Where the rainbow's grow...
Several things I wanted to post, don't think I will get time enough to post them all. But first I will say that coming home from our trip, as we entered town, there was the most beautiful golden sunset to the west and a full arch rainbow filling the sky to the east. After admiring both for quite some time, I said to my husband, "This is why we live here. This is where the rainbows grow!"

Yesterday I worked on some art. I experimented with oil pastels a bit. It has been a while since I played with them.

And today worked on my website a little bit again. I added a page here: Status Report And I wrote some business related letters. Hoping the effort of that results in some positive feedback.

And now my husband is home and I have to return to making dinner. I am attempting to make a Potato chowder with leftover spicy sausages (and potatoes of course). I think it might be TOO spicy for the kids though. In which case I'll have to figure out something else to make for them.

Blessings to you.
-Sparkling

Hasta luego
Amidst another day of common chaos, I have only the briefest moment to post a thought. I will be spending all my time this weekend with my Grandma and other relatives. So you won't hear from me again until Monday or later.

Be excellent to one another.

-Sparkling

Whirlwind of chaos
WOW! It's been so busy around here I hadn't even realised how long it had been since I posted a new message! And the chaos hasn't completely subsided yet either, just a lull in the storm I think. So I'm taking a momentary breather to post a few words.

The big news is...

IT'S A BOY!

His name is George, he is 4 months old and he is already potty trained and behaves very well, and knows the commands Sit and Off, and is learning Come. Yes, we got a puppy!

For the more detailed version of the story... As some of you know we've been really tight on money, and last week Hubby said *Don't spend any money on my birthday, we can't afford it* but also over the past couple weeks/months he has sent me some links about finding a dog at the humane society, and other such puppy-related websites. Well I learned that it costs $150-250 just to adopt from a shelter now! So that wasn't going to happen. And while I had gotten him a night out for dinner, I truly did not have a present for him. And Monday morning he started sounding really depressed, like very down & out. And I had come up with some kinda cheezy sounding homemade gift ideas, but I knew every one them just screamed "we're too poor for birthdays" and that wasn't the message I wanted to convey. Hubby is making better money now, we're just trying to dig out of the hole we got in while he wasn't making enough money, and we will get there, and I think we will be ok - we're just not there yet. So I really wanted to be able to get him something that would encourage him, and that would show him that God does care and God IS helping us. So I prayed for the Lord to help me find a present he would really like, that would really make him happy, and to provide a solution to our bill problem.. And then I went back to searching for our Mortgage bill (to see about refinancing, for the purpose of being able to skip a payment - but that's not the smartest thing for us to do right now because our interest rate is only 4.625% which is lower than anything they could get us in the market right now - so we won't be doing that). And while I was digging through the pile of papers on my desk I came across an old want-ads newspaper and saw a listing for Australian Shepherd puppies for sale here in Newberg. The ad is 6 weeks old, but I thought oh well, what can it hurt? So I called. And the lady who answered said her puppies were gone, but she knew someone else who had a litter of puppies that had the same stud as her litter had. So I called the number. The husband answered, they still had 3 left, one was definitely spoken for, one was maybe spoken for, and one remained but had to figure out first which 2 the other adoptive owners had decided on. Then I asked how much, $400 he replied. And I winced and then explained that I didn't actually have the money but wondered if we could work out some payments or if I could do some work for them or something in exchange, and he didn't say no outright, but continued to tell me about the puppies and he asked when I could come see them, and said he had to talk to his wife first, and they would call me back about a time to get together. So I waited a few hours, and then I had some errands to run so I decided to call first, and this time I got his wife on the phone, and she was very very nice, and we chatted a bit, and she hadn't understood that I still wanted to look at them, so we arranged a time the next day (the 14th). And I reitterated my concern, that I didn't have any money right now, but that I was hoping to give the puppy to my husband for his birthday this week, and asked if she had any concerns about that. And she said, "Do you believe in God?" (I about fell out of my chair at this point. It was the second time that day I'd talked to someone who said they were acting out of a faith in God, the first being a phone call we got from a man who might be able to pay Hubby for some technical consulting over the phone.) Of course I answered "Yes, yes I do!" And she went on to say that she is even more willing to work with me than her husband is, that the important thing was the puppies go to a good home. After driving out to their farm to see the puppies, and see how they acted around the kids (not timid at all, but not dominant either, great temperment - after my experience with the dachsund I wanted to be very careful not to make the same mistake twice!) and how the kids felt about them and how they looked, I knew this was perfect. And she was happy to see the puppy playing with all the kids. So you see, God provided a show quality, registered puppy that is already housebroken, gentle, intelligent and good with kids... for free, well for work. All I have to do is clean her house a few times in exchange for payment, at which point she will give us his papers. But she let me take him home with us yesterday, so Hubby got his birthday present a day early.

