Where have I been, you ask?

O.K. I'm just going to start by saying that I'm in a period of mourning.

While I uploaded these pics this morning, I am actually writing this blog at 10 pm Tuesday and if you don't know yet, my beloved Santana was traded to the Mets today.

I'm not very happy about that.

I got razzed a little earlier about not posting much lately.

Well, if you read my baseball blog you would know that I had posted 4 entries in 4 days (now 5 in 5).

But if you don't take a gander at my baseball blog here's an update on what I've been doing:

TWINS FEST!!!

Twins Fest was held at the Metrodome this past weekend. Two years ago, Joel tried to lure me to Twins Fest, but for reasons unclear now I put him off. Last year we attended together for the first time. We had a blast. This year we decided to go twice--Friday and Sunday (it's really a win-win situation: you buy an $8 ticket and get a voucher for a $21 upper club seat).

Friday night I watched a radio interview with Mauer and Morneau. Morneau seemed in good spirits after signing that $80 million deal.


Joel spent lots of time getting autographs from player, new and old. Here he is with Dan Gladden. Usually I would just show up when he made to the station to take a few shots of Joel with the player. You can catch Joel's story of our Twins Fest visits at his Twinscards site.

An overview of the dome. Lots of people. Lots to do.

Here I am with former Twin Al Newman. He was very charming and could have shared baseball memories all afternoon.


It's a fun place to take the kids. Here are two future twins.

Oh ya, I also had my pic taken with Pat Neshek at the photo station. Joel & I've talked to him before (Joel requested his first autograph ever when he was in the minors...and he now actually recognizes my husband). He's a great guy, from Minnesota no less.

So my baseball juices are now running. Pitchers and catchers report to camp on February 11th (although without Santana that's far less exciting). But if you don't see me posting here, you might want to check out my baseball blog--that's probably where you'll find me.

In the Deep Freeze

It's colder than...well, it's frickin' cold. Minus 14 degrees when I got up at 8 this morning. And it ain't supposed to warm up much. This will be a 3-day weekend in the deep freeze.

We're going out to get some groceries, but other than that we'll be staying in. Joel has enough movies for us to watch till next January.

To warm up the kitchen, I made peanut butter cookies (with dark chocolate m&m's). They've got peanut butter in them--breakfast, right? I'm thinking of roasting a turkey in my new turkey roaster bought on clearance at Target for $7.50 (originally $60!).

And thankfully, our studio is always warm so I can probably brave the block-long walk to the studio to do some painting.

Maybe it will be 3 days of bliss.

Painting away

It's been a little crazy in my life (more on that later), but regardless of everything else that is going on, I am trying to stay true to a few of my own personal goals. Sure, along with everyone else, I made a New Year's resolution to lose weight and get fit, but I also made a different sort of resolution...to be spending more time in my art studio painting and preparing to be open for the Spring Art Crawl.

This past week I've been painting away, trying to get a few pieces ready to submit for the poster competition for the spring art crawl. I think I have a couple of pieces that I will submit for consideration. I am not entering the competition with the expectation that I will win--there are plenty of artists entering this competition (winning or being a finalist would be a bonus). This is more about meeting a personal goal--not only do I want to be producing more art, I want to actually exhibit my work and not just have it sitting in a closet.

There seems to be a ton of books out there right now focused on lists of things you should do before you die, places to see...there is even the new movie Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson where the two of them go out and do the things they want to do before they die. Well, not to be morbid, but working more on my art, exhibiting my art, and just taking myself more seriously as an artist is one of the most important things I want to do in my life before I die. I have never expected to make a living making art, but I wouldn't mind selling a few pieces and I sure as hell would love to see my work exhibited. I am not getting any younger, but I'm hoping I still have a lot of life in me to get this done.

I'm on my way.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to work we go...

Yup, the holidays are over...and I'm back to work. It wasn't quite the break I wanted...my time was pretty much taken up with holiday activities and family stuff. There was very little personal "me" time. That seems crazy and yes, I am delighted that I had 2 weeks off (I remember how crazy it was the past 2 years working at the Y), but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to be social worker extraordinaire.

Maybe I'll start by cleaning my desk.