Returning Home

Well, finishing up last weeks blog was sure difficult doing it away from home.  I'm not sure why it was so difficult, because I felt like I should be able to do exactly what I do at home. Hopefully I can work this out.  I feel I'm limited in travel if I can't work that out. 

I gave the picture I drew of Piper, their Cocateil, to Debbie and Jacquie. They felt the face reflected Piper's personality. I'm glad they liked it.

Barbara took off to do ancestry research at Fort Ross. After I finished my blog, Jacquie, Debbie and I went to three wineries.  Coppola Winery was the nicest because they also sold a lot items you might associate with entertaining with wine. It was a great museum of the movies Francis Coppola wrote, produced and directed. That was fun. The grounds were beautiful. They also had a pool that people were able to use. I didn't check this out because I was not interested in using it.   Actually, all the grounds of the wineries (the other two were Clos du Bois and Trentadue) were beautiful and the wine tasting was nice. The wines were not wines that you could buy at home. It is interesting that now they charge for wine tasting between $5 and $15 to taste four wines. I remember when wine tasting was free. 

On the way home, Barbara and I stopped in Santa Nella for their split pea soup. I have fond memories of it as did Barbara.  Well I will never again push to go there. I thought the soup was terrible. Barbara felt it tasted like canned soup. So I have that out of my system!  Ugh!

I had my Red Hat group this week. We met at Sorella's which is a nice Italian restaurant. I had the Fettuccine and Clams. It was delicious. Each of us had something different. All of us liked what we had. It is further from my home than the other restaurants. Perhaps that is why I haven't been there in a long time. I will have to include it as one of the restaurants I frequent.  

One very important benefit from our Red Hat group is that we share life issues we deal with to get emotional support. The fact is we all have issues, a lot of them similar. We can share what we have done or what we think we might have done in that situation. The other role, is just a listening ear. Most of our experiences with the men in our lives is their desire to fix our problems, though much of what we deal with may not be fixable. Just being able to talk is a great value to us. It lets some of the frustration and steam dissipate. My group wants my daughter Shelley to join. She is not 50 years old, so she would be a princess until that time.  I would love that. We are looking at some social events occurring in our community.  Our group would like to go as girlfriends.  They look like fun outings.

We had no art class this week. I did draw another owl different than what I've shared. I've thought about using colored pencil to finish it. I had such a hard time separating the contact paper for my walking owl.  I used it to cover the owl so I could do a flat background. This owl is actually at twilight. The sky has a lavender look to it because of the time. What I would like to do is put the lavender over the owl after I've painted it. What I don't want to happen is ruin the look of the owl, that going over in the lavender could smudge the color underneath. I just want a graded color over the owl to show the owl belongs there.  The other thing I want to accomplish is redo the parrot drawing with very thin lines for the feathers.  I received the Rigger brushes I ordered yesterday. So hopefully the right tool helps. 

I have slept a lot this week. I had not gone to a Chinese restaurant, so I think I can rule out the use of MSG. One friend left a message saying"I know you are out having a ball, so I won't call you on your cell phone."  Actually, if either phone rang (which one did), I would sleep through both. 

Here is where I'm at on my art work. They are works in progress obviously.  I'll do more on them tomorrow before class.

I thought of finishing this with color pencil

I put contact paper on the owl to be able to do a flat wash over it.

My friend Janet and I went to the Red Pepper. They have good Mexican food with style. Very relaxing time together. 

This morning I went out with my granddaughter Kayla for her birthday. She turned 15 yesterday. We went to Anita's, but they no longer do a Sunday Branch. You can ask for the lunch or breakfast. We had breakfast. Kayla had a  a green chili breakfast burrito and I had chilaquiles.  Then we split a banana chimichanga with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. Anyway,  I missed the buffet breakfast, but the food was tasty and was actually too big.  I love their Menudo and I'll get that next time. 

I am feeling very tired again. I'll lie down to rest and my pattern is to fall asleep, wake up late evening and back to sleep until tomorrow morning. 

That's it for the this week. I hope your week went well and that this next week goes well.  See you next Sunday.               Rachel