Just goes to show, that with God, all things are possible! Even birthday presents and puppies! I wanted to share that with you, and hope that the Light of the Lord brightens your day.

Other than that I'm fighting allergies as normal and looking forward to seeing my Grandma and other relatives this weekend. Fun stuff! God is working everything out splendidly... now if I could just get MY act together, we'd be great! Hopefully this will be my last *lock the keys in the truck experience* for a while. /sigh Walking home from the store with 4 kids and 2 gallons of milks isn't exactly my idea of a fun outing. But, at least we didn't have a whole big heavy armloads of sacks to carry... And as soon as hubby gets home with his keys we'll be able to walk back, open the truck, and all will be well again. Just another day of chaos in the Tiny Zoo!

-Blessings to you

Cross-linking
Welcome to my sleep-deprived, sneezy, itchy, watery eyed, puffy, allergy attcking day. I was up half the night with an allergy attack, awoke with an allergy attack, and hopeing desparately it will rain and wash these infernal pollens out of the air. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at my desk, spacing out, surfing websites, feeling tired, sipping my chai tea, and hoping I will feel better soon. On one such site Blueyes I found this link, Burnout Selt-test which I found rather amusing (considering I have the dream-job of a stay-at-home-Mom) but does perhaps identify the stresses and frustrations of parenting. I scored a 50. For a score of 50 – 59 You are at severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently. Only one rank below the most critical risk of burnout. LOL I can't imagine turning over the raising of our children to anyone else, so I don't see what alternatives they might reccomend. And yes, I realise this was meant to evaluate a "day job" so some of the questions were sort of stacked against me. MOST Mom's I know often feel exhausted, and drained of emotional and physical energy. Especially moms of very small children who wake them up at all hours of the night for innumerable reasons, which mine are finally escaping that age. Which also goes to show that the problem of sleepless nights fixes itself... eventually. The question *Do you feel yourself getting easily irritated at small problems...* was especially funny. Yes, my small problems are ages 11, 9, 6 and 3 and they do irritate me often! Usually because they are not being obedient. HAHA Anyway, I will let you all browse the questions and take the test yourself. Feel free to post your results in a comment, and tell me about your translation of the test and what it meant to you.

Blessings to you!
-Sparkling

TGIF!
I did it! I finished the 3rd drawing. Was a bit tricky because I usually draw the face first, but the face was on the wrong side, and if I had drawn it first I would have smudged the whole thing working from right to left, so I had to start with the tail and go backwards. There were a few anxious moments as I was working on tricky parts, especially the eyes. But I think I got it alright. I believe the drawing is at the point now where if I work on it anymore it will start messing up, so I'm done. I am going to try and buy some fixative before taking them over to be presented, and let God do the rest from here on out. I've done my work. :)

Here is the drawing I finished today. It actually took 2 days to draw, but I went ahead and put today's date on it since I finished it today, and did most of the detail work on it today.

And now, I have to eat a late lunch and get all the kids shoes on, and ready to go. I have a dentist apt. this afternoon. Yuck. Not going to get most of the errands done today that I wanted to do, but at least I got the drawong done. That is a weight off my mind.

Blessings to you all!
-Sparkling

EDIT: Had a little problem with a filename conflict which was preventing the image from displaying properly. I believe the problem is fixed and picture should be displaying correctly now.

A breath of fresh air
I had an interesting experience last night shortly before I fell asleep, which lifted my spirits and renewed my faith in God. I know HE will provide for our needs. And that HE is in control.

When I woke this morning I determined to buckle down and draw another picture of the dog. I did not let myself look at any other blog pages, no web surfing, not even email to distract me. And I got the dog drawn! It is from the pose that the man liked the best, but it is just a face portrait - not a full body pose like he wanted. I think it looks good though. I will work on another pose this afternoon or tomorrow, so he has an option of the full body poses as well since the first one didn't look so good. The point being here that I don't want him to buy it simply because he said he would, but that I want him to like it. It's important to me that he likes my work. What's the point in drawing if no one likes it?

