It’s now chilly November — yes chilly! It was lovely and fine until about the second week of November, and now I have to have the hot air blowing in the apartment. I feel betrayed! My thinned-out blood is struggling to provide central heating to all my extremeties. Formerly, I felt was part Inuit, immune to all but the most severe cold. Now I feel like I am part crocodile, needing that hot sunshine to unfreeze my mind & my toes.

Come back 100 degrees — all if forgiven!

halloween was great down here, despite all the Churches displaying their “the only ghost here is the Holy Ghost” signs. People were really into it, and the girls went trick or treating with their friend from school, all dressed up. We got so much candy that I will have to throw it away – it fills a bucket. And we aren’t big sweet or chocolate eaters, either.

We had our twins’ party last Saturday — it was wonderful! I think that the girls finally felt at home here in Texas, after that. Texans have a tradition of opening their presents at the party, in front of everyone, which I find a little embarrassing, but the girls didn’t find it so. Unfortunately, one of them came down with such bad flu that she didn’t make it right to the end (but she enjoyed the important bits).

Amazingly, I have a commission for a portrait! A lady down here in Texas with whom I am forming a friendship, came round one evening for a drink, saw my work, and asked how much I charged for a portrait. Cool! I am not charging her, however. Just asking for costs, as it is a great chance for me to work with a live sitter on a more ambitious project.

This could be the first step on a whole new life for me. It could of course be a disaster too. Ho hum. I’ll know in a month or two. I don’t want to do just a conventional portrait — yes, i could make a painting that looked like her. But I want to make a picture of merit too, and here’s where my ambitious picture in my head could prove too difficult for me, with my relatively limited experience of interpreting such ideas into a real, good, painting — not technique, but in composition and colour choices, etc.

Anyway, that’s what is filling my mind at the moment. But I am so busy at the moment with children’s birthday’s, Daniel’s birthday, organising a move (we are moving into a large place), and keeping the lives of we four ticking along, not to mention the demands the girls’ school make of their Room momma!!

I no longer feel that I have these blessed long hours to simply think and paint. Maybe that’s because it’s not so sunny though! Suddenly, I find that as a full-time mum, I am busy busy busy.

I do intend to slow it all down again, because I really want to focus on perfecting my calmness of mind, and painting.

Paint

A canvas filled with nothing contains

the blueprint for infinity and blames

me and my brush for being in a rush

to trap the vision within lines and push

the picture to completion

when all it needs

is silence.

A bit of hush.