August Whirlwind

This summer really is just flat out exhausting for me. I still haven't finished sketching out my Queen of Hearts, but I don't think that matters because I don't think I could focus on it long enough to accomplish any actual painting of it anyway.

I knocked out two little paintings, because that's about all I can handle right now:

"Night Bloomers" 

"Triple"

Both of those are for the facebook art auction group I'm a part of, and their theme for this week "Bizarre & Surreal". I tend to tread on the surreal side of things anyway, but I found even this challenging. I think my brain poofed a while back and I've just been coasting on fumes lately. I don't like the level I'm painting at. I prefer my larger, in depth types of paintings, and I feel like... well, like I'm painting junk food. It's quick, it satisfies for a minute, but it's the not meal you were planning on or should have had.

School starts at the end of August (and one of the events I have a booth at will be over.) So I have hope that once a schedule is established, and I'm not feeling the mommy-guilt of needing to entertain my children and fill their lives with... well, whatever I'm supposed to fill it with to make it a good childhood, that hopefully then I can get my painting-head on straight once again.

Until then, it's been chaos all the way and will probably continue on. My fear is that it will continue all the way through the holidays, but I sincerely hope not!

One upside to all this chaos is that I have actually been out and about too rather than home painting.

My husband and I at the beer, wine & cheese festival. I don't like beer, but the wine and hard cider were lovely!

Chocolate beer. A horrible waste of chocolate, because NOTHING makes beer taste good. *sigh*

Had to stop for laundry. Socrates LOVES laundry!

Then the fair came to town (very close to my house. All the noise from the cars and revelers are a bit much. This may be the most hated week of the year for me, even if the fair itself is fun.)

Pink rooster! I think they dye the feathers with Kool-Aid (I'm eyeing my chickens. I have several white ones that would look just FABULOUS in purple or blue...) 

Mama and her new piglets (she's more tired than I am!)

This alpaca liked that we have the same red hair color and insisted I scratch his nose.

And the very best part of the fair is the demolition derby.
I don't know why cars smashing into each other is so much fun, but it is!

There were baby creatures everywhere! I think the baby lop-eared bunnies were my favorite, though. The cows were mooing, the horses were snorting at one another, and the sheep were making those gosh awful creepy Baaa-AAA-aaa's that sound like something from another dimension (the cute little lambs sounded sweet, but the big rams? Yeah, middle of the night hearing that and I would have a heart attack!)

There was maple flavored everything, grease fried everything else, and many a tummy-ache was to be found. Which means everyone had a great time!

Throughout all of this, we also finished the kitchen:

(I'm trying to think of something fun and new for over the cabinets. Right now, I have grapevines and twinkle lights. I like the lights, but maybe it's time to do something new... any ideas?)

This weekend, my goal is to get my tent all straightened out for the booth event in a couple weeks. I'm surely not ready, and I don't even have all my prints sorted out. Hopefully I'll get that under control. And back to school shopping, that has to happen sometime... and more laundry... and...

Maybe I'll just sleep the full week when school starts again in about three weeks?