war on someone. My mama loved Bill too and one of her most prized keepsakes was a lawn placard for Clinton/Gore 's second term in 1996. She left it in the yard long after the election and then kept it. After she died in April of 1997 and we were going through her things it was one of the things I "inherited". It sits in my computer room so I can see it everyday and be reminded of a better time for America both financially, and ecologically, one that was more in step with the rest of the world. A world where Bill called up government leaders in the Middle East who were squabbling and asked in that lovely Arkansas drawl,"Ya'll got milk? Well if you want to keep it then quit all this yacking. It's interfering with my $1.00 a gallon gasoline economy, and record returns at Wall Street." Ah those were the days.

Very weird computer stuff

So now I finally have DSL and I'm trying to email the scan of the painting to my mother and it keeps bouncing back, can't tell from the message but either she is having computer problems or has changed her email address. Guess I'll find out. Left a message on her phone. She had asked me to send it to her as soon as I finished it. Ah well, I did try. Maybe she'll read this and check her spam filter or something.

San Antonio, New Mexico ( or its been 25 years)

I When I was younger I used to draw, paint, sketch, when I was in college I painted some with oils and a little with acrylics but that was 25 years ago when I laid down the brush and was too busy raising my son, going to school and working full time to even consider painting. Everytime I walk by art supplies I think hmmm I sure would like to try again. Finally, last week I was in Hobby Lobby picking up a frame for a piece I had someone else paint for me and they had all art supplies on sale 30% off. I grabbed some brushes, some acrylics, a palette, some canvas boards to work on and this is the first thing I've painted in over two decades. Last November (08) when I was in NM I drove down to the Bosque del Apache NWR and to get there you drive through San Antonio, NM a cute, quaint unincorporated little town just north of the NWR. I stopped and took a photo of their old depot it was appealing to me in the way that ghost town buildings are. There's a bit of artistic license in the background but I'm pretty happy with the effort. Next the depot in Magdalena, NM.

Ozone Falls

This weekend the local destination Archie picked out, ( I picked last weeks) and it was Ozone Falls in Cumberland County, TN. The trail down is very similar to last weeks cable trail but perhaps not quite as steep although I was on all fours a couple of times coming out of here and scooting getting down in the rocky little hole in the wall. Ozone drops 110 feet and while last weekend the waterfalls were sparse, it has rained all week and this weekend the water was WILD coming over that bluff into the plunge pool A lot of volume. We had toyed with the idea of swimming in the plunge pool then changed our minds at the last minute and did not wear swimsuits under our attire. Just as well because the water was way too turbulent and COLD for me to bail into. Here's Archie standing behind the waterfall, there is a nice shelf you can get onto so we climbed back there after climbing down. I am behind the waterfall in this picture thus the crap lighting. You can see the shelf behind the plunge pool I think in one of these photos. After a few minutes at the bottom then we climbed back out and took a few photos at the top of the falls. Something evil apparently possessed both of us and caused Superman impressions. Actually if you follow this blog you have seen Archie do this before but I was finally persuaded to. Jeeze what was I thinking? We haven't planned anything for next Saturday (Aug 8th). Guess we'll just wing it. Boy DSL rocks, seconds to upload these photos instead of minutes.

Cane Creek Falls

Cane Creek Falls is ordinarily a much higher volume waterfall than others in Fall Creek Falls Park but it had not rained in a couple of weeks when we visited on July 25, 2009, so the volume isn't very high but it is a beautiful spot, the waterfall drops 85 feet into its plunge pool. Just to the left of Cane Creek Falls is a much smaller falls called Rockhouse Falls which had barely any water flowing over it on the day we were there. Rockhouse Falls drops 110 feet into the plunge pool it shares with Cane Creek Falls. The view is spectacular but the big attraction for Archie and I was the trail down to the falls, it is maybe 1/4 mile but it is so steep that there is a steel cable the entire way to hang onto. Unfortunately, my camera battery went dead after I took the photos at the bottom so I didn't get any of the trail down and back up but the next time we visit I will. We are planning a big trip out West next November to see the Grand Canyon and probably Zion National Park in Utah. There is a great hike there to a view from Angels Landing and it is a long cable trail over slick rock. We've decided that it might be great training for that hike to come and do this trail every day for a couple of weeks before we go to Utah. Ah yes, the required photo of Archie imitating Superman at the plunge pool.

I have to confess it was quite a kick to make my way down that steep and rocky slope. What made it even sweeter was when we arrived at the top of the trail there were 4 college kids in their early twenties who were from out of town. They were standing there looking over the edge going "Ain't no way", "Dude you must be crazy", "Why did you bring us here?" . They looked up and saw us and said ,"Ya'll go ahead." Archie took one look said yeah this looks like what we have been looking at on the internet. I pulled on my gloves before bailing over the edge, looked at the kids and said, "Hey, follow us, you know if we can do it, you can do it. Just watch where we put our feet. You'll be fine." After two middle aged folks bailed over that cliff, don't you KNOW those youngsters had to! They made it to the bottom safely although they expressed a lot of fear especially the first 30-40 feet which is the steepest.

Out of the Stone Age

Today I visited my son's mother inlaw Brenda who has the coolest shop in Cookeville, it's called OCEIA'S, she makes hand beaded jewelry with real interesting stones. Anyway, while I was visiting her she mentioned reading the blog here and how much she'd like to have one so I helped her set one up. Well she titled it welcometomynightmare or that was what she THOUGHT it said, after we get it set up and then type the URL in to check it out we find that it actually was welcometomynightware. I almost died laughing, then pointed it out to Brenda who was MORTIFIED. oh my GOD nightware what will they think!!! So I had to delete the blog and then we set up a new blog this one is welcometomysoapbox-brenda.blogspot.com So I am following it now.

The really big news here is that I now have DSL here in the land of NOD. It only took 2 weeks for them to come and install it after I called them. However, my son will be glad to see that his mother is now living in this century.