After I finished the drawing I did in fact allow myself to look at my email. And just as I suspected, there were distractions awaiting me!! I was approved for Google Adsense. So I attempted to add that button to this page. I have no idea if it will work right or not! It said something about there being a few days before it will start to show actual ads. I don't even know if I got the code pasted into the page right! I guess we will find out. Anyway, if you see a little ad box on the page here to the side, it's my attempt at trying to make a little extra money to pay bills... like our internet connection. Click on the button to see if it works! I have heard other people say it works. I'm skeptical, but willing to try it.

Blessings to you all!
-Sparkling

Addendum
Oh, I just remembered another dream I had last night. I think this may indeed explain why I'm so tired today!! I was building a HOUSE all night long! Well in my sleep anyway. My dream was some distorted represenation of our RL need for a bigger house (especially more bathrooms! and a couple more bedrooms!) converged into my dream-state weirdness.

I dreamt that the house we were in was too small (our house now is too small!) and it was situated behind another house (this is where it distorts from reality and I realise it isn't really the house we are in now, but yet another house of dreamland) and we had been looking to buy a bigger house but realised we could not afford anything in our price range that was big enough. So we started looking at smaller houses, for floor-plan ideas. And then what we intended to do was to build an entire second house attached to our first house, in a kind of L-shape. We settled for a 2-story cabin style house with big windows in the shape of a cross on the front. And then we got (borrowed?) a sample kit of some sort that would let us construct the frame and wood floor of the house just to see if it would actually fit in the property space and if we could make it work to match up the exterior doors. The biggest delimma for some reason was that we were trying to fit 2 washers, 2 dryers and 2 hot water heaters into the same utility room. (I have no idea why.) And we had to include the second kitchen also for some reason. So basically we would hend up with 2 houses on 1 property, but they would be attached and lived in as one house. The kitchen, bathroom and livingroom were downstairs of the second house and the bedrooms were upstairs. At the end, I remember saying "We shouldn't have nailed all those floorboards down, now we won't be able to return the kit!"

So, now you have a glimpse into my phsyche through a description of my dreams. You haven't heard the nightmares yet though... just wait!

-Sparkling

Blue Monday
Mood:  lazy
I still feel very tired. Wish I had a hammock on a beach like the one in the emoticon to sleep in. I could sleep some more, pretty sure of that. I don't think I've been sleeping very well when I m asleep because my brain has been working overtime on all these strange dreams. Most of them I can't remember when I wake up. But the one I do remember from last night (as an example) was fairly short (I think it was the end of a longer dream, I just can't remember the rest. I was doing a journalistic article on the big Asian grocery store near here. Uwajimaya I was talking to the lady at the fish counter, and she was telling me how they were catering a preschool/daycare luncheon (with fillet of sole, sushi and crab salad?) and she was showing me the uncooked fish in the clear plastic containers when I realised I had not brought my camera with me. I guess that's why I'm not a journalist in RL, because I can't even remember to bring my camera with me in dreamland! Does anyone else have dreams like this?

Anyway, I suppose I should make some kind of attempt at breaking out of this lethargy and sleep deprived, allergy induced exhaustion and try to actually accomplish something. I know I should be working on a new drawing but currently my motivation for drawing is not real high. Still frustrated at the series of events which served to crush my spirits this weekend. Oh, I don't think I mentioned the end of the story... See Saturday afternoon, I spent my last $6 on some used frames. Because I've been told I can't display my art unless it is framed. And I can't afford $75-125 per frame right now, and another artist I met suggested searching Thrift stored and yard sales for frames, so that is what I did. And I found several nice ones this time. There was one that fit my Grandma's picture perfectly, and looks really nice, so I put that one on her picture and will give it to her when we see her later this month. Then I put as many others as I could find into frames, and took the one of the Chimpanzee downtown to some a couple galleries, a frame shop, and coffee shops where it had been reccomended that I might find someone who would hang my art on consignment. I got 3 no's and 2 call back laters. One of the Art galleries I went to, I learned later, was run by a college art professior and he only displays his own art in the gallery. I guess that's what artist's have to do these days to get their work on display to the public for sale is to open a gallery exclusive to their own art. Anyway, it was horribly discouraging and after the emotions of the night before and the experience of that afternoon, I was left feeling like maybe I was wrong in following the lead of my heart to work on my drawing again. Maybe I was better off not drawing at all. No one is interested in pencil drawings. /sigh

But I do have this one commissioned work I have to try and get to look right, and hope to deliver this week. I may end up drawing 3 pictures - the one I finished already, a face portrait that I think will look really nice (but isn't actually what he wanted), and another full body pose if I can make it look good. I thought about trying to do one where he is holding her also, but both of them have their eyes closed in that photo, and I would have to sort of invent the expression in the eyes, and it might just turn out looking creepy, so I think I'll skip it for now.

