Chalkboard Wall and Don't Cry Over Spilt Gasoline

My Latest Project

I have wanted a chalkboard wall for a long time.  What better place than in my studio/classroom! It was as easy as painting any wall, and that's never really as easy as you think it's going to be.  Just painting this one wall displaced so much STUFF.  I had to wait awhile before I could second-coat it, and then I had to wait three days before "conditioning" it (rub it all over with the side of the chalk and then erase it).  I haven't finished hanging all the paintings or putting everything back on the shelves (to the right  -  out of the picture), but I have managed to sort a lot of things.

I'm not finished with my summer classes and workshops, but I seem to be getting a head start on my fall nesting.

I go about my uneventful little life, and then WHAM, something  ridiculous happens.  I stopped for gas, filled my tank, and THE GAS WOULD NOT SHUT OFF!  What do you do with a nozzle pumping out gasoline when you already have a full tank??????  So the girl inside at the counter says, "Would you settle for $25.50?"  YES!  Just let me the heck out of here!  Here's my $25.50. I won't be back.

Going Through my Sketchbooks

The Old School House at the Interlochen Center for the Arts

The summer has been speeding by so quickly!  I'm going back through my sketchbook to see just exactly what has happened throughout the season. 

I conducted a two-day  watercolor sketchbook journal workshop at the Interlochen Center for the Arts 
earlier in the summer.  I stayed on campus in the old Stone Hotel, visited some friends I hadn't seen in forever, and had a great two days with the workshop participants.  Interlochen is refreshingly simple  -  there is nothing glitzy there except the music.  We used to live in Interlochen, and I hadn't been back in a long time.  I had forgotten how great it smells  -  pine needles and wood fires!  Very little has changed, and it almost made me want to live in the woods again.  But I'm happy where we are, and I really don't feel like shifting gears right now.

We can always re-live things a little in our sketchbooks.  That's good enough.