Monthly Archives: March 2025

My own damned opinion., Painting & Drawing

I got caught up with my painting

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Latest small paintings – numbers 8 through 10

Hopefully, by the time I finish number 100, my painting skills will have improved. Working small is a lot harder than I thought. That pear looks like a butt and the strawberries look slightly moldy. As I get better, I’ll probably redo these early ones.

I’m using a limited palette – 12 colors . I still have trouble mixing colors in such tiny quantities. That should improve over time as well. If I didn’t have to be so concerned about money, I’d sign up for a watercolor class that’s being offered this spring for $125.

I’ve taken classes from this instructor before back in the olden days, pre-Covid, but with the uncertainty about what’s happening with Social Security payments, I can’t take the chance that the checks won’t be delayed or otherwise messed up.

And I don’t believe all the ads and videos that talk about Social Security stimulus checks and payment increases going around social media. Until the money is in my bank, it doesn’t exist. Not when government services are being trashed right and left by someone who shouldn’t be anywhere near our government agencies.

I saw a TikTok of some nut-job billionaire saying that if his mom doesn’t get her check, she won’t call SSA because only fraudsters would call about missing checks. Obviously, he has no clue. I can tell you if I had billionaire son, I would call him first and then spend as much time as I had to, on hold with the Social Security office.

The wealthy have no clue. The phones would be constantly ringing with pissed off old folks wanting to know where their damned money is. The rich are just selfish and greedy. The only reason some of them give generously to causes is because their accountants do some shifty accounting so they don’t pay an equal share of their income in taxes.

Okay rant over.

In other news, the sibs are planning a reunion this summer and have some crazy idea that they need to figure how to get me out there since I “don’t drive.” I’m not certain why they think I don’t drive, but I’m not going to tell them differently. I don’t need to be around people who were brainwashed by my mother to believe I’m incompetent, lazy, and difficult. It took a long time to shed all the toxicity from growing up. I don’t need to be reminded of it by them.

Crafting, Mostly me, Stuff

Still stressed but good medical news

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My last blood test results were in normal ranges. In another couple of months if all stays improved, they’ll start weaning off my meds. Yay, Rah!

I’m a little behind on my paintings. I have two in progress but I’m not satisfied. The size limitation is what gets me. I have a chance to start watercolor classes again, but I’m leery of spending money for a non-essential while the Social Security issue is in crisis.

The Melon Felon is going all out for Fascism. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a sparkly gold uniform made. Probably, there’s one in his closet with bogus medals hanging on the jacket and he’ll start parading around in it next month. Enough said.

It was Craft Night again. This time I took a new cat coloring book and some markers. I need to make a list of unfinished projects and work on them. But not too fast. I can’t die until I’m done with all of them. Given the number of items in progress, if I never start a new project but just work on existing ones, I’ll be close to 200 years old when I die.

Crafting, My own damned opinion.

More paintings and stress.

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Sorry. I’ve been stressed about my Social Security check. This month’s will be deposited. Next month, who knows. I used to accept that Republicans had a differing world view from mine. While I’m sort of a registered Democrat for election purposes, I’m more of a free-thinker.

What I want from my government is provide a stable framework of laws and regulations to ensure that every citizen has an equal chance to live a good life. But the current gang of grifters, sycophants, and haters has no moral compass, no loyalty to the principles of the Constitution, no conscience, no care, even for their constituents.

I doubt I will live long enough to see this country return to a nation based on Constitutional principles and laws. Right now, laws don’t matter. The orange buffoon sits at a desk and scribbles his signature on whatever is placed in front of him. I seriously doubt that he even knows what his proclamations really say, or even cares if he does.

Okay. Rant over. New topic.

These are all the tiny watercolor paintings I’ve done so far. It’s a year-long challenge. There are a couple based on Van Gogh, a couple of interesting objects from the neighborhood like the pizza oven and the hydrant, Devil’s Tower from a road trip, and some from other sources. 7 done and 93 more to do. I’ve spaced then out to very three days because I tried certain other timed projects that were daily and never completed them.

My first 7 watercolor paintings. They’re supposed to be this small as a way of not being overwhelming.

The first challenge I participated in was to knit 52 pairs of sock in a year. I did manage to complete 39 pairs in varying sizes from Barbie doll sized to ornament-sized, to baby and toddler-sized to the 15 pairs of socks I actually still wear. The last two 100-day challenges were never completed. I would find myself skipping days or not completing even a single project within the time frame. This current challenge is spaced out to 100 tiny paintings in a year. So far, so good. One painting every three days is working so far.

Mostly me, Stuff

Two new paintings

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Here are paintings 3 and 4 along with the model for number 3.

Captain Hydro and his portrait along with some not-quite-Van Gogh trees.

I’ve been busy typing up my end-of life instructions for the young’uns. They keep bothering me like I’m going to keel over in the next few days. I don’t know why. I have a couple of graves I plan on dancing on, and both of the inhabitants are still alive. As time goes on, the list may grow longer. I can think of a dozen or so politicians I plan on outliving and so long as I can afford gas for my car, I might as well dance on their graves too.

I like to dance. It’s good for the heart, hips, and legs. I put on some rocking Cajun music and dance my blues away. I was really disappointed that I missed Beau Soleil when they were near here, but I rarely read the mailers that show up in my mailbox. That includes the newspaper for the suburb I share a zip-code with.

I should pay attention to the news from there because they frequently announce crafts sale sign-ups there. The sales are small, but the one time I did sign up for a fall one, I made quite a bit of money, considering it rained all day and the temperature never got above 40 degrees.

By quite a bit of money, I mean I had a few sales and made back my entry fee and the cost of all of the items I sold. Considering the Sunday Market I used to do out of town where I made practically no money, I felt very successful. The only reason I did the Sunday Market was that I was going to be in that town anyway, visiting a friend who was in a rehabilitation facility until she could walk again.

The two of us had been doing the market together for a year until she temporarily lost the use of her legs due to an injury to her back. Because she had steps into her home, she needed to be somewhere that was one level until she could handle the steps again. It took her two years of rehabilitation before she could return home. I continued the Sunday Market without her, but would stop in to see her. Before she could return home, she had a ramp built so she could use a walker to get in and out of her trailer home, and had her car modified for manual controls.

Since I really didn’t make enough at the Sunday Markets, I stopped attending them once my friend was able to get around on her own. Right after my final time up there, she drove down to visit me and we spent all that day going to craft stores so she could get more supplies for her crafting. She was so happy to be able to get around on her own. She had an aide who came to help her bathe and dress, but she could do most of the other things on her own.

Wednesday morning of the next week, the aide she found my friend dead in her bedroom. Apparently, she had gotten up out of bed and then had a fatal heart attack. There was a memorial service for her that I attended with several other friends who knew her.

I’ve lost several more friends since her death, all of them younger than me. The funny thing is I have outlived most of my parents’ generation of relatives and more than a few cousins on both sides. However, I am in no danger of running out of cousins. There are a couple of hundred of us on both sides particularly when you step down the generations – my siblings and cousins generation, their children, and their children’s children.

At some point in time, I will be the last of my familial generation, but today is not that day.

My own damned opinion., Painting & Drawing, Watercolor painting

My second painting

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I’ve done my second painting of the 100 Painting project. This one is based on a photo from the road trip I took with two of my sisters in 2023. It’s a view of the Devil’s Tower. It’t not a great painting. I need tinier brushes. And a steadier hand.

Devils Tower, WY 2023

I’d like to make another trip out there to take more time to walk around. Since I wasn’t in charge of the trip, I didn’t get a chance to hike around it. I really wanted to see where the aliens landed – that’s a joke folks. The area around the other side of the rock isn’t large enough for the facility they showed in the movie.

It’s not that I don’t believe there’s life out there. There has to be. However, once we start exploring the galaxy in ships, I think we’ll only find remnants of life if we find habitable planets. Just as any species who travels here will probably find our dead cities and dry oceans.

A galactic federation sounds like something to strive for, but humans can’t seem to get over their petty differences and there’s no real reason to believe any other civilization would either. It would be nice to learn there are others, but I don’t think humanity, or at least the corner of where I live, would not be able to accept that other beings exist. Some – far too many – believe the earth is flat, that vaccines don’t work, that the ugly bits of history don’t need to be taught, that our government is the best, and the rest of the world doesn’t have anything like what we have.

In some respects, we’re right. Many parts of the world don’t have citizens who work for wages, who can’t afford food or housing. Most other countries’ citizens don’t go bankrupt when they need life-saving surgery or a ride in an ambulance. Other countries don’t have to worry about their children getting shot during their school day unless it’s a war zone.

It is my belief that out beyond the Oort cloud, there are beacons warning other civilizations not to stop to visit Earth because it’s too deadly an environment for civilized folks. And for all they know, the crazy might be contagious. Periodically, a science vessel may stop by to collect data and to update and upgrade the warning beacons invisibility shielding.