Beyond that, I also need to do some more work on my game. I still haven't finished the work on that "special" 3D model I started a month ago. I've put some extra details into it, and it's taking longer than I thought to get it finished. I need to get back to working on some of the more mundane models. There are so many that need to be drawn! And I need to try and get hold of my friend also to see if she is still interested in helping, or if she has come up with any new inspiring ideas.

I can't believe it's the 6th already! Fathers day, my husband's birthday, my youngest son's birthday, my Father's birthday, a trip planned to Seattle, and I think a couple of kids' camps are all supposed to happen this month! Summer is way too busy! June especially, July isn't a whole lot better. And August is just plain too hot to be much fun. Ugh... Here we go again! Hopefully we'll be able to stop spinning long enough to be able to enjoy each activity as it happens.

Blessings to you all.
-Sparkling
http://www.tinyzoo.com

I hate summer
I know it isn't summer yet technically, but as far as the plants are concerned, it's summer. I've been up since 4:30 with an allergy attack. My eyes itching like crazy mostly. And stuffy nose. I got my order from Young Living yesterday so I have peppermint oil again, and it helps some. But not enough.

I didn't sleep very good anyway. I think because I was bummed when I went to bed. I spent the entire day working on that drawing, and when I was done, well, lets just say the Corgi looks like a dachsund or a chihuahua. My husband said to try a different picture, that I shouldn't take that one over to the man but I should start over. Then my friend told me to draw circles for several years like Michael Angelo had his students do, until I could draw a perfect circle. And suggested that I wasn't ready to do commission work yet, and it might take me several months of drawing constantly before I was good enough. So helpful. So encouraging. I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie "Animal House" when his wife told him to burn his book he had finally finished. The only difference is, we don't have a fireplace (or a beautiful large property like that either) so the picture just sits in my sketchbook instead.

This is the completed drawing...


The photo I drew it from is here: http://sheba.newbergmail.com/img11.jpg

So you can see that it does indeed look wrong. The head is too narrow (or else the body is too big?) and the ears are disproportionate (even though they DID look overly large in the photo also) to the rest of the face. So yeah, I gotta do it again. But the only kind words I got about my drawing were from my children who said it looked really nice, and they wished they could draw that well. My friend said "at least it looks like a dog". Sigh. If I had just slopped it together then I would think that the problem was not paying enough attention to detail. But I concentrated hard on it, I spent many hours on it, and I spent the most time on the face. Yet it's the face that looks bad. I should have just spent my day drawing the sketch for the animal pen I dreamed about instead. Would have been more satisfying anyway... And it would not have mattered if it weren't perfect, be cause no one but me would be interested in it anyway.

I don't know if I'm ready to work on a new drawing again today... I might wait until Monday. I feel very self conscious with my husband home criticizing me. Yes, I wanted his honest opinion, but it's rather discouraging when he can think of NOTHING nice to say. I guess I wasn't as prepared for his honest opinion as I thought I was. I wanted him to like it. Or at least say the eyes looked good, or SOMETHING. Yeah... Chevy Chase emotions here... definitely... ARGH!

Well, I don't seem to have anything positive or encouraging to say now either. All the joy is gone from me. Guess I should stop before the gloom spreads across the world over the electronic waves. It's not my intention to cause a world-wide depression over a bad drawing of a dog. Sorry... I will try to think of something more positive to say in my next post.

Blessings to you.
-Sparkling

Fair winds and following seas...
Okay, so I know nothing about the sea... however, today is another beautiful day of cool temperatures, fluffly clouds, and gentle breezes. The kids have been playing outside, enjoying the perfect weather, and I even stepped outside a few moments to take in the pleasure of such a nice day. I wish every day could be like this!

I have been working on a commissioned drawing today. Feels good to say that. HEHE No one has ever really "commisioned" me to do a drawing for them before. This is a very special work of art, as it is of a pet dog who recently died of cancer. The drawing is a memorial of the dog, for her owner who loved her and will likely always miss her until they meet at the rainbow bridge. Her name was Sheba, and this is her memorial website: Sheba Remembered

So far I have gotten the outline done and drawn the face and ears. Then I took a lunchbreak, during which time I got a bit distracted with looking at other people's blogs. I need to get back to work again.

Hug someone you love today!
-Sparkling