It was a perfect autumn day yesterday. What started with a thick layer of morning fog turned into a brilliantly bright and sunny, yet cool afternoon. The leaves in the trees across the road along the river are just beginning to turn golden on the edges, and soon they will have the deep, rich colors that fall brings before they float to the ground. It is my favorite time of year.
We had a busy week and an even busier weekend. After the site update on Thursday, we hit a few milestones with our business. It is wonderful and exciting to see how much we are growing and how well our site is doing. We must be doing something right.
After finishing the “Jar of Snowies” pattern packet on Saturday afternoon, I found myself in a spot I am seldom in – I was caught up for the moment and everyone was satisfied. I know these moments don’t last long – nor do I want them to. While I like taking a short breath of relief between projects, I like to have the next one (or more) projects lined up and be ready to move on them. It gives a sense of job security.
I certainly had some things that needed attention, but not the immediate attention that I was used to providing. Everything that had to be done could wait, and I took my opportunity to enjoy the day doing what I liked – without guilt or regret.
I made some cookies Saturday night. I had intended to work on some painting projects but instead I just played around on the computer, doing nothing in particular and visiting with friends. I played some computers games as well. I love hidden object mystery games where you have to perform tasks and find thing and move from place to place. I find them relaxing and each one tells a story that encompasses you as you play. It is my way to escape.
I designated yesterday the first official “jammie day” of the season. Even though the weather was nice, I felt I wanted to dig in and nest here for the day and catch up on some painting projects that I was working on for myself and my family. Keith had some things to do at his mom’s so I had the place to myself and the cats and I spent the day with the cats filling some orders and painting and watching some movies. It was a great afternoon.
At one point, I walked away from my painting table and when I returned I found splotches of bright orange paint on my mat that I had set down to protect the table. “How did I do that?” I wondered, as I didn’t remember being near the table for several minutes as I was sanding some wood pieces from a kit that was ordered from the site.
I followed the trail and it led to my cat Pancakes, who was sitting on the back of the couch. There were spots about every 6 inches or so apart, and yes – they were on the light tan couch as well. I inspected his feet and found that yes, indeed, he was the culprit. The evidence was pretty clear:
I couldn’t even be angry at him, as I am thinking that he just wanted to help. Besides, I keep a bottle of alcohol near by to take care of messes like that. A quick scrub of the spots with a washcloth and some alcohol and you would never know the difference. Besides – it made some funny conversation on my Facebook page. Many other shared their stories about how their cats tried to help them be creative. It happens and it wasn’t a major disaster. I found it rather funny and dear that he tried to help me decorate. :)
The rest of the afternoon was fun and pleasant. I played a couple of good movies (One of them was “Secretariat” from last year) and I had an enjoyable afternoon of doing some low-stress, easy painting.
I am still working on the Harvest Pull Toy Platter
by Terrye French. Instead of painting the characters on the platter, I am doing them as 3-d stand-ups. This means painting on both sides, as I want the pieces to be able to be set on a table or really put anywhere. I had shown the first piece last week, which was the candy corn and crow:
Since then, I have four additional pieces done of the eight. The Pumpkin:
The Witch’s Boot:
The Crow:
And the silly Cat:
The boot was originally shown in grey, but I decided to go with purple. I often change the colors a bit on patterns to suit my taste.
I don’t know why I enjoy this type of painting so much, but I do. It is fun and relaxing to paint in this style and I enjoy it a great deal.
I had made a crock pot of chili on Saturday and had leftovers for dinner last night as well. That meant no muss and fuss and no dishes to worry about.
What a perfect day!
I love days like that, where nothing is expected of me. But I also love getting back to work as well. Keith has told me before that my days off strongly resemble my working days, and I expect to people on the outside, they do. But it is an entirely different mindset when doing something that I don’t have to do – even if it is quite similar to my every day job. And I would think that it attests to how much I enjoy what I do every day. Nothing makes me happier.
Today I will be working on some new scroll saw designs. There is another deadline that is quickly approaching for the magazine, and I am going to be getting started on that. I then have some additional ideas for the holidays that I want to make for the site so that people have plenty of time to get them done. It is always busy.
I hope you had a good weekend as well. We have been fortunate that the weather here was lovely, and while it is hard to believe that September is gone already, I look forward to seeing what October brings.
Happy Monday to you all! I hope you have a wonderful day!
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