Where Have I Been All This Time?

So you are probably wondering where I have been? Maybe? If not that’s cool I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t. After all I am sure I am not the only one in your busy lives. Life goes on regardless of what I decide to do or where I decide to go. It’s been a while since I have posted anything on hive. Time goes by so quickly sometimes. I decided to take a little time off for myself, and low and behold an entire month passed in the blink of an eye.

Many of you may already know that my wife and I contracted the Delta variant of Covid around Thanksgiving. It seems to be lingering a lot longer than one would expect, but then again through this whole mess I never know what to expect anymore. We have friends who have been vaccinated and are in the hospital. Others have not been vaccinated and are in the hospital or have no symptoms. And we also have a friend who received the vaccination and now is on a kidney transplant list. You just never know what your cards hold, but you have to do what is right for you and what feels right in your heart and in your mind.

My wife seems to have a persistent cough that hasn’t gone away in over a month, while I am slowly getting my taste and smell back. I do notice that I become more winded when performing routine tasks, but nothing over bearing or life altering. Overall we fared well and are on the track back to normal every day old age kind stuff. LOL. You know.. The aches and pains of being over the age of 40.

That was one reason why I decided to take some time to myself. Another reason was a bit of winter depression and there being so much to do before the holidays. Also, my work schedule has become quite hectic given it’s the end of the year and there’s a lot to do as far as taxes, payroll, employee reviews, yada yada. It all seems to come to ahead at the end of the year for us. It’s a good time to focus on those things. And let’s be honest they do pay the bills and put food on the table, so they cannot be ignored.

Anyhow, Someone has to work to make enough money to buy Molly her Ice Cream!!!

Our Christmas was quiet, but nice. The new year ring in without incident. We were blessed this year and enjoyed the time spent with family and friends at the end of it. I wish I could have all my family and all my friends in one place at one time, but that is nearly impossible. Sometimes just reaching out to them on occasion to find out how they are and what is new in their life, becomes a challenge given the every day ins and outs of our own lives.

Although Santa Claus decided not to bring many gifts to our home this year, I did get to hang out with him at least once. I know he looks a little plastic like but this is the real deal! Ha ha Ha.

Molly on the other hand did not find all the decorations and commotion around the house enjoyable. She spent most of the time shaking and pacing back-and-forth. I was able to give her extra medication so that her bodily functions would continue as normal. We tend to give her extra meds when we know stressful events are coming. This helps limit the symptoms of her Addison’s disease.

Christmas Eve was a stressful event for Molly, so by the time Christmas Day rolled around she was pooped. She spent most of the day sleeping in her soft little bed while we lounged around in our pajamas. I can’t blame her one bit! That bed really looks comfortable anyhow.

There may have been an occasion or two where she needed some personal one on one time with her dad and mom. Like any good parent would do, we took some time and assured her all was OK in her little world. It’s nice to have some downtime to just sit with your family and relax. I took a page out of Molly‘s notebook by not thinking too much, worrying too much, doing too much, and just plain old try to relax. It felt good.

I did take a little bit of time around the new year to paint. I’ll create a couple of posts about it in the coming days, but I’ll let you see the finished paintings now. These are two watercolor paintings with a little bit of oil paint on top. Sometimes I like to create a base watercolor then apply some oil paint as highlights and touchups. They are small paintings that don’t take much time to complete at all. I only spent about 30 to 45 minutes on each painting. I have to say it felt pretty good to have painted some thing since it’s been sometime since I’ve done so. The time put aside to create some thing, is almost inspiring by itself. Actually finishing them and creating a painting is just icing on the cake.

Both paintings share a common theme. Both paintings are beachy and have a Caribbean feel to them. Both of them also have sailboats sailing through the Veridian colored waters. Painting scenes like these are the next best thing to actually taking a vacation. The colors are warm and bright and remind me of all those neat vacations we were able to take throughout the years. Covid needs to go away so I can freely move about the world once more.

In this first painting I decided to paint the edges a dark blue color. I painted the horizon very low on the painting, including a sailboat and the idea of a shoreline. The water and sky are very simple allowing the painting to be completed in a short period of time.

The second painting has a white border around the edge. I accomplish this by placing tape around the entire edge of the watercolor paper. It helps to hold the piece down but also creates and little border. In this painting I decided not to include any land, but I did paint more than one sailboat. I also tried to make an impression that there was a wave breaking at the very bottom of the painting. This gives a representation that the viewer is standing on the beach looking out at the ocean and sailboats.

More on these paintings in a later post.

Molly and I spent a little time outside roaming the yard and enjoying some unseasonably warm weather. So warm in fact that some dandelions decided to bloom! And of course I took pictures of them.

Molly wanted her photograph taken as well, so I obliged. Oh wait a minute… Maybe she just was curious about what I was doing so low to the ground. I guess I took that as an invitation to take a photograph of her. She wasn’t so interested in the photograph anymore and kept turning her head or looking away. That’s her style after all, so I shouldn’t be too frustrated with it. She still cute regardless of her pose choices.

At the end of my time off for New Year’s, a winter storm was brewing and moving up the East Coast. The storm ended up lying a thick blanket of snow for miles around. We ended up with approximately 8 inches of the white stuff! My back is still bothering me so I enlisted the help of my niece and nephew who without hesitation came over to help out there uncle. I appreciate their willingness to help. They look like they had a lot of fun doing it as well. I was surprised when my niece said yes to wanting to learn how to use the snow blower. She did a great job and it was a real pro at handling it by the end of the driveway was cleared. It just tickles me to death when kids are willing to learn and not scared of equipment or the potential complexity of operating it.

As night fell, and the storm moved up the coast, A beautiful sunset was trailing in behind it. Here are a couple of photographs that I was able to capture. The sky started off as a shade of yellow which soon turned pink and red.

The shot below was rather odd. The camera decided to do some funky altering to the settings and the snow came out slightly purple and the cloud slightly blue. I enhance these slightly and came up with this rendition of the first winter sunset of 2022! I just like the cold and snow but you can’t complain too much when faced with a scene like this. They don’t come along very often, so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

After A day off to deal with the snow, it was back to work as usual. The drive-in was crunchy and slick this morning, but the view (again) was beautiful. There was a slight pinkish color to the clouds as the sun came up this morning. Soon the morning clouds gave way to full sun, which began to melt some of what nature had laid down the night before.

Sometimes nature is really wonderful, beautiful, and even spectacular. But sometimes a little time off to reset the old brain, isn’t bad either.

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen

Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!

All words, pictures and art pieces are the sole property of B D Miller Gallery, unless otherwise noted and credited, and are not to be reproduced or copied without the prior written consent of B D Miller Gallery.

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