First of all, Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your friends and family.  In the spirit of thanks, I need to take a quick minute to say thank you!  Whether you’re brand new, you just hop on here once in a while for a tutorial or specific information, or you’ve been following my journey for years, thank you for reading my blog and for joining me on this journey.  This blog would be just a very time-consuming journal without you! I am not a rabid black Friday shopper.  Maybe I should be.  Maybe I’m missing out. I might troll the internet to see if something I wanted to buy anyway is on sale, but I’m not going to wait in line for doors to open, so I can race to get the latest and greatest deal. For those who are like me and take Black Friday at

I didn’t write a September Favorites post, because I figured my posts about Paris and Italy sort of covered all of my favorites!  (And I still have more to share on that trip, in fact!) As I was putting this list together, I realized I did a poor job keeping track of some of my favorite things for October.  Usually, I keep a running list, so I don’t forget the things that sparked my interest when it comes time to share, but I neglected to do that this month.  It’s been a busy month that has completely run away from me.  I keep saying that next week I’ll be back into a routine, but that just hasn’t happened this month. Anyway, here are some of my favorites (that I can remember)… Portrait Painting We have entered into the portrait painting segment of the I’m attending and I have enjoyed it immensely.  At

We are finally back home!  After 10 days of driving across the country and visiting our family on the east coast, it’s so good to be back home.  I was planning on hitting the ground running and getting right back into my normal work routine, but the backlog of mail, laundry, cleaning, and things that needed to be done was overwhelming and it took most of my day and energy.  I sat last night in front of a blank screen and just could not make a post happen. Now, I’m mostly caught up and ready to write again. First of all, our trip was awesome.  We had a great time with Jeff’s family and celebrated the completion of his Masters Degree.  The boys played with their cousins and kicked off summer at the pool.  I had lots of quiet time to sketch and paint and lazily pass through each day