Whew - finally the weekend is over!

As you can tell, i'm still not that great at the whole html thing - so far i've been really blessed to have my dear husband to set up all my webspaces in the www - however, that also has kept me from learning much of anything, so more than anything, i'm trying to teach myself the fine details of changing color backgrounds, letter spacings, and all the wonderful doodads involved in making this page look as weird as it does.
So, thanks for bearing with me.

Art? yes, i've been working on that as well, but not as much, since the weather here is less than toasty at the moment. My new studio space for the moment is our sunroom with a view of the sheep pasture, the garden, the neighbor's pond, the forest and Lake Hartwell beyond it. Quite beautiful, very sunny, but unfortunately not heated or cooled - so painting there is a bit of a frigid experience at the moment. And cold is my least favorite flavor of temperature, i'm afraid.
Nonetheless, i did manage to raise the temps out there above freezing last week by running the heater, a small space heater, and the livingroom fireplace with the door open for a few hours. From that time, i created two new pieces (pics might follow tomorrow, when i have daylight again), but i think i'll be working a bit more on them once they've dried to the point where i can work them over a bit more.

This weekend my parents and i took a drive up towards the mountains to Pendleton for lunch - there is a great little café there with some awesome food, right on the town square. Afterwards we drove over to Pickens to the county museum where they have a woodwork exhibit called "Painting with wood" - some beautiful work there, my favorites being some beautiful furniture pieces done by a local artisan whose name i unfortunately did not jot down. Downstairs they had one of the woodturning artists doing some demos, which was very interesting, but since we were pressed for time, we had to leave after a few short moments watching him work.

We drove on to the Hagood mill, which is a historic waterpowered mill that still operates as a living history museum. There were some musicians doing some great mountain music, and some hand spinners working in one of the old log cabins there. Unfortunately, we got there a bit late, and it was quite cold, so the ladies were already packing up when we got there. We did get to have a few minutes chatting with them though - such lovely personalities there!
We also brought home a package of Country grits from the Hagood Mill - no southern breakfast is complete without grits! They are absolutely delicious, though a bit more time involving than the quick cooking grits you would get at the grocery store. Well worth the time!

The evening was spent taking some visitors from Germany around Anderson, seeing the local sights and having some coffee in the local Panera shop.
It's always great visiting with friends of old times, catching up on all the gossip from "back home" and reminiscing about days gone by.

All in all, it was a nice weekend - new things to see, new people to meet, new food to try...just right for a bit of new ideas for my artwork in the next few weeks.

if i get a chance tomorrow, i will be posting some pics of the new paintings i'm working on...of course, sheep. sort of.
If you get bored in the meantime, check on my sheep for me, so i won't have to go out in the cold: http://www.seesheep.com