GAAAAAH! I'm Turning 60 !

 Ok, so NOW i'm freaked...

I am turning 60 tomorrow... 

and i'm not one little bit happy about that

and you know what i got for my 60th birthday???

a colonoscopy

isn't that just great...

...somehow birthdays just aren't what they used to be...

sorry, probably TMI - 

(everything was ok, except for the 7 polyps and diverticuli, and having a twisty colon)

When you get my age, and something hurts, you think cancer, heart attack, aneurism, brain tumor... 

I mean, when you have had anxiety issues and panic attacks since you were 18 years old, as i have, you've thought  multiple times you were dying... right then and there!

But when you turn 60 and you think you could be dying of something, 

it really could be happening!

  and then you get to be quadruply freaked out, if that's even possible...

 I was trying to take decent photos of myself with my iphone for the "holy crap i'm 60 blog post", and everytime i looked at the photo i took, i was like OMFG... do  i look that old!  

So i decided to make faces in the camera... like this one

and then immediately pulled out my "to do" list, and wrote -  call dermatologist re: price of botox

then i decided to be brave and take a photo without my makeup to show you... because you know, it's just real... 

but i'm not "real" enough to do a closeup, that's for sure...

you can see i have no eyebrows...

 glad it was dark, and the mirror was blurry...

if you're seeing a photo of me at this time of nite looking really happy, it's probably because i've been drinking

  which reminds me... have you seen the blogger Maskara.. she's adorable, and talks about the importance of having good brows... you should go check her out

i  need her!  everytime i try to make my eyebrows bigger i end up looking like Cruella Deville

Anyway, i always thought when i was this age, I would have a pink car... maybe something like this...

or this

(cream leather interior please)

AND... i would have a little beach cottage... 

this would be just fine...

it could be teeny weeny

I would have time to meditate, and do yoga, and paint...  and do fun crafty things... and drink wine at lunch with my friends

and now, here i sit, at a job i've worked at for 20 years typing a blog post to my friends and showing photos of myself getting old and telling personal stuff about my life

in reality...

I work 40 hours a week, and it's tricky making ends meet

I have to take valium to drive to the rented beach cottage that we can afford and that smells like old tennis shoes

I cook Thanksgiving meals for my kids, but it's not really a big feast, and they eat like their dad,, 

(kind of like Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies)

and my son always starts looking for the vodka stash which of course i don't have

And i have a little black suv, that i'm making car payments on

little Cindy

Sooo, your whole life you think, when i get old, this is what it will be like

and then all of a sudden you're kinda old, and you realize that none of it has happened yet

and time is going really really fast....

and you think ... hey, wait a minute! 

i AM older NOW, and i don't see a pink car or a beach cottage!

so now what do I do?

anyway, i haven't given up on the pink car yet... 

although, i am getting a little concerned about the beach cottage...

.

...we'll just have to see

you never know, i'm a magical thinker

i might just conjure them both

happy halloween

... the end...

 

Stripes and Feathers...

So, since i repainted my bedroom blue, i had to paint over the pink stripes on my bedside dresser, because they really just didn't look that good anymore in the room

But that's ok,

 Because there are millions of places to put stripes!

 and for some freaky reason, i like stripes... 

i don't even know what that's about

i really like buffalo gingham checks too

everytime i see them i love them

So anyway.... I just grabbed my Annie Sloan paint and walked myself right into the living room and commenced to putting stripes on the first thing i could find that was standing still, 

and that happened to be a little vintage chest innocently minding it's own business by the front door...

 

stripes are such an fun and easy way to make an impact 

when i look at these pictures, the stripes look like a little much, but in the context of the whole living room they add a great touch

and did you see those flowers in the first photo

the really soft pink one?

well, it is the most beautiful flower in the world ever

it's a dahlia and it's called 'Cafe Au Lait'

my photo doesn't even begin to do it justice... you should google it, it's an amazing flower and the color is like nothing in the world, peaches and creams and pinks... 

of course i got obsessed with it and tried to find some tubers, but every single place in the whole wide world is out of them...

i'm serious

you know how it is when you get obsessed about something and can't take no for an answer, and you start looking in places like Australia for them... 

that was me

this isn't 'Cafe Au Lait', it's another dahlia, still amazing, but not as completely perfect as the Cafe Au Lait

at least to me

but the pink is nice with the gray stripes isn't it! 

 in fact, ... why don't i have any dahlias in my garden?!

what's up with that!

*********

I want to show you a new painting i did today too...

It was so fun to paint

i find feathers here and there every once in a while,  and i  decided it was time to paint a feather!

They really are so pretty

and i always sort of think of them as a special little message from the universe when i find one

it's funnest of all to find a cardinal or bluebird feather

but i like them all

 i had a beat up paint spattered little canvas... and since it was too late in the day to start a painting

i sketched a feather just for fun

i had forgotten how therapeutic it is to just sketch with pencils

and then this weekend, 

I painted it!

So here it is

It's a big painting 24 x 36

and very simple

this shows the scale of the painting

and how minimalist it is

sorry it's a bad photo taken at night

see the doggie bed all smushed up behind the easel - my little dog daisy always gets the hell outta the way when i'm painting because canvases have dropped on her head more than once...
she has no fondness for canvases !

 

It's very simple

But that's what i like about it

often 'the simple things' are the best things of all

you should have seen me, who is messy as anything, trying to keep the canvas clean and white while using all those dark colors

of course i'd use my rag to clean a messy spot, and it would drag through another spot on the painting with wet paint and smear someplace else on the canvas, 

and so on...

it would be kinda cool to do a series of three feathers wouldn't it!

but back to work tomorrow...

so that's for another day

I was taking a break from painting cows!

I sent Marian "Miss Mustard Seed" , her new cow painting last week... so she'll probably show that to you guys soon

and i have another cow i've painted that I'll show you too

...and that's all for now my sweet friends ...

...the end...