The Un-Studio

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. Art, whether I like it or not, is part of me. Sometimes I despise the skill, as it frequently proves itself completely and utterly useless. Other times it doesn't seem entirely worthless. Of course, when someone finds out that you can, in fact, draw more than mere stick figures, they find it absolutely fascinating. Strange. If I find out someone can draw I usually am mildly interested. Perhaps that makes me a bad artist. I did, after all, barely pass art history class...all four semesters of them. Ugh. Boooorrrring. Just sayin'. So basically, art happens for me pretty regularly. Someone always needs or wants something. Does this bother me? Nah. It's a skill and I'm happy to help when I can. Here's the problem: Drawing while sitting on an old cushy couch does not equal a happy back...or neck...or knees...or shoulder...and pretty much all in-between. There was a day when I had a snazzy art desk and a nifty chair to help ease this situation. Oh, I still have the desk. Problem is, I don't have a place to put it. Short of sticking it in our over crowded sun/play room, I'm all out of space for a studio. Plus it's freezing in that blasted room! Who can draw with numb fingers, right? Well...actually...I did draw with numb fingers when I worked as a graphic designer years back. No heat for the starving artist. Lucky me. I'm not willing to revisit that moment in my life. So until the day when me and my trusty old art desk can be reunited, I'll be cozy on the couch with my pencil in hand. I've actually been so busy with art lately that I haven't had much time in the evenings to do much else. (Hence my lack of blogging Aunt Rhonnie. :-) I sink into the couch with my stuff, plop on Vampire Diaries (or something of that nature) and sketch away! My brother-in-law has asked for art for his upcoming Chiropractic clinic. So I'm drawing lots of spines. I must say that not many people can say that they've spent an evening watching vampire shows while holding a spine replica in their hand. It's an odd image to see. A bit surreal actually. How fitting. The most fascinating thing about no studio are the kids. They love going into my bedroom and seeing the new things I've drawn. They don't quite grasp the spine images, but they ask about them. The most frustrating thing about no studio? Well...let's just say that my $1.89 per pencil colored pencils have been found scattered around the house. Just a tip: If you spend hours on end drawing something, never leave it sitting at the level of a 5 and 3 year old. Plain white paper on a flat surface and colored pencils equal one unhappy mama. I don't get mad at them...but I do smack myself repetitively in the head as a friendly reminder to put the pencils higher next time.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day was blessed and beautiful and as wonderful as ours. From our house to yours...wherever you are...Merry Christmas!!

God Bless,
Jessica, Josh, Alex, & Abby

Hawk Stalker

Look at me...blogging today. More rare of a day, it could not be. I'd like to say that I have a substantial reason for not blogging. I could easily blame it on time constraints, holiday insanity, never-ending bouts of cabin fever...but alas, though it could easily be true of any one of those reasons, the actual truth? Writer's block. Honestly, I've lost a good deal of my inspiration to write - in any form. Perhaps the drive will hit again. But recent uncontrollable life happenstances have rendered the otherwise useful and more imaginative sector of my brain, all but useless. Whatcha gonna do, eh? So it's been a couple of weeks since my last entry and what do I choose to blog about? No, not my kids. Because that would be way to predictable and far more appreciated by most readers. I'm going to introduce you to my stalker. He's brown, beaked, talon-ed, winged and has an insatiable appetite for what I can only assume to be our two helpless, yet impenetrably caged, rabbits. He...er...or she I suppose (sorry, I refer to all animals but cows as male for some reason)...has been a steady 'guest' at our house for over two weeks now. It's a red-tailed hawk. Weird, right? I first noticed him one day when I went out to put the bunnies in their highly unprotected ground pen. Before I got that far, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. On my fence, I see this:


He was just watching me. Creepy. I ran in to get my camera and shot a couple of pictures. Eventually he became bored with me and flew the coop. The red flag in my head said, "Don't put the bunnies out, dummy." So later in the day I went back outside and there he was again! Watching...as if waiting for something. Strange. The next day he was back. And the day after that? Back again. He's always there now. In a tree, on a fence, on the swingset, on the kid's slide climber. Just...ya know...sitting there...watching. He's only been gone one day which so happened to be the one day when it was like 60 degrees outside. Probably hunting. But rain or shine, our hawk stalker is always there. So what did I do? I started feeding him. Yeah. Dumb. I know. It's like sentencing my bunnies to certain annihilation. I started throwing raw chicken out in his favorite places. I can't be sure he's the one eating it, but I'd bet good money it is. Anyhow, my ultimate goal is to train him to come to me when I call and he'll whistle Dixie on command. I shall call him Squawky and love him always. Okay...now I'm just being ridiculous. Anyhow...here's some photos of Mr. Bunny stalker. Weird stuff around our house I tell you. Weird stuff...

The First Program

Well, we had our first school program for Alex last night. I was pretty sure I knew what to expect as I had my fair share of programs back in my school days. And being on the opposite side of the program was really great. I had a blast watching Alex up there with his classmates belting the Christmas tunes to the best of their ability. I pretty much knew what every song they were going to sing was because Alex comes home from school singing songs over and over again throughout the days. They had quite a few songs and did the little motions to the words. Cute, cute, cute! I felt my proud mama face shining last night. I gotta say that Alex doesn't skip a beat when it comes to anything school related. I was going to walk him up the stage behind the curtain and help him get in place like so many of the other moms. He beat me up the stairs and was behind the curtain before I had a chance to say a word to him. So I let him go it alone. *sniff* Just another one of those mom moments I suppose. Anyhow, they had singing and a slide show of school with about a billion cookies and soda after the show. Now, naturally Alex had to eat only the cookies that I brought so it wasn't really that great. As I stared at the hundreds of colorful cookies it felt like one of those scenes out of a horror movie with the high-pitched violin stabbing it's eerie warning in my mind. Food potluck = food allergy nightmare. Not my favorite part of get-togethers. But, Alex does great so I can't really complain. He's a good little allergy kid. So all in all, it was a great evening of our first of many to come school programs. I can't wait for Abby's first one. How fun!

Alex and his school buddies on stage.

Singing a song. I bet you can't guess what song. :)

Abby really enjoyed watching the program. She sat pretty still the whole time.

Alex in his 'fancy' duds after the show.

And earlier that day after church, I made the kids pose for a photo in their 'nice' clothes.

My Brother, Drew Brees

Now, by the title of my blog entry you might be thinking, "Brother?? Wait...what brother? Is Jessica pregnant?" Of course, the answer is no. If you are an NFL football fan in any way, shape or form, you might be asking, "Wait a second...they aren't related to Drew Brees. What is that fool talkin' about?" Let's break it all down before any more confusion ensues, shall we? First thing you should know is that Alex, my sweet little five year old child, is obsessed with football. He talks about it all the time. The kid can spout off names, numbers and teams better than half the adults I know. It's absolutely mind-boggling. The second thing you should know is that before Alex's obsession, I had absolutely no idea who anyone was in the NFL and could recognize about two of the professional team logos. I knew who the Dolphins were because of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and knew who the Patriots were because my husband would kill me if I didn't. So knowing these two very specific things, you would understand the look of confusion on my face as Alex walks up to me and says, "Hey mom...Drew Brees is my brother!" with a smile from ear to ear. I cocked an eyebrow and stared at him blankly. Yep. That's all I could do. Eventually I found my tongue and muttered, "Brother? Huh? What...who...wait a second...huh??" He then, I kid you not, without so much as a skip of a beat, looked at me and said this: "Drew Brees is the quarterback for the Saints. He's number 9. He's my brother." He then proceeded to smile and run off through the house with his football playing imaginary catch with Drew Brees, his self-proclaimed "brother". This has been going on for weeks now. Still to this day, I have no idea how he came to this conclusion. So if you're looking for an explanation, please let me know if you ever find one. Now keep in mind that on a day to day basis, he learns more and more football stats. Another example of his obsession is as follows. Today he is wearing a green t-shirt and just finished drawing a self-portrait of himself. I said, "That's a nice picture of yourself Alex." To which he replied, "No. I'm Darrelle Revis, mom! See?" I laughed and said okay and he then asked me, "Can you make me brown like Darrelle Revis?" As the light bulb went on over my head about this, I googled Darrelle Revis. I laughed and said, "Oh! You want brown skin because he's black!" He looked at me like I was the dumbest person on Earth and replied, "No. Because he's brown, mom." This is a picture of Alex with two of his hundred drawings of Darrelle Revis:

Let me give you a break down of his drawing.
1. Note the cleverly placed ears in front of the football helmet. Why? So we can see that he has two earrings. Darrelle Revis has earrings.
2. Green. It's all green. Darrelle Revis plays for the Jets...who are green.
3. He's holding a football because he's the corner-back.
4. If you zoom in you'll note that his face is a shade of brown. Darrelle Revis is african american...or 'brown' according to Alex.
5. His name is Revis and his number is 24. (Alex has trouble making the two. It's always backwards.)

So, in conclusion, thanks to my son, I know that Darrelle Revis is the number 24 Cornerback for the New York Jets. He's "brown" and has two earrings and he's "The best player ever!!" Alex's words. And just so you aren't confused...

This is who Alex thinks he is - Darrelle Revis:

And this is his brother - Drew Brees: