Once in awhile, just for a moment, life is good...

[susnfx]

I'm sitting here tonight in my quiet house (it's always quiet, except when the cat is meowing and/or the dog is barking). It's Thursday (which for me is almost as good as Friday) and a beautiful evening. Doors and windows are open and the scent of the neighbor's gigantic lilac bush wafts through the house occasionally. I'm considering stealing out to...well, steal some blooms.

I've had two glasses of wine and I've just spent an hour in my recliner reading the latest Smithsonian magazine. I can't tell you how I feel when I get a new Smithsonian--absolutely crammed with history, geography, cultures...a veritable feast for the mind, eye, and soul. I open a new arrival like a kid opening a birthday present and grieve when I've finished reading it cover-to-cover. Only 3-1/2 weeks until the next one!

I've got a little art project going in my "studio" (read: one corner of my bedroom). After nearly six years in watercolors I've switched to colored pencil and seem to have found my niche. It seems to fit my obsessive/compulsive stay-inside-the-lines personality. My latest project was a joy to do--a drawing of some wonderful fake owls I ran across in a garden shop:


In spite of the fact that work has been a nightmare for the last six months and may be for another six months, I have a good job, with good benefits. I live in a city I love. My daughter is well and happy.

What could be better!?

Susan

[Jack]

Beautiful.

[pipersgrip]

sounds great

[Redwolf]

These special moments in time are what we all live for, I think. Not necessarily the big things, but the times when all the little things that bless our lives push themselves forward.

I still remember keenly one evening when I was about 14. It was early yet -- the sun was lowering, but hadn't set -- and it was one of the first truly warm evenings of spring. I sat outside on the front porch for nearly an hour, enjoying the warm evening and the scent of the lilacs, and the song of a robin in the neighbor's maple tree, utterly at peace with the world. Nothing "special" happened...but that evening is etched in my memory, and all it takes is the faintest whiff of lilac or bit of birdsong to bring it back.

Wishing you many such moments!

Redwolf

[Congratulations]

That's how I feel when I smoke a cigar. All is right in the world.

[carrie]

I think there's something about the turning of the seasons that heightens our awareness somehow. I remember when I was a freshman in college being in a music classroom with old creaky wooden floors and an old piano in the corner. It was a late afternoon class and cold and dark outside, and the heat came on for the first time of the season, radiators hissing. Someone was playing a Baroque g minor piece on the piano. The combination of the season's first heat, the creaky wood floors, g minor, and the sense of deep contentment that I was young and healthy and studying what I loved swelled inside me and I told myself that this was one of the best moments of my life, and I resolved to remember it always. I can stilll hear on that old piano the suspended fourth in the final cadence and its unbearably heartbreaking resolution.

Gorgeous colored pencil work, Susan! And I am so happy things are good with you and your daughter.

Lovely memory, Redwolf.

And Congratulations, I don't think there are many other people on this board I would have thought less likely than you to smoke a cigar.

[lalit]

My latest project was a joy to do--a drawing of some wonderful fake owls I ran across in a garden shop

I saw the picture before I read your comments and I thought "those look like some fake owls!" I really love what you did with the eyes. Nice work!

[chrisoff]

What could be better!?

A third glass of wine.

[emmline]

I saw the picture before I read your comments and I thought "those look like some fake owls!" I really love what you did with the eyes. Nice work!

Yeah, but look at the way they (especially the one on the right,) are looking at you. It's a little disconcerting. Oh, I like the pic, but those things have some personality for fake owls.

[cowtime]

It really is the "little" things that are not really little at all, but, the most important. Some of us are lucky enough to figure that out along the way.

Those owls are a great study, and in colored pencil! I've tried to work with them, but it just never did "click". Obviously, it clicked with you.

[anniemcu]

Beautiful!

I love days like that...

The owls have that twist of obviously fake and yet with personality that others have mentioned. The bodies are interesting... left-corn cob, middle - pine cone, right - bark... while the heads are more realistic - especially the eyes. ... nice work!

[susnfx]

The owls were made so differently--none of them (with the possible exception of the one in the middle) was painted/manufactured with anything even remotely resembling feathers. The one on the right, in particular, looked like he was made by someone who'd never seen an owl. His body looked like a very badly done mosaic. I just loved their eyes and how comically grouchy they looked.

Susan

[izzarina]

What a beautiful post, Susan! Thank you for sharing it, as well as your picture.

[The Weekenders]

I second Izz. I hear so much bad all the time, it's nice to see a glint of contentment. I like the way you put it as well.

My fingers are crossed.

[Cynth]

I saw the picture before I read your comments and I thought "those look like some fake owls!" I really love what you did with the eyes. Nice work!

Yeah, but look at the way they (especially the one on the right,) are looking at you. It's a little disconcerting. Oh, I like the pic, but those things have some personality for fake owls.

I know . I was thinking that the fake owls must have come alive in the drawing because I feel they are getting ready to tell me that there are a number of things I should be doing differently. Well, they would be right of course .

It was really nice of you to let us peek into your home, Susan, and see how you were spending a very lovely peaceful evening. I hope your job improves more quickly than you expect, but I'm glad many other things seem